Posted by John on October 27, 1998 at 21:43:13:
In Reply to: response #2 posted by eman on October 23, 1998 at 14:54:02:
: Which literal account of Genesis do you accept? The order of creation as described in the first story of Genesis or the creation described in the 2nd one? For example; According to GE1:3-5, On the first day, God created light, then separated light and darkness.
: GE 1:14-19 says that the sun (which separates night and day) wasn't created until the fourth day. According to GE 1:11-12, 26-27, trees were created before man was created. But in GE 2:4-9, man was created before trees were created. In GE 1:20-21, 26-27 Birds were created before man was created.
: But in GE 2:7, 19, man was created before birds were created. Also, in GE 1:24-27 Animals were created before man was created. But again, in GE 2:7, 19, man was created before animals were created. As far as Adam and Eve, in GE 1:26-27, man and woman were created at the same time. However, in GE 2:7, 21-22, man was created first, woman sometime later.
: Archaeopteryx lithographica (the fossil you eluded to) is indeed a transitional form. It has been classified as a bird almost arbitrarily because it has feathers, not because it is "truly" a bird. The avian features Archaeopteryx possess are, 1) a wishbone, 2) feathers, and 3) a bony sternum in one of the latest specimans. Archaeopteryx has many more reptilian characteristics, such as, 1) a pubic peduncle, 2) a long, bony tail, 3) no pygostyle, 4) three well-developed fingers (with the same number of bones as in most dinosaurs), 5) three well-developed metacarpal bones,
: 6) unfused metacarpal bones, 7) separate metatarsal bones, 8) no hypotarsus, 9) abdominal ribs
: Archaeopteryx has many more reptilian characteristics than the modern birds that many like to link it to. Even Fred Hoyle, who erroneously claimed that Archaeopteryx was a forgery, claimed that it was a reptilian fossil with fake feather impressions. Archaeopteryx is not a transitional form merely because of its remarkable blend of reptilian and avian characteristics - Archaeopteryx also existed at the same time as the theropod reptiles and resembled them very highly. Given its temporal and physical correlations to reptiles, plus its less numerous - yet distinct - avian qualities, Archaeopteryx lithographica
: stands immune to any creationist attack. What is the evidence that you have seen that would lead you to believe that this fossil could not be millions of years old? You make that claim but fail to provide support.
: You are correct in stating that hundreds of years ago, humans had incorrect views of the world, such as believing in a flat earth, etc. Fortunately, man's quest for the truth about his world lead him to discover that the earth was a sphere, the earth orbited the sun, the earth was not the center of the universe, etc. The beauty of scientific thought is that it has the ability to refine and correct itself when presented with new data. Keep in mind though, that scientific ideas and theories are neither accepted or rejected on a whim. They encounter rigorous scrutiny before acceptance. And in order to reject
: or modify them, a similar preponderance of evidence must be presented to the scientific community at large, and also given careful scrutiny. Literal Creation will be accepted when, and if, a significant amount of physical evidence, observations, experimentation, etc., is presented to the scientific community and tested for its validity. Scientists don't necessarily have a stake in protecting one over the other. They are only concerned with evidential support for the mechanisms of the universe. The main reasons that I do not believe in the Great Flood are that it is physically implausible based on accepted
: laws of science, and all the credible geological, anthropological, and historical evidence gathered denies it. My disbelief has little to do with a simple rejection of your Bible. It has to do with the fact that all science known today rejects it.
: While it may be true that Darwin had to use some speculation in order to explain the evidences he gathered, modern science has advanced light years since he wrote his book (by the way, the idea of evolution preceded Darwin; he mainly tried to describe one possible mechanism for it).
: As to the answers to your questions concerning early life forms and their evolution of reproduction, you need to study biology more. I'm sorry to say that I have no easy answer for you on those, as they would take up much of this board.
: If all you have is your faith that the Bible is inerrant and some, if not most, was meant literally, then there is not much that I could say to convince you otherwise. It is obvious to me based on the fact that there are many diverse Biblical beliefs among a myriad of different Christian denominations, that your Bible was written in a very ambiguous manner, and is open to many individual interpretations. I would venture to guess that your individual interpretation and the belief that your interpretation is without error, are based on faith alone. But then again, that is the very nature of religion.
: Physical evidential support and reason need not be a part of it. The main difference between you and I is that although I agree that both are essential to society in some fashion, I believe that religion is religion and science is science. I make no attempt to either try and reconcile them, combine them in some form, or confuse one for the other. One is based on the rigorous study of physical laws and evidence and the other is based almost solely on faith.
Based on your past responses,I feel compelled to clarify a few misconceptions that I think you have about me and my views on creation and evolution. First of all, I do not at all have a problem with scientific method. I was an aspiring scientist as a youth but circumstances in life sent me down another road. I do not think that people deliberately made up things that refute what the bible says just on a whim or just because they were trying to deceive others. I believe that in an effort to elude ultimate accountability they looked and looked until they found something to provide them that zone of comfort. To say that all life happened by chance is to say that God didn't create it, and if God didn't create it then He doesn't exist, and if He doesn't exist then we are ultimately accountable to absolutely no one. I bought The Origin of Species this past week and although I've only gotten through 2 chapters I can already tell that my concept of evolution is in line with what Darwin was trying to convey and I still stand on what I have said in the past, that living things do in fact change to adapt to their environment but they do not change from one species to another, gradually or suddenly. There is no proof of that. Darwin himself posed questions in the book that he knew he would eventually face, such as why do we not see the transitional species in the world today. That's a good question, however his answer is based on his theory, not fact. He starts the book by referring to how one plant will vary depending on whether it is domesticated or not (different environments) and he uses wheat as an example. He says that wheat has been cultivated for thousands of years and we still get different varieties even today. My viewpoint on that is that after thousands of years of changing, you still have wheat. On the other hand, time is the evolutionists cure-all. If it doesn't happen in thousands of years then the only logical conclusion is that it must happen in millions of years, and if it doesn't happen in millions of years then it must happen in billions of years. You mentioned Drosophila in a previous response. I experimented with them in high school. We exposed them to a variety of different outside influences and crossed groups of anomalous flies with others and the amazing thing was that besides all the white eyes and all the shriveled wings we still had a bunch of fruit flies. And if we let the mutated ones continue to breed we came up with normal fruit flies again. Of course these were experiments in genetics at a rather rudimentary level but you don't always have to expend enormous amounts of time and money to arrive at a simple truth. Truth is most often staring someone right in the face but if it's a truth that is not well received then that person will just look for something else that sounds logical. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that if a world wide flood of biblical proportions were actually considered fact instead of fiction, that it would have an impact on widely accepted scientific methods. For example, if every living thing were killed, save those on the ark, would it not drastically affect the amount of c14 in the atmosphere so that dates obtained by that method were actually incorrect? Wouldn't the stratagraphic data be completely skewed? Bear in mind that the words used in the bible (Tetragrammaton) to describe the violence involved in the flooding of the earth describe the absolute worst of catastrophes. The bible says that the fountains of the deep burst forth and the floodgates of heaven were opened up and the rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights(Gen. 7:11). Notice that the water did not only come from above but from below also. In Genesis 1:9 God said to let the waters be gathered into one place and let dry land appear. Because the water was gathered into one place that should leave one land mass, right? Pangea was the land mass and that's where man lived there were hills and mountains but Mt. Everest was not in existence back then. When the land was split apart it happened in a hurry. Water came from above, below, and the oceans rushed in from the sides. The trilobites and other bottom dwelling creatures were wiped out from the mud and sediment that covered them quickly. Faster moving creatures would have been together and on higher ground (higher at that time). Of course slower animals would be lower in the strata because they were covered up first. This is only a part of what can be explained by using the bible as the foundation. The canopt theory that you told me about is either wrong or outdated because the canopy was not a vapor but a jacket of ice. And it was 11 1/2 miles above the earth's surface. It was held in place by the same effect that causes a magnet to levitate over supercooled superconduvtive material. I have the exact explanation at my home. I'll send it to you when I remember to bring it in.
To answer your questions on those supposed contradictions, the first thing you need to realize is that I believe in a soverign God. He doesn't need the sun to have light. I understand that being a scientist you believe that there are laws which govern all nature. The laws had to have started sometime and somewhere, but what about before that? Rev. 21:23 says that in heaven, the city needs no sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light. This was the light in Genesis 1. Trees were in fact created before man was created. If your notice the trees and shrubs referred to are "of the field." It also says that there was no man to work the ground. God was not going to make a man work the ground on the entire planet so he could create plants to put there. The shrubs and trees referred to are crops. In verse 7 He FORMED the man out of the dust of the earth... In verse 19 he HAD FORMED out of the ground the beasts of the field and the birds of the air... The chapter is not that long and if you read it I'm sure that when the scriptures are read in context your eyes will be opened and you will know that that book you have was written just so someone could make a buck and the author is probably counting on the fact that anyone who would buy it would have no reason to go back and REALLY check it out for themselves. The last thing you asked about was whether or not Adam and Eve were created at the same time. Once again all you have to do is read the passage. Gen. 1:26 says God created man in His own image to rule over all the creatures. Verse 27 says ...in the image of God HE CREATED HIM (referring to man), male and female HE CREATED THEM (referring to the animals).
In closing I want to make sure that you understand exactly where I stand because you seem to think that I think all science is a farce and is staight out of hell. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that it seems to me that once a scientific conclusion is reached it is not changed unless the truth of the matter stands up and slaps the scientific community in the face. I'll be willing to bet that if we had never actually walked on the moon all the classroom history books would say that the monn was covered with a layer of dust from 50 - 900 feet deep. It actually took us walking on the moon to prove that scientific "fact" wrong. On the other hand it's because of science that we got there in the first place. If you have looked into creationism and have found it lacking it's either because you looked in the wrong places or because the very presence of biblical overtones turned you off. Please consider my question of the effects of a catastrophic flood on the condition of the earth in your next response. Lastly I want to say that I'm not sure how to take your previous remark about our discussions being entertaining to you. Could you also tell me what you mean by that?