I received the following comments:
I think I have spent enough time reading in the last month or so to be able to add a bit more to our discussion. I appreciate the opportunity to bounce a few things off someone whose opinions I respect. I am going to make statements without “wax” and let you respond as directly as you wish. I am still considering both sides at this point.
I understand death before fall to be a natural part of animal life. I understand human death after the fall to be “spiritual” and also physical death for man probably started on that day and concluding at the time of Adams death.
Of course this view of animal death puts me at odds with some, but not at odds with scripture, as I understand it. I am quite confident that the Romans passage applies very clearly just to man. I don’t see why soul-creatures would be included in that verse.
I don’t agree that the new heaven will be a repeat of the garden or the earth before sin. Part of that is based on me leaning towards carnivorous predators before the fall. The verse in Genesis 2 referring to plants for food is tricky but not conclusive. It doesn’t state explicitly that animals don’t predate. There are a number of verses in the Bible that speak of God providing animals with prey and being pleased with it. I don’t believe sin cursed behavior would ever meet God’s approval. Also, the Hebrew names for Lions, eagles, and many others are based on carnivorous traits. Not a conclusive evidence, but interesting since Adam named them. The biggest thing I am willing to say is Biblical sound is that in Genesis 1-2 yom refers to long periods of time instead of just 12 or 24 hour days. The arguments are well known, of course, but I am convinced that the text allows for a literal reading using age instead of day. Looking at day 3 provides some clues as God causes the ground to bring forth plants that bear seed “reproduction” and fruit. Both processes require more than 24 hours. Of course day 6 seems to provide clues as well with the many events and Adams response when introduced to Eve. “At long last” Of course day seven is still going on and adds to the possibility. I am not saying any of these are conclusive evidences, but I feel they “open the door” for a credible case being made for day-age literal interpretation of Genesis 1-2. I would be glad to consider more evidences for and against that view.
Along with the open door I believe to be present with regard to interpretation along these lines, I am encouraged by historical conservative Christians that are proponents of old earth creationism. C H Spurgeon is the latest that I have read. He saw no issues theologically or scripturally with that view. The list of others is actually quite extensive and some predate Darwin and the influence that he has had on the argument.
(By the way, I view as unbiblical and unsupportable scientifically theistic evolution and naturalistic evolution. I also can not accept rapid specialization proposed by many YEC. Many of them say that a handful of “kinds” of animals are responsible for the current 4-5 million species we see on earth today. It represents orders of magnitude more rapid “change” then nontheists even propose.) I believe the Bible teaches and good science supports specific creation for all but the slightest variations.
An argument I would propose last is that of scientific evidences. While occasionally a finding will crop up that YEC latch onto as “proof” of a young universe, I believe that most of them can be explained fairly easily. As I consider the “big picture” of creation, I am drawn to that fact that it appears to be old. One could spend a lifetime debating specific examples, but I would like to point out one brief example.
God is truthful and tells us that mankind can learn about his works by looking at creation. This brief statement makes many uses of “appearance of age” examples unsatisfactory to me. Let’s consider starlight. I am fairly confident of distances in space. Measured with several independent methods which agree to a high degree, they seem to be at least within orders of magnitude of the actual distances. Now let us consider a star 1 billion light years away which we see die. If creation was 10000 years ago, the star never existed. (arguments about infinite speed of light also change things like radioactive decay rates which would fry us all) If God wanted to show us things that didn’t really happen, He could, but I find it against His stated character to believe He would.
If you would like to read more of what I have been considering, there are a few old earth creationist websites which are interesting. Reasons to Believe has a pretty comprehensive cosmology. They are fallible, but seem to have a pretty solid scientific base. One of their books, A Matter of Days, by Hugh Ross is geared towards the young-earth-creationism verses old-earth-creationism debate. I am not saying it would convince you, or that it should, but it would give you a pretty good idea of the old earth creationist thinking.
I will pray that God gives you wisdom to respond to my “report.” I truly want the Truth to convince me and put the issues at peace.
I am certainly sympathetic to being in a place where you do not want to state a clear position. Since you expressed some worry that I might be upset by your conclusions, let me say that I try to keep my views in categories, with Christ as the center, essential doctrines like the authority of Scripture and substitutional atonement as the next level, followed by important doctrines, and then things that belong to the realm more of lesser teachings, many of which involve speculation or opinions. I trust I would be civil to all, but I couldn’t really find fellowship as a brother with anyone who wasn’t with me on the issue of Christ. The essential teachings I would not give up, though I would be willing to argue with one who disagreed to try to help such a person. Other things, even important doctrines, I am perfectly happy to count others as brothers and sisters if we agree on Christ but not on these. Certainly once one goes beyond that to less important doctrines and opinions, I think we should all be able to just sit down and discuss these over tea or coffee and not think it a big deal. I hold many unusual opinions, and am not about to get angry at anyone for doing the same, or for holding a less unusual position than myself.
I appreciate your openness in sharing your views, and enjoy the privilege of being one to bounce them off of. Perhaps we should get together in person sometime to talk. It would be great to see you again.
I would lean against this view (that animal death is a natural part of animal life,) but admit that it is a possibility that they did die before the fall. Really it is scientifically that I see no reason for man’s fall to introduce death into the animal creation. Philosophically, and considering what I understand to be God’s way of setting up authority, everything would point to animal death having been caused by man’s fall and being a natural result of that. Adam had the authority to decide life or death for all his offspring. If these were put under his control, certainly the animal creation was as well. If he had chosen God’s way rather than Satan’s, it would make sense that the animal creation would have reflected that choice, just as the human world does.
I would agree that it is a pretty weak argument to use the Romans verse as proof. Death entering into world, which in Greek means the system, order, or arrangement, would be just as true referring to it entering into men exclusively as entering into both men and animals. This does not mean that men are meant exclusively, but certainly they were meant primarily. If animals are included, it is in a secondary capacity. But I don’t think you can really prove or disprove that from that verse.
I would agree that the new heaven and new earth (which should not be skipped…) is an advance on the garden or earth before sin. I believe that the kingdom of God on earth before that will be a continuation, if you will, from what the intention was before the fall. But even then, things will not be exactly the same as they would have been, but everything will appear much different because of all that has come in between. I do know that Isaiah 65:25 says regarding the animal kingdom then (as is clearly indicated by the context), “’They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,’ says the LORD.” I believe the “holy mountain” refers to the kingdom of God, as mountains are used symbolically for governments. Luke 1:33 states that “of His kingdom there will be no end.” I would take that to mean no borders, that is, that it will cover the entire earth (though I do not deny its lasting duration, either.) Besides, I cannot think of anything more foolish than the idea that a wolf and a lamb will be walking along in perfect harmony on God’s holy mountain, when suddenly they cross the border off that mountain, and the wolf springs on the lamb. So I do think that the dog-eat-dog system of nature will not exist in the kingdom. That said, it does not say that animals will not die, just that they will not hurt or destroy.
That said, I don’t think it fits Biblically to put carnivorous predators before the fall. Genesis 1: 29-30 states: “29 And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food’; and it was so.” Thus, it was not just to man, but to all the animals, that God gave herbs, seeds, and fruit as food. This appears to be part of the reason why God could say in verse 31, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” I cannot help but think of the “not goodness” of what I am seeing whenever I watch a nature show and see the violence and death that goes on in the animal creation. While it is not clearly stated, this seems to have only been reversed at the flood (not the fall,) for it was there that God stated, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.” (Genesis 9:3) This is only specifically stated for man, not the animals, but in light of Genesis 1:29-30, and no statement to the contrary until here, this is the most logical place to put a change for the animals as well. Even if one imagines the change at the fall, the words of Genesis 1:29-30 seem conclusive on this issue regarding before the fall.
That said, you are right that Genesis 1:29-30 does not specifically state that animals (or man for that matter) cannot eat meat (flesh,) but that said, when you consider these verses in the context of each other, there can be little question of the intention of what is being said. What can Genesis 9:3 be but a negation and change of Genesis 1:29-30 regarding man, and if this is the case, what can Genesis 1:29-30 be but a statement regarding the same thing for animals at that time as was true for man until Genesis 9:3? These verses help interpret each other, and that does much, I think, to lock in the interpretation. That is the best way to settle most controversial questions, I think: let the Bible interpret Itself.
I would see multiple problems with assuming ages instead of days as the meaning of yom in Genesis 1-2. Biblically, the literal days of the creation week are assumed when introducing the Sabbath day. You can see this in Exodus 20:8-11.
8. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10. but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
The parallel here is impossible to miss. The LORD worked six days and rested the seventh, therefore the Israelites should work six days and rest the seventh. The justification for the Sabbath day here is the creation week. If the creation week was not actually a week, the justification for the Sabbath day evaporates. The LORD surely does not mean that the Israelites are to work for six ages, and then rest the seventh.
The same is true in Exodus 31:12-17.
12. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 13. “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. 14. You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. 15. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. 17. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’”
The Israelites are to emulate the LORD by resting on the seventh day, just as the LORD rested on the seventh day. If the creation week is not literal, then the parallel is destroyed, and the justification for the Sabbath, the sign between the LORD and the sons of Israel, is negated.
It seems to me you present a problem easily explained regarding day three while ignoring much larger problems introduced if this is not a literal day. The designation of “herb that yields seed” and “fruit tree that yields fruit” need not imply that they actually did so on the first day they were created, but only that the LORD made them to do this, which certainly He must have when He designed them. They must have been designed with their reproductive capabilities intact and ready to produce, even if they did not do so on the first day. They need not have yielded on the first day, but only have had the potential to yield in due season.
That said, the making of plants on day three presents many difficulties if this “day” is actually a long age. For example, we then have the plants made a full age before the sun and heavenly bodies are made! We don’t know what form the “day” and “night” took for the first three days, but it seems clear that only on day 4 were these solidified into the sun and other heavenly bodies as we have them. Yet if the plants lived and thrived for an age without the sun, how did they do so, and why then was the switch even necessary? But a single day without the sun seems to present little problem…the plants often have to go a day with no sunlight when the weather is bad. Then, there is the fact that the plants, many of which are pollinated by various insects, would have had to survive ages with no insects at all. Even if one includes insects among the “birds,” which seems questionable, the plants had to survive two ages with no insects to pollinate them, which does not really work.
I will freely admit that there appears to be far too much for Adam to have done on a single day on day six. I would tend to think that Adam, as originally created, was created containing both male and female characteristics, capable of self-reproduction. This is not something seen elsewhere among the “higher” orders of animals, but certainly is not unheard of among the “lower” orders of animals. And considering that man is unique in many other ways, it does not seem impossible. Most of the rabbis tended to teach this in olden days, so it is not just my own wild idea…not that the rabbis were right in everything, by any means! If this was not the case, clearly the LORD “deciding” on the creation of Eve (or Isha, “Woman,” as she was called at first,) was just a charade, since reproduction would have been impossible without her creation.
The word for “rib” is never elsewhere translated “rib,” but rather things like “side” or “chamber.” If it was the female “side” (or even the “chamber” of the womb) that the LORD took out of Adam, not a “rib,” then the creation of male and female on day one may have been contained in the single individual Adam, and the creation of the woman Isha may have been some days afterwards, as Genesis 2 seems to suggest.
Moreover, the creation of trees for the garden and animals for Adam to name “out of the ground” seems to be a special creation just for the purpose of bringing each animal to Adam for him to name, not the general creation of all the animals on day 6.
The words they have translated “at long last!” in whatever version you were using are both words capable of many and varied meanings, and are translated in so many different ways that it is hard to hang much on them. It seems to me that the translators who make it out this way are more remembering the Sunday school story they were told as children than they are considering the actual text. The Sunday school story is that Adam was looking among all the animals for a partner and going away disappointed when he didn’t find one, and then when he saw Eve (Isha) he was all excited that here was a partner for him at last. Yet the Bible narrative suggests no such thing. Adam seems perfectly happy with his condition, as far as the text tells us. The idea of Adam not being good alone and of making a partner for him are credited entirely to the LORD. It seems to have been completely his idea, though Adam was certainly delighted with it. Adam only knew himself being with the LORD, and probably had no thought of any other condition until it was presented to him. I have often made this argument when trying to prove that marriage was God’s idea, not man’s, though I have never applied it to this topic before.
Having said that these words of Adam are difficult of translation, I would make them out to be something like “Now this time.” The meaning of the second word seems to be along the lines of “this time” as opposed to previous times. The most sensible explanation to me seems to be in the light of the fact that Adam had been presented with animal after animal as the LORD was having him name them. Yet none of those animals were bone of his bone or flesh of his flesh. Yet this time, when he is presented with the one he names “Isha,” the Woman, he sees one who is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. So the only implication I see in these words is that he is comparing her to all the animals that had been presented to him previously. This seems like an obvious comparison, from his perspective, and fits perfectly with the remainder of what he said. The idea that he had been waiting or looking a long time for one like Isha seems to be an idea read into the passage by the translators, perhaps, like I said, from the Sunday school stories they remember.
Out of all the ideas you have presented, I don’t think any of them are quite so untenable as your suggestion that we are still in day seven, the “day of rest.” The Lord says in John 5:17, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” His point seems to be that His work was too important to stop doing it, even on the Sabbath day! His Father certainly does not stop His work on the Sabbath day, and Christ did not either. I do not believe that the LORD has rested for a single day, or perhaps even a single moment, since sin and death entered the world of man, and probably not since the fall of Satan. (I would tend to think that the fall of Satan was almost immediately followed by the fall of man. That one of the first things Satan did after the fall was try to corrupt man. I also speculate that jealousy at the creation of man may have been one of the reasons Satan fell in the first place. But I will readily admit these are only my own guesses on the matter.)
If there is anything that does not characterize God’s work in this world, it is rest. Certainly, the Lord was not resting when He died on the cross for our sins. His constant battle and contest with Satan is not restful. I would tend to think that creation, as mighty as it seems to us, is of far less concern to the Lord than the moral battle and redemptive work that He is now engaged in. I would also tend to think that the work of changing a man from darkness to light is more difficult than creating light in the first place. I believe the implication of Ephesians 1:19-20 is that it takes the same kind of power it took to raise Christ from the dead to raise belief in the heart of a sinner. Until the battle is won and the new heavens and new earth is come, I do not believe that God will be resting.
I personally don’t see the day-age idea as being viable. Yet I will admit I don’t see anything philosophically damaging to theology in the mere idea that the earth might be older than 6,000 to 8,000 years. It is when one starts bringing in things like theistic evolution that I start seeing more serious problems. Yet what does start a warning bell for me is when one starts having hundreds or thousands of generations of dying animals in a world God created as yet unmarred by sin. It seems kind of strange to me that something that God considers so foreign and such a punishment when inflicted on mankind would be just the natural way He created things for the animal kingdom. If one goes beyond this to having carnivorous animals for thousands of generations before mankind, thus making the dog-eat-dog nature of the animal kingdom be God’s “perfect” way of making things, I find it quite unacceptable. God’s creation should always reflect His nature, and this does not seem to at all. Why should a God Who claims to support things like self-sacrifice and love for those weaker than oneself create a world which reflects the exact opposite? This makes much more sense as the outcome of sin entering the world of animalkind than it does as God’s original plan.
As for great men of earlier times having no problem with old earth ideas, I think that one might also point out that the full philosophical implications of some of these ideas had not fully considered at that time. The philosophical implications of evolution become clearer and clearer all the time as we observe them around us. Of course, just the old earth idea does not share all these implications, but my point is that the men of times past like Spurgeon were speaking at a time when this idea was new and not fully developed. Moreover, he was a minister, not a scientist, nor a philosopher.
I would agree that either theistic or naturalistic evolution are philosophically opposed to the Biblical worldview. As I said, I have not followed the creation arguments as much lately. I do think that rapid specialization is possible when directed by mankind, such as the breeding of dogs, which has led to startlingly huge variations. Yet it is harder to postulate when such intelligent direction is not present. I can see the specialization of certain species when a segment of the population is suddenly completely isolated from the rest, such as on an island. Yet to extrapolate this out to all animals seems difficult. To me, God having created several variations on the “cat” theme seems much more likely than saying that housecats, lions, tigers, cheetahs, and all the rest come from a common ancestor. While it may be possible that wolves share ancestors with dogs, if one mixes foxes, coyotes, dingos, and the rest into the mix, it seems very improbable to me.
I have been well aware all the way back to when we discussed this that starlight and the distances of stars from the earth is the argument that is hardest for me to counter scientifically. I know that God made the stars in order to give light on the earth, so they would not fulfill their purpose if their light was merely on the way to earth and yet never made it here. The six days of creation idea would necessitate the light of the stars reaching earth pretty much at the same time that God created them, or else they were not fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. Yet the explanations I have heard up to this time as to how this was accomplished all have problems.
Yet your bringing this up drove me, as I happened to be sitting in my uncle’s study at the time I was writing the above paragraph, to look into this issue for the first time since about 1994. I pulled down a book on his shelves on “Starlight and Time,” and found that since I stopped paying attention to the issue, in fact, just about when I did, a new idea was proposed by creationists which I find very exciting. I will summarize it for you, but please understand I am only summarizing what I understand after a relatively short study.
It basically uses the idea of relativity, which states that time is not constant, but is affected by gravity. You are probably aware that if one were to travel across the event horizon of a black hole, time in the rest of the universe would seem to go faster and faster as one approached, until finally when one reached the event horizon, time would “stop” for you relative to the rest of the universe. When you came out the other side of the event horizon, in what would seem to you passing through it like practically no time at all, an indeterminately large amount of time would have passed in the rest of the universe. The same idea is used to explain starlight. Basically, time was dilated somehow on earth, so that while the heavenly bodies were created in 24 hours earth time, billions of years passed in most of the rest of the galaxy.
The first man to propose the idea of applying relativity to creationist cosmology suggested a white hole near the earth, but this idea seems to predict a “blue shift” in stars near the earth rather than a red shift, which is not observed. Since then, another proposal is that space itself was stretched, and that this would have had the same effect. Wikipedia gives a brief outline of these ideas under “creation cosmology.” I looked at books by both these creationists, and found them very interesting. This seems to be the most sensible answer to the starlight problem yet proposed. Maybe the stars really are billions of years old, and the earth really is only six thousand years old, and yet both were created at the same time, in the beginning. Rather mind boggling.
Anyway, this idea was totally new to me, and I would suggest you look into it. Maybe with an open mind to reconsider the issue? Young Earth Creationists really do have some good arguments, if you will examine what they have to say.
Well, if I read “Reasons to Believe,” maybe we could do a “book exchange.” Would you be willing to read a book I suggest if I read this one?
I hope I’ve had some wisdom, and I pray for it for you as well, my friend. I look forward to the day when God will reveal the truth to all of us, and we who have sought after it will be rewarded. Until that time, may we all learn as grow as much as we can to know and understand the ways of our God.
Precepts 
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April 30, 2015 at 2:47 pm
Precepts
I received the following reply from my original questioner:
A very interesting read. I will take some time to think over your points in detail when I have a chance.
I have read the “Starlight and Time” book and have followed SOME of the discussions about it. I believe that it has been changed significantly from its original form which was widely discredited by experts. I believe you have identified a couple problems already. It rests on other claims, like variable clock speed, which can be disproved quite easily, I believe.
My comfort level lies in one of two explanations. Either God created the universe recently with an appearance of age and history which cannot be differentiated from actual age and history, or the meaning of Genesis 1 has been inaccurately understood by many and God, in fact, created the universe a long time ago as many (but not all) people observe.
By the way, I will be having lunch tomorrow with one of my former professors to discuss this topic. He is a strong YEC.
God bless!
April 30, 2015 at 2:49 pm
Precepts
I received the following reply from my original questioner:
I still haven’t had time to respond to your paper. My prof sent me a long challenge on the scientific end which was actually much easier to address than your Biblical response. I have written about a 6 page paper which highlights some of the Biblical issues as I see them. I can see from your paper that I need to work on a couple of areas. The resting of God is specific to creative activities. I understand it to imply withdrawing from the activity, but not sitting down because of tiredness. I need to think through your ideas a bit more to see if I can reconcile them to my view. I don’t actually think it is critical to me. Animal death is important to you and to many others. I hit it pretty hard in my paper, but I am not certain it will convince you on this point. The most ignored evidence I point to is the impact of the tree of life on the mortality of Adam and Eve. It seems striking to me that Adam and Eve would be so dependent on the tree of life, but the animal kingdom outside the garden would not be. Also Job 38 and Ps 104 where God praises the carnivor. I actually think I have more direct evidence on the animal death issue than the other side, but you are welcome to disagree.
The day-age idea only works if you accept the perspective of the witness being on the face of the deep. Vs 2 If you accept that, you need to accept that the different verbs used BARA, ASAH, and one more I can’t think of, mean slightly different things. Some YEC insist they are the same. The argument then becomes that the light (making) appearing was when the light made it to the surface of the deep and day four means that the sun and stars are (asah)made visible due to clearing of the atmosphere as they were declared to have been (bara)created earlier in vs1. Job 38:7 says the morning stars were singing on day 3. I am not prepared to prove this today, but I will throw it out there as an explanation for now. It amounts to the most tricky part of the day-age paradigm.
I see I have a version of my paper on this computer. I hesitate to share it because it is pretty raw and unfinished as well as largely undocumented. I also make some strong statements about YEC towards the end that need to be toned down quite a bit. I hope to find that my arguments can get to the point of being credible or I will abandon them as needed.
April 30, 2015 at 2:50 pm
Precepts
I received the following reply from my original questioner:
I would propose we meet at some time and discuss in a more efficient manner. While we might talk until we are blue in the face, I doubt we would reach the end of the issues which are related to this topic.
I have been discussing a bit with my highly-conservative near Phd in theology father in law as well. I stressed to him today that unless one is sure of the Biblical open door for an old earth, the science won’t convince. Today he made an interesting comment about not being sure about anything in science, but being sure about “yom” in the first chapter of Genesis. He is frustrated with me because I don’t accept the “yom with number” proof of 24 hour day. (actually he has now morphed it into a “yom with evening and morning” rule since I have pointed out some weaknesses in the original “rule.”) I am frustrated with him because he won’t consider anything that calls into question the “rule.”
I wish I could find a single argument that would be conclusive on either the science or the theology topic. I challenged my physics prof to a winner-takes-all on one science evidence. He wouldn’t touch it. This didn’t not make sense to me because he threw a dozen YEC science arguments at me to prove to me that the OEC viewpoint is not solid. When I refute them one at a time, he just says that the YEC have more scientific work to do and he is unshaken. I do respect his commitment to his interpretation.
I have found your answers to be the most well-considered of anyone I have dealt with. My study of the Bible has been much better because of your questions and counter points.
Your friend,
I agree that it would be good to sit down in person, and be more efficient than writing back and forth, which is time consuming. As I said before, I feel somewhat inadequate to the task, since I had satisfied myself to the issue back in my college days, and have not paid much attention to YEC and the issues involved since that time. But I would be happy to sit down and discuss with what knowledge I have.
I would agree that God did not sit down on day 7 out of tiredness, just that He ceased His activities. That was the point of the Sabbath day, which is based off day 7…that you are to rest from your normal, everyday activities. I suppose you can try to limit it to just His creation activities if you wish…it is, of course, the obvious argument to make from your position…but then you have to harmonize “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work,” (Genesis 2:2) with ““My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” (John 5:17)
You make a point about the tree of life being necessary for Adam and Eve, so why not for the animals? I think the point of the tree of life would be for healing (Revelation 22:2), not for immortality, which Adam would have already had. The healing would have been regarding injury. One would have to assume animals could get injured as well. The obvious argument for me to make, I suppose, would be that Adam, as caretaker of the animals, would use the leaves or fruit of the tree of life to heal the animals when they were injured as well. Yet this works better with a fully populated earth than with just two people, who could not be expected to heal animals on the other side of the globe who were injured. So I guess you have made a good point here. I will have to think about this one.
It was, of course, God who reprogrammed the animals so that some became meat-eaters after the flood. Just because this was not His original plan does not mean that He did not do it well when He did it, or that He would not find pride in the mighty lion and hunter that He had made. One might as well argue that the passages wherein God is praised for being mighty in war means that God intended there to be war in the first place, and that it was not a result of rebellion and sin, but would have existed in a perfect world! No, sin brought things like war, but that does not mean that God cannot be praised for being mighty in it.
You have clearly spent more time on the Hebrew words for creation than I have. The one thing I’ll say here is that I believe Job 38:7 refers to the angels under the names of the “morning stars” and the “sons of God.” The second is clear from Job 1, the first can be seen in places like Revelation 9:1. A common Hebrew figure of speech often used in poetry (like Job) is to repeat a phrase twice using slightly different wording. Besides being poetic (Hebrew poetry involves the repetition of ideas, not just of sounds) this also locks in the meaning. I think here the stars who sing are the same as the sons of God who shout for joy. This just shows us that the angels were present, and were created before man.
This has mostly been answering your first message, but again I agree with your second, that we should meet face to face. I am busy through about the middle of this month, but then may have time to consider getting together. We will talk more about schedules then.
Your friend in Christ,
Nathan
January 26, 2016 at 12:12 am
Sean McNally
Brethren, a fascinating discussion and I appreciate all your comments and insight. I am lead to recommend to you Prof Gerald Schroeder’s works and you may find him here: http://geraldschroeder.com/wordpress/?page_id=2. His thesis is that G-d did in fact use relativity in Creation and that the Genesis description of the Creation (at least for the first 5-6 days) is from the perspective of the entire Universe. My personal opinion, building upon Schroeder’s contributions, is that Genesis 1 presents a description of Creation from G-d’s perspective moving away/contracting from – (‘Tsimtsum’, in Hebrew – G-d withdrawing His Unity to create a space for complexity) – the Creation at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Hence, at such velocity, only days pass for Him, whilst eons eek out in the created universe. In his books, Schroeder makes the point that the Hebrew describing Adam’s death uses words that are doubled, insofar as the words say that “you shall surely die.” I believe that this means his soul – (which allows for the possibility of pre-Adamite natural death in animals, &c). Scientifically, nature would not have continued without the recycling of biological matter that we know today is so essential to it’s continuance. (And, BTW, this interpretation would also allow for creation being vegetarian before the fall….)
February 12, 2016 at 6:55 pm
Precepts
Sean McNally,
Thank you for your kind words. I read some of Prof. Schroeder’s articles and did find them interesting. Thank you for the link.
I enjoyed his comments on “Day One” rather than the first day indicating a perspective from the beginning, when there could be no “first day” since there was not yet a second.
I notice he does not deal with the concept that as space would stretch from a single point, time would stretch most at the edges of the universe, and would stretch less and less towards the center of the stretching, until at the middle it would not really stretch at all. This would mean that the time that passed would be different at different parts of the universe, with the least time passed in the middle. If the earth was at the center of the stretching, it could experience very little time while billions of year pass at the edge.
Of course, the way our world currently works it requires recycling of biological matter, but whether or not that is the way God created it or whether that is a result of the fall is something that cannot be determined without being able somehow to observe the world before the fall, which we are unable to do. The increase in childbearing in humans suggested in Genesis 3 could also reflect an increase in childbearing in animals, especially when some of those became “prey” types after the eating of meat was introduced. If death was not at work in the system, the production of children would be at a far lower priority, as the current generations would not really need to be “replaced,” as they need to be now.
Moreover, the Biblical concept of soul-life would still allow for the “death” and recycling of much (most) of the biological matter in the system, such as all plants and all “animals” that do not have blood/soul life. I think it would be impossible and silly to suggest that amoebas and plants were immortal, or that all body cells were never replaced. Would even skin cells be “immortal”? The replacement of parts of the system would be necessary, but the question is if the replacement of soul-life would be. I am not convinced that souls of animals needed to die before the fall, anymore than those of Adamkind did.
Thanks for joining in on the discussion.
Nathan
July 6, 2021 at 10:31 pm
WorldQuestioner
I have a post here: https://controversial219800475.wordpress.com/2020/10/30/evolution-of-man-hoaxes/
What do you think of it?
July 22, 2021 at 6:41 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
You have indeed collected an interesting number of facts and ideas of interest regarding the creation versus evolution debate, starting off with a list of the hoaxes and errors that have surrounded the search for missing links between man and apes. Darwin’s belief that the fossil record would either confirm or deny his theory is largely ignored today, after it has been seen that the fossil record did not, indeed, confirm his theory. The punctuated equilibrium idea seems to beg the question, assuming that evolution must have happened in a way that made it invisible to the fossil record since the fossil record does not contain evidence for it. As you point out, punctuated equilibrium assumes a few fortunate mutations followed by inbreeding, and yet we know that inbreeding leads to many more negative effects than the imagined positive ones.
Overall a good collection of thoughts. Thanks for sharing with me.
Nathan
July 20, 2021 at 11:07 pm
WorldQuestioner
The new domain name is here: https://wqcontroversialthoughts.wordpress.com/2020/10/30/evolution-of-man-hoaxes/
I don’t plan to give new comments to this post in the near future.
July 22, 2021 at 6:42 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
Thanks for sending me the new link to your article. I think you had added a few things to it since I first looked at it, too. I appreciate your adding to the discussion. Thanks.
Nathan
April 11, 2023 at 9:42 pm
WorldQuestioner
What about gaps between dinosaurs and birds being filled? What about Velociraptor having feathers? The genetic connection between chickens and t.rex?
What about Australopithecus Sediba?
And the therapsids? Mammal-like reptiles?
Will you reply to my comment of March 23, 2023 as well as my newest comment?
June 29, 2023 at 9:23 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
The idea that there is such a thing as “gaps” between creatures is assuming that one creature has turned into another. The reality is that we don’t have “gaps,” we have creatures, and in the fossil record we have bones of real creatures (unless the fossils are faked like the archaeoraptor was, https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/feb/07/features11.g22) who lived at some point in time, probably before the flood that created their fossils. The bones we find of these animals do not “fill a gap;” this is just an interpretation the evolutionists make based on their religious beliefs. All these bones do is tell us that such an animal once lived, and now is dead. That is all they can tell us. Everything else is a matter of interpretation.
A good article on “links” between birds and dinosaurs:
https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/feathers/what-if-dinosaurs-really-had-feathers/
The fact is that there still is no actual proposal of a real mechanism for one creature to change into another. Mendelian genetics explained to us the variations in animals and the reason one can breed animals for certain characteristics (microevolution). It also revealed why Darwin was wrong and the infinite changes over time he proposed could not be. All microevolutionary changes come from genes already existing in the code of a creature. One can select certain genes, but not create new ones. The infinite changes over vast periods of time that Darwin imagined are simply impossible due to the way genetics work.
The only proposal (not a good one) for the creation of new genes is mutations. A mutation is basically a mistake in the gene code. Like most mistakes in complexly-designed systems, such mistakes are usually very damaging to the creature. Only in a few cases could one argue that a mistake is even neutral. Some have tried to use the fact that viruses can mutate to avoid medications as an example of beneficial mutation. Yet this is rather like if the human race were threatened by killer robots programed to seek out humans, restrain them in handcuffs, line them up, and kill them. The only people who could escape them are people without hands, since the handcuffs in that case would just slip off. We would end up with a human race that has no hands, but would that really be a good thing? Viruses that mutate to avoid drugs are generally weaker, having lost features, if one takes the drug away. No new information is created. No new features or abilities are introduced. Mutations that lead downward are no mechanism for evolution. That would require mutations that lead upward, and these have never been seen or demonstrated even once.
Macroevolution has been disproven by genetics, and it ought to have been discarded as a bad hypothesis long ago. Instead, it is desperately clung to for religious purposes. Scientists mess around with fossils that they can use imagination to interpret as proof for their ideas, all as a smoke screen to hide the fact that they have a theory that not only has no proof to support it, and that all the scientific evidence we have cries out against it. There is simply no mechanism for creatures to do anything but either remain as they are, or else to become corrupted and degrade over time. They play around in an imaginary, murky past of millions of years ago to avoid the reality that in the present, their idea is bankrupt and contrary to science.
Nathan
June 30, 2023 at 12:13 am
WorldQuestioner
@Precepts Why don’t we find transitional fossils between dinosaurs and mammals, for example? Wouldn’t furry dinosaurs debunk the phylogenetic tree? Why does the fossil record show evidence of a phylogenetic tree and not of a directed acyclic graph? Wouldn’t merging species and converging taxonomic clades debunk evolution?
Based on https://www.gotquestions.org/punctuated-equilibrium.html, the fossil record shows no compelling evidence for phyletic gradualism, but strong evidence for punctuated equilibrium. But the article claims that that would lead to inbreeding resulting in offspring with deleterious recessive traits. Where’s my comment with the video that reveals speciation in birds – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NArlXzSFt2Y? The small birds did not mate with the big birds. How do creationists explain that?
Did I forget to mention that australopithecines are ape-like from the neck up but humanlike from the neck down? I suggest that ape-men were the result of bestiality with apes by preflood wicked people. And I suggest that transitional fossils were inter-species, inter-genus, and interfamiliar hybrids.
January 5, 2024 at 7:25 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
The evidence of the fossil record must by nature be subject to interpretation. All one truly knows when one finds a fossil in the ground is that a creature once lived who produced that fossil. The fossil does not tell us how old it is. The fossil does not tell us what its ancestors looked like, or what its descendants looked like. For that matter, most fossils are just of skeletons, and those do not even really tell us what the creature who made the skeleton looked like, since we are missing vital data like color, skin type, etc. Even most skeletons are not found intact, and many bones are not found intact, so putting them together is a matter of some not-inconsiderable guesswork.
The phylogenetic trees of evolution are made by taking creatures and postulating that they are related and that one creature has turned into another over time. The problem with this is that it has never been proven that a creature can change into another creature over time, and in fact the evidence is all against this happening. So speculating about how it might have happened is an exercise in pure fantasy.
When Darwin postulated evolution, science was in a far inferior state to what it is now. We knew nothing of genes or how traits can emerge or be suppressed genetically. Now that we know all these things, we know why animals can change over time, why selective breeding can bring out traits in animals, and so forth. Yet genetics have also shown us that there are limits to how far traits can be selected. One might be able to selectively breed a smaller rhinoceros, for example, but one would never be able to breed one that is smaller than a mouse. Genes provide a mechanism for variation, but also prescribe limits. Darwin’s idea that animals might change slowly over time in an unlimited fashion was proven untrue when Mendelian genetics were discovered. Evolution ought to have been discarded as disproven at that time. The problem was that it was already held as a religious, not a scientific, belief by that time, and so scientific evidence was not going to be able to do anything to overcome the zealous belief in it that many held.
The saving throw that evolutionists tried to make to explain genetics was to appeal to mutations. Yet these are mistakes in the complex gene code. The idea that mistakes could lead to another creature is a rather ludicrous one. It makes more sense that someone could, by making mistakes while typing in the code for Ms. Pac-Man, accidentally turn it into the Windows operating system! Mistakes cannot possibly explain the change from one complex genetic code for one creature into the equally complex genetic code for another creature. This simply makes no sense. It is pure faith to believe such a thing, and that is ultimately why people hold it.
The fossil trees also depend on the supposed ages of the fossils found. The fossils are generally assigned an age based on the strata of rock they are found in. Yet according to the Bible record, all the strata of rock would have been swept up and redistributed at the time of the flood. Therefore, the fossils and their strata might be expected to all be of the same age. The fact is that the ages of the strata were written up by an atheist scientist apart from any evidence, but merely from imagination. This map has been followed ever since. Often today the rock layers are aged by the fossils contained in them and the fossils aged by the rock they are in, an excellent example of circular reasoning. Ultimately, rocks don’t come with a date stamp. The picture evolution would paint, of millions of years of rock layers piling up undisturbed, and then suddenly recently they start eroding away instead of piling up, makes no sense. The rock layers were piled up in the flood. For the 4400+ years since the flood they have been eroding away. That makes sense. Where are the rock strata that are currently piling up for the next millions of years WITHOUT ERODING?
The idea for punctuated equilibrium is that, since we don’t see sufficient transitional forms in the fossil record (I would say none whatsoever), they figure evolution must have happened quickly, at fits and starts, so that no evidence of its having taken place can be found. In other words, there is no evidence, but since we know this happened because our beliefs say so, that proves it happened without us being able to find the evidence. The evidence is only for punctuated equilibrium if one has already assumed evolution. If one has not, the evidence is for evolution not having happened at all.
An obvious explanation for a being that is ape-like from the neck up and human-like from the neck down is that someone accidentally matched the skull of an ape with the skeleton of a human. There are artifacts, and even skeletons, of modern humans in strata that is supposedly far older than the australopithecines. This evidence is selectively ignored, attacked, and ridiculed by the scientific establishment. But human artifacts are found down to the bottom layers of the rocks put down by the flood, as might be expected. The evidence for evolution looks great if you just ignore the evidence against it based on your bias.
The Bible tells us that creatures bring forth after their kinds. It is not always easy to determine what makes up a kind. For example, it appears that dogs and wolves are the same kind. But are dogs and foxes the same kind, or dogs and coyotes? What about the Australian dingos? We don’t know if originally there was one dog-kind or more than one. The same thing is true of birds. God created the birds of the air. How many kinds he made we do not know. It seems quite likely that all our many varieties of birds didn’t descend from one, single kind of bird in the beginning. There seems to be far too much variety for that.
Evolution cannot explain complex body systems that need to be intact to be functional. One can have 39 of 40 parts needed to make an internal combustion engine all in their proper place, and yet if the 40th is not in its place, the engine will not function. Many body systems are even more complex than an engine. Without everything in its place, these systems would not function. There is no evolutionary step by which these could come into existence.
Cells are another example of irreducible complexity. When Darwin wrote his theory, people thought cells were little sacks of jelly and nothing more. Now, we know they are complex factories. So complex, in fact, that their input and output is more complicated than the daily input and output of the city of New York! And yet this is supposed to be the “simple” building block of life that caused evolution to come about? There is no chance.
You are correct that there is always the possibility that transitional fossils are inter-species. This does not necessarily have to have been with apes. The Bible tells us that an alien race (that we usually call angels) came to earth and interbred with human women before the flood. We also know men lived a lot longer than they do now. Someone who lived for centuries would show significant differences in his skull than those of a modern human. This would be caused by extreme age, not by a former evolutionary state. Also, there are bone diseases that can result in bones that are misshapen and not at all characteristic of a healthy specimen of human or ape-kind. These diseased bones could be identified as another kind of creature, when really they are just evidence of sickness.
Thanks for your comments. Keep studying!
Nathan
January 6, 2024 at 5:06 pm
World Questioner
If humans and dinosaurs lived together, why don’t we find human and dinosaur fossils buried together in the same rock layers? Shouldn’t we also find human artifacts buried with dinosaurs?
April 3, 2024 at 5:41 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
I am afraid that the problem is not finding things, but whether or not those findings are acknowledged publicly. There is a very real effort in the so-called scientific community to suppress knowledge about so-called out-of-place artifacts, or fossils that are found that would challenge or disprove the evolutionary theory and timeline. Such artifacts have a tendency to be discredited and disbelieved, and the information about them buried. Unknown hundreds of artifacts of this nature have disappeared into the basement of the Smithsonian, never to be seen again. The lack of finding them is not the problem; the lack of honestly on the part of those dedicated to the evolutionary religion is the problem.
An example is that dinosaur footprints and human footprints together have been found near the Paluxy River in Glen Rose, Texas. At one point, a running dinosaur stepped on a human track that had been laid down before him. Yet the scientists have scoffed, ridiculed, and undermined these findings. One “scientist” came out to view the site. He refused to turn around and look at the dig, and then speaking into a camera said that he had not seen any evidence that would go contrary to evolution at the site. Well, of course he hadn’t, he wouldn’t turn around! A TV special featured “scientists” walking along the Paluxy to some dinosaur tracks that had been unearthed a while before and were underwater. They used a special containment unit to drain the water and examine the prints. These tracks start wearing away soon after they are exposed, and naturally they do so when under water. They claimed they were blocky and indistinct and probably faked. Of course, they didn’t bother with the clear, distinct, recently-unearthed tracks right on shore that they could have looked at! This kind of dishonesty is rampant in rabid evolutionary circles.
My family has been on the site, along with many others, and helped in the unearthing of these tracks. They are unearthed from under layers of rock. They are not faked. But that is not what the evolutionary “scientists”/zealots will tell you.
Ultimately, religious people feel justified in lying, killing, and stealing to maintain their religions. Evolution is a religion, and many underhanded tactics are used to keep it from ever being disproven.
Nathan
April 3, 2024 at 6:31 pm
World Questioner
What do you think of the idea that God placed evidence for evolution to test our faith? Do you think God actually created the Earth to look old? Or transitional fossils like Australopithecines and Homo Habilis were created as fossils and never lived? Microraptor and Velociraptor were created as fossils and never lived? Dinosaurs never lived, because the fossil record is unreliable? If we can’t trust evidence that evolution happened, then we can’t trust evidence that dinosaurs even existed?
April 17, 2024 at 9:36 pm
World Questioner
Please see https://christadelphiansoriginsdiscussion.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/noahs-flood-problems/.
April 22, 2024 at 4:03 pm
World Questioner
Why don’t we find fossil evidence of humans hunting dinosaurs?
Also, why is the population bottleneck in the flood inconsistent with genetic evidence? Why is genetic evidence against Adamic descent and the bottleneck in the time of the flood?
What about Neanderthal DNA in Europeans and Denisovan blood in Asians? Some would propose that Shem married a Neanderthal, Ham married a Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and Japeth married a Denisovan. Another, possibility is that Shem married a Denisovan and Japeth married a Neanderthal, but the first possibility seems more likely. Thoughts?
April 22, 2024 at 5:09 pm
World Questioner
Please see https://infogalactic.com/info/Paluxy_River.
March 23, 2023 at 9:58 pm
WorldQuestioner
Ever heard of the gap theory? The main problem with it is the Waw (vav) consecutive between Genesis 1 and 2. As for “and it was so” in each day, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the same Waw consecutive is translated “and.”
Take a look at https://worldconcernsblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/theistic-evolution-theories/. A revision to the first one is called “scheduled creation theory.” In which God on the third day set the plants to be created at a certain time (a few hundred million years ago, and on the fourth day set the sun to be created millions of years before that “certain time” (i.e., just under five billion years ago). The disparities between Genesis 2 and 3 would seem to support it.
What do you think of the merged timeline creation+evolution theory? Can two different pasts have same present outcome? Can two presents have the same future outcome? The evolutionary past was created as a consequence of the fall of sin…
April 11, 2023 at 9:42 pm
WorldQuestioner
Actually, I meant disparities between Genesis 1 and 2. Not 2 and 3.
May 17, 2023 at 9:19 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
I have indeed heard of the gap theory. I considered it myself, and have pondered it for a long time. I have concluded that it is read into Scripture rather than out of it, and is altogether unnecessary, since I believe the evidence for an old earth is manufactured from a misinterpretation of the rock layers of the earth which were laid down rapidly at the time of the flood (which the evolutionists deny and therefore misinterpret the evidence produced by it).
A complete explanation of my arguments against the gap theory would take some time, and would be worthy of an article, not a reply in a comments section. I would say there is far more wrong with the idea Biblically than merely the use of the waw or vav consecutive.
The theory you mention seems to hold that God planned the creation of the earth over seven days, and then carried out that plan over millions of years. The plan is recorded in Genesis rather than the actual execution of it. This idea clashes totally with the actual statements of Genesis 1, which present God as making the things in question, not planning them. The article you link to is highly imaginative, but suffers from the same problem, as well as some logical difficulties.
The imaginary disparities between Genesis 1 and 2 seem to emerge from a misunderstanding of the point of each chapter. The Bible is literature, and contains many forms of literature. One is poetry, as we see it in books like Psalms and Isaiah. Another is wisdom literature, like we see it in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Another and common one is historical narrative, as we have it in many books of the Bible that tell a story. This is the kind of literature Genesis contains generally. In historical narrative books, the type of literature can break down into subcategories. At times we have what we might call historical outline. One example of this is in the book of Kings, in which the reigns of certain kings are listed as to their start, their duration, and a few important details of their reigns. At other times in the Bible, however, the historical narrative can zoom in and record a king’s life in detail. A great example of this is King David, whose life is recorded in detail greater perhaps than any other Old Testament figure. We might call this kind of literature heroic narrative, since it focuses on a “hero” or a certain individual and recording his life.
In Genesis 1 we have what might be called a creation story or creation narrative, an obviously unique genre in the Bible since there can only be one creation. However, it is generally like the historical outline, since it gives each day and the details of what happened on each day in an outline form. Then, when we get to Genesis 2, we focus in on the life of Adam as a heroic narrative. Often, when such transitions from one type of literature to another occur, we start with a repetition and expansion of details given in the previous, outline narrative. That is the case here, when we focus in on the creation of Adam and learn more details about it than were given in the historical outline of the creation story. But there is no real contradiction here, just a difference in detail and focus.
Another supposed disparity between Genesis 1 and 2 is in the story of the making of the animals. In Genesis 2 they are made out of the ground in front of Adam and he then names them all. But this need not be a disparity between the two chapters. The animals were created before Adam, according to Genesis 1. Yet we have no indication that they were created in single pairs, or just how many were made in the beginning. Yet the creation of every kind of animal in front of Adam seems to be just the adding of one more individual to each type of animal already created. I would suggest it was a special creation of a single example of each of the kinds of animals already created, and not a record of the original creation of those animals at all. Indeed, if we read the record carefully, that seems to be what is implied by the narrative.
The creation of one individual of each kind of animal in Genesis 2 seems to be for the purpose of demonstrating and introducing each animal to Adam and giving him the opportunity to name each one. It also was an opportunity for Adam, who was created last, to see God’s creative power and learn about His creation even though he was not there to see it taking place. Finally, by presenting Adam with animal after animal and letting him see how unlike him and inferior to him they were, it allowed him then, when God brought him Eve, to comprehend just how unique and special she was, and to appreciate that here was a unique companion for him far superior to all the other animals in God’s creation.
Therefore I do not see any disparity between Genesis 1 and 2. In fact, though I noticed many of the supposed discrepancies in Scripture myself before I searched out the solution to them, I never noticed this one until someone pointed it out to me. It seems to me truly straining a point. The record appears clear enough, and making this be a discrepancy seems to me to demonstrate more cleverness in desiring to show the Bible up than in actually trying to understand what is said, since the record is plain enough that it seems to me misunderstanding is hardly excusable.
Nathan
May 17, 2023 at 10:34 pm
WorldQuestioner
Can you comment on what I say in https://religionspiritualphilosophy.wordpress.com/2023/04/08/how-to-reconcile-the-bible-with-modern-science/?
How do creationists deal with transitionals like Australopithecus Sediba, Microraptor, and therapsids, as I said in the other comment? Gaps being filled?
January 18, 2024 at 9:52 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
The supposed evolutionary path from apes to humans is far from clear. Creatures which may simply be extinct apes are reconstructed from their bones with human-like features, sometimes from bones that may or may not actually belong to the rest of the ape-like skeleton. Neanderthals, very human-like skeletons, are said to be our ancestors. Yet the Bible indicates that humans used to live nearly a thousand years. This would have an effect on the skeletons; for example, producing a more pronounced brow ridge over time. We simply do not see “old” humans anymore to anything like this extent. Neanderthals may simply have been centuries-old humans.
Much of the evolutionary tree of humans is maintained by ignoring, ridiculing, and suppressing contrary evidence. Out of place fossils of apparently human origin go back to the same periods when these supposed ancestors are found. The scientists who find them are censured, ridiculed, and marginalized. Their scientific methods are questioned, even though much looser methods are accepted for bones that fit the evolutionary narrative. Their human evolutionary tree is created by applying evolutionary bias to what is allowed as evidence, then using their carefully-filtered evidence and claiming it proves evolution.
A complete look at all the evidence would indicate that homo sapiens and human-like animals have lived together all the way back to the deepest strata. This is what one would expect if, in fact, all the rock layers were laid down in the flood, and so they are all, in fact, the same age, not separated by hundreds of millions of years at all. But the evidence is carefully filtered by the evolutionary bias to hide this fact.
I already referred to the book The Hidden History of the Human Race for an examination of the suppressed evidence. This book is not written by young earth creationist Christians, but by Hindus who want humans to be millions of years old, so they present the evidence that way. Yet the point is they show the evidence that is constantly marginalized and ignored that human skeletons and artifacts go back to the supposed-oldest strata.
Nathan
January 18, 2024 at 10:29 pm
World Questioner
Why don’t we find human and dinosaur fossils buried together in the same rock layers? Shouldn’t we find evidence in the fossil record of people hunting dinosaurs?
Evidence of human fossils and artifacts in the deepest, supposed-oldest strata – why don’t they teach that in public schools? Teaching such evidence would not be establishment of religion.
Wouldn’t allowing teachers to teach creationism and intelligent design in public schools be part of the teachers’ rights to free speech?
They should eliminate the “respecting establishment of religion” clause but keep the rest of the First Amendment. Then people would still have the right to free exercise of religion and would still have freedom of speech and freedom of press, but the government could establish government-funded churches. And religious organizations could be funded by taxpayers’ dollars.
Wouldn’t it be possible that creationists are concocting alternative explanations?
April 24, 2024 at 7:21 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
The problem is that “we” aren’t looking. The fact is that many scientists working on archaeology are paid either by the government, which supports atheism and evolutionism, or by so-called science organizations that do the same. They know that if they find out of place fossils…meaning fossils that contradict evolutionary theory…not only will their credibility be questioned, but their funding will be taken away. “We” are unlikely to find anything challenging evolution under those conditions. If anyone is brave enough to bring such evidence forward, he is quietly marginalized. The system is all in place. It practically runs itself.
The ancient Sumerian pottery is full of art showing people PLOWING with dinosaurs. But you won’t find that in modern textbooks.
They aren’t worried about not establishing Christianity. They are out to establish humanism, and evolution is its creation story. Teaching evidence that goes contrary to evolution is not allowed, because it goes against the establishment. There is a religion firmly established. It just doesn’t admit it is a religion. Yet it is, nevertheless.
Constitutionally, of course teachers should be able to teach creationism and intelligent design in public schools. This is completely legal, and has never been illegal. The problem is that their administrators are likely to fire them for doing it. The fact that it isn’t illegal doesn’t matter; they’re still out of a job.
The problem is when a religion claims to not be a religion and is then established. Humanism is a religion, but those who insist it must be taught in the public schools don’t admit it in that context. If we said it was okay for the government to establish religion, in most places it would establish atheism or humanism, not Christianity. We are sadly far past the days when Christianity would have been the religion of choice. The problem is that no one wants to allow us the free practice anymore.
The problem with funding religious organizations with taxpayer dollars is that then the government has the right to establish rules on how those dollars can be used. Who can be hired, what rules have to be followed, etc. Their rules are often not Christian in the slightest.
For thousands of years, the explanation for the world was that it was either made by God or by a series of gods. It was the evolutionists who concocted an alternative explanation involving time, nature, and chance as the purveyors of magical results. This explanation is the height of superstition. A single cell in your body is more complex in its order as it moves materials in and out during a day than the entire city of New York is in the same day. We know that the shipping and receiving in New York was not set up by a series of random dice rolls. How in the world could the order and precision of the cell be the result of such a thing? This idea is madness. As I said, if the idea of pagan gods was superstitious, it had nothing on this, which is taking superstition to perhaps its ultimate height.
The evolutionists have no explanation as to how the order and design in a cell came about. They have no explanation as to how stars formed, and yet current estimates are that there are something like 135,000,000,000,000 stars for EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH to have that many personally and have just as many left over for every other single person on earth. Yet there is no sensible explanation as to how a single one formed! There is no explanation for chemical evolution. A big bang would produce a lot of hydrogen and helium. How in the world did we get to the higher elements? Some suggest inside stars, but how did the stars get there without the higher elements? It’s the chicken or the egg. There is no real explanation for the big bang either. If a black hole has so much gravity that even light cannot escape, how did all the matter in existence get together in one place and then explode and all escape? There is no explanation for cosmic evolution either. There is no explanation for organic evolution. We know life does not come from non-life. So how did life get here then? A dead body contains every element needed for life, yet it is not alive. If you put a frog in a blender and blend it up, all the elements needed for life will be there in the blender. Then add as much energy into the frog soup as you want. Will it come back alive? Of course not! Just getting the chemicals for life together in a soup does not grant life. There is simply no explanation. Nor is there an explanation for how creatures evolve from one into another. The genetic code is so exact and complex it is staggering. It is even worse than suggesting that the Windows operating system could turn into the Halo game by a series of random typos. It is utterly ridiculous! It is not that evolutionists have explanations and creationists have alternative ones. Evolutionist have no explanations. Their idea is bankrupt of explanations. It gets by on force of opinion alone. It doesn’t operate on explanations.
Nathan
April 24, 2024 at 7:41 pm
World Questioner
What about teaching the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus in History Class in public schools?
How does the First Amendment clause “freedom of speech” and “freedom of press” relate to teaching creationism and intelligent design in public schools? Wouldn’t allowing such teaching be equivalent to allowing the teaching of alchemy, that unicorns created the pyramids, or Native American creation stories, or…
“their funding will be taken away” well they could get funds by changing their mind, their plans, and supporting Christianity, and side with Christians and become funded by Christians.
May 2, 2024 at 10:22 pm
World Questioner
If there is scientific evidence against evolution and for young-Earth creation, then why do most arguments against evolution since the 1940’s come from the religious community and almost none from the scientific community?
May 11, 2024 at 6:16 pm
World Questioner
https://infogalactic.com/info/Adam_and_Eve
If Adam and Eve were literal, historical people, then why don’t we find genetic evidence of their literal existence? Why don’t scientists find genetic evidence of Adamic descent?
Why don’t we find genetic evidence of a bottleneck related to a flood ~4,500 years ago?
April 11, 2023 at 8:42 pm
WorldQuestioner
What do you think of https://religionspiritualphilosophy.wordpress.com/2023/04/08/how-to-reconcile-the-bible-with-modern-science/? It’s my new blog… sort of.
June 15, 2023 at 9:40 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
I hate to be negative about your new blog, but it really doesn’t make much sense. What you say sounds like a desperate attempt to have your cake and eat it too. The idea of separate timelines is a creative idea common in science fiction at the moment, and yet it has no basis whatsoever in science fact. People can postulate crazy ideas all they want without evidence, but how could anyone ever observe an alternate timeline to prove it as true? God, who ought to know, makes no mention of alternate timelines in the Bible. He does mention things that could have happened had He acted differently, like Sodom and Gomorrah would have still existed if He had done the mighty works in them He did in some of the cities of Israel. Yet the clear implication there is that He did not do those things, not that He did them in an alternate timeline. Fiction does not define reality. In fictional stories, people may switch between imaginary alternate timelines, yet in reality no such thing takes place.
It seems to me that this fantasy about alternate timelines has two reasons that some are desperate to believe it. One is that, as creationists have pointed out, the odds against any of the wild coincidences of evolution ever happening are astronomically small. In other words, they couldn’t happen and didn’t happen. But this idea of alternate timelines is a desperate (and silly) saving throw. If there are infinite alternate timelines, then statistically impossible things, no matter how ridiculous, might have happened in one of the infinite timelines, right? Secondly, I think it derives from the desire to daydream about an alternate timelines where “I’m not such a loser.” But either way, this idea is crazy. Alternate timelines? This is about the ultimate in what the Bible calls man becoming vain in his imaginations. The time that is is the only one we have to deal with. Other “timelines” exist nowhere but in imagination.
As for the “facts” of science, those that are associated with the evolution theory that are “facts” are few. One problem with evolution is that it basically takes what is really six different evolutionary theories, combines them all as one, presents evidence for a single one of them, and then acts like evolution is proven. Yet this is simply a bait and switch, and is far, far from proving the wild theory of evolution.
First of all is cosmic evolution. It is the idea that everything started in a big bang. When it was first postulated the original conglomeration of matter that was supposed to have exploded was bigger, but over time it kept shrinking smaller and smaller until scientists proclaimed it to be smaller than a period on a page, and finally that it was basically no size at all. In other words, the idea of cosmic evolution comes back to saying that nothing blew up and created everything. This is about as far from being a scientific idea as could be. No one has ever observed anything blowing up and creating an orderly system from the explosion. No one has ever observed nothing blowing up and creating something. There is not a shred of evidence for this idea, and it is mostly just based on the fact that they think certain stellar observations tell them that the universe is expanding. That is a far cry from proving that nothing exploded and made everything.
Secondly is chemical evolution. If we accept the ludicrous possibility of cosmic evolution as having taken place, what such an explosion would produce would be the lower elements like hydrogen and helium. How did these elements get fused together to create the higher elements? There is no known mechanism for this to have happened. Some have proposed that this could have happened inside stars, and that stars could have been the incubators for the higher elements. Yet this just puts us in an impossible chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Which came first, the higher elements to form the stars, or the stars to form the higher elements? There is no evidence for chemical evolution.
Next is stellar evolution. How did the stars form? The number of stars is staggering. I am unsure of the exact math, but I think the estimates would be something like that every single person on earth could own something along the lines of 125 trillion stars! That is a lot of stars. Yet how did those stars form? There is no satisfactory scientific theory to explain even one of the stars, not to mention the beyond-staggering number of them. One proposal is that if twenty stars all went nova close to each other, they might produce enough energy to form a new star. Of course, that just makes the problem even worse. Where did the stars come from? There is no mechanism known to produce even one, not to mention the innumerable number that exist. There is no evidence for stellar evolution.
Next is organic evolution. Where did life come from? It has been discovered by science that there is no spontaneous generation; that life only comes from other life and not from non-life. And yet inherent in the evolutionary theory is that it must believe in the unscientific idea of life coming from non-life. Water splashed on the rocks and leaked chemicals out of the rocks which contained the building blocks of life and somehow that chemical soup spontaneously came alive. This is not scientific, and is in fact contrary to all known science. There is not a shred of evidence for organic evolution.
Fifth is macro evolution. This is the idea that one kind of creature can change into another “given enough time.” We all are aware of the fairy tale wherein a princess kisses a frog and he turns into a prince. We laugh at the silly idea. Yet the evolutionist tells us that, given enough time, the frog could turn into the prince. It is still a fairy tale, no matter how much time you insert in between. The Bible clearly declares and science clearly observes that cats produce cats, dogs produce dogs, frogs produce frogs, and princes produce princes and princesses. No one has ever seen any animal turn into another. Creatures might get blasted with electricity or radiation or something and suddenly mutate and become bigger and stronger and have new limbs and so forth in the Marvel universe, yet this remains true only in fiction. In reality, mutation sickens and kills, and it does not produce anything new or better. Mendelian genetics should have laid the macro evolutionary theory to rest long ago. Instead, it is held on to desperately for religious reasons. There is no evidence for macro evolution.
Finally, the sixth evolutionary idea is micro evolution. That is the idea that, for example, dogs can be bred bigger or smaller, or to herd sheep, or to retrieve animals while hunting, etc. Fish might grow bigger or smaller. People might grow short like pygmies or tall like basketball players. This is all changes within a species or kind of creature. This kind of evolution is completely scientific, and there is a ton of evidence to back it up. It has been observed many, many times with just about every kind of creature that is out there. It is the only one of the six kinds of evolution that is actually factual and scientific.
So what is done is that the six kinds of evolution; the five fantastic, religious evolutionary ideas that lack any evidence; and the one completely scientific evolution that has a mountain of evidence, are all mixed together and proclaimed true based on the evidence for micro evolution. Yet only micro evolution has ever been proven true, and it fits perfectly with the testimony of Scripture, which is that creatures bring forth after their kind, but never denies that there can be differences within a kind. The other five theories of evolution are completely religious, since they are based on assumptions and wishful thinking and lack a shred of evidence or even plausibility. There is no reason to reconcile impossible ideas meant to deny the Creator with the Bible.
Thanks for giving me the chance to comment on your thoughts. I pray I gave you something to think about.
Nathan
November 2, 2023 at 9:53 pm
World Questioner
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div>Check out https://wqscience.wordpress.com/2023/10/02/things-that-would-refute-evolution-if-discovered/. Wh
November 19, 2023 at 5:09 pm
World Questioner
Sorry, my comment was cut off.
Speciation has been observed in birds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NArlXzSFt2Y.
How do we explain the transitions between dinosaurs and birds, such as archaeopterix and microraptor? If the fossil record showed a directed acyclic graph rather than a phylogenetic tree, then it would debunk evolution. If the fossil record showed intermediate forms between dinosaurs and mammals, for example.
I suggest inter-species, inter-genus, and interfamiliar hybrids made transitional forms.
How do we explain the gradual transitions from ape to man in the fossil record, not to mention the human feet of australopithecines? Look up the TalkOrigins response to “All hominid fossils are fully human or fully ape.” I suggest that bestiality with apes by preflood wicked people produced ape/man hybrids.
Why did God make humans mammals, and not some distinct creature that does not fit into any taxonomic group?
Check out https://wqscience.wordpress.com/2023/10/02/things-that-would-refute-evolution-if-discovered/.
Fossils out of place. An out of order fossil record. Paradoxes in the fossil record and evolutionary biology.
December 29, 2023 at 8:17 pm
Precepts
WorldQuestioner,
I checked out your article. While you are correct in your assessment, the fact is that evolution is not held as a scientific idea, but as a religious one by those who hold it. As such, evidence that goes contrary to it is discounted, ignored, or outright suppressed. Plenty of out-of-order fossils have already been found, but they have been discounted by the silent knowledge screen of those whose religion and livelihood depend on supporting evolution.
A good example of a book that chronicles out-of-place fossils and how they have been suppressed is “The Hidden History of the Human Race” by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson. These men are not creationists, and tend to assume that the fossil layers really are millions of years old (instead of all having been laid down at the flood at the same time). Their bias comes from Indian teachings that suggest humans have been around for millions of years. They have painstakingly catalogued all the out-of-place fossils of man that have been systematically ignored, suppressed, and marginalized by the evolutionary establishment.
If it was possible for evolution to be refuted by evidence, that would have already happened. Since at its core it is a religious and not a scientific theory, evidence cannot be allowed to touch it.
Nathan
January 20, 2024 at 3:36 pm
Goshunleed
@ Precepts
December 29, 2023 at 8:17 pm
Re: “evolution is not held as a scientific idea, but as a religious one by those who hold it”
Right like the delusion that is broadly held that human apes are “wise”, homo sapiens…
At the core of homo sapiens is unwisdom (ie, madness) and so the human label of “wise” (ie, sapiens) is a complete collective self-delusion — study the free scholarly essay “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room” … https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
Once you understand that humans are “invisibly” insane (pink elephant people, see cited essay) you’ll UNDERSTAND (well, perhaps) why they, especially their alleged experts, perpetually come up with myths and lies about everything … including about themselves (their nature, their intelligence, their origins, their “supreme” status, etc).
The official narrative is… “trust official science” and “trust the authorities” but as with these and all other “official narratives” they want you to trust and believe …
“We’ll know our Disinformation Program is complete when everything the American public [and global public] believes is false.” —William Casey, a former CIA director=a leading psychopathic criminal of the genocidal US regime
May 1, 2024 at 8:42 pm
Precepts
Goshunleed,
I certainly do agree that the response of the experts to the coronavirus pandemic was sadly deficient in real science or in the true compassion for the victims of the disease outbreak that honest leaders ought to have expressed. That there were cheap and effective treatments that were suppressed in deference to expensive and ineffective treatments that would nevertheless make the pharmaceutical establishments rich is simply the sad reality of the matter.
That said, I do not think the man who wrote the article you linked honestly expected the BMJ to publish his commentary. They had already published a response positive to the use of Vitamin C, apparently. But of course they were not going to publish his article, which they would have looked at as an angry rant. He did not honestly think his article would get published, I would judge, if he knew anything about how such journals work. He simply wanted to vent his spleen, and then get his article up on his website demonstrating what the authorities rejected.
That said, I do not think the man who wrote the article you linked honestly expected the BMJ to publish his commentary. They had already published a response positive to the use of Vitamin C, apparently. But of course they were not going to publish his article, which they would have looked at as an angry rant. He did not honestly think his article would get published, I would judge, if he knew anything about how such journals work. He simply wanted to vent his spleen, and then get his article up on his website demonstrating what the authorities rejected.
The reality is that man’s sad inhumanity to man has been going on since the earliest history. But this does not justify the rather sad pessimism with which you look on the situation. It does not prove that man is a human ape, hopelessly without wisdom. Rather, it proves what is stated in the Bible about the human condition. We read a summary of this in Romans 3:10-18.
10 As it is written:
“There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
13 “Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
The sad reality of humanity is that God made us upright, but we failed to stay that way. As the wise king Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 7:29, “Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes.” This is indeed true. Genesis 1:26 tells us that God made man (the first man Adam) in His Own image, but Genesis 3 tells us that the first man and woman rebelled against God at Satan’s advice. The result, in Genesis 5:3, is that Adam brought forth children in his own image. This image was now corrupted, not upright like God made it in the beginning. We are not apes. We are Divinely-created beings who fell from our original condition. The fall was, sadly, very, very far.
Yet the good and loving God Who made us did not leave us without hope. As Romans 5:6 tells us “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Our Creator had compassion on us and took the penalty of death and destruction that we all deserved for our crimes on Himself. If it weren’t for this, the hopeless reality of our insane condition that you decry would be irreversible. Yet God can and will teach humanity wisdom. Psalm 25:8 says, “Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He teaches sinners in the way.” Though this is true to a limited extent today, it will someday be true in a sweeping sense. God will someday clean up the mess we caused and fix broken humanity. It is the only hope we have.
I can understand and sympathize with your angry despair, my friend. This is all that a clear-eyed survey of the world around us can result in. The sad fact is when we look within ourselves we don’t see the solution, but only see another broken individual not as he should be. Yet the answer to this is the good God Who made us, and Who came Himself in human form to identify with us and pay our penalty in our place. I would urge you not to give up hope. The problems you point out do not show that we are hopeless apes without wisdom who will never amount to anything. They only show what the Bible has insisted all along: that we desperately need God, that we were madly foolish to cast Him off in the first place, but that He was far better than any of us ever imagined, and that He will be the ultimate solution to all our problems, if only we will let him. Look to Christ, my friend. In Him is true hope and victory.
Nathan