Actually Darwin wasn't a scientist at all. His degree (look it up) is theology. And as mentioned, Darwin didn't come up with evolution. He just made it popular.

I wouldn't take that "Darwin wasn't a scientist" too far Fencer. His analysis was based on Empiricism and is still the foundation of Modern Scientific Evolutionary "Theory" (not to be mistaken for Hypothesis ). Yes others had proposed the hypothesis before him, but he was the first to demonstrate it's veracity.

And after all, Mendel was a Monk, yet he is widely considered to have discovered Genetics . And Genetics is now a vast component of Evolutionary Theory, which both confirms it and expands upon it. Between Archaeology, Paleontology, and Genetics (the key disciplines among many), Evolutionary Theory is one of the most thoroughly scientifically supported theories, backed by literally Mountains of Physical Evidence.

Given this, it seems quite logical to me to suggest that Genesis was not a scientifically accurate account of Creation. Yet that doesn't mean it wasn't Spiritually accurate (depending on one's interpretation).

GB

Regarding creation/evolution -

I believe in a literal, 24-hour day, one-week Divine creation, but my reasoning is more philosophical than scientific.

I know nothing about carbon-14 dating (don't even know if i got that right), biology, fossils, etc. from my own experience. All i know i got from books, scientists and other people. I take on faith that they know what they're doing, and the proof they offer for their theories is actually valid, because i have no way of testing it.

Science has made a lot of developments in the past hundred years, and it has changed a lot. It wasn't all that long ago that leading scientists believed the earth was flat and the center of the solar system, that illness was caused by an excess of a certain humor and needed to be bled out, that bathing often was bad. God's Word, on the other hand, hasn't changed at all in however many thousand years. It seems fairly clear to me where to place my faith.

(This is intended to be more testimonial than apologetic, by the way. I read this thread regularly, and figured it couldn't hurt to say something for once.)

Actually "leading scientists" never posited a Flat Earth. The fact the Earth was spherical has been known since at least the time of Pythagorus, Aristotle and Plato (4th to 5th centuries BC) and most probably before that.

It's true that most people believed in a Flat Earth. But the "leading scientists" in ancient times were called Philosophers. And those that studied Mathematics and Astronomy reached the inescapable conclusion that the Earth was Spherical (or nearly so) long before many people today realize .

However, your point about the progress of science in general, is well taken Arwenel .

GB

^Bah, i knew saying "leading scientists" would get me in trouble somewhere. I thought i could escape such things by not putting a specific date on it.

Ah well.

I subscribe to a literal 6 day Creation view (no surprise, eh?) and it boggled me for some time how God pulled it off. I do a little amateur astronomy from time to time and used to ponder how, if the Earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old how we can see stars, clusters, and even the Andromeda Galaxy as light travels at a fixed speed. If we accept a relatively young age for the Earth then by rights we shouldn't be able to see much of anything save for a handful of stars. Deneb, in the Cygnus constellation (it's the "tail" of the swan, and one of the brightest in the night sky) itself is just a hair under 2,000 ly from our planet. This means it would take 2,000 years alone just for light from Deneb to reach us, roughly about the time Abraham was walking the Earth. We shouldn't be able to see the Andromeda Galaxy at all given that it's millions of light years away. Given that the Earth and the universe around us is governed by natural scientific processes it seemed reasonable to me that God would use such processes (for the most part, although supernatural events would be necessary, such as the creation of matter and energy) in His creation of our world, and so I started looking for an explanation.

I really grappled with this issue for a long time, and even dabbled a bit in a sort of weird, modified "Gap Theory", championed by Cyrus Scofield (the annotator of the famous Scofield Reference Bible). But I couldn't reason with that either...Scripture is quite clear that this event (Creation) occurred in 6 literal days. Scofield agrees with the 6 literal days but reasoned that the Earth had life on it prior, either established by fallen angels or containing prehistoric animals, such as dinosaurs. And I couldn't accept that either since death, to God, is an aberration, and He would have not found anything "good" in a place where death existed by default (this is the main fault I find with theistic evolution). I think anyone who looks at the verses of Genesis 1 and concludes that each day is representative of large time periods (like Hugh Ross) is really stretching things as far as they can go to fit their own views, which is something every Christian should strive to avoid. I couldn't commit to the theories which postulated that light was created "en route" to Earth because essentially God would be projecting light from sources that may not even be stars anymore (supernovas, etc.) and this would be the same as lying, which God is incapable of. And the only time light changes speed is when a large source of gravity is introduced (like Black Holes and other gravity wells), so the speed of light mysteriously changing over time just didn't squeeze into the mix either. I mean this really had me wracking my brain and was a real test of faith for me. I could not figure out how God pulled this one off...it made no sense, but I was convinced the Bible had to be telling the truth. It always does.

And then by happenstance one day while perusing Amazon I stumbled across a nifty little book called Starlight and Time by Dr. Russell Humphries. He postulates what boils down to White Hole Cosmology (this link explains it far better than I could), which explains how light from distant galaxies could reach Earth in 6 literal, 24 hour days and distant points in the universe would still be billions of years old. It lines up beautifully with the Genesis account and even explains things in Genesis 1 which previously made little or no sense to me (ie; the waters, the Deep, etc.). Everything lines up almost point for point...I mean you can read the Genesis 1 account and follow the events in S&T as posited by Humphries and it makes sense. Once I was able to wrap my head around this everything else fell right into place. It strengthened my faith considerably. Now detractors are going to say "this is a desperation act by Creationists", and that's fine. We've been getting artillery lobbed on us by the seculars for a long time and that's part and parcel with being a Creationist, so it's to be expected. But I've read that even a few secular cosmologists have even adopted the model (with some minor readjustments) as it answers questions that the Big Bang leaves open.

At any rate Genesis is critical to our faith because it outlines the reasons for the Fall and the need for our redemption through Christ. I'd go so far as to say that Genesis forms the very bedrock upon which Judeo-Christian religion is based and to discard it as it is is like pulling the cornerstones out from under your house. The house won't stand for very long.

Well, as I've always said, I don't have a problem with a straight up Miraculous Creation Theory as long as you don't call it Science .

But that White Hole Cosmology stuff isn't exactly endorsed by the VAST majority of Scientists. I'll take your Wikipedia page and raise you a Wiki page : http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/White_hole_cosmology

GB

But that White Hole Cosmology stuff isn't exactly endorsed by the VAST majority of Scientists.

And when did Science become a matter of consensus rather that relying on hard data? Proponents of the God-less version of the Big Bang have fallen into the same trap as proponents of man-made global warming. It ends up being a whole lot of scientists parroting each other rather than really taking a good look at evidence itself and considering all possibilities, even ones which would ordinarily be deemed as radical as Creationism. The link you posted above claims that there's "no observable data" with regards to White Hole Cosmology, and yet neither evolution or the Big Bang are observable either. We have to basically pick through what we see of the "leftovers" of observable data and decipher those pieces into how we all got here. Not to mention that Big Bangers are still at a loss to explain how matter and energy came into existence in the first place. They didn't just create themselves . And so we see them delve into very creative and yet unbelievably convoluted theories to cover their theory so it all fits together (like String Theory). Aren't secular scientists basically doing what they accuse us of?

But alas! We come to a point where we've come before. I won't be able to convince you and you shall not be able to convince me, and so we're still basically at square one. It's rather cyclical, wouldn't you agree?

Here is an interesting approach to the star distance issue. I don't recall the reference, but I think it's the Psalms where it say that God stretched out the heavens. If taken in a scientific POV, and this is still taking place, that would mean that the stars that we see now to be millions of light years away were much closer to us at the time of creation than they are now. It is not uncommon thought to say that the universe is exanding. So if the universe is expanding, that means everything used to be closer. We don't know what the rate is, so we can't go backwards to say how close, but it is not unreasonable to suggest what is now millions of lightyears away was only a few thousand light years away at the time of creation if given a particular expansion rate. Perhaps stargazer could give more input on this.

And I couldn't accept that either since death, to God, is an aberration, and He would have not found anything "good" in a place where death existed by default (this is the main fault I find with theistic evolution).

But (and this isn't my idea, I found it in a book by a Christian biologist) how do you explain Adam and Eve eating? God said they may eat of any tree in the garden, except one, so it's reasonable to assume that they did, in fact, eat the fruit from those trees. Plants live and die, and when we eat them, they die. Or were plants not alive in Eden or did they go through some other process when consumed? Or did Adam and Eve not need to eat? Or perhaps the 12th century monks were right, and the temptation/Fall occurred within seconds of Eve's creation, therefore not allowing them time to eat anything except the one fruit? (And even then, they still consumed that...) The biologist's view was that biological death must have existed...unless of course there is some verse in there about Adam and Eve not needing food or having some different process of fueling their bodies that didn't require the plants to die.

I don't think it's all that important to force the more miraculous events of the Bible to conform to scientific understanding. It's not meant to be scientific. I also don't think it's that unreasonable for God to have explained Creation in terms the human mind could grasp (ie: using time spans we were familiar with because we came up with them).

By the by...anyone have that mysterious formula for deciding which passages are poetic and which are literal?

Shadow, my point is that the vast majority of Scientists base their views on Empirical Evidence, and thus view Outliers with unproven hypotheses with great skepticism (in this sense most scientists are "conservative"). Occasionally the Wild Fringe Scientist is proven correct, and thus science Grows, building on a Verifiable Knowledge Base.

Evolution is indeed based on observable phenomena by the way .

And yes it is cyclical . In my view, and as some scientists hypothesize, so is the Cosmos .

EDIT: By the way Draugrin, I know I sure don't have that formula .

GB

But (and this isn't my idea, I found it in a book by a Christian biologist) how do you explain Adam and Eve eating? God said they may eat of any tree in the garden, except one, so it's reasonable to assume that they did, in fact, eat the fruit from those trees. Plants live and die, and when we eat them, they die. Or were plants not alive in Eden or did they go through some other process when consumed? Or did Adam and Eve not need to eat?

Funny you should mention this. I've been rereading Randy Alcorn's Heaven for the SF thread and he covers this very issue by indicating that plants have natural processes which they were designed to do, like leaves turning color in the autumn and falling off, or the consumption of fruits and vegetables. We were originally vegetarians, as well as the animals, and when the curse came into being this was the moment when Creation was turned off kilter. A true abberation for plant life would be something more along the lines of poison ivy or sumac, or Venus Fly-traps. Who knows what these plants looked like or what properties they had originally except for God, and by extension Adam and Eve (since they were physically there to see the original versions). Plants (to the best of my knowledge) are not sentient, self-aware things. Even plants which can move, like the aforementioned Fly Trap or Mimosa trees, are exhibiting biological mechanisms. The Fly Trap doesn't sit there and think "Come here, little fly...I'm hungry", much like Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors. "Feed me, Seymour!" ). If it was then that would be the same as murdering something. God adapted these things to survive in the harsh post-curse world and eventually when things go back to how they were originally designed to be this will be a thing of the past.

Shadow, my point is that the vast majority of Scientists base their views on Empirical Evidence, and thus view Outliers with unproven hypotheses with great skepticism

Their theories have yet to be proven either. The secular scientists can gather data which fits their preconceived ideas and then use it to fit their ideologies. This is basically what's happening. The main difference is that the seculars cannot...must not put someone like God into the equation, because God by His very definition falls outside of the realm of Science. This falls back on the very argument we were engaging in on the last page in that we're both starting from different points. Traditional Big Bang theory begins with the assumption that there is no God (or that perhaps there may be an Entity with minimal, if any, involvement in the process) and proceeds from there. Christians' theory is that there is a God and it likewise proceeds from there. This is why we'll never see eye to eye on this issue.

The purpose of mosquitoes pre-Fall still leaves me flummoxed.

Funny you should mention this. I've been rereading Randy Alcorn's Heaven for the SF thread and he covers this very issue by indicating that plants have natural processes which they were designed to do, like leaves turning color in the autumn and falling off, or the consumption of fruits and vegetables. We were originally vegetarians, as well as the animals, and when the curse came into being this was the moment when Creation was turned off kilter. A true abberation for plant life would be something more along the lines of poison ivy or sumac, or Venus Fly-traps. Who knows what these plants looked like or what properties they had originally except for God, and by extension Adam and Eve (since they were physically there to see the original versions). Plants (to the best of my knowledge) are not sentient, self-aware things. Even plants which can move, like the aforementioned Fly Trap or Mimosa trees, are exhibiting biological mechanisms. God adapted these things to survive in the harsh post-curse world and eventually when things go back to how they were originally designed to be this will be a thing of the past.

So God made plants to have certain natural processes. Ok. But that doesn't solve the fact that the plants still have to die, to be physically destroyed, in order for Adam, Eve, and all the animals to eat. One could argue that the plants are not destroyed, but simply pass through a phase of change into a new form that supplements the person/animal that eats it.
The point that this particular biologist was making was that biological death existed in Eden because it was necessary for the survival of the self-aware life.

W4J...I think that's something that stumps us all!

I almost forgot about this one...

By the by...anyone have that mysterious formula for deciding which passages are poetic and which are literal?

I myself do not know how this is determined. TBG is the resident expert on this and he may be able to assist directly on this aspect of Scripture, but that I can't say.

So God made plants to have certain natural processes. Ok. But that doesn't solve the fact that the plants still have to die, to be physically destroyed, in order for Adam, Eve, and all the animals to eat. One could argue that the plants are not destroyed, but simply pass through a phase of change into a new form that supplements the person/animal that eats it.
The point that this particular biologist was making was that biological death existed in Eden because it was necessary for the survival of the self-aware life.

I don't know that eating fruit is taking life so much as it is consuming the byproduct of that life. There's a world of difference between biting into an apple versus killing a deer so you can consume its meat.

The purpose of mosquitoes pre-Fall still leaves me flummoxed.

Or ticks, fleas, and bedbugs for that matter.