[DropKick74]

Well I have to defend the faith in my composition class. We have to write a 10 page argumentative research essay. I chose to argue for creationism and I was wondering if i could get some input from my brothers and sisters in Christian. Here's what I'm hoping you guys can help me with.

- Can you give me some good sources on the web or in books that scientifically argue for creationism. Also I could use some rebuttals from evolutionists so I can argue why they are wrong.

- I also have questions as to what is widely accepted among the Christian Faith such as...
How do we explain Neanderthals and Caveman remains.
Is Micro-Evolution accepted as true.
Dinosaurs, where do they play in.
How old is the earth.
How does this match up with carbon dating and other types of dating. which argue a very old earth.
Do you believe God made the earth old, was time different for him. Since he was before time and space. Time is relative to space did that affect how long 7 "days" really was.
Also can anyone explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics and how it argues against evolution.
If this is true, how can traditional scientists still argue for evolution if it goes against their doctrine of scientific laws?

Anything you answer, I'd love if you could post some sources for you knowledge just to help me out with the paper. I need like 10 sources all MLA. Thanks alot.

Thanks CGR

[Ted Logan]

A good place to start is Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial. The book was massively important in the development of the Intelligent Design movement, and continues to be influential among members of that group. It does not attack evolution on scientific grounds (primarily), but undermines the philosophical assumptions laden in most evolutionary science. In other words, if an evolutionist and a creationist can look at the same data and come to different conclusions, we need to be asking what accounts for the difference, and Johnson's argument is that the logic under evolution is flawed, which leads to flawed theory, flawed interpretation of evidence, and flawed conclusions.

You can easily find the book in a Christian bookstore, a Christian university library, or (probably) a large secular university library. It's also cheap, so buy it online if you must. It's fairly brief (just a couple hundred pages), and it will give you good starting points.

That said, some of the evolutionists whose arguments Johnson attacks have written rebuttals to the book, so those rebuttals should be taken seriously.

This is also not an endorsement of Johnson's book in toto, or of the Intelligent Design movement at all. I think, however, that you will be on much firmer footing in defending the Faith if you start with something like Johnson rather than simply trying to argue on "scientific grounds" without first considering those philosophical assumptions that determine how we interpret evidence. Also, my statements that follow would not sit well with Johnson or some of the books you will want to research. Don't get turned off about checking out Johnson if you hate what I'm about to say. His book will be invaluable to you in writing your paper, I think. I just happen to disagree with how the Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism camps tend to operate. Now, as to your individual questions:

How do we explain Neanderthals and Caveman remains.

This (and similar questions) will be explained differently from one creationist to the next. Obviously, a Christian with less of a commitment against evolution will be less worried about explaining the remains at all. One argument that some people like to make (I have no sources for this) is that Neanderthals are evidence of the "giants" mentioned in Genesis 6:4 (note: the Hebrew does not call them "giants," but Nephilim, which may mean "those who cause others to fall," that is, heroes who felled their enemies in grand ways). The problem with this sort of argument is that there is actually nothing in the text that indicates that the Nephilim looked different from other men, but merely that they were the result of the union of the sons of God (which I take to mean those who call upon the name of the LORD, cf. Gen 4:26) with the daughters of men (which I take to mean those who refuse to call upon the name of the LORD). That they were heroes says nothing of their physical stature.

Furthermore, scientists are in disagreement as to whether Neanderthals were able to interbreed with Homo sapiens sapiens or not, which means it is not at all clear whether they represent a different species or simply very different humans. Thus, it is no struggle for the Christian faith to entertain the idea that Neanderthals were also descendants of Adam.

Finally, it should be noted that some Christians (myself included) have studies the genealogies in the Old Testament (and the New) and realized that some are unquestionably selective; they do not report every ancestor, neither is there any reason to require them to. So, one could reject macro-evolution without requiring that the earth be only 6000 years old, or that human history only be that old. Hebrew words for "begat" and "son of" are much looser than our usage in English; "begat" does not necessarily mean "fathered," but may mean "grandfathered" or even "is the ancestor an unnamed number of generations prior." "Son of" often merely means "descendant of." This leads me to an answer to the question of the age of the earth: The Bible does NOT give us an age for the earth, nor does it need to, nor need we therefore assume geologists or other evolutionary scientists are right when they claim the world is billions of years old. You don't have to have an answer for every question, and you don't have to buy into a position ENTIRELY just because you disagree with its opponents.

Is Micro-Evolution accepted as true.

This depends on how you define terms.

Dinosaurs, where do they play in.

Good question. Of course, if one doesn't accept that their existence is a challenge to the truth of Scripture, it doesn't make much difference where they fit in. Their bones are around, but they're long gone. Carbon dating seems to indicate they lived dozens of millions of years ago. If this is true, they were gone long before God created Adam and Eve in the Garden. If it's not true, they still weren't around in ancient Biblical times. Could they have died before the Fall of Man? That seems to call into question the idea that death entered the world through the one man's sin (Rom 5:12), but the alternatives proposed by many creationists, that they either died in the Flood (and thus carbon-dating is wrong) or their fossils are an elaborate deception (either by the devil or by God) don't stand up to scrutiny - there's no evidence from Scripture that either is the case, and if there's any scientific evidence for either, I've never seen it. Again, why do we need to explain everything if the competing truth claim doesn't work on its own merit? If you can show that popular evolutionary science is founded on faulty assumptions and bad science, you are not required to explain the evidence exhaustively anymore than the evolutionist thought he had to do so to be "right."

To put it another way, the Bible is not intended to give us exhaustive information about every scientific datum; if it was unnecessary to mention (or important not to mention) cats in the Bible, we don't scramble around trying to fit cats into the Bible for fear that otherwise, Christianity's not true! Nothing about the fossil record directly challenges anything about the Christian faith, either. We don't have to "find" dinosaurs in the pre-flood account, or in Job's discussion of Leviathan and Behemoth, just like we don't have to "find" cats in the Bible. Frankly, dinosaurs don't have to fit in.

How old is the earth.

Old enough

How does this match up with carbon dating and other types of dating. which argue a very old earth.
Do you believe God made the earth old, was time different for him. Since he was before time and space.

We can imagine how this could be, but does that really do much for your argument? I mean, that's setting up a probabilistic argument based on speculation about how things are when they're not how we always observe them. It's making up an explanation when the evidence seems to point in the wrong direction. A better method is to find out for yourself what the data really say, and whether this jives with what scientists are saying. I mean, is there a passage in the Bible that really makes us think that God "sped up" time before humanity came along? First of all, that grants to the atheist that the world appears to be billions of years old. I'm not convinced that's the best road to travel. It might be more worthwhile to experiment with arguments about the limitations of the evidence.

Time is relative to space did that affect how long 7 "days" really was.

When you have days counted before the sun and moon are created, it seems pretty obvious that the words "and there was evening and there was morning, the first day," should give us pause. I think it ought to drive us toward humility, accepting that this is the Word of God, and the human author Moses was not an idiot, therefore whatever is being said makes sense, goes a long way to resolving the tension. Darkness turns to light when God says, "Let there be light." That's evening and morning, a day without sun and moon, but without sun and moon, it's difficult to figure out how long such a day would be. Why are we constrained to say anything about the length of that day?

Also can anyone explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics and how it argues against evolution.

I can't.

If this is true, how can traditional scientists still argue for evolution if it goes against their doctrine of scientific laws?

It's called tenacity.

[Ethan.Bassist.]

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I accept Micro-evolution as true. It makes sense for (this is the example I'm familiar with) the Canaries on the Galapagos to adapt to the kind of food that's on the island. ex: Let's say it takes a long beak to eat berries, the birds that were born with short beaks will either move to where there is food they can eat or they die.
But correct me if I'm wrong.

Dinosaurs. Well, let's get this out of the way: Dinosaurs are awesome. Secondly: Are you familiar with the verses in Job that talk about (widely considered at least I think) Dinosaurs? Job 40:15-34. Its really long, so you can just look it up yourself. Its about "Behemoth" (v19: "he ranks first among the works of God" ...whoa.) and "Leviathan."

As for how old the earth is...I understand the question and dilemma, but I don't know how much it matters. I think God very well could have made the earth in 7 days. Or he could've taken a long time on it. My thought is that no one will ever know how long it took, even with dating processes, because we weren't there. Studying the origins of the earth to me is on the outer reaches of science. As in, it seems to be a lot of speculation (from both sides) and not much conclusive evidence.

Shoot, I just read that last sentence about the sources. I don't have any sources other than the Bible for the dinosaurs. I learned what I told you from school (what I remembered from school anyway. I went to a Christian school.) I'm sure someone has sources here though.

Hope this helped a tiny bit. And good luck!
Ethan.

[Epaphras]

I'm not sure this belongs here. When Apologetics was open he could have gone there, but now I think maybe Academic-School and Homework would be a better place?

[fendeanson]

Originally Posted by Epaphras

I'm not sure this belongs here. When Apologetics was open he could have gone there, but now I think maybe Academic-School and Homework would be a better place?

This seems pretty well placed to me. Creation is something that has to do directly w/ theology.

[Skeeter]

Originally Posted by fendeanson

This seems pretty well placed to me. Creation is something that has to do directly w/ theology.

Yes, but creationism vs. evolution has very little to do with theology...

[Rainer.]

I'm going to just ask a series of questions and make a few statements... things that your paper probably would deal with.

Originally Posted by DropKick74

- Can you give me some good sources on the web or in books that scientifically argue for creationism. Also I could use some rebuttals from evolutionists so I can argue why they are wrong.

Why are creationism and evolution intrinsically opposed? Is a literal Biblical creation essential to our understanding of the creation in the first place?

How do we explain Neanderthals and Caveman remains.
...
Dinosaurs, where do they play in.

Are Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons "human"?

Where did the fossil record come from?

Is Micro-Evolution accepted as true.

Bacterial and viral populations would seem to point very strongly towards microevolutionary processes.

How old is the earth.
How does this match up with carbon dating and other types of dating. which argue a very old earth.

Carbon dating actually does not point to a very old earth, but other things do.

Do you believe God made the earth old, was time different for him. Since he was before time and space. Time is relative to space did that affect how long 7 "days" really was.

What would space/time relativism have to do with an ancient Hebrew text? That seems like a very odd juxtaposition.

Also can anyone explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics and how it argues against evolution.

Entropy. Mass and energy in the universe is always dispersing, becoming more spread out. More importantly matter always moves to a more energetically favorable position. It will actually very often be more energetically favorable to exist in pockets than in a spread out position (explains why atoms tend to exist in molecules, and not by themselves).

How does it argue against evolution? It doesn't really. The idea was that since all matter in the universe is always becoming more chaotically dispersed, the idea of organisms "evolving to more organized forms" is impossible.

But that is actually a far too abstract idea to apply to the randomizing forces that take place in the usual view of evolution.

First off, energy exists in pockets around the universe. Galaxies, stars, and planets are all concentrations of mass and energy. Overall, the energy in the universe is dispersing, but interactions of matter and energy can form pockets that temporarily exist. Temporarily in the sense of billions and billions of years. The Sun is one such pocket of energy.

Next, the Earth has a constant source of energy. Energy is dispersed constantly on earth, that is true, but there is also an input of energy on earth itself from the mechanisms that allow for the Sun to disperse its energy at a fairly constant rate to the Earth.

This ultimate source of energy allows the mechanisms that allow chemical and therefore biological processes to occur on earth (life is really just a series of chemical and physical interactions).

A misnomer of evolution is also that life is becoming "more complex", and that the gene pool, is becoming "more advanced". The idea of evolution is that life is constantly more adapted to the present conditions. A bacterium has gone through just as much adaptation and evolution as a chimpanzee, if not moreso.

If this is true, how can traditional scientists still argue for evolution if it goes against their doctrine of scientific laws?

Do all "traditional scientists" believe in evolution?

All sorts of scientists argue for all sorts of things. I think scientists more than anyone are prone to skepticism about what is "known". However, scientists also work with the best present understanding we have of the universe.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by DropKick74

- Can you give me some good sources on the web or in books that scientifically argue for creationism.

It's difficult to use science to prove something which is miraculous. I don't say that to be difficult, but to make sure you're not using the wrong standard to judge the validity of creationism. I've seen articles where they attempt to explain the miracles in the Bible using science. Which only really proves they weren't miracles at all.

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by Skeeter

Yes, but creationism vs. evolution has very little to do with theology...

Meh, I disagree entirely. Theological framework is going to be where the argument is really settled and hermeneutics. Not scientific research.

Thus really, the debate for Christians is going to rage here.

I would go a similar but different tactic.

1)How do we explain Neanderthals and Caveman remains?

Dead people who lived in caves or a subspecies of human like Neanderthal likely was would just be dead people. I could find you stone age people's today in New Guinea. Do they, pose a problem for creation? If not, why would their deceased counterparts?

(I take Aaron (Ted Logan)'s basic position about the theological writing of the genealogies, so I think we have a distinctly indeterminate length of time.)


2) Is Micro-Evolution accepted as true.

Generally speaking, accepted as true. Variance within populations. Dogs are a classic example. Common ancestor, but you can't breed a wolf and a chihuahua naturally. (I really have no clue if you could artificially, but even so it seems insane to try.)

3)Dinosaurs, where do they play in.

Extinct creatures.

Here my view differs from Aaron's (Ted Logan). I think they are big extinct lizards that actually coexisted with man. I think the memory of the Leviathan and all the other serpent legends in the ANE could well have to do with the fact that the Mosasaur and sauropods have been found in Jordan. I think they are describing living or extinct beasts whose status reached mythology from interaction with humans at some point.

But other than occasional references... irrelevant to scripture.

4)How old is the earth.

Nobody knows, and the Bible doesn't say. Note that Genesis does not even place the creation of the planet within the seven days. God is said to have created it in the beginning, but that time is outside the scope of the seven days of creation, so you are out of luck on this point.

And I might point out that scientists alter the estimated age of the earth every few years, by more than a few years. They don't know either.

5)How does this match up with carbon dating and other types of dating. which argue a very old earth.

Okay, you have stepped on a pet peeve of mine.

Carbon dating only works for things that were alive. There are some fairly serious flaws with some of the other methods of dating as well, but you cannot carbon date the earth. Some methods such as Uranium - Lead rely on way too many assumptions as to original composition.

Since we do not actually know original percentages, I would argue that we actually presume far too much in a lot of dating methods to be effective.

6)Do you believe God made the earth old,

Old, no. Mature, yes. God made Adam as a man, not a zygote. God created a fully functioning world which indicates certain parameters of maturity which could be considered as appearance of age to some I am sure.

7)was time different for him. Since he was before time and space. Time is relative to space did that affect how long 7 "days" really was.

I can't imagine how anybody could answer this question or why it would matter. If we are talking a God who speaks worlds and life into existence, is it any more rational to assume he took longer to do so or shorter? Kiss the scientific goodbye, the work of God is the realm where you have entered the divine, and attempting to explain it with the natural is about the least sensible, and least coherent thing to do. Because gods intervening and creating is by definition, not natural.

8)Also can anyone explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics and how it argues against evolution.

Energy is approaching equilibrium. Higher energy states deteriorate to lower energy states approaching evenness.

It does not actually argue against evolution, because it is a rule of energy, not biology.

9)If this is true, how can traditional scientists still argue for evolution if it goes against their doctrine of scientific laws?

Firstly, it is a misappropriation of a scientific law and applying it to something irrelevant, much in the same way, I could argue that science does not work because the ideal gas law does not apply to hamburgers.

More importantly,I suggest you look at the books Aaron recommended.

[Skeeter]

Originally Posted by BillSPrestonEsq

Meh, I disagree entirely. Theological framework is going to be where the argument is really settled and hermeneutics. Not scientific research.

Thus really, the debate for Christians is going to rage here.

I am instead arguing that where you fall in the debate has little bearing on your theology. I know extremely Christ-centered, gospel-oriented Christians who absolutely believe in original sin and Christ's death on the cross, and are ardent defenders of evolution. I also know vehement creationists who also have bizarre beliefs theologically.

I think evolution/creation is a dead issue for me theologically. The most that can be said theologically is in regards to what one believes about the Bible, as in extreme literalism.

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by DropKick74

Is Micro-Evolution accepted as true.

I think it's worth mentioning that microevolution describes the same thing as macroevolution but on a smaller scale. Furthermore macroevolution (change in species) has also been observed. This is probably why Ted indicated that definition of terms is important. The larger debate is probably not creationism vs. evolution per se, rather it's about a creationism vs. a certain narrative involving evolution where humanity arises from lower species.

[Ted Logan]

Originally Posted by BillSPrestonEsq

3)Dinosaurs, where do they play in.

Extinct creatures.

Here my view differs from Aaron's (Ted Logan). I think they are big extinct lizards that actually coexisted with man. I think the memory of the Leviathan and all the other serpent legends in the ANE could well have to do with the fact that the Mosasaur and sauropods have been found in Jordan. I think they are describing living or extinct beasts whose status reached mythology from interaction with humans at some point.

But other than occasional references... irrelevant to scripture.

I don't firmly disagree with your view as possible, it just seems to go beyond the evidence to do as some creationists do and demand we accept Leviathan as a description of a dinosaur. The evidence from the Bible is circumstantial on this point, and the evidence from the dating of fossils is problematic but does not in itself give any confidence in placing humans and dinosaurs together. Again, I reject the idea that they could have lived and died before the Fall, but that's as far as I'm willing to take it. The Bible doesn't tell us that the dinosaurs lived pre-flood but were not preserved, so saying that the flood drove them to extinction goes way beyond the Biblical evidence and is unnecessary. As you said, they're "extinct creatures" and "irrelevant to scripture," so I don't think we need to find a way to explain them. If Leviathan represents a primordial memory in ANE mythology, fine. The problem is that I can't see how one would first show that this is probable, which seems to be prior to using it to explain dinosaurs.

5)How does this match up with carbon dating and other types of dating. which argue a very old earth.

Okay, you have stepped on a pet peeve of mine.

Carbon dating only works for things that were alive. There are some fairly serious flaws with some of the other methods of dating as well, but you cannot carbon date the earth. Some methods such as Uranium - Lead rely on way too many assumptions as to original composition.

Since we do not actually know original percentages, I would argue that we actually presume far too much in a lot of dating methods to be effective.

And this, my friend, is why it's awesome to have a rockhound in CGR theology

6)Do you believe God made the earth old,

Old, no. Mature, yes. God made Adam as a man, not a zygote. God created a fully functioning world which indicates certain parameters of maturity which could be considered as appearance of age to some I am sure.

Again, I have no problem with this; I just would like to see Christians act with greater restraint when they consider this sort of thing. If true, how would we show it except by turning to Scripture? And when we look to Scripture, at best we have a suggestion that it might be the case given the fact that God created Adam as a mature, morally-liable being.

7)was time different for him. Since he was before time and space. Time is relative to space did that affect how long 7 "days" really was.

8)Also can anyone explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics and how it argues against evolution.

Energy is approaching equilibrium. Higher energy states deteriorate to lower energy states approaching evenness.

It does not actually argue against evolution, because it is a rule of energy, not biology.

BOO-yah!

Originally Posted by slap_j

I think it's worth mentioning that microevolution describes the same thing as macroevolution but on a smaller scale. Furthermore macroevolution (change in species) has also been observed. This is probably why Ted indicated that definition of terms is important. The larger debate is probably not creationism vs. evolution per se, rather it's about a creationism vs. a certain narrative involving evolution where humanity arises from lower species.

I think the big questions for us as Christians are not so much about "macro-evolution" in general as defined by scientists (so that we might be able to breed two groups of flies so selectively as to make them unable to create viable offspring when we bring them back together, and say we've seen the divergence of two species), but about the history of humanity in particular, the nature of humanity as the image of God alone, and the integrity of the Genesis story. Can we maintain an adequate view of Christ's headship and of His work of salvation without a first Adam? What happens to our faith if we essentially throw out everything that God has seen fit to tell us about ourselves by "spiritualizing" it? Or, to summarize a favorite professor of mine, even if we see the Genesis creation account as somehow more etiological than historical in the modern, western sense of the word, it nevertheless purports to tell what happened to the first man and woman - there is a starting point in human history that, when we cast it aside, trivializes everything else about human sin and suffering, as well as human dignity as those who were intended to be the representatives of God to His world.

All that to say that I agree with you, Josh.

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by Ted Logan

I don't firmly disagree with your view as possible, it just seems to go beyond the evidence to do as some creationists do and demand we accept Leviathan as a description of a dinosaur. The evidence from the Bible is circumstantial on this point, and the evidence from the dating of fossils is problematic but does not in itself give any confidence in placing humans and dinosaurs together. Again, I reject the idea that they could have lived and died before the Fall, but that's as far as I'm willing to take it. The Bible doesn't tell us that the dinosaurs lived pre-flood but were not preserved, so saying that the flood drove them to extinction goes way beyond the Biblical evidence and is unnecessary. As you said, they're "extinct creatures" and "irrelevant to scripture," so I don't think we need to find a way to explain them. If Leviathan represents a primordial memory in ANE mythology, fine. The problem is that I can't see how one would first show that this is probable, which seems to be prior to using it to explain dinosaurs.

Leviathan just sounds like some sort of primordial memory or even a contemporary one. (I have a suspicion that a dinosaur may have hung out a little longer in loch ness perhaps than most. (I mean even if it was 500 years ago, it would explain the legend and I am not married to any idea of any one thing that forces dinosaurs to be extinct.) I also think it is interesting that the dinosaurs which seem to explain Leviathan and Behemoth lived in the same period, and are native to the area Uz is presumed to be. So even if they are a distant story passed on by legend at the time of the writing of Job, I think the fact that they are native to the region, fit the description of the text, and are generally something which has existence, (which is required for Leviathan in Job.) I just don't see how it could be anything else which people describe.

No theological points hang on this really. I see it as likely because there are a few reasons to think it might be and I cannot think of a similar beast that fits the area. However, this would be insanity for a debate paper, because for this argument to work, you have to presume the texts are accurate, and that they are describing something other than a mythic beast.

Again, I have no problem with this; I just would like to see Christians act with greater restraint when they consider this sort of thing. If true, how would we show it except by turning to Scripture? And when we look to Scripture, at best we have a suggestion that it might be the case given the fact that God created Adam as a mature, morally-liable being.

We have better than a suggestion that Adam was made as an adult. He is portrayed as needing a helpmeet, but right out of the gate, the command to guard and tend the garden requires him to be of some age. Also, if he was a lad, the text has other words for that in Hebrew. (And is used fairly frequently in Genesis.)

But frankly, the impossibility of the opposite pretty much shows that Adam was created somewhere with a degree of maturity. I really don't think anybody has argued that Adam was created as an egg meeting sperm or even as a zygote. Anything past that has some degree of maturity.

If there were topsoil for the garden, that would be a seeming appearance of age. If the rivers had beds, that would be some maturing of the land prior to in habitation. If the trees were more than seeds...

It makes sense that the garden was mature enough to be very good, whatever that took. Which in any scenario I see is a little bit of age. I am not arguing for 30,000,000,000 years of fake fossils or such nonsense, but obviously, a little bit was needed to create the garden.

And I think scripture is your only defense here, and absolutely useless if you are attempting to engage in a naturalistic debate as to the origins of the earth. If you engage in such a debate you cannot win as you are arguing for a theistic origin. The second you introduce a deity into the equation you have left the parameters of the debate as it is commonly set. It's like playing poker when the dealer has stacked the deck. Too many Christians try to play the game.

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by Ted Logan

I think the big questions for us as Christians are not so much about "macro-evolution" in general as defined by scientists (so that we might be able to breed two groups of flies so selectively as to make them unable to create viable offspring when we bring them back together, and say we've seen the divergence of two species), but about the history of humanity in particular, the nature of humanity as the image of God alone, and the integrity of the Genesis story. Can we maintain an adequate view of Christ's headship and of His work of salvation without a first Adam? What happens to our faith if we essentially throw out everything that God has seen fit to tell us about ourselves by "spiritualizing" it? Or, to summarize a favorite professor of mine, even if we see the Genesis creation account as somehow more etiological than historical in the modern, western sense of the word, it nevertheless purports to tell what happened to the first man and woman - there is a starting point in human history that, when we cast it aside, trivializes everything else about human sin and suffering, as well as human dignity as those who were intended to be the representatives of God to His world.

Agreed. Heliocentric thought was a damnable heresy to Calvin, and anecdotally it was supposedly mocked by Luthor. But we must be sensitive and realize that there was more at stake in the mind of conservative theologians than Earth have a privileged status.

From what I'm read, the idea of Earth being the center of the universe was an issue of faithfulness to Scripture. After all, God creates the sun & moon after the earth and in relation to the earth. This, metaphorically, seems to highlight that Earth is His focus. For support from a more direct source, the Bible frequently refers to the sun as being the thing traveling over the earth. Joshua didn't say "Earth, stop rotating," but "Sun, stand still." The cosmological model adopted et adapted from the Jews seemed to have Earth as a drain...the Heavens are pure, Hell is full of the sinful (& is at the center of the earth), and Earth is the land in between.

So rejecting geocentrism made some worry that people would reject a) the idea that Earth is God's special focus (if we're just one corner of the solar system, and if there are countless others in space); b) the idea of Earth being a place of sin; c) the idea that the Bible was trustworthy; etc.

It amuses me that literal creationists accept heliocentrism blindly.

It also amuses me that literal young earth creationists accuse fully-gifted creationists or old earth creationists of twisting or supplementing Scripture, yet in their explanations of Genesis and other books often introduce information that's not there ("God calmed down all the animals;" "God caused fangs to grow on carnivores and viruses to exist").

That is how I approached the issue in a private school ancient history class that I teach. I started by using Scripture to "prove" that the Earth does not revolve and is the center of the universe.

[Ted Logan]

Originally Posted by BillSPrestonEsq

Leviathan just sounds like some sort of primordial memory or even a contemporary one. (I have a suspicion that a dinosaur may have hung out a little longer in loch ness perhaps than most. (I mean even if it was 500 years ago, it would explain the legend and I am not married to any idea of any one thing that forces dinosaurs to be extinct.) I also think it is interesting that the dinosaurs which seem to explain Leviathan and Behemoth lived in the same period, and are native to the area Uz is presumed to be. So even if they are a distant story passed on by legend at the time of the writing of Job, I think the fact that they are native to the region, fit the description of the text, and are generally something which has existence, (which is required for Leviathan in Job.) I just don't see how it could be anything else which people describe.

What dinosaurs are you thinking of?

We have better than a suggestion that Adam was made as an adult. He is portrayed as needing a helpmeet, but right out of the gate, the command to guard and tend the garden requires him to be of some age. Also, if he was a lad, the text has other words for that in Hebrew. (And is used fairly frequently in Genesis.)

I'm sorry; I meant to say that Adam clearly was created as a mature being capable of fully responsible moral choices, but this fact only suggests the possibility that the world might have been created in a similar state. I wasn't trying to doubt the maturity of Adam.

If there were topsoil for the garden, that would be a seeming appearance of age. If the rivers had beds, that would be some maturing of the land prior to in habitation. If the trees were more than seeds...

It makes sense that the garden was mature enough to be very good, whatever that took. Which in any scenario I see is a little bit of age. I am not arguing for 30,000,000,000 years of fake fossils or such nonsense, but obviously, a little bit was needed to create the garden.

All true. This tempers my statements a bit, though it could take us back to what the "days" of creation are instead. It just seems to be more in the realm of speculation than necessary inference.