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The Bible's version of "creation" slams Church Dogma of "Creationism"
The Difference between Creationism and the Bible creation:
It would be appropriate to define the term "Creationism" and that it is entirely separate from the Biblical term "creation". So are they different ?
Yes there is a difference. The word creation is found in the Bible. As an example Romans 1:20. However, the word "Creationism" is never found in the Bible.
"Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1971) defines "creation" as the act of creating, and "creationism" as a "doctrine or theory of creation." The same dictionary defines "ism" as a "distinctive doctrine, cause, system, or theory - often used disparagingly."
When did this moverment begin? In the 1980s "Creationism" has become a true "ism" because of it's adoption by political pressure groups, such as you all remember, "The Moral Majority". It is no longer a neutral term, but embodies extreme Fundamentalist views of the bible, such as God created the earth and everything upon it in six days of 24 hours each. There appears to be hundreds , if not thousands of books in circulation on the subject. Hence I just wanted to define what the actual word means.
Remember, 1981, Little Rock, Arkansas - "Creationism On Trial" ?????????
Maybe some of you can remember this back when it first started. The courtroom drama pitted "creation science" Fundamentalists and the ACLU-supported scientists and the "Theologians" against the "Liberal Teachers". The point at issue was a state law requiring that "creation science" be taught in the public schools along with evolution. The trial was actually crazy on the part of both parties, but especially and in particularly it was the "Creationists" who blew a golden opportunity to present facts and they failed miserably. At the trial the witnesses on both sides provided testimony that ranged from established facts to absurd opinions. But there are a number of questions to consider in view of the Judges decision: Did it mean that evolution was now an established fact? Do we now understand that the human race is really millions of years old? Is the Bible wrong? Should we not teach our children that God created man?
Before I present the evidence where the "Creationists" blew it, just consider this: "What was the "Creation Science" that was on trial? Is it scientifically based, or, as it's opponents maintain, is it a facade of sectarian religious dogma?
Let me get my written notes together and I'll show you what I found a long time ago. It's actually very Kool
Here we go again! I hope you have something different to say than the many other posts on the subject.
BTW: in the fossil record or on cave paintings, I have never seen the words evolution or evolutionist enscribed. Should we be concerned?
And I guess you are going to somehow prove that creation science is different than applied science. Like a creationist has to invent some new fossil or that they cannot re-interpret the data from previous studies. Because of course no one re-interprets data to fit their own particular theory (I think this is the stay of evolutionists).
Also, Bluepacific if you have notes from along time ago they are probably outdated. But, I think you are attempting at some kind of history lesson, right?
Here we go again! I hope you have something different to say than the many other posts on the subject.
BTW: in the fossil record or on cave paintings, I have never seen the words evolution or evolutionist enscribed. Should we be concerned?
And I guess you are going to somehow prove that creation science is different than applied science. Like a creationist has to invent some new fossil or that they cannot re-interpret the data from previous studies. Because of course no one re-interprets data to fit their own particular theory (I think this is the stay of evolutionists).
Also, Bluepacific if you have notes from along time ago they are probably outdated. But, I think you are attempting at some kind of history lesson, right?
This is the same hatred that blew the Little Rock, Arkansas court case for the "Creationists". I do believe in creation, but you have'nt let me finish what I want to say.
Proverbs 18:13 (AKJV) , "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and a shame unto him"
Proverbs 18:13 (New Jerusalem Bible) , "To retort without first listening is both foolish and embarassing"
Please don't embarass yourself here.
Cheers,
Last edited by bluepacific; 08-04-2008 at 04:56 AM..
The supporters of "Creationism" wrote a definition that was incorporated into the Arkansas state Law and inserted into the judicial opinion. It included scientific evidence that there are limits to the changes within the kinds of living things that were originally created, and that mutations or natural selection do not suffice to change one species into another. It also asserted that the earth and eveything on it are the result of a recent act of creation, and that all geologic strata with their fossils resulted from a single worldwide Flood.
Now here's where they thought they were clever. The framers of the law were careful to omit any reference to God or the Bible, in order to avoid any constitutional bars against teaching religion in school. Where they blew it was at the trial, their writings and their testimony that the Creation and the Flood refered to are in the Bible's book of Genesis. Another flaw in their argument was that, the time of creation was not spelled out in the law, they acknowledged that "recent" means perhaps 6000 years and not more than 10,000 years.
They blew a chance for exposing Evolutions Faults
Unfortunately for the "Creationists", the did'nt expose any of evolutions weak points. The evidence from experiments on mutations was never emphasized in the trial. Overwhelmingly, the results of such research are that mutations lead only to the degeneration of the genetic pattern, producing defective specimens. They do not create new organs or new functions and it never leads to new species. The facts are actually contrary to the evolutionary theory and support the corollary principal of creation, found in Genesis, that every "kind" of plant or animal can produce ONLY it's own "kind". But here again is where the "Creationists" neglected to argue any of this.
Then there is the point about the Geological record which once again they failed to bring out some good arguments and expose the evolutionary flaws. The geological record does NOT a continuous graduationof fossils from one species to another. whicch Darwin's theory would require. Rather it shows us that new species appear suddenly, in the sedimentary columns, and without any connection to older lifeforms. Even evolutionists are currently embroiled in arguments with each other in the theory of Punctuated Equalibrium, in which it is aditted that the long search for missing links has failed.
The sudden appearance of new species is really a strong evidence for creation and against evolution. But here again, this was not even considered or even a factor at the trial. So why did the "Creationists" not take full advantage of this ?????? They could'nt because they do NOT associate different geologic strata with different epochs od creation, but profess that they were all formed at the same time, when Noah's Flood subsided. Being chained up by this non-Biblical doctrine, the "Creationists" could only use the fossil record to tear down evolution. Their biggest problem was that they did'nt realize it was them "Creationism" that was on trial and not "Evolution". Hence they blew it.
Here's some of "Creationism's" faults.
Remember, it was this aspect of the "Creationist's" thesis, tied to thier doctrine of recent creation, that actually got the biggest spotlight in the trial and the news media. Their teaching that the earth and even the Universe are less than 10,000 years old contradicts all of the findings of modern science. They are so far out of step and out of touch with reality, that they actually invite criticism and ridicule from the scientific community.
For example, geologists can point to their measurements of geologic processes that extend far beyond that narrow time frame. Ocean sediments themselves have accumulated over far more than 10,000 years. The time to building mountains and wear them down can be measured in millions of years. For continents to drift apart and form oceans also takes hundreds of millions of years. To say that ALL of this goes back to ONLY 10,000 years is simply absurd in the eyes of Geologists.
Astronomers were equally outraged. They are accustomed to think not only of planetary cycles that take days or years but also of long eons of time for stars and galaxies to form. They deal with such vast differences that even light, traveling at 186,000 miles (300,000 KM) per second, takes billions of years to reach their telescopes. They have estimated the distance to the Magellanic Clouds in the southern skies, our nearest nieghboring galaxy, to be over 100,000 light years. If this were created ONLY 10,000 years ago, as the "Creationists" insist, we would still be waiting 90,000 years for the first glimmer of light from it to reach us. Light from the Andromeda Nebula in the northern henisphere would be taking 1,500,000 years to reach us and yet we can see it right now on a clear night.
Pysicists also protested in saying it was absolutely impossible to squeeze that amount of time into only 10,000 years. They point to radioactive elements like uranium and thorium that have lives measured in billions of years. The accumulations of distictive isotopes of lead, which are the end products of radioactive decay, shows that some of the oldest rocks in the earth's crust must have lain undisturbed for 3 or 4 Billion years. And their interpretation of red-shifted light from the distant galaxies, out at the edge of the visible Universe, sets it's beginning at 10 to 20 billion years ago.
So if the "Creationist's" views are to be considered true in the face of this evidence and we are to believe in the narrow 10,000 years, then this must be how it worked. When God created the rocks with uranium in them, then he also must have put in the right amount of isotopes of lead in them to give the appearance of them looking to be a billion years old????????? When he made the Andrameda Galaxy, did he also fill a path (or StartTecky type of Wormhole) to the earth with light waves, all along it's 10 thousand billion miles, so that we would not have to wait to see the lights in the sky????????? Would Almighty God have to use a lie of illusions in his creation just to decieve us ??????????
How about Dinosaurs, where do they fit into the "Creationist's" scheme of things ???????? I know you all have been debating this and it looked tiring to even comment before, but the problem here again is the "Creationist's" view that Humans and Dinosaurs and every kind of animal, extinct and present, lived on earth at the same time before the Flood. They were all swept away together in a grand melange of Floodwaters. How then do they account for the orderly sequence of fossils in sedimentary rocks, starting with simple life forms in the lower strata, followed by increasingly more diverse and complex creatures in the higher strata ??????? I'll come back later with my take on what I read the creation account of Genesis to actually be talking about.
There's actually some good info out there if you wish to Google the Little Rock, Arkansas court case & "Creationism" vrs "Evolution"
Blupacific, I am not embarrassed! I did listen to what you had to say which was nothing at the time and appears still to be so after this last post.
Creationists are people like evolutionist. People make mistakes. So what!
A light year is a distance. There is no time associated with it. Just because you cannot think of a way for light to travel that distance in under 10k years does not make it imposible. The bible is the truth. If God says he created it and gave us an account of less than 10k years and nature is the unwritten account of God then they both should match. Just because we don't know how is the proble, it is false reasoning to assume that the former is false. Scientist do not know many things. For example the Magnetism that we use every day and can calculate eludes the Standard Theory as to what it accually is. No one knows why it work, it just does, so it is accepted. The same is for gravity.
There have been many theories to account for the light coming from the stars. See the "decay of C" or the "time dilation of space" for just a couple of examples.
As for the various layers with different animals, these are just the effects of the flood covering different zones, accompanied by hydolification and finally post deluge flooding. So, why would you find a T-Rex with bottom dwelling ocean creature? That would not make sense because the T-Rex lived no where near the bottom of the ocean.
The probems with the fossil reccord for the evolutionist is that fossils protrude through multiple layers representing hundreds of millions of years, layers that are supposedly hundreds of millions of years appart meet at various locations yet show no signs of reworking or errosion due to water, etc., Fossils are never found in slow deposition areas on the earth like the Mississippi delta, but only in areas of quick covering by aqueous born sediment (like mudslides or hence the Flood) or by volcanic activity like the city of Pompei. Many species which have been reported by evolutionist like the Lycantha sp. in the fossil reccord and dated at 300 mya. have be caught off the coasts of Madagascar by local fish monger. They do not know how they have survived such a vast amout of time without any evolutionary change. The isotopic testing requires a paper to identify where the fossil was found and in what strata, why, because the testing of a speciment cannot exceed the predetermined time frame for the strata? Sounds biased or fixed, you pick! In human artifacts we find pictures of dinosaurs like on budhist temples ( with carving of stegasaurus'), or people interacting with dinosaurs (see the ica stones), are among the many problems that evolutionist have to face but rather dismiss!
Red shift just means that everyting is moving away from us which would make sense in light of a creation event.
So, you have just rehashed many of the already discussed issues. The question is who is right? It all comes down to who you want to believe. Who has interpreted the data correctly?
Unfortunately the fossil reccord is not an ideal picture for the evolutionist. Many fossils are found in strata that does not match the evolutionary timescale. Should we throw this model out then because it does not work? No evolutionist would agree with that they have all kinds of great excusses like the soil was reworked. There comes a point you would think that the theory would need to be reworked but no, don't even go there because the theory has been set in stone harder than the fossils that we find.
Unfortunately the fossil reccord is not an ideal picture for the evolutionist. Many fossils are found in strata that does not match the evolutionary timescale. Should we throw this model out then because it does not work? No evolutionist would agree with that they have all kinds of great excusses like the soil was reworked. There comes a point you would think that the theory would need to be reworked but no, don't even go there because the theory has been set in stone harder than the fossils that we find.
And yet they did'nt even use the Fossil record to their own scientific advantage as well of other scientific data that does not conflict with the Bible. Wanna know why ???????? Because rather than focussing on logic and FACTS , they spent their whole time spewing their hatred towards Evolutionists, Atheisim, Agnostics , etc. HATE seems to cloud out all intelligent logical reasonings and proofs. They deserved to loose that court case and thanks to God they did. What an embarassment most of this has been to the Creator. I would'nt want "Creationism" taught to my child either or for that matter "Evolution". I think if you want to teach your child "creation" - "Evolutionism" - "Creationism" , then do it at home and leave the school to teach the basics. The schools have other values which I'm most sure are not compatible with the Bible , but that's why parents need to take the bull by the horns and be responsible in what their children learn. The problem is that ALL the Churches have failed miserably in trying to teach any kind of morality to the people, so these religious pressure groups ride the back of Government to have morality legislated on every citizen. This case in Arkansas was no different and they deserved to have that judgement go against them.
Unfortunately the fossil reccord is not an ideal picture for the evolutionist. Many fossils are found in strata that does not match the evolutionary timescale. Should we throw this model out then because it does not work? No evolutionist would agree with that they have all kinds of great excusses like the soil was reworked. There comes a point you would think that the theory would need to be reworked but no, don't even go there because the theory has been set in stone harder than the fossils that we find.
Great post Nikk. I could not of said it better myself.
Great post Nikk. I could not of said it better myself.
And yet your buddy did'nt understand that I never said the fossil record agreed with "evolution", they decided to go with the "Hate" defense strategy rather than using the fossil record to help them with their belief in "creation". Oh, that's right, they believe in "Creationism".
The supporters of "Creationism" wrote a definition that was incorporated into the Arkansas state Law and inserted into the judicial opinion. It included scientific evidence that there are limits to the changes within the kinds of living things that were originally created, and that mutations or natural selection do not suffice to change one species into another. It also asserted that the earth and eveything on it are the result of a recent act of creation, and that all geologic strata with their fossils resulted from a single worldwide Flood. Now here's where they thought they were clever. The framers of the law were careful to omit any reference to God or the Bible, in order to avoid any constitutional bars against teaching religion in school. Where they blew it was at the trial, their writings and their testimony that the Creation and the Flood refered to are in the Bible's book of Genesis. Another flaw in their argument was that, the time of creation was not spelled out in the law, they acknowledged that "recent" means perhaps 6000 years and not more than 10,000 years.
They blew a chance for exposing Evolutions Faults
Unfortunately for the "Creationists", the did'nt expose any of evolutions weak points. The evidence from experiments on mutations was never emphasized in the trial. Overwhelmingly, the results of such research are that mutations lead only to the degeneration of the genetic pattern, producing defective specimens. They do not create new organs or new functions and it never leads to new species. The facts are actually contrary to the evolutionary theory and support the corollary principal of creation, found in Genesis, that every "kind" of plant or animal can produce ONLY it's own "kind". But here again is where the "Creationists" neglected to argue any of this. Then there is the point about the Geological record which once again they failed to bring out some good arguments and expose the evolutionary flaws. The geological record does NOT a continuous graduationof fossils from one species to another. whicch Darwin's theory would require. Rather it shows us that new species appear suddenly, in the sedimentary columns, and without any connection to older lifeforms. Even evolutionists are currently embroiled in arguments with each other in the theory of Punctuated Equalibrium, in which it is aditted that the long search for missing links has failed. The sudden appearance of new species is really a strong evidence for creation and against evolution. But here again, this was not even considered or even a factor at the trial. So why did the "Creationists" not take full advantage of this ?????? They could'nt because they do NOT associate different geologic strata with different epochs od creation, but profess that they were all formed at the same time, when Noah's Flood subsided. Being chained up by this non-Biblical doctrine, the "Creationists" could only use the fossil record to tear down evolution. Their biggest problem was that they did'nt realize it was them "Creationism" that was on trial and not "Evolution". Hence they blew it.
Here's some of "Creationism's" faults.
Remember, it was this aspect of the "Creationist's" thesis, tied to thier doctrine of recent creation, that actually got the biggest spotlight in the trial and the news media. Their teaching that the earth and even the Universe are less than 10,000 years old contradicts all of the findings of modern science. They are so far out of step and out of touch with reality, that they actually invite criticism and ridicule from the scientific community. For example, geologists can point to their measurements of geologic processes that extend far beyond that narrow time frame. Ocean sediments themselves have accumulated over far more than 10,000 years. The time to building mountains and wear them down can be measured in millions of years. For continents to drift apart and form oceans also takes hundreds of millions of years. To say that ALL of this goes back to ONLY 10,000 years is simply absurd in the eyes of Geologists. Astronomers were equally outraged. They are accustomed to think not only of planetary cycles that take days or years but also of long eons of time for stars and galaxies to form. They deal with such vast differences that even light, traveling at 186,000 miles (300,000 KM) per second, takes billions of years to reach their telescopes. They have estimated the distance to the Magellanic Clouds in the southern skies, our nearest nieghboring galaxy, to be over 100,000 light years. If this were created ONLY 10,000 years ago, as the "Creationists" insist, we would still be waiting 90,000 years for the first glimmer of light from it to reach us. Light from the Andromeda Nebula in the northern henisphere would be taking 1,500,000 years to reach us and yet we can see it right now on a clear night. Pysicists also protested in saying it was absolutely impossible to squeeze that amount of time into only 10,000 years. They point to radioactive elements like uranium and thorium that have lives measured in billions of years. The accumulations of distictive isotopes of lead, which are the end products of radioactive decay, shows that some of the oldest rocks in the earth's crust must have lain undisturbed for 3 or 4 Billion years. And their interpretation of red-shifted light from the distant galaxies, out at the edge of the visible Universe, sets it's beginning at 10 to 20 billion years ago.
So if the "Creationist's" views are to be considered true in the face of this evidence and we are to believe in the narrow 10,000 years, then this must be how it worked. When God created the rocks with uranium in them, then he also must have put in the right amount of isotopes of lead in them to give the appearance of them looking to be a billion years old????????? When he made the Andrameda Galaxy, did he also fill a path (or StartTecky type of Wormhole) to the earth with light waves, all along it's 10 thousand billion miles, so that we would not have to wait to see the lights in the sky????????? Would Almighty God have to use a lie of illusions in his creation just to decieve us ??????????
How about Dinosaurs, where do they fit into the "Creationist's" scheme of things ???????? I know you all have been debating this and it looked tiring to even comment before, but the problem here again is the "Creationist's" view that Humans and Dinosaurs and every kind of animal, extinct and present, lived on earth at the same time before the Flood. They were all swept away together in a grand melange of Floodwaters. How then do they account for the orderly sequence of fossils in sedimentary rocks, starting with simple life forms in the lower strata, followed by increasingly more diverse and complex creatures in the higher strata ??????? I'll come back later with my take on what I read the creation account of Genesis to actually be talking about.
There's actually some good info out there if you wish to Google the Little Rock, Arkansas court case & "Creationism" vrs "Evolution"
"Flame On" !!!!!
Well it would be a mistake to believe that at the lowest levels of strata is found the most simple forms of life, and then the more complex forms show up at the higher levels. That is a myth that has been pushed for years, and now many believe it to be true. The reality is, that at the lower levels of strata the life forms are just as complex as life forms found at the higher levels. The lowest level is called the Cambrian, and it contains thousands of creatures from evey phylum, with very complicated internals. It is also in the cambrian where we find the trilobite. A small animal with a very sophisticated visual eye design. Nothing (simple) about
it. Each eye can contain up to 15,000 hexagonal lens. Below the Cambrian there is nothing found that could be considered to be a parent of the thousands of life forms found in the Cambrian. This discovery puts another nail in the coffin of Evolution. The Cambrian shows a suddden appearance of complicated life forms, and nothing below that strata that would suggest evolution.
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Here's where Creationists blew it!
