Would you allow evolutionists to teach Sunday School?

I guess I better stop handing out Gospel tracts and start passing our copies of Hebrew Scriptures. I certainly would make a lot of points with the Jewish Rabbi down the street!

And for now I need to quit posting because I need to go to church and tell my pastor that “the hundreds of references to the OT that are based in the NT” are “‘central’ to the message of the Gospel?” I KNOW that he did not learn that in seminary. Wow! He probably isn’t even saved! I wonder which seminary he needs to earn a doctorate at to get saved? Let’s see, he has a Th.D. from this seminary, and that didn’t give him enough knowledge to get saved, and he has a Ph.D. from that seminary, and that didn’t give him enough knowledge to get saved! He’ll probably ask me, “Which seminary did Todd earn his doctorates at?

Oh, by the way, Todd, the two paragraphs immediately above in this post are largely (but not exclusively) allegorical.

 

I think Henry Morris gives much evidence to suggest that the Ark was not a miracle but a reality. If there is anything miraculous it is God's providence for Noah and the others.

 

YOM - n.m. day - 1. day, opp. night.

2. Day as division of time: a. working-day. b.# a day's journey; c. to denote duration of various acts or states: seven days; forty days; 150 days. d. day as defined by evening and
morning. e. day of month f. defined by subst., inf., or other cl.: cstr day. of my
distress; of day emphat. characterized by proph. and others; on the other hand, a day of acceptableness to 'y; pl. sq. subst. g. particular days defined by n.pr.loc.: i.e. of judgment, with implied restoration;i.e. of the outrage at Gibeah. h. c.sf., thy, his, or their day, in sense of (1) day of disaster or death. i. specif. a holy day: the sabbath day (v. also tB*v^); also of false gods,

3. day of Yahweh, chiefly as time of his coming in judgment, involving often blessedness for righteous.

4. Pl. days of any one: a. = his life, his age; * advanced in days = of advanced age; rarely sg. e.g. one hard of day, i.e. whose day (= life) was hard; of life as approaching its end. b. (in) the days of (i.e. life-time, reign, or activity of).

5. Days: a. indef.: some days, a few days. b. of a long time,# these days or these years;
whether two days or a month or days (an indefinitely long period); many days. c. days of old, former or ancient times (esp. of early period of Isr. hist.): coming days ^; coming time


5 supr.): time of harvest; usu. ym@y=; proper time for paying wages; time of parturition.

 

"I think Henry Morris gives much evidence to suggest that the Ark was not a miracle but a reality."

You care to share?

You agree with Morris when he claims that not all land animals were on the ark despite

"Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah."

And what has this to do with the creation narrative?

 

Henry Morris was a student of hydraulic engineering and he knew less about biology than either Mickey Mouse or Pluto! For the past few hundred years biologists have proved over and over again that the weight of even just two of all the animals that were alive in Noah’s day (a very much larger number than are alive today) would weigh more than the water displaced by the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (77,600+ tons). And if there were seven pairs of all the clean animals aboard the ark, as is a very common literal interpretation of the story in Genesis, an entire fleet of aircraft carriers would be required. And if one takes into consideration the amount of food that would be required to keep all the animals alive, we are talking about a ship about the size of Rhode Island. And then there is the matter of the weight and volume of hundreds of thousands of cages! No matter how one interprets the dimensions of the ark in the Genesis story, the building of a ship that size would require a fantastic miracle even today, and yet the story in Genesis would have us to believe that Noah and his family, without the help of modern technology and equipment, built that ship and loaded it without the help of any miracles at all.

 

How about a candidate that is so ignorant or delusional as to believe that the story of Noah's Ark is an accurate historical account of an actual event in history? And believe it or not, I have actually heard that there are such people teaching Sunday school classes in some remote and isolated parts of the United States!

 

No, the Christian evolutionists DISTRUST the grossly absurd interpretations of the Bible by Bob Ryan. And the more I read his posts, the more convinced I am that for a Christian to take even a moderately conservative view of the Bible is nonsensical. I can not even begin to imagine how much damage such posts are doing to the Christian faith. Before I started reading Bob’s posts, I was a staunch conservative; now I have a desire to distance myself as much as possible from such claptrap!

 

I believed the same thing as you until I heard Henry Morris speak and read some of his books.

He has been involved with some debates with some secular professors at some universitites. I have also listened tosome of those as well.

Read the book "The Genesis Record and let me know whatyouthink. He is not too far from you near San Diego at www.icr.org.

The faculty is at http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/physicalscientists.html#jmorris

 

I feel sorry for you that you would not even be open to looking at his credentials and what he writes but instead listen to pagans who seek to discredit him. Sometime listen to him debate some of the leaders in the evolutionary theory world. Those pagans have been changing their theories since Morris showed up.

The following is from ICR's website:

Henry M. Morris, Ph.D. Hydraulic Engineering (Founder and President Emeritus of ICR)
He has a B.S. from Rice University with honors in Civil Engineering and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Morris majored in engineering hydraulics/hydrology while minoring in Geology and Mathematics. He has served on the faculties of Rice University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Southwestern Louisiana, and Southern Illinois University. From 1957 to 1970 he was Head of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). While at Virginia Tech, Dr. Morris was able to get approval for Ph.D. programs in Civil Engineering and Hydraulics. Dr. Morris authored Applied Hydraulics in Engineering, which has been used by over 100 colleges and universities at one time or another. It is still used today as a reference and even the main text in some university classes. As of 1993 and 30 years after the first edition was printed, there was no comparable textbook available.

Being a head of a department is much different than being a student.

An engineer could much more easily figure the issue out than a biologist. But that aside Morris in his book shows the calculations.

If you disagree with the ark then what is your position on it?

Recently I witnessed to a young man and I could tell his teachers had read some things that tried to refute Morris. But what I found interesting is that the young man by his own words incriminated himself.

I grew up on a farm and know that animals today are much larger than just less than 100 years ago.

A friend of mine has been a geologist for 31 years and has been over projects digging oil wells. What he has had to say is that when he confronts those who work with him about evolution vs creation he finds they don't have anything much to say because they have nothing left when you erase their world of evolution. We have talked about a lot of things except the ark and he says Morris is right about his views on the earth and what happened. If you consider what Austin talks about regarding Mount St. Helens it makes a lot of sense. It does not agree with 1/8" being laid down each year.

 

No thank you! I am all too familiar with this group. They are VERY dangerous and have No respect for a truthful representation of evolutionary biology. They are highly trained in techniques of deception and to anyone who is not very familiar with evolutionary biology they sound very convincing. They very much enjoy challenging unwary biologists into public debates and relish in making them look ridiculous through their skills in deception and debate. They appear to believe that it is okay to deceive the public as long as the public as a consequence accepts their beliefs.

I have not extensively studied geology and when I read their arguments based on geology, they seem to be almost 100% convincing, so I can very well understand how they manage to deceive people. I have, however, extensively studied evolutionary biology and was myself an evolutionary biologist, and when I read their literature on evolutionary biology I can see very clearly how they willfully distort the data and outright lie about it.

Their basic plan is to force people to choose between the interpretation of scientific data by 99.95% of scientists and their own twisted interpretation of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, and they emphasize that either evolutionary biology is a lie or the Bible is a lie. Many young people believe their lies and deception while they are sitting in the lecture hall or reading their literature, but after a while their head clears and they realize that the evolutionary Scientists have all the data on their side, and therefore, remembering that either evolutionary biology is a lie or the Bible is a lie, they conclude that the Bible is a lie. The damage that this group is doing to the Christian faith can not be overstated. In my estimation, they are VERY much more dangerous than either the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

I am very familiar with Henry Morris and his credentials and I have never read anything about him written by a pagan or any of his opponents. I know Henry Morris only from his own writings and the writings of his ICR colleagues.

Calling a man a student of hydraulic engineering is just like calling someone a student of the Bible. It does not in anyway imply a lack of one or more doctorates in Biblical studies nor the lack of a prestigious position in a seminary or university. My point was simply that Dr. Morris’ training is NOT in either the biological or geological sciences, or in any science even remotely related to evolutionary biology or the size of a ship that would be required to house and maintain a collection of 3,000,000 kinds of animals.

Hogwash! I own a calculator myself, and I know infinitely more about biology and the impossibility of boarding 3,000,000 kinds of animals onto a boat and keeping them alive than did Henry Morris or any other hydraulic engineer. (Do you understand what a hydraulic engineer is?)

Just one example out of 3,000,000: Do you suppose that Henry Morris knew enough about the dietary requirements of Thylogale billardierii (the Tasmanian Pademelon) to accurately calculate the amount of food that these animals would need and the weight of that food. And do you suppose that Henry Morris even knew if this was a clean animal (14 on board) or unclean (2 on board)?

 

My friend who is a geologist and his dad is too, tells me he has heard Morris debate and he tells me Morris is 100% correct. He has shown me some of the things he has pulled from the earth as they have drilled.

I find it interesting what you wrote. Exactly the opposite happened to me. My first two years in college were spent as a physics student and teaching some undergraduate classes starting my sophomore year. What I noticed is how so many formula had constants. That grabbed my attention to think there is a God. So I really don't have a hard time taking creation literally.

If I understand evolution right how can you believe evolutionary biology. My wife majored in biology and I know she doesn't believe evolution. If you read Morris' book "That Their Words May Be Used Against Them" I don't see how you can miss the point that even the die hard evolutionists have changed their theories. Even the things they taught even 20 years ago they do not believe today. If you even talk with students today you will notice that.

So I am curious what you believe concerning evolution.

 

I am no biologist but how did you come up with 3 million animals?

When I talked about the engineer I was referring to the structure of the boat not the number of animals.

So are you saying an ark never existed and the Bible is a lie? I simply do not see any alternative. Do you? What are you actually saying?

You ssem to have tried to refute a number of things. But what do you actually believe?

 

Immediately before you posted this, I posted another message in reply to a message of yours. Please be sure that you read it.

Now to answer this new question and to comment about the post as a whole: The science of evolutionary biology, like all sciences, is constantly being modified as scientist continuing to gather and evaluate data. And of course individual scientists modify their theories and beliefs about them as they continue to learn. However, to suggest that any evolutionary biologist changed any of his views due to anything that Henry Morris wrote or said is simply ridiculous. No responsible evolutionary biologist would ever take Henry Morris seriously because he knew nothing about the subject. I have never heard a geologist say anything specific about Henry Morris, but I do know that they think that he is some kind of freak. Personally, as I have already written, I do not know enough about geology to know if Henry Morris’ claims make any sense or not, but I do know that his claims contradict the interpretations of more than 99% of the Ph.D. geologists today (and they are NOT all pagans—religion has nothing to do with it!

I have made many posts on this message board regarding my beliefs on the subject of evolution, and just a month ago I was pretty much settled on my belief that Homo sapiens did not evolve but was directly created. However, after reading the trash on this message board written by fundamentalist Christian extremists arguing against evolution, I find myself wanting to distance myself from any form of creationism. After all, if creationism is the theology of grossly ignorant lunatics, I want no part of it.

Fundamentalist extremists have always been a challenge to my faith in the Bible, and I have had about all of their gibberish that I can take for a while. I know that you are an educated thoughtful man, and I know that you mean well, but I believe that you need to carefully and prayerfully study both evolutionary biology and the Book of Genesis and ask God to show you what is true, and what is not true. I certainly do not suggest that you take my word for it.

 

I believe that we need to objectively examine the data and carefully and prayerfully consider it. If our conclusions do not line up with our interpretation of the Bible, we need to carefully and prayerfully consider the possibility that our interpretation of the Bible is incorrect. Genesis has always been my favorite book of the Old Testament, and since I have been a Christian I have never had any difficulty in believing God’s message to us in that Book. I know that the message is true because God has used it to deepen my love for Him and His message in the New Testament, especially Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Whether or not there ever was an Ark, whether or not Adam and Eve were historical personages, whether or not Homo sapiens was directly created is not very important to me. It is, however, important to me that Christians be HONEST in both studying these things and teaching them to others. After all, if we all believe in the Ark, Adam and Eve, and the direct creation of man and yet live a life of dishonesty and end up in the fires of hell, what did those beliefs profit us?