Evolution and the Bible. Confirm or contradict?

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by pelathais

There's not one YEC (including those with "ministries") on the circuit who hasn't been found out to be involved in some sort of deliberate falsification or twisting of the facts. It's a money making charade. And sometimes it doesn't even take that much money.

I've always suspected as much.

[DividedThigh]

call me crazy but i believe the Bible, and have faith in God, so creation is according to scripture, my mind is filled with enough nonsense allready dont have time for the foolish theory of evolution, dt

[RandyWayne]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

You know...if it was a Christian using his argument about the scaffolding being there then being removed so you can't see the evidence of it, they'd accuse God of trying to deceive everyone. By that I mean a Christian argument for the argument that the earth has been around for so long...some say that God just made it that way.

so that chemically it looks the age it should be but in duration God sped up the process.

That is the "appearance of age" argument and it has many problems. First of all, it is non-falsifiable meaning you can't prove it's wrong. Using this same logic, how do we know we ALL didn't come into existence 2 seconds ago complete with a lifetime of memories and the illusion that we are our present age?
Also, God cannot lie. If something has a HISTORY to its age, such as the rings on a tree, for God to have created that tree would mean he "lied" to us about its past. Now Jesus DID create wine, which is an aged product (I notice that a few people brought this up who in other discussions will argue that it was non-alcoholic, but I digress...) but it had no history. Just as Adam was created older then a newborn but his internals would have shown him to be as young as a newborn as well. No blemishes from having grown up -since he never did.

The 1997–2005 RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) research project at the Institute for Creation Research (co-sponsored by the Creation Research Society) demonstrated that creationists could support a larger-scale collaborative research effort, particularly if it delivered significant breakthroughs on a key challenging issue. The primary focus of this research effort was the radioactive methods for dating rocks that supposedly yield age estimates of millions and billions of years and thus provide support for the claimed multi-billion year age for the earth.

Because of the RATE research results, the long-age radioactive methods for dating rocks can now be more easily demonstrated to often be faulty, since there are problems with the three crucial assumptions on which they are based:

1. There are uncertainties as to the absence or presence of daughter atoms (atoms left after decay) when the rocks formed, because there is much evidence of the rocks having inherited daughter atoms that were not formed by radioactive decay in those rocks.
2. There is abundant evidence of widespread “open-system” behavior of parent and daughter atoms. Rocks are often contaminated with extra parent and daughter atoms produced apart from radioactive decay. Parent and daughter atoms are also removed by various geologic processes (for example, leaching by fluids) subsequent to the rocks forming.
3. Nuclear decay rates have now been demonstrated to have not always been constant.

Much research, even reported in the conventional scientific literature, has found that rocks of known age often yield erroneously old radioactive age estimates because either one of the first two assumptions, or both, can be demonstrated to be false. And if the radioactive “clocks” have not always “ticked” at the currently measured slow rates but were grossly accelerated in the past, then these radioactive dating methods cannot be used to provide reliable age estimates for rocks. After all, if these “clocks” don’t work on rocks of known ages, how can they be trusted on rocks of unknown ages? To be sure, there is a systematic trend of radioactive age estimates for rocks according to their positions in the geologic record, but this would be expected if nuclear decay was grossly accelerated systematically when the rock layers were forming. For example, rocks laid down early in the Flood would yield older ages than rocks laid down later during the Flood because the earlier rocks would have experienced more accelerated radioactive decay.

The meaning of ‘day’ in Genesis 1 is defined by the context there — the Hebrew word for day, yôm, is used with the words ‘evening’ and ‘morning’, and the days are numbered (first day, second day, etc.). Whenever yôm is used in such a context, it is always an ordinary day, never a long period of time. The meaning of the days of creation as ordinary days is also affirmed by Exodus 20:8–11, where God told the Israelites to work for six days and rest on the seventh because God had made all things in six days and rested on the seventh. For more information, see other articles in Q&A: Genesis under ‘Days of Creation’. http://www.answersingenesis.org/home...aq/genesis.asp

[RandyWayne]

The good old Institute! Based on their YEC position, it feels like I am trying to debate someone who is trying to prove Santa Clause when talking about their points.
Radiometric dating has proven EXTREMELY reliable and different methods been redundantly used to back up their results. As well as NON-radioactive measurements such as ice cores, tree rings, shifts in magnetic polarity in earth samples from deep underground.
In the same way distance measurements have been confirmed through normal dopler methods as backed up by good old high school math triangulation which can actually be used to measure star distances up to a couple of hundred thousand light years.

Originally Posted by Timmy

Genesis says that plants were created before the sun, moon, and stars.

Good point! When I teach "Search For Truth" Bible Study I bring this out and usually I get questions about it. I researched it...w/o giving a bunch of scriptures, here is what I discovered.

God is the source of ALL LIGHT (not the sun or moon). I also believe that the light that shone before the sun and moon were created eminated from God Himself. As proof of this, consider that when we get to the New Jerusalem (heaven, if you will) John writes in Revelation "the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the Glory of God did light it and the Lamb is the light thereof." When God said, "Let there be light" I believe that light came from the very presence of God Himself, lighting all things with the light of His Presence. Later on He made the Sun.

Just my take on it.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by slave4him

The meaning of ‘day’ in Genesis 1 is defined by the context there — the Hebrew word for day, yôm, is used with the words ‘evening’ and ‘morning’, and the days are numbered (first day, second day, etc.). Whenever yôm is used in such a context, it is always an ordinary day, never a long period of time. The meaning of the days of creation as ordinary days is also affirmed by Exodus 20:8–11, where God told the Israelites to work for six days and rest on the seventh because God had made all things in six days and rested on the seventh. For more information, see other articles in Q&A: Genesis under ‘Days of Creation’. http://www.answersingenesis.org/home...aq/genesis.asp

Well the hebrew word can simply mean an indefinite period of time...from what I understand and so them perhaps evening and morning are simply referring to the beginning and ending of acts of God on that day

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

That is the "appearance of age" argument and it has many problems. First of all, it is non-falsifiable meaning you can't prove it's wrong. Using this same logic, how do we know we ALL didn't come into existence 2 seconds ago complete with a lifetime of memories and the illusion that we are our present age?
Also, God cannot lie. If something has a HISTORY to its age, such as the rings on a tree, for God to have created that tree would mean he "lied" to us about its past. Now Jesus DID create wine, which is an aged product (I notice that a few people brought this up who in other discussions will argue that it was non-alcoholic, but I digress...) but it had no history. Just as Adam was created older then a newborn but his internals would have shown him to be as young as a newborn as well. No blemishes from having grown up -since he never did.

See this is my point. Im not talking about a mere appearance for the sake of looking a certain way. Let me give an example of light and the universe

We see now the light from many bodies that would have taken millions of years to reach here.

Let's assume God created all things. He also created the Universe (expanding or not) with those stars and other bodies far far away. But he wanted us to be able to see them NOW for certain things or reasons...maybe just to admire his creation, whatever.

So God speeds UP the light...or he reduces the time or whatever. It's not a mere apparence. It's very real. It's not an illusion for the sake of fooling Atheists. That is the wrong conclusion.

Remember if God really is all powerful then perhaps he can make a million years of actual time happen or occur in a breadth of time. Again that is not a mere apparency of something. It will look old because it IS old. Im not saying He made it LOOK old. Im saying it really IS that old chemically.

It does not require God to be a liar either. That assumes a motive that was meant to deceive us.

[meBNme]

Originally Posted by Timmy

Oh, but what epoch corresponded to the seventh "day", when God rested? Is that now? Is He still resting?

Naw man, he's "gone to prepare us a place".