I'll try and answer a few things at once here.
" Do you (or others) see any correlation between the "days" of creation and any of the geologic eras? From your answer, I take it that you probably don't but I wonder if others have ever attempted such a harmony."
You are right. Some do, but I do not. I do not think there is anything to be gained from such attempts. You get into a kind of progressive creation. It is like trying to have your cake and eat it too. Now, one parallel that you can draw is that in the text God does create all at once. Neither did He in actuality. The universe was formed and then stars formed and then the earth formed and then life arose and diversified and then man appeared. But I would not go so far as to try and equate the days to "ages."
From HankD "No but how about because we have a "shared" Creator."
and from NiC "Forgive me if I'm about to ask a completely ridiculous question. How do we determine that this is a mistake and not merely a difference? I'm really not trying to play word games here, but I would like to know how we go about determining that some genetic characteristic is, in fact, a flaw, and not merely a difference."
Let me try again with the Vitamin C example. All animals (well, almost as we shall see) use a set of four enzymes made by four different genes to make their own vitamin C. I think the precursor used is a form of sugar, but do not hold me to that. Now in all primates, this does not happen. They must get their vitamin C from their diet. Which does not seem to be a problem usually. Now three of the needed enzymes are made correctly, but the fourth is not. I could give you the name, but it would not help much. Thegene for the fourth enzyme is corrupted. There is a very specific genetic mistake that cripples the gene. This exact same mistake, right down to the exact nucleotide, is found in all primates. Now, how do we know it is a mistake? Well, we can look at the same genes and enzymes in other animals and see how they work. We can sequence the genes between the species. Everything is the same except for this one little error. The new gene does not make a useful protein, either, so it is not that it has a different function.
Now, how is this explained. Well from my point of view, the last common ancestor of the primates had this mistake and since the diet of primates tends to be high enough in fruits to compensate, it tended to act like a neutral mutation rather than a harmful one. I do not understand the "shared" Creator logic. If God did not want primates to make vitamin C, why not just keep all of the enzymes out of the genome? Why put that machinery in place just to break one of the gears? It is not very elegant. Why ALL of the primates and the primates only? Why, in the handfull of other animals that cannot make vitamin C, choose a completely different mutation?
Now, as far as the retroviral DNA... How can this possibly be because of a "shared" Creator? Let me explain. The retrovirii have the ability to slip (random?) sections of their DNA into the genome of their host. If this is a germ line cell that happens to be used for reproduction, then this long term repeat (LTR) of DNA is passed on to the offspring. Now a lot of our genome, I think the number is about 5%, consists of these viral LTRs. This represents biilions of years of eukaryotic evolution. Most of the LTRs greatly mutated over the years. (This by itself is argument against a young earth. If all of these viral repeats were placed into the genome in the last few thousand years, then there would be a wide variance in which LTRs are found in which people. That most people share the same set indicates how long they have been being put in there.) Now, when comparing the LTRs in humans and the other apes, you find that there are several "recent" additions. These are LTRs where the same piece of DNA has been inserted into the same place in the genome of all the different apes including humans. Again, this is an easy answer for common descent. With knowledge of the repeats and knowledge of the heirarchy of apes, it would be predicted that they would share some segments. But this is a problem for recently created "kinds." You must suppose that the same type of virus infected all the different "kinds" AND inserted the exact same piece of DNA AND inserted it into the same place AND that this section was not only passed down to the offspring but also spread throughout the populations of all the various ape "kinds." Why would a common designer sprinkle viral DNA snippets into the genome? Why would a common designer them sprinkle the same snippets into other creatures in a way that makes them look related? Remember, this is foriegn, viral DNA. It serves no purpose.
"I’m curious as to your theory as to the virgin birth, which science hasn’t been able to demonstrate in humans or the resurrection of Christ, which science hasn’t been able to demonstrate in humans. Your theory????"
Simple. The same as yours. They were miracles. Do you really think I would be here if I did not have faith in those things? You are trying to equate two things that are not equal. I have never said that God could not create is six days. Do you think Him incapable of creating in 13.7 billion years? I have said that the evidence from His own Creation shows that He created 13.7 billion years ago. I take it on faith that He was born of a virgin, died for our sins and rose again. If I needed evidence for that, it would not be faith. If I needed evidence for that, it would be impossible to present. But to deny that He created many years before what you tell me I should think, would be to deny the very evidence of the creative act spread before me in the Creation.
