Okay, first of all, you have to learn to be patient, Gene. You are no more deserving of special attention than anyone else is here. In case you didn't notice, I have been involved in a lengthy discussion with
three people here. I am not going to ignore Andy because you don't like him. Whoever responds to me first, that's the person whom I respond to first. You just have to learn to wait your turn.
genez said:
Are you speaking in reference to Young Earth Creationists? I don't trust them anymore than you do.
The list of scientists I referred to were garnered mostly from Answers in Genesis, with a few from ICR, too. One more thing I intended to add before was that of personal experience. In the seven years I've discussed theological issues online with people, I've found that all of the creationists with whom I spoke were either laypeople with little or no science background, or people with degrees in technical fields.
I can explain why there are ancient fossil records. That the planet itself is very old.... and that there is a reason why TE's must scramble to try and come up the missing links,
There is no "scramble to come up with missing links." Sure, the fossil record is incomplete, but plenty of transitional forms have been found.
Its not as complex as you make it out to be. Sure, the biologists can discover similarities between different species that require great skill and ability. But, that does not mean they can explain why.
You've just contradicted yourself. If a biologist lacks the ability to explain why species are different, then it's even more complex than I made it out to be.
Christians do not need to know all the details in creation. What they need to know, is what does the Scriptures REALLY teach.
As I said to Andy, if you can't discuss creationism without talking about God or the Bible, then you can't claim that creationism is science. Try to explain all of the creationist tenets to people without citing one lick of scripture. Try doing it without bringing up God. You can't. And that's because creationism is a religious belief.
The one who is correct is the majority in God's eyes.
I see. And do you believe you have God's eyes?
Then again, what they say would most likely be true IF THERE WERE NO GOD. But, if God says it wasn't done that way, then why settle for an argument that calls God a liar?
This is a false dilemma. First of all, notice the insincere trick you've tried to pull here. You start off with the idea that what scientists say would "
most likely be true if there were no God." If you're talking about the statistical odds of life on earth, I can buy that the odds were steep against it. Even if one accepts God, the odds that He would have chosen
this planet and created life in
this way (or
any way) is quite slim.
However, slim odds are still possible. You may view evolution as increasing the odds that God does not exist, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. It doesn't mean that He doesn't exist. So you can't take the jump and claim that God is being called a liar. If God created via evolution, then that's the way He created. If He created via creationism, then that's the way He created. But if He created via creationism, then why did He leave no evidence of it?
God's Word is by which we are to prove all things.
Alright, then. Let's say you want to show someone how Windows XP is different than Windows 98. How do we use God's Word to show the difference? Which passage of scripture teaches us that XP loads up quicker, and stores files differently?
To call God's Word a lie is what many retreating Christians do when fighting the good fight.
But the point is that, with theistic evolution, there is no need to "retreat", because there is no claim made that Genesis is a textbook.
I believe God raised up scientists so that the error of YEC's can be brought to light.
And this was the only purpose of science?
Why did bacteria remain behind? If they can survive perfectly, why do we see so called evolution?
Global conditions vary greatly. Some places have droughts, while other have flooding. Some have resources conducive to the survival of a specific kind of bacteria, and others don't.
If you have two populations of the same species of bacteria, and one falls under prolonged adverse conditions, the odds increase that that population may evolve in some way to cope with the adversity. Therefore, you would then have two different species of bacteria, where before there was only one.
Besides, you are saying that you believe inert matter formed itself up into animated life with function and form?
Where did I say that matter "formed itself"? Anyhow, you have to understand that evolution does not deal with how life came to be. It only deals with what happened, once life began.
If you believe in evolution, then every creature that has the same arrangement of internal and external organs, all had to evolve from one common ancestor.
And you problem with this is....?
All of us creatures which share the same common organ and body structure elements had to come from one common ancestor. We are so ultra complex that its impossible to have been spontaneously brought about as separate entities in the process of life coming into being.
Why would it have to be spontaneous?
It is a rare thing nowadays to find in a scholarly work on Genesis
any acknowledgment of the fact that there is evidence of a discontinuity
between the first two verses of Chapter One and that this was ever
recognized by commentators until modern Geology arose to challenge
the Mosaic cosmogony.
This is a rather misleading statement, since it implies that the Gap Theory was the first and only major understanding of Genesis until modern science came along. In fact, while Ussher's calculation of creation happening in 4004 BC did not occur until the 1600's, most ancient cultures - with the exception of the Chinese, and Aristotle - assumed that the earth was only a few thousand years old. This includes the Jews, by the way.
The usual view is that when geologists "proved" the earth to
be billions of year sold, conservative biblical students suddenly discovered a way of salvaging the Mosaic account by introducing a gap of unknown duration between these two verses.
Actually, is was C.I. Scofield who popularized the theory in 1909. There is legitimate evidence that this theory was embraced largely because of anxiety over Darwin, and because the modern YEC movement had yet to be formed.
The view was undoubtedly held by early commentators without any
evidence that it was being presented as an "answer" to some suspected
challenge to the veracity of Scripture.
Since my earlier point was that creationism was a byproduct of the cultural misundderstanding of scripture's nature, it doesn't matter much that early western theologians were creationists of any stripe.
It must therefore have arisen either because a careful study of the original text of Scripture itself had given intimations of it, or perhaps due to some ancient tradition about the after-effects of the catastrophe itself, such after-effects asmight well have been observed by early man before the new order had effectively buried the evidences of the old.
This is an unfounded assumption. Basically, the author's assumption is that any theory that had been around a long time and espoused by Christians must be legit. Well, for ages Christians believed in alchemy, bloodletting, and the racial inferiority of blacks.
Look at theories regarding Revelation as a comparison. For centuries, respectable theologians "carefully studied" scripture and came to one of four radically different views. Obviously, at least three views are in error. Yet the mistake does not nullify the faith of the Christians who misunderstood the text. It just means that they were products of their age and schooling.
Erroneous creation theories are even more excusable, since it took so many centuries for our knowledge to get to the point where we could even begin to understand biology.
There is no reason to suppose that early man was any less observant than his modern descendants, or any less curious about the cause of such mass destruction of living forms.
The author assumes that early man had the mental capacity to comprehend the possibilities of such an event. But keep in mind that, even though the ice age seemed to have ended fairly quickly in geological time, it still took millions of years to end. Therefore, it's hard to say whether a given generatiuon of primitive humans could have recognized the changes and began to guess what was going on.
It is perfectly true that these epics and legends are full of fantasy and absurdity if read at their face value - but it is not absolutely certain that the writers themselves intended them to be taken precisely at face value. It may have been for teaching purposes.
A fascinating concession, wouldn't you say?
At any rate, there are evidences in these ancient texts that they looked upon the earth's very early history as having been one in which things had in some way and at one particular point in time "gone wrong".
Every culture has had its explanation as to why things are tough, and life is hard. Again, I'm not sure what this proves, or why you felt as though this exerpt offered evidence for your views.
as to receive the approval from other men who wish to preserve what they approve of, is a slap in the face to Jesus Christ. He is the Word made flesh. 
