A Long, long Comment on the Darwin versus God in Genesis One part one
My comments on this blog post are far too long, so I am making them a post because blogger will not support comments this long. Check out the comment thread for that post and then you will have context for this elongated comment, below.
I do not think there is any good proof for a book older than the earliest portions of the Bible. Recent finds of old pieces of papyrus, etc, support an ancient Old Testament and the authorship of the New Testament books was not in question in the days they were written. Higher Textual Criticism does not merit, in general, any consideration since it is an attempt to find ways to prove that the Bible is just another book. Many of the assertions by Higher Textual Criticism have been disproven. When you come to a question with a conclusion already reached, then we know what you will conclude, your process of investigation is nothing more than an attempt to glean evidence that supports your side rather than an honest appraisal.
Commenters, I came into my twenties as a non-Christian and an evolutionist who, despite ad hominem attacks, has done extensive field work and knows the basics of Darwinism/Neo-Darwinism inside and out. I was absolutely sure evolution was true and I was entirely agnostic about a deity. I did think there might well be one but all my efforts to figure out how you would figure that out had been useless.
Because I was open to evidence and information and not determined to have my current point of view be proved true, I was available to discover God. That moment came when, while talking with a guy who was very intelligent (A PhD) and a devout Christian about several topics, he presented Christ to me and inside I WAS SURE that what he was saying was true. It was a moment that the Spirit of the Living God was reaching out to me and I understood in a flash that, in believing and trusting in Christ, I would be changed and in fact was changing as I realized and accepted this...
God is supernatural. The moment I accepted Christ as Savior I was changed on the inside. I find it hard to describe, but the best way is to say that I had peace within whereas before I didn't even understand that I lacked that peace.
There was an unsettled black hole in me that, because it was always there, had been unidentified. That black hole had been devouring any stability I tried to apply to my life. I didn't know it had been there until God filled it up and replaced it with His Spirit.
I am evidence, because that one moment transformed my life. I was able to toss aside illegal drugs, no longer needed to get drunk all the time, decided to quit cussing continually, even quit smoking cigarettes. Also, I began to want to do something for someone. I began working in ministry with other Christians because I wanted other people to have this peace I had received. I began to work on saving the marriage I had intended to throw away and to try to find areas of agreement with a wife that had seemed like a burden up to that point.
I devoured the Bible. I read the New Testament through in a few days. At first I did it with a beer in one hand and a cigarette or a joint in the other, but soon I tossed those things aside because I did not need them or want them.
But I still believed in evolution. But, being a trained journalist and a scientist at heart, not to mention a debate clubber in school, I soon realized the dichotomy there. Because I read Genesis and saw that God asserted a six day creation and a worldwide flood and a history of mankind that lasted about 7,000 years at most.
Do you understand that I did not just swallow creationism because I had become a Christian? No, I decided I needed to research and figure out whether Genesis could possibly (it seemed unlikely) was truthful or whether it was fanciful and, if so, why did it appear to be a historical account? I knew this was a challenge that I had to bring to my faith and to the Bible.
I understood the dangers...could I be persuaded that my faith was an illusion? No, because I had experienced a real and tangible change that had reverbrated through my family.
I had one child and had decided I could not live with my wife any longer. My personal code, which allowed for "if it feels good, do it" was not in favor of adultery, so divorce was the answer. However, both me and my wife got saved and it changed everything and we soon began having more children. My kids are all great big blessings to me now...how much I would have missed if I had not been changed!
I was the lead singer of a drug-and-sex oriented hard rock band, a kind of a mix of Vanilla Fudge, AC/DC and Black Sabbath. I quit the band because it promoted stuff that didn't fit the new me.
There was no doubt I had been changed. But there was no doubt I had been taught and believed the idea of long ages and evolution and millions upon millions of years. So I had to put Genesis to the test. Could the evidence support the six days of creation rather than millions, even billions of years?
It seemed likely to me that I would discover that Genesis was something of a parable, an allegory, a poetic description of complex events beyond the ken of the patriarchs. It was God's fairy tale for early mankind. On the other hand, the events of the Garden of Eden were crucial to the salvation equation. No fall, no sin problem, no need for Christ? Hmmmm. I had to back-burner Eden and concentrate on those first six days.
Understand this: Experientially I was sure of Jesus Christ, sure of my salvation. I knew I was changed, I thought differently, felt differently, my motivations were changed. God was quite real to me. However, that did not mean Genesis 1 and 2 had to be historical accounts. I could find a way to understand them as allegorical if that was what they were.
So, in 1979 this new Christian began researching on the subject. It turned out that there was such a thing as creation science. It turned out that some great scientists such as Henry Morris had also had salvation experiences and begun studying evidence. It turned out that much of what I had been taught was a lie.
1) The Haeckel embryo chart
2) The standard geological column
3) The Miller-Urey experiment
4) Various supposed ancestors of man, such as Peking Man, etc, presented in a chart that purported to show a continuum of advancing organisms from ape to man.
5) Carbon dating
6) Brontosaurus (a minor point, but it was my favorite dinosaur and I was disappointed to discover that some doof put the wrong head on the wrong body when assembling fossilized bones)
7) The evolutionary tree of lineage of organisms
It turned out that the rock layers of the earth fit the Noahic Flood scenario beautifully and absolutely do not and cannot be a result of long ages and incremental buildups of material.
It turned out that fossils, to be preserved, had to be buried rapidly and in some cases instantly to be what they were.
It turned out that carbon dating was not capable of accurately predicting ages beyond a couple of thousand years. In fact, it turned out that there is no dating method that can be proven to show any reliable age beyond a very short time span because they cannot be calibrated properly. We do not know enough about past events and conditions to be sure of the veracity of any dating method.
It turned out that scientists cannot date rock. Paleontologists and geologists alike had been dating rock according to the fossils contained therein, and the fossils according to the rock layers they were in! Talk about your circular reasoning...
The Cambrian Explosion - the "earliest" fossils are all complete organisms. Chordates are found in these layers. Some of the organisms are still found today in the same form. Some of them are remarkably complex.
I realized after a few years that Darwinism and Uniformitarianism were a house of cards (and Uniformitarianism has, in fact, been finally cast aside by the scientific community) built on suppositions that were not in keeping with the evidence. The evidence on Earth supported a Flood event. Obviously the orthodox scientific view was driven by an atheistic world view, because the Darwininian point of view requires all sorts of additional explanations and suppositions to present itself, while the Biblical account, taken straight, fits the evidence.
As to looking beyond the Earth for evidence relating to the skies? I will be speaking to that in this series so I will wait.
But remember, this blog is written by a man who was an agnostic Darwinist who changed his mind and his world view, not by a life-long Christian who is passing along his indoctrinations.
Ask yourself if you are willing to be completely wrong and change your mind? I am, I can prove it by my life. I think that qualifies me to write on these subjects as someone who has been on both sides of the fence. So next will come part two in the series....
I do not think there is any good proof for a book older than the earliest portions of the Bible. Recent finds of old pieces of papyrus, etc, support an ancient Old Testament and the authorship of the New Testament books was not in question in the days they were written. Higher Textual Criticism does not merit, in general, any consideration since it is an attempt to find ways to prove that the Bible is just another book. Many of the assertions by Higher Textual Criticism have been disproven. When you come to a question with a conclusion already reached, then we know what you will conclude, your process of investigation is nothing more than an attempt to glean evidence that supports your side rather than an honest appraisal.
Commenters, I came into my twenties as a non-Christian and an evolutionist who, despite ad hominem attacks, has done extensive field work and knows the basics of Darwinism/Neo-Darwinism inside and out. I was absolutely sure evolution was true and I was entirely agnostic about a deity. I did think there might well be one but all my efforts to figure out how you would figure that out had been useless.
Because I was open to evidence and information and not determined to have my current point of view be proved true, I was available to discover God. That moment came when, while talking with a guy who was very intelligent (A PhD) and a devout Christian about several topics, he presented Christ to me and inside I WAS SURE that what he was saying was true. It was a moment that the Spirit of the Living God was reaching out to me and I understood in a flash that, in believing and trusting in Christ, I would be changed and in fact was changing as I realized and accepted this...
God is supernatural. The moment I accepted Christ as Savior I was changed on the inside. I find it hard to describe, but the best way is to say that I had peace within whereas before I didn't even understand that I lacked that peace.
There was an unsettled black hole in me that, because it was always there, had been unidentified. That black hole had been devouring any stability I tried to apply to my life. I didn't know it had been there until God filled it up and replaced it with His Spirit.
I am evidence, because that one moment transformed my life. I was able to toss aside illegal drugs, no longer needed to get drunk all the time, decided to quit cussing continually, even quit smoking cigarettes. Also, I began to want to do something for someone. I began working in ministry with other Christians because I wanted other people to have this peace I had received. I began to work on saving the marriage I had intended to throw away and to try to find areas of agreement with a wife that had seemed like a burden up to that point.
I devoured the Bible. I read the New Testament through in a few days. At first I did it with a beer in one hand and a cigarette or a joint in the other, but soon I tossed those things aside because I did not need them or want them.
But I still believed in evolution. But, being a trained journalist and a scientist at heart, not to mention a debate clubber in school, I soon realized the dichotomy there. Because I read Genesis and saw that God asserted a six day creation and a worldwide flood and a history of mankind that lasted about 7,000 years at most.
Do you understand that I did not just swallow creationism because I had become a Christian? No, I decided I needed to research and figure out whether Genesis could possibly (it seemed unlikely) was truthful or whether it was fanciful and, if so, why did it appear to be a historical account? I knew this was a challenge that I had to bring to my faith and to the Bible.
I understood the dangers...could I be persuaded that my faith was an illusion? No, because I had experienced a real and tangible change that had reverbrated through my family.
I had one child and had decided I could not live with my wife any longer. My personal code, which allowed for "if it feels good, do it" was not in favor of adultery, so divorce was the answer. However, both me and my wife got saved and it changed everything and we soon began having more children. My kids are all great big blessings to me now...how much I would have missed if I had not been changed!
I was the lead singer of a drug-and-sex oriented hard rock band, a kind of a mix of Vanilla Fudge, AC/DC and Black Sabbath. I quit the band because it promoted stuff that didn't fit the new me.
There was no doubt I had been changed. But there was no doubt I had been taught and believed the idea of long ages and evolution and millions upon millions of years. So I had to put Genesis to the test. Could the evidence support the six days of creation rather than millions, even billions of years?
It seemed likely to me that I would discover that Genesis was something of a parable, an allegory, a poetic description of complex events beyond the ken of the patriarchs. It was God's fairy tale for early mankind. On the other hand, the events of the Garden of Eden were crucial to the salvation equation. No fall, no sin problem, no need for Christ? Hmmmm. I had to back-burner Eden and concentrate on those first six days.
Understand this: Experientially I was sure of Jesus Christ, sure of my salvation. I knew I was changed, I thought differently, felt differently, my motivations were changed. God was quite real to me. However, that did not mean Genesis 1 and 2 had to be historical accounts. I could find a way to understand them as allegorical if that was what they were.
So, in 1979 this new Christian began researching on the subject. It turned out that there was such a thing as creation science. It turned out that some great scientists such as Henry Morris had also had salvation experiences and begun studying evidence. It turned out that much of what I had been taught was a lie.
1) The Haeckel embryo chart
2) The standard geological column
3) The Miller-Urey experiment
4) Various supposed ancestors of man, such as Peking Man, etc, presented in a chart that purported to show a continuum of advancing organisms from ape to man.
5) Carbon dating
6) Brontosaurus (a minor point, but it was my favorite dinosaur and I was disappointed to discover that some doof put the wrong head on the wrong body when assembling fossilized bones)
7) The evolutionary tree of lineage of organisms
It turned out that the rock layers of the earth fit the Noahic Flood scenario beautifully and absolutely do not and cannot be a result of long ages and incremental buildups of material.
It turned out that fossils, to be preserved, had to be buried rapidly and in some cases instantly to be what they were.
It turned out that carbon dating was not capable of accurately predicting ages beyond a couple of thousand years. In fact, it turned out that there is no dating method that can be proven to show any reliable age beyond a very short time span because they cannot be calibrated properly. We do not know enough about past events and conditions to be sure of the veracity of any dating method.
It turned out that scientists cannot date rock. Paleontologists and geologists alike had been dating rock according to the fossils contained therein, and the fossils according to the rock layers they were in! Talk about your circular reasoning...
The Cambrian Explosion - the "earliest" fossils are all complete organisms. Chordates are found in these layers. Some of the organisms are still found today in the same form. Some of them are remarkably complex.
I realized after a few years that Darwinism and Uniformitarianism were a house of cards (and Uniformitarianism has, in fact, been finally cast aside by the scientific community) built on suppositions that were not in keeping with the evidence. The evidence on Earth supported a Flood event. Obviously the orthodox scientific view was driven by an atheistic world view, because the Darwininian point of view requires all sorts of additional explanations and suppositions to present itself, while the Biblical account, taken straight, fits the evidence.
As to looking beyond the Earth for evidence relating to the skies? I will be speaking to that in this series so I will wait.
But remember, this blog is written by a man who was an agnostic Darwinist who changed his mind and his world view, not by a life-long Christian who is passing along his indoctrinations.
Ask yourself if you are willing to be completely wrong and change your mind? I am, I can prove it by my life. I think that qualifies me to write on these subjects as someone who has been on both sides of the fence. So next will come part two in the series....