Geocentrism: deja vu all over again!

[TwinCrier]

My question would be whether you began scrutinizing the evidence before or after you became a Bible believer. And, of course, what sources you used to scrutinize the evidence.

Looking back I don't think it was one or the other. I think as i challenged the evidence of evolution, my thinking EVOLVED into biblical Christianity. The main point was the 'proof' of the age of the fossil evidence. I can be shown a fossil, or a photo of a fossil, and be told that it's 80 million years old, but in what way can I reach that conclusion myself? Logically I would look at the effect a certain amount of aging has on an object and multiplies by x, I should have consistent results. However, a 200 year old fossil contains the same characteristics of a 200 million year old fossil. So I investigated carbon dating and the process used to accomplish that. After developing a headache studying all those chemistry terms, Realized there could be no comparable control since I would have to wait thousands of years to actually get one, but I still had confidence in almighty science. I guess that would be faith. After high school I no longer studied science but simply accepted that there were many different types of evolution theory and that there must be some truth in all of them. I occasionally attended church with friends, but when the creation mumbo jumbo started I tuned it out, and when presented with their 'evidence' I dismissed it as lies and nonsense. I still had faith in a higher being, but one that made men out of monkeys not dirt. Then I started reading about the effects of abortion. I still don't know how that impacted my belief, but as I started feeling that abortion might not be such a good thing, I started to view humans in general as more than mere animals. I didn't even realize it until one Sunday in Alaska the pastor gave a sermon on Genesis, not even about creation, but as he read the verses I started to see how such a thing as a 6 day creation was not only possible, but still fit with the evidence I had presented to me to prove evolution. I'm not sure when exactly but at some point following that I surrounded to accept the Genesis account of creation. It actually was easier to accept then that thing about God becoming human and dying for me, though not as fulfilling. Since then I have reviewed much of the evidence supporting creation that I had previously dismissed as hogwash. Not that I needed more convincing, but it was just to look at it in a new light. Creation evidence makes more sense when you are actually open to accepting that possibility.



That may not be to exciting of a testimony, however, if you care to read of people with actual science backgrounds instead of some public school student, you may want to check out my other post: http://christianforums.com/t945549

 

[Vance]

OK, the first part of your explanation confirms my point. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the dating process. In what ways does a 200 year old rock look like a 200 million year old rock? And why would you be using carbon dating for this analysis, since it doesn't test anything over about 50,000 years? And you do not need controls for his type of dating since breakdown of the elements used in the various dating techniques is shown to be constant and so it has internal controls already there.

All of the Old Earth Creationists, such as Hugh Ross, have lots on exactly how accurate the dating processes really are.

And what evidence that was presented to you for evolution works for a six day creation?

And what about all the evidence that you were given for evolution that does NOT fit with a six day creation? Did you just toss all that out?

I reviewed the evidence for Creationism when I was still convinced that it must all be true. Oddly, it was partly because of the weakness of all the Creationist arguments, their lack of support, their inconsistencies, etc, that convinced me it was incorrect even before I had studied anything about evolution from secular sources. I was raised in a pentecostal church (my dad was an Assembly of God minister), I attended Christian schools my entire life and was fully ingrained with Creationist propoganda. As I began to read it in more detail, though, it just didn't hold up even by its own standards. They would draw unlikely conclusions with very little evidence, if any. There was incredible amounts of sheer speculation that seemed tailor made to fit a pre-existing Creationist belief.

By the time I was out of high school, before I had read a thing about evolution from a secular source, I knew that Creationism has some SERIOUS problems. Of course, I believed that non-Creationist science did as well, so I thought it was just a bunch of guess work on both sides and nobody really knew anything. Then I began to really study the issues of the age of the earth and evolution (again starting as a skeptic) and was amazed at the qualitative difference between what I was reading and the Creationist stuff. Actual evidence! Logical deductions! Sensible proposals! It made sense.

I had long since, while I was still in Christian school taking courses in OT studies and NT studies, decided that Genesis was probably best read non-literally, and so all this made perfect sense with how I already read Genesis.

 

[TwinCrier]

Inconsistant is in the eye of the beholder. Many use those exact same arguments against religion in general. I find creation totally consistant with everything in existance.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Creation is. Young earth creationism is not consistent with endogenous retroviruses or the telomere and termination sequence residues in human chromosome 2, unless you know otherwise.

 

[Vance]

Inconsistant is in the eye of the beholder. Many use those exact same arguments against religion in general. I find creation totally consistant with everything in existance.

Assuming that by "creation" you mean young earth creationism, with the flood geologies, etc, then you would need to review threads over in the Creation and Evolution forum, like Frumious' "Falsifications of a Worldwide Flood" thread and a number of others that explain how the evidences are entirely inconsistent with the YEC propositions.

But if you mean "creation" as in "God created all of it", then I would agree.

 

[Vance]

Following up on the last line of the post above, the question of terminology was brought up on another thread.

We are all actually "Creationists" in the sense that we all believe that God created everything, it did not just happen by forces of nature without God. All Christians believe that God established natural processes that guide what happens in the universe and on this planet. Gravity, photosynthesis and hundreds, if not thousands, of other processes. God does not micromanage His creation. Although He has, and does, interact with it freely, I believe.

The only question for Christians is whether evolution is one of those God-created natural processes, and if so, whether it has been running for billions of years or just a few thousand.