Comments on SS « Origins » Lesson 3.
by Jack Hoehn
These comments are on the current Sabbath School lessons on Origins and attempt to open the conversation to a broader understanding of Creation than simply Young Earth Creationism.
Introduction Lesson 3: “ Why did He choose to make the seven-day time cycle that we call a week?”
The Creator created Time when he created “the beginning.” From the moment of “the big bang,” things began to happen in a sequence that goes in only one direction. It starts at point A and moves on to point B, then to point C. Time is linear and does not go back to point A. “In the beginning” is the beginning of time. Creation of the universe was Creation Day Zero, and if our science is correct by observing the universe it is now approximately day 13.7 Billion x 365 days old!
To mark Time when beginning the creation of an earth suitable for complex life, God creates days, the darkness/light cycle he named day and night. Earth days are designated by the rotation of earth on its axis, so this event might have happened when God had created a light source (“let light be”) like the sun (perhaps at that time not visible due to atmospheric conditions from the surface of our planet?) and the rotation of our planet (which appears to have been more rapid then than it is now suggesting “24 hour days” would not be correct at that time).
The Creator then created months, or moons, designed by the phases of the moon. The wonderful and protective moon rotates about earth, but it does not rotate about its own axis, but amazingly it is locked so that the same familiar face of the moon always faces us. And the moon, although much smaller, is created with the exact same “apparent size” as the sun, permitting us to study the sun when it is eclipsed!
The Creator creates seasons and years, designed by the rotation of the earth around the sun, and the precise 23.439281° degree angle of tilt we have, which explains why we have four seasons each year.
The Sabbath and its week is a measure of time, not measured by any physical object or activity. The Sabbath is truly a historical memorial, a monument to God’s 6 Day creation and subsequent rest.
A monument is an image of its object. The statue of a man on his horse can be bigger than the real man, or smaller. The creation of a human life takes 9 months from conception, but the memorial of that long process is just one annual birth-day.
So the monumental, memorial Sabbath and its human work week commemorates God’s 6 Great Works of Creation , not necessarily being the same length as the original but following the same pattern.
Our work is to be timed into a cycle of 6 days followed by a Sabbath, like God’s work was timed into a cycle of 6 Creation Events followed by the ceasing from Creation. Creation days and week days surely could be the same length, but there is a lot of physical evidence suggesting that God’s Creation Days are longer than earth days. The Bible does teach that God and Heaven do not necessarily measure time as we do (2 Peter 3:8). I now think of the creation Days as heaven days whose duration I do not know, as opposed to our week of earth days. (Blog https://atoday.org/article/1488/blogs/hoehn-jack/2012/god-s-days-and-our-days discusses this in more detail.)
Lesson for Sunday January 13: “A second possibility is that the sun, moon, and stars were appointed their functions at that time.”
As the lesson humbly notes, there are several possibilities preventing dogmatism and rigidity on how the Sun appears 4 Days after light is created, and how the moon and stars (most created during Creation Day 0) are appointed in their vast array, are clearly areas where we can let science help us choose the best understanding of the Bible text.
If the Mosaic Creation story is an explanation of the organization of Creation into Time, Sea/ Sky, and Land/Plants then it makes sense that God creates Time on Day one, and reveals his Timekeepers on Day four; Sea/Sky on Day 2 and fish and birds Day 5; Land/Plants on Day 3 and animals and man on Day 6. This again suggests we need not necessarily read the Genesis 1 story as chronology but we can read it as an interpretation of Creation. We can see the short Genesis story not a revelation of the mechanics or chronology of creation, but a revelation of the character of the Creator. God is purposeful, organized, and good. God is the Intelligent Designer. He has provided spaces and filled them for our good.
Lesson for Monday January 14: “God apparently gave each of His creatures the potential to produce a great variety of various offspring, further adding to the diversity of the Creation.”
Yes indeed, why do things adapt, change, adjust, evolve? Because God designed them to do this; it's in the design of the life code, DNA. Genetic science shows mechanisms created in the DNA allowing for genetic manipulations to happen in a way that can create new creatures from old. Although change can be random, the mechanisms are not random but designed to make change possible. The ability to change, adapt, adjust, evolve is intelligently designed. Instead of trying to deny the fact that life evolves, let's credit the ability to change and adapt in a useful way back to the Creator. (See this blog for expansion on this idea.
https://atoday.org/article/1436/blogs/hoehn-jack/2012/why-do-things-evolve)
Wednesday January 16: “God commands us to give one-seventh of our lives to the remembrance of the act of Creation.”
If creation was rapid and sudden, happening ever-so-quickly in just 144 solar hours, why does God command us to give one-seventh of our lives to study a short week? Why are we all to devote 52 days a year to the study just of 7 days? If we sabbatize from birth to death at say 90, one could watch the whole full-length, unedited 144-hour movie of Creation’s wonderful events 780 times during a lifetime of Sabbaths!
If on the other hand the Genesis 1 is introducing us to a say 13.7 Billion years of universe creation, and say perhaps 4.56 Billion years of earth creation, then the command to spend a good portion of our lives trying to understand and admire creation becomes much more reasonable.
Isn’t this perhaps why some humans are not satisfied with merely 1 day a week to study God’s handiwork? Some study the creation 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. We call these devotees scientists. In a way scientists are sabbatizing 7 days a week in remembering, admiring, and trying to understand the acts of creation! The good news is that, the creation is so complex, so wonderful, so magnificent, so unexpected, so surprising, so functional, and so sensible, they never run out of things to admire and enjoy. The Sabbath command to remember creation every week, suggests to me a whole lot more to think about than a single short 144 hour week.
Edited statement: “So crucial to our relationship with God MY RESPECT FOR MY OWN OPINION is our trust of God and MY INTERPRETATION of His Word. If we can’t trust WHAT I THINK the Word of God MUST MEAN on something as foundational IN MY OPINION and as explicitly stated IT APPEARS ON FIRST READING as the Genesis Creation in six literal days, what can we trust Him OUR TRADITIONAL BELIEF on?”
How about this: Trust God to present things simply in the childhood of religion and science and more fully as we have matured and become capable of advanced truths?
Finally the lesson has one more attempt to make a short chronology of Genesis the only option for Adventist creationists by adopting the position of Bible critics and skeptics!
Friday January 18. “Also, if the days in Genesis represented long epochs, one would expect to find a succession in the fossil record that matches the succession of the living organisms created in the successive six Creation “days.” Thus, the first fossils should be plants, which were created on the third “day.” Next should be the first water animals and the air animals. Finally, we should find the first land animals. The fossil record does not match this sequence. Water creatures come before plants, and land creatures come before air creatures.”
This is most remarkable! Our author now joins the infidels and skeptics we were warned against, and uses their criticisms of Genesis 1, in the service of his one week chronology! “Genesis does not match the fossil record,” they claim! Why would a Bible supporter join the Bible critics?
1.) Plant life must have begun before animal life inasmuch as the earliest animals eat plants, so starting with plant life in Genesis does not seem at all out of order for Creation Day 3.
2.)
“A new discovery provides a clearer and more potent argument on the side of biblical accuracy. The credibility of the third creation day has just become easier to defend. An international team of paleobiologists has determined that an extinct plant, Archaeopteris, matches the definition of "tree." It produces free spores very similar to the seeds and fruits of today's trees. How old is this early, perhaps the first, tree? It dates back 370 million years, more than a hundred million years before the first dinosaurs.”
These fossils support the accuracy of Genesis 1:11 in describing Day Three events: "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees . . ." While true that fruit bearing trees more suitable for mankind do not appear in the fossil records till closer to the time of man’s creation, the Genesis 1 outline still can be seen to match the fossil record.
3.) The fossil record clearly records the sudden beginnings of animal life in the sea on Creation Day 5. The well-known Cambrian Explosion of created life forms fits Genesis exactly. Flying dinosaurs and flying insects also show in fossils from this era.
4.) Flying birds related to the dinosaurs are seen next in fossils of the Jurassic along with the mammals supporting the Genesis appearance of land creatures on Creation Day 6.
So there we have it: plants—sea creatures including some flying creatures—land animals—and lastly humans. While Genesis 1 may be only an outline of the details of Creation, and may in fact not be a true chronology of creation but more an analysis of creation, the broad outline of Genesis 1 would seem to generally agree with the fossil record. I am disappointed that our authors side so quickly and firmly with Bible skeptics and infidels in claiming it does not!
(See https://atoday.org/article/1557/blogs/hoehn-jack/2012/the-false-burden-of-time for an attempt to show a general harmonization of long-earth creationism as outlined by Genesis 1 with the associated scientific evidence.)
Jack our SS are going throught this quarterly. I am really enjoying reading your various comments along the way in tandem. Much thanks.
"As the lesson humbly notes, there are several possibilities preventing dogmatism and rigidity on how the Sun appears 4 Days after light is created"
As you allude in sevaral passages, whilst promoting YEC, I have been surprised with a few tidbits in the official GC-sponsored lesson that perhaps is a little let dogmatic and more open to discussion than I would have thought.
"A monument is an image of its object. The statue of a man on his horse can be bigger than the real man, or smaller. The creation of a human life takes 9 months from conception, but the memorial of that long process is just one annual birth-day. So the monumental, memorial Sabbath and its human work week commemorates God’s 6 Great Works of Creation , not necessarily being the same length as the original but following the same pattern."
I hope readers read this statement of your again. It is absolutely fundamental, especially to the common criticism that a rejection of YEC somehow means the abrogation of the Sabbath.
"The wonderful and protective moon rotates about earth, but it does not rotate about its own axis, but amazingly it is locked so that the same familiar face of the moon always faces us."
Woops. It does rotate about its own axis – synchronously, exactly once for each orbit around the earth. That's what keeps the same face toward the earth.
Thank you Carlton. I stand happily corrected!
God created EACH day, not just sabbath. He RESTED on the seventh day but missing is any command for man to also rest. Man's first full day was the seventh, and he had done no work requiring rest. The first command for man to observe the seventh day was at Sinai, not before. But it was only to the Israelites, not all mankind, which is why there is no account recorded in the Bible of mankind celebrating a sabbath until that time.
And interestingly the Sabbath day is missing the 'evening and morning' refrain. What could that mean?
Elaine,
I know this makes sense to you, because it must; so if you would, please explain why God would actually tell the children of Israel to “remember” to observe something (as “holy”) that had never, ever, been previously identified/recognized at all?
Why would it—or how could it (“the Sabbath day”)—already have a name?
i reason the rationale of YEC or OEC not to cause distress for the individual, however, when the church states it does, and is a neccesity of belief for baptism & membership, then the exclusionary belief becomes a dogmatic principle, placing the church organization over & above God, the Almighty.
As human we can plan on predetermined time events and build control systems to meet or instill that schedule. Why can God not institute evening and morning time regiments before He installed our Sun, Moon, and Stars to govern the day night cycle? The Evening and Morning cycle was just part of the First Day creation.
The creation of light (day 1) before sun, moon, and stars (day 4) also serves as an important literary polemic against the power (and deity) of the sun-god, moon-god, and star-gods. If these gods didn't exist from the beginning, they must not have been as important or powerful (or real) as Elohim.
Yes Jay. Moses had many misconceptions of the Creator to deal with in Genesis. This is surely one of the important ones.
And even whoever composed the Genesis narratives (let's say it was the "Moses Group") got some things wrong in the telling. .
Gods only exist in human minds, so they can create as many as they want and all cultures have done that with thousands of gods.
But who put the image of God in human minds? Who created the system that gave rise to human minds that would contemplate God?
Even if you are an atheist-evolutionists, one must have a sense at awe at Stephen Hawkings observation that humanity is the universe made conscious of itself. Is there anything else in the universe so far that we know of that can contemplate its own origins, or a time outside of its own existence (i.e. in the past before our births and the future after our deaths)?
Who says the human mind, and imagination itself, the very essence of who or what God is, and how God communicates with us as reflections of the Divine? Elaine, you and Joe have made this point before. I have also made the point before that if God is only something dreamt up in the human imagination, it is amazing how almost all human beings in all cultures across all time keep coming up with the same 3 basic models of God – nowhere (outside space and time), everywhere (across space and time) and theophany. The terms change but the same basic concept is found everywhere.
Even if God is an evolutionary delusion you can't fight it, because it seems hardwired into humanity.
Humans create their gods and we know of many from history with multiple gods and animal or fish gods and other definitions. Because man has always sensed something transcendent, above him, in all nature over which he has no control, so he has created a supreme source of the energy needed to sustain life: light, air, water, and the ability to harness those energies to have food and other necessities.
We who are from the Judeo-Christian heritage have accepted the Bible description of God as written in their history. But how can we claim that is the only god and all others are false? It is a matter of choice. And to repeat what has often been said: had we been born in another country, at another time we could well have been committed to Taoism, Buddhism, or Hinduism; as they all are older than the Hebrew God. We accept the God of the Hebrew Bible ONLY because of circumstances over which we had no control. With rare exceptions of those from older religions who made a choice to become Christian.
I don't think other views are God are necessarily wrong because as I said, most religions keep coming up with the same 3 models of God. And when I say God, I mean a monotheistic transcendant deity.
As you would know from Karen Armstrong, most religions do believe in an all-powerful transcendant deity, but it is seen as too distant to be worth praying to. In turn, the common pitful is to invent a whole series of lesser deities that human beings can control.
If God or gods are an invention of only the human mind, then I am astounded that in many ways how there is actually a massive lack of imagination, because the concepts (and pitfalls) are largely the same across all cultures, places and time.
As to your statement about why we worship the Hebrew God, you are probably right insofar as it is a stroke of luck that we are born into a world where 2/3rds of all humans worship Yahweh-Elohim (i.e. Hebrew God of the Jews). However, I do believe there is a strong philosophical (as opposed to historical-critical) case for the Christian trinitarian formulation as the best explanation of God, who is often seen and described (if incompletely and using different terms, concepts and languages) by different peoples, cultures and time around the world.
Because humans can invent and imagine God and gods as anything they wish, and able to do anything they can imagine, the possibilities are endless. But when we examine tangible evidence of what happened and when it happened, along with the ancient stories, we sometimes must engage in extraordinary rational gyrations to justify the legends. Why? When things don't fit, doesn't that suggest that the details of the stories might have been told in ways that made them intelligible at the time they were written? It is not so difficult. Why make it so? It just seems like a waste of time and energy defending the indefensible. It is all so unnecessary. And it certainly is not necessary even for the acceptance of the message of Jesus.
Of course Joe, accepting “the message of Jesus” is impossible without accepting Jesus Himself. Jesus’ message was that He came to seek and save that which was lost; and that this was His sole mission.
God, who sent Him, loves us all. When we accept through faith (believe) the message of and Person of God’s Son, we are saved to love, by Love.
The question is who was Jesus Christ?
Mrs Nelson says: "We who are from the Judeo-Christian heritage have accepted the Bible description of God as written in their history. But how can we claim that is the only god and all others are false? It is a matter of choice. "
———-
The Judeo-Christian heritage accepts the Bible as a 'Revelation' of God rather than just a description of Him. [Isa 45:5, 6; Deut 4:35, 39; Isa 44:8; Exod 8:10; Deut 32:39; 2Sam 7:22; 22:32; 1Kings 8:60; 1Chr 17:20; Isa 43:10; Isa 44:6, 8; Mark 12:29; Deut 6:4 …and so forth]
22oct1844, I agree with what you are trying to say, but Elaine is right insofar as you quoting Bible verses is hardly going to convince a Buddhist, Shinto or Hindu who doesn't believe in the Bible. Your arguments might work against a JW, a Methodist, or even a Jew or Muslim who believes in the Bible, or perhaps even an agnostic who grows up in the West, but it won't work at all in someone who doesn't accept the basic premise of your argument.
As to saying it is a choice – why should say a Buddhist, Shinto or Hindu reject their religion and heritage in favour of Christianity? One might even say religions such as Jainism or Bah'i are actually more akin to the golden rule than Christianity.
I have a reason myself, but would be interested in yours.
My great grandfather was a hindu priest. He didn't accept Christianity but my grandfather did – and Adventism at that. Been there done that…
But that doesn't explain why any Hindu, including your grandfather, should accept the Abrahamic God of the Bible and not the gods of the Hindu scriptures. Your arguments assume we all accept the Abrahamic faith as a first principle, but to much of the world that is not the case. How do we spread the Gospel to such people?
"The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks, developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils." *D.B. Gower, "Scientist Rejects Evolution, " Kentish Times, England, December 11, 1975, p. 4. [Biochemist.]
"Geology and paleontology held great expectations for Charles Darwin, although in 1859 [when he published his book, Origin of the Species] he admitted that they [already] presented the strongest single evidence against his theory. Fossils were a perplexing puzzlement to him because they did not reveal any evidence of a gradual and continuous evolution of life from a common ancestor, proof which he needed to support his theory. Although fossils were an enigma to Darwin, he ignored the problem and found comfort in the faith that future explorations would reverse the situation and ultimately prove his theory correct.
"He stated in his book, The Origin of the Species, 'The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find intermediate varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.' [Quoting from the sixth (1901) edition of Darwin's book, pages 341-342.1
"We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." *David Raup, Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology, Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50, No. 1, 1979, pp. 22-29.
Thirty-some years later would this be the consensus of paleontologists? My feeling is that paleontologists are fairly committed to following the actual evidence, rather than things Darwin suggested 150 years ago. I'm all for following the evidence and rejecting preconceptions as warranted.
RE: "Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils." (taken from a quote above)
Wow, this is interesting!
Have scientists found any 'intermediate' fossils over the last 30 years?
If they haven't, then I would say that it would be reasonable to conclude that the statement still stands as factual.
This notion of "no intermediate fossils" has been frequently trotted out. It is my impression that it was not true 30 years ago or 50 years ago, and is certainly even less so today. But, let's have a look at the evidence, shall we? Perhaps Erv would start us down this road while I find a few sources for you to examine.
Just as a beginning, if you have access to it in a library, you might have a look at volume one of my series Comparative Primate Biology: Systematics, Evolution, and Anatomy (Daris Swindler & J Erwin, Eds.). There are several relevant chapters. This book is more than 25 years old, so there is much more evidence by now.
Joe, have you read Carrol's 'vertrabrate Palentology'? He states in the very beginning that the lack of transitional forms is a major problem. In any case, even if there are 'transitions' all the way up, this says nothing about "mechanism." NS /Time/ Mutations are not thus demonstrated to be effectual to those ends. The evolutionary view of the fossil sequence commits a post hoc, ergo proctor hoc mistake. "After this, therefore because of this" doesn't address mechanism, even if there were the seamless upward gradation of forms.
Darrel, that "lack of transitional forms" argument may have had merit 150 years ago, but it has not for a long time. It is just part of the convoluted rationalization people use to deny that fossils are what they are. Just try to not decide ahead of time why you cannot believe something about fossils, and just recognize that fossils do exist, however or whenever they came to exist. Look at the array of fossils anyone can find listed and/or pictured at various internet sites (for example, the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, the California Academy of Sciences), wherever you wish to look.
After you acknowledge that there really are lots and lots and lots of actual fossils in existence, then try to wrap your brain around how they came into existence and when–without deciding in advance how that happened. Are you able to do that?
I guess you mean "Vertebrate Paleontology," above. Remember, that is a big field. I would not hang on every chapter and verse of every textbook on the topic. Even if Carrol believed what he wrote, I'm not confident that being "a problem" should lead to what you seem to conclude. One problem with an incomplete fossil record is the need to look for more fossils.
Darrel, have you actually READ Carrol's Vertebrat Paleontology? Or have you only read some comment about it on a creationist rant?
Sorry for my impatience. The information of fossils is available for anyone to see. Why does there need to be so much effort to try to explain this away? The answer is clear to anyone who does not REFUSE to see.
Joe, don’t get up-set, I am quoting evolutionists here you know. I can’t find the quote from Carrol’s book, and I don’t have it in my library. I can get it for you. Joe, the paucity of the fossil record is an open secret now. This fact is directly responsible for Niles’and Gould’s developing the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. Gould wrote in the journal Natural History :
“The extreme rarity of the transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.” (May 1977)
“The advent of the theory of punctuated equilibrium and the associated publicity it generated have meant that for the first time biologists with little knowledge of paleontology have become aware of the absence of transitional forms.” The Panda’s Thumb, NY Norton pg. 181
If absence of transitional forms was not a reality, then when develop punctuated equilibrium or a ‘hopeful monster’ theory to explain the gaps?
I understand that the issue of "transitional fossils" is, in some groups of fossils, still to be resolved. However, the fact that our YEC/YLC co-religionists don't realize that the problems that they face in trying to fit the entire fossil record into a short period of time is many orders of magnitude more of a problem is really amazing. It seems to me that their ability to deny the obvious can only be explained by realizing that most of them really don't care about the evidence. They already know "The Truth" based on their fundamentalist assumptions about the nature of Scripture. Nothing can shake their faith in the faith they have in their interpreation of Scripture. So, in the end, scientiific evidence is essentially meaningless to these people. They will consistently misread and misinterpret the evidence to have it conform to their need to believe in a mythic past.
This is true enough Ervin. "Ecological Zonation" can not explain the 'extreme sorting' problem of the pattern in the strata. An Adventist textbook I used once for an apologetics class I taught in Academy was very clear on this point- Origins, by Ariel Roth.
This is true enough Ervin. "Ecological Zonation" can not explain the 'extreme sorting' problem of the pattern in the strata. An Adventist textbook I used once for an apologetics class I taught in Academy was very clear on this point- Origins, by Ariel Roth.
Darrel, I think you are correct to put some focus on "punctuated equilibrium." "Gradualism" has been held too tightly by some people as an essential aspect of evolution, when it is, I think, an overgeneralization that really should be examined in the light of evidence. In that regard, it is somewhat like "random mutation" as the origin of genetic variation. There are some rigid people who would almost defend to the death some of these explanatory concepts. The thing is, what needs to happen is people need to be ready to follow strong evidence wherever it leads–including possible rejection of concepts they once found convincing.
The thing is, biological change does sometimes happen gradually and slowly, but relatively large changes sometimes happen rather quickly, for example, in adaptation to new ecological niches, or with lateral insertion of genomic material. Forms probably change little as long as they work within their environmental context. When the environment changes rapidly through entry into a new ecological niche or through cataclysmic change, biological change may be required for survival.
Now, I'm just speculating here, but it seems to me that a fair number of fossils have occurred under situations that we might call "cataclysmic." Something happened (e.g., a volcanic eruption) that resulted in the conditions that preserved fairly intact specimens. In some cases, that was the end of the line (or branch). Those specimens may be evolutionary "dead ends." If such dead ends are significantly represented in the fossil record, there could be earlier transitional forms but there could not be later transitional forms. And the evidence is quite clear that there have been repeated mass extinctions. We certainly should not be expecting to find post-extinction transitional forms. After all, an inability or failure to adapt to changes, ranging from small to large, would be an important contributor to extinction.
It seems to me that we need to honestly examine evidence without deciding in advance what the evidence can or cannot mean.
The solar astronomer John Eddy commented:
And everyone had a good laugh…. You might want to actually read the published work of Jack Eddy on the sun as a variable star.
The quotation Peter cites above has been trotted out repeatedly by creationists to "prove" something, but I'm not quite sure what. As it is usually quoted, part is deleted, and by doing so, the meaning is turned backwards. Now, I'm not calling Peter a liar. My guess is that he is merely innocently repeating what someone else distorted, probably knowingly, and turned into an untruth.
What Eddy apparently said was that he figured the sun's age was about 4.5 billion years, but if convincing evidence to the contrary materialized, he suspected that astronomers would follow the evidence, even if it meant accepting Ussher's chronology. I think that is accurate. I certainly would be among those who would be delighted to accept Ussher's chronology if it were supported by convincing evidence. It isn't.
If there were a hell, I expect that there would be a special place in it for people who deliberately present error as truth. Teaching children and other impressionable people profoundly false ideas about the age of the earth is tragic and unnecessary, and certainly does not advance truth or honor God.
I posted this in another blog, I think it may fit this thread better:
After ET went home he became a resident expert on everything terrestrial. He joined the circuit lecturing on all subjects about planet Earth. In his recent lecture on wheeled transportation on earth he stated, “In the beginning there were unicycles that served humanity well for millenniums until the need of a more robust mode of transportation was needed and some venturesome folks set up contractions by tying two unicycles together to make a rudimentary bicycle which led to the development of the tandem bike. It was desirable that each individual has his own vehicle so a set of paddles as well as a seat were removed and a bicycle evolved. It served man well for another millennium until a more stable machine was needed and the tricycle evolved. Things began to develop fast. Four wheels were better than three and the first four wheeled vehicle evolved. Right after that multiple axle six wheelers, eight wheelers, up to eighteen wheelers were developed in such a short span that it was coined a Punctuated Vehicular Equilibrium. And finally the apex of evolution was reached in the form of locomotives. The longer the train the more advanced it was in the evolutionary tree. “ As to the question if intermediate contraptions from unicycles to bicycles to tricycles, etc. were ever found or reported, in a wave of hand, ET said given enough time those will certainly be found. One needs to have FAITH in his Theory of Terrestrial Vehicular Evolution.