Frustration with Evolution and Creation Debates

[SuperSaint4GodDBZStyle]

Sup yall. Ever since I started doing more of the Creation vs. Evolution debates, I just recently began once again to be frustrated. I am a Young Earth Creationist (Yea YEC) and I find it that Creationists in general have the same evidence as Evolutionists, but both groups have different interpretations of the facts. I do get excited and supportive when I read my Creation Illustrated magazine when they have science articles of Creation disproving evolution. But I also get discouraged when some Christians believe in Evolution also such as Theistic Evolution. That idea doesn't seem correct to me scriputrally because of the other supposed fossils of the early species of man don't seem correct according to when God created man. My question is why would God allow different species of man (Neanderthal whatever) to evolve to man today? Why would God do like we do when it comes down to trial and error trying to get it right so many times to get the desired form of man. God would have gotten it right on the first time. I do support Creation and Creation shall hold me strong. I have gotten confused many times and thought about becoming a Theistic Evolutionist, but that sounds stupid to my current beliefs. I have even thought about giving up on Creation and Evolution all together, but I can't be neutral so I have to choose one. So I still remain to be YEC in particular. I do believe that God wants us to ask questions about him and his mighty works. I believe the main reason why God decided to create all of us and our universe was for his pleasure. And he would get it right the first time.

 

[Hnefi]

"Why would God..." is not a very useful objection to evolution. Assuming belief in the god of the bible, he/she/it has done many unexplainable and irrational things in the past. What's that age-old excuse used by theists - "the lord works in mysterious ways"? Well, it works here too.

 

[Citanul]

Evolution isn't about God not getting it right the first time. It's about God setting in motion a process that eventually resulted in us.

 

[SuperSaint4GodDBZStyle]

"Why would God..." is not a very useful objection to evolution. Assuming belief in the god of the bible, he/she/it has done many unexplainable and irrational things in the past. What's that age-old excuse used by theists - "the lord works in mysterious ways"? Well, it works here too.

Good point though. Everyone has their belief when it comes down to that area about God.

 

[Deamiter]

Good point though. Everyone has their belief when it comes down to that area about God.

Indeed, many people do have strong opinions about what God would and would not have done. The problem with this type of speculation is that you're essentially saying that God MUST have done it the way you prefer or he would not be God. Similarly, many claim that Genesis 1-11 MUST be historically and scientifically accurate or they could not have been inspired by God.

The argument utterly ignores God's liberal use of allegory elsewhere and is rather presumptuous as it asserts that God must have inspired (not written or dictated mind you) the Bible according to our current cultural standards. It utterly ignores the frequent use of myth and parable in the ancient near east and the culture in which changing factual details to add meaning was considered MORE accurate than simply recording boring details.

 

[crawfish]

Good point though. Everyone has their belief when it comes down to that area about God.

Your first step, if you want to engage in debates, should be to truly understand TE theology. There are quite a few creationist arguments, such as the ones mentioned above, that seem true from a creationist standpoint but are not true from the TE viewpoint.

We do NOT take the bible less seriously.
We do NOT pick and choose scripture to believe.
We do NOT believe that God is not powerful enough to create instantaneously.

...and so on.

Most TE's, YEC's, OEC's and other Christians are dedicated believers who love God and seek to do His will. I don't believe God judges us on "perfect understanding", so I do not believe that any particular origins theory will affect our salvation one whit, as long as we believe in God and are obedient to His commandments. We ALL believe that God created all things.

You can ask "why" God would do things the TE way all you want, but in the end we don't know a lot of why's no matter what you believe. Even YEC faces these problems: why didn't God create in 6 minutes rather than 6 days? Or 6 seconds? Why did God need to rest? Why did God create a universe to appear so much older than it actually is? Why did God create a universe vastly larger than what it needs to be? In the end, you have faith that God did it in a way that was best.

 

[random_guy]

I am a Young Earth Creationist (Yea YEC) and I find it that Creationists in general have the same evidence as Evolutionists, but both groups have different interpretations of the facts.\

People that deny the Holocaust happened also have the same evidence, but have different interpretations. Also the same with people that think we never landed on the Moon. YECism is on the same level of seriousness as Holocaust deniers and Moon landing deniers in the scientific community. There is zero government scientific organizations and almost zero accredited science departments that accept YECism.

 

[gluadys]

My question is why would God allow different species of man (Neanderthal whatever) to evolve to man today? Why would God do like we do when it comes down to trial and error trying to get it right so many times to get the desired form of man. God would have gotten it right on the first time. I do support Creation and Creation shall hold me strong. I have gotten confused many times and thought about becoming a Theistic Evolutionist, but that sounds stupid to my current beliefs. I have even thought about giving up on Creation and Evolution all together, but I can't be neutral so I have to choose one. So I still remain to be YEC in particular. I do believe that God wants us to ask questions about him and his mighty works. I believe the main reason why God decided to create all of us and our universe was for his pleasure. And he would get it right the first time.

What's right? How do we know what's right? We only know what is. We assume God intended to make humans have bodies like ours because that is the kind of body we have. But what makes it "right" other than God's free choice?

If God had chosen differently, humanity might be an intelligent insect species, and consider those bi-pedal apes in Africa to be merely another soulless animal species. And if God had made that choice, that would be right, too.

As far as your more general frustration goes, take it one question at a time and always check out with TEs if they really believe something it is claimed they believe. Very often the claims about what TEs think are incorrect.

 

[philadiddle]

The argument that really gets to me is that "God would have done it right the first time." As far as we know, this is the only universe, and since it produced us, in accordance with the laws God made, then He did get it right the first time, since this is the first universe.

 

[archaeologist]

i see that no creationist has responded, so i guess i must:

But I also get discouraged when some Christians believe in Evolution also such as Theistic Evolution

there is no reason to be discouraged, sad maybe but not discouraged. one of the things you need to keep in mind is that the devil is a deceiver and he works to lead weak believers away from God.

one such method is to get people to think that secular science has the answers. it doesn't.

another method is to get people to stop believing the Bible as written and once that happens, the door is open to change God's word as one cannot believe it.

here are some points from TE that should keep you strong in creationism:

1.

in accordance with the laws God made,

that is not scriptural as God's creation of man was a supernatural act outside of those 'laws'. scripture is very clear about this and such an idea as quoted above seeks to limit God's authority and creative power, making God subject to the laws and not vice versa.

2.

What's right? How do we know what's right? We only know what is. We assume God intended to make humans have bodies like ours because that is the kind of body we have. But what makes it "right" other than God's free choice

this argument is of no value. we know it is right because God does not make mistakes and His design of all His creation was done in a manner according to what He wanted. we don't assume because we know this is what God wanted and intended.

3.

People that deny the Holocaust happened also have the same evidence, but have different interpretations. Also the same with people that think we never landed on the Moon

what this demonstrates is that we cannot rely on interpretation but we must dig for the truth. Jesus said 'we shall know the truth...' He did not say, pick an interpretation and follow that, so one has to be careful when listening to others and ask the HOly Spirit to guide you to the truth.

There is zero government scientific organizations and almost zero accredited science departments that accept YECism.

what this tells you is that these scientific groups are not searching for the truth but their brand of what took place. you have to be discerning, for if theyare not following God, if they are not believing in God then the christian has to shun such groups and look for those that do.

4.

There are quite a few creationist arguments, such as the ones mentioned above, that seem true from a creationist standpoint but are not true from the TE viewpoint.

this is another moot point as you willfind such attitudes anywhere. most people do not recognize that they are being deceived until the light is brought in to reveal the difference.

We do NOT take the bible less seriously.
We do NOT pick and choose scripture to believe.
We do NOT believe that God is not powerful enough to create instantaneously.

on the surface this may look good, but when you dig deeper you will find that the ramifications are more serious thanone is led to believe. we know of a few TE's who dismiss revelations & other books of the Bible, which denies the first 2 points of this argument.

the third point is contradicted when one examines why God did it in 6 days and not through a process. there are many reasons but one is to show all the world that only God could do it and that they have no excuse for not believing.

I don't believe God judges us on "perfect understanding", so I do not believe that any particular origins theory will affect our salvation one whit, as long as we believe in God and are obedient to His commandments. We ALL believe that God created all things.

this argument again sounds attractive and wants to make everyone a part of one big family but it opens the door for satan to get inand cause all sorts of havoc and allows believers to deny God's words.

once this is doen the non-believing observer wonders why christians do not believe their own bible and come to the conclusion that they do not have to either (warren buffet is a prime exampe of this with his recent actions of giving away his fortune).

this argument does not think through all the resulting ripple effects and assumes that a believer, upon receiving salvation, has the right to do what they want or believe what they want. that just isn't so.

You can ask "why" God would do things the TE way all you want, but in the end we don't know a lot of why's no matter what you believe. Even YEC faces these problems

this just isn't so, except for the TE's not knowing. those of us who are creationists do know why God did it in 6 days, we do know that God did not make the universe to lookolder than it is, {the TE idea that it does is based solely on the bad interpretation of the evidence}, weknow why God 'rested' and so on. these are not mysteries to us. nor is HOW God did , he spoke, it appeared. we know how.

5. [QUOTEThe problem with this type of speculation is that you're essentially saying that God MUST have done it the way you prefer or he would not be God][/QUOTE]

this argument basically denies what Jesus said about knowing the truth. it claims we cannot know the truth but thatGod acted according to what we want. that is just not true. believers can know the truth and realize it is not how we prefer it but that that was the way it was done and we humbly accept that act. TE's are guilty of trying to make it the way they prefer and cannot humbly accept or realize how God did it.

The argument utterly ignores God's liberal use of allegory elsewhere and is rather presumptuous as it asserts that God must have inspired (not written or dictated mind you) the Bible according to our current cultural standards

this defense of TE'sm is erroneous because it assumes that because God used allegory or metaphors in some partsof the Bible that He must have used it in those parts not proven true by science or too fantastic to believe by faith.

as for the cultural part that is just an excuse to apply their poor reasoning in justification for pursuing and accepting that which is not oof God or to follow that which God said not to.

6.

Evolution isn't about God not getting it right the first time. It's about God setting in motion a process that eventually resulted in us

This just denies gen. 1:30-31. there was no process but TE's can't let it go.

7.

What's that age-old excuse used by theists - "the lord works in mysterious ways"? Well, it works here too.

yes God works in mysterious ways but He doesn't go against His word, He doesn't lead people to sin, He doesn't contradict Himself.

TE's & E's are quick to use this idea in defense of their position but fail to apply it to the way Genesis was written. sure God didn't give us all the details but there are reasons for that, and one such reason is to be true to the gift He gave us and that is freedom of choice.

you can choose to believe God on faith and get the answers later or you can deny His words and waste time, money and energy doing it the secular way. it is all up to you.

 

[Rudolph Hucker]

... when I read my Creation Illustrated magazine when they have science articles of Creation disproving evolution. ...

Can you post a link to such an article?

I for one would much like to read a scientific rebuttal of creation.

 

[gluadys]

i
2.

this argument is of no value. we know it is right because God does not make mistakes and His design of all His creation was done in a manner according to what He wanted. we don't assume because we know this is what God wanted and intended.

Nice to see you agreeing with me for a change, archie. I said we look as we do because of God's free choice. You say "His design of all His creation was done in a manner according to what He wanted and intended."

Sounds like agreement to me.

 

[philadiddle]

there is no reason to be discouraged, sad maybe but not discouraged. one of the things you need to keep in mind is that the devil is a deceiver and he works to lead weak believers away from God.

and one of the ways satan does that is to convince ppl that the only way the Bible is true is if the fundamentalist view is right. Once the evidence of God's creation shows that interpretation is wrong, then the Bible must be dismissed.

one such method is to get people to think that secular science has the answers. it doesn't.

"secular science" is a meaningless term. Science by definition doesn't include the supernatural, so adding the word "secular" as an adjective is just a way of making a false separation of science and God. Science, the study of God's creation and the natural laws within it, could be seen as worship, how amazing are the things we've uncovered about God's creation and how amazing He must be to have made them.

another method is to get people to stop believing the Bible as written and once that happens, the door is open to change God's word as one cannot believe it.

I agree, sort of. The bible as it's written doesn't demand a literal interpretation of the creation account. Believing in such a lie as a "literal creation account" is just a setup to be let down when the evidence is examined closely.

in accordance with the laws God made,

that is not scriptural as God's creation of man was a supernatural act outside of those 'laws'. scripture is very clear about this and such an idea as quoted above seeks to limit God's authority and creative power, making God subject to the laws and not vice versa.

nobody is trying to make God subject to the laws. It's God that made His creation subject to the laws He created, the very laws that brought forth our existence. We observe the world we live in today to run on natural laws. Science can explain those laws. You could even say "secular" science can explain those laws. Is that taking away from God? Or does it show His creative power and cause awe and worship in His believers?

this argument is of no value. we know it is right because God does not make mistakes and His design of all His creation was done in a manner according to what He wanted. we don't assume because we know this is what God wanted and intended.

So if God wanted to make us via evolution could you accept that? Or does God want what you say He wants according to your own personal interpretations of Genesis?

what this demonstrates is that we cannot rely on interpretation but we must dig for the truth. Jesus said 'we shall know the truth...' He did not say, pick an interpretation and follow that, so one has to be careful when listening to others and ask the HOly Spirit to guide you to the truth.

Again I agree with you. We must not stick to a specific interpretation if the evidence suggests otherwise. In personal journey, I went from YEC to OEC (very briefly and in nondescript terms) to TE, because of a critical analysis of the evidence.

what this tells you is that these scientific groups are not searching for the truth but their brand of what took place. you have to be discerning, for if theyare not following God, if they are not believing in God then the christian has to shun such groups and look for those that do.

The scientific method is self correcting. If something is false it won't last long. The above quoted statement is simply ignorance of what the scientific method involves and the attitude of those who carry it out.

this is another moot point as you willfind such attitudes anywhere. most people do not recognize that they are being deceived until the light is brought in to reveal the difference.

Think about that, think about that long and hard. Even better yet, pray about it. Maybe when you were writing that God was trying to speak to you and not through you.

on the surface this may look good, but when you dig deeper you will find that the ramifications are more serious thanone is led to believe. we know of a few TE's who dismiss revelations & other books of the Bible, which denies the first 2 points of this argument.

I'm not sure how the opinion of a few TEs on such matters can reflect the TE view. There are YECs like Kent Hovind who think that many diseases are government conspiracy. I don't think that belief of his could be used against the YECs on this board.

the third point is contradicted when one examines why God did it in 6 days and not through a process. there are many reasons but one is to show all the world that only God could do it and that they have no excuse for not believing.

No excuse for believing wouldn't be faith, so your interpretation of the events takes faith out of belief in God.

Something else, the theological point in Genesis is clear that it was God and God alone that made everything, but it was put in a context the writers would understand.

this argument again sounds attractive and wants to make everyone a part of one big family but it opens the door for satan to get inand cause all sorts of havoc and allows believers to deny God's words.

I don't deny God's words, I embrace them

once this is doen the non-believing observer wonders why christians do not believe their own bible and come to the conclusion that they do not have to either

First of all, most non-believers are more concerned with their personal lives and how Jesus can bring them joy, not the creation account. The few that are concerned with it are concerned because they see the evidence for evolution, then hear some YEC say "nuh-uh, God did it". That would keep them away from the Bible. The rational view of incorporating science and theology would be a sign of hope to some non-believers.

this argument does not think through all the resulting ripple effects and assumes that a believer, upon receiving salvation, has the right to do what they want or believe what they want. that just isn't so.

I don't just believe what i want. I study Genesis in context. I look at the culture, the way it was written, the meaning of the Hebrew used and various other things to find out what it means. There are deep theological truths that are contained in the creation account. If someone were to spend all their efforts on making it a scientific document, I fear they may miss the truth contained in the text.

this just isn't so, except for the TE's not knowing. those of us who are creationists do know why God did it in 6 days, we do know that God did not make the universe to lookolder than it is, {the TE idea that it does is based solely on the bad interpretation of the evidence}, weknow why God 'rested' and so on. these are not mysteries to us. nor is HOW God did , he spoke, it appeared. we know how.

You know how? So how many different species of land animals existed in the first week? Which one? When God made man from dust, did the dust just change properties into biological matter? Do you seek to find answers to these kind of questions? I know that some creationists claim that the decay rate of radioactive isotopes is changing, which makes radiometric dating inaccurate. Do they try to find out what rate they change at? Are there predictions that can be made from this? Are there tests done on isotopes to determine the rate of change? YECs must realize that they have no idea HOW anything really works, they just simply insert the statement "God did it" into any scientific inquiry and leave it at that.

this argument basically denies what Jesus said about knowing the truth. it claims we cannot know the truth but thatGod acted according to what we want. that is just not true. believers can know the truth and realize it is not how we prefer it but that that was the way it was done and we humbly accept that act. TE's are guilty of trying to make it the way they prefer and cannot humbly accept or realize how God did it.

I agree with the bolded part. When I was a YEC i prefered it that way, but as I realized what the truth was, i had to humbly accept that act of God as creator.

this defense of TE'sm is erroneous because it assumes that because God used allegory or metaphors in some partsof the Bible that He must have used it in those parts not proven true by science or too fantastic to believe by faith.

I don't argue that because allegory was used in other parts of the bible then the creation account must be allegory. I argue that because of the creation account itself, the way it was written, the cultural context etc is the reason I think it's allegory.

as for the cultural part that is just an excuse to apply their poor reasoning in justification for pursuing and accepting that which is not oof God or to follow that which God said not to.

If i'm not allowed to study the bible for it's cultural context, for the meaning of the Hebrew words, what am I left with? If those are not allowed to be included in interpretation, then we run into problems reguarding slavery, women being silent in the church, the death penalty for certain sins like working on the sabbath, etc.

yes God works in mysterious ways but He doesn't go against His word, He doesn't lead people to sin, He doesn't contradict Himself.

Upon examination it's easy to see that the creation account is meant as theology and not a science textbook, so believing evolution doesn't go against His word.

you can choose to believe God on faith and get the answers later or you can deny His words and waste time, money and energy doing it the secular way. it is all up to you.

On the other hand, you can deny God's creative force the glory it deserves by simply believing He "poofed" everything into existence. I find my awe and wonder of God's power gets more and more heightened with every scientific article I read pertaining to the age of the earth/universe and to evolution.

 

[Assyrian]

. But I also get discouraged when some Christians believe in Evolution also such as Theistic Evolution. That idea doesn't seem correct to me scriputrally because of the other supposed fossils of the early species of man don't seem correct according to when God created man.

One thing we need to understand about all the creation accounts in scripture is that they do not come to us from human witnesses, as say, the gospel do. Instead they were written by God's Spirit inspiring a man of God to describe the events. In other words it is a prophetic revelation. There are two things to realise about prophetic revelation, firstly they are often much more figurative and metaphorical than when human beings give us an account of what they saw and did.

Just as important, they can be very hard to understand. The bible had even more to say about the coming of the Messiah, and his second coming, than it tells us about creation. You would think it's message would be very clear. Yet the Jews waiting for Messiah completely misunderstood how it was supposed work:

Through the years You made it clear
That the time of Christ was near
Though Your people could not see
What Messiah ought to be
Though Your Word contained the plan
They just would not understand
That Your most awesome work was done
Through the frailty of Your Son http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Winans-Phase-2/El-Shaddai.html

Then we have the church, who did have the Holy Spirit to open the meaning of God's word to their hearts, yet from the first century they have kept getting Jesus second coming wrong and thinking the bible said clearly it was going to be in their generation.

God has inspired prophecy about the coming of the Messiah and the creation of the word, yet it is only when we see how God has fulfilled it that we can understand what he meant in scripture. The scientific evidence of the history of the earth contradicts what people thought Genesis ought to meant. But so did the coming of the Messiah, and his non appearance all the times through history when people though he should return. We understand prophecy after we discover how the events were fulfilled, not before.

 

[Raydon]

I do get excited and supportive when I read my Creation Illustrated magazine when they have science articles of Creation disproving evolution.

Hello SuperSaint4GodDBZStyle

I'm not going to go into all the reasons why Creationism is false and Evolution is true, no doubt this thread will head that way anyway. I'd just like to make the small point that since the Theory of Evolution is just that, a scientific Theory (not the general meaning of the word, there's a difference, look it up), anyone disproving it would probably get the Nobel Prize. So if someone writing for that magazine has disproved it, why aren't they sending their data through the proper scientific peer review channels and publishing proper papers on the subject? Could it be that they only write articles in a Creation magazine because they know Creationists will automatically want to believe them and will not do any research into whether what they write is true or not?

 

[gluadys]

Hello SuperSaint4GodDBZStyle

I'm not going to go into all the reasons why Creationism is false and Evolution is true, no doubt this thread will head that way anyway. I'd just like to make the small point that since the Theory of Evolution is just that, a scientific Theory (not the general meaning of the word, there's a difference, look it up), anyone disproving it would probably get the Nobel Prize. So if someone writing for that magazine has disproved it, why aren't they sending their data through the proper scientific peer review channels and publishing proper papers on the subject? Could it be that they only write articles in a Creation magazine because they know Creationists will automatically want to believe them and will not do any research into whether what they write is true or not?

I can truly understand that people can be fully convinced of creationsim when they have no other source of information about evolution. That was my situation when I was a teenager. Schools as yet did not discuss evolution below university level. There was no book about evolution in our school library. I did have a book on dinosaurs but it did not discuss evolution. My church did not touch on the controversy at all. The internet was not invented yet and television was still in its infancy. We had only four networks (3 American & the CBC) and one independent channel, none of which had ongoing science programs. And even such science programs as existed seldom if ever touched on evolution.

So almost my only source of information was Sunday morning fundamentalist radio programs and bible tracts and magazines produced by fundamentalist organizations.

Why wouldn't I think evolution was a crazy idea?

It only took meeting two people I knew were not crazy and who did accept evolution to make me realize scientists in general are not crazy either. Why would not-crazy people believe a crazy idea? And that was enough curiosity to make me check out a science text and find out that the theory of evolution was not so crazy after all.

It never occurred to me that God is such a wuss that he can't deal with reality. If evolution is real and God is real, then they have to be compatible, and I have to change some of my ideas. So I changed some of my ideas. It really wasn't that hard.

What gets to me is that today there is no excuse for being as ignorant as I was about evolution. It is taught (if badly) in elementary and high schools. It is referred to regularly in mainstream media and there is even more information through specialty channels like Discovery and programs like Nova. And there are the marvellous resources of the internet.

Anyone today who hasn't a clue about evolution has to be deliberately hiding from these sources of information. They have to be taking deliberate steps to maintain the walls of their ignorance.

Why? Are they really closet atheists who fear to discover their true beliefs? Do they really believe that reality can disprove God?

 

[archaeologist]

and one of the ways satan does that is to convince ppl that the only way the Bible is true is if the fundamentalist view is right. Once the evidence of God's creation shows that interpretation is wrong, then the Bible must be dismissed.

1 Tim. 6:3-5-- "if anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree tosound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands noting. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words..."
it continues and as you see many people look to science over God's word and that is their error.

secular science" is a meaningless term. Science by definition doesn't include the supernatural,

right which is why it cannot be trusted to find the truth nor have any answers. this is the fatal flaw of secular science, it omits God as he acts supernaturally and science ignores such things hoping to find alternatives without believing God.

He created, the very laws that brought forth our existence

another fatal error which undermines alternatives to the creation account (literal). natural laws did not bring forth our existence, God did through a supernatural act of creation. gen. 1:26-27

Believing in such a lie as a "literal creation account" is just a setup to be let down when the evidence is examined closely

again when one turns from God's ways...'The just shall live by faith...' and turns to secular science's 'evidence' then all sorts of accusations come out as they are believing a deception and not the truth.

So if God wanted to make us via evolution could you accept that

a moot questions since evolution doesn't exist.

because of a critical analysis of the evidence.

which is against God's criteria of faith. the secular world doesn't have all the evidence it needs nor does it have the insight to recognize what they have thus they produce false conclusions on minute 'evidence' which they can never show to be true.

The scientific method is self correcting. If something is false it won't last long. The above quoted statement is simply ignorance of what the scientific method involves and the attitude of those who carry it out

basically, it is the blind leading the blind. which is sad because so many souls will be lost needlessly.

I don't think that belief of his could be used against the YECs on this board.

yet many accusations are--flat earth, sun revolving around the earth and so on. it may not be kent hovind's opinions but it certainly is the catholic church's.

but it was put in a context the writers would understand.

so God lied to His authors? then He wouldn't be God or sinless which would make Him incapable of judging the world.

don't deny God's words, I embrace them

if you did, then you would use discernment when it comes to secular theories which contradict the word of God.

First of all, most non-believers are more concerned with their personal lives and how Jesus can bring them joy, not the creation account

so you lie to non-christians as well. it is all part of the package, you can't preach one part of scripture as true and another as untrue.

I don't just believe what i want. I study Genesis in context. I look at the culture, the way it was written, the meaning of the Hebrew used and various other things to find out what it means. There are deep theological truths that are contained in the creation account. If someone were to spend all their efforts on making it a scientific document, I fear they may miss the truth contained in the text

creation is not inthe realmof science but theoplogy. the scientists are trespassing where they have no authority. again many of those excuses are just that, excuses to justify believing alternatives whenGod's word is very clear. no evolution/theistic evolution.

You know how? So how many different species of land animals existed in the first week? Which one? When God made man from dust, did the dust just change properties into biological matter? Do you seek to find answers to these kind of questions

you are asking questions to which only God knows the answer and secular science will never ascertain how it happened.

I know that some creationists claim that the decay rate of radioactive isotopes is changing, which makes radiometric dating inaccurate. Do they try to find out what rate they change at? Are there predictions that can be made from this?

so, let them. they may have found the truth.radiometric dates are inaccurate because they are subjective and based uponassumptions. predictions mean nothing as any given fulfillment of such has more possibilities than just evolution, but secular scientists do not acknowledge that.

YECs must realize that they have no idea HOW anything really works,

ah yes, the ole' " only we can know how it is done" argument --- sorry but everyone was born with a brain, scientists aren't the only ones who can figure something out and we know secular scientists are off the mark.

I agree with the bolded part

of course you do as you want to ignore which shows you are wrong. typical pick and choose.

I don't argue that because allegory was used in other parts of the bible then the creation account must be allegory. I argue that because of the creation account itself, the way it was written, the cultural context etc is the reason I think it's allegory.

so gen. 1:31 is allegorical to you? of course it would be as it interferes with your beliefs.

Upon examination it's easy to see that the creation account is meant as theology and not a science textbook, so believing evolution doesn't go against His word.

what poppycock. of course evolution is against God's word, again, gen. 1:31 or 'the just shall live by faith' and a host of other scripture references which support a literal genesis creation act while none support an evolutionary act. please cite all the scriptures which support anevolutionary process.

{i have made this request before and has always beenmet with silence}

On the other hand, you can deny God's creative force the glory it deserves by simply believing He "poofed" everything into existence. I find my awe and wonder of God's power gets more and more heightened with every scientific article I read pertaining to the age of the earth/universe and to evolution.

sorry but God speaking and it appearing demonstrates God's power far better than waiting millions of years for all to form.

i can hear the complaints now- 'if God is so powerful why didn;t He just use that power and do it instantly?'

you don't see it and you never will until you let go of following the world.

Sounds like agreement to me.

we don't agree. i know your meaning and it is not the same.

 

[archaeologist]

glaudys' post reminds me of this verse:

2 Peter 2:21
For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them

 

[artybloke]

so God lied to His authors?

WHY IS TELLING STORIES A LIE!

And I think creation science is a lie from start to finish.

 

[SuperSaint4GodDBZStyle]

Dang! I never new some people could write so much. Back to the topic. Thanks Archy for the edification. For Rudolph, I don't know how to get to those articles on the internet. I just have t hem in the magazine. If you want u could subscribe by going to www.creationillustrated.com to subscribe for the magazine yourself. Also this is something different. This natural world came out of the spiritual world. First there was the spirit, then natural.