I’ve been reading evolutionist and creationist materials since junior high school. Back then, people had very strong opinions, of course, but it was considered a difficult, unsettled question. No one damned anyone else over their opinion about how old the earth might be.
Batsell Barrett Baxter, the head of Lipscomb’s Bible department and the face of “The Herald of Truth” TV program sponsored by countless Churches of Christ, argued for an ancient earth in his book I Believe Because… A Study of the Evidence Supporting Christian Faith.
But a few years later, the young-earth creationist (YEC) camp began to take a hard line. National figures such as Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research began to argue that any view other than the YEC view is heresy. The Apologetics Press, a group affiliated with the Churches of Christ out of Montgomery, Alabama, published Bert Thompson’s Theistic Evolution, arguing that acceptance of theistic evolution will send you to hell. (I’m told that Thompson later came to regret that paragraph at the end of his book.)
And since sometime in the early 70s, many in the YEC camp have increasingly drawn a deep, dark line in the sand, damning those who dare disagree with their point of view.
A favorite argument runs along these lines. A YEC advocate points out that prominent atheists declare that evolution by natural selection is inconsistent with a belief in God. It is assumed that atheists speak the truth on this matter. Christian readers are assured that the atheists are right.
Is it not obvious that we have no business whatsoever letting atheists tell us what is and isn’t consistent with a belief in God? Are we really so gullible as to believe that atheists who are trying to destroy our faith understand the Bible and God’s will as well as Christians do? Surely, we can find a better source of authority!
Here are a few reasons the atheists are wrong (and I’m embarrassed to even have to explain to a Christian audience why they shouldn’t accept atheists as authorities on Christianity) —
* Grace. Have we forgotten that Christians are forgiven of their sins by the blood of Jesus Christ, who died on a Roman cross for us? If it’s error to believe in an ancient earth, it’s not damning error. We are saved by faith in Jesus, not faith in the age of the earth.
* We don’t ask converts to confess their faith in the age of the earth before being baptized — because that particular doctrine is not essential to having faith in Jesus. We all know people on both sides of the issue who have a genuine faith.
It’s just wrong to argue that because my opponent believes X he must logically believe Y and therefore he is damned or whatever. It’s wrong to accuse someone of a position he doesn’t actually take.
Most human beings hold to logically inconsistent positions on all sorts of things. We are all masters of compartmentalization — and it’s just not a damnable sin.
* This very argument — that evolution by natural selection is inconsistent with belief in God — has driven countless young people out of the church and into faithlessness. The fruit of tree indicates the tree’s nature — and it’s poisonous.
I refuse to get caught in such rhetoric. On either side. There are good people, filled with love and faith in Jesus, with all sorts of points of view on the age of the earth and how to reconcile Genesis 1 with scientific orthodoxy — or not. They are not damned for being wrong, those who are wrong, whoever they may be. And those who are right must be humble and gracious toward the others.
The Bible is far harsher in its condemnation of division, slander, and denial of the salvation of those saved on the same terms as the rest of us — by grace — than it is on rejecting a YEC interpretation of Genesis 1.
Here”s a radical thought. People often believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts or regardless of the provable science. It happened before World War II. It happened with Vietnam. It happened with smoking. It happens when we decide to get married. It is happening now with climate change. It happens when we decide to trust any human being. You can give me 100 reasons why Obama is a great president. I can give you a 150 reasons why he is not. Will either of us convince the other?
Apologetics Press recites a 1000 reasons to believe. Richard Dawkins cites just as many to prove there is no God. Some of Apologetics Press reasons are screwy. All of Dawkins’ are blasphemous, even though some of them were spoken by men of faith in the pages of scripture before Dawkins was born.
a.) Are we born predetermined to believe? b.) Are we miraculously drawn by God to a saving Faith? c.) Or did we, like Joe Friday, just listen to the facts and accept them because it all made sense? Are you lost because you chose “B” and not “C”? Is it the least little bit possible that I will never know this side of heaven? Is it possible that even in heaven only God has that answer?
I like to study things that increase my faith. Sometimes it is archeology. Sometimes it is science. Sometimes it is something from Apologetics Press. Sometimes Einstein. Most of the time it is the Bible.
Are we drawn by God’s kindness? Can we only accept what God gives us to accept? Do we believe because of the miracles and the prints of the nails? How is it that others can believe without seeing? Why did the prostitutes and tax collectors believe, but the learned men did not?
Has Apologetics Press caused anyone to believe? Or was it the gospel message? Has Richard Dawkins caused anyone to disbelieve?
Maybe we shall all be taught of God, not in words of rationality but words from the Spirit of God. Maybe the gospel itself divides us like a sharpened sword into believing and unbelieving apart from any thing we add about dinosaurs or 24 hour days, or floods. Maybe faith is a gift for which we pray. Maybe faith itself is a work which we must choose.
And perhaps if I am allowed to share the gospel with someone, then what happens in their heart is between that person and God alone. Emphasizing the age of the minerals in the soil does not give life to the seed. Maybe I just need to sow.
Here is one of my opinions that can tie in a young earth with science (I studied solar system astrophysics for what it is worth). One of the big phenomena that cosmologists point out is that there was a time after the beginning where the universe rapidly expanded. It is called inflationary theory. The tumblers don’t line up unless cosmologists include inflation in their calculations. THUS, the universe initially expanded at extremely high speeds. Time slows down as speed goes up thus giving the illusion that the universe is older than it is. The Bible claims the same thing in many verses where it is said, “God stretched out the heavens”. Isaiah 44:24; 45:12; 51:13; Jer 10:12; 51:15. By God rapidly stretching out the heavens a long time scale appears to observers today but in fact the universe was created in a much shorter period of time. I won’t swear by this theory but it does reconcile scientific observations with the Bible.
COOL….
More than 50 years ago, as a young preacher under 25, a member of the congregation about my age asked if belief in a literal 7-day creation was essntial to salvation. My reply was consistent with this post. In the intervening years I’ve vasillated on that question at times, but for many years I’ve been in agreement with what Jay has written here. Other than faith in Jesus, I know of no belief so important that failure to accept it will damn. If there are such doctrines, it’s not my place to damn them anyway.
I agree, You might ask with who do I agree, I say with all of you, because I don’t know anymore about the subject than anybody else.
Skip speaks well and Jay speaks well to the effect that we with differing ideas of how He did it all agree that GOD created. I’ve recently run across a series of videos by a Florida Christian now in the penitentiary because of differing views than those of our marvelous I.R.S. Hovind believes in a young earth and explains why. He’s by no means the only defender of such science. I recently enjoyed hearing a series of sermons by G. Thomas Sharp of Oklahoma who holds the same view as Hovind. I recommend that anyone interested in WHY we believe the universe was created in six days should access the Hovind videos and examine the teaching of Dr. Sharp.
In Genesis 1 it says “there was evening and the morning” for each of the 6 days of creation. Unless God made days differently then than they are now, it is clear that each day was 24 hours. But we are talking God here. If we believe in an infinite God then God can create the universe in any time frame he wishes. Why anyone would struggle with 6 days of creation and at the same time claim to believe God is infinite is beyond me.
It’s pretty clear by now to most that the earth is far older than 6,000 years old.. It’s embarrassing that so many want to hold to some crazy theories from preachers and kook scientists that want to allow for God to say “poof” and it come into existence… It’s a testimony that has driven away countless young people, who know better because if we can’t be real about something like this then why believe in Jesus’ resurrection…?? Jeremiah 33:25 says that God created a “fixed order” of heaven and earth.. God created the principals of physics, etc… poof wasn’t His way. At this point science and religion agree…In the beginning… let’s try and work it out from there and quit insisting that the universe rotates around the flat earth..
The problem arises when some attempt to combine the age of the earth with evolution.. They are two separate discussions.. Random mutation seems to break down at every demonstrable point. Intelligent design seems far more plausible… God said that over a period of time (yom) that the “earth brought forth.” OK.. here again, “poof” seems unreliable and inconsistent with the fixed order of natural laws that God created and designed to control…
Jay is right however that we don’t ask people to submit their lives to the earth as Lord and savior. Jesus is the key.. But, it’s difficult to convince people of the resurrection when still trying to get people to believe in the Easter Bunny…
Being in science for some 40 years, trust me, the experts are never settled and when they claim they have the answer, the next generation proves them wrong. Whatever is claimed as absolute truth for our physical universe will change as new discoveries are made. Remember, the “experts” thought the world was flat. The “experts” thought the sun revolved around the earth. The jury is still out in my book.
@ Skip, you might be right.. However, the speed of light is fairly demonstrable and proven.. How far are some of these stars ? Universes ? Galaxies ??
Price, Billions of light years apart. But if God, “stretched out” the heavens as the scripture says, he could have stretched them to their current position in an instant so our big bang predictions would be way off.
@ Skip.. If he followed his “fixed order of heaven and earth” as He said he created in Jeremiah, then it was done according to the laws that He created…Poof isn’t one of those laws… Could He have, sure…If He could create a big bang He can do whatever He pleases I suppose… But, He said we could learn about Him through nature… Making things appear to be something that they are not isn’t an indication of who He is in my limited judgment..
Price, So you think we have discovered all laws? How are you so sure? How many years passed before we discovered Coulombs law? What about the recent laws of quantum mechanics. There has to be laws yet to discover.
Price, Plus, “fixed order” means orderly. The scripture says God “stretched out the heavens”. Why is the rapid expansion that scientists have discovered not orderly?
Price said, Making things appear to be something that they are not isn’t an indication of who He is in my limited judgment.. I totally agree with Price deception is not the way of the God I know. on any level.
@ Skip… this is exactly the reason that so many refuse to listen to the CoC… the argument isn’t against any KNOWN science.. The argument presented is basically, “What if”… What if we haven’t discovered some unknown law of the universe that would make me right ? What if 2 plus 2 is really 5… It’s an argument against an unknown versus confronting the science that is before us. The Hebrew used in the creation account allows for a much longer period than a 24 hour day.. All of science… not some of it but all of it confirms the earth to be billions of years old.. there is no verifiable fact that suggests anything else.. so, the YEC suggest that there could be something that we don’t yet know.. which obviously is true… but to what end? To support a 17th century translation of Hebrew ? Or, to confirm a traditional belief that cannot be defended any other way that hypothetical challenge ? Is it worth loosing that much credibility and testimony with the secular world ? I hardly think so but to each his/her own. I find that allowing for the Bible and Science to agree puts us in a much better position to debate random chance with intelligent design… to speak of a creator of the Big Bang.. To speak of how an ancient manuscript could be so precise about the origins of the universe… To speak of God. That’s not going to happen when the only argument in support of King James’ interpretation is .. What if ?
I like this line “I like to study things that increase my faith.” I used to be interested in this discussion — and tried to make sense out of all the arguments pro & con. But it just made my head spin (and I am a reasonably intelligent person with an earned doctorate in Engineering).
As I studied and read I arrived at a conclusion that I didn’t care what the answer was because either way it didn’t threaten my faith that “In the beginning God” but I also saw that in some cases taking a “hard line” on one position or another could cause others to lose faith.
My statement to young people is you can rationally believe that “God made the universe and the laws that govern it”. And based on that faith you can understand that Man has been discovering (sometimes incorrectly) what God put in place (see Ecclesiastes) ever since God created man (however & whenever) – and will continue to do so”. What knowledge man has in any field — and any intellectually honest researcher will admit this — is only a very small fraction of what is out there — and each “breakthrough” generates more questions than it answers (or points to whole new areas of study). True knowledge from any source (Bible or science) will always be consistent so always believe those things that serve to increase your faith and know that any theory that tears down your faith is not worth listening too (or arguing about).
People who set up a conflict between science and faith – believers or atheists – are always wrong and misguided because it all came from one God.
God Bless
Charlie
Price, Perhaps you are not a scientist like me. I fully believe science and the Bible are in accord. But science discoveries continue right? You come across as if all science is settled – which it isn’t. Plus God compares seven days of the week in the law as compared to the 7 days of creation and rest. Why would God lie to us about days.
To those who have studied science,
Using science to define anything is it acceptable to not use all of created matter as a basis for identifying what exists? As I view a scientist at work to identify any object he must accept and apply all the material within the realm of his study. Since I have not studied science as a textbook subject for over 50 years, and many of you know what concepts were being promoted then. I need to ask a question that I had asked many years ago which no one has ever explained to me. If everything in and on earth is used while analyzing the duration of time, we would have to use living matter as well as what is now not living, of course anything that is now dead (not living) would have only a deterioration rate, but living matter, plants and animals cannot continue to live using the deterioration rate time. Therefore, would science be bound to analyze and identify how living matter found today that is very dependent upon one session of light and one session of darkness (in today’s time frame that is identified as one day or 24 hours) could have continued to live in an world where light and darkness was of greater length? As far as I know probably all of the remains of matter that was once living especially air breathing plants and animals are made up of the same elements as they are today. Would that not identify that those remains would have required almost exactly the same living environment as is necessary today?
I really appreciate Jay’s take on this conversation. We catch ourselves tearing at each other so often over these things that we don’t realize just how destructive our behavior is to unbelievers. It’s true that someone may ask you one day, “do you believe in a six day creation?” and we should be willing to have a humble answer for them, but they will only ask us if we have demonstrated a lifestyle that reflects the life changing faith of a transformed believer who worships God with integrity and humility.
I love science. I am not a scientist by any means but I read and study as much as times allows for in physics, and in particular, quantum mechanics. The amazing thing about quantum mechanics is the fluidity of its nature. It doesn’t behave how we might expect. The idea that things can be connected over seemingly endless distances or that the singularity is a real thing is amazing to me. The larger the known creation becomes the more I am amazed by God. The sheer vastness of imagination on these issues blows me away. It is in some ways very humbling to imagine that creation is bigger than my human mind can imagine, and more complex than my brain can fully comprehend. Science has opened a door meant to demystify our world and it has walked us to the point of complete awe at the miracle of nature itself. It is enough to put the fear of God into me.
For those of you science guys and gals out there check out this recent tedtalks:
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_adams_the_discovery_that_could_rewrite_physics
I echo the thoughts expressed repeatedly by Skip—science isn’t finished discovering and correcting itself.
Larry, YES.
How old did Adam and Eve appear when they were created?
We spend a lot of time debating things we will never understand while on this earth.
Alabama John,
Bingo. Adam and eve were made in a day but apparently appeared as full grown adults. Otherwise God would have had to nurse them, change their diapers, teach them to talk and walk, etc… A mature universe could have been created rapidly in like manner.
If you believe in a young earth, you can’t believe in light years, now matter how stretched the universe may have been at creation. Stars couldn’t be more than 6000 light years away. Or God chose to create “already traveling light,” which is a REALLY bizarre concept.
AJ you are right, if we were to find out how HE did it, I really doubt we could duplicate his work.
Accept, and believe that is something we have grown to hate. Why ? because science says we need proof. We cut a dead body apart to see what killed it, we tear the bible apart and try to kill it.
Timothy,
I never said that I believe in a young earth or an old earth. You assume that Adam and Eve were only in the Garden a short time. Nothing is said about how long they were there before the fall. It could have been days, weeks, months, years, centuries, millennia, etc… They originally were immortals. The universe originally was perfect with no decay. In addition, you are restricting God to light speeds. Why couldn’t God “stretch out” the heavens at any speed he wished. Did Jesus obey any known laws when he was raised from the dead or walked on water? God made the entire universe from NOTHING, ZEO, NADDA. He did not reform existing material. So why are we getting trapped into thinking that we have mastered all the laws of physics, that God had to obey these laws in creation, and we know exactly how God must have done this? Perhaps we should just consider creation as it really is – a miracle. Why do we believe in miracles in the NT but don’t think God used a miracle in creation.
In addition Exodus 20:8-11 makes it plain that God created in 6 literal days: “8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
God compares our 6 days of work and our Sabbath rest with his creation in 6 days and his rest. In the same paragraph did he mean 6 24 hour days for us but billions of years for his “days”? How else can you read this but to say that a day in Genesis 1 is the same as a day referred to here in Exodus. If God can do miracles then this is not a problem for him. We need to quit forcing God to obey our notions of how he created the universe and let the infinite God of miracles do his thing.
Jay said:
And since sometime in the early 70s, many in the YEC camp have increasingly drawn a deep, dark line in the sand, damning those who dare disagree with their point of view.
I remember when I was a young Christian (and a theistic evolutionist) hearing about those YECs who were going around saying that anyone who didn’t believe in a literal 6-day creation were going to hell. However, when I started reading YEC materials, I did not find that to be the case. Now I can’t comment on what Henry Morris said in the 70s, and Apologetics Press, being associated with the churches of Christ, just added one more thing to list of things that damn people to hell. I’m also sure there are YEC today who claim that belief in a literal 6-day is a salvation issue, but they are on the fringes of the YEC movement. The mainstream YEC organizations do not claim that this is a salvation issue. For example, here are some articles from probably the three largest and most influential YEC organizations – Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries, and the Institute for Creation Research:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v9/n1/souls-at-stake
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v6/n1/gospel-young-earth
http://creation.com/is-it-possible-to-be-a-christian-and-an-evolutionist
http://creation.com/can-christians-believe-evolution
http://creation.com/do-i-have-to-believe-in-a-literal-creation-to-be-a-christian
http://www.icr.org/article/belief-young-earth-necessary-be-christian/
If you look at the articles, it is clear that they do take a strong stance on a 6-day literal creation, and they very unapologetically point out the logical inconsistency of trying to add millions of years of death and suffering before Adam and Eve’s sin and how it undermines the foundation of the Gospel. They also unapologetically critique and show the fallacies of the arguments for an old earth that specific individuals or groups, such as Hugh Ross or BioLogos, make, and they warn of the damage that this thinking is doing to the church and to society. However, they are not saying that these individuals aren’t Christians and are going to hell. I see no difference in what they are doing than in Jay critiquing Michael Shank’s Muscle and Shovel because of its false and harmful teachings. Or Paul rebuking Peter for his actions that were leading Christians astray.
So if we’re going to discuss evolution and the age of the earth, then we need to engage with the arguments that YECs are actually making rather than react emotionally to what others are saying that the YECs say.
Price said:
It’s pretty clear by now to most that the earth is far older than 6,000 years old.. It’s embarrassing that so many want to hold to some crazy theories from preachers and kook scientists that want to allow for God to say “poof” and it come into existence… It’s a testimony that has driven away countless young people, who know better because if we can’t be real about something like this then why believe in Jesus’ resurrection…?? Jeremiah 33:25 says that God created a “fixed order” of heaven and earth.. God created the principals of physics, etc… poof wasn’t His way. At this point science and religion agree…In the beginning… let’s try and work it out from there and quit insisting that the universe rotates around the flat earth..
First of all, even if everyone believed the earth is far older than 6000 years, that doesn’t mean that’s the truth. Is it “pretty clear by now to most” because they have reviewed the evidence and the arguments on both sides and made an informed decision, or is it because they have been indoctrinated to believe in millions of years by the public school system, government funded museums, the media, and pop culture? From infancy children are already indoctrinated in this belief through books and cartoons. As for scientists, not only were they indoctrinated in evolution and millions of years, but their careers depend on them following the party line. For example:
‘Science … is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as ‘truth’ is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time … [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm — in this case neo-Darwinism — so it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict the paradigm to get a hearing. They’ll find it difficult to [get] research grants; they’ll find it hard to get their research published; they’ll, in fact, find it very hard.’
– Professor Evelleen Richards, Science Historian, University of NSW, Australia, Lateline, 9 October 1998, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“Supporters of the big bang theory may retort that these theories do not explain every cosmological observation. But that is scarcely surprising, as their development has been severely hampered by a complete lack of funding. Indeed, such questions and alternatives cannot even now be freely discussed and examined. An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences. Whereas Richard Feynman could say that “science is the culture of doubt”, in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding.
Even observations are now interpreted through this biased filter, judged right or wrong depending on whether or not they support the big bang. So discordant data on red shifts, lithium and helium abundances, and galaxy distribution, among other topics, are ignored or ridiculed. This reflects a growing dogmatic mindset that is alien to the spirit of free scientific inquiry.
Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. Funding comes from only a few sources, and all the peer-review committees that control them are dominated by supporters of the big bang. As a result, the dominance of the big bang within the field has become self-sustaining, irrespective of the scientific validity of the theory.
Giving support only to projects within the big bang framework undermines a fundamental element of the scientific method — the constant testing of theory against observation. Such a restriction makes unbiased discussion and research impossible. To redress this, we urge those agencies that fund work in cosmology to set aside a significant fraction of their funding for investigations into alternative theories and observational contradictions of the big bang. To avoid bias, the peer review committee that allocates such funds could be composed of astronomers and physicists from outside the field of cosmology.
Allocating funding to investigations into the big bang’s validity, and its alternatives, would allow the scientific process to determine our most accurate model of the history of the universe.”
– An Open Letter to the Scientific Community (cosmologystatement.org) published in New Scientist, May 22, 2004.
“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
[Crichton gave a number of examples where the scientific consensus was completely wrong for many years.]
“… Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E = mc². Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.”
– Crichton, Michael, Aliens cause Global Warming, 17 January 2003 speech at the California Institute of Technology (http://s8int.com/crichton.html or http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122603134258207975 or http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf)
See also Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
Finally, anyone who refuses to believe in God has no choice to believe in evolution and millions of years, or they have nothing to explain how we got here. Therefore, their conclusions are dictated by their beliefs whether or not the facts support them.
‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
-Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.
Timothy Archer said:
If you believe in a young earth, you can’t believe in light years, now matter how stretched the universe may have been at creation. Stars couldn’t be more than 6000 light years away. Or God chose to create “already traveling light,” which is a REALLY bizarre concept.
See the following link for a discussion in the latest creation cosmologies that address the light travel problem.
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter5.pdf
Again, The speed of light us not the upper limit. I think we fall into a trap saying God can’t make things travel faster than light.
Skip said,” I never said that I believe in a young earth or an old earth. You assume that Adam and Eve were only in the Garden a short time. Nothing is said about how long they were there before the fall. It could have been days, weeks, months, years, centuries, millennia, etc… They originally were immortals.”
Skip, does being immortals, mean they were not alive.?
Gen 5:5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
I believe they had days then, maybe the very first thing created was time.
Laymond, Adam was perfect and immortal until the fall. The fall changed everything. Mortal Adam began after the fall. Disease, numbered days, etc. began after the fall.
WE think very small and shallow when we guess at our universes size and age. Think bigger and of how it was before God created it.
Where was God and where was heaven before our universe? Where and how old is heaven and God?
If we are going to guess, guess big! The bigger the explanation, the smarter the person seems to those listening.
In the real world, its all about ego.
Skip said ” numbered days, etc. began after the fall.”
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Sounds to me like numbered days started before man. But what do I know? after all you are the one with the most merit badges.
Skip,
God can violate his own laws of nature at will. Of course. But to go faster than light would be to accomplish a miracle. Miracles happen, and so it’s not impossible. But the physics are well established experimentally and observationally for the non-miraculous case.
Jim,
I’m familiar with the time dilation issue. A future post will cover with an answer that fits much better and with far fewer ad hoc assumptions (none) than the theories discussed in the book, which fail to result in a universe 6,000 years old. But the time dilation issue is key. I agree with the author’s intuition, but the answer, I think, is far simpler.
Skip, I read from Gen 1:1 through Gen 5:5 where it said Adam died,( just in case I missed something the first of many times I have read it ) and I did not see anything that confirmed what you said. “Adam was perfect and immortal” I looked and didn’t find anything to back your statement, I did find where Adam was denied immortality by denying him the tree of life. and surely God did begin numbering days much earlier than you said, God said he rested on the seventh day. Surely he understood what he was saying. Please show me in scripture where you read what you said.
Jim,
In your later comment, you cite to an article saying that the Big Bang is not a consensus theory and we should look to alternative theories being suggested. Here you say the Big Bang is required faith for scientists. You can’t have it both ways.
I personally grew up in a world where the Big Bang was only one theory among others — steady state and oscillating universe were alternatives many scientists preferred. I followed the evidence as it came in and was not “indoctrinated” by anyone, having read a great deal of Young Earth Creationist material as well as more orthodox cosmological materials. I majored in math and minored in physics. I studied relativity in college. I am not the victim of a vast scientific conspiracy.
The truth of the creation will not be determined by attacking the good faith of your opponents. I live in a university city and have friends who are astronomers. They are not collaborating to destroy faith in God. And as the article you cite in your next comment plainly shows, unorthodox theories get a hearing in the scientific community — when they come from people who know what they’re talking about.
Hence, even though the Big Bang theory is far more consistent with the biblical record than the alternatives, many atheistic scientists have conceded the point despite wishing it were not true — because they see the Big Bang as encouraging the Christian community as it posits creation ex nihilo.
Please don’t argue your case by ad hominem attacks on the scientific community. It’s not persuasive and not fair. Of course science does not have all the answers. This is a discussion among Christians. No one will disagree. But the skyscrapers built based on physics stand, and the spacecraft sent to Saturn get there. And science is not complete, but neither is it a farce.
In those cases where scientific consensus changed, how did the consensus change? Well, scientists made new discoveries and science changed. And, indeed, astronomers and physicists are happy to tell you what they think they know and what they know they don’t know. And maybe the theories will be reshaped around the edges, as happened when Einstein corrected Newton — but Newton’s equations still effectively describe the motions of the planets around the Sun — other than Mercury, where relativistic effects change the math noticeably.
And the unorthodoxy of Mercury’s orbit was known long before Einstein figured out why it doesn’t follow Newton’s laws. Science didn’t hide the problem. It was just one of many problems not yet solved until General Theory of Relativity was put forward.
And even now, the physicists are the first to admit that there are gaps in their knowledge and that some things now thought true might be proven false later. But that doesn’t mean that physics is of no value and has no truth. After all, I’ve known a Christian or two how had to revise his thinking over the years. That doesn’t make Christianity false or useless. It just means everyone but God is fallible — and yet the skyscrapers stand and the spacecraft make it to Saturn.
Jim,
I didn’t say that all or even most Young Earth Creationists damn those they disagree with. I said “many” do. And many do. In Church of Christ circles, the Apologetics Press has considerable influence on such matters, and they are quite willing to question the salvation of those who reject a young earth — and they have many disciples in the Churches.
Seems to me that Genesis 1:1 describes a pretty Big Bang!
If God had told us just how He had created, would any of us (including our greatest scientists) be able to understand it? Would anyone even try to understand it, or would it be dismissed as impossible because it did not agree with science?
Science can only deal with observable phenomena and objects. Revelation and faith deal with things that are not seen – at least part of the time. Science depends on repeatable experimentation. Theology depends on testimony of witnesses and revelation.
Is theology a leap in the dark? I don’t think so. The resurrection of Jesus is an event, testified to by many, and is still the only logical explanation for Christianity beginning the way it did, though many have tried to discredit the witnesses and their testimony.
Why not go to the lynch pin of our faith, an event that is at the heart of the gospel instead of worrying about whether Baalam’s ass spoke? If Christ is not raised, we are of all men most miserable. If he has been raised, as I am confident he has, then everything has changed and our faith is secure.
While there may well be a place for discussion of the things talked about in these comments, do we have to approach them with the almost frantic compulsion to prove them as the only way to support our faith? Nor do we need to abandon our faith because of the consensus of “science”! As someone observed, science once had a consensus that the earth is flat and is the center of the universe. “Science says” is a constantly shifting standard, whereas God does not change.
We must e humble enough to confess that though God does not change, our understanding of Him and His Word does change. If it isn’t growing, we ain’t growing – and that’s the tragedy for many of us, I fear.
Jay, Tachyons travel faster than light if I am not mistaken.
Laymond, Adam had full access to the tree of life. Only after the fall did God remove this access. That is the basis of my point.
Jerry, My faith does not rise or fall based on how we interpret creation in Genisis.
Skip, Adam and Eve had the chance of eternal life, but they chose sin and disobedience over immortality , we still have that choice, but most likely most will make the wrong choice once again.
Neither Adam nor Eve was ever immortal, because if they had been, they would not be dead now.
Immortality is not a thing you have one day, and you are dead the next.
Gen 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
I know it is hard to admit we misspoke, but we sometimes do.
Laymond, My point was that in the garden they were in a perfect world with perfect access to God, the tree of life, and no decay. Their sin got them kicked out and they lost access to the tree if life. It is restored in the book of revelation.
Just want to say Happy Birthday to you, Jay! The number of your days are not up yet, may you be blessed with more days that the Lord has made to rejoice and be glad in 🙂
Skip, I know you were giving a ridiculous scenario to make a pointless, point. We do that a lot around here.
Consider the possibility that the Fall constituted more than just the eviction of a couple from a nice garden home. Could it be that the earth is of indeterminate age, because the universe was not a “closed system” until the Fall? Before the Fall, God continued to drive the universe along by his own word of creation, but at the Fall, He ceased to do this, the system closed, and entropy set in. (In this sense, “death entered the world” makes more broad and universal sense than the idea that the grass never died before.) We have been winding down ever since Adam bit the mango. Clearly, global weather patterns started changing– ask Noah’s neighbors about rain. In this scenario, both Newton and Darwin might be right up to a point. God-driven evolution may well have been the norm until the Fall, and the lack of motive energy afterward could explain the lack of recent evolutionary evidence.
It’s not the conclusions, but their underlying assumptions, which are of real interest. One I particularly like is the speculation about how old Adam was when he was born, er, made, and how old he was when he was evicted from Eden. Folks who offer opinions on this subject appear to have nothing to base this upon except, perhaps, Renaissance paintings. Adam was born as a twenty-something with a six-pack, if Michelangelo is among the prophets. 😉
Laymond said, “Skip, I know you were giving a ridiculous scenario to make a pointless, point. We do that a lot around here.” You don’t play well with others do you?
This is probably a waste of electrons but my point one last time is that before the fall, Adam and Eve lived in a sin-free paradise with no decay, no death, and were eating from the tree of life. Thus, they could live forever. Alas they sinned and then launched a world of decay and sin. THIS IS CLEARLY WRITTEN IN: Genesis 3:22 “And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” What part of “live forever” do you not agree with?
The tree of life is mentioned again and appears 4 times in the book of Revelation.
Charles, I fully agree with and appreciate your articulate explanation. If Adam was created as a mature man it also points to the fact that the universe was probably born as a mature universe. A new earth would have been uninhabitable.
Skip,
tachyons have been shown to not exceed the speed of light
There was an early hypothesis to the contrary by Feinberg but it didn’t stand up
PS — Its an argument solely from poetry but if light is the only constant in the universe and even time must yield to light’s constancy, then “God is light” takes on new meaning.
And God is, after all, a poet.
Jay, According to the science channel website (And I recognize this is not the most authoritative source): “There are several potential exceptions to the idea that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. For example, right after the Big Bang occurred, it appears that the universe expanded at a rate faster than the speed of light. However, this does not necessarily violate the mass-energy paradox of light-speed travel, since the empty space that was (and still is) expanding has zero mass. Many physicists also believe in faster-than-light action at a distance on the quantum scale — for instance, quantum entanglement shows that subatomic particles can react to information about one another instantly, even if they are separated by long distances”
This goes back to one of my earlier posts where I mention that scientists refer to inflation theory (a period of rapid expansion). Several times in scripture it is said, “God stretched out the heavens” (Is 45:12, Jer 10:12; 51:15; Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Is 44:24 etc…). I personally believe that God rapidly expanded everything at the beginning of creation so that galactic distances are greater than what can be explained merely by a big bang.
Jay said:
In your later comment, you cite to an article saying that the Big Bang is not a consensus theory and we should look to alternative theories being suggested. Here you say the Big Bang is required faith for scientists. You can’t have it both ways.
I don’t believe I said that the Big Bang is required faith for scientists. I did say “anyone who refuses to believe in God has no choice but to believe in evolution and millions of years” because if God did not create life then it had to have evolved somehow, which requires millions of years to even be remotely possible (not that it is anyway). So millions of years are required for any secular worldview whether that comes from the Big Bang, Steady State model, oscillating universe, or any other theory that results in an old enough universe for evolution to occur here on earth.
The point of that post was to address Price’s statement that, “It’s pretty clear by now to most that the earth is far older than 6,000 years old.” My points were that 1) there is a huge indoctrination campaign going on regarding evolution and millions of years, 2) scientists experience very strong pressure to not challenge the reigning paradigm or they will lose their jobs or funding, and 3) anyone who refuses to believe in God has no choice but to believe in evolution and millions of years so their conclusions are driven by their prior beliefs.
I’m very glad to hear that you have followed the evidence and studied both sides and are “not the victim of a vast scientific conspiracy.” I never meant to imply that, and if my post came across that way then I sincerely apologize. You also said, “The truth of the creation will not be determined by attacking the good faith of your opponents. I live in a university city and have friends who are astronomers. They are not collaborating to destroy faith in God.” I absolutely agree that there are many people (probably most) who believe differently than me on evolution and the age of the earth that are not collaborating to destroy faith in God, and I am not addressing such people here. However, there is a huge effort to indoctrinate the masses, especially our children, to believe in evolution and millions of years, as can be seen from the following quotes.
“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?”
– Potter, Charles F., signatory of the 1930 Humanist Manifesto I, Humanism: A New Religion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), p. 128–129.
I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism … .
It will undoubtedly be a long, arduous, painful struggle replete with much sorrow and many tears, but humanism will emerge triumphant. It must if the family of humankind is to survive.
-J. Dunphy, A Religion for a New Age, The Humanist, Jan.–Feb. 1983, 23, 26 (emphases added), cited by Wendell R. Bird, Origin of the Species Revisited, vol. 2, p. 257.
Today evolution and millions of years is fiercely protected from criticism or alternate theories in public schools. Now I’m not advocating teaching creation in public schools, I’m just pointing out that there is a huge suppression of any dissenting views. The atheistic anti-creationist Eugenie Scott, leader of the anti-creationist National Center for Science Education, tacitly admitted that if students heard criticisms of evolution, they might end up not believing it. She said:
“In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and may lead them to reject one of the major themes in science.”
-Larry Witham, Where Darwin Meets the Bible, p. 23, Oxford University Press, 2002.]
So I’m not trying to demonize those who disagree with me, especially my brothers and sisters in Christ, but I’m also not naïve about the forces in this world that are collaborating to destroy faith in God. My point is simply that many people, Jay NOT included, who believe in evolution and millions of years do so simply because that’s the only thing they’ve been exposed to. They’ve never heard another explanation, and they’re not being allowed to hear another explanation. So even if most people believe the earth is much older than 6000 years, it’s irrelevant.
My second point was that scientists experience very strong pressure to not challenge the reigning paradigm or they will lose their jobs or funding. You said, “And as the article you cite in your next comment plainly shows, unorthodox theories get a hearing in the scientific community — when they come from people who know what they’re talking about.” I’m not sure which article I cited shows that unorthodox theories get a hearing in the scientific community. The first two quotes in the post, which are from secular scientists not creationists, show that challenging, or even suggesting that there are problems with, the reigning theory is detrimental to a scientist’s career. For example, in An Open Letter to the Scientific Community, the authors say, “in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding.” The authors also say, “such questions and alternatives cannot even now be freely discussed and examined. An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences,” which agrees with what Michael Crichton said about consensus being “a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.”
The point was that unorthodox theories DON’T get a hearing in the scientific community – at least not ones that challenge evolution and millions of years! If you are referring to http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter5.pdf, these creationist cosmologies are published in creationist peer-reviewed journals. They would never be allowed to be published in secular journals. In fact many creation scientists have had to use pseudo names in order to be published in the mainstream scientific journals once their beliefs about creation became known.
You said that unorthodox theories get a hearing in the scientific community “when they come from people who know what they’re talking about.” Are you implying that creation scientists who believe in a literal 6-day creation and a young earth don’t know what they are talking about, or the secular scientists who wrote An Open Letter to the Scientific Community (cosmologystatement.org) don’t know what they’re talking about? Maybe I’m totally misunderstanding what you are saying, and if so I apologize, but I’m a little sensitive to such statements because it is a very common tactic to dismiss creationists by claiming that no one who knows what they are talking about would question evolution or millions of years. For example:
No serious biologist today doubts the fact of evolution…. The fact of evolution is amply clear. We do not need a listing of evidences to demonstrate the fact of evolution any more than we need to demonstrate the existence of mountain ranges.
– Savage, J. (1965), Evolution (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston), preface.
All reputable biologists have agreed that evolution of life on earth is an established fact.
-Vance, B.B. and D.F. Miller (1958), Biology for You, (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott), p.520.
Evolution of the animal and plant world is considered by all those entitled to a judgment to be a fact for which no further proof is needed.
-Goldschmidt, Richard (1952), American Scientist, 49:84, p.84.
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).
-Dawkins, Richard (1989), “Book Review” (of Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey’s Blueprint), The New York Times, April 9, section 7, p. 34.
The above quotes are all related to evolution, but the same is said about the age of the earth as Price demonstrated when he said, “It’s embarrassing that so many want to hold to some crazy theories from preachers and kook scientists that want to allow for God to say “poof” and it come into existence.” The clear implication is that only preachers and “kook scientists” would question the millions of years.
My last point was that anyone who refuses to believe in God has no choice to believe in evolution and millions of years, which I backed up with a quote from Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), who is one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. Lewontin admits the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation—regardless of whether or not the facts support it – held by many secular scientists which dictates their conclusions.
You said, “Please don’t argue your case by ad hominem attacks on the scientific community. It’s not persuasive and not fair.” I don’t see how what I posted is an ad hominem attack. According to Wikipedia an ad hominem attack is “a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument.” The points I brought up, which I backed up with numerous quotes from secular scientists, are completely relevant to the claims and arguments that the scientific community make regarding origins, specifically evolution and millions of years. Note that I’m talking about origins here, not operational science. I’ll discuss skyscrapers and spaceships in another post.
In today’s world, the authority of the Bible is increasingly being rejected, and in fact the Bible is increasingly being mocked, as more and more people place their trust in the authority of the scientific community, which has decreed that evolution and millions of years are proven facts. Within the Christian community many have felt the pressure to bow to the authority of the scientific community and reinterpret Genesis to fit millions of years (and for some, evolution) into the Bible. For those Christians who hold to the traditional historical narrative view of Genesis, many doubt their beliefs because of the seemingly incontrovertible proof presented by the scientific community. Thus it is absolutely appropriate to examine the motivations, competency, biases, and limitations of this system (the scientific community as a whole) which has been given equal or even greater authority than the Bible. After all, 1 Thessalonians 5:20-22 says, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.”
Based on the quotes I’ve presented in this post and my previous ones, it is appropriate to have extreme skepticism or to outright reject the origin stories from the secular scientific community and to trust that God really did what he said he did in Genesis.
Jim, Don’t believe your “millions of years” comment has to be true. God created an adult Adam and Eve in Genesis. It does not say they took millions of years to evolve. The age for Adam at his death is not millions of years. That also applies to the animals in the garden too.
Jim wrote,
The statement made by the secular humanist is demonstrably false. Studies show that the people with the biggest influence on children is not their teachers or their peers. It’s their parents. And parents have them for 18 or more years. The problem isn’t the public schools (as horrible as they can be). It’s parents who don’t bother to teach Jesus to their children.
My congregation, following the “Orange” concept, has children’s and youth ministers who coach and equip the parents of their children to raise their own children to become mature Christians. If the parents will use their natural advantage to raise children in the Lord, the schools will not be much of a threat.
I have four sons. Two attended public school and large state universities. Two attended public schools and Christian colleges. Not a one has lost his faith despite postmodern and evolutionist teachers. I know of many such examples.
We MUST not take the defeatist attitude that the schools will raise our children for us. Nor should we expect our churches to do OUR job as parents. It’s up to the parents to teach their children about Jesus and the Bible and all that.
The whining we so often hear about schools no longer being able to use the power of the state to compel our children to pray shows how badly we’ve abdicated our roles as parents. It is not and never has been the role of the government to teach our children how to pray or about Jesus. We got lazy and let the schools parent for us, and it’s long past time for Christian parents to wake up and take responsibility for their own children.
Jay said:
Of course science does not have all the answers. This is a discussion among Christians. No one will disagree. But the skyscrapers built based on physics stand, and the spacecraft sent to Saturn get there. And science is not complete, but neither is it a farce.
Jay, I believe you are mixing operational science with historical or origins science. First, a definition of science:
The investigation of natural phenomena through observation, theoretical explanation, and experimentation, or the knowledge produced by such investigation.
Science makes use of the scientific method, which includes the careful observation of natural phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis, the conducting of one or more experiments to test the hypothesis, and the drawing of a conclusion that confirms or modifies the hypothesis.
-The American Heritage® Science Dictionary. Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
Operational (or experimental) science is a systematic approach to understanding that uses observable, testable, repeatable, and falsifiable experimentation to understand how nature commonly behaves. This is what is described in the dictionary definition above.
Operational science is the type of science that allows us to understand how DNA codes for proteins in cells. It is the type of science that has allowed us to cure and treat diseases, build skyscrapers and spaceships, put a man on the moon, build satellites and telescopes, and make products that are useful to humans. Biblical creationists believe that God has created a universe that uses a set of natural laws that operate consistently in the universe. Understanding how those laws operate is the basis for scientific thinking, and doesn’t depend on what the scientist believes about God or the origin or age of the universe.
Historical (or origins) science, on the other hand, is the process of using the methods of science in the present to determine what happened in the past. Since the physical world exists in the present, all the evidence a scientist has available to examine the physical world also exists in the present. The scientist, whether secular or creationist, has no method to examine directly the past; thus, he must make assumptions in order to come to conclusions. However, assumptions are unproven, and generally unprovable, beliefs. Assumptions are no more than untestable guesses.
For example, consider a murder trial. The evidence might be a body lying on the bed with a bullet wound to the head, a gun lying on the floor in a pool of blood, blood spatter on bed and wall, a recording of 911 call, etc. The prosecutor gets up and tells a story of how the defendant murdered the victim. The prosecutor may call any number of expert witnesses, such as blood spatter experts, to interpret the physic evidence and testify how it proves the defendant is guilty (or supports the prosecutor’s story anyway). Then the defense gets up and tells a completely different story of how the victim committed suicide or someone else murdered the victim, etc. The defense calls its witnesses to interpret the very same evidence that the prosecution has, but to tell a very different story. The jury, who obviously weren’t present when the victim died, weighs the evidence presented and determines which story best fits the evidence. The jury has no idea whether it was actually murder or suicide; they must go on faith that they made the right decision based on the evidence.
Ultimately, whatever we believe about our origins, we believe by faith. It shouldn’t be a blind faith, but ultimately it comes down to faith. So when a secular scientist says that evolution and millions of years are a proven scientific fact, they are either lying or ignorant of the limitations of science. He may not understand that evolution and millions of years are interpretations of evidence in the present world to explain how (and when) the universe, earth, and life came into existence. He may not understand that in order to interpret the evidence there have to be some starting assumptions, which are unprovable and are based on the person’s worldview. For a secular scientist who believes that naturalism/materialism is all there is, then the interpretation must include evolution because, to quote Lewontin, they “cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Therefore, the origins story for the universe must accommodate millions of years to at least give the illusion of the possibility of evolution. So the secularist’s worldview can blind them to any other possibility that doesn’t fit with their world view.
For example, since the 90s blood cells, blood vessels, proteins like actin, tubulin, and collagen, and even DNA have been found in dinosaur bones that are supposedly 65 million years old. See http://creation.com/dino-dna-bone-cells. Observational science tells us that under the best possible preservation conditions these organic materials would be completely degraded in a fraction of the supposed 65 million years. Based on that evidence, what would be the logical scientific response to that evidence? A logical response might be something like the following:
This looks like modern bone; I have seen blood cells [and blood vessels] and detected hemoglobin [and now actin, tubulin, collagen, histones, and DNA], and real chemistry shows they can’t survive for 65 million years. What I don’t see is the claimed millions of years. So we should abandon this doctrine.
However, Mary Schweitzer, an evolutionist, who made the initial discovery of blood cells in a T-Rex bone and has done painstaking research since then to prove that these are actual organic materials from the dinosaur and not contamination, actually said the following:
It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But of course, I couldn’t believe it. I said to the lab technician: “The bones are, after all, 65 million years old. How could blood cells survive that long?”
Although Schweitzer and her team have continued to make incredible discoveries in their continuing research to defend their findings from the onslaught of criticism from evolutionists, she maintains her commitment to millions of years. It seems that she is unable to follow the evidence to its logical conclusion that the dinosaur bones aren’t millions of years old because it doesn’t fit her worldview.
If you read the article I referenced, it’s obvious that Schweitzer is an outstanding scientist who has used cutting-edge technology and rigorous processes to confirm the presence of the blood cells, blood vessels, proteins like actin, tubulin, and collagen, and DNA, and to rule out contamination. This is an excellent example of operational science at work. However, her conclusions (that the organic materials must have somehow survived 65 million years even though experiments show otherwise) come not from the evidence but from her a priori belief that the bones are 65 million years old.
Therefore, when a secular scientist states that evolution and millions of years are proven facts, they are really stating their belief in a materialistic origins story. As Christians, we can be confident that we have the true origins story in Genesis handed down to us as an eyewitness account from the only One who was there. Therefore we have no need to reinterpret the origins story in the Bible to accommodate the secularists’ origins story.
And Jay, to your point that “And, indeed, astronomers and physicists are happy to tell you what they think they know and what they know they don’t know.” I would argue that they are happy to tell you what they know and don’t know with the assumption that their world view is true. For example, they might say that scientists haven’t discovered the subatomic particle responsible for the inflation field or what caused inflation to start and then to stop when it did. They might admit that scientists have never observed dark matter or dark energy and have no idea what they really are. They might admit that they don’t have a working model for how the first stars formed and that there are severe problems with the nebular hypothesis theory for the origin of the solar system. But the underlying starting assumption that the big bang happened and the universe is 13 billion years old (according to the latest refinements to the big bang theory) is never questioned. As long as the paradigm isn’t challenged they are very open about what they know and don’t know, but challenge that and see what happens! The same thing happens with biological evolution where scientists will admit a whole list of things they don’t know about how evolution happened, but then they gloss over those things and go back to telling us that evolution is a proven fact.
Jay, I wholeheartedly agree with your statement that if the parents will use their natural advantage to raise children in the Lord the schools will not be much of a threat. It is awesome to hear that your congregation has children’s and youth ministers who coach and equip the parents to raise their own children to become mature Christians. I wish all congregations followed that example. And I especially agree that “We got lazy and let the schools parent for us, and it’s long past time for Christian parents to wake up and take responsibility for their own children.”
My purpose in posting those statements was simply to show that there is a full scale assault on the faith of our children by the humanists who wield considerable and increasing power over our public schools, government, and media. And that this group is working hard to indoctrinate our children to believe in evolution and millions of years and to suppress any criticism or opposing views. Therefore, it is no surprise that anyone who has not been equipped with a biblical worldview will naturally believe in evolution and millions of years because that’s all they know.
Amen Jay, we should not say the government is the reason we are all going to hell, what gets me about these anti-government people is, they want less of it, but want it to do more.
Skip, the issue is not the age of Adam. The problem with any old earth view (millions of years), is where do we fit the fossil record into the history of the universe? The fossil record shows death, disease, suffering, thorns, animals eating one another, mass extinctions, etc. We see all the evils of this sin-cursed world in the fossil record but at a much greater scale than we see today. So where does the fossil record fit into the history of the universe? If we accept Genesis as a historical narrative, i.e. a six-day creation and a global flood, then the fossil record is no problem. God created a perfect creation, man’s sin ruined it, the earth became more and more “corrupt” and “full of violence” until God destroyed it in a global flood, and the fossil record is a record of a wicked world buried in the flood.
But if we accept that the fossil record represents millions of years of history then we have a problem – when did all that death and suffering happen? The genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 make it impossible to fit millions of years into biblical history after the creation of Adam and Eve, so that means that the fossil record must have been formed before the creation of Adam and Eve. But that means that all that death, disease, and suffering must be part of God’s “very good” creation, and NOT the result of man’s sin! In any old earth interpretation, death, disease, violence, and suffering were part of God’s creative process! And what exactly did the curse do? If the fossil record really represents millions of years, then the curse simply returned the universe to its “normal” state since the fossil record shows the same conditions that exist on earth today.
If the earth is billions of years old and life evolved over millions of years through death and suffering, then what does that say about God’s goodness? How does that fit with Proverbs 12:10?
The righteous care for the needs of their animals,
but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.
It seems ridiculous that God would create using millions of years of an evolutionary process of death, bloodshed, and suffering, which is how the fossil record in interpreted by secular scientists, and then command mankind to be merciful and kind to their animals.
Jim,
Your comments are so long that they are likely not to be read or responded to. And they are being block by my spam software due to their length. I rescue them, but there will be a delay of hours at times.
Jim wrote,
Your division of science between operational and origins science is nonsensical. For example, we now have telescopes that can see galaxies and stars billions of light years away — and hence billions of light years in the past. They observe the past directly by virtue of the great distances involved.
Just so, the study of the Big Bang occurs not only with telescopes but also in particle colliders, that replicate conditions within seconds of the Big Bang.
Even evolutionists are constantly refining their theories as the nature of DNA is further studied. In fact, not too many years, thanks to the ability to study DNA in much more detail than used to be true, the various hypotheses regarding which creatures are most closely related to other creatures could be empirically tested by comparing DNA. And while most taxonomy was affirmed, some theories had to be rejected due to new experimental evidence.
The understanding of how evolution occurs is very different today from what was taught by Darwin, over 100 years ago, because experimental evidence has forced the theorists to reword their theories.
In short, the origins scientists are very much engaged with observation of the world as it exists today — because it’s all connected. And these observations often cause them to revise their theories as they learn more about the Creation.
Science proceeds by successive approximation. To argue that the inexactness and incompleteness of science somehow repudiates its merit is absurd. After all, theologians proceed by successive approximation as well. Honest Bible students constantly learn new things and so are caused to revise their thinking as they study and learn more. But that hardly means that Bible study is pointless or fraudulent.
I’m happy to entertain serious scientific argument regarding the age of the earth, but I’ve heard no science, just argument. Show me some serious science that proves the earth to be 6,000 years old.
Now, if you hold to the view that the earth was created looking old, science is beside the point. But if you want to argue that science actually supports a 6,000-year old earth, well, make the case. Where is the young-earth science that explains what our telescopes see? Where is the young-earth science that explains the fossils?
The canard that reconciles YE with the fossil record by saying God created everything old and installed it that way far more recently seems the most desperate of reaches. So… God created the heavens and the earth in such a way as make creation look like it took place at a time long before Adam and Eve instead of on the previous Monday, so that the physical record would intentionally seem to contradict the Genesis timeline, creating the very argument we have now? To what end all this chicanery? By the briny nipples of Neptune, I swear that the first person who takes this loopy and convoluted theory and then dismisses its folly by hanging it on “mystery” or “God can do what He wants” is going to cause me to pull the remaining eleven good hairs out of my head.
God can do what he wants 🙂
Gee, thanks, Skip. Now I’m gonna have AstroTurf installed.
Jay, What is your take on Adam being created as a mature man on the 6th day? My reading shows that he was created as a man, not a baby. Using that reasoning, why wasn’t the universe created as mature too? If it was created as mature then it explains a lot of what we see today in the universe. But maybe I missed something.
I agree, “God can do what he wants” but why, just to fool Charles.? There have been dinosaur tracks discovered in Glenrose , Texas older than 6,000 yrs. did God do that just to fool my little grandchildren .
Laymond, How valid is carbon dating?
Skip.
God can do what he wants to do – except that we have been told that it is impossible for God to lie. It seems to me that to put fossils that appear to be very ancient is qualitatively different from. creating Adam as an adult. Hence, it is impossible to use this unverifiable hypothesis to convince anyone but those who already believe in a young earth.
To go beyond this to demand belief in a young earth as necessary for salvation puts a very high hurdle to overcome for many people before they can come to a saving faith. So, why spend so much energy to establish a barrier to faith? God seeks to tear down barriers. Why should we try to defend barriers that do not have to be there. Believe in a young earth if you please – but don’t put that as a barrier in front of a others coming to faith in Jesus.
Jerry, Who in this group is putting the young earth theory in front of others coming to faith in Jesus? And who in this group has forcefully stated they believe in a young earth?
As a theory about the earth’s origins and development, YE is not science at all. Science starts with observation, then tries to discover the explanation for those observations using reason. But YE has as its basis an entirely unrelated intention, that is, to support a particular view of the Bible. Nobody ever looked at the earth and suggested, “Hey, there are things here that suggest that the earth is only 6000 years old! How do we explain that?” No, the origin of YE is, “We believe the bible to be literally and verbally accurate in every statement it makes. How do we defend this view of scripture in the face of observable facts on the ground which indicate that the earth is much older than a literal reading of Genesis suggests?”
IMO, arguing the pseudo-science of YE is a pointless exercise, like trying to prove that astrology actually comes from the stars. What IS worthy of discussion is how YE is part of a doctrinal approach that says, in essence, that God is perfect, therefore the Bible is perfect (and literal), and if you don’t accept everything in the Bible literally, you make God a liar and probably are not really a believer at all, and you may even be an enemy of God. YE itself may be harmless foolishness, but THIS doctrine is genuinely hurtful to believers.
Not that it matters how old the earth is, but why do folks place their undying faith in Genesis 1
which we know positively the writer did not know anything about the cosmic matters that he was trying to explain.
We know today that the center of the galaxy in which we live is the sun, which was not mentioned until the 15 chap. and then it was described as coming up and going down, which does not happen.
We also know that the seasons are not determined by the stars. We know why and what determines the length of light and darkness, that also determines the day. and by the way we know all this could not happen if the earth were square. The sun does not move unless the galaxy moves in unison with it. It is just unreasonable to assume we were given enough information to argue this topic sensibly. God seen fit for me to live on it, and that is enough for me. I am also thankful that he saw fit to put lakes and rivers here for us to fish in.
Skip says:
Laymond, How valid is carbon dating?
In my opinion, closer than gen.1 being accepted as describing a six day creation. (six 24 hr. days)
Another theory is God used older planets from another galaxy to make this one when He created it later in time and put Adam and Eve on it.
If that is true, many beings like dinosaurs might of not lived here in this galaxy at all.
No record of dinosaurs being on the Ark.
This sounds like a teacher speaking to 2nd graders or a bunch of moonshine drunks debating while sitting on a tailgate of a 64 ford pickup listening to a pack of hounds running a fox. LMAO
Jay, thanks for rescuing my novels. I’ll try to keep my comments shorter in the future. 🙂
sounds like you may have been on that tailgate a time or two John 🙂
Jay wrote,
Your division of science between operational and origins science is nonsensical.
I’ll address the specific points you raised about telescopes and DNA in my next post (gotta keep them short you know), but here are a few quotes from scientists who do admit that there is a distinction.
“For example, Darwin introduced historicity into science. Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science—the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain.”
—Mayr, Ernst (1904–2005), Darwin’s Influence on Modern Thought, based on a lecture that Mayr delivered in Stockholm on receiving the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, 23 September 1999; published on ScientificAmerican.com, 24 November 2009.
“‘Cosmology may look like a science, but it isn’t a science,’ says James Gunn of Princeton University, co-founder of the Sloan survey. ‘A basic tenet of science is that you can do repeatable experiments, and you can’t do that in cosmology.’”
-Cho, Adrian, A singular conundrum: How odd is our universe? Science 317:1848–1850, 2007.
“The sciences dealing with the past, stand before the bar of common sense on a different footing. Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science.”
—James Conant, Ph.D. (Harvard) chemist and former President of Harvard University, quoted in Origins Research 5(2):2, 1982.
Jay wrote,
“For example, we now have telescopes that can see galaxies and stars billions of light years away — and hence billions of light years in the past. They observe the past directly by virtue of the great distances involved.
Just so, the study of the Big Bang occurs not only with telescopes but also in particle colliders, that replicate conditions within seconds of the Big Bang.”
Jay, I know you know that the term light year is a measure of distance, so what astronomers have observed (measured) is the distance to galaxies and stars. But when you say this shows billions of light years in the past, you have to make an assumption. You are assuming that the big bang happened. If the big bang happened then the universe is around 13 billion years old (latest big bang model) and the distant starlight would be from stars that are billions of years old (but keep in mind that what was actually measured was distance). But the big bang is only one possible solution of Einstein’s field equations from general relativity. Another might be a 5D spherically symmetric expanding universe (http://creation.com/a-5d-spherically-symmetric-expanding-universe-is-young) in which the light from the most distant stars would have reached earth in days or years. Now I’m NOT going to critique or debate one cosmological model over another because frankly it’s way outside of my knowledge. My point is simply that distance is measured (observational science), age is inferred based on your starting assumptions about the origin of the universe (origins science). So your statement that “They observe the past directly by virtue of the great distances involved” is false if what you mean is that it shows millions of years. Obviously it shows the past in that it takes some finite amount of time for the light to reach us, but that could be days just as well as billions of years depending on your starting assumptions.
As for particle colliders like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), they actually replicate the high energy collisions that occur when high energy cosmic rays hit the earth’s atmosphere. An Apologetics Press article (http://www.apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1026&article=1756) says:
Cosmic rays are very high-energy, subatomic particles that are produced from outside our solar system and within our galaxy. Some of these particles stream into Earth’s atmosphere, colliding with atmospheric particles to produce showers of lower-energy, secondary particles. Many of these cosmic rays are at energies comparable to and greater than the maximum estimated center-of-mass energies of the two counter-rotation proton beams of the LHC. In fact, the approximate rate at which such comparable cosmic rays enter Earth’s atmosphere is an astounding 250,000 particles per second, with over 7.8 trillion events occurring per year.
So the LHC allows scientists to gain a better understanding of physical phenomena in the universe today (operational science). If the big bang were true, then within seconds of the big bang there would have been similar conditions to what the LHC produces, in which case the LHC would allow scientists to gain a better understanding of what happened seconds after the big bang. But unlike cosmic ray bombardment on the earth’s atmosphere which is observable, you are again assuming the big bang occurred.
And yet you’ve responded to none of my arguments as to this issue. You’ve only shown that credentialed people can make the same mistake.
Do scientists sometimes stretch outside of science? Of course. But telescopic observations are just as repeatable as those made with a microscope.
Still looking for a scientific basis for a 6000 year old earth and universe as opposed to attacks on science. And wouldn’t scientific evidence of a 6000 year old universe be just as unrepeatable as evidence of a 15 billion year old universe?
We actually don’t use telescopes to measure the distance to stars, we measure the “red shift” from stars to understand the stars velocity. The red shift is called a “Doppler” shift. The faster the star is moving, the greater the red shift. Obviously, the most distant stars are traveling the fastest and have the largest red shift (lower measured frequency). Also the light arriving from the most distant stars was emitted from them millions or billions of years ago. So we actually aren’t seeing the stars or galaxies as they today.
I did some checking around and one source gave additional background to the James Conant quote which they cite as coming from his book, Science and Common Sense (1951). According to them the fuller quote shows that it is a critique of Velikovsky’s cosmology described in World’s in Collision. (V’s books were still popular in the sixties and seventies but seem to have faded away after that.) In another location in Conant’s book, it is apparent that he is comfortable with evolution and a snippet lifted from it is:
“Since Darwin’s time, on the other hand, evolutionary ideas have become a conceptual scheme, fruitful almost beyond measure.”
http://ncse.com/blog/2013/12/conant-barbarian-part-2-0015216
You’re right laymond and the subject of creation always comes up on that tailgate especially on a clear sky with all the stars shining bright. Starts off by the pointing out of many star formations men have had names for and drawn or carved on or in something for thousands of years and moves from there. Amazing how much the ‘ol country boys knew of the heavens and the more moonshine, the more they told.
Also the more moonshine, the more we listened!!! LOL
SteveA,
Thanks. I’m very familiar with Velikovksy.
Skip wrote,
Exactly! And there is no break or discontinuity at 6,000 light years away. There are at least 10 quadrillion stars in the universe. http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/universe/stars-article/ If they were all clustered within 6,000 light years of the earth, the sky would be nothing but bright light.
The Sun is about average size for a star. Imagine a sky filled with 10,000,000,000,000,000 Suns! We’d all be dead before we could even step outside! This was demonstrated by an astronomer in the late 18th Century, as I recall. He obviously was aware of far fewer stars, but even the number of stars known 200 years ago would have lit every speck of the sky.
Some of the stars we see today by the light they emitted long ago, are now black holes. Look, as crazy as it sounds, God may have caused the Big Bang. That seems on the scale that God works, big.
JimG wrote,
Jim,
The redshift unquestionably shows how fast the stars are moving away from us. And if they all started moving at the same time, obviously the faster stars are further away than the slower stars.
Add to this the background microwave radiation, found exactly as predicted by the BBT — then you have experimental confirmation of the theory.
On top of that, you can approximate the distance of stars by brightness. That is, if theory says stars with speed 2x will be 1/4th as bright as stars with speed 1x — on average, of course — that’s testable and it confirms the theory.
The observations are consistent with the General Theory of Relativity. The predictions of the GTR have been confirmed many, many times. It all fits together.
As an alternative, you offer a theory that predicts that space is not presently expanding, when observations of expansion go back a century, long before the BBT became conventional thought. Moreover, his theory does not begin to explain the ancient appearance of the earth.
Time dilation doesn’t allow light to travel faster than c. It just changes time so that light in fact travels at c. Therefore, light from 10,000 light years away isn’t made closer or earlier by time dilation. It still takes 10,000 years for light to travel 10,000 light-years.
And why is it that this theory only appears in creationist papers. Why not submit to peer-reviewed physics journals? He will not be first to propose an alternative understanding of the GTR.
If this is truly good physics, the math will speak for itself.
JimG wrote,
The author repudiates the urban legend that that CERN accelerator will recreate the Big Bang – thereby creating a whole new universe. I have no disagreement. But the fact remains that energies are achieved like those hypothesized for very close to the beginning of the Big Bang — providing physicists with more knowledge about how particles behave in these conditions, allowing them to correct and refine their theories.
The author of the article says,
And no one here has claimed that the accelerator will create a brand new Big Bang or a brand new universe. He contradicts a contention not being made among knowledgeable observers.
I like your commentary here! And what many of the people wrote as comments! And yes its bot what people believe according to the ongoing argument about young earth or old earth that saves people? Or even the ongoing argument over creation and evolution? Its the gospel message that brings people into salvation!!!! And the gospel message is about Jesus and his death and ressurection! And that is what many Christians need to get into their prideful selves? Instead of trying to prove all this creation stuff or young old earth stuff etc? To make themselves look better or feel better because they accomplished something? They need to be talking about Jesus!!!!! Because he is the way the truth and the life!!!!!! Thank you. Douglas.