More on why I reject evolution

[Andrewn]

The basic assumptions made in radiometric dating are: Every radioactive element will decay at a constant rate. This may very well hold true for the corrupted world man can test now, it does not hold true to the world before the flood or the world before the fall. Man assumes the world has ALWAYS given back the same equation. I challenge that because not only was the ball of the earth made outside of time but it is quite clear major changes occurred to the worlds governing laws. Man's word or God's word? Which holds ultimate truth?

The last sense is a false dichotomy bec God created our brains and created science. For a few years, I was a fan of the Australian "Creation Ministries International." They visited in my church and I bought and read some of their books about radiometric dating, etc. I also subscribed to their beautiful magazine and appreciate very much most of their wonderful article about God's creatures. Still, I don't think one has to believe YEC or to take Genesis literally word-for-word to be consistent with the Bible.

Science says man can't walk on water -God's word says yes he can. Science says donkey's can't talk -God's word says yes they can. Science says man can't come back from the dead -God's word says yes they can.

God's word says that walking on water occurred once, a donkey talked once, and Jesus and few people came back from the dead. These are miracles: exceptions to the laws of physics and the universe. Otherwise, the world follows the universal laws that God himself creates and maintains. We pray for miracles / exceptions. But God created the rules.

To be followed.

 

[Andrewn]

The fall caused spiritual and physical death.

This is YEC belief / point of view. To reach this conclusion, they take Gen 1 & Gen 2 as parallel accounts, not noticing the significant differences between them. Here are the differences:

Gen 1: God created heaven and earth and all plants and animals. Then God created a lot of men and women and commanded them to multiply.

Gen 2: There were no plants or animals in the Garden. Then God created one man. Then God created plants and animals. Then God created one woman.

It is clear that the 2 accounts are dissimilar. Even a literalist can conclude that the second creation was a subset of the first creation. In the 1st account, God created the universe. In the 2nd account, God created the Garden of Eden. Even if you propose that there was no physical death in the Garden / LXX Paradise, this by no means should imply that there was no physical death in the whole universe.

There is no reason to conclude there was no physical before the death, if you take Genesis literally.

 

[BNR32FAN]

As a Christian I believe that God created heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible.

Beside this, I don't think the Bible tells us how, and I'm open to the scientific evidence that clearly supports evolution.

We're not going to discuss evolution here, you've apparently done this already in a different thread. The only question is why do you think evolution contradicts the Bible?

The second question is not for you: Does anyone here believe in non-theistic evolution? If so, how would you reconcile this with the Bible?

The Bible says that God created all land animals and man on the same day. Evolution contradicts this statement.

 

[Andrewn]

The Bible says that God created all land animals and man on the same day. Evolution contradicts this statement.

Thank you for your reply. I'll get back to you in more detail. For the time being, plz explain to me the following:

Gen 2:2 On the seventh day God had finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had been doing. 3 God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy, because on it he rested from all his work of creation that he had done.

Was God tired after a 6 workdays?

 

[BNR32FAN]

Thank you for your reply. I'll get back to you in more detail. For the time being, plz explain to me the following:

Gen 2:2 On the seventh day God had finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had been doing. 3 God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy, because on it he rested from all his work of creation that he had done.

Was God tired after a 6 workdays?

No the sabbath was created for man.

 

[Andrewn]

No the sabbath was created for man.

Exactly. The events of Day 7 are allegorical, and so are the events of the other 6 days. The purpose is to teach people that even God worked for 6 day and rested on the 7th. They should do the same.

Note that the Sun wasn't even created until the 4th day. What was that other light in the 1st 3 days? How about the other creation stories in Gen 2, Job 38-41, and Psalm 104? They don't mention any days.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Exactly. The events of Day 7 are allegorical, and so are the events of the other 6 days. The purpose is to teach people that even God worked for 6 day and rested on the 7th. They should do the same.

Note that the Sun wasn't even created until the 4th day. What was that other light in the 1st 3 days? How about the other creation stories in Gen 2, Job 38-41, and Psalm 104? They don't mention any days.

The days didn’t need to be mentioned every time creation was mentioned. How many times does something have to be mentioned in the scriptures before we can believe it? The days are mentioned again in Exodus 20:11

“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭20:11‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

 

[coffee4u]

This is YEC belief / point of view. To reach this conclusion, they take Gen 1 & Gen 2 as parallel accounts, not noticing the significant differences between them. Here are the differences:

Gen 1: God created heaven and earth and all plants and animals. Then God created a lot of men and women and commanded them to multiply.

Gen 2: There were no plants or animals in the Garden. Then God created one man. Then God created plants and animals. Then God created one woman.

That is not how it reads. Genesis 2 is looking specifically at the garden of Eden.

"There were no plants or animals in the Garden."
There were plants and there were animals.

Plants
That isn't what is says.
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are not talking about the same type of plants.

Genesis 1 on day 3 is talking about plants across the world.
It mentions grass (deshe’), the seed-yielding herbs (‘eseb mazria zera), and fruit trees (ets pariy).

Genesis 2 is not saying that there were no plants, even though it looks that way in English, it's saying there were no cultivated plants.
The garden already had the grasses and trees but then God added something specific.
“plant of the field” (siah hassadeh) and “cultivated grain” (eseb hassadeh).
The difference being that these plants needed a man's care.
Which is why directly after that the narrative says "no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground"
The cultivated plants had not yet grown to harvest because they needed a man to care for them.

Animals:
It looks back at how the animals were made, they are not being made then. It's simply saying that the animals came to Adam to be named.
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

It is clear that the 2 accounts are dissimilar. Even a literalist can conclude that the second creation was a subset of the first creation. In the 1st account, God created the universe. In the 2nd account, God created the Garden of Eden. Even if you propose that there was no physical death in the Garden / LXX Paradise, this by no means should imply that there was no physical death in the whole universe.

The garden was already there, but it lacked cultivated plants and some other named plants. It was after all a special place, it was distinct from the rest of the world. After making the cultivated plants God made Adam and then moved him into the garden.

There is no reason to conclude there was no physical before the death, if you take Genesis literally.

When God made the animals and man he gave them every green herb to eat. This includes the animals that we know as meat eaters now.
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.
There was no eating of meat everything was created to be vegetarian.

The Bible teaches that death is a consequence of sin.

Genesis 3:19


19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

Romans 5
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—

1 Corinthians 15
22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Death isn't simply the way of things, death is an enemy that came in and it will be destroyed. After that comes the New heavens and the New earth where once again there will be no death.
Revelation 21:1-27
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

The garden of Eden was simply a taste of what was planned, a picture or shadow as much of the Old Testament was.

 

[Andrewn]

There were plants and there were animals.

One can twist the words anyway they like but a straight-forward reading of Gen 2 shows that there were no animals and no plants bec there was initially no rain and no rivers:

5 Now no shrub of the field was in the land yet, and no green plants of the field had sprouted yet.
8 Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden in the east,
9 Then the LORD God caused to sprout from the ground every tree that was desirable to look at and good for food.
19 The LORD God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky,

There are even translations that say "The LORD God had formed" using an English tense that does not exist in Hebrew to satisfy theological motives.

After making the cultivated plants God made Adam and then moved him into the garden.

This is certainly not in the Bible. It's a YEC conclusion.

There was no eating of meat everything was created to be vegetarian.

To say that all people and animals were vegetarian is an argument from silence. Gen 1:29 says that plants are for food. It doesn't say that only plants are for food. In many passages in the OT, God approves eating animals. I doubt that He changed his mind.

The Bible teaches that death is a consequence of sin.

If the Bible taught that animal death was related to Adam's Fall, it would completely demolish Evolution (or demolish the Bible, depending on a person's perspective). But this is not the case. Animal death has nothing to do with Adam's sin.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—

This is most likely about spiritual death as I preemptively discussed in post #17. Even if you take it to include physical death, it doesn't mean that animal death is in view.

Another reason to conclude that the creation of the world in Gen 1 and the Garden in Gen 2 are separate events is that:

In Gen 1 we read: 31 So God saw everything that He made, and behold it was very good.

But in Gen 3 the situation is different: Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.

We know from Revelation the serpent is Satan.

 

[Andrewn]

The days didn’t need to be mentioned every time creation was mentioned. How many times does something have to be mentioned in the scriptures before we can believe it? The days are mentioned again in Exodus 20:11

“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭20:11‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Again, Moses is showing people the importance of weekends. As you correctly said, God himself doesn't need a 7th day rest. The 7 days of creation are an allegory, full of figures of speech. Christians have long noted that God revealed himself to the biblical writers in ways they could understand, a principle known as accommodation. As John Calvin wrote,

"For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to “lisp” in speaking to us? Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.13.1)."

How long are the days of Genesis 1? - Common-questions

 

[BNR32FAN]

Again, Moses is showing people the importance of weekends. As you correctly said, God himself doesn't need a 7th day rest. The 7 days of creation are an allegory, full of figures of speech. Christians have long noted that God revealed himself to the biblical writers in ways they could understand, a principle known as accommodation. As John Calvin wrote,

"For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to “lisp” in speaking to us? Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.13.1)."

How long are the days of Genesis 1? - Common-questions

I don’t see reason why we should assume that these scriptures are not intended to be taken literally. To my knowledge there are no scriptures that imply that creation took more than 6 days. So why wouldn’t we take these verses literally?

 

[Andrewn]

I don’t see reason why we should assume that these scriptures are not intended to be taken literally. To my knowledge there are no scriptures that imply that creation took more than 6 days. So why wouldn’t we take these verses literally?

Young earth creationism (YEC) contradicts Evolution science and there are a lot of people who have high regard for science, which after all is a gift from God who created human cognitive abilities and scientific thinking. High regard for science is high regard for the Creator of science: God.

1) The 6-day view of creation contradicts astrophysics. We all know that the 24-hour day is the product of earth rotating around its own axis in relation to the sun. But in Gen 1:5, the 24-hour day is attributed to another source of light that God created in the 1st day. The sun wasn't created until the 4th day.

2) Look at the view of the universe presented in the 2nd day of creation: "Gen 1:6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day." You and I know that the sky is not made of a solid dome (firmament / expanse). Earth's atmosphere is made of air and outer space is a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles.

3) In Genesis, plants were created in the 3rd day, before the sun.

4) In Genesis, the Sun and moon were created in the 4th day and embedded in the firmament (v. 17).

5) In the 5th day, God created fish and birds. Evidence shows that amphibians and reptiles came before birds.

6) In Genesis, amphibians and reptile were created in the 6th day, together with mammals. We know from Evolution that events mentioned in the 6th day were separated by millions of years. This alone shows us how big and eternal God is.

7) The Bible itself doesn't take the 7-day creation literally. Clearly, God didn't need to rest on the 7th day. The 7th day is correctly interpreted in the book of Hebrews:

Gen 4:3 For we who have believed enter the rest, in keeping with what he has said, So I swore in my anger, “They will not enter my rest,” even though his works have been finished since the foundation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his works."

Conclusion: The 6 days of Creation is a literary device to present and help people memorize God's act of generosity and love, bringing into being a good world in which humans and other creatures can flourish. It also includes a promise of the coming God's Rest that would finally come to the faithful in the 7th day.

 

[BNR32FAN]

1) The 6-day view of creation contradicts astrophysics.

Christ’s resurrection contradicts biology. Hopefully we don’t have to resort to believing that Jesus didn’t really die and come back to life 3 days later because biology says it’s impossible.

 

[Andrewn]

Christ’s resurrection contradicts biology. Hopefully we don’t have to resort to believing that Jesus didn’t really die and come back to life 3 days later because biology says it’s impossible.

I guess you didn't read post #21.

If you believe the earth is flat and the sun and moon are embedded in a solid dome above the earth, there is really no point in discussing with you. Be blessed in your faith.

 

[BNR32FAN]

These are miracles: exceptions to the laws of physics and the universe. Otherwise, the world follows the universal laws that God himself creates and maintains. We pray for miracles / exceptions. But God created the rules.

This statement has nothing to back it up. It’s just a claim with no scriptural support. Creation could’ve just as well been a miracle just like the rest of God’s miracles. Man’s discoveries and technological advancements don’t reflect 6 million years of existence considering how much he has advanced in just the last 2000 years.

 

[Job 33:6]

Young earth creationism (YEC) contradicts Evolution science and there are a lot of people who have high regard for science, which after all is a gift from God who created human cognitive abilities and scientific thinking. High regard for science is high regard for the Creator of science: God.

1) The 6-day view of creation contradicts astrophysics. We all know that the 24-hour day is the product of earth rotating around its own axis in relation to the sun. But in Gen 1:5, the 24-hour day is attributed to another source of light that God created in the 1st day. The sun wasn't created until the 4th day.

2) Look at the view of the universe presented in the 2nd day of creation: "Gen 1:6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day." You and I know that the sky is not made of a solid dome (firmament / expanse). Earth's atmosphere is made of air and outer space is a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles.

3) In Genesis, plants were created in the 3rd day, before the sun.

4) In Genesis, the Sun and moon were created in the 4th day and embedded in the firmament (v. 17).

5) In the 5th day, God created fish and birds. Evidence shows that amphibians and reptiles came before birds.

6) In Genesis, amphibians and reptile were created in the 6th day, together with mammals. We know from Evolution that events mentioned in the 6th day were separated by millions of years. This alone shows us how big and eternal God is.

7) The Bible itself doesn't take the 7-day creation literally. Clearly, God didn't need to rest on the 7th day. The 7th day is correctly interpreted in the book of Hebrews:

Gen 4:3 For we who have believed enter the rest, in keeping with what he has said, So I swore in my anger, “They will not enter my rest,” even though his works have been finished since the foundation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his works."

Conclusion: The 6 days of Creation is a literary device to present and help people memorize God's act of generosity and love, bringing into being a good world in which humans and other creatures can flourish. It also includes a promise of the coming God's Rest that would finally come to the faithful in the 7th day.

Regarding this statement:

5) In the 5th day, God created fish and birds. Evidence shows that amphibians and reptiles came before birds.


I think what's interesting about this is that, yecs could say, well science or scientists or the words of man are wrong and maybe birds came before land animals like reptiles.

But what's interesting is that it's really simple logic that allows us to logically conclude the above.

Much like layers of a cake, there are rock layers of the earth.

Reptiles rest in deeper layers, birds in shallower layers.

Shallow layers cannot form before deeper layers, else they'd float over open space. Just as a cakes top layer can't be sat down before it's bottom layer, otherwise the top layer of the cake would float in open space.

When we really look at the very most fundamental bare bones aspects of science, what we find are these concepts that are so utterly factual, that they could only be the works of God (or maybe we are brains in a jar, I suppose).

And at the end of the day, if we have scripture that is disputed via interpretation of language, there is always a simple additional factor of basic logic, to help us understand God's work.

 

[Job 33:6]

This statement has nothing to back it up. It’s just a claim with no scriptural support. Creation could’ve just as well been a miracle just like the rest of God’s miracles. Man’s discoveries and technological advancements don’t reflect 6 million years of existence considering how much he has advanced in just the last 2000 years.

One difference between say, the resurrection of Christ contradicting biology, and let's say, the order in which animals were created, contradicting paleontology, is that the miracle of the resurrection doesn't maintain live, or current evidence to the contrary.

For example, anyone today, tomorrow or at any point in the next thousand years, can look at the order of layers of earth and can conclude that fish came before land animals in the rock record.

However, with the resurrection of Jesus, we don't retain any evidence to help us understand the nature of the resurrection, or how it may have unfolded.

We don't have Jesus here today, in a physical form for example, to study.

Some concepts such as how the earth formed, are readily available for investigation, right now. Literally right now, any one of us can go outside, pick up rocks, and investigate the history of the earth.

But we cannot do that with the resurrection.

 

[Gottservant]

Since the subject of evolution and my response to it generates so many responses to my posts, I find it hard to keep track and even harder to be bothered covering the same old ground. So for those who are interested, I post an article of 75 points that cover most of my objections to evolution. I did not write it. The fact that David R Pogge (aka Do-While Jones) is not a biologist is entirely irrelevant. Evolution is not rocket surgery. The concept is simple enough. What is incredibly complex is the mental gymnastics required to believe in evolution.

So, you can find the link to the article here: Seventy-five Theses

If the link does not work, I've uploaded a .pdf copy as well.

I've never heard it called "mental gymnastics" before, but you are dead on.

I try to look at it from the "meme for meme" angle: if Evolutionists can coin a meme that justifies Evolution, I can think of a meme that upends it.

What you get caught up in, is taking a backstep to establish why not believing Evolution is still justifiable itself - this is because Evolution has a partial foundation in the truth and by arguing against it you need to be clear, what you are objecting to: the extrapolation from the truth, but not the truth itself!

 

[Aussie Pete]

I've never heard it called "mental gymnastics" before, but you are dead on.

I try to look at it from the "meme for meme" angle: if Evolutionists can coin a meme that justifies Evolution, I can think of a meme that upends it.

What you get caught up in, is taking a backstep to establish why not believing Evolution is still justifiable itself - this is because Evolution has a partial foundation in the truth and by arguing against it you need to be clear, what you are objecting to: the extrapolation from the truth, but not the truth itself!

Part of the confusion is because the theory of evolution changes. What used to be called "adaptation" is now considered evolution and is used to justify the case for macro evolution. This is patent nonsense, but try getting people to understand the difference. Evolution is presented as fact and those who reject as mentally incompetent, whatever their qualifications and experience.

 

[SilverBear]

Part of the confusion is because the theory of evolution changes.

Theories change with new discoveries, observations and experimentation. Anyone with a basic understanding of science gets this.

What used to be called "adaptation" is now considered evolution and is used to justify the case for macro evolution.

in terms of biology adaptation means a change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment. It's always been part of evolutionary theory from Darwin on down.

This is patent nonsense,

not understanding something doesn't make it nonsense

but try getting people to understand the difference. Evolution is presented as fact and those who reject as mentally incompetent, whatever their qualifications and experience.

Evolution is a fact just like gravity and just like the theory of gravity the theory of evolution is about the mechanics of it