See who is a Creation Scientist

To the point of the topic... I should mention that the ID movement is growing by leaps and bounds daily. Why? Because they agree to leave religion out of it, but they are intellectually honest enough to realize that Evolution is rediculously impossible - physically and theoretically.

 

I find this to be somewhat of a leap. Even IF the text is not literal (there is far too much evidence to the contrary, but lets assume here) it still represents something literal. Even if interpreted NON-LIERTALLY, the text prohibits the possibility of evolution.

For example - lets say the days in Genesis are not literal days, but days that represent a period of time. It still says that plant life came before the sun - even in a non-literal exegesis... so that still excludes natural evolution and uniformitarianism as possible solutions. Far to many people make the jump and make 2 mistakes in the process. First, they ignore the overwhelming evidence that says that it is literal, historical, text. Second, they proceed to dismiss the scripture entirely and accept a completely scripturally incompatible theory in place of creation without even attempting to synchronize such theories with a non-literal exegesis of scripture.

 

Let me try to explain this to you. This is a first person narrative, and is given from the 'viewers perspective'. How do we know? Lets look at the context:

"Then Joshua spoke to the LORD..."

On the other hand, the Genesis account is not from a human perspective.... how do we know? Context again:

"and God said..."

Both are historical and literal in tone, however, the perspective is different. In Genesis we hear from God HIS perspective... in Joshua we hear from man's perspective.

 

My dog poops next to his food dish sometimes too.

If something happened "before the beginning" wouldn't that 'something' BE the beginning? I would say that 'in the beginning' means 'before anything else' and also 'before EVERYTHING else'. I would say the Bible is certainly not silent on it... it clearly states where the real 'beginning' was.

Well... lets take a look at the concept of uniformitarianism for a moment. The concept that everything happens now exactly as they did at 'original creation' whenever you happen to state that event happened.

The concept of uniformitarianism basically states that scientifically, all things happen now as they always have. For example, that plate techtonics have been moving at the same rate for a billion years, or that rock layers have been getting laid down at the same rate over billions of years. But are there any clues in the Word that things have ever changed or been different than we know them today?

Well, uniformitarianism was born in geology. Does the Bible list any geologic events that may give us a clue that things are not the same today as they were at creation?

Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.

This may mean that there was one large continent (if the water was in one place, that would seem to imply that the land was also). Creationists asserted this for decades before plate techtonics was accepted scientifically.

Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground.
Gen 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

The whole earth had a mist that came up from the earth... there was no rain. That is certainly a much different geologic system than we have today.

A global flood? Yep... that's a pretty significant geologic event as well. Wow... the Bible is full of geologic events taht are competely ignored by modern geologists.

How about any other disciplines of science? How about Biology? Well the Bible describes discreet creatures being created in kinds... it describes them being created literally days apart. It describes everything as being "very good". Moreover, we have verses like this:

Gen 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
Gen 6:13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Clearly, things were corrupted from the original creation which God declared as "very good". Why? What caused this corruption? It was the Fall of Man! The fall of man (genesis 3) issued in death for the first time in the HISTORY of the earth -

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

(BTW - that precludes any possibility of something happening 'before the beginning' as there was no death before the fall.)

You have hundreds of millions of animals getting slottered by the flood and thousands surviving on the Ark - that effects both zoology and paleantology.

You have anthropology in the Tower of Babel... what better mechanism for separating and isolating gene pools and cultures than to divide up people by language.

Clearly... according to God's Word... the Earth DOES NOT have a uniformitarian past. You asked when the cutoff was... when these changes were made. The Bible clearly gives us a chronology and timeline. The geneologies are quite precise.

http://www.uq.net.au/~zztbwalk/chronol.html

An interesting connudrum that has always puzzeled me is that you say to most evolutionist christians that God was directly responsible and involved in the creation of man discreetly, and they always scoff... no we came from monkeys they say. God simply put the bowl of goo here and then let nature have her due course. God doesn't supernaturally interfere. Yet those same people all agree that prayer is real... that God can work miracles. I would say that if your prayers have the ability to invite God to intervene on your behalf in the natural, and God can heal people in the natural, then God certainly has power to supernaturally effect the natural realm - which makes entire sense with the Genesis account.

 

Can you provide scripture to back this up?</font>[/QUOTE]Indeed I have already - but I will revisit it.

First, God pronounced that everything on earth was VERY GOOD at the end of creation (even at the end of each step in creation). We know that God does not think death is good -

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord
Psa 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Death came upon ALL FLESH as a result of Adam's sin.

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
Gen 9:15 And I will remember my covenant, which [is] between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Num 16:22 And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?
Num 27:16 Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation,
Job 34:15 All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.
Jer 32:27 Behold, I [am] the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?
1Cr 15:39 All flesh [is] not the same flesh: but [there is] one [kind of] flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, [and] another of birds.

(if ever there was a verse that refuted evolution, 1 Cr 15:39 is it)

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.

This was a curse as punishment for sin. The wages of sin is death. Death entered the world on the day that Adam sinned!

Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.


So there is a HUGE ammount of scriptural evidence that indicates there was no death before Adam's sin... there was no death before the curse.

Let me put it to you this way -

Evolution's only mechanism for supposedly 'selecting' mutational changes is through 'Natural Selection' or "survival of the fittest". For there to be survival of the fittest, there would have to be death of the unfit. Clearly, the Bible indicates that every part of creation leading up to and INCLUDING the creation of man was "very good". How then can there be all the death that is required leading up to and culminating in the highest evolved species (man) when everything up to and including man was declared very good?? That would mean that God is declaring millions of years of death, struggle, pain, and suffering as 'very good'.

Moreover, God said in his reasoning for the flood that all flesh was corrupted. So corruption of flesh is a bad thing. What do you supposed mutations are? Most mutations cause diseases, cancers, death, etc. So if everything before the curse was declared good by God, we can probably assume there was no mutation or corruption before the curse. Again, this is very bad news for evolutionists and progressive creationists.

However, it does make sense of other things - for example how plants can survive on earth being created BEFORE the sun in our solar system was created. If they were part of an eternal system - they would not need heat from the sun to "survive". Which really begs the question - was it an eternal system rather than a 'closed' or 'open' system? (back to the 2nd law of thermodynamics question) Without the sun, the whole earth is a closed system - even evolutionists would have to agree with that - and the increasing entropy would be having it's way left and right. Yet nothing corrupted as God declared each day "good". Why? The eternal sustaining power of an eternal God.

Some say "But God wouldn't do that to our universe.... there is no evidence that God did or has ever effected the natural world that way".

Sure there is - Remember Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego? They stood in flames of a furnace so hot that it killed the men outside the furnace... yet they were unhardmed... their clothing was unharmed... the smell of smoke wan't even in their clothing.

Look at the Israelites when they left Egypt. The BIble says there was not one sick or feeble person amoung them when they left... and their shoes didn't wear out for 40 years! Look at Elijah with the Widow and her son... their meal and oil didn't run out.

This is what happens in an eternal system where the eternal sustaining power of God is present. This is how I imagine the pre-fall world to be as there was no death... no sin... everything was 'Very Good'.

 

Come on now... there are a lot of Women in the New Testament church that Paul respects the ministry of... for preaching, teaching, prophetic gifts, etc. The only time a woman is to give way to a man is in the Marriage relationship. The man is the spiritual head of the woman in that situation. For example, in my church, the men and their wives are both ordained as pastors. A woman is given the title of pastor if her husband is a pastor because they are spiritually one and he is the spiritual head. We see several examples of this in the New Testament church as well. Now if the woman was single, that might be a different story. She could - I would think - be a primary pastor. Her 'spritual head' would be Jesus (as I think we teach most singles) and He would be her 'portion'.

 

Not only that, Bob, but they still interbreed. We have Sam, a half-wolf, half German Shepherd (and full-blood marshmallow...). Of course, it's a little hard for a wolf and miniature poodle to breed, but that's not a genetics thing; its a size thing.

 

So BobRyan, do you agree that Einstein's theory of relativity is valid, and all that implies?

 

So Paul... you agree that Genesis is valid and all that IT implies?

 

So Paul... you agree that Genesis is valid and all that IT implies? </font>[/QUOTE]God's word is eternally valid when properly interpreted. The facts of the universe have allowed us to see that the creation narrative was not literally meant in the form it has come down to us. The sun does not literally, for example, go around the earth as the cause of day and night; rather the earth rotates. In like fashion, the earth is literally billions of years old and all life is of common descent.

 

This "doctrine of devils" is straight from the pit of hell.

I wonder Paul of Eugene, how many evolutionary scientist are Christians and have a love for the Lord Jesus Christ?

 

Bob,

A nonliteral Genesis 1 does not mean an allegorical story. The story was written in fairly plain, nonpoetic language. Either it's a literal account or an epic - I favor the latter. And yes I can read Hebrew - and I have a bookshelf full of scholarly works on exegesis and textual criticism. I guess you'd consider that "junk scholarship"?

And regarding junk science (again) I respectfully speculate that you could not tell the difference between good science and junk science. You believe what you want to!

 

John6:63

You ask what I would say regarding the age of Adam... Sorry I've been away for the weekend. Watched my old alma mater spank the UNC Tarheels!

The issue of Adam is, in my opinion, the most legitimate argument against the old earth model since he is spoken of in the NT as a person. But this is a different argument. I view the ages of the patriarchs as hyperbole - ages are still "fudged" among some nomadic Bedouin tribes.

Let's examine this whole issue. I know you will insist that the bible be believed - and that "science" not automatically be "given the nod" when science and the bible seem to disagree. I concur.

But I would add that we must look at what the bible likely MEANT TO SAY. Just because conservative protestants have supported a literal reading - that does not make it so! We assume that this was written as an historical account. I think there are many reasons to see this as not the case. Many near eastern societies had similar epic stories of creation - and Israel's uses similar language, this time demonstarting (the whole point of the story) that YHWH is THE creator God. Age hyperbole is also not new. Most (but not all) "scholars" who have expertise in near eastern studies would agree.

In this case the nonliteral reading would just happen to make the most sense scientifically.

Contrast this with the NT resurrection accounts which are quite clearly stating none other than the fact that Christ died and rose bodily.

To sum it up - I have no problem seeing a passage as figurative when literary and theological aspects seem to suggest that. I have no compulsion to make it ALL LITERAL!