The ape-men that have been set forth by evolutionists should be an embarrassment to them. By the way, if you want to study up on this on your own time from a secular perspective, there's a good book out. It's called "The Bone Peddlers" by William Fix and I highly recommend that because from a secular perspective he demolishes the ape-men frauds.

William Fix is neither an evolutionist nor a creationist. Instead, his book The Bone Peddlers promoted a theory of his own called "psychogenesis", about which I now remember no more than the name. I read Bone Peddlers some years ago, and no longer have a copy handy for evaluation. I do recall that the chapter on Peking Man was a particularly sleazy hatchet job, rivalling Gish at his worst.

Still, one can get a good idea of the quality of the book from the following table which summarizes his conclusions about the hominid fossil record:

PROPOSED ANCESTORS OF MAN: A CHRONOLOGY
Proposed
ancestors
of man: Year
discovered
or first
proposed: Promoted by: Career
as missing link:
Neanderthal 1856 Most early evolutionists Abandoned as ancestral species by many anthropologists in 1960s and 1970s
Homo erectus (Java man, Peking man) 1891 Eugene Dubois,
Teilhard de Chardin,
Franz Weidenreich Ancestral status made highly questionable by discovery of skull 1470 in 1972
Piltdown man 1912 Arthur Keith
and most evolutionists Exposed as a hoax in 1953
Hesperopithecus 1922 Harold Cook Found to be an extinct pig in 1927
Australopithecus africanus 1924 Raymond Dart,
Robert Ardrey,
Maitland Edey Disqualified by the discovery of skull 1470 in 1972
Australopithecus robustus 1938 Robert Broom Disqualified by discovery of Homo habilis in 1960s
Gigantopithecus 1946 Franz Weidenreich Dropped by most anthropologists as too improbable
by 1950
Zinjanthropus 1959 Louis Leakey Displaced by Leakey’s discovery of Homo habilis in 1960s
Homo habilis 1960 Louis and Richard Leakey Ancestral status is still indeterminate
Ramapithecus 1964 David Pilbeam
and Elwyn Simons Found to be the ancestor of Orangutan in 1979
Lothagam man 1967 Bryan Patterson Disqualified by new measurement in 1977
Australopithecus afarensis
"Lucy" 1979 Donald Johnson,
Timothy White,
Maitland Edey Beset by many problems and mounting controversy in early 1980s

First of all, note that many of the items in this list are completely irrelevant to modern thinking about human origins (and some of them were never relevant).

Piltdown Man: this was discovered to be a hoax nearly 50 years ago, and had actually ceased to be a considered a human ancestor for at least a decade before that because it was too anomalous compared to all the other known fossils.

Nebraska Man: unlike Piltdown Man, this wasn't an influential fossil even during it's brief heyday, which ended some 75 years ago.

Australopithecus robustus: was not 'disqualified' by the discovery of Homo habilis, because it had never been 'qualified' in the first place. This was never considered to be anything but a robust australopithecine, even by its discoverer Robert Broom.

Gigantopithecus: again, it's misleading to describe this as 'dropped by most anthropologists', because it had never been adopted by them in the first place. Weidenreich was probably the only anthropologist who ever thought Gigantopithecus had anything to do with human evolution.

Zinjanthropus: it was indeed displaced by Homo habilis within a few years of its discovery, but even before then it had never been considered to be a human ancestor by anyone but Louis Leakey.

Ramapithecus: Fix's description of Ramapithecus's status is accurate. Rama was a serious contender for human ancestry for about 15 years, from the early 60's to the late 70's, before further finds showed it to be related to orang-utans. Score one for Fix!

Lothagam Man: the Lothagam fossil is a small jaw fragment with one tooth, about 5 to 6 million years old. Although possibly hominid, it is too small to reliably identify what species or even genus it belongs to. It has never been 'disqualified' as a human ancestor because it never qualified as one in the first place.

Let's now see how Fix did with the items on his list that are still potentially ancestral to humans:

Neanderthal 1856 Abandoned as ancestral species by many anthropologists in 1960s and 1970s
Homo erectus (Java man, Peking man) 1891 Ancestral status made highly questionable by discovery of skull 1470 in 1972
Australopithecus africanus 1924 Disqualified by the discovery of skull 1470 in 1972
Homo habilis 1960 Ancestral status is still indeterminate
Australopithecus afarensis
"Lucy" 1979 Beset by many problems and mounting controversy in early 1980s

Neanderthal Man: it's true that many, probably most, scientists now consider Neandertals to be an extinct offshoot of humanity. However, an extinct group of non-ancestral humans seems better evidence for evolution than against it; how did such a group of people appear if they and humans did not both evolve from a common ancestor?

Homo erectus: has not been displaced by the discovery of ER 1470. Such claims are based on early reports of 1470 which exaggerated its modernness, and on an early erroneous dating of ER 1470 which had been corrected by the late 1970's.

Australopithecus africanus: supposedly disqualified by the discovery of ER 1470 in 1972. As with Homo erectus, this 'disqualification' is based on the early erroneous dating of ER 1470 which had been abandoned about 5 years before Fix wrote his book.

Homo habilis: 'ancestral status is still indeterminate'. It's difficult to determine any relationship between fossils with absolute certainty. But the habiline fossils are in the right time and place, and with the right characteristics, to be very good candidates for human ancestry.

Australopithecus afarensis, "Lucy": 'beset by many problems and mounting controversy'. Well, it's been true that there's been plenty of dispute about the exact mode of Lucy's locomotion: was she completely bipedal, or partly arboreal? However, all participants in the debate accept that Lucy spent a considerable amount of time on the ground, and that she was predominantly or completely bipedal when on the ground. None of these positions is incompatible with her being ancestral to humans, and most scientists still consider afarensis a good candidate as a human ancestor.
Conclusion
In summary, Fix's criticisms of the fossil record have no validity. Although creationists occasionally like to promote Fix as someone who is skeptical of evolution from a non-creationist viewpoint, his criticisms appear to have been mostly borrowed from creationist literature. Fix's book has, in fact, sunk into almost total (and well-deserved) oblivion. A web search for it found no references to it except for the occasional creationist web page.

Paul Z. Myers, in his excellent Pharyngula blog, has some more information about Bone Peddlers. The one-line summary: William Fix is a total crackpot.

This page is part of the Fossil Hominids FAQ at the talk.origins Archive.



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/bonepeddlers.html, 07/23/2004
Copyright © Jim Foley || Email me

The bacteria argument is EASY. Mutations sometimes have some beneficial results. No change of specie has ever been recorded, just a benefit like resistance to chemical that that specie is normally not resistant too. But resistance to a chemical is not upward evolution just as a human born with no hands is not happy about their mutation untill they are being arrested and the cops cant put handcuffs on this person. This is plain truth. It's incredible that whenever a valid answer is given, the only recourse is to attack personally and label someone a religious zealot. Should I just have labeled your cut and paste guy as an anti-god zealot? Deal with the information.

You will find this more and more that creationists are marginalized because of their scientific findings. We all have the SAME evidence. We also all have a WORLD VIEW. That world view determines the way we interpret evidence.

The best way I can explain this is.... Mutations are a LOSS of information. There is NEVER a GAIN of information. As explained above this LOSS of information sometimes results in beneficial results. The fantasy of upward evolution requires an GAIN of information.

When lacking any intelligent response, wait 5 days and draw a picture.

I just found this forum and thread from a search engine after doing some research one on of my favourite authors William Fix, so id thought i would sign up to post on this thread.

I am a follower of William Fix and his work. William Fix is an archeologist, he has degrees in behavioral science, history and philosophy. He has written a number of books he is not a crackpot.

Concerning this thread, i couldn't agree more with Chief Renegade.

Wiliam Fix's book most of the first half completey exposes the frauds in evolution. The second half is even better, William fix draws on evidence from Hinduism, Shamanism and many other ancient religious texts and writings around the world, parapsychology studies, and he draws evidence from the famous psychic Edgar Cayce and lays out an alternative to evolution called "Psychogenesis".

William fix did not originate Psychogenesis, Psychogenesis is what is taught in the Vedic texts and many other ancient religious and spiritual texts around the world for 1000s of years. The theory basically says that we have devolved down from a spiritual realm to become covered in matter.

Psychogenesis has nothing to do with evolution or biblical creationism, you will not find it taught in the classroom. I agree with the guy who started this thread however, evolution is a fairytale.

I am a botanist student, i have carried out many investigations, and concering mutations there is no such thing as a beneficial mutation which can cause macroevolution (it seems Chief has already touched on this), mutations cause genetic degeneration. Of course if you want me to explain more on this. Then just ask.

Talk origins, is a dishonest website which fabricates and distortes scientific references and data, this is not a website to learn from, as you can see all they do is call people "crackpots" who do not support there narrow minded dogmatic evolutionary theories. If you want an honest scientific website, just ask me. Cheers. And also to some of the people replying on this thread i suggest you read William Fix's book before attacking it, don't trust anything you see on talk orgins, as explained it is a dishonest, biased, unscientifc website.

Two major competing models of the Earth's past are:
New Earth creation Scientists generally conclude that:

God created all of the species during a short period of time, perhaps about 4004 BCE, and certainly not before 10,000 BCE.
God created all of the species of bacteria, primitive one-celled creatures, trilobites, dinosaurs, humans, etc. within a few days of each other. Just as The Flintstones cartoon shows, humans and dinosaurs wandered about the earth together.
During the 40 days of rain and the approximately nine months of drainage of the Noachian flood, all of the land animals outside the ark were drowned. Various deposits were formed with sediment and the bodies of dead animals; their remains became fossils, embedded in rock layers.

Most scientists believe that a very different sequence of events happened:

That a primitive, one-celled life form came into existence by some series of natural processes, billions of years ago. Scientists are currently only dimly aware of the nature of these processes.
Billions of years later, this primitive life form had evolved into more complex species (e.g. trilobites), even as the primitive life forms became extinct.
Later species evolved into Dinosaurs hundreds of millions of years ago. They died out, probably becuuse of extreme environmental changes brought about by a massive collision of an asteroid with the Earth. But new species that evolved from the dinosaurs and other species that were on earth with the dinosaurs continued to evolve.
Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, and some of the higher apes appeared much more recently, and shared a common ancestor. Neanderthals became extinct.
All during this extinction of old species and arrival of new species, individual animals died. A very small fraction of those with hard shells or a skeleton became converted to fossils and were embedded in rocks.
Most scientists do not believe that any world-wide flood has occurred. There are serious questions about where all the water came from and went.

In addition, there are some Christians who believe that God created the universe billions of years ago. There are also hundreds of stories of origins taught by various religions around the world. We concentrate here on new earth creationism and the scientific consensus because these are the most commonly discussed belief systems.



Why scientists believe that creation science's concepts of origins are wrong:
The above are two very different models of the past. It is fairly simple to show why almost all scientists reject the creation science model:

If creation science is correct, then the fossils and sedimentary rocks were formed quickly during the flood. Fossil-containing rocks which are closer to the surface will contain generally larger animals of all the species that have ever lived, while the deeper rocks will tend to contain more smaller species of animals. That is because the smaller animals would presumably drown first with the rising water level, while larger animals could survive longer before dying, and travel further from the rising flood waters. But there would be the occasional fossil from a large animal mixed in with the smaller animals deep in the fossil record. Remains of ground-hugging plants would tend to be in the deepest layers of rocks; larger trees would be in rocks closer to the surface. But there would be the occasional fossils of a fallen tree that would be trapped in a deep layer of sedimentary rock among "ground-huggers".
If you looked long enough, you would find (for example) the occasional dinosaur mixed in with human remains. You would find a Jurassic Cycad (an extinct tree) mixed with some more modern Maple trees. Trilobites would be found everywhere. As Charles Pellegrino stated:

"As we dug deeper and deeper beneath Thebes, everything would be the same; we would find hand axes, clams and dinosaurs mixed together all the way down." 1

In addition, as you excavated through layers of rock, you would occasionally discover signs of human habitation at the bottom layer -- cities, towns,villages, cornerstones, etc. -- which were covered first by the flood. Scientists would find shaped rocks that were once part of buildings; remains of campfires; fabricated tools; fabricated timbers, graves, corner stones, etc. at the bottom of the fossil record.

If the Theory of Evolution is correct then the fossil record and sedimentary rocks were formed over many hundreds of millions of years, as species evolved. One would expect to see that deeper rocks would contain more primitive forms of live, and shallower fossils would be of more highly evolved species. The tens of thousands of geologists and paleontologists working over the past centuries would never find a single Jurassic Cycad fossil mixed in with a Maple tree fossil. That is because Maples emerged during the more recent Cretaceous era when the Cycads were long extinct. Dinosaurs would never be mixed with the remains of humans, dogs, cats and other modern mammals. Only a primitive, small mammalian species would be found together with Dinosaurs. And no mammals or dinosaurs at all would be found with trilobites (an early form of life that is long extinct). There would be no signs of human habitation at the lowest layer; only very primitive life forms. In fact, there are probably at least 1 million pairs of species that would never be found together in the same rock layer.

In brief:

If creation science is true, then the fossil record, from bottom to top would be mainly composed of gradually larger species. But there would be the occasional random mixture of species as well: trilobites with humans with dinosaurs with maples with Cycad trees. Species would be somewhat mixed. The very bottom layers would include signs of human habitation.
If the theory of evolution is true, then the fossil record, from bottom to top, would show gradually more complex, less primitive species. And certain species would be only found in certain layers; they would never be found in others. A trilobite would never be found with a dinosaur; a dinosaur would never be found with a human fossil. Species would be rigidly segregated. There would be no signs of human habitation in the lowest layers.

Scientists have concluded that the theory of evolution is true. They have travelled to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and to thousands of other locations around the world, and studied the fossil record. They have found fossils of thousands of species of plants and animals which evolutionary scientists believe did not exist on the earth simultaneously. The older species died out before the first member of the more recent species evolved. They can pick any pair of species (e.g. dinosaurs and humans). The found that the fossils of the two species have never been found together. Also, archaeologist have never found remains of ancient villages and towns in and below the oldest layers of rock.

The vast majority of scientists working in the field of biology and geology have concluded that the teachings of Creation Science are incompatible with the observed fossil record. To continue with Charles Pellegrino's quotation:

"... we begin to see the stages of a lengthy history, in which dinosaurs and other creatures are segregated in specific layers of rock, and the farther back we track along the stream of time, the more unlike modern creatures the animals become".

In short, the distribution of fossils in rock is a persuasive indicator that convinces scientists that young-earth creation science is false.



Additional reasons why most scientists disbelieve in creation science:
Scientists completed analyzing core samples taken from the bed of the Atlantic Ocean in early 1997. Their three drill samples taken from three locations off the east coast of Florida. 1,2 Their drills penetrated up to 92 meters (300 feet) showed:

the deepest layers contained evidence of many species of animals and came from what the project leader, paleobioligist Dr. Richard Norris, called a "happy-go-lucky" ocean.
above this was a small layer with green glass pebbles, that were originally fused under intense heat. This is believed to be ocean bottom material that was instantly melted by the intense energy release of a colliding asteroid
next was a rusty brown layer that is thought to be from the "vaporized remains of the asteroid itself," dated about 65 million years ago. This layer is found elsewhere in the world and contains a high content of iridium, which is a chemical "signature" of asteroids.
above this is about 5 centimeters (2 inches) of gray clay with strong evidence of a nearly dead ocean. "It was not a completely dead ocean, but most of the species that are seen before [earlier in the core sample] are gone. There are just some very minute fossils. These were the survivors in the ocean"
above this layer, core samples showed evidence of renewed life.

These results showed that the iridium layer, which has been found at many locations around the world on land, is also observable in the ocean bed. Fossils of highly developed species (man, large mammals, etc.) have never been found below that layer; fossils of ancient species (dinosaurs, trilobites, and a few tens of thousands of other species) have never been found above that layer. If all species were created within a one week period, as described in Genesis, and all the land animals were preserved on Noah's ark, then all land species would be found both above and below the iridium layer.



Some reasons why many scientists believe Genesis to be inaccurate:
There are additional indicators why many scientists believe that the order of creation described in Genesis could not have happened:

Some plants rely upon birds and ants for propagation. If plants were created on Day 3, and birds and ants were created on Day 5 and 6, and if each Genesis "day" is equal to 1000 or more real years (as some creation scientists believe), then some plants would have had to survive without propagation for thousands of years. To other creation scientists who believe that a "day" in Genesis is literally 24 hours, then this does not present a problem.
The fossil record clearly shows that land animals developed before birds. But the Genesis account indicates the reverse.

Scientists have found many other indicators that other parts of the book of Genesis are in error. Some examples are:

Theologians have generally agreed that the Bible teaches that the earth is less than 10,000 years of age. However, in Wyoming, the Green River Formation shows that varves -- a 260 meters thick formation made from annual layers of sediment -- were laid down for the past 2 million years. 3 Ice core samples have been taken in Greenland that show 40,000 annual layers of ice. In each case, one detectable layer of sediment or ice is laid down each year.
The Bible said that Noah loaded the entire ark with two (or seven) from each species within a 24 hour day. This would have required him to have taken into the vessel, classified and stored 480 species per second.
Noah took his wife, three sons, and three daughters-in-law into the ark. Each person would have had to sort, house, look after, feed, water, and remove the excrement from about 5 million animals each day.
Noah is said to have built an all-wooden arc about 450 feet long. Long wooden ships, some as long as 300 feet, have actually been built, but they required extensive metal reinforcing - an option not available to Noah. And they leaked badly, requiring either a large crew or mechanically driven pumps to remove water from the hold. Motor driven pumps were not available in those days, and there were not enough humans on the arc to manually pump the water.
Many animals can only survive in certain small regions of the earth where the food supply and temperatures are ideal. These species could not have left their homeland, moved through jungle and desert in order to reach the arc; they would not have survived the journey.
There was no mechanism whereby animals found only in North America, South America, and Australia could cross oceans and arrive at the arc.
When there are fewer than about 40 members to a species, extinction is inevitable, even when massive human intervention occurs. After the flood there would have been only 2 or 7 members to each species; they would not have survived.
The Bible states that the Tower of Babel was constructed 110 to 150 years after the flood. One might ask how could the 3 fertile female human survivors of the flood (Noah's daughters in law) produce such a large number of descendants within 6 generations?
There is no indication of a worldwide flood in ancient Egyptian, Indus or Chinese writings, temples, pyramids, sculptures, etc., which existed at the time of Noah. Yet, if the flood really did occur, then all of the world's early civilizations would have been completely destroyed. The entire population of the world would have consisted of 8 people, in the vicinity of the ark. It would have taken millennia for humanity to become re-established in China and elsewhere. Also, they would have developed a very different culture from the pre-flood society. The archaeological record in Egypt would show a sudden change from ancient Egyptian artifacts, to no signs of civilization, to ancient Israelite culture after the time of the flood. The archaeological record in China would show a sudden change from ancient Chinese artifacts, to no signs of civilization, to ancient Israelite culture after the time of the flood. And so on. But the archaeological record shows that the various cultures were not interrupted; they continued to develop throughout the period when the flood is supposed to have happened. For example, the Egyptian "Old Kingdom" covered the era from 2649 BCE to 2134 BCE, the 3rd to the 8th dynasty. In particular, the fifth dynasty covered the interval 2465 to 2323 BCE, straddling the time when religious conservatives believe that the flood happened.
One might ask how would the fish survive? Some fish require fresh water, some brackish water and some salt water. If sufficient water were added to the oceans so that the level rose above that of the highest mountains, then the salinity of the oceans would drastically change. There would have been a mass die-off of fish species; only a few tolerant ocean fish would have survived. The salt content of all the fresh water lakes in the world would drastically increase, causing a die-off of numerous fish species found only in fresh water. None of this happened, except in one small area of the world: the Black Sea circa 5600 BCE. This is believed by many scientists to be the source of the world-wide flood myth of ancient Babylonian that was adopted by the ancient Jewish writers who wrote the Bible.



References:
Paul Recer, Associated Press news release, 1997-FEB-17.
U.S. News & World Report, 1997-MAR-3. Page 18.
John Banister-Marx & Larry Flammer, "Varves: Dating sedimentary strata," Evolution & the Nature of Science Institutes, (1999) at: http://www.indiana.edu/


Copyright © 1996 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance

In their book, The Genesis Flood, Doctors Morris and Whitcomb say that only 35,000 individual animals needed to go on the ark. John Woodmorappe, the author of Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study, believes that an even smaller number of animals would have been transported upon the ark. Woodmorappe explains that the word "specie" is not equivalent to the "created kinds" of the Genesis account, so as few as 2,000 animals may have been required on the ark.

As many as 50,000 animals (including creatures that may now be extinct) could have fit on board the ark. These would not have needed to be the largest or even adult specimens.

With only a few very large animals, such as the dinosaur or the elephant, and these could be represented by young ones. "Assuming the average animal to be about the size of a sheep and using a railroad car for comparison, we note that the average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, three trains hauling 69 cars each would have ample space to carry the 50,000 animals, filling only 37 percent of the ark. This would leave an additional 361 cars or enough to make 5 trains of 72 cars each to carry all of the food and baggage plus Noah's family of eight people.

Noah's ark*
In the book of Genesis, the God of the ancient Hebrews is depicted as regretting he'd created such wicked creatures as human beings. He favors Noah and his family but destroys most other living creatures, not just the humans whose wickedness offended him, but all animals and presumably all plants as well. God plans to drown the whole world in a flood. To save himself and other animal species, Noah is directed to build a big boat that will save them from the flood.

In Genesis 6:19-21, it is written:

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
In Genesis 7:2-3, it is written:

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
Presumably, this contradictory set of instructions was no bother to Noah and to future Biblical literalists. If he takes seven pair, then he also takes two pair. And in some ancient esoteric traditions it is possible that seven means two. Also of no importance is that these flood stories appear to be cribbed from the neighboring Bablylonians. Even though the scientific evidence strongly indicates that the Babylonian texts are older than the Jewish texts, Bible believers know that can't be so. Therefore, the scientists are wrong. The Bible story is older. End of story.

Noah's ark is the boat built by the Biblical character Noah and his family. At the command of God, according to the story, Noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended family and a lot of animals. Some Bible folks say he only needed to bring about 16,000 pairs of breeders. (He just needed to bring "kinds" of animals, not samples of each species, which some moronic interpreters think is the intended meaning.) Others say that the number of species needed ranged from 1.5 million to 4 or 5 million. Of course, we're including insects and maybe a few bacteria or viruses. Anyway, the craft had to be big and had to be constructed to endure the divinely planned universal flood aimed at destroying every other person and animal on earth. Aquatic animals pose a minor problem since most can live only in sweet water or salt water but not both. A universal flood would mix the seas with the sweet water lakes, rivers, and streams.

There were no insurmountable problems, however, according to Dr. Max D. Younce, who says by his calculations from Genesis 6:15 that the ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep. He says this is equivalent to "522 standard stock cars or 8 freight trains of 65 cars each." By some divine calculation he figures that all the insect species and the worms could fit in 21 box cars. He could be right, though Dr. Younce does not address the issue of how the big boxcar filled with its cargo rose with the rainwater level instead of staying put beneath the floodwaters. Would the weight of all those animals keep a boat of these dimensions from floating? I don't know but it doesn't matter because even if the boat should sink it wouldn't because God wouldn't let it. The story would make no sense if such a boat would sink under the weight of its cargo. In any case, as one Biblical scholar has pointed out: animals are mostly water and water floats in water. So, how could there be a problem?

Another part-time Biblical scholar, John Renish, who also does work pro bono for a certain skeptic, writes:

Using the good Reverend Younce's figures, the ark (not a boat, but a box in Hebrew) displaced (assuming it floated at half its height) just under 76,000 cubic feet of water. [I calculate this to be just above 500k cubic feet of water, but I can't be trusted to add 2+2. B.C.] Assuming further that the water was nearly as dense as seawater (64 lb./cu. ft.), we get 4,860,000 lb. or 2430 tons for the vessel's gross weight, presumably about 1600 tons of cargo, including people, animals, and food for all of them. A cow weighs about half a ton; so, for the clean cattle alone, we're talking 3.5 tons. Ditto for camels, perhaps 3/4 ton for sheep, and 1/2 ton for goats. Add in all the marsupials, bison, rhinoceroses, elephants, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and so on, and we quickly exceed 1600 tons for animals alone, let alone their feed. As for "kinds," the Bible makes it clear that doves and crows are different "kinds," suggesting that at best, kinds are roughly equivalent to genus. That's a huge number of "kinds" to be accommodated. For the box to founder, it could support somewhat less than about 3200 tons of cargo.

My figures are quick and dirty--I don't know how many genera of animals have been identified, for example, or how many genera of plants can't tolerate six months of total immersion. I also didn't consider how long it would take for plants to recolonize the Earth, providing the necessary forage for the vegetarians and, ultimately, the necessary food for the carnivores. What are the poor meat-eaters to eat before the bunnies, elands, etc. do their thing?

Feeding mammals requires about 15 kcal/kg of body weight per day (that varies widely: for shrews, for example, it's on the order of 250 kcal/kg. That is, 1600 tons of animals would consume something on the order of 32,000,000 kcal/day, probably more because the vast majority of genera are physically much smaller than humans. For six months, that would come to at least 4,800,000,000 kcal. Even if the food were entirely fat (the most calorie-dense food), that would require 53,333 kg (roughly 56 tons) of food. But since ungulates mostly eat grass or hay, we're talking a lot more food--each elephant consumes 65+ kg of forage a day and other large ungulates consume some tens of kg of food per day--the four elephants (two genera) alone would consume 260 kg daily, or more than 50 tons during six months. For that matter, since the Flood followed the Fall, many "kinds" would have to consume meat, which you can't preserve that long except by drying, requiring enormous amounts of fresh water in addition to that consumed by most animals--mammals require perhaps three liters of water per 100 kg per day. Those poor elephants have to consume among them some 750 liters (200 gallons) of water per day. Assuming the oceans were so diluted by the rain as to make the water potable (highly unlikely), the ability of the ark to carry cargo would be less--only about 98% of my original estimate.

The largest wooden ships in history were more modern and somewhat smaller--the odds are that the technology of the time and the reputed material (gopher wood or shittim wood = ?acacia) would have made such a structure too flimsy for the purpose.
Frankly, all this calculating makes me dizzy. It seems fruitless anyway, since believers think they can invoke a miracle whenever they get stuck in an apparently illogical corner. (Objections have been made to Mr. Renish's playful excursion into Biblical mathematics. Click here to see the objection in all its simplistic detail and the response in all its glory.)

Those not familiar with the story might wonder why God would destroy nearly all the descendants of all of the creatures he had created. The story is that God was displeased with all of his human creations except for Noah and his family. Annihilating those one is displeased with has become a familiar tactic of the followers of this and many other gods. In any case, we're talking about God here and He doesn't have to make sense to us or explain himself to his creatures. If he wants to annihilate us, he can. It's his right.

Despite the bad example God set for Noah's descendants--imagine a human parent drowning his or her children because they were "not righteous"--the story remains a favorite among children. I say this is a bad example because we were made in God's image and we know we should strive to be as godlike as possible. Imitating God would be a good thing, wouldn't it? Anyway, it's clear that God likes good people and dislikes wicked people. He lets good people ride on a boat with a bunch of friendly animals. He shows them a great rainbow after the storm. And they all live happily ever after and do wicked deeds no more...well, maybe that's an exaggeration. You'd think that if anything would teach us a lesson it would be a universal flood but human memory is short and soon we were back to our old ways. In any case, even adults like the story, though they might see it as an allegory with some sort of spiritual message, such as God is all-powerful and we owe everything, even our very existence to the Creator. Furthermore, the Creator expects us to behave ourselves. But there are many who take the story literally.

According to the story told in chapter 7 of Genesis, Noah, his crew, and the animals lived together for more than 6 months before the floodwaters receded. There are a few minor logistical problems with this arrangement, but before getting to them, there is one other thing that needs commenting on. It is obvious that floods are no laughing matter. The destruction of life and property caused by floods has plagued many animals, not just humans, from time immemorial. To watch one's family or home swept away in floodwaters must be a terrible spectacle. To see one's children drown, one's life and dreams washed away in an instant, must be a devastating experience. But if one were to discover that the flood was not a whimsical effect of chance natural events, not unplanned and purposeless, but rather the malicious and willful act of a conscious being, one might add rage to the feelings of devastation. We must remember, however, that it is God's world; he created it, so he can destroy it if he feels like it. But such an attitude seems inappropriate for an all-good, all-Loving , all-powerful God. The logical conclusion is that God is either not all good and all loving or God is not all-powerful. But we're talking about God, here. God doesn't have to be logical. We know the Bible is true, so if we are asked to choose between logic and the Bible, we choose the Bible.

There are, however, a couple of problems with this story. If there were a universal flood, there should be a lot evidence left behind. The problem is that scientists who have studied floods and scientists who have studied the sedimentary layers of the earth can't find any traces of a universal flood. We should find the geology around the world "beginning with coarse-grained poorly sorted deposits of sand and gravel and boulders from the fast-water stage of the flood. Once a flood recedes, it can leave only one kind of deposit: a single layer of mud" (Prothero 2007: pp. 66). Instead, we find enormous variety around the world, but mostly we find sedimentary layers that were put down one upon the other over long periods of time. Donald Prothero writes that "in a supreme twist of irony," Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky:

is built upon the famous Ordovician rocks of the Cincinnati Arch, which span millions of years of the later Ordovician. If you poke around the slopes all around the area (as I have often), you will find hundreds of finely laminated layers of shales and limestones, each full of delicate fossils of trilobites and bryozoans and brachiopods preserved in life position that could never have been disturbed by flood waters—and each layer of hundreds represents another community of marine organisms that grew and lived and then was gently buried in fine silts and clays. There is no possibility these hundreds of individual layers of delicately preserved fossils were deposited in a single "Noah's flood." (Prothero 2007: pp. 62)
We'd also expect to find a universal flood would have done severe damage to the fossil sedimentary record, mixing fossils from all time periods as it ravaged the earth. But just as we do not find the universal layer of mud from such a flood, so too we do not find any rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian layer, nor any layers with both dinosaurs and humans.

the "finding" of the ark

As preposterous as the Noah's ark story is, there are people in the twenty-first century who claim they have found Noah's ark. They call themselves "arkeologists." Yes, they say that when the flood receded, Noah and his zoo were perched upon the top of Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Presumably, at that time, all the animals dispersed to the far recesses of the earth. (No small feat, when you think about it, but they had come to Noah from the four corners of the earth to get on board his lifeboat, so what was another 3,000 mile swim or flight? Especially impressive are animals like pandas and koalas who only eat bamboo and eucalyptus, respectively. Feeding to and fro the ark for such creatures was no small feat.) How the animals got to the different continents, we are not told. Perhaps they floated there on debris or swam or walked on the water. More problematic is how so many species survived when they had been reduced to just one pair or seven pairs of creatures. Also, you would think that the successful species that had the furthest to travel, would have left a trail of offspring along the way. What evidence is there that all species originated in Turkey? None. But that's what the record should look like if the ark landed on Mt. Ararat. God could have teleported them home, but you'd think Moses would have mentioned it in his book (assuming, of course, that Moses wrote Genesis 6 and 7).

Still, none of this deters the true believer from maintaining that the story of Noah's ark is the God's truth. Nor does it deter those who think the ark has been found. For example, in 1977 a pseudo-documentary called "In Search of Noah's ark" was played on numerous television stations. CBS showed a special in 1993 entitled "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." The first is a work of fiction claiming to be a documentary. The second was masterminded by George Jammal, who has admitted that the story was a hoax. Jammal said he wanted to expose religious frauds. His hoax was seen by about 20 million people, most of whom probably still do not know that Jammal did not want them to take it seriously.

During his show, Jammal produced what he called "sacred wood" from the ark, which he later admitted was wood taken from railroad tracks in Long Beach, California, which he had hardened by cooking in an oven. He also prepared other fake wood by simmering a piece of California pine on his kitchen stove in a mix of wine, iodine, sweet-and-sour, and teriyaki sauces. He also admitted that he had never been to Turkey. The program was produced by Sun International Pictures, based in Salt Lake City and which is responsible for several pseudo-documentaries on Nostradamus, the Bermuda Triangle, the Shroud of Turin, and UFOs.

the evidence for a universal flood

Stories of floods are not unique to the ancient Jews.* What geological or archaeological evidence is there of such a universal destruction of all human societies, all plants and all animals except for the ones on Noah's boat (or Ziusudra's [Sumeria], or Utnapishtim's [Babylon])? There should be a layer of sediment dating from the same time which contains all the bones of these poor creatures. There should be evidence that all human societies were wiped out simultaneously. No such evidence exists of a universal flood. Evidence of a great flood, perhaps caused by melting glaciers bursting through the Bosporus strait some 7,000 years ago, has been discovered off the coast of Turkey by Robert Ballard (who found the remains of the Titanic) and some (like Ryan and Pitman) have claimed this is evidence of Noah's flood, but this is pure and inane speculation. (In any case, this flood supposedly occurred because of melting glaciers 8,000 years ago, before God even created anything!). The Biblical flood is due to rain, not a bursting dam. As archeological anthropologist John Alden notes

...the story in the Bible is clear -- it rained for weeks before Noah's flood, and after it stopped raining the floodwaters receded. The Black Sea flood wasn't caused by rain, and after the water rose it never went away. And neither [the Sumerian nor the Biblical] story mentions the most dramatic consequence of the Black Sea flood, which turned fresh water into salt. Noah's flood, in short, doesn't sound anything like the inundation of the Black Sea.
However, for the sake of argument, let's agree that there was a universal flood, but that somehow the evidence got twisted around so that geologically and archaeologically it doesn't appear that the flood occurred. There are still a few questions we should ask before accepting this story. There is the problem of gathering the animals together from the various parts of the world that, as far as we know, Noah had no idea even existed. How did he get to the remote regions of the earth to collect exotic butterflies and Komodo dragons? Or how did he communicate to those animals that they needed to come to him pronto? Another miracle, I suppose. How did he get all those species of dinosaurs to follow him home? How much time would it take to round up 5 million pairs of animals? or even just 30,000 or so?

But let's grant that Noah was able to collect all the birds and mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, and a couple of million insects that he is said to have gathered together on his boat. There is still the problem of keeping the animals from eating one another. Or, are we to believe that the lion was lying down with the lamb on the ark? Did the carnivores become vegetarians for the duration of the flood? Yes, of course, or Noah fed them dead meat that he'd stored in his food locker.

It's true that the Flood came after the Fall, so the need for meat as feed would be enormous and somewhat messy. For those who don't study the Bible regularly, like myself, I pass on the reminder that T. Rex was an herbivore before the Fall. How do we know this? Because there was no death before the Fall. If you don't believe me, watch the video below and listen to Bill and Rusty misguide children on their "Biblically Correct Tour" of a science museum.



How did Noah keep the birds from eating the insects? Again, Noah went to the food locker. After all, if Noah could engineer the building of a boat that could hold all those animals, it would have been a small feat to add room to store enough food to last for more than six months. Of course, Noah would have to store enough food for himself and his family, too. But these would have been minor details to such a man with such a plan guided by God.

Still, it seems difficult to imagine how such a small crew could feed all these animals in a single day. There is just Noah, his wife, their three sons and three daughters-in-law. The "daily" rounds would take years, it seems. Delicacy forbids me from mentioning the problems of the "clean-up" detail, but I would have to say that if the noise of all those animals didn't drive Noah insane (not to mention the insect bites), the smell should have killed him. At least they didn't have to worry about water to drink. God provided water in abundance.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See also creationism, faith, miracle, and wishful thinking.

reader comments

further reading

books and articles

Cerone, Daniel, "Admitting 'Noah's Ark' Hoax," Los Angeles Times, October 30,1993, p. F-1.

Feder, Kenneth L. Frauds, Myths and Mysteries - Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology 3rd ed. (Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998).

Moore, Robert A. "The impossible voyage of Noah's ark," Creation/Evolution 11:1-43.

Plimer, Ian. Telling Lies for God (Random House, 1994).

Prothero. Donald R. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. (Columbia University Press, 2007).

websites and blogs

new Creationists Fight Over "Real" Noah's Ark "...two groups of creationists ... each think they've found the real Noah's Ark in the Ararat mountains -- and they're each accusing the other of producing fake evidence."[/new]

The Whole Silly Flood Story by Bob Riggins

Problems with a Global Flood

Why Isn't "Flood Geology" Accepted Today? by Edward T. Babinski

Creationist "Flood Geology" Vs Common Sense -Or Reasons why "Flood Geology" was abandoned in the mid-1800s by Christian men of science by Edward T. Babinski

Order of the Geologic Column and Flood Geology by Edward T. Babinski

WAS MT. ARARAT UNDERWATER? Compiled and written by Edward T. Babinski

Sun Goes Down in Flames: The Jammal Ark Hoax by Jim Lippard

Has Anyone Discovered Noah's Ark?

RON WYATT: ARE HIS CLAIMS BONAFIDE? by Bill Crouse

The Search for Noah's Ark

Fact Or Fiction: Could Noah’s Ark Really Have Happened? - Tiny Frog

news stories

'Noah's Ark' found in Turkey A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say they have found wooden remains on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah's Ark Ministries International research team, said: "It's not 100 per cent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it." (Did you follow that, children?) The website says "ministering to God's children through his animals." It's hard to believe that there are still adults on Earth who think the story of Noah's ark is science. Even The Sun uses scare quotes to refer to the mythical ark.
























...or maybe not.

Noah's Ark Discovered ... Again and Again By Benjamin Radford

Satellite Sleuth Closes in on Noah's Ark Mystery By Leonard David

Latest photo of the ark (or is it a turtle?)

Satellite Search Underway For Noah's Ark By Leonard David, Space.com




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* With apologies to those who take their Bible seriously. This article is not intended to be a piece of Biblical scholarship, but a piece mocking those who take the story of Noah and the ark literally, especially those who try to defend the literal story by scholarship or arkeological finds. (If I were to approach this subject as a scholar, I would trace the origin of the Biblical myth to its Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian origins. Read the Enuma Elish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Homer Smith's Man and His Gods.) Please don't write to tell me that insects weren't included because they breathe through tubes rather than nostrils or that since Noah only needed two of each type of animal he didn't need 2 donkeys, horses, and zebras, etc. Also, I realize that Noah's God is omnipotent, so Noah could accomplish any task as long as the Omnipotent One directs the show. No task would have been too difficult.

I do not take the story literally, do not believe Noah was a real 600-year-old guy, and certainly do not believe he built a boat to hold animals while God flooded the world. It's a nice story for unsophisticated nomads of ancient times and for kids today, but excuse me if I can't take it seriously enough to be Biblical in my scholarship. Think about it. God is supposed to be perfect, yet he gets so angry with his creation he kills almost everybody and everything. Anger is an imperfection. We're supposed to be grateful he let a few folks live and they just happened to be his favorites, the ancestors of the chosen people, who just happened to compose and pass on the story.


Last updated 12/09/10


Web Skepdic.com

Evolution
The true story.
Looking for a Miracle?
Good luck!
The God Delusion

The Skeptic's Shop

Ordering information




Other Languages
Dutch
French
German
Greek
Hungarian
Icelandic
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Russian
Slovak
Spanish
Swedish
Print versions available in Estonian , Russian , Japanese , Korean , and (soon) Spanish .

The Skeptic's Bookstore


N'kisi | the Nobel disease

In response to Noah's ark.

There are hundreds of stories that pre-date the Noah's ark story from many different cultures.

This leads rational thinking people to believe that somebody when writing the bible thought "this is a good story to scare people into not lying, but since we all know that the entire earth never flooded ill put this little bit in about god being happy with killing everyone off save one mans family and that he wont do it again"

And just to cover bases there is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that supports that the entire earth flooded at the same time. An event like this would leave tons of evidence not only fossils of the humans that died all over the world at the same exact time but also all the animals that died and the plants. Oh yes and the fact that there would of been huge silt deposits all over the earth at the same exact point in the rock layers.

This is science by rational thinking people, not the ones who bias there results to make it seem like their always right.

Oh and how exactly with all the amazing technology of the freaking dark ages did Noah build this ark?

did god fly in the lumber or did he just send it to him in pre-cut planks ready to build?

And if this boat was built how have we not found it? I would figure that finding a giant wooden boat on a mountain would of been a pretty easy task.

And if scientists and archeologists have missed this for all these years believe you me I will be the first one to ask "How in the Hell did we miss that?!?!?"

Same old tired soundbites from a troll on the Missouri forum. If the global flood actually happened, would we expect several written accounts? Of course! We are "flooded" with scientific evidence!


The Bible does not tell us that Noah and his sons built the Ark by themselves. Noah could have hired skilled laborers or had relatives, such as Methuselah and Lamech, help build the vessel. However, nothing indicates that they could not—or that they did not—build the Ark themselves in the time allotted. The physical strength and mental processes of men in Noah’s day was at least as great (quite likely, even superior) to our own. They certainly would have had efficient means for harvesting and cutting timber, as well as for shaping, transporting, and erecting the massive beams and boards required.

If one or two men today can erect a large house in just 12 weeks, how much more could three or four men do in a few years? Adam’s descendants were making complex musical instruments, forging metal, and building cities—their tools, machines, and techniques were not primitive.

Evidence of Noah’s Flood can be seen all over the earth, from seabeds to mountaintops. Whether you travel by car, train, or plane, the physical features of the earth’s terrain clearly indicate a catastrophic past, from canyons and craters to coal beds and caverns. Some layers of strata extend across continents, revealing the effects of a huge catastrophe.

The earth’s crust has massive amounts of layered sedimentary rock, sometimes miles (kilometers) deep! These layers of sand, soil, and material—mostly laid down by water—were once soft like mud, but they are now hard stone. Encased in these sedimentary layers are billions of dead things (fossils of plants and animals) buried very quickly. The evidence all over the earth is staring everyone in the face.

Flubber, I've attended many scientific debates on this subject. Macro evolution is an inverted fantasy. Everything we see is devolution. Time and chance forming upward evolution is impossible!

here are, however, a couple of problems with this story. If there were a universal flood, there should be a lot evidence left behind. The problem is that scientists who have studied floods and scientists who have studied the sedimentary layers of the earth can't find any traces of a universal flood. We should find the geology around the world "beginning with coarse-grained poorly sorted deposits of sand and gravel and boulders from the fast-water stage of the flood. Once a flood recedes, it can leave only one kind of deposit: a single layer of mud" (Prothero 2007: pp. 66). Instead, we find enormous variety around the world, but mostly we find sedimentary layers that were put down one upon the other over long periods of time. Donald Prothero writes that "in a supreme twist of irony," Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky:

is built upon the famous Ordovician rocks of the Cincinnati Arch, which span millions of years of the later Ordovician. If you poke around the slopes all around the area (as I have often), you will find hundreds of finely laminated layers of shales and limestones, each full of delicate fossils of trilobites and bryozoans and brachiopods preserved in life position that could never have been disturbed by flood waters—and each layer of hundreds represents another community of marine organisms that grew and lived and then was gently buried in fine silts and clays. There is no possibility these hundreds of individual layers of delicately preserved fossils were deposited in a single "Noah's flood." (Prothero 2007: pp. 62)
We'd also expect to find a universal flood would have done severe damage to the fossil sedimentary record, mixing fossils from all time periods as it ravaged the earth. But just as we do not find the universal layer of mud from such a flood, so too we do not find any rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian layer, nor any layers with both dinosaurs and humans.

chief noahs ark is a fairy tale for conservative christians

Proof of a global flood is EVERYWHERE. The Grand Canyon is a monument to the flood. You have a severe misunderstanding of how fossils are made. If one of those creatures laid there for millions of years it would turn to dust. Fossils result from catastrophic events, such as a global flood.

You can build this anti-God story all you want but ORIGINS SCIENCE is equally philisophical on both spectrums. Your statements regarding flood geology are patently false. You are guilty of only studying ONE SIDE of the controversy. EVERY SINGLE debate that I've been to, the scientific evidence for creation cannot be refuted.

Your position requires faith in spite of the evidence. By the way, the account of Noah's ark is found in the Jewish scriptures. Don't blame it on conservative christians. Your effort to disprove God is a dangerous one.

Chief,
The grand canyon is cut through layers of granite, A large deluge of water cannot carve a canyon through granite, it takes millions upon millions of years of erosion to do that. You sound like that nut Ken Hamm from answers in Genesis, I am sorry but it is you that is living in the fairy tale. If there was a large flood that laid down all of the fossils you would have dinosaur,man, horse, dog ,cat ,moose, elephant, deer, etc... fossils all in the same layer, and no matter how much you argue that is simply not the case, the fossil record is clear that the earth went through different periods of life. It is you that has the blinders on and you are only seeing what you want, you are refuting scientific evidence for make believe.

Pardon me as a 'Johny Come Lately' on this thread. I don't about fossils, layers, horses, dogs, cats . . . .

How did LIFE itself get here in the first place?

Maybe you gentlemen have already addressed this previously.

Dean

Eric wrote:

"Flubber, I've attended many scientific debates on this subject. Macro evolution is an inverted fantasy. Everything we see is devolution. Time and chance forming upward evolution is impossible!"
__________________

Dean says, Correct! It is one of those LAWS of thermodynamics. That things get progressively disorganized over time, not organized. Entropy I believe they call it.

To take the other view - you would have to believe something like this:

You go to a massive junk yard. Parts of cars all over the place. Well, if you just sit on your *ss long enough, that slowly, ever so slowly - they will MAGICALLY come together one day and be a Ferrari. . . . Now, talk about talking some faith!

For more than a century, evolutionary geologists have tried to explain how the Grand Canyon in the United States might have formed slowly over millions of years. Ideas that the Colorado River eroded the canyon, or that enlargement of streams and gullies caused it, have been shown to be improbable. Both these theories have a difficult time explaining where the products of tens of millions of years of river erosion went.

Study the Kaibab Upwarp. It's a serious problem for evolutionists.

Things change over time. No doubt about it. But it is called DECAY, not getting better and better . . .

And again - tell me about the ORGIN of life? How did it get here in the first place? How did someting as complex as a string of DNA or RNA get here in the first place?!

That baffles me the way a compass always pointing north baffled Einstein. . . .

"A watch must have required a watchmaker; a car could not have formed itself from parts."



The above statements from creationists are certainly true, but they have nothing to do with the behavior of atoms and molecules. Car parts in a junkyard don’t speed inside the yard at a thousand miles an hour, constantly colliding with each other, fusing together with a similar part (or different ones) so violently that enormous quantities of energy are given out – enough to make them white hot.

Why give a silly illustration like that? Anyone knows that it is not an inherent quality of metal parts to spontaneously join with similar or quite different parts to form complex new arrangements. Yet, this IS precisely the normal behavior of most of the chemical elements that constitute the world and the universe. The value of the second law of thermodynamics is that it quantitatively describes the energetic aspects of the chemical elements and the compounds they form. The chemical potential energy (the enthalpy of formation) that is bound in most of the 20,000,000 known kinds of molecules is less than that in their elements. Thus, energetically , the second law says that the majority of compounds now known could spontaneously form from the corresponding elements. In complete contrast, watches or cars are not lower in thermodynamic energy than the total energy of their individual components. Therefore, the second law says that it is totally inappropriate to compare them with the behavior of chemical compounds and elements.

Incessantly moving at a few hundred to two thousand miles an hour at ordinary temperatures. hydrogen and many other atoms behave in a fashion that is impossible for car parts: Most atoms spontaneously "bond" when they vigorously collide, forming extremely powerful associations in very specific ways. These new arrangements can be molecules so stable that temperatures of thousands of degrees can't tear them apart again. Molecules are not atoms randomly stuffed in a package. When three or more atoms join to form a molecule, they are arranged in precise order, normally unchanging over time, and with a relatively fixed geometric relationship.

Finally, many kinds of molecules can strike other kinds very violently and produce totally new types of molecules – another mode of formation of new complex ordered structures due to the same innate nature of atoms to form strong bonds and spread out energy to the surroundings. Amino acids when simply melted with other amino acids (to make them move more rapidly) form huge new compounds. These are NOT useful or valuable proteins. The process simply illustrates the probability of the existence of complex gigantic substances in nature. Though not proteins, they are "proteinoid" in that they have hundreds to thousands of amino acid units firmly joined in the same kind of bonds that hold proteins together.

A simple example of the spontaneous behavior of elements is the reaction of hydrogen gas with oxygen. Hydrogen atoms have such a great inherent tendency to form strong bonds with oxygen to yield water that a small energy of activation, in the form of a spark affecting only a relatively few molecules, causes the two substances to start to react, resulting in an enormous evolution of energy. This is exactly as the second law predicts: some of the energy in a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen becomes spread out (so much and so rapidly that it is an explosion) when the lesser energetic compound, water, is formed. Yet, water is more complex than the simple elements and its atoms are arranged in an exact geometric pattern.

There are millions of compounds that have less energy in them than the elements of which they are composed. That sentence is a quiet bombshell. It means that the second law energetically FAVORS — yes, predicts firmly — the spontaneous formation of complex, geometrically ordered molecules from utterly simple atoms of elements. Popular statements such as "the second law says that all systems fundamentally tend toward disorder and randomness" are wrong when they refer to chemistry, and chemistry precisely deals with the structure

The second law of thermodynamics is quite complex and your junkyard explanation just does not hold up.

Chief,
The colorado river washed the erosion out to sea, Explain how a large flood can cut a canyon through granite it is impossible, the water would flow over the top of the rock it would not cut a canyon in it.

The Flood was one facet of a larger global-scale tectonic cataclysm. A key aspect of this catastrophe was the rapid sinking, in conveyor belt fashion, of the pre-Flood ocean tectonic plates into the earth's interior. The energy required for the process was derived from the earth's gravity acting on the excess weight of these cold ocean plates relative to the hotter and less dense mantle rock into which they slid. Decades of laboratory experiments attest to the fact that, under stress, mantle rock, at temperatures estimated for the earth's interior, can weaken by factors of billions or more.

The granite at the Grand Canyon is at the base. The power of water that is carrying rocks and boulders increases it's power of velocity. We cut steel plates with water. If you add grit, it becomes incredibly powerful.

When did all this happen?

The Earth was formed approximately 5 billion years ago.

The roots of the ancient mountain range that now lies at the bottom of the Grand Canyon were formed about 1.7 billion years ago.

There is then an unconformity of about 450 million year in which the rocks are missing.

At 1.25 billion years ago the first sedimentary layer, the Bass Formation, was laid down. Ancient coastal dwelling colonies of algae known as Stromatolites are preserved within this layer and indicate that the area was coastal at that time.

At 1.2 billion years ago the sea retreated leaving mud flats behind which eventually became the Hakatai Shale.

At 1.19 billion years a similar layer was deposited which is known as the Dox Formation. This was again formed of mudstones and shales and contains ripple marks as well as other features that indicate that it was close to the coast.

Between 1.25 and 1.1 billion years ago there was also some volcanic activity with the region of the Grand Canyon and this is when the Cardenas Basalts were formed.

Between 1 billion and 825 million years ago additional coastal and shallow sea formations, which are now classified as the Chuar group, were deposited.

There is then another unconformity of about 250 million years in which new rock layers were probably laid down but were completely eroded away.

The Tapeats Sandstone was then deposited around 550 million years ago along long vanished coastline. There are places in the Canyon in which in which off shore islands have been found imbedded within this layer.

The Bright Angel Shale was deposited around 540 million years ago and indicates that the ocean was again advancing.

The Muav Limestone was deposited around 530 million years ago at the bottom of a shallow sea.

The thick layer of Redwall Limestone which began to deposited around 330 million years ago indicates that the land was submerged for a great deal of time.

The Supai Group which rests atop the Redwall is dated at 300 million years ago and indicates that it was formed in an above water and coastal environment.

The Hermit Shale which was deposited around 280 million years ago contains many plant fossils which indicate that it was also above water.

The Coconino Sandstone represents the remains of a vast sea of sand dunes which was blown down from the north around 270 million years ago.

The layers found within Toroweap Formation contains both sandstone and limestone, indicating that it was sometimes coastal and sometimes submerged. These layers date to around 260 million years.

The top layer of the Grand Canyon, the Kaibab Limestone, contains many marine fossils which indicate that it originated at the bottom of the sea. This layer is around 250 million years old.

Rock layers younger than 250 million years have been eroded away and no longer exist in the immediate vicinity of the Grand Canyon.

The Rocky Mountains begin to form 60-70 million years ago and at some point later the Colorado River is born.

At this point there are at least two popular theories which describe what happens next:

Around 20 million years ago the Colorado River begins to carve into the Grand Canyon at its eastern end, Marble Canyon, and probably exiting via Kanab Canyon.

At 17 million years ago the Colorado Plateau begins to uplift and causes the river to cut deeper.

Around 5 million years ago the uplift ceases and another river working its way northward along the San Andreas fault and eastward along the western Colorado Plateau captures the Colorado River.

OR


Around 35 million years ago the Kaibab Plateau begins to uplift and diverts the ancestral Colorado, which was already established on a course very similar to that of today, to the southeast. The cut-off western portion, now named the Hualapai Drainage System, contines to drain the western region.

About 12 million years ago the Colorado's path to the sea is blocked and a huge lake, Lake Bidahochi, is formed.

Eventually the Hualapai cuts back through the southern portion of the plateau and recaptures the Colorado. Lake Bidahochi is drained and becomes the Little Colorado River.

Those ages are a joke. Dating methods are not reliable and are based on several assumptions.

Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views. Current understanding of the history of life is probably close to the truth because it is based on repeated and careful testing and consideration of data.

The rejection of the validity of fossils and of dating by religious fundamentalists creates a problem for them:

Millions of fossils have been discovered.They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds — have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous.
Some skeptics believe that all fossils are the same age.Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood. How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained. Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow ‘drowned’ by the flood.
Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof.The rejection of dating by religious fundamentalists is easier for them to make, but harder for them to demonstrate. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity.
Fossils occur in sequences
Fossil sequences were recognized and established in their broad outlines long before Charles Darwin had even thought of evolution. Early geologists, in the 1700s and 1800s, noticed how fossils seemed to occur in sequences: certain assemblages of fossils were always found below other assemblages. The first work was done in England and France.

Fossil hunting began by accident in England around 1800.Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be correlated (matched) precisely with the sequences in another. He, and others at the time, had discovered the first principles of stratigraphy — that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order.
Stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, led to paleontology, the study of fossils.Then, geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail.

From the 1830s onwards, geologists noted how fossils became more complex through time. The oldest rocks contained no fossils, then came simple sea creatures, then more complex ones like fishes, then came life on land, then reptiles, then mammals, and finally humans. Clearly, there was some kind of ‘progress’ going on.

All became clear, of course, in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his “On the origin of species”. The ‘progress’ shown by the fossils was a documentation of the grand pattern of evolution through long spans of time.

Accuracy of the fossils
Fossils prove that humans did not exist alongside dinosaurs.Since 1859, paleontologists, or fossil experts, have searched the world for fossils. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. New discoveries have filled in the gaps, and shown us in unimaginable detail the shape of the great ‘tree of life’. Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined the improvements in resolution of stratigraphy that have come since 1859, nor guessed what fossils were to be found in the southern continents, nor predicted the huge increase in the number of amateur and professional paleontologists worldwide. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites.

Scientists now use phylogeny, mathematics, and other computations to date fossils.Paleontologists now apply sophisticated mathematical techniques to assess the relative quality of particular fossil successions, as well as the entire fossil record. These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough. Today, innovative techniques provide further confirmation and understanding of the history of life. Biologists actually have at their disposal several independent ways of looking at the history of life - not only from the order of fossils in the rocks, but also through phylogenetic trees.

Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other.

Phylogenetic trees are drawn up mathematically, using lists of morphological (external form) or molecular (gene sequence) characters.

Modern phylogenetic trees have no input from stratigraphy, so they can be used in a broad way to make comparisons between tree shape and stratigraphy.

The majority of test cases show good agreement, so the fossil record tells the same story as the molecules enclosed in living organisms.

Accuracy of dating
Dating in geology may be relative or absolute. Relative dating is done by observing fossils, as described above, and recording which fossil is younger, which is older. The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early 1900s was a huge advance. The methods are all based on radioactive decay:

Fossils may be dated by calculating the rate of decay of certain elements.Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates.
Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, i.e., the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element.
By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated.
Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon-14 methods and require radiometric dating.Scientists can use different chemicals for absolute dating:

The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years.
Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age.
Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes.The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other.

There is only a 1% chance of error with current dating technology.Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so.

Conclusion: The strict rules of the scientific method ensure the accuracy of fossil dating.Conclusion
The fossil record is fundamental to an understanding of evolution. Fossils document the order of appearance of groups and they tell us about some of the amazing plants and animals that died out long ago. Fossils can also show us how major crises, such as mass extinctions, happened, and how life recovered after them. If the fossils, or the dating of the fossils, could be shown to be inaccurate, all such information would have to be rejected as unsafe. Geologists and paleontologists are highly self-critical, and they have worried for decades about these issues. Repeated, and tough, regimes of testing have confirmed the broad accuracy of the fossils and their dating, so we can read the history of life from the rocks with confidence.

© 2001, American Institute of Biological Sciences. Educators have permission to reprint articles for classroom use; other users, please contact editor@actionbioscience.org for reprint permission. See reprint policy.

Michael Benton, Ph.D., is a vertebrate paleontologist with particular interests in dinosaur origins and fossil history. Currently, he is studying certain basal dinosaurs from the Late Triassic and the quality of different segments of the fossil record. He holds the Chair in Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Bristol, UK, in addition to chairing the Masters program in paleobiology at the university. He has written some 30 books on dinosaurs and paleobiology, ranging from professional tomes to popular kids’ books.
http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/people/mjb.html

printer friendly format
Accuracy of Fossils and Dating Methods
learnmore linksget involved references top
Fossils and evolution
Michael Benton wrote another article, Evidence of Evolutionary Transitions, for this website which explains how fossils support the stages of evolutionary history.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton2.html

Stratigraphy and the succession of rocks
» The geologic time scale — basics and history, and the latest standard time scale.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/contents.html
» The stratigraphic column: explanation and graphic illustration.
http://www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/geology/stratigraphic_column.html
» A fun kid’s site about geologic time.
http://www.zoomwhales.com/subjects/Geologictime.html
» Learn the names of the divisions of geologic time.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/geology.html
» A basic outline of geological time and links.
http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/timescale/timescale.html
http://www.es-designs.com/geol105/timescale/
Quality of the fossil record
Data bases and software for studying the quality of the fossil record.
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/cladestrat/cladestrat.html

Radiometric dating methods and their quality
» The basics.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/radiometric.html
» Good overview with response to critiques by religious fundamentalists.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html
Read a book
Michael Benton has written over 30 books on dinosaurs and paleobiology. Two suggested readings are provided — the first for adults, the second for children:

» Vertebrate Palaeontology (Stanley Thornes Pub., 2000) traces the history of the vertebrates for amateurs as well as professionals, and explains how research scientists obtain paleobiological information.
» Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Animal Factfinder (Kingfisher Books, 1998) is a resource for youngsters who are serious about dinosaurs, with illustrations that are detailed and colorful and hundreds of different creatures profiled in depth (written with Ralph Orme).
getinvolved linkslearn more references top
Where to see dinosaurs
An online directory of dinosaur exhibits fro around the world.
http://www.dinodirectory.com/index.php?t=sub_pages&cat=8

Dinosaur expeditions
Many natural history museums and universities worldwide offer public participation programs in dinosaur events, such as fossil hunting or fossil cataloguing. No experience needed in most cases! The list is too long to mention here, so a couple of examples are provided to get you going on your search for programs in your area:

» Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada
http://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/enjoying_alberta/parks/featured/dinosaur/flashindex.asp
» The Museum of Western Colorado in Grand Junction
http://www.museumofwesternco.com/dino-digs/
Discovering fossils
Explore U.K. fossil collecting locations that are detailed on this site. Also includes info on how fossils are formed, the “cleaning, preparing, & repairing” of fossils, and other useful resources.
http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/

Educators: Classroom lessons
» Deep Time interactive lesson
This lesson informs students about the dating methods that enable science to have a high level of confidence in the geological ages of an old Earth. At the same time, it discusses how pseudoscience can misrepresent geological dating. Also check out the link to an online interactive tutorial on half-lives, Carbon 14 dating, and how isochron dating is done.
http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/deep.les.html
» Creating a stratigraphic column
Grades 7-12 Earth Science activity “to enable students to construct a stratigraphic column of an outcrop and understand sedimentary depositional processes.”
http://www.chipr.sunysb.edu/eserc/SummerEducationalInterns/Linda/index.html
» Microfossils: The Ocean’s Storytellers
Download this poster, which shows several different images of microfossils, taken through microscopes. The microfossils were found in cores recovered by the scientific ocean drilling vessel, JOIDES Resolution. When a core is brought up on deck, scientists look at these slides to identify the microfossils found in cores, and they determine the age of the sediment, as well as something about Earth’s past climate. The activities on the back of the Microfossils poster simulate the identification and use of these microfossils to examine past climate change and Earth history. Appropriate for all age levels.
http://joidesresolution.org/sites/default/files/microfossil_poster.pdf
» Fossil Dating and the Geological Timeline
Several “activities and information about dating fossils and placing them in the context of the history of life on Earth.” Includes background information for teachers. For grades 5-8, but activities can be easily modified for higher grades.
http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/BIOL/classes/bio302/Pages/TKpage2.html
articlereferenceslearn more get involved top
General references:

» Benton, M. J., Wills, M. and Hitchin, R. 2000. “Quality of the fossil record through time.” Nature 403, 534-538.
» Benton, M.J., David A.J. Harper, and David Benton. 1997. Basic Paleontology. Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
» Jackson, Julia ed. 1997. Glossary of Geology, 4th ed. American Geological Institute.
» McClay, Ken. 1991. The Mapping of Geological Structures. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
» O’Brien, M.J. and R.L. Lyman. 1999. Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils - The Backbone of Archaeological Dating. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
» William Smith’s biography: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/smith.html

The amount of cosmic rays penetrating the Earth's atmosphere affects the amount of 14C produced and therefore dating the system. The amount of cosmic rays reaching the Earth varies with the sun's activity, and with the Earth's passage through magnetic clouds as the solar system travels around the Milky Way galaxy.

The strength of the Earth's magnetic field affects the amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. A stronger magnetic field deflects more cosmic rays away from the Earth. Overall, the energy of the Earth's magnetic field has been decreasing,so more 14C is being produced now than in the past. This will make old things look older than they really are.

Also, the Genesis flood would have greatly upset the carbon balance. The flood buried a huge amount of carbon, which became coal, oil, etc., lowering the total 12C in the biosphere (including the atmosphere—plants regrowing after the flood absorb CO2, which is not replaced by the decay of the buried vegetation). Total 14C is also proportionately lowered at this time, but whereas no terrestrial process generates any more 12C, 14C is continually being produced, and at a rate which does not depend on carbon levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore, the 14C/12C ratio in plants/animals/the atmosphere before the flood had to be lower than what it is now.

Unless this effect (which is additional to the magnetic field issue just discussed) were corrected for, carbon dating of fossils formed in the flood would give ages much older than the true ages.

Creationist researchers have suggested that dates of 35,000 - 45,000 years should be re-calibrated to the biblical date of the flood. Such a re-calibration makes sense of anomalous data from carbon dating—for example, very discordant “dates” for different parts of a frozen musk ox carcass from Alaska and an inordinately slow rate of accumulation of ground sloth dung pellets in the older layers of a cave where the layers were carbon dated.

Also, volcanoes emit much CO2 depleted in 14C. Since the flood was accompanied by much volcanism (see Noah's Flood…, How did animals get from the Ark to isolated places?, and What About Continental Drift?), fossils formed in the early post-flood period would give radiocarbon ages older than they really are.

In summary, the carbon-14 method, when corrected for the effects of the flood, can give useful results, but needs to be applied carefully. It does not give dates of millions of years and when corrected properly fits well with the biblical flood.

Chief please read the article.

The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years.
Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age.
Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes.The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other

The "good" dates are still based on several assumptions. The evidence shows us a much younger earth. The Bible also tells us the earth is very young. Adam was created the 6th day. He lived the whole 6th day, the 7th day and many years longer. He wasn't millions of years old. Of course, you think the Bible is not true and are betting your eternity that Jesus Christ was a liar, based on what some scientists are telling you. Rassler, you are one heartbeat away from knowing the truth. It's my hope that you find that truth before then.

How accurate is carbon dating?

http://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/is-carbon-dating-accurate-faq.htm

(Hint - not to . . .)

Did I miss it somewhere OR did one of you tell me how life got here in the first place?

Yes, evolution occurs. But that has nothing to do with orgins. And, evolution occurs as Chief noted, with things getting worse (ie. entrophy and decay and choas) not with things getting better.

So, where did life come from in the first place?

Colossians 1:16

Even the bible evolves!!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/41873135/ns/today-books/?gt1=43001

Rassler, can you answer this please?

So, where did life come from in the first place?

As the moderator of this forum I am kind of interested in this topic but I've grown weary of reading other peoples ideas ... i.e. clip and paste!

I truly would like to read your personal ideas that are absent all the excess verbage! In the past few years, I have turned away from organized religion but consider myself somewhat spiritual. (I believe in the golden rule and trying to do the right things)

here is a good interview with Harvard professor Andy Knoll discussing the orgins of life on earth


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/how-did-life-begin.html

Here is another interesting article

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Origins-of-Life.html

The rock layers are a very good indicator of age, even with out the use of carbon dating.

If the world were created as the Bible states then why are there no fossils of ancient man, dinosaurs, mammoths, and literally thousands of other animals, why are these not found on the same layer of rock.

Because if they did all live together then there would be all of these fossils lying on the same layer all over the world. Yet they are not.

The only way this would be possible is if the animals, plants, etc. buried themselves either before or after there death.

I believe scientists have done more than enough to prove that these creatures existed at different points in the history of earth.

Fossilization is a rare event, especially of humans who are very mobile. Since the rains of Noah’s Flood took weeks to cover the earth, many people could have made it to boats, grabbed on to floating debris, and so on. Some may have made it to higher ground. Although they wouldn’t have lasted that long and would have eventually perished, they might not fossilize.

In most cases, dead things decompose or get eaten. They just disappear and nothing is left. The 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia was a shocking reminder of the speed with which water and other forces can eliminate all trace of bodies, even when we know where to look. According to the United Nation’s Office of the Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, nearly 43,000 tsunami victims were never found.

Even if rare, it would still be possible to fossilize a human body. In fact, we do find fossils of humans, such as Neanderthals, in the post-Flood sediments.

Here, here! I agree. I was brought up without a religious upbringing. The few times I was forced to go - I hated it.

Then, for about a decade (from by mid 20's to my mid 30's) I became a black and white, Bible-quoting fundy (short for fundalmentalist). Now (for the about the past decade, I'm a 70's kind of hippie dude. Jesus is alright with me. But we can learn some cool stuff from Buddha to. I combine the East and the West and think that anyone that thinks they have a monoply on the truth is a fool. The word 'mystery' is in the Bible for a good reason . . .

Dean Welsh

You're going with that one Dean? Cool stuff? Jesus is the Truth and He is no fool.

Yeah, that is where I am honestly at now. Almost 20 years of dealing, leading and teaching fundys have led me in that direction.

I'm more opened minded now. Not less logical just less judgemental and if you are a true Calvinist - why worry about it? The Elect were saved before the foundation of the world began and nothing can be done to change that. Correct? If one takes the Calvinistic approach.

Anyway, we stray from Randy's request. Lets hear your PERSONALLY story.

I never said Jesus was a fool. Jesus was and is cool in my little humble opinion and Universe.

The fools are the ones that think they, as mere sinful human beings 'got it all figured out.' As you know Eric - many, many verses warn against that type of attitude. One word for it: PRIDE.

I'm with Randy. Tell us you personal story Chief. Everybody likes a good story!

Dean Welsh

"The highest level that thought can obtain, is to know, that you know not."

Pascal

I believe the bible is a collection of ancient stories, fables and myths that were written to help people live right. It does not contain all of the answers instead it creates more questions than answers. I dont think anyone knows the orgin of life creationism and the big bang theory are both unrealistic answers. I do believe in an old earth and evolution, there is just way too much evidence to think otherwise. I also went to a fundamentalist christian church for a time and was saved. Then i started studying the bible and realized for the most part it just was not true, there is really no evidence that Jesus ever existed outside of the bible. The christians point to Josepheus but he was born about 40 years after Jesus death. I don't think anyone has the answer, maybe one day science will figure it. Who knows maybe a greater being did get this whole thing started, I just don't think it is the god in the bible.

I grew up going to a Methodist church on Christmas and Easter whether I liked it or not. I always thought I was a Christian, that the bible was good, Jesus was good and that I was good. When I was 34 I visited a church by my house and shortly thereafter was visited by three people from the church. I remember seeing them pull up and I saying, "Why are the church people here?" They asked me two of the most important questions that I've ever been asked. First, was I at a place in my spiritual life that if I died that day, was I sure that I'd go to heaven? Then they asked me, if I died that day and I stood before God and He asked me, Eric, why should I let you in My heaven? I remember pausing for a long while. Thinking silently of answers like, I try to do the right thing or I think I'm a pretty good person. I decided those answers were pretty weak so I said, I don't know. It was then that they shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with me. At the end, they asked if I wanted to pray for salvation in Christ and I said no. I wasn't embarrassed to say no, I just didn't know what yes would mean. They thanked me for the conversation and said they hoped to see me back at church. After they left, I found a bible that I had never read and went straight to the end to see how it ended. I never do that with books but was very interested at that point to read the end. In Revelation 21:8, it talks about all these bad people that would end up in the lake of fire. I didn't associate myself with any of those people. Then I stared at the word for one group of people in that verse. It said "unbelievers. By saying no, I was defined as an unbeliever. Now that bothered me. God used that answer to get me to find out what the bible actually said. I went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. I sat front and center and was amazed at who Jesus actually was. I thought the book was all about love and found out about God's holiness and wrath. It took me nine months to pour over scripture and finally realized that I was seperated from a holy, righteous and just God because of my sin. In July of 1996, I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross for my salvation.

That's my story Dean!

Actually it says that nobody can live right.

That were written to **HELP** people live right.

He didn't say that it DOES help people live right. Some do, some don't. We are not clones, but individuals.

Dean Welsh

Cool story brother Eric! Even if you do not consider this non-fundy your brother any more. Ha.

Sounds like you got the James Kennedy evangelism program put on you (I think they called it "Evangelism Explosion" or something like that - one could google it if they wanted to). That had a nice, big long run for several years. Then Rick Warren came
along . . .

Thanks again for sharing.

Sincerely,

Dean

I will have to have a sit down with you about Rick Warren. We can meet in Topeka!

Since we have brought up the topic of eternity, this is what I believe! Thanks for taking time to read this...

How to go to Heaven:

"Who do you think that I am?" With that brief question Jesus Christ confronted His followers with the most important issue they would ever face. He had spent much time with them and made some bold claims about His identity and authority. Now the time had come for them either to believe or deny His teachings.

Who do you say Jesus is? Your response to Him will determine not only your values and lifestyle, but your eternal destiny as well. Consider what the Bible says about Him.

JESUS IS GOD
While Jesus was on earth there was much confusion about who He was. Some thought He was a wise man or a great prophet. Others thought He was a madman. Still others couldn't decide or didn't care. But Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). That means He claimed to be nothing less than God in human flesh

Many people today don't understand that Jesus claimed to be God. They're content to think of Him as little more than a great moral teacher. But even His enemies understood His claims to deity. That's why they tried to stone Him to death (John 5:18; 10:33) and eventually had Him crucified (John 19:7)

C.S. Lewis observed, "You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to" (Mere Christianity [Macmillan, 1952], pp. 40-41).

If the biblical claims of Jesus are true, He is God!

JESUS IS HOLY
God is absolutely and perfectly holy (Isaiah 6:3), therefore He cannot commit or approve of evil (James 1:13).

As God, Jesus embodied every element of God's character. Colossians 2:9 says, "In Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form." He was perfectly holy (Hebrews 4:15). Even His enemies couldn't prove any accusation against Him (John 8:46)

God requires holiness of us as well. First Peter 1:16 says, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

JESUS IS THE SAVIOR
Our failure to obey God--to be holy--places us in danger of eternal punishment (2 Thessalonians 1:9). The truth is, we cannot obey Him because we have neither the desire nor the ability to do so. We are by nature rebellious toward God (Ephesians 2:1-3). The Bible calls our rebellion "sin." According to Scripture, everyone is guilty of sin: "There is no man who does not sin" (1 Kings 8:46). "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). And we are incapable of changing our sinful condition. Jeremiah 13:23 says, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil."

That doesn't mean we're incapable of performing acts of human kindness. We might even be involved in various religious or humanitarian activities. But we're utterly incapable of understanding, loving, or pleasing God on our own. The Bible says, "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one" (Romans 3:10-12). God's holiness and justice demand that all sin be punished by death: "The soul who sins will die" (Ezekiel 18:4). That's hard for us to understand because we tend to evaluate sin on a relative scale, assuming some sins are less serious than others. However, the Bible teaches that all acts of sin are the result of sinful thinking and evil desires. That's why simply changing our patterns of behavior can't solve our sin problem or eliminate its consequences. We need to be changed inwardly so our thinking and desires are holy.

Jesus is the only one who can forgive and transform us, thereby delivering us from the power and penalty of sin: "There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Even though God's justice demands death for sin, His love has provided a Savior, who paid the penalty and died for sinners: "Christ ... died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). Christ's death satisfied the demands of God's justice, thereby enabling Him to forgive and save those who place their faith in Him (Romans 3:26). John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He alone is "our great God and Savior" (Titus 2:13).

JESUS IS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE OBJECT OF SAVING FAITH
Some people think it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. But without a valid object your faith is useless.

If you take poison--thinking it's medicine--all the faith in the world won't restore your life. Similarly, if Jesus is the only source of salvation, and you're trusting in anyone or anything else for your salvation, your faith is useless.

Many people assume there are many paths to God and that each religion represents an aspect of truth. But Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6). He didn't claim to be one of many equally legitimate paths to God, or the way to God for His day only. He claimed to be the only way to God--then and forever.

JESUS IS LORD
Contemporary thinking says man is the product of evolution. But the Bible says we were created by a personal God to love, serve, and enjoy endless fellowship with Him.

The New Testament reveals it was Jesus Himself who created everything (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). Therefore He also owns and rules everything (Psalm 103:19). That means He has authority over our lives and we owe Him absolute allegiance, obedience, and worship.

Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." Confessing Jesus as Lord means humbly submitting to His authority (Philippians 2:10-11). Believing that God has raised Him from the dead involves trusting in the historical fact of His resurrection--the pinnacle of Christian faith and the way the Father affirmed the deity and authority of the Son (Romans 1:4; Acts 17:30-31).

True faith is always accompanied by repentance from sin. Repentance is more than simply being sorry for sin. It is agreeing with God that you are sinful, confessing your sins to Him, and making a conscious choice to turn from sin and pursue holiness (Isaiah 55:7). Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15); and "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine" (John 8:31).

It isn't enough to believe certain facts about Christ. Even Satan and his demons believe in the true God (James 2:19), but they don't love and obey Him. Their faith is not genuine. True saving faith always responds in obedience (Ephesians 2:10).

Jesus is the sovereign Lord. When you obey Him you are acknowledging His lordship and submitting to His authority. That doesn't mean your obedience will always be perfect, but that is your goal. There is no area of your life that you withhold from Him.

JESUS IS THE JUDGE
All who reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior will one day face Him as their Judge: "God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).

Second Thessalonians 1:7-9 says, "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power."

HOW WILL YOU RESPOND
Who does the Bible say Jesus is? The living God, the Holy One, the Savior, the only valid object of saving faith, the sovereign Lord, and the righteous Judge.

Who do you say Jesus is? That is the inescapable question. He alone can redeem you--free you from the power and penalty of sin. He alone can transform you, restore you to fellowship with God, and give your life eternal purpose. Will you repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

If we are created in gods image as the bible says, doesn't that also make god a sinner?? Doesn't god say he is a jealous and vengeful god, aren't jealousy and vengance sins?

Eric, I'd love to sit down and talk with you about Rick and many other things. However, fourth quarter of school has just started and it will take all of my fumes left in my tank to finish well!

However, if you have the time and the interest, maybe you can PM me about your thoughts on Rick Warren.

Sincerely,

Dean

PS: I got a buddy who lives in Roeland Park. Is that near you? I usually see him once during the summer. Maybe we could share a meal then - if gas isn't ten bucks a gallon by then!

The bible does not teach a "young earth". The earth is not 6,000 years old nowhere in the bible does it say this, the scientific evidence shows us the earth is much older than that. Modern day scientific age of the earth is not in contradiction with the bible.

The bible can trace the first man called "Adam" to around 6,000 years ago, you are correct here, Adam gave birth to the adamic race.

Biologically and scientifically speaking, how is it possible for the pure-blooded black, asian, and white races to have descended from Adam and Eve, Noah and his wife, or any other common ancestor? Could Adam and Eve reproduce and have black, white, and asian children? Of course not. That's biologically impossible.

The black, white, and asian races -- in their pure-blooded states, absent any mixing among the races -- are of completely different lineage. They were created separately, and are essentially different species of "humans." The fact that separate races can interbreed (and produce hybrid species) is not proof of common origin or common species, as this phenomenon exists among other animals -- eg, lion and tiger can mate and produce a hybrid "liger", horse and donkey to produce mule, etc.

The Bible -- when translated and interpreted correctly-- confirms the fact that Adam was not the first "human." There were other people on the earth before Adam was created. That is why Cain feared other people would kill him after he was banished, and how Cain was able to find a wife, have his own descendants, and build a city after being banished from Adam & Eve and their descendants.

"One plants, another waters, but ONLY God can make things grow..."

Dudes, you have planted and watered here plenty, maybe rassler will get it someday. If you persists, then are you being obedient to Mt 7:6 and 1 Pet 3:15?

Just something to think about . . .

Dean Welsh

Wow. These statements are flat out false. If you knew anything about genetics, you would know that is ridiculous. Different races were created seperately???? What?

Every human being in the world is classified as Homo sapiens. Scientists today agree that there is really only one biological race of humans. Geneticists have found that if we were to take any two people from anywhere in the world, the basic genetic differences between these two people would typically be around 0.2 percent, even if they came from the same people group. “Racial” characteristics account for only about 6 percent of this 0.2 percent variation. That means that the “racial” genetic variation between human beings of different “race” is a mere 0.012 percent.

Overall, there is far more variation within a people group than there is between one people group and another. Anyone who continues to make racist distinctions does so based only on superficial, outward appearances rather than on sound scientific fact and clear biblical reasoning. If a Native American person is looking for a tissue match for an organ transplant, for instance, the best match may come from an Asian person, and vice versa.

The only reason many people think these differences are major is because they’ve been brought up in a culture that has taught them to see the differences this way. Race is a social construct derived mainly from the perceptions conditioned by the events of recorded history, and it has no basic biological reality. . . . curiously enough the idea comes very close to being of American manufacture.

More and more scientists find that the differences that set us apart are cultural, not racial. Some even say that the word race should be abandoned because it’s meaningless. . . . We accept the idea of race because it’s a convenient way of putting people into broad categories, frequently to suppress them . . . the most hideous example is provided by Hitler’s Germany. . . . What the facts show is that there are differences among us, but they stem from culture, not race.

In Genesis 11 we read of the rebellion at the Tower of Babel. God judged this rebellion by giving each family group a different language. This made it impossible for the groups to understand each other, and so they split apart, each extended family going its own way, and finding a different place to live. The result was that the people were scattered over the earth.

Because of the new language and geographic barriers, the groups no longer freely mixed with other groups, and the result was a splitting of the gene pool. Different cultures formed, with certain features becoming predominant within each group. The characteristics of each became more and more prominent as new generations of children were born. If we were to travel back in time to Babel, and mix up the people into completely different family groups, then people groups with completely different characteristics might result. For instance, we might find a fair-skinned group with tight, curly dark hair that has blue, almond-shaped eyes. Or a group with very dark skin, blue eyes, and straight brown hair.

Some of these (skin color, eye shape, and so on) became general characteristics of each particular people group through various selection pressures (environmental, sexual, etc.) and/or mutation.31 For example, because of the protective factor of melanin, those with darker skin would have been more likely to survive in areas where sunlight is more intense (warmer, tropical areas near the equator), as they are less likely to suffer from diseases such as skin cancer. Those with lighter skin lack the melanin needed to protect them from the harmful UV rays, and so may have been more likely to die before they were able to reproduce. UVA radiation also destroys the B vitamin folate, which is necessary for DNA synthesis in cell division. Low levels of folate in pregnant women can lead to defects in the developing baby. Again, because of this, lighter-skinned individuals may be selected against in areas of intense sunlight.

On the flip side, melanin works as a natural sunblock, limiting the sunlight’s ability to stimulate the liver to produce vitamin D, which helps the body absorb calcium and build strong bones. Since those with darker skin need more sunlight to produce vitamin D, they may not have been as able to survive as well in areas of less sunlight (northern, colder regions) as their lighter-skinned family members, who don’t need as much sunlight to produce adequate amounts of vitamin D. Those lacking vitamin D are more likely to develop diseases such as rickets (which is associated with a calcium deficiency), which can cause slowed growth and bone fractures. It is known that when those with darker skin lived in England during the Industrial Revolution, they were quick to develop rickets because of the general lack of sunlight.

Of course, these are generalities. Exceptions occur, such as in the case of the darker-skinned Inuit tribes living in cold northern regions. However, their diet consists of fish, the oil of which is a ready source of vitamin D, which could account for their survival in this area.

Real science in the present fits with the biblical view that all people are rather closely related—there is only one race biologically. Therefore, to return to our original question, there is, in essence, no such thing as interracial marriage.

You state that nowhere in the bible does it state that the earth is young. A literal reading of Genesis clearly says that the earth was created in 6 days. The Hebrew word "yom", when preceded by a number ALWAYS means one actual day. Adam was created on the sixth day, he lived the whole sixth day, then the seventh day and he lived many years longer. He was obviously not millions of years old.

Cain's wife is easily understood! If we now work totally from Scripture, without any personal prejudices or other extrabiblical ideas, then back at the beginning, when there was only the first generation, brothers would have had to marry sisters or there wouldn’t have been any more generations!

We’re not told when Cain married or many of the details of other marriages and children, but we can say for certain that Cain’s wife was either his sister or a close relative.

A closer look at the Hebrew word for “wife” in Genesis reveals something readers may miss in translation. It was more obvious to those speaking Hebrew that Cain’s wife was likely his sister. (There is a slim possibility that she was his niece, but either way, a brother and sister would have married in the beginning.) The Hebrew word for “wife” used in Genesis 4:17 (the first mention of Cain’s wife) is ishshah, and it means “woman/wife/female.”

And Cain knew his wife [ishshah], and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch (Genesis 4:17).
The word ishshah is the word for “woman,” and it means “from man.” It is a derivation of the Hebrew words ‘iysh (pronounced: eesh) and enowsh, which both mean “man.” This can be seen in Genesis 2:23 where the name “woman” (ishshah) is given to one who came from Adam.

And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman [ishshah], because she was taken out of Man [iysh]” (Genesis 2:23).
Thus, Cain’s wife is a descendant of Adam/man. Therefore, she had to be his sister (or possibly niece). Hebrew readers should be able to make this connection easier; however, much is lost when translated.

There is MUCH MORE about this topic that I can share with you. Clearly your statements were made without knowing the evidence. Study all the facts!

So basically according to the bible we are just a bunch of inbred hillbillies?
Chief didn't the tower of babel take place about 150 years after adam was created. Boy not only were they hillbillies but they bred like rabbits to produce that many offspring in a short amount of time.

No way!!! Where did you get that?

According to the biblical account, the tower of Babel was built somewhere between 1757 to 1996 years after creation. Also your inbred comment shows a serious lack of understanding of genetics in those early years. It sounds funny, but that's all you have.

My mistake I meant to say about 150 years after Noah's flood. So the 8 people that survived the flood repopulated the earth in this short amount of time?

Not 150. Almost 400 years after the flood.

Many have done the math and have figured out that it is possible that Shem, Ham, Japheth and their wives could have repopulated the earth, keeping in mind that when their sons and daughters were of child bearing age that they would be included in repopulating the earth. Another fact to be considered is that up until this point in the bible, it mentions that men have lived up to about 1,000 years. We must assume that this is the case for women as well. This also implies that women would have had the ability to bear children much longer than is currently possible. So it would have been possible for Noah’s sons and their offspring to repopulate the earth.

Chief all of the research I have done, even biblical scholors place the tower of babel 100-150 years after the flood, How did you get 400 years?

The flood was about 1500 years after creation. The tower of Babel was anywhere from 1775 to 1995 years after. There are several scholars that place it 450 years after the flood.

According to answers in genesis, which is a very respected website within the fundamentalist christian world it has the flood taking place in 2348B.C. and the tower of Babel in 2242 B.C which is only 106 years. where are you getting your information?

There are several credible ranges of between 100 and 400 years between the flood and the tower of babel.

Let's look at the facts!

Fact: gestation period for a human is roughly 9 months
Fact: a human can easily have a baby every year during child bearing years
Fact: child bearing years last AT LEAST 20 years

So, year zero being the exiting of the Ark.

This is of course conservative, and doesn't take into account variables that can't be taken into account as this is a fact based look.

Noah and 3 sons and 4 wives have a child every year for 20 years. At year 20 then, there are a total of 80 children.

Since this is conservative, I'm waiting 20 years before reproducing any children from the children, ie the next set of child bearing children will be between the ages of 20 and 40.

So at year 40, those 80 children begin reproducing for 20 consecutive years. After 20 years of reproduction, those 80 children will turn into 800 children. This is year 60, and there are 800 children on top of the 80 and 4.

So at year 80, those 800 children who are now between the ages of 20 and 40 begin reproducing. This results in a population of 8,000 at year 100.

Sticking with the 20 year wait period. At year 120 those 8,000 begin reproducing resulting in 80,000 children of the ages of 20 - 40 at year 160.

So at year 200, there are 800,000 children who begin reproducing.

Resulting in 8 million children between the ages of 20 and 40 at year 240.

So at year 280 there are 80 million children between the ages of 20 and 40 able to reproduce, and at year 320 there are 800,000,000 who begin reproducing...

Leaving us at a tidy and fully factually possible sum, based on human genetics and child birth, at 8 BILLION PEOPLE ON THE PLANET 360 YEARS AFTER NOAH LEFT THE ARK.

Explain to me again why 8 billion people can't build a few pyramids of stone?

Look at facts instead of theories when questioning what is possible.

chief the infant mortality rate in those times had to be at least 50-60%, there was no medicine to speak of kids died from ear infections in those times. There is no way 8 people can repopulate the earth in a couple of hundred years. What about the children who were born that were infertile,It sounds to me like you have on your biblical glasses ( this is what Ken Hamm calls them ) I guess when something doesn't make sense you put your biblical glasses on and then all is right, you can fabricate facts and try to pass them off as the truth.

Those numbers are PURE MATH. You can't ignore them! Cut them in half if you want, it changes NOTHING. Plenty of people to build a tower.

Rassler,

Let me explain the undeniable truth. You mentioned biblical glasses and made fun of them. The truth is EVERYBODY brings a presupposition into their belief. It's called a worldview. So whether you call them biblical glasses or anti-god glasses like you have on, it is equally philisophical. We ALL HAVE THE SAME EVIDENCE. It's how you view that evidence. On my web site, www.scienceprovesit.com there is a link at the top that lists many credentialed scientists that believe the evidence proves creation. They actually KNOW science.

Learn the controversy!

Acts 17:26. "From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands."

There is really only one race—the human race. The Bible teaches us that God has "made of one blood all nations of men" (Acts 17:26). Scripture distinguishes people by tribal or national groupings, not by skin color or physical appearance. Clearly, though, there are groups of people who have certain features (e.g., skin color) in common, which distinguish them from other groups. We prefer to call these “people groups” rather than “races,” to avoid the evolutionary connotations associated with the word “race.”

All peoples can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. This shows that the biological differences between the “races” are not very great. In fact, the DNA differences are trivial. The DNA of any two people in the world would typically differ by just 0.2 percent. Of this, only 6 percent can be linked to racial categories; the rest is “within race” variation.

The variation in DNA between human individuals shows that racial differences are trivial. This genetic unity means, for instance, that white Americans, although ostensibly far removed from black Americans in phenotype, can sometimes be better tissue matches for them than are other black Americans.

Anthropologists generally classify people into a small number of main racial groups, such as the Caucasoid (European or “white”), the Mongoloid (which includes the Chinese, Inuit or Eskimo, and Native Americans), the Negroid (black Africans), and the Australoid (the Australian Aborigines). Within each classification, there may be many different sub-groups.
Virtually all evolutionists would now say that the various people groups did not have separate origins. That is, different people groups did not each evolve from a different group of animals. So they would agree with the biblical creationist that all people groups have come from the same original population. Of course, they believe that such groups as the Aborigines and the Chinese have had many tens of thousands of years of separation. Most believe that there are such vast differences between the groups that there had to be many years for these differences to develop.

One reason for this is that many people believe that the observable differences arise from some people having unique features in their hereditary make-up which others lack. This is an understandable but incorrect idea.

Deleted

Beasts in the field? To me that means beasts in the field, not humans.

Let me read, starting in verse 24 of Genesis 1, "Then God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind, and it was so.' And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind and the cattle after their kind and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' Then God said, 'I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth and every tree which has fruit yielding seed, it shall be food for you. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food and it was so.' And God saw all that He had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day."

Now there couldn't be a more straightforward account of creation than that. It tells you exactly what God did on the sixth day. He created the land animals, dividing into three categories we find all of them...both the domestic animals indicated by the word cattle, and the more wild animals indicated by the term beasts of the earth, and then everything that walks lowly on the ground, or crawls, insects, reptiles, amphibians, rats and squirrels and etc., and etc.

Then having created that form of animal life already the day before, having created all the birds in the air and all the animals in the sea, God had completed His creation with the exception of man, finished it off as verse 26 and 27 indicates by creating man. All of that He did on the sixth day, actually a 24-hour period as indicated at the end of verse 31, an evening and a morning, a period of light and a period of darkness...that is to say one revolution of the earth.

Now the enemies of God and the enemies of the Bible have denied this revealed Word from God. They have claimed that man has evolved over millions and billions of years. And that modern man is the result of mutation. Modern man is the result of some...some random and yet self-willed genetic transformation. Man is the product of the survival of the fittest. That is not what the Word of God says. What I just read you couldn't be more clear. It is also reiterated in the second chapter verse 7, "The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being." And down in verse 19, "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the sky, brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called a living creature that was his name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the sky, to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, he slept then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place and the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man."

There you have the creation of woman. In both cases, the creation of man, the creation of woman, is a direct and immediate creative act of God. Over in chapter 5 of Genesis, the fifth chapter begins, "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and He blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created." Repeatedly it says there was a day when God created man both male and female.

That is what the Bible says.

Deleted

Chief,
There was not a world flood all evidence points to a regional flood from the black sea. Can you explain why the Babylonians had an almost identical flood story The epic of Giglamesh. this was probably written before genesis that early christian writers used as a basis for their story. There are several other flood stories written that are almost identical to the one in genesis. This was an old folk tale that was passed down from generation to generation before it was written down in the book of genesis.

Lunatic.

what about the epic of giglamish chief you call me a lunatic but you cant explain this one away. It is a flood story almost identical to noahs flood yet written before genesis.

The truth is that if the global flood were true, and it is. You would expect there to be several accounts of it, and there are.

Hmmm! Now let me get this straight you are saying there should be several accounts of this flood? But didn't everyone die in the flood but Noah and his family? Why would one of them write another account of it and not have their father as the central character?

The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE).

In both the Genesis and Galgamesh stories:
The Genesis story describes how mankind had become obnoxious to God; they were hopelessly sinful and wicked. In the Babylonian story, they were too numerous and noisy. The Gods (or God) decided to send a worldwide flood. This would drown men, women, children, babies and infants, as well as eliminate all of the land animals and birds.
The Gods (or God) knew of one righteous man, Ut-Napishtim or Noah.
The Gods (or God) ordered the hero to build a multi-story wooden ark (called a chest or box in the original Hebrew).
The ark would be sealed with pitch.
The ark would have with many internal compartments
It would have a single door
It would have at least one window. The ark was built and loaded with the hero, a few other humans, and samples from all species of other land animals.
A great rain covered the land with water.
The mountains were initially covered with water.
The ark landed on a mountain in the Middle East.
The hero sent out birds at regular intervals to find if any dry land was in the vicinity.
The first two birds returned to the ark. The third bird apparently found dry land because it did not return.
The hero and his family left the ark, ritually killed an animal, offered it as a sacrifice.
God (or the Gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh) smelled the roasted meat of the sacrifice.
The hero was blessed.
The Babylonian gods seemed genuinely sorry for the genocide that they had created. The God of Noah appears to have regretted his actions as well, because he promised never to do it again.

The were a number of differences between the two stories:
Noah received his instructions directly from Jehovah; Ut-Napishtim received them indirectly during a dream.
Noah's ark was 3 stories high and rectangular in shape. Two estimated dimensions are 547 x 91 ft. and 450 x 75 ft. The Babylonian ark was 6 stories high and square.
Ut-Napishtim invited additional people on board: a pilot and some skilled workmen.
Noah's ark landed on Mt. Ararat; Ut-Napishtim'sat on Mt. Nisir; these locations are both in the Middle East, and are located few hundred miles apart
In the Bible, some of the water emerged from beneath the earth. And the rains from above lasted for 40 days and nights. A 40 day interval often symbolized a period of judgment in the Hebrew Scriptures. 2 In the Babylonian account, the water came only in the form of rain, and lasted only 6 days. Noah released a raven once and a dove twice; Ut-Napishtim released three birds: a dove, swallow and raven.

Sounds like the story of Noah was copied from the epic of giglamish.

The flood account in the Epic is the story which lost historical accuracy and was distorted, whereas the Genesis Flood account is the accurate historical record of the Flood event.

There are many refutations written on this story. In the end it is just another tired attempt to convince yourself that there is no God.

Deleted

So you are saying that as an undergraduate Biology student, you know more than these scientists that disagree with you???


Dr. William Arion, Biochemistry, Chemistry
Dr. Paul Ackerman, Psychologist
Dr. E. Theo Agard, Medical Physics
Dr. Steve Austin, Geologist
Dr. S.E. Aw, Biochemist
Dr. Thomas Barnes, Physicist
Dr. Geoff Barnard, Immunologist
Dr. Don Batten, Plant Physiologist
Dr. John Baumgardner, Electrical Engineering, Space Physicist, Geophysicist, expert in supercomputer modeling of plate tectonics
Dr. Jerry Bergman, Psychologist
Dr. Kimberly Berrine, Microbiology & Immunology
Prof. Vladimir Betina, Microbiology, Biochemistry & Biology
Dr. Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
Edward A. Boudreaux, Theoretical Chemistry
Dr. David R. Boylan, Chemical Engineer
Prof. Linn E. Carothers, Associate Professor of Statistics
Dr. Rob Carter, Marine Biology
Dr. David Catchpoole, Plant Physiology
Prof. Sung-Do Cha, Physics
Dr. Eugene F. Chaffin, Professor of Physics
Dr. Choong-Kuk Chang, Genetic Engineering
Prof. Jeun-Sik Chang, Aeronautical Engineering
Dr. Donald Chittick, Physical Chemist
Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
Dr. John M. Cimbala, Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Harold Coffin, Palaeontologist
Timothy C. Coppess, M.S., Environmental Scientist
Dr. Bob Compton, DVM
Dr. Ken Cumming, Biologist
Dr. Jack W. Cuozzo, Dentist
Dr. William M. Curtis III, Th.D., Th.M., M.S., Aeronautics & Nuclear Physics
Dr. Malcolm Cutchins, Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Lionel Dahmer, Analytical Chemist
Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, M.D., Pioneer of magnetic resonance imaging
Dr. Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
Dr. Nancy M. Darrall, Botany
Dr. Bryan Dawson, Mathematics
Dr. Douglas Dean, Biological Chemistry
Prof. Stephen W. Deckard, Assistant Professor of Education
Dr. David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
Dr. Don DeYoung, Astronomy, atmospheric physics, M.Div
Dr. Geoff Downes, Creationist Plant Physiologist
Dr. Ted Driggers, Operations research
Robert H. Eckel, Medical Research
Dr. André Eggen, Geneticist
Dr. Dudley Eirich, Molecular Biologist
Prof. Dennis L. Englin, Professor of Geophysics
Dr. Andrew J. Fabich, Microbiology
Prof. Danny Faulkner, Astronomy
Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
Prof. Dwain L. Ford, Organic Chemistry
Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
Dr. Alan Galbraith, Watershed Science
Dr. Paul Giem, Medical Research
Dr. Maciej Giertych, Geneticist
Dr. Duane Gish, Biochemist
Dr. Werner Gitt, Information Scientist
Dr. Warwick Glover, General Surgeon
Dr. D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
Dr. Robin Greer, Chemist, History
Dr. Stephen Grocott, Chemist
Dr. Vicki Hagerman, DMV
Dr. Donald Hamann, Food Scientist
Dr. Barry Harker, Philosopher
Dr. Charles W. Harrison, Applied Physicist, Electromagnetics
Dr. John Hartnett, Physics
Dr. Mark Harwood, Engineering (satellite specialist)
Dr. George Hawke, Environmental Scientist
Dr. Margaret Helder, Science Editor, Botanist
Dr. Harold R. Henry, Engineer
Dr. Jonathan Henry, Astronomy
Dr. Joseph Henson, Entomologist
Dr. Robert A. Herrmann, Professor of Mathematics, US Naval Academy
Dr. Andrew Hodge, Head of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Service
Dr. Kelly Hollowell, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacologist
Dr. Ed Holroyd, III, Atmospheric Science
Dr. Bob Hosken, Biochemistry
Dr. George F. Howe, Botany
Dr. Neil Huber, Physical Anthropologist
Dr. James A. Huggins, Professor and Chair, Department of Biology
Dr. Russ Humphreys, Physics
Evan Jamieson, Hydrometallurgy
George T. Javor, Biochemistry
Dr. Pierre Jerlström, Molecular Biology
Dr. Arthur Jones, Biology
Dr. Jonathan W. Jones, Plastic Surgeon
Dr. Raymond Jones, Agricultural Scientist
Prof. Leonid Korochkin, Molecular Biology
Dr. William F. Kane, (Civil) Geotechnical Engineering
Dr. Valery Karpounin, Mathematical Sciences, Logics, Formal Logics
Dr. Dean Kenyon, Biologist
Prof. Gi-Tai Kim, Biology
Prof. Harriet Kim, Biochemistry
Prof. Jong-Bai Kim, Biochemistry
Prof. Jung-Han Kim, Biochemistry
Prof. Jung-Wook Kim, Environmental Science
Prof. Kyoung-Rai Kim, Analytical Chemistry
Prof. Kyoung-Tai Kim, Genetic Engineering
Prof. Young-Gil Kim, Materials Science
Prof. Young In Kim, Engineering
Dr. John W. Klotz, Biologist
Dr. Vladimir F. Kondalenko, Cytology/Cell Pathology
Dr. Leonid Korochkin, M.D., Genetics, Molecular Biology, Neurobiology
Dr. John K.G. Kramer, Biochemistry
Dr. Johan Kruger, Zoology
Prof. Jin-Hyouk Kwon, Physics
Prof. Myung-Sang Kwon, Immunology
Dr. John Leslie, Biochemist
Dr. Jason Lisle, Astrophysicist
Dr. Alan Love, Chemist
Dr. Ian Macreadie, molecular biologist and microbiologist:
Dr. John Marcus, Molecular Biologist
Dr. Ronald C. Marks, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Dr. George Marshall, Eye Disease Researcher
Dr. Ralph Matthews, Radiation Chemist
Dr. John McEwan, Chemist
Prof. Andy McIntosh, Combustion theory, aerodynamics
Dr. David Menton, Anatomist
Dr. Angela Meyer, Creationist Plant Physiologist
Dr. John Meyer, Physiologist
Dr. Albert Mills, Animal Embryologist/Reproductive Physiologist
Colin W. Mitchell, Geography
Dr. Tommy Mitchell, Physician
Dr. John N. Moore, Science Educator
Dr. John W. Moreland, Mechanical engineer and Dentist
Dr. Henry M. Morris (1918–2006), founder of the Institute for Creation Research.
Dr. Arlton C. Murray, Paleontologist
Dr. John D. Morris, Geologist
Dr. Len Morris, Physiologist
Dr. Graeme Mortimer, Geologist
Dr. Terry Mortenson, History of Geology
Stanley A. Mumma, Architectural Engineering
Prof. Hee-Choon No, Nuclear Engineering
Dr. Eric Norman, Biomedical researcher
Dr. David Oderberg, Philosopher
Prof. John Oller, Linguistics
Prof. Chris D. Osborne, Assistant Professor of Biology
Dr. John Osgood, Medical Practitioner
Dr. Charles Pallaghy, Botanist
Dr. Gary E. Parker, Biologist, Cognate in Geology (Paleontology)
Dr. David Pennington, Plastic Surgeon
Prof. Richard Porter
Dr. Georgia Purdom, Molecular Genetics
Dr. John Rankin, Cosmologist
Dr. A.S. Reece, M.D.
Prof. J. Rendle-Short, Pediatrics
Dr. Jung-Goo Roe, Biology
Dr. David Rosevear, Chemist
Dr. Ariel A. Roth, Biology
Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Physical Chemistry
Dr. Joachim Scheven Palaeontologist:
Dr. Ian Scott, Educator
Dr. Saami Shaibani, Forensic physicist
Dr. Young-Gi Shim, Chemistry
Prof. Hyun-Kil Shin, Food Science
Dr. Mikhail Shulgin, Physics
Dr. Emil Silvestru, Geology
Dr. Roger Simpson, Engineer
Dr. Harold Slusher, Geophysicist
Dr. E. Norbert Smith, Zoologist
Arthur E. Wilder-Smith (1915–1995) Three science doctorates; a creation science pioneer
Dr. Andrew Snelling, Geologist
Prof. Man-Suk Song, Computer Science
Dr. Timothy G. Standish, Biology
Prof. James Stark, Assistant Professor of Science Education
Prof. Brian Stone, Engineer
Dr. Esther Su, Biochemistry
Dr. Charles Taylor, Linguistics
Dr. Stephen Taylor, Electrical Engineering
Dr. Ker C. Thomson, Geophysics
Dr. Michael Todhunter, Forest Genetics
Dr. Lyudmila Tonkonog, Chemistry/Biochemistry
Dr. Royal Truman, Organic Chemist:
Dr. Larry Vardiman, Atmospheric Science
Prof. Walter Veith, Zoologist
Dr. Joachim Vetter, Biologist
Dr. Stephen J. Vinay III, Chemical Engineering
Sir Cecil P. G. Wakeley (1892–1979) Surgeon
Dr. Tas Walker, Geology/Engineering
Dr. Jeremy Walter, Mechanical Engineer
Dr. Keith Wanser, Physicist
Dr. Noel Weeks, Ancient Historian (also has B.Sc. in Zoology)
Dr. A.J. Monty White, Chemistry/Gas Kinetics
Dr. John Whitmore, Geologist/Paleontologist
Dr. Carl Wieland, Medicine/Surgery
Dr. Clifford Wilson, Psycholinguist and archaeologist
Dr. Kurt Wise, Palaeontologist
Prof. Verna Wright, Rheumatologist (deceased 1997)
Prof. Seoung-Hoon Yang, Physics
Dr. Thomas (Tong Y.) Yi, Ph.D., Creationist Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Ick-Dong Yoo, Genetics
Dr. Sung-Hee Yoon, Biology
Dr. Patrick Young, Chemist and Materials Scientist
Prof. Keun Bae Yu, Geography
Dr. Henry Zuill, Biology

Deleted

There are several scientists on this list that are absolutely convinced that the scientific evidence proves a young earth. In fact, the debates that I've attended (Over 20) have been overwhelmingly in favor of the young earth position. You understand that TIME and CHANCE are the only variables that evolutionists have to make their fantasy possible. If you take away the TIME, their fantasy is exposed.

As to the Ark... Only the parent “kinds” of species were required to be on board in order to repopulate the earth. Using a short cubit of 18 inches (46 cm) for the Ark to be conservative, less than half of the cumulative area of the Ark’s three decks need to have been occupied by the animals and their enclosures.

As a presuppositionalist, I will never discount that the written word of God is without error from cover to cover. It is the only truth written to mankind and all so called "knowledge" is based on assumptions.

Andy,

95% of science in our classrooms is science. Origins science is equally philisophical on both sides. I share the opinion of hundreds of scientists that believe the evidence points to a young earth and devolution, not evolution.

The main point is there IS a controversy. It is a fasinating issue with eternal implications.

Deleted

Funny.

Devolution is all we see in the scientific evidence. There is always a LOSS of information. There is never a GAIN of information. Sometimes this LOSS of information causes beneficial results, but NEVER upward evolution.

All of the racial characteristics are merely differences. They do not make any race any more or less human or any more or less intelligent. As a matter of fact, the genetic basis of all of these differences was created by God and present in the first perfect pair of human beings. They are evidence of the range of God's creativity, and some of these differences, such as skin pigmentation, have their source in God's wisdom, as we have seen. About 1400 years after the creation of the first human beings, we see the human race preserved through the three sons of Noah. This bases the current world's population on the descendants of three families. But the matter is further complicated by the additional division of the world's population several hundred years later through the confusion of tongues at Babel. This division ultimately provided the basis for the current world's nations and races.

Closer to the equator, we typically find that people have more melanin in their skin. This additional skin pigmentation provides added protection against skin cancer, which is more likely as one moves toward the equator where the sun's intensity is strongest. It has been suggested that here we have a true example of "natural selection" (but careful now, this only means that certain traits are removed from the population, there is no new genetic information added.) It has been suggested that individuals who had very little protection of skin pigmentation and who moved closer to the equator were gradually wiped out of the population by skin cancer, which would not produce more offspring with light pigmentation. After many generations there would be few people left with light pigmentation near the equator. It is also possible that God moved those with more pigmentation to settle in the sunnier reaches of the earth, thus providing for their needs in this way. At the same time, since little pigmentation is needed in the colder climates, it appears that God led people who had little pigmentation to settle in these climates. Consequently, we see a gradual increase in skin pigmentation as we move closer to the equator, no matter which race we are looking at.

With the division of the peoples of the earth at Babel, we have a limiting of the gene pool. Evidently God divided the world's population into quite a number of languages, effectively cutting off certain genetic possibilities for each group, and through the generations, purifying certain traits through marriage of second and third cousins or more distantly-related, but related, individuals. This would have the same effect as modern dog or horse breeding where selection of mates removes certain traits from the available gene pool while highlighting other traits. Through the years, as certain traits such as skin pigmentation, hair type and soft tissue characteristics became rather unique to various basic groups of peoples, these peoples settled into their respective areas of the earth and fathered more tribes and nations, so that today many nations are found with similar racial characteristics.

Originally, all of the racial characteristics were found in both Adam and Eve, as well as Noah. Each race today represents only a small amount of the genetic possibilities which were originally found in these individuals. Therefore, interracial marriages represent a recombining of some of the racial characteristics found in our first parents and an increase in the possible features which may be evident in children produced by such marriages. With our modern knowledge of genetics, the modern races certainly make sense in light of the Scriptural history of man.

We are all ONE BLOOD. Your racist slant on things is offensive. I can tell why you won't post your name.

Deleted

Man. I can tell you are still an undergraduate student. First of all, started your mantra by quoting from a known racist web site. That is why I believe you are racist. Second, your last paragraph shows that you are not thinking this through. Think of all the different breeds of dogs. A Doberman does not give birth to a poodle, yet they are both dogs. They originally came from a type of wolf. Doctorate level scientists believe that all the races came from one blood. One original pair of humans.

What you are stating is anti-science.

Don't be so afraid to use your real name. Why the fear?

Deleted

Man am I going to regret getting in to this, but I have got to agree with Andy here.



I am a Biology/Chemistry teacher and also a Christian. There is absolutely no conflict with the Theory of Evolution and a strong belief in religion and a God. I have worked for PHD. Biologists while in college who were fundamentalist Christians but also believed in the Theory of Evolution because it explained what they saw on a daily basis.

I Initially typed a very long response, but on 2nd thought didn’t think anyone would read it entirely so I am going to break it down into smaller bite size posts.

The "Controversy" we currently have is a contrived controversy. It is manufactured and perpetuated by those on both sides of the argument for one reason- financial gain. They sell a lot of books and get big money for speaking engagements to perpetuate this controversy. Those who use science as an argument FOR OR AGAINST religion are misapplying science. Science studies the Natural World. Religion is a study of the SUPERNatural world (meaning beyond or separate from nature). Both areas of study are valid, which one you feel is MOST VALUABLE is purely a personal decision.

Evolution is in no way a threat to any religious belief, it is simply a tool (and the best one we currently have) to explain what we see in our natural Biotic (living) world and make predictions about what we could/will see. That is what theories are, explanations that offer predictive abilities. I will be the 1st to admit that there are weaknesses with our current understanding of Evolution, but Darwinian evolution is no longer what "Evolution" is. Darwin was the 1st scientist (or at least the 1st with significant amounts of supporting evidence) to propose Evolution via Natural Selection, but his explanation was limited because there was no understanding of the genetics, mutations, symbiotic relationships, viral activity which can change organisms genome, and Epigenetics. Many of these areas of study are in their infancy, and we continue to learn more about them daily.

It is irrational to expect science to have a complete answer, there will never be a complete answer to such a complex problem, but overall our CURRENT understanding of Evolution provides a very good working model that has powerful predictive ability, which again is all a theory is. The Theory of Gravity is not even a complete/finished theory. There are problems with it. It works fine here on earth (meaning has a strong predictive ability) and near large mass items, but the acceleration due to gravity starts to change inexplicably as objects move very great distances from known objects with mass.

In my Science classes (actually did this today) we start our unit on Evolution by 1st discussing what Science is, because there are many misconception.

Below is a summary:
* Science is 1 way of experiencing and understanding the world. There are others.
* All areas of study exist on a continuum from Less Scientific to More Scientific.
* There are other continuums as well (Art, History, Religion, etc).

Characteristics that make an area of Study MORE SCIENTIFIC
* Based on observations of the natural world (can be measured with the 5 senses in some way)
* Claims are testable and FALSIFIABLE.
* Evidence can support or refute a position but NEVER PROVE IT. Very common misconception science never PROVES. The best science can do is to support very strongly. Anyone who says science proves this or that is either misspeaking or does not understand what science does.
* Science is in a constant state of Change.
* If enough evidence contradicts a theory, the theory must be changed or replaced.

Characteristics that make an area of Study LESS SCIENTIFIC
* Supporting a theological position.
* Science is neutral in regards to religion. Some may use to science to support their particular view- which is a personal choice but the science itself is neutral. It studies the natural world, not the supernatural.
* Valuing Authority over Evidence.
* In science you should go where most of, and the best evidence leads you. Too often, people- including scientists- get attached to a particular ideology and hold on to it long after the evidence points in a different direction.
* Valuing Faith over Reason
* Faith is an extremely important aspect of humanity, but science should be a pursuit based on rationale thought processes. The conflict is humans are the ones conducting science and we don't always (or often depending on the amount of sleep we have) behave rationally.

Characteristics the makes an area of study SCIENTIFICALLY VALUABLE
* Science Values theories that answer initial questions but then causes us to ask new questions.
* Science values theories that explain BROAD topics. The Germ Theory is valuable, Genetic Theory is valuable, Cell Theory is Valuable, but they are all limited in scope. The Theory of Evolution is the one Theory that ties all the other theories in biology together. This makes it very scientifically valuable.
* Science Values Theories that have good explanative power, but more importantly that have good PREDICTIVE power. Scientists want to expand knowledge, the only way to do that is to make and test predictions.
* Science values explanations that are AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE. This does not mean simple, just as simple as possible to still explain the evidence.
* Science values logic.
* Science values skepticism. Nothing should be accepted on face value, and everything should be independently tested to confirm or refute others findings.

Now this is getting good...

The naturalistic view is that the universe we observe came into existence and has operated through all time and in all its parts without the impetus or guidance of any supernatural agency (No God). This is a fundamental assumption of this view.

Kale, The issue is ORIGINS science. Each side is equally philisophical.

You obviously are using the term "fundamentalist Christian" very loosely! To say that you believe in methodological naturalism and also believe in supernaturalism? Which is it when it comes to origins science, Kale?

Genesis 3:20 says “And Adam called his wife Eve; because she was mother of all the living.”

Acts 17:26 "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;"

Romans 5:12 tells us that death entered the world as a result of Adam’s sin. For the Christian who believes the Bible, this one verse rules out theistic or any other evolution, or a ‘gap’ theory.


A literal reading of Genesis clearly says that Adam was created on the sixth day. The Hebrew word "yom" preceded by a number ALWAYS means one 24 hour day. You are using tired old arguments used by anti-Christian web sites. The Bible is the only truth written to man. It is without error from Genesis to Revelation.

Chief,
Thanks for taking the time to actually read my posts

I want to start by adding this disclaimer- in no way is anything I will write a personal attack on yourself personally or your belief system. I have the utmost respect for everyone's right to believe what he/she wants. My discussion before and now is more dealing with what science IS and what science IS NOT, and how it has been misapplied by both sides in this particular debate.



I have to disagree with you a little, but not necessarily what you say, but what I think you mean- which is a difficult thing to do via the written word.

By definition the "naturalistic view" you refer to is the "scientific view" since science seeks to explain the natural world in testable, repeatable manners. To do so requires an ABSENCE of a supernatural component. Science is not seeking to explain away the possible role of a "supernatural agency" but to explain the natural world in terms of the natural world. One problem (among many) for science in allowing a supernatural explanation is that it limits/prevents new discoveries. They way science works to answer seemingly unanswerable questions in absence of a supernatural explanation is to formulate hypothesis, test those hypothesis given our current models (theories) and interpret the data to see if our theory matches the outcome. Often this is done in very small incremental steps before large breakthroughs are made. If science allowed the supernatural explanation, when we arrive at the difficult- seemingly unanswerable questions (such as where did life come from) the explanation would be that the supernatural (i.e. God) was responsible. That would be the end of the search for answers. This line of reasoning severely limits the scope and depth science can explore. It also limits science to a particular group of people- those who happen to share the same belief in the supernatural.




As I stated earlier- science and religion occupy 2 different spheres, the natural and supernatural respectively. While some questions that we have remain very murky (i.e. the origins of life) and both views could propose equally valid answers (valid on a personal level), an answer that relies on the supernatural is a much less scientific answer than an answer that relies on the natural world. Each side is not equally philosophical, because one side IS philosophical. Religion requires faith and conviction because the personal experience with god can not be measured or quantified. That same willingness to take something on faith, which is a definite strength in the religious realm, is actually a detriment in the scientific realm because science requires skepticism- the need to seek evidence for oneself, or at the very least to objectively evaluate the evidence for ones self to determine if it indeed fits the accepted explanation or theory. Science is not some much the answers to questions (because there will always be more questions to ask) but the pursuit for those answers that uses only what is allowable in the natural world.

To summarize- Science is a focus on natural processes devoid of supernatural explanations. If one felt compelled to balance an understanding and acceptance of science and a deep seated religious world view (and many do) it can be framed in this way:

Science studies HOW God operates through the natural world.

This thought process requires no changing of the science to meet religious views. Many Christian scientists that I know feel that the more they know about science (Evolution included) the more their faith in God is reinforced. They feel that by studying how science works (in naturalistic terms) it allows them to see how God himself worked.

That being said, it would be very difficult to completely reconcile a belief in MANY currently accepted scientific theories and a literal interpretation of the Bible. Those who do live in both realms probably live a more segmented life applying different world views when they are in different roles.

If God did create everything by His spoken word as the Bible says He did, would science be able to find evidence of it? If you say no, then what good is science if it can't find the truth? I have had conversations with Ph.D. level Scientists, some that teach at Division I prestigious universities that have told me they NEVER use the evolutionary model when conducting their scientific work. Throughout their education process, they were taught that it actually got in the way of their research. So what does that say about highly educated scientists that disagree with you about the evidence of evolution? What do you say about the fraud in science textbooks and the false statements claiming fact only to find out that they are based on assumptions? Haeckel's embryo drawings were fake. His theory was invalid and yet textbook authors perpetuate the fraud without commenting on the inaccuracy.

Your last point is very telling and led me to question your definition of a fundamental Christian. You also use the label "currently accepted scientific theories" loosely. Have you come to a point that you cannot have a literal interpretation of scripture? Do you view the bible as unreliable? I have talked to several biblical literalists that take Genesis 1-12 at face value along with it's description that the earth is very young and that Adam was a real man. If you believe in millions of years, you cannot believe that Adam was a real man. They have high level science degrees and have debated many college professors in public with great success.

Have you seen the movie, Expelled? Your thoughts?

I do really appreciate your demeanor and tone of your response. It's refreshing and does help the dialogue.

Deleted

Afraid,

You are weak on your consistancy. The plain reading of scripture says that the earth is young, that Adam was a real man and that we all came from Adam and Eve. I have already read those anti-god web sites that you quote. They belong with those white power racist sites that you also like. Your last quote made me spit my Dr. Pepper out of my nose. The bible states that God created Adam on the sixth day. He lived the whole sixth day, the seventh day and then much longer. He wasn't millions of years old. If you believe those days were millions of years, you CANNOT believe Adam was a real man. Correct?

I find it curious that you have stated you don't believe the bible is true. Why do you quote it then?

Hint: The Adamic race is every single Human being ever born.

Deleted

You claim to know genetics and don't know that today's incest is entirely different than Cain marrying his sister? When the first two people were created, they were perfect. Everything God made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). That means their genes were perfect, no mistakes.

Scripture makes the fact very clear and it is stated in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Genesis is the book of beginnings. It is the place where we find the truth of the beginning of man and that man is Adam. The word "Adam" comes from a Hebrew word that means red or ruddy. It does NOT mean that he was white! The word “Adam” is translated as; first man, mankind, man or human. God made Adam from the "dust of the ground", which is the Hebrew word "adamah" and therefore Adam's name comes from the ground from which God created him.

Chief,

I appreciate being able to have a calm discussion with someone about this for a change. I am deliberately not responding to the troll on here in hopes that he will go away.

I do however need to clarify a few points.



I think you are missing the point here. IF God created the universe with a spoken word, science would not be able to find evidence, because science would not be looking for that answer. Science could look to see how that happened- meaning what physical laws were followed for the universe to come to exist in its present form, which is exactly what the field of physics studies. Again, science studies the natural world, God and His spoken word would be a supernatural explanation. Not a bad explanation, just not a scientific one.

The reason it is not a scientific answer would be that it would end the area of study. What would have happened if John Snow and simply said “God is making people sick and die” instead of tracing the source of the cholera outbreak in London to a water pump handle? We would not have deveolped the modern Germ Theory or medicine as we know it. The “God did it answer” is a dead end (I do not mean that in a negative context) for science because it ends the area of inquiry. Science is interested in the HOW, not the WHO.

To answer your last question regarding truth, that is a tricky thing to define. Different people have different truths. Again, I do not feel qualified to judge who's truth is better, I am just trying to discuss what science is- or should strive to be.



I would say that I would be extremely surprised if these scientists were conducting research in the biological fields, especially as related to genetics, cellular function, medicine, or phylogenetic relationships between organisms. There are many areas of science that an individual could conduct research and earn a PhD without using the Evolutionary theory such as Chemistry, Physics and Geology, etc. Still there are others who have PhD’s in the social sciences, who claim to be scientists.



A major criticism I have of the Anti-Evolution camp is their cherry picking of a few controversial (and widely discredited people even by scientists who helped develop evolution) and showing their flaws and then expanding them to the entire scientific body of research. Haeckel was a racist who did not even believe in Darwinian evolution at the time. He misapplied evolutionary theory and used it as a justification for the genocide committed by the Nazi's. This is not an accurate representation of those who support evolutionary theory. It would be akin to using our troll friend who has been posting on this forum as evidence against evolution. I do not know exactly what "fraud" you are referring to, but I have personally seen actual prepared slides of embryos from various diverse organisms, and seen similarities in their development. Mammalian embryos have structures that greatly resemble gill slits in fish, which eventually develop into the bones of the inner ear. I am not aware of any valid argument discrediting this evidence.



A clarification- I never presented my self as a fundamentalist Christian, only as a Christian (one who believes in God and His only Son Jesus Christ). I referred to a PhD Biologist I worked for who was a self described fundamentalist Christian who had no conflicts with evolutionary theory. I did not discuss his level of fundamentalism with him, but I do know he was a deeply devout individual- and a very good scientist. Regarding my own personal beliefs, I feel that they are and should remain personal. My intent for joining this discussion was not to change anyone beliefs, but to hopefully shed some light on this "controversy" and show how both sides are misapplying science for their own personal gains, and to show that there does not have to be a personal conflict between science and religion. In an answer to your last question above, I personally do find the Bible to be reliable, I just don't know that I am relying on it the same way you are.



Again, I would question several things. 1st- what are their areas in which they received PhD’s. I don't know which people you are referring to, but I have read of several people portraying themselves as "Anti-Evolution" Scientists with impressive credentials, but on closer inspection their PhD’s and other accolades are generally in fields that are not related to Evolution- such as theology, philosophy, Chemistry, etc. If they are new earth creationists, I seriously doubt their PhD’s were awarded in Biology, Geology, or Physics as those are all areas of study that generally involve vast amounts of time for their primary theories play out. Furthermore, being a good debater is not necessarily related to being a good scientist. Again, it seems as if the anti-evolution camp likes to throw around people like Haeckel to discredit evolution. The problem in a debate is the pro-evolution debater must agree, because Haeckel has been discredited by those who support evolution. To the lay person in attendance this looks like an admittance of a weakness of evolution, when in fact it is a misrepresentation of who Haeckel was and what his thoughts were. Fortunately for us, science is not a debate nor a political process (at least it should not be). This allows people of all faiths to be participants.



I have not, nor have I heard of it. Unfortunately with my job and young family there is precious little time for any other activities.



Ditto.

Good point. I will do the same.




You can readily see evidence of design. Homology is a problem for evolution, not a help. Also the study of radiometric halos point to a young earth.



The how shows evidence of design. Like you would look at a murder scene and know there is a murderer. It doesn't have to define who, just that it wasn't random chance. In my opinion time and chance requires a great amount of faith without evidence.




I have talked at length with these two among others...

Scott Minnich - a professor of Microbiology at the University of Idaho.
Stephen Meyer - Cambridge University graduate and one of the smartest guys I know.




There are many other examples. I talked with Professors at KU that agreed with me that the textbooks are very slow to change and much is still being taught that should not be.




Kale, Two points that come to mind and I mean no harm in addressing them. Even the demons believed in God and His Son Jesus Christ. It is through true repentance and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ that we are saved. I am not saying that you haven't, I'm just stating what the bible tells us. The bible also says that every man is a liar and that the only truth is God's word. That word will set you free. Every single example of a regenerated believer in the bible reveals that believer as excited and unashamed of the Gospel. We are commanded to go tell others to the end of the earth. It is certainly not to be kept to ourselves.



PM me your address and I will mail you a copy of the documentary. It is really well done and I know you would at least find it interesting.

deleted

I thought I was clear in saying that his was a SECULAR view. I quoted his book for THAT PURPOSE. To hear from an unbeliever about the Ape to man fraud. I never said he was a creationist and implied that he was NOT a Christian.

You started out by saying that you agreed with me that evolution was a fairy tale and unscientific. Then you got off on this bashing of the Bible and your white agenda. At first I appreciated the help exposing evolution but I'm not at all interested in hearing manufactured leaps about the bible not being God's word. I do pray that you realize the gamble you are taking that has eternal consequences.

Chief,

I think I have about exhausted the time I can spend on this topic, but I will definitely PM you my address. I am always looking for interesting things to read/watch. I am going to respond this time (and maybe more, but less immediately in the future) to a few of the comments from above.



I would say that it is a personal choice to see evidence of design in nature- certainly not wrong but not a necessary conclusion. That is the beauty of science, it explains only how things happen in nature, and leaves the observer the freedom to attach whatever meaning they want to it. Strictly speaking, if we were looking for design, there are numerous examples that would not seem to be logical design solutions, but work for the individual organisms. To me Evolution explains those without questioning why a “designer” would have done it this way or that. Again, if you feel that a designer is necessary, evolution does not preclude you from including that in your personal belief system, but evolution does not require the action of a supernatural being either.

The murder scene scenario above is definitely an oversimplification of what we observe in nature, and the questions science tries to tackle.



No disagreement here, science changes so rapidly in some areas that text books are outdated as soon as they are printed. One problem with using the Bible as a reference for science is that it has not changed in 1000’s of years (assuming there were no changes in the oral history of the bible before transferred into the written word, no copying mistakes, or no translational errors throughout its history).




No harm in stating your beliefs, however that is what they are- YOUR beliefs. I don’t think your intent was to equate me and my belief system to demons so I won’t take offense at that . I don’t want to deviate this conversation away from the initial topic so I won’t delve into the Bible and it’s various interpretations (both literal and metaphorical). Truth be told, I am sure I am not as well versed in that aspect as you are.

To summarize- (and I think we may just need to agree to disagree) my views are as follows:

Science is (or should strive to be as much as possible given the fact that PEOPLE conduct science with their own personal baggage):

* A secular pursuit. An attempt to espouse one religion’s world view over another greatly reduces the scope of those who can participate in the discussion.
* A naturalistic view- meaning it should strive to describe ONLY what can be observed, tested, and explained using natural laws and leave the supernatural to it’s rightful place- religion.
* A continual quest not for “answers”, but for greater knowledge of our natural world.
* Objective- scientists should not start out with the end in mind. When someone does that, all too often the data is interpreted to find the answer that was being sought, instead of allowing the data to lead us to the answer- whatever that is.

Any application beyond that is a personal choice, but we should not try to impose our personal belief system on the science as a whole as no matter what view that is we will needlessly alienate a large portion of people on earth.

I personally am glad that science and religion occupy different (but for me complimentary) parts of my belief system. Again, that is my personal belief system and will not accommodate everyone. One of my main problems is that people on both sides of this argument misapply science to try to force people to adopt their belief system or be “WRONG”. I can not believe there is one solution that should fit everybody and bristle at any ideology that indicates so. The other main problem I have is the misinformation and down right ignorance regarding this topic among our populace. I think if there were a more calm, frank, and honest discussion on both sides, the turmoil this topic raises would be greatly reduced and we could all go about our daily lives a lot less concerned about this.

Thanks for the intellectual exercise!

im not posting on this forum anymore, but before i leave though id might aswell ask you, Kale Mann can you actually provide some evidence for macroevolution?

im a science student in uni, and from all the evidence i have studied, it points to microevolution only, which is just the variation within a species due to change in genetic information with already exists. Macroevolution has never been observed, genetic information can not just magically appear. Macroevolution is a scientific impossibility.