Posted on 02/05/2009 8:10:48 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
In January 2009, ICR received a copy of a recent ministry letter published by television personality Dr. John Ankerberg. For many years, Dr. Ankerberg has skillfully tackled tough issues related to the church, society, the Middle East, and other topics of interest to believers. Christians everywhere need to be informed, challenged, and also taught sound doctrine—there is no substitute for the Bible.
However, the January letter from Dr. Ankerberg’s television ministry reveals a dangerous trend toward subjugating the accuracy, understandability, and authority of the Bible to the foolish musings of men—namely, scientists who deny that God’s revelation in the book of Genesis is actually true...
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
I would say that this is exactly what happened, however. The conditions the Bible describes after the landing of the Ark - extremely small "starter" populations, huge amounts of empty space into which they could expand - are tailor made for the massive genetic drift that would lead to a "Founder Principle" type of rapid speciation, followed by stabilisation once the populations got large enough. This could have occurred, based on the generational lengths of most animals, within a few hundred years.
The concept of the passage of time is really only relevant when we speak about being "within" creation. Time is as much a part of the existence of the material universe as space and matter are. In a sense, we can't even say that there WAS an "eternity past" with respect to creation - since God is not dependent upon nor is He existent in time, so we can't challenge the idea of a young universe solely on this piece of philosophical speculation.
Yes, God could have created the earth 6 to 10k years ago and have created it to appear as though it had been here billions of years... but what's the point?
I would question the assumption that the earth, the universe, etc. "appear" to be billions of years old. That assumption rests on the circular reasoning inherent in evolutionary theory, but is NOT independently or empirically verified fact.
I imagine that goes both ways, probably lop sided against Darwinism. JMHO.
Your post was excellent, but that statement is far from the truth. Only a small number of people believe evolution. Survey after survey have shown that at least 2/3 of the people believe that creation is the correct answer across the board. Belief in evolution is a form of mental illness.
[[As you observe and study the world around you, you will discover that all the true facts of science and all the true laws of science agree perfectly with the Bible and with the book of Genesis!]]
Let me just add that these true facts of science and true laws of science and nature do NOT need to be artificially ‘fitted to’ the bible- they do so quite naturally- as opposed to macroevolutionists ALWAYS having to adjust, manipulate, and change the evidences, as well include copious amounts of assumptions about connectivities between dissimilar kinds that have no scientific support. When evidences show young age, macroevolutionsits are quick to come up with elaborate assumption driven ‘explanations’ to dismiss the evidences, and when evidneces, statistics, and natural laws dictate that macroevolution is impossible, again, these are simply ingored, or ‘explained’ away with more elaborate hypothesisizing that ingores the evidneces agaisnt the hypothesis
Creationists and ID’ists are often accused of practicing apologetics, but everythign about macroevolution is nothing BUT apologies ‘explaining’ away the evidneces agaisnt it.
However, having said this, I think it is problematic to use static materials to analogize with macroevolution, as macroevolution is a dynamic living system of information at a much higher level than static object information. It might be better to argue that nature is incapable of creating ihgh level metainformaiton (information ABOUT information that controls the whole lower level systems workings)
i’d also like to add what another poster posted abotu 7 days- specifically that this was a full week of determi9ned age, as the Lord said basically “s I worked for 6 days, and rested on the 7’th, so shal you by observing the sabbath’ He didn’t say in essence “As I too worked an indeterminante number of years numbering perhaps in the billions, and then rested on the seventh day, so too shall you rest and observe an indeterminant number of days/years for hte sabbath”
The rest of your your post about ‘days’ is excellent- Thank you for the time and effort you’ve put into making these facts known :)
I think he was generalizing about ‘most people’ who ‘beleive in evolution’, not inferring that most peopel beleive in evolution
[[Is Satan a literal snake in the grass? If not then why did God tell Satan (the serpent)that he was more cursed than all the animals and that he would slither on the ground and eat dust?]]
No- Satan possessed the snake- the snake was thus culpable, and it was the literal snake that God cursed for beign the vehicle through which God’s most prized creation, man, was condemned- From the bible commentator Gill:
“Gen_3:14-15
Here begins the judgment. Sentence is pronounced upon the serpent in the presence, no doubt, of the man and woman. The serpent is not examined, first, because it is a mute, unreasoning animal in itself, and therefore incapable of judicial examination, and it was the serpent only that was palpable to the senses of our first parents in the temptation; and, secondly, because the true tempter was not a new, but an old offender.
This sentence has a literal application to the serpent. The curse (Gen_9:25, see the note) of the serpent lies in a more groveling nature than that of the other land animals. This appears in its going on its belly and eating the dust. Other animals have at least feet to elevate them above the dust; the serpent tribe does not have even feet. Other animals elevate the head in their natural position above the soil: the serpent lays its head naturally on the sod, and therefore may be said to eat the dust, as the wounded warrior bites the dust in death. The earthworm is probably included in the description here given of the serpent group. It goes upon its belly, and actually does eat the dust. Eating the dust, like feeding upon ashes, is an expression for signal defeat in every aim. The enmity, the mode of its display, and the issue are also singularly characteristic of the literal serpent.
It is the custom of Scripture jurisprudence to visit brute animals with certain judicial consequences of injuries they have been instrumental in doing to man, especially if this has arisen through the design or neglect of the owner, or other responsible agent Gen_9:5; Exo_21:28-36. In the present case the injury done was of a moral, not a physical nature. Hence, the penalty consists in a curse; that is, a state of greater degradation below man than the other land animals. The serpent in the extraordinary event here recorded exercised the powers of human speech and reasoning. And it is natural to suppose that these exhibitions of intelligence were accompanied with an attitude and a gesture above its natural rank in the scale of creation. The effect of the judicial sentence would be to remand it to its original groveling condition, and give rise to that enmity which was to end in its destruction by man.
However, since an evil spirit must have employed the serpent, since the animal whose organs and instincts were most adapted to its purpose, and has accordingly derived its name from it as presenting the animal type most analogous to its own spiritual nature, so the whole of this sentence has its higher application to the real tempter. “Upon thy belly shalt thou go.” This is expressive of the lowest stage of degradation to which a spiritual creature can be sunk. “Dust shalt thou eat.” This is indicative of disappointment in all the aims of being. “I will put enmity.” This is still more strictly applicable to the spiritual enemy of mankind. It intimates a hereditary feud between their respective races, which is to terminate, after some temporary suffering on the part of the woman’s seed, in the destruction of the serpent’s power against man. The spiritual agent in the temptation of man cannot have literally any seed. But the seed of the serpent is that portion of the human family that continues to be his moral offspring, and follows the first transgression without repentance or refuge in the mercy of God. The seed of the woman, on the other hand, must denote the remnant who are born from above, and hence, turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.
Let us now mark the lessons conveyed in the sentence of the serpent to our first parents, who were listening and looking on. First. The serpent is styled a mere brute animal. All, then, that seemed to indicate reason as inherent in its nature or acquired by some strange event in its history is thus at once contradicted. Second. It is declared to be lower than any of the other land animals; as being destitute of any members corresponding to feet or hands. Third. It is not interrogated as a rational and accountable being, but treated as a mere dumb brute.
Fourth. It is degraded from the airs and attitudes which may have been assumed, when it was possessed by a serpent-like evil spirit, and falls back without a struggle to that place of debasement in the animal kingdom for which it was designed. Fifth. It is fated to be disappointed in its aims at usurpation. It shall bite the dust. Sixth. it is doomed to ultimate and utter defeat in its hostile assaults upon the seed of the woman.
All this must have made a deep impression on our first parents. But two things must have struck them with special force. First, it was now evident how vain and hollow were its pretensions to superior wisdom, and how miserably deluded they had been when they listened to its false insinuations. If, indeed, they had possessed maturity of reflection, and taken time to apply it, they would have been strangely bewildered with the whole scene, now that it was past. How the serpent, from the brute instinct it displayed to Adam when he named the animals, suddenly rose to the temporary exercise of reason and speech, and as suddenly relapsed into its former bestiality, is, to the mere observer of nature, an inexplicable phenomenon. But to Adam, who had as yet too limited an experience to distinguish between natural and preternatural events, and too little development of the reflective power to detect the inconsistency in the appearance of things, the sole object of attention was the shameless presumption of the serpent, and the overwhelming retribution which had fallen upon it; and, consequently, the deplorable folly and wickedness of having been misguided by its suggestions.
A second thing, however, was still more striking to the mind of man in the sentence of the serpent; namely, the enmity that was to be put between the serpent and the woman. Up to a certain point there had been concord and alliance between these two parties. But, on the very opening of the heavenly court, we learn that the friendly connection had been broken. For the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” This expression indicates that the woman was no longer at one with the serpent. She was now sensible that its part had been that, not of friendship, but of guile, and therefore of the deepest and darkest hostility.
When God, therefore, said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman,” this revulsion of feeling on her part, in which Adam no doubt joined, was acknowledged and approved. Enmity with the enemy of God indicated a return to friendship with God, and presupposed incipient feelings of repentance toward him, and reviving confidence in his word. The perpetuation of this enmity is here affirmed, in regard not only to the woman, but to her seed. This prospect of seed, and of a godly seed, at enmity with evil, became a fountain of hope to our first parents, and confirmed every feeling of returning reverence for God which was beginning to spring up in their breast. The word heard from the mouth of God begat faith in their hearts, and we shall find that this faith was not slow to manifest itself in acts.
We cannot pass over this part of the sentence without noticing the expression, “the seed of the woman.” Does it not mean, in the first instance, the whole human race? Was not this race at enmity with the serpent? And though that part only of the seed of the woman which eventually shared in her present feelings could be said to be at enmity with the serpent spirit, yet, if all had gone well in Adam’s family, might not the whole race have been at enmity with the spirit of disobedience? Was not the avenue to mercy here hinted at as wide as the offer of any other time? And was not this universality of invitation at some time to have a response in the human family? Does not the language of the passage constrain us to look forward to the time when the great mass, or the whole of the human race then alive on the earth, will have actually turned from the power of Satan unto God? This could not be seen by Adam. But was it not the plain import of the language, that, unless there was some new revolt after the present reconciliation, the whole race would, even from this new beginning, be at enmity with the spirit of evil? Such was the dread lesson of experience with which Adam now entered upon the career of life, that it was to be expected he would warn his children against departing from the living God, with a clearness and earnestness which would be both understood and felt.
Still further, do we not pass from the general to the particular in the sentence, “He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel?” Is not the seed of the woman here individualized and matched in deadly conflict with the individual tempter? Does not this phraseology point to some pre-eminent descendant of the woman, who is, with the bruising of his lower nature in the encounter, to gain a signal and final victory over the adversary of man? There is some reason to believe from the expression, “I have gotten a man from the Lord” Gen_4:1, that Eve herself had caught a glimpse of this meaning, though she applied it to the wrong party. The Vulgate also, in what was probably the genuine reading, “ipse” (he himself) points to the same meaning. The reading “ipsa” (she herself) is inconsistent with the gender of the Hebrew verb, and with that of the corresponding pronoun in the second clause (his), and is therefore clearly an error of the transcriber.
Lastly, the retributive character of the divine administration is remarkably illustrated in the phrase. The serpent, in a wily but dastardly spirit, makes the weaker sex the object of his attack. It is the seed of the woman especially that is to bruise his head. It is singular to find that this simple phrase, coming in naturally and incidentally in a sentence uttered four thousand years, and penned at least fifteen hundred years, before the Christian era, describes exactly and literally Him who was made of woman without the intervention of man, that He might destroy the works of the devil. This clause in the sentence of the tempter is the first dawn of hope for the human family after the fall. We cannot tell whether to admire more the simplicity of its terms, the breadth and comprehensiveness of its meaning, or the minuteness of its application to the far-distant event which it mainly contemplates.
The doom here pronounced upon the tempter must be regarded as special and secondary. It refers to the malignant attack upon man, and foretells what will be the issue of this attempt to spread disaffection among the intelligent creation. And it is pronounced without any examination of the offender, or investigation of his motives. If this had been the first offence against the majesty of heaven, we humbly conceive a solemn precognition of the case would have taken place, and a penalty would have been adjudicated adequate to the magnitude of the crime and analagous to the punishment of death in the case of man. The primary act of defiance and apostasy from the Creator must have been perpetrated without a tempter, and was, therefore, incomparably more heinous than the secondary act of yielding to temptation. Whether the presence of the tempter on earth intimates that it was the place of his abode in a state of innocence, or that he visited it because he had heard of the creation of man, or that he was there from some altogether different reason, is a vain and unprofitable inquiry.”
>>>Surely God meant the phrase “evening and morning” in Genesis 1 to be read “millions or billions of years.”<<<
“morning and evening...were the first day”
“yom”
Understood to mean...”day”...not (Carl Sagan voice) “billlions and billlions of ‘ears.
And in the original Hebrew language meant...day.
The worn out “day-age” theory!
That’s so...last century.
and...so...ear-tickling.
It is sad to see men who claim to His prophet cave to the god of this age.
Have a nice...”yom”
[[Have a nice...”yom”]]
Do you mean ‘age’ or ‘day’? :)
...if you’re a dog, I meant “age”
=)
Lol= Oh I’m a real dog alright- One ugly mug :)
Yeah, that was pretty good!
Thanks for the ping!
From here.
For too long, the misperception that science and religion are inevitably in conflict has created unnecessary division and confusion, especially concerning the teaching of evolution. I wanted to let the public know that numerous clergy from most denominations have tremendous respect for evolutionary theory and have embraced it as a core component of human knowledge, fully harmonious with religious faith.[Bolding mine.]
In the fall of 2004, I worked with clergy throughout Wisconsin to prepare a statement in support of teaching evolution. We were called to action by a series of anti-evolution policies passed by the school board in Grantsburg, WI. The response was overwhelming. In a few weeks, nearly 200 clergy signed the statement, which we sent to the Grantsburg school board on December 16, 2004. Additionally, groups of educators and scientists sent letters to the Grantsburg School Board and to the Superintendent of Schools protesting these policies. In response to all of this attention, as well as the efforts of others, the Grantsburg School Board retracted their policies.
The outpouring of support from clergy around the country encouraged me to make this a nationwide project. If you want to read more about it or join us in sharing this important perspective, click here. Encourage your clergy to consider signing the statement and please feel free to link to these webpages. And, while the current focus is on Christian clergy, please let me know if you are willing to write and/or host a statement from other religions.
The Clergy Letter Project has also sponsored annual Evolution Sunday events. These events provide an opportunity for congregations around the world to come together, in the way each feels most comfortable, to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. By doing so, we are educating thousands and elevating the world-wide discussion of this important topic. If your congregation would like to participate in an Evolution Sunday event, please contact me.
Most recently, The Clergy Letter Project has created a data base of scientists interested in working with clergy members to answer questions about all aspects of evolution. To view this growing list, click here (If you are a scientist and would like to be added to our data base, please send me a note.)
Sincerely,
Michael Zimmerman
Dean
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Butler University
11,818 members of the Christian clergy have signed this letter. (Rabbis and Unitarian/Universalist clergy have signed a somewhat different letter). See site for details.
The Clergy Letter - from American Christian clergy– An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science
[Alternate language options omitted]
Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.
We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.
I invite particularly the lurkers to visit this site and see that I have in no way distorted or mis-represented anything. Religion and the Theory of Evolution are not mutually exclusive.
What are you afraid of?
It’s called compromising God’s word in order to be accepted by the world.
Got it.
Please accept my apologies. My last post here was intended for you.
11,118 ‘clergy signed that letter- so it must be true dontcha know? (This despite hte overwhelming majority of 2.6 billion TRUE Christians have no problem interpreting God’s word the way HE intends it to be- bu5t alas, the minority voice claims it’s not so, so it must be so.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.