The theories of Creation & Evolution compared

Carrying forward of genetic defects into related species is not evidence of design, but of common descent. Design doesn't design defects!

Does your instructor believe that the earth rotates, following the discoveries of science, instead of the plain word of the Bible that it is the sun that moves across the sky? If so, he is being inconsistent, as are most YEC creationists.

I seek to rescue scripture from false opposition to things that are known to be true.

The evidence in favor of the common descent of all life and the billions of years age of the earth and the universe is as strong and stronger than the evidence typically used to convict murderers and send them to the death penalty.

The theory of evolution is an excellent explanation for the facts of common descent.

 

Are you making a point with the butter beans? Do you know there is a false claim put forth by some YE proponent about just this? They claim something along the lines that a butter bean has the closest blood compound to that in a human. Despite the fact that butter beans have no blood. Dispite the fact that chimp's blood chemistry is either exactly the same or nearly the same for each chemical.

But, there is a geological history ti this planet. Why do you think God would give us a history that did not exist? How do you re-interpret the specifics of geology to fit a young earth?

Tell me, for example, why Mt. Moran has a sandstone cap? (To bring in something I saw with my own eyes this month.) Better look up the details before you answer if you do.

 

Hey, maybe we can make you an evolutionist yet! Now you're starting to talk sense!

Please be assured not even an evolutionist thinks butter beans are among your ancestors.

Well, it seems to me you've got a misunderstanding here. You seem to think scientists just make up stuff and throw it out there. They most certainly do not assume that "almost" is good enough proof for anything.

And I don't understand a mentality that keeps making things up. Where did anybody anywhere in this whole forum ever assert that God couldn't create the universe to appear anyway He wants it to?

And just what does the world LACK that would make it look old to your eyes? Perhaps, if it were old, there should be ancient hidden impact craters. Perhaps, if it were old, there might be time enough for the continents to split apart and drift for thousands of miles at inches per year. Perhaps, if it were old, there would be time enough for a hundred thousand annual layers of ice to accumulate in Greenland. Oh wait - those things happened.

OK why doesn't it look old to YOU?

I believe the flood of Genesis was of the known world, but local according to our current definitions of the whole world. And I agree that the fossil record is inconsistent with a flood over the whole earth as we count the whole earth. One must face the facts as they are. The first geologists who finally decided the geological evidence was against the flood are on record as starting out to prove there was a true world wide flood. Then they learned what the evidence really was and were forced to change their minds.

 

Well, I believe that the impact craters happened at the beginning and at the tail end of the FLOOD and that the FLOOD and those impacts caused the plates to shift and buckle. The FLOOD wasn't local. Just try to raise the depth of the water 200 - 300 feet in the present land around Egypt(as it presently exists) and you would have A LOT of the world under water... I believe the oceans were shallower, the mountains lower and that there was more underground water sources. Science tells me that mountains do grow and that plates do shift and that there is ground water. Science also tells me that the ocean levels have risen and lowered... My assumptions are just as valid as yours and my assumptions support the Bible-----yours do NOT.

 

But your way of looking at things does not match the evidence. Just because plates do move, you have no way to show how they could move at miilions of times faster than what has been observed. We have studied many impact craters and understand their effects. Runaway tectonics is not one of them. Building mountains tens of thousands of feet high is not one of them.

Come on. Answer about Mt Moran. It has a sandstone cap from when it was under a shoallow sea. Faults then broke which allowed the mountain to rise about 8000 feet while the land where Jackson hole is now located dropped four times as much. THe hole was filled in with sediment, much of it glacial morainge from the ice ages. So in your history, tell me when the mountains were raised and when the ice ages happened.

 

Sir:

Listen to what you are saying. Prior to the FLOOD we are told (by the Bible) that there was no rain.
The are no recorded earthquakes prior to the FLOOD
(at least none apparently while this planet was populated).

The FLOOD took ONE year from the day Noah went into the ark to the day Noah left the ark. I believe that for likely many years after the FLOOD that earth was in a stage of imbalance. This imbalance maybe revealed to have lasted centuries if not a thousand or more years.

Now science tells us that a mountain can be blown apart in a day. This is presently known. I have no reason to believe that under extreme stress that a mountain can be forced up in a day or week or month or year. Science doen't tell us that plates can not move faster. That is only an opinion based on present day observation. We were not here for the FLOOD. We simply have no idea what it was like and yet I do believe that Christ rose from the dead. The FLOOD and its aftermath seems to be a lot easier to imagine and understand from a scientific view. The ice age(s) came after the FLOOD and were the result of new weather patterns that never existed prior to the FLOOD. The first time WINTER is mentioned is Genesis 8:22---in fact seasons are first eluded to in the same verse.

 

Well, since a universal flood would dissolve the icecaps on Greenland and on Antarctica, and since the icecap cores drilled there show annual layers going down 100,000 and 200,000 years, respectively, it would seem the earth itself bears testimony against flood waters hitting those remote locations. The layers also show that the last ice-age ended about 10,000 years ago and the ending of an ice age would be consistent with a lot of heavy flooding that could account for Noah's experience.

 

So it is your assertion that the pope doesn't believe in creation, Adam & Eve, Noah, the Flood, etc and that since you think the pope doesn't believe these things, that is reason enough for you to also disbelieve the scripture?

You see - this is exactly what I was talking about when I said:

"Those Christians who believe in Creation lead people towards God and Truth. Those christians who believe in evolution lead people towards disbelief in scripture and away from Truth. "

If indeed that is the pope's view, he is leading people away from believing scripture.

Moreover, the pope is just a man... fallible as any other. The pope is not God... nor is he part of the Trinity. He is succeptable to just as many mistakes as any other fallible human being. If I have offended any catholics here, I am sorry... but you guys don't have to look much farther than your own congregations for evidence that many catholics feel the same way. For example, the pope put out a directive stating that no Catholic politician that endorses abortion should be given communion - a directive that MANY catholic priests ignored and disregarded.

That's why you guys are humanists (secular humanism), rather than materialists. You would rather believe the theories of man which are based on the observation of a fallen and cursed world to determine the origin of the world rather than believing God at His Word when He tells us exactly how and what He did... and how things were before the fall of Adam (aka - our 'origin'). No, this world was created perfect and good. Adam's sin corrupted that and brought the death and corruption of the original design that we observe today.

Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

And then...

Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

What changed? Death was introduced when God cursed the earth and cursed Adam. Nature was completely different before the curse! You are right to say that not all evolutionists are materialists, but I am right to say that all evolutionists are humanists as well - believing the word of man above the Word of God.

Science can ignore the supernatural all it wants, but that does not mean the supernatural doesn't exist... but simply that all theories derrived from such a notion will be - as you say - incompletely. Moreover, it has to come up with conjecture as to how a supernatural event happened naturally. This is exactly what evolution is - it is a theory with an a priori committment to materialism and humanism which attempts to interject a natural explaination in place of a supernatural event. The Bible gives us the description of the supernatural event so that we need not interject a wrong naturalistic theory in it's place.

You are relying on "evidence" seen in a fallen state of affairs and then making the assumption that it has always been so. This is called uniformitarianism. Clearly, the scripture gives us more than enough information to determine that this philosophy is wrong. That things were perfect and good before Adam's fall, but that corruption and death (aka - severe change to our world) was a result of the curse. It will continue this way until this plannet is cleansed by fire as is prophesied in scripture. Again, you can't rely on a uniformitarian observatin of a fallen world as evidence of the state of things before The Fall. Especially when the Bible describes it as a very different place.

So perhaps 'not according to the evidence' but rather - ACCORDING TO GOD AND HIS WORD, which are a much higher authority than nature itself, or any interpretation we ascertain from viewing a fallen creation. If we use the light of God's Word to interpret the evidence, we can come to the correct conclusions regarding the interpretation of the evidence. However, a uniformitarian interpretation of fallen world evidence will directly contradict scripture, and therefore not be truthful.

The only interpretation that allows evolution to exist is to dismiss Genesis all together. That is no interpretation - that is a dismissal. Even if we were to take a non-literal approach to Genesis (which would be contrary to proper exegesis) there still is no support for evolution, nor any non-literal interpretation of the scripture that helps evolution. The only chance evolution has scripturally is to dismiss Genesis 1-11 entirely as fairy tale or fiction. Christian evolutionists try to say that they believe the Bible... and that they believe Genesis... but then they use the term "non-literal" when dismissing Genesis 1-11. Well if it was non-literal, then it is figurative.

For example saying "the great light of the day" is figurative for the sun... but it still stands for something literal and actual - the sun. Every time I hear evolutionists say they believe Genesis, but dont' believe it literally, I have to chuckle... this is the most intellectually dishonest position one can take. If they truely believed it was non-literal, then they would give us an interpretation based on the figurative language of Genesis. They jump right from saying Genesis is non-literal to saying evolution happened. They don't try to give us a non-literal exegesis of Genesis... they give us the humanistic replacement for Genesis instead! There remains no part of evolution supported by any interpretation of scripture.... literal or non-literal. Using the term non-literal is simply their way of dismissing the account in Genesis in favor of a humanistic, uniformitarian alternative.

Is it your argument that atheists do so many other Godly things that we should allow them to disblieve there is a God? This is a pretty shaky argument you present. Instead of comparing evolution and humanism... how about we compare evolution to the TRUE standard - the Word of God. When held up to this standard, it can be clearly seen that evolution is not possible, nor is it probable - nor is it even remotely supported by scripture. Yet again, the evolutionists here demonstrate their willingness to define origins by the work and word of men rather than taking God and His Word as truth.

Evolution is indeed a philosophy. It is a sub-doctrine of the religion of secular humanism. It was created by men in an attempt to replace God as the creator (remember - replace a supernatural event with a natural one). Humanism has it's origins with Satan himself when he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. The very idea that one can be as God is the very reason Satan was cast out of heaven - he aspired to usurp God's authority. Then he came down to earth and tried to get Adam and Eve to do the very same thing. That is the root of evolution today. It directly contradicts God's Word and elevates man's opinions over the written Word of God.

God gave us His Word. You can remain asshamed of His Word, but I will not. Clearly, God knows more than we do - and I choose to believe Him rather than man's attempt to explain a supernatural perfect (declared Good by God) world by looking at a fallen and corrupt world.

Lets look at your statement again:

... if Christians can be so wrong about basic matters that are established by science, why should they be considered right about their religion?

So what you are saying is that the fallen intellect of fallen men living in a fallen and dying world can give more truth about the origin of the earth and universe than a perfect creator who does not lie, who is eteranal, and who was the one who actually performed the action in the first place? My friend, if you can dismiss Genesis because science tells us it can't be true, then we can dismiss Jesus Christ and his action on the cross just as easily, with just as much reasoning (the same exact reasoning actually). For example, look at the Jesus Seminars - you have all these scholars who get together and vote with marbles on what parts of Jesus' life are true an which are not. These scholars have reduced the text in the Gospels that they believe Jesus actually said to about 14 verses... and they have decided that there was no virgin birth. Basically, using the same criteria - logic and physical evidence (and man's 'scholarly opinion') they have dimissed Jesus just as easily as you dismiss Genesis. Dismissing Genesis is simply the foot in the door that Satan needed to dismissing Jesus' work on the cross. If he can do that, he can rob your salvation. If he can get you to believe that any part of scripture is invalid or untrue, that will open the door to thinking that part of scripture is untrue.... but what does the Word say about that?

Psa 119:140 Thy word [is] very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.
Pro 30:5 Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Luk 16:17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.
Num 23:19 God [is] not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do [it]? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

God does't lie, he tells us the truth. I choose to believe EVERY word of scripture, and let every man who disagrees with the Word be found a liar.

 

Sir:

I believe that there is an explanation for icecap cores that SEEM TO SHOW ANNUAL layers going back 100,000 and 200,000 years. We just don't know all the facts or where to place them. Perhaps in the early years after the FLOOD the "annual" layers actually represent sucessive snowstorms. With all the seismic activity that you believe was spread over billions of years and which I believe could even have been merely just years--------you tell me! The idea is impossible to fathom or hard to swallow? The SURPERnatural is a bitter pill to those who place their stock in the mediocre...

 

So, back to Mt. Moran.

There are many layers of glacial debris. SOme are interspersed with lava flows from the north. Remember what we said about lava? It can take tens of thousands to tens of millions of years to cool. (I do not know about these in particular.) You cannot cool them more quickly because the chemistry gives you much different rocks and thus would leave evidence.

Do you have any physical evidence to present to support your conjectures? It seems to be all handwaving.

 

"God does't lie, he tells us the truth. I choose to believe EVERY word of scripture, and let every man who disagrees with the Word be found a liar."

Is every person born on the Island of Crete a liar?

 

We do have a daunting task. We have to intepret evidence in a fallen world to fill in the blanks to a pre-fall world that operated under a different set of rules. That is a rough proposition if we don't know the truth to begin with. It comes down to this - creationists ultimately know the truth because of their faith in God. It is because God said so in His Word, not because there is all this evidence one way or another. The evidence is the same for both sides. Both sides use the same evidence to argue their case. They just used differing 'philosophies' to interpret the evidence. We use the 'givens' or 'truth' in the Word of God to give us additional details and information that is impossible to come by through natural observation - as much of it was a supernatural event - and nature as we know it was different at the time.

And that is exactly what God says - that the whole creation was VERY GOOD without defect or death or corruption. It wasn't until after The Fall that death and sin ... corruption... was introduced to our planet. There was no evolution... there was creation of a creator (design of a designer) that has since gone through corruption and mutation of the original perfect design. We are constantly loosing information, not gaining it.

The sun does move accross the sky if you are speaking from someone's perspective of standing on earth - or if you are using poetic language - which is the case of the verses you are referring to. Genesis uses neither of these, however, in describing creation. Genesis 1:1 gives us context as to the 'author' of Genesis chapter 1 - "in the beginning, GOD created the heaven and the earth".

There is nothing in scripture to refute the idea that the earth rotates. Even if the earth rotates, the sun still moves accross the sky from a person's view - i.e. the writer of the poetic psalms that says the sun moves accross teh sky. David uses poetic language which represents something literal with a figurative phrase.

Your local meterologist (a very qualified scientist) also believes that the earth rotates around the sun, but that doesn't stop him from using the terms 'sunrise' and 'sunset' every single day, does it? Unless you think your meterologist does indeed think the sun moves around the earth. This figurative language does not change the meaning of what he is trying to say, nor does everyone think he is trying to state that he believes the sun is revolving aroudn the earth. Why? Because everyone understands it's figurative.

In the case of the Word, we can see that a straight forward exegesis of Genesis and a straightforward exegesis of Psalms gives harmony when taken in the proper form. Genesis is historical and factual in tone, Psalms is figurative and poetic - this is obvious. You are simply being unrealistically dishonest to insist on a fictional Genesis and point to a literal Psalms as proof!

I believe you have good intentions... but the scriptures are not in need of 'rescuing'. They are quite capable of standing on their own merit. The only rescuing it needs is against those who say it's not true in Genesis, but is true in Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, in trying to present that as a consistent view. The Bible requires no rescuing if you assert that the whole is ultimate truth regardless of it's contradictions to modern evolutionary dogma. It needs no rescuing if you believe God's Word above the word of man. If you attribute a higher intellect and authority to the Word of God than you do the word of man, the Bible is infallible and in complete harmony.

That is true only in a courtroom that has ruled against admitting any supernatural evidences, or has rules against hearing eyewitness accounts. God was the only one who was there and He is the one who DID these things.... His eyewitness testimony (the Word - scripture) is irrefutable - only the courtroom of humanism, materialism, and uniformitarianism has decidedly refused to admit this as evidence. This is why they are incapable, as a judging system, to deterimine the TRUTH. They do not consider all the evidence, but only that evidence which has an a priori commitment to their pre-supposition.

 

That is an assumption based on the pre-supposition that everything has always happened at the same rate. In fact, there are theories involving catastrophism that can be shown to lay down many such 'layers' over a short period of time. Can we think of any major world-wide catastrophies that the Bible advocates? Oh that's right... a world wide flood!

Actually, it has been seen that these lava flows can cool quickly, ESPECIALLY if water is mixed with the pyroclastic flows, as water is evaporated from the rock. But this always leaves evidences. And wouldnt you know it - Just about every granite rock on the planet shows these tell-tale signs!!

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i1/rocks.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i2/plutons.asp

Again, if you assume that the Bible is right... and that there was a world-wide flood, rather than assuming the "party line" of the evolutionary humanists there is a viable explaination for everything and anything.

Nope - just every person born on Crete that says they were born somewhere else. God tells us where and how humanity was 'born' - those who deny that and say that it happened another way do not seek truth. If your 'origin' views do not come from the Word, then they are wrong.

 

Why? Are you a glutton for punishment? I've long since come to the conclusion that no thread can exist on the topic without people resporting to namecalling, questioning the faith and salvation of others, and accusing people of not believing the Bible.

And that's on a good day.

Hence, I choose to refrain from these topics, except in rare cases. Were it not for the KJVO threads, these threads would be the most fiery and impolite ones on the BB.

 

It's true. And it's pretty silly. Fact is, what one thinks of evolution has nothing whatever to do with salvation.

 

Gup20,

You mentioned that the humanists exclude supernatural evidence and thus come to a biased conclusion. Recall that scientific examination of something involves appraisal of objective evidence. In approaching the age of the earth a natural scientist looks at geologic, astronomic, biologic, archeologic etc evidence. He or she may STILL choose to believe the earth is young based on biblical eye-witness accounts or just plain faith. But he did not come to this conclusion based solely on natural science.

Cerainly in matters of such a spiritual context it is NOT reasonable to rely only on science but rather on faith and the biblical accounts. Arguably these things even outweigh scientific evidence! But that does not change the fact that science alone still suggests an old earth.

 

"Actually, it has been seen that these lava flows can cool quickly, ESPECIALLY if water is mixed with the pyroclastic flows, as water is evaporated from the rock. But this always leaves evidences. And wouldnt you know it - Just about every granite rock on the planet shows these tell-tale signs!! "

Every rock leaves signs of this? Do tell. This I would like to see.

You boys are doing a good job of selective quoting here. Not surprising since selective quoting (ususally out of context and ignoring the entirety of what was said) is something your boys are good at.

Let's get right to the meat of it. They say "Research has also shown that the higher the water content of a magma, the faster it will cool." They cite Spera for this. Well first off, they get the year wrong in the citation but that is sloppiness more than anything else. They cite Spera but they do not actually quote him. Why? Well because his actual numbers don't fit their ideas.

For example, in Spera he mentions calculations that show that a pluton of a given size will cool in 330,000 at 0.5% moisture but at 50,000 years at 4$ moisture. Do you see why they want to cite him but do not want to use any of his actual numbers. Because the numbers do not actually support the claims they are making. It sure does look good to cite one of those eveil etheistic scientists though.

Another example. OK. For another pluton, the cool age changes from 3.6 million years 200,000 years if you assume the surrounding rocks were 360 F cooler. They still don't want to quote that 200,000 year cooling time. Also interesting that they only want to consider the cooling of small plutons and suppose that larger plutons are built by thin layers. They cite ONE example of a pluton built by thin layers and supposed that they all could have been. If you have the evidence in one then it should be in them all. But it is not.

Think of it this way, too. If these things were being cooled from the inside out rapidly, it would leave evidence in all the rocks of differences in the channels were the steam / water was flowing and in places removed from such effects.

The other piece basically says that we know that other things affect grain size. Well, yes, we know this. That tells me that we have a pretty good handle on this and understand what conditions can lead to larger grain sizes in shorter times. We also understand what leads to longer times to form large grain sizes. It seem to support my claims that we understand these processes and that for most situations large grain sizes imply long cooling periods.