Evolution? How?

Like Jerasic Park. How exciting!

Wouldn't it be funny if the Dodo's got out of control, took over the planet and accidentally wiped out the Humans. "Doom on you, Doom on you, Doom on you... " (Did anyone see _Ice Age_)

Translation of "Day" in the bible.
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QuikFacts: Days of Creation


How long were the days of creation? Can they be stretched out to vast ages or understand as long periods of time as those trying to harmonize evolution and the Bible suggest? This page explores the Hebrew language and the biblical text.

If you're interested, the reference given for each quikfact contains further information and explanation. Readers are encouraged to follow up.

1/15/97: Numbered Days
In Genesis 1, the Hebrew word yom is used. This is the word we translate as "day." In the creation account it is used with a number, "second day," "third day," etc. throughout the account. "When the word "day" is used with a number, such as day one, day two, etc., it always refers to a literal, 24 hour type day. This is true 100% of the time. This holds true all 359 times that "day" is used with an ordinal modifier (number) outside of Genesis chapter 1." (CAN)
"Terence Fretheim observes, 'When the word "day" is used with a specific number, it always has reference to a normal day.'" (Stambaugh)
This is important because wherever writers try to convince the reader that the days of Genesis are not ordinary days, virtually every time they simply cite a few examples from the OT (Old Testament) where it does not refer to an ordinary day, and then act as if that solves everything and gives them warrant to believe whatever they want about the days of Genesis. On the contrary, such deceptive arguments and anti-exegesis is appalling. Dr. Weston Fields uses the same term describing his reaction to the following, all too typical, example:
"Some still hold this view, but it certainly is not necessary, and the fact that the word day in the Old Testament, even in the first three chapters of Genesis carries many meanings other than that of a period of twenty-four hours, give us perfect freedom in considering it here as an unlimited, though definite period..." (Smith, p. 312.)
As Fields points out, "Nearly all the defenders of the [Day-Age] theory fail, however, to give any lexical backing to the theory. The reader is left completely uninformed concerning in the uses of yom in the Old Testament." (Fields, p. 169). Fields then proceeds to do just what the others leave undone to demonstrate conclusively the ordinary usage of yom in the days of creation. Although his work deals primarily with Genesis 1:2 and the Gap Theory, the student interested in this question would do well to examine Fields' work closely.
Sources:
ChristianAnswers.Net, Is the Bible clear about the age of the earth and universe?
Fields, Weston, Unformed and Unfilled: A Critique of the Gap Theory (Collinsville, IL: Burgener Enterprises, 1976).
Grigg, Russell, "How Long Were the Days of Genesis 1?," Creation Ex Nihilo 19(1): 23-25.
Smith, Wilbur, Therefore Stand (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1945). Whoops, Wilbur, you tripped.
Stambaugh, James, "The Days of Creation: A Semantic Approach. Part 1," Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, 5(1): 70-74.

1/15/97: Evening and Morning
In Genesis 1:5 God actually defined for us how He was using the word "day" in the creation account: "And the evening and the morning were the first day." Thus, the days of creation, first day, second day, and so on were composed of an "evening" and a "morning." This is about as clear a definition that could be hoped for (without becoming absurdly tedious), and requires that the days of creation be composed of the day/night cycle like an ordinary day.
The word used for morning is boqer, and for evening, 'ereb (my apologies for the lack of appropriate accent marks). In most occurences in the OT they refer to the time around the rising and setting of the sun, not necessarily to the extended periods of time (such as midnight to noon for morning) that are used today. In some cases boqer apparently refers to the three hour watch leading up to sunrise, during which the sky would brighten with the approaching sun. Likewise, in some poetical passages 'ereb apparently refers to the whole of nighttime until morning. Finally, where both words are used together they are used as antonyms that together refer to an entire day. "As the opposite of night the word represents the entire period of daylight" say Vine, et al, citing Ps. 92:2 in their exposition of boqer. (Note that this is despite the fact that at least one of the authors, Unger, denied the plain meaning of Genesis. See Fields, above, p. 165.)
None of this, of course, gives any basis for understanding Genesis 1:5 in any other way than as a definition of an ordinary day. While the meaning of yom (day) may differ according to context, boqer and 'ereb require that the days defined by them be ordinary days. There is no hint that either term can or was ever meant to be understood as long geologic ages or anything even remotely similar.
Stambaugh comments:
"The two words, 'morning' and 'evening', are combined with yom 19 times each outside of Genesis 1... with each occurrence a twenty-four day is signified. This is true no matter what the literary genre or context might be. It should be further observed that when 'morning' and 'evening' occur together without yom... it always, without exception, designates a literal solar day."

More on creation "days" of the bible.
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http://apologeticspress.org/rr/reprints/6-24hour.pdf

Cicerone, good theory, I have read about that somewhere before. When you find out what the original language's word choice means, it gives you a whole new level of understanding.

I saw the topic and I didn't read through all the posts but I would just like to comment. Right now in my biology class we are learning about evolution. This is tough for me because I am Christian, I beleive that God created Adam and Eve, etc. and now I have to sit there and write papers about evidence that supports evolution.

It seems like evolutionists really have this thought out, because they do. Some books that give a great Christian perspective are: Making Sense of Creation and Evolution by Don Bierle; The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel; and It Couldn't Just Happen (I forgot the author). The last one I read when I was younger and is directed toward a younger audience but it still makes some great points.

Anyways those books are very interesting and if you want to read more into the topic they are great places to start.

Evolution? How?

Read "Origin of the Species" by Charles Darwin...it's a good starting point.

Just don't let anyone from youth group catch you with it.

EorI, Excellent recommendation. I second your recommendation for RKfan. There are so many resources on the web on evolution, that you can hunt and pick at your pleasure. Since you already learned about creationism and the Bible, I would highly recommend that you read books on evolution with an open mind. Many Christians find that to be almost impossible, especially for those that wish to combine creationism with evolution. It doesn't mean you need to give up your religion; many scientists are Christians and visa-versa. Good luck.

Evolution...
I haven't had time to look at all the posts on this topic, but I get the general gist of the discussion. As it was explained to me by a scientist, true science is what is observable. I was at the San Francisco Exploratorium recently and was observing a display that explained the "evolution" of goldfish. They had various types of goldfish. Some had different bubbly eyes, or fan tail fins, but THEY WERE ALL GOLDFISH. None of these goldfish eggs hatched into trout, or sharks or birds... The scientific community NEEDS to make sure their terms are correct. This happens time and time again. (i.e. the moth in England that adapted to blend in with the grey grimy soot. What happened was that these moths had different combinations of black, white and grey. The grey moths blended in better with their surroundings and the others over time were eaten by predators. The same moth in another area is black, grey, white depending on the surroundings). This is not evolution, this is adaptation. There are many examples of adaptation. Another good one labeled as evolution is the Superbug germs. The reason that they are becoming more resistant to antibiotics is that they have LOST some of their genetic material that makes them vulnerable to drugs. This isn't survival of the fittest. It is survival of the mutant. The germ is still a germ. I don't know if there are any posts on the (flawed) dating methods used, but a personal experience in college, my geology teacher (Bob Edminster was fishing one day and kept one of the clam shells he used as bait. He had a colleague that had access to carbon 14 dating and had the clam shell dated. The results... This shell was AT LEAST 3 MILLION YEARS OLD (no wonder it smelled so bad :wink: ) I could go on and on. The seven days of creation were really 7 literal days, How did Noah get all them critters on that big boat (including dinosaurs) etc, but I'll just direct you to this link for the answers http://www.answersingenesis.org/ The way I look at it is the "scientists" find something to disprove God. They want to not believe in God and many tend to think of themselves as the higher authority. When one of their theories gets holes shot in it, they try to patch it up with another theory, and another ad infinitum. I love this topic and could go on, but it really is all there in the Bible. BTW when the Scriptures were copied by the scribes they were copied EXACTLY or the scribe would be put to death. There are many new translations of the Bible now and some are better than others, but if it is a true "Christian" translation it is all in there. There are some sects who have added or taken away from the Bible. Apparently they never headed the very last line in Revelation (look it up it's at the end of the Bible) As for RKfan, hold true to your faith.

I think this is the critical flaw in the assumptions of many christians. They think scientists have chosen to take the opposition side to them!!!

A scientist wants to know how and why. How and why. That is their agenda. The scientist who could prove that an UN-natural cause was responsible for ANYTHING AT ALL would be beside himself with glee.

The only problem is, everytime the opportunity comes along, it turns out natural causes are to blame.

And for that they are vilified by religion because they (the theists) have a book that says things are caused by gods by magic.

Promoting themselves as greater than gods might be motivation for actors but not for scientists.

Everybody wants to believe in a god, and especially heaven.

Some of us are brave enough to accept what the evidence seems to suggest time and time again. Namely that no supernatural explanations are required for anything.

You are quite right eorl

How and why. And if God didn't give us a brain, we couldnt even formulate the questions. Now you might well say you thought I didnt believe in God.

I don't know. The more we look the more we see and the more we can explain. What is of interest to me is how come it is explicable? Why is it that there is order in the Universe such that atoms and molecules hang together, and that we can explain how they behave with mathematics.

I have no picture of God as a physical being up in the sky and looking down. But on the other hand when you look at the stars and are struck with wonder and awe about the billions of stars in this one galaxy and the billions of other galaxies out there, then any intelligent person has got to be impressed.

(I've often used the analogy with my cat...not that I talk to the cat about such things, but if he could say what he thought about stars I'm pretty sure he would say, "yep see it, its not frightening, cant eat it, cant **** it, not interested in it". OK cat fair enough, you're a cat. But I'm a mammal too. Where does this sense of awe and wonder come from?)

The above is about as near as I can get to describing what I mean by God. And normally I am very reluctant even to attempt such a thing.

But I'm also interested in the opposite position...that of atheist. I cant say "there is no God" for two reasons.

Firstly the atheist says this not as a proposition, e.g. it is my contention that there is no God...he makes it as a bald statement of fact. That coming from a mere speck of dust in the universe is a trifle arrogant to say the least. Its means I have absolute knowlege. I am omniscient and I tell you there is NO GOD. But of course such a being making that statement, omniscient all knowing all pervading would be GOD himself. So there is something of a logical paradox here.

If on the other hand the atheist means it as a proposition, then it could be taken as

The propostion is...there is no God. So far so good. No assumptions about any conclusion.

But again anyone with a rudimentary understanding of how the scientific method works realises that you dont start with a negative proposition. Its not possible to prove a negative. Its only possible to establish a theory based on certain axioms, that theory being disprovable and liable to be junked at any time by anyone who comes up with the evidence to do so.

So where is all this going? I don't know what God is. There is no hard evidence that such a Being exists, and yet there are things that literally make you wonder. On the other hand its silly to say you KNOW such an entity does not exist.

The answer to my mind is to say that I have certain ideas about the divine, and they will remain with me.

And if anyone challenges me to answer the question "do you believe in God", I say I do not understand the question. You define what you mean by God, and when you've done that, I'll give you my answer. That should put it off for at least one lifetime.

Hey Steve!
Thanks for declaring your position. I'm always interested.

Just to clarify things;

Very few athiests declare "I believe there are no gods" and you are right, they cannot know. It's a belief system open to the logical flaws of all belief systems.

All athiests declare "I do not believe there are gods". That is the meaning of atheism "without theism" The onus of proof is thereby on those who make extraordinary claims such as "I know there is a god".

I am an atheist but I also believe there are no gods (which I cannot prove)

You might find these guys useful to clarify an atheists position:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/index.shtml

Indeed, but I think that scientists wanting to disprove the existence of God is a misconception of the way scientists must think. In order to do good science, we must ignore the existence of God and pretend he doesn't exist regardless of whether you believe he does exist or not.

There are many things in science right now that cannot be explained, maybe because it needs further explanation or because its insanely difficult to investigate it (e.g. knocking out a gene is a good way to see what it does by seeing what's missing in the mutant animal, but sometimes knocking out a gene prevents the animal from being born, so you never see what the gene does).

What then? Do we just say, God did it, and then leave it at that? No and to pretend God doesn't exist when we do science is to remove the temptation of attributing God to everything that is inexplicable.



Yeah, but the fundamentalists say we were not only created from dust, but also created in God's image which I find even more arrogant.

Eorl, you cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, as Steve so elegantly pointed out. This is partially because human beings have defined everything in the world. God may have created everything (if he exists) but it is the human being that named things and defined things.

We are the ones that define what God is. Overtime, the definition of gods have altered, depending on what we believe. Across the world, God's very nature is different. For some he is a vengeful and wrathful god. For others he is peaceful and forgiving. Some say he is a Trinity. Others say he is everywhere. Others say he is ominpotent and omniscient.

How can we prove or disprove the existence of something so vague, something so improperly defined, something where our definition may change depending on what we think is convenient?

Re: Evolution? How?


Hey Vol,

Not going to get involved this time, sorry... sick of this topic. So my topic notification is switched off and I'm not going to be responding to anything.

You phrased your comment as a question so I'll take it as such.

What makes Evolution so believable?

Because it's used every day. Mostly to make medicines and grow food.

Because it fits neatly in with the rest of science, evolution as part of biology and biology as part of chemistry and chemistry as part of physics, it all neatly fits together in a neat whole.

Because it explains so much, so many things that we've found out after the idea was thought of make perfect sense. DNA wasn't even found when evolution was proposed, yet we found DNA and it so clearly matches evolution.

Because fossils so clearly and neatly tell that story over and over again.

It's hard to even point out the proof it's so abundant. Not only that but the concept makes sense, when you know how it works it makes clear and logical sense.

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As for saying it's a guess. That's kind of like talking about the theories of how to make a plane fly as being a guess, now after we've been building them for a century. Evolution is used every day, without it biological science (which includes medicines and feeding the world) wouldn't be where they are.

Scientists do not try to prove that the bible is wrong. They try to prove that past scientific theories are right. If they find it is incorrect, they will show why it was wrong. The creationist does no such thing. They have a 'fixed' agenda; creatioinism.

Science is the observation of truth and facts, not past theories. Although Charles Darwins "Origin of Species" general theory is correct, subsequent scientists have found some of his claims to be wrong. That's what science does.

That is one reason why creationism is true though. It has that one fact(if you will) and doesn't waver through-out time. I understand what science is and does, but if Darwin had a few theories wrong, what makes the rest of it right.

The "rest of it is right," because subsequent observation proved it right. We can't blaime Darwin for having made mistakes; he didn't have the tools we have today to prove theories. He established theories based on what instruments/knowledge was available. That's the same reason why we know how old the plant is - by current instruments that was not available two thousand years ago.

The exact same question could be asked of the bible. If they got one fact wrong then how can the rest of it be right? Since the bible contradicts itself at times, both sides can't be right. The bible has errors of fact in it. No question.

The bible is for the most part an allegory. Yet some people seem to want to take it literally.

God gave us a brain. God expects us to use that brain. Any other choice raises questions about your belief in God.

You probably know this but Darwin was 2000 years ago.