Posted on 05/01/2014 8:21:05 AM PDT by fishtank
Creation Conversion: The Turning Point
Many people believe that creationists are “brainwashed from birth” and adhere to a recent biblical creation simply because it has been drilled into their heads since they were toddlers—a form of partisan indoctrination. But there are scientists who became creationists only after careful study and serious deliberation. They believed in a billions-of-years-old universe for many years before coming to a crossroads in their lives.
When these scientists reached a turning point—from belief in countless years of evolution to belief in a recent creation that took place just thousands of years ago—their lives completely changed course. This “creation conversion” couldn’t be more radical. It’s a complete revision in worldview that forever alters an individual’s understanding of the age and origin of the reality around him.
Numerous Christians who’ve diligently studied both Scripture and the scientific case for recent creation have experienced this convergence of life, education, and discovery as they journey toward God—this pivotal moment. Others are traveling down a similar road but still want more answers. Perhaps looking at the creation conversion of a scientist who has been on that same path can shed some light. Here is Frank Sherwin’s story:
...more at link
True, but that is a non sequitur. God is outside of time. A day is a thousand years in God's eye, and a thousand years in the Bible is a very long time.
Funny how you are literal about your understanding of the word 'day' even when the Scripture directly states a day is not 24 hours, but you do not accept the literal definition of the word 'is' even though there is nothing in Scripture that says 'is' means anything other than 'is'
So easy when you can make up definitions to support your made up beliefs!
The probability of something happening - if it is greater than zero - is not at all related to when that event might happen.
Think about it. Who is doing the ‘brainwashing from birth’ and is it slightly possible you are mis-reading these signs?
Evolution is classical cognitive dissonance if you consider all the hurdles for life in th millions and billions of years - all the resources and Earth’s should be entirely spent.
Geologic origins were based upon uniformitarianism yet now many are shifting to catastrophism. Darwin said his theory completely falls apart w/o thousands upon thousands of transitional fossils. Fossils show that they were laid down quickly and buried not gradual processes.
Your authority for stating “very old” is what?
And the authority referenced by people saying young is what?
First, many species have no direct “successor” but rather have branching some of which carries on, others that lead nowhere. The surviving fossils are only a part of the story. The nature of fossil formation and our discovery makes it kind of like reading a book from which most pages are missing. That said, many interesting fossils survive and are found so that we can look at numerous reptiles with “mammal” like adaptations. There are fossils of amphibians developing reptile like characteristics and of course, there are lung fish with lungs and gills and fins very much like legs. The horse is kind of interesting as we can follow its development from a dog sized herbivore to what they look like today.
My main interest is geology. In the last 200 years most of the current knowledge has been discovered or different interpretations have better explained old questions. We aren’t any smarter now as opposed to 200 years ago but we have a world more observations. Geophysics, structural geology and plate tectonics can now explain things that were only guessed at sixty years ago. We have satellite photographs and a good mapping of the ocean floor. We have worldwide systems to measure earthquakes and land movements. This gives us a limited ability to look underground and “ see” plate structures, magma chambers, fault systems not visible at the surface, and predict where we’ll find ore bodies, oil, gas, and see potential trouble spots.
Modern geology began with James Hutton in the 18th century. His observations lead him to believe the earth was very old and that change was gradual. Later, specific rock structures suggested occasional catastrophic events that left their marks and occurred suddenly. One does not contradict the other and I know of no one outside of some creationists that propose catastrophism as the “answer”.
Any geologist will bring up certain events in our past that drastically changed things for evolution and structure of the earth. The Siberian Traps, snowball earth, asteroid collisions and super volcanos have all been proposed as events that changed everything. However, the effects of plate tectonics overwhelm all the sudden catastrophes. The Permian extinction was followed by an explosion of surviving life forms, the Snowball earths were melted in part by plate movements and volcanic activities. Even Toba Super Volcano had transient effects. The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates, forming the Himalayas vastly influenced world climates but it’s been a slow process. In fact most of the changes which have changed the world have been slow processes. The building of the Andes, joining North and South America, etc. have all been accomplished at 2” a year.
I’ve worked where the understanding of contemporary geology provided the definition and extent of ore bodies as well as an understanding of how they were formed. That is hands on, not brainwashing.
Is that a generic 'you'? If I have somehow lead you to believe that is what I believe then I need to 'edit' the conversation further.
I would expect you to object to that assertion of a week ago, and with good reason, but not with proof irrefutable. You see it is the same problem regarding painting God as a Trickster, which He is not, not even in the minutest aspect. The laws of the Universe He has created are not immutable to God The Creator. However, we have good reason to believe that The God Whose name is I AM is the origin of the very laws of Physics and Chemistry we utilize. Until you can show me an irrefutable proof that the same laws we use have changed in the last 6000 years, I will continue to make the broad assumption that they do not change so easily and are 'universal' across spacetime.
If we want to debate the Darwinist theory of evolution of species then I would immediately go to the fossil record of the Cambrian explosion. I have yet to hear any Darwinist explain how that occurred in the reference frame of Darwin's theory. The closest anyone has come is the notion of punctuated equilibrium. I'm not on this thread to poke holes in Darwinism. I'm posting in order to abjure the notion that God, my God, is a Trickster. YEC, to my reasoning, makes God out to be a trickster when all is filtered out. I will not agree to that, even on an oblique Internet chat thread.
I apologize for any assumption I may have made.
I assumed you believe in a 6,000 year old earth.
I assume you believe "This is my body" means "This represents my body"
Please correct me if I am wrong.
I re-read your posts. You are not a young earth creationist. I am a creationist, but not a young earth believer. Sorry
I too am a creationist, but not a YEC. Blessings to you and yours.
I realize we all had these neat charts in our Biology classrooms showing the progression of the horse evolution from some small 'dog sized' critter to the 'Man O' War' horse of today -- but you realize that evolutionary chart was all wrong, right? Based on the 'fossil record', all of those critters apparently overlapped in their existence.
The 'fossil record' has been embedded with a lot of history of sleight of hand in an attempt to prove the 'macro evolution' model. A couple of key witnesses at the Scopes trial in the 1920s were the Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man. Just about 10-15 years ago National Geographic was trumpeting on its front pate some bird/reptile missing link that was found out in China. Around a year later, not on their front cover, they admitted they had been hoodwinked by some forgery.
Evolution across animal kinds is not going to happen. A winged bird is not going to 'evolve' from a land animal. Many of the requirements (hollow bones, feathers, two fully functioning wings, etc) would be an absolute detriment to the creature if it only occurred in small phases. A nonfunctional wing (or a single wing) would be a burden to the animal and set it up to be wiped out by predators.
There are many processes that cannot be reduced to single piecemeal partitions. Michael Behe's book, 'Darwin's Black Box', provides many examples from the 'simple process' of forming a blood clot, and the existence of the complex eye. All of these require multiple processes to occur at once. A single link in the chain would cause failure or death to the organism. The entire chain (or process) must be intact for the animal to survive. These processes cannot be explained by the evolutionary goo to you model.
I saw that in several of your posts you stated that 'God would have to be a trickster' [for the earth to be less than billions of years old].
An alternative explanation is that one could have been 'tricked' by believing unproven presuppositions. E.g., why would one expect the radioactive decay rates to have remained constant? Particularly given that most processes we observe in nature are exponential.
Also, how do we know the radioactive heavy elements always existed on earth? E.g., God tells us that there was a catastrophic event that occurred thousands of years ago where the earth was ripped up (all the fountains of the deep were opened up), and the entire surface was covered with water for nearly a year. What if one of the outcomes of the shear forces from this event created the radioactive elements (a theory from Walter Brown)?
Why treat the radioactive decay rates as something sacrosanct (and not being subject to change), but at the same time ignore other evidence that point to a younger than billions of year old earth: the existence of comets (dirty snowballs that orbit the Sun); the salinity of the ocean (given the rates of salt that flows into the ocean minus that which is removed); the position of the moon (given that it recedes from the Earth every year); the existence of the Earth Magnetic field (even though we know it is declining); the existence of helium in the atmosphere (given the escape and generation rates); etc.
I understand that the existence of comets are waved away by the claim that there is a mythological Oort Cloud that kicks comets into the Sun's orbit every so often. And the Earth Magnetic field exists because there is a perpetual motion dynamo machine in the core of the Earth which -- when the field declines enough - it will just reverse at full strength, and start all over again...
God is not tricking us, we trick ourselves.
Nice try, really. I agree, God is not a trickster. And the Physics explaining many of the systems we observe is not tricking us. There are a few items we do not yet have a good handle on ... the true nature of time being one.
I don't either...I believe it was re-created six thousand years ago...
Doesn't say that at all...We know from reading Genesis that a day is approx. a 24 hour period...
We also know that a day at times is equal to 1000 years...And not 2000 years or thousands of years or billions of years...
A thousand years in the bible is, a thousand years...
Biblical history tells us that Adam was created approx. 6000 years ago...A thousand year day lines up exactly with history and prophecy...
I was going to address your post, but then I read your tagline and decided not to.
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