Email: I mean no personal hostility in my respectful
disagreement with Young Earth Creationism. I recently attended a forum
at the school on Intelligent Design. I was skeptical when I went in, but
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the theory has merit in the
realm of logic. What gratified me the most was that the physics
professor, himself a devout Christian pointed out the misconceptions
about ID. Those misconceptions are that; It is not the same as
creationism; It does not go against evolution; and that ID proponents
are not trying to just "sneak creationism into public school." I
consider myself a truth seeker and I could see why scientific minds
would envoke a designer to the complexity of life. Having examined the
evidence and thought for myself, I honestly can not swallow "Flood
Geology," nor can I accept the age of the Earth at approximately 10k
years.
One last note, Christian Apologists always win the
Biblical Contradiction argument by challenging skeptics to name a
contradiction. Few of them can, because they have never read the Bible,
they just heard the rumor. I came across a contradiction right off the
bat in Genesis. There is one story of creation, in which God creates
Adam and Eve at the same time and one in which he first creates Adam,
and after Adam does a few things, he asks God to create Eve for him. I
know, the common response is that those are just two different versions
of the same event. Fair enough, but if that is the case, than the Bible
is not literally true. When it says "this" it does not necessarily
literally mean "this."
Christian teachings, of loving our neighbors are
wonderful and truly bring many people happiness. I mean no ill, but I
respectfully do not agree with all that Christians teach.
Response: Thank you for your e-mail. I have read
several books on intelligent design and was very impressed with the
logic that was used in them. Intelligent design is not a haphazard
construction of hopeful myths. Instead, it is a very well reasoned
proposition that uses biological facts analysis on the very nature of
information. Of course, it's conclusions are that the present
evolutionary theory cannot explain certain biological structures nor the
development of information. But, that is another topic.
As far as your comments in Genesis go, words mean what they
mean in context. This applies to verses as well. Genesis 1, 2, and
3 are not meant to be scientific explanations. They are two accounts of
the one creative movement of God. In section (Gen. 1), seven days are
described and then in another, basically, one day is described. This is
consistent with the ancient Jewish system of writing where a single
event is used to describe the whole. Remember, they didn't have
typewriters, word processors, and a stack of paper next to them that
enabled them to write large amounts of prose. When they wrote, they had
to write efficiently because the supplies were not as prevalent as we
are so accustomed to here and now.
Therefore, it would make sense that the second
"account" of the creation is not intended to be as literal as the
seven-day description; rather, it is a short representation of the
preceding information. Please note that Gen. 2:4 says, This
is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in
the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. We see in this verse a
description of the summation of the previous information found in
Chapter 1. So, we can be confident to know that the writer was fully
aware of the previous information and chose to speak of it any more
condensed form in the above verse.
But this does not mean that the Bible is not literally
true. It is literally true where it is intended to be literally true,
figurative where it is intended to be figurative, poetic where is meant
to be poetic, etc. Therefore, we must examine the wide diversity of
biblical writing using logic, contextual analysis, etc. Do I believe
that God created the earth in the order that is described in Chapter 1
of Genesis? Yes I do.
Now, to the issue of the age of the earth. There is a
great deal of discussion and debate about this within the Christian
Church. Very godly Christians who are quite knowledgeable reside on both
sides of the issue. Personally, I do not believe the earth is millions
of years old, but I believe it is older than 10,000 years. When I study
this in more depth, I will provide a better answer later. But for now,
that's where I stand.
