My wife and I took a few hours this week and went down to the Museum of Natural History in D.C. They have a new butterfly exhibit that Libby wanted to see and I’ll take any chance I can get to think more about evolution/creation. Butterflies have created quite the stir lately given one genus’ particular mating habits that seem to reinforce the idea/theory/fact of natural selection. So I assumed this exhibit was in-place to help create more buzz about this research. And it was.

First off, museums need to create more modular exhibits and their accompanied text. It’s unfortunate with the speed of things today that museums are months or years behind current research, I found people actually crossing things out with a permanent marker because something on a plaque was incorrect. Other than that museums are wonderful places to get an up-close, 3D look at things. There’s only so much a computer screen can really tell you. So just a quick note, if you are like me and haven’t been to a museum in a long time, go spend a Saturday at one.

Two major schools of thought exist today in Christian circles. Some call themselves young-earth creationists, others would label themselves old-earth creationists. One group sticks to a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-2 and say everything was created in six 24-hour days and, given the recorded genealogies we have in the Bible, would say the earth is around 5000-6000 years old. The other says Genesis 1-2 should be read poetically and that the time period of God’s creation was very long, thus accounting for the scientific research stating that the earth is about 4.6 billion years old. Within both of these groups there are all types of differing ideas on evolution and man’s beginnings. Both sides would hold fast to their high-view of the Word of God and the truth that God created all things no matter what process He used to get there.

I hold to a young-earth creation viewpoint only because I haven’t been convinced otherwise. Old-earth creationism has too many gray areas that haven’t been answered yet for me. For instance:

Gen 1:7then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature…15The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it…But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

I don’t know how to read that poetically. If man evolved from more primitive forms of modern-day humans, at which point in the evolution did God say “this one is the first one”? Paul said we all sinned in Adam, did all the other creatures before Adam sin or is Romans 3:23 incorrect? Adam is found in genealogies (Genesis 5, Luke 3) which tells me that we are not to interpret Adam as being mankind but as a particular individual. Even more so, Paul says Adam is a type of Christ, we certainly can’t say that mankind is a type of Christ, it must be an individual otherwise we all become a type of Christ.

You might say there are too many gray areas in young-earth thought but those seem to be gray areas when viewed from the ever-changing state of current science. Where did the dinosaurs come from? What about the look/feel of the earth? it looks old. What about the bones of primitive man we’ve found? I don’t have any answers to these questions that don’t refute what I believe to be a correct interpretation of Genesis 1-2 so therefore I continue in my young-earth beliefs.

Where are you on this issue? Is it even an issue for you? I would love to hear from those who consider themselves old-earth folks on this.

Scot McKnight has a series of posts looking at Francis Collins’ book The Language of God. The posts are well-written and well-researched and the comments add a great deal to the discussion.

• Post #1
• Post #2
• Post #3
• Post #4

Having gained quite a few readers recently, I should say that a link to a post is not always an agreement with a post…

Rather than just posting one article, here are some articles that I’ve found interesting recently.

• Deepak Chopra on Who is Jesus? - “I want to offer the possibility that Jesus was truly, as he proclaimed, a savior,” Chopra wrote. “Not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment.” My take: yikes.
• Man arrested for carrying a Koran, Bible, and a box-cutter. My take: certainly this wasn’t the only thing he was carrying, why did we only hear about these books?
• Florida school will teach evolution but only as a theory. My take: evolution is a theory, who argues this one?
• Scientists capture giant antarctic sea creatures. My take: great title, lame creatures.
• African dinosaurs. My take: awesome artwork.
• Applying OT law today. My take: a better take is at Expository Thoughts.
• Avoid every appearance of evil. My Take: I thoroughly enjoy Reclaiming the Mind Ministries.

Here’s a good post relating to some of the things dealt with on this blog. Enjoy!

Here is an article from Discover Magazine on the research of Stanley Miller. Miller’s theory of how life began is, very simply put, that it was formed in very cold conditions contrary to other theories that it began under very hot conditions like those found in volcanoes.

I guess my only comment on this article is that I still don’t understand how scientists can say this is how life began, when it’s not how life began, it’s how living organisms came together. For something to have a beginning, it had to have a period of time when it didn’t exist. According to the big bang theory, all matter has always existed, it was just not in the same form as it is now. So, life never really began, it always was, or so the theory says. OK, you say, so aren’t we just arguing over semantics now? Does it really matter what word we use for all this? I believe it does.

For something to have a beginning, it had to have a catalyst, something to change it from what wasn’t to what was. Some modern-day scientists say that all matter existed in a point of infinite density (singularity) and then, all of a sudden, this built up energy was released (the big bang) and this is where all life comes from. There are two well known questions that still remain unanswered by this theory though. The first is, where did this singularity come from? And the second is, what caused it to explode all of a sudden?

An answer to the first question only leaves you stranded at the second. Some say that singularity has always existed, just as we say God has always existed, there never was a time when singularity did not exist. But if this is the answer, you are still left with the question of why did it explode all of a sudden. This is the issue of cause and effect. Every effect has to have a cause associated with it. If a ball is rolling down the street, something had to make it roll. Either I kicked it or the wind blew it or something happened. If singularity has always existed, what was the cause of the effect of its explosion? What force acted on this point of matter to cause it to explode and begin life as we know it? The question cannot be answered without belief in something other than what is known.

A few days ago I posted some information on a recently discovered fossil being called the “missing link” to ancient and modern day crocodiles. Today I found a video of a really odd looking shark found by some fishermen near Japan.

Could it be that these fossils we keep finding aren’t of things that are extinct but are of things that are just difficult to find?

Imagine for a moment that a few thousand years ago the earth was suddenly, within a matter of days, flooded. Creatures in the sea can only survive at their comfortable pressure level. A small fish that hangs out at 10 feet below the surface isn’t going to last very long at 1000 feet because there is more pressure at 1000 feet verses 10 feet.

The Bible says that the tallest mountains were covered during the flood; this could possibly mean that Mt. Everest was covered to its tip in water. So, this would mean that sea level rose 8,850 meters or roughly 29,000 feet! This is a pressure differential of 247 atmospheres at sea level. So, every creature in the sea had to drastically change its habitat within a few days. Either the fish stayed where they knew their food source was and died from the new pressure that all this water caused or they left their habitats and swam upwards where they had to find new sources of food.

This is no small change. The effects that the flood had on this earth are very difficult to spell out. But it is obvious that if an event like this really took place, we would need to drastically rethink how we date fossils based on their sedimentary layer level. The pressure caused by this much of an increase in so short a time are very hard to model and calculate. The earth’s composition and sedimentary layout would have changed significantly if that much weight was suddenly piled upon it. Any thoughts?

Reuters is reporting on a recent finding by paleontologists in Brazil. They are calling it the “missing link” to the modern-day crocodile. The artist renderings are fantastic, all that detail from some old gray bones.

Let me admit here that I am going out on a limb with this one, so I am asking for comments and criticism on what I am about to say.

First of all, those subscribing to the theory of evolution seem to be far past this idea of a “missing link”. Today’s evolutionist believes that life evolved in very, very small steps. There is disagreement as to how bursty these steps were, some say they were gradual and consistent, others say they occurred in bursts with long lengths of time in between. So the idea that they would find one set of remains that would bridge the awkward gap between animals of noticeably different characteristics is, yes I’m going to do it, extinct. A missing link would basically be some kind of half-way point between a species that has gone through thousands of changes, so what kind of evidence would this provide? You’d need to find another missing link between your current species and your newly discovered species, and then another one after that, and so on. Otherwise, you are just finding remains of different looking animals at different periods in time, you need more than a flipper that is larger than previously found flippers.

But this got me thinking. If life started evolving billions of years ago, shouldn’t we have an overabundance of fossils to prove these theories with? I mean, we should be finding this things every time little Billy tries to dig his way to China. It is difficult for something to fossilize, the conditions need to be almost perfect so I can see how our fossil record would be full of so many gaps. Generally, something needs to die and then be preserved before it decomposes for it to be fossilized. So it is difficult, I realize. But, with the sheer numbers evolutionists are talking about, this shouldn’t matter at all. You need a lot of animals to have lived for evolution to have occurred.

Think of how many species there are today. The theory of evolution says that they all came about through micro-changes in physical characteristics. Your newborn boy may be a more evolved human than you are but you would never know it from looking at him. But over time, some of these characteristics prove to be more useful to a species and that characteristic becomes more common, you can almost think of it as survival of the fittest but not really in a my claw is bigger than yours so I’ll get more food and live kind of way. But for this to happen, you need lots and lots of genes to pick from. Even if remains are only preserved during snapshots of history, it seems like there should be a lot more than there are.

Again, I may be stretching things here so I’m looking for some feedback. Thanks!