It all began with Noah

AZ Daily Sun ^ | 3/31/12 | ERIC BETZ

[Borges]

The Grand Canyon, and much of the rest of Earth's geological features, were formed in Noah's flood, and the underpinnings of modern science and textbooks are based on frauds that have been perpetrated in a war between secular culture and Christians. That was the message brought to Northern Arizona University's Cline Library Auditorium on Thursday night by Flagstaff resident Russ Miller, who travels around the country speaking at churches as part of his Creation, Evolution & Science Ministries. He also publishes books like "Noah's Ark and Dinosaurs," and he leads paid tours into the Grand Canyon teaching his beliefs.

"You need to understand that you're involved in the greatest world war in the history of the world, and at a foundational level this is a war of world views," Miller said. "It's not a war of bombs, bullets and airplanes, it's much more serious than that. This is a war that's already claimed the souls of billions of people." Miller believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible that he says confirms the Earth was formed over the course of six days several thousand years ago. He also believes that evolution is a religious belief.

"From the big bang ... to the big rock, to the rain on rock, to the spontaneous generation, to the first cells, to the first vertebrates; there is no evidence whatsoever. It's all a religious belief. And if you wanna believe that, it's fine; just admit it's a belief and stop teaching it in schools as fact," Miller said.

BIBLE AS 'TRUE HISTORY'

The talk was sponsored by the Victorious Life Christian Center in Flagstaff, which paid to rent the auditorium for Miller's talk. The audience was escorted to their seats by ushers in maroon sport coats with nametags and given fliers on the church. Most in attendance were church members, but there were a number of NAU science students and professors in attendance as well.

Miller was introduced by Tim Masters, a pastor at Victorious Life, who said the point of the talk was to present information, not to stir debate. "One thing about the Bible is it's not a science book, but it is the true history book of the universe," Miller said. "If billions of years of death existed before man, then the Bible is not true." Rather than attempt to prove that the Earth had formed in six days or present evidence for a global flood, Miller spent most of the talk attacking evolution. He presented a barrage of slides highlighting what he claimed were problems with everything from radio-carbon dating to humanity's hominid ancestors. Each point was met with alternating smatterings of laughter and 'Amen."

'ALL PRETTY RIDICULOUS'

His presentation flew in the face of modern findings in geology, biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy. "The problem is they have to not only carve the canyon with the flood but they have to lay down all the layers of sediment with the same flood," said Northern Arizona University Associate Astronomy Professor Dave Koerner, who attended the talk. "And so you have to lay down all these layers of sediment that are in the Grand Canyon, they have to solidify within a short amount of time, and then when the waters recede, you have to carve them out again. That's all pretty ridiculous and impossible, but it doesn't keep them from trying."

Koerner does research on planets forming around distant stars using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. He also teaches astrobiology -- the study of life in the universe -- among other courses at the university.

Koerner felt compelled to start a course call "Evolution vs. Creationism" in response to the controversy surrounding prior talks Miller gave on campus. The Daily Sun sat down with Koerner before Thursday's talk. "In general it's a free country and you can believe really nutty things if you want to. Why not?" Koerner said. "Where I have a problem is if you are trying to compel a lot of people or teach them things that contradict the scientific results in our culture. ... There's a lot of students and young people who could have promising careers in technical professions. As long as scientists are demonized to them and lied about it, it puts a roadblock in their way."

FROM CREATIONIST TO AGNOSTIC

Koerner was raised in a creationist household in southern California and taught Bible school himself for years. He says he loved science growing up, but was scared to learn science because it was cast as evil. He even believed a literal interpretation of the Bible up until he taught a course using the book of a well-known creationist named Henry Morris. The book, called "The Genesis Flood," actually helped turn him against a literal account of creation because it was so hard to believe, even with a limited understanding of science.

By the time he had finished an undergraduate degree in geology, he had erased any doubt in a scientific understanding of Earth's origins. And after getting his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, he no longer believed in God at all. Koerner says he now considers himself agnostic.

"I was not actually able to go into the science, just psychologically, until I was well into my 30s," he said. "It took me that long to overcome all the indoctrination about young Earth and the idea that scientists are evil, anti-religious people, which is not true."

TWO RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

The talk on Thursday was closed out by Masters, who dismissed the crowd without taking questions.

"We're talking about two religious beliefs, creationism and evolution," Masters told the audience. "One has tremendous proof, one does not. There is an end to everything. ... The question we have to ask ourselves is, 'Where do we want to spend eternity?'"

He then finished with a prayer and asked people to come up and turn their lives to Christ if they saw fit. Many students walked out during the prayer. Miller was approached by several students after the talk who confronted him with scientific errors in his presentation, but the exchanges were mostly polite. That contrasted with previous talks at NAU during which discussions spun into yelling matches.

A small group of students stood outside in a protest, with one carrying a sign reading "Beware of Confirmation Bias."

[Carriage Hill]

Ping.

[GreyFriar]

God created the universe, life and everything. In His own manner and time that we are and have been trying to understand since He created us. The story in the Book of Genesis is, in my view, the story of that creation in the manner of how it could be comprehended thousands of years ago and is not “literally” true in the sense of 6 days, each 24 earth hours long. But He did create all of us.

[GreyFriar]

I also believe that there was a massive flood at sometime in the past, perhaps around 5,500 BC, that has come to us as the story of Noah’s flood, with the moral lessons embedded into it. Such lessons which make timeless sense. There are probably better sites than this one, http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_noah.htm , to describe the event I’ve mentioned, but it has the basic accounting of the scientific theory behind the flooding of the area we know as the Black Sea as the actual event we know as Noah’s flood.

Science grew during the Rennassiance and was fostered by the Church. To me, today’s separating Christian faith and science is a false separation. God gave us the ability to reason, we did not create it ourselves. God gave us that ability and the gift of free will to enable us to understand Him and His love for us. And He sent His only Son Jesus to remind us of that love and that He wants us to return to Him after our time on this small planet.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Noah
by Bill Cosby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATGrbTN63H4

[JSDude1]

Tis literally true. Even Jesus believed in Adam.

[blackpacific]

The striated mud was caused by kinetic sorting of a high velocity horizontal mud/water flow. You can observe this directly when blasting a water hose sideways in deep tilled earth, or you can observe the data from Mt St Helens and the Spirit Valley, a mini Grand Canyon was formed there in the space of about 2 weeks, which is about the same amount of time that Immanuel Velokovski thinks the Grand Canyon was formed, when the Pacific Ocean lurched across the Continental Unites States, and then drained back over a big mud pad. Similar evidence of the flood may be found on Camelback Peak in Phoenix, AZ. As you hike near the summit the mud/sandstone lays right on top of the granitic bedrock, like a mantle of mud.

[SubMareener]

The real information about God's creation in the Book of Genesis is in the Hebrew letters themselves. If you want to glimpse some of that wonder you can visit Stan Tenen's Meru Foundation Website. There is a link to his book, "The Alphabet That Changed the World" "The Meru Project has discovered an extraordinary and unexpected geometric metaphor in the letter-sequence of the Hebrew text of Genesis that underlies and is held in common by the spiritual traditions of the ancient world. This metaphor models embryonic growth and self-organization. It applies to all whole systems, including those as seemingly diverse as meditational practices and the mathematics fundamental to physics and cosmology...Meru Project findings demonstrate that the relationship between physical theory and consciousness, expressed in explicit geometric metaphor, was understood and developed several thousand years ago."

[exDemMom]

Rather than attempt to prove that the Earth had formed in six days or present evidence for a global flood, Miller spent most of the talk attacking evolution.

The reason literal creationists spend so much time attacking evolution and science is because they have no evidence on their side.

"In general it's a free country and you can believe really nutty things if you want to. Why not?" Koerner said. "Where I have a problem is if you are trying to compel a lot of people or teach them things that contradict the scientific results in our culture. ... There's a lot of students and young people who could have promising careers in technical professions. As long as scientists are demonized to them and lied about it, it puts a roadblock in their way."

At a time when the quality of education in the US is plummeting and the US is in real danger of losing its scientific supremacy, the LAST thing we need are charlatans actively trying to turn kids against science and teaching that scientists are evil.

Koerner was raised in a creationist household in southern California and taught Bible school himself for years. He says he loved science growing up, but was scared to learn science because it was cast as evil. He even believed a literal interpretation of the Bible up until he taught a course using the book of a well-known creationist named Henry Morris. The book, called "The Genesis Flood," actually helped turn him against a literal account of creation because it was so hard to believe, even with a limited understanding of science.

By the time he had finished an undergraduate degree in geology, he had erased any doubt in a scientific understanding of Earth's origins. And after getting his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, he no longer believed in God at all. Koerner says he now considers himself agnostic.

"I was not actually able to go into the science, just psychologically, until I was well into my 30s," he said. "It took me that long to overcome all the indoctrination about young Earth and the idea that scientists are evil, anti-religious people, which is not true."

This story highlights a danger of literal creationism that I hypothesized about a long time ago, but have never expressed. Kids can be indoctrinated into believing that the creation story of Genesis is a literal account, and that to believe otherwise is sinful. But some kids have a strong curiosity about the natural world. It really doesn't take much for the kid to notice that the real world simply does not fit the Biblical story. They might find fossil seashells on a hillside twenty miles away from the coast, for instance. They could pick up a book about dinosaurs whose tone is that of a descriptive book, and they perceive that it is different than fantasy books. They might visit a park, where educational signage explains rock strata and their long geological history. Etc. To a kid who's been taught that evolution vs. creation is an either/or proposition, what conclusion will they draw when it becomes clear that there really is evidence that only supports one side, and it isn't the Biblical side? The way I see it, adherence to a strict literal creationist view is extremely damaging to the effort to bring people back into the fold. Is this what we really want?

What if, instead of indoctrinating him into a literal creationist interpretation of the Bible, Koerner's parents had instead encouraged his youthful wonder? What if they had, instead, told him that the process of evolution is, in fact, a sign of God's glory, since only He could devise the physical laws that made such a process possible? Would he still have rejected his faith completely, or would he be a witness to the wonder of creation as it actually is?

"We're talking about two religious beliefs, creationism and evolution," Masters told the audience. "One has tremendous proof, one does not. There is an end to everything. ... The question we have to ask ourselves is, 'Where do we want to spend eternity?'"

Masters is only talking about one religious belief, and trying to convince people that they can only demonstrate that belief by closing their eyes to the real wonder of the world around them. No doubt, he makes money by doing so. Scientific theories are not, never have been, and never will be, religious beliefs. And where we spend eternity isn't predicated upon our closing our ears and eyes to the scientific evidence all around us.

[crusty old prospector]

Why is there only one canyon? Why isn’t there one in Maine or North Carolina? The Grand Canyon is there because of a large pluton of molten granite that resides beneath the Colorado Plateau. It is lighter than the surrounding host rock so it slowly rises because of buoyancy. As it rises, the river cuts downward.

[bramps]

A very disturbing thing to me about the concept of such a flood is the great number of innocent babies who would’ve died horrified in their mothers arms as the water rose above their mouths.

[BrandtMichaels]

Here are my favorite FReeper links for creation science gleaned over years and years of reading and lurking here...

101 Evidences for a Young Age of the Earth...And the Universe
http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth

Center for Scientific Creation - In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/IntheBeginningTOC.html

Dinosaur Shocker - 68 million year old T Rex w/ red blood cells
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/10021606.html#ixzz0VZChRzSL

New Chromosome Research Undermines Human-Chimp Similarity Claims
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2565348/posts

Science in the Bible
http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/science.shtml

Testimonies of Scientists Who Believe the Bible
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2761001/posts

[null and void]

Nonsense. All are born in sin.

[Raymann]

Yeah on Camelback it’s called a unconformity and happens when a newer layer of sediment deposits on an older rock formations, nothing to stop the whole mess from being thrust up into a mountain later on. And sandstone doesn’t need to come from seabed sand, desert sand is just the same.

And St. Helens is a volcano...it’s made of ash and pumice. I’m sure there are parts you can literally blast a water hose at it and make a small valley not to mention what a 400 mph pyroclastic flow can do. How the hell do you compare that to schist of the Grand Canyon?

And Velikovsky was a raving lunatic. The fact that he believed that the planets are changing their orbits all willy nilly was the least of his issues.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. I don’t take either side of this fight.

[bramps]

I’m looking for something a little more substantial than that response. What sin has a one minute old baby committed? If God broke the story of creation down to six days so man could wrap his brain around it, why is it ‘nonsense’ for me to ask for a more tangible answer than ‘we’re all born into sin?’

[WorkingClassFilth]

Anyone in doubt about the errant thinking on any campus in the US of A ought to read the course catalogs and the student paper. The freak show we think of as higher education is already so fraught with nutcase ideas there is hardly any room to condemn the beliefs of millions of normal, moral and productive people.

[blackpacific]

Strawmen, ad hominem, begging the question, all the major food groups are represented in your response. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

I have in my possession a Neospirifer Rockymontanus, found in a gravel pit in Ohio, buried alive, over a thousand miles from the oceans.

The data is there for anyone who has eyes to see. Just because academia has been blinding themselves for the last 100 years doesn’t mean that we have to believe what they say.

Camelback most definitely has desert sand caked upon it by the violent over flow of water and sealife, which is found all over the continent. The limestone deposits of the Midwest contain massive amounts of shellfish, all obviously buried alive, and preserved for all generations to see.

[rightly_dividing]

I spend a few minutes searching for Spirit Valley that you mention. I can only find a Spirit Valley in Duluth Minnisota. I have read of a recent canyon carved out by a flood that resembles Grand Canyon in the carving through the layers of earth and rock.I would like to find out more.

[Phinneous]

The Jewish opinion (I sensed everyone was dying to know ;-) is that it is all literally true, literally 6 days. Regarding science and Torah (Bible,) we know that “G-d looked into the Torah and created the world.” So since the Torah is the blueprint for all creation, there can be, in essence, no conflict between science and Torah. To resolve the seeming contradictions, check our: http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Matter-Lubavitcher-Technology/dp/B000M1I68U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333249316&sr=8-1