Going to Church in the Grand Canyon
by Jack Hoehn
by Jack Hoehn, May 8, 2014
There is an outdoor natural church in the Grand Canyon. Perhaps a throwback to a time when freedom of religion was more important a national virtue than freedom from religion, there is still a sign along the South Rim after the few miles of National Park Hotels, Visitor Centers, and Gift Shops, just beyond the start of the Bright Angel trail starting down through 540 million layers of geology to the Colorado River a mile straight down, that says: “Interdenominational Worship 300 yards.”
Also a small plaque on one of the historic buildings now a gift shop, still quotes at the edge of the 10-mile wide and 277-mile long natural wonder of the world, Psalm 68:4–
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Although in this secular world these are relics from a bygone age of public freedom of religious expression, perhaps these permitted religious sentiments remain in keeping with the fact that even today, when the 5,000,000 visitors a year to the Grand Canyon from every nation of the world spill out of their tour busses or walk from their rental cars to the edge of this massive wonder, the first words out of the lips of at least half of them as they stand at the canyon edge are the very same expression: "Oh, my God!"
As a Young Visitor
I had visited the Grand Canyon as a child, both on the higher and colder North Rim and the open year round South Rim. As an 18 year-old employee of the Southern California Conference Camp Cedar Falls, I had driven a bus full of junior campers to the edge of the Grand Canyon and twice had led groups down the Havasu Canyon which is a tributary to the Grand Canyon, with beautiful turquoise water and travertine pools and water falls. But at that time I still thought it possible, as I had been taught by Ellen White and her church, that the world and life on it were only about 6,000 years old, and that all the wonders on it including the Grand Canyon were simply testimony to a single Noah’s flood.
In April I drove with my wife, my sister and brother-in-law south from Walla Walla, Washington, through the Blue Mountains of Northeast Oregon, across Idaho into Utah. We spent a night at Temple Square and listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir before driving down past Bryce Canyon and Zion, along the Vermillion Cliffs, nearing the North Rim of the Grand Canyon that was still closed in April, around to the Glen Canyon Dam and then back to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, open year-round. We spent two nights and parts of two days there just walking along the edge of the Canyon, thinking about the Lord “who rides upon the clouds,” and exulting before him.
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| Figure 1 – Grand Canyon 10 miles across and 1 mile deep from the South Rim. |
“Oh, my God!” is still the right phrase to use for this experience. And reading about it in an article, or seeing photographs of the canyon is not comparable to the experience of actually standing on the edge of this wonderful place or hiking or riding down into its giant maw. The book of nature and evidence of the history of life on earth are opened to us by the Grand Canyon. I invite you to hike along the South Rim in person, or else vicariously with me, the short distance to the Interdenominational Worship Center with your binoculars and sense of awe and reverence intact, and read a few pages from that giant natural book.
Progressive Step by Step Creation Supported
Standing on the edge of this giant canyon we see layer upon layer of evidence compatible with the Bible’s teaching that God indeed is the Creator who created not instantly, but progressively, first this, then that, then the other thing in subsequent Creation Days. Looking way down to the Colorado River below, it is quite obvious that the one mile of earth from the vertical granites where the river now runs in the bottom of the canyon, to the top on which we stand is made of flat sedimentary horizontal layers. Like layers of a layered cake made of chocolate cake, white cake, red cake, with layers of frosting or whipped cream or jam in between, the walls of the Grand Canyon are clearly flat, giant layers.
These layers are of sediments laid down in waters of oceans, or seas. Is this not compatible with a Genesis record that life began as God moved upon the face of earth’s deep waters?
Firmament First
Above the foundation basement rocks of igneous granites, the first layers of pre-Cambrian sea sediments show no complex creatures, only the sudden appearance (i.e. created, intelligently designed) of billions of quite cleverly-designed photosynthesizing plants called algae. Some were single cells of microscopic complexity; others were “complex multicellular plants” found in those deepest layers and seen as the fossilized Stromatolites. The algae plant bodies by the billions in the ancient seas lived as they live today, photosynthesizing (yes, just as the Bible teaches, light above the waters was first necessary on Day One) the oxygen that gave the earth our atmosphere (Firmament of Creation Day Two). Their billions of tiny bodies settled to the bottom of Earth’s seas to make the limestone of so many of the Grand Canyon’s layers. But there are no fossils of seed-bearing plants, no fish or crustaceans, no shells, no insects in these deepest layers of Creation days 1 and 2, just as Genesis suggests.
Land Masses?
Genesis says that on Creation Day 3 land masses appear above the surface of the waters for the first time. Is there any evidence of land appearing in the layers of the Grand Canyon? The very bottom layers of the Grand Canyon are all limestone, dead bodies of algae and bacteria, diatoms and desmids, settled to the bottom of the ancient seas, after they had finished their job of creating oxygen by photosynthesis to make the atmosphere required by the Creator. The next-to-the-bottom layers, however, show evidence of land masses appearing, because the first limestone layers are then covered by mud running down from Earth’s first continents, and deposited into the waters as shales or slates.
Geologists speculate that the appearance of land masses began in the late Precambrian, just as Genesis suggests. Mud running down from newly exposed land masses spread out into the waters of the seas covering what is now the uplifted Columbian Plateau, but back then was the bottom of an ocean surrounded by the new land masses. (Creation Day 4 happened out in space, so the Grand Canyon holds little direct evidence of the appearance of the sun and moon and stars, perhaps from atmospheric changes of earth?) However, the muds or shales flowing into the ancient oceans from surrounding land masses amazingly preserved the next explosive step in the creation of life: Creation Day Five.
Sea Life, Creation Day 5
The first layers of shales or slate, which is compressed mud that flowed down streams from the first mountains onto the bottom of the ocean floor, are the Cambrian layers. Wonderfully preserved in these shales or slates is the evidence of the sudden appearing of complex sea life in the “Cambrian Explosion.” These layers deep in the Grand Canyon are the strongest fossil evidence of the sudden (in geologic terms) and unprecedented appearance of “a tremendous diversification of life forms…proliferating at an astonishing rate…Members of almost every major animal group appearing in the oceans in a relatively short period, perhaps as little as five million years.”[1]
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| Figure 2 Horizontal Cambrian layers begin above the vertical granites of the basement rocks. |
You and I call the Cambrian Layer Creation Day 5. This layer and its characteristic fossils are found not only in the Grand Canyon, but all over the world. In China, Cambrian muds have revealed that a small complex animal with a heart and circulatory system, mostly feeding its little brain with eyes on long stalks (think of a little lobster), suddenly appears fully designed with NO FOSSIL PRECURSORS, no evolutionary intermediates, and no basic design changes in the 540 million years since then.[2] These muds are found in Canada in the Burgess Shale, again telling the story of millions of complex animals’ appearing in the early oceans of earth. This layer is also found in England (in Wales or “Cambria”), repeating the very same story of the sudden appearance of complex life. “Early members of major invertebrate groups such as brachiopods, mollusks, sponges, corals, echinoderms, and arthropods emerged during this time period. Even primitive vertebrates appeared…” In fact, 22 of the 27 phyla of life found in fossils (or the 35 phyla recognized today) are found in this very first layer of life preserved in the muds of the early mountains washing into the seas all over the earth.
So with your binoculars, from up here on the rim of the Grand Canyon, or up close when you hike down to the bottom just a few feet above the granite bedrocks, you see a few thin layers of limestone with no fossils except those of algae, and then the horizontal 277 miles of Cambrian Shales above the granites, testimony to the time when God said (on the morning of Creation Day 5), “Let the waters swarm with a swarm of living beings.”[3]
What about Creation Day 6?
Above the Precambrian photosynthesizing algae of Creation Day 2, the muds from mountains appearing on Creation Day 3 and the sudden appearance of complex sea life of Creation Day 5 in the bottom shales, are at least 38 other layers up to the top of the present Canyon. These layers are both marine (limestone) and terrestrial (washed in from land about the seas). All 40 layers are grouped into 7 major sections. From the bottom up they are as follows:
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| Figure 3 Wickipedia, Licensed for free use. |
Section 2 is limestone, sandstone, and shales of Precambrian earth.
Section 3 has sandstone from ancient beaches to 325 feet thick, the Cambrian Shales some 450 feet thick, and above the shale more limestone from 136 to 827 feet thick.
Section 4 has limestone, some from freshwater lakes replacing salt water seas. Some of these layers are 400-800 feet thick. Salt and fresh water fossils are found in different layers, showing different types of bodies of water over time.
Section 5, or the Supai Group (where I hiked from summer camp), shows layers of mud, silt, and sand, suggesting a time of coastal plain like the Texas Gulf Coast of today.
Section 6 shows fossils from the later part of Creation Day 5, with winged flying creatures, cone-bearing plants, and ferns. There are tracks of lizard-like animals in some of the sandstone layers, with reptiles walking along the beaches. There are also fossils of creeping things here like millipedes and scorpions, which may show the start of Creation Day 6 with land animals appearing.
(Section 7 is mostly washed away from the plateau about the Grand Canyon, so visitors to the Grand Canyon rims are walking on limestone and sandstone of the Section 6 top layer called the Kaibap Limestone. A few remnants of the Mesozoic depositions are left in Red Butte, south of the Grand Canyon Village, but these layers are mostly found many miles to the north of the Grand Canyon in the Vermillion Cliffs, Zion Canyon, Kolob Canyon, and Bryce Canyon areas, known as the Grand Staircase, of the younger, top layers, no longer present in the Grand Canyon.)[4]
So the Creation of land animals on Creation Day 6 is mostly NOT recorded in the Grand Canyon itself, except for those tracks of reptiles and insects on the sandstone beaches of Section 6. Monument Valley’s younger layers to the east of the Grand Canyon have bones of amphibians. Petrified Logs from those younger layers show evidence of beetle and termite damage. The Triassic and Jurassic, or Dinosaur, eras are recorded in younger and higher layers in other parts of Arizona and Utah. Small mammals are also found with the dinosaurs but the mammalian explosion only came after the dinosaurs disappeared.
The Grand Canyon itself has no mammal fossils, no dinosaurs, no mammoths or giant sloths. And, of course, no fossilized human remains, which come very recently in the geologic record of creation, just as the Bible says, at the very end of the last Creation Day: Day 6.
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| Figure 4 Over 40 different layers of different materials cover Creation Days 1-5. |
Floods and Noah
As you and I stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon looking down at the one-mile deep, 10-mile wide, and 277-mile long exposure of the early history of the world, we of course want to know about Noah’s flood. Wasn’t a huge flood recorded in Genesis? Of course it was, and what we are seeing today has given us no reason for doubting that a massive, destructive, history-altering flood did come to an early human ancestor of ours. All human cultures know of a type of Noah in their ancestral stories, as did the Babylonians (Gilgamesh knew him as Utnapishtim), the Egyptians who educated Moses, and the inspired Scriptures themselves. A recently-translated Babylonian tablet almost 1000 years older than Genesis still has the animals going in two by two![5] But before God created humanity, it is clear that there were oceans, lakes, floods, uplifts, volcanos, continental separations and collisions involved in the preparation of an earth suitable for us.
Perhaps Noah’s flood or another one similar to it did carve out the canyon that now holds the Colorado River, running from the uplifted Rocky Mountains on the east of the Colorado Plateau to the Gulf of California down on the west of the plateau, where the Pacific plate subducts under the North American plate, lifting the Colorado Plateau between these two geological bookends up 8,000 feet higher than the ocean and lake bottoms they previously were, as recorded in the rocks. But Noah’s flood did not create the sedimentary layers in 40 days and 40 nights, and then cut through them on the 41st day of the flood!
Those sediments of dying bacterial, algae, and plankton are hundreds of feet thick. They are interspersed with dry eras caused when sands blew in, they so have animals buried in the muds, but they also have layers of sandstone with tracks of animal running along the beaches, covered by later inland lakes and seas, and topped by 400 feet of limestone with fossilized sponges, sea shells, corals, and crinoids growing and preserved. Those 40 layers, each so different, each with the finger prints of different types of creatures, different types of sediments, now a flow of mud, now a drying up and sand blown beach, then another fresh water lake, then another salt water ocean with years and years and years and years of accumulation of sediments present, are impossible to put into a short Noachian flood.
Conclusion?
So what did I learn? and what am I suggesting to you as we stand together as fellow Adventists on the Rim of the Grand Canyon at the Interdenominational Worship Site, and stretch our minds over the evidence of Creation recorded in the layered stones revealed by the canyon?
Creation Day 1, starting on a dark, dead planet that is home to Satan, God introduces into the darkness time with light. And it is good.
Creation Day 2, after another period of darkness and possible conflict, God introduces intelligently-designed algae and other one-celled and multicellular creatures to make an oxygen-rich atmosphere over those ancient oceans. And it is good.
Creation Day 3, after another period of darkness and possibly conflict, God has the land appear and asks the land to bring forth plant life. And it is good.
Creation Day 4, after another period of darkness and possibly conflict, with a newly-formed atmosphere it is time for the heavenly time-keepers to be revealed, so the sun and moon and the stars now are visible on the surface of the planet. And it is good.
Creation Day 5, after another period of darkness and possibly conflict, the Creator creates a multitude of animal types to inhabit the seas and lakes of earth, and still later introduces animal types to inhabit the atmosphere of earth. And it is good.
Creation Day 6, after another period of darkness and possibly conflict, the Creator creates a multitude of animal types to inhabit the land, and then later creates mankind in His image, male and female, and finally it is very good.
Creation Day 7, a Sabbath. No more darkness of conflict, Earth has been created and now God stops creating, and in a safe and perfect garden on earth called Eden turns over care of this dynamic, changing earth into human hands. From now on, instead of working with life, he works with humanity. They are asked to direct the progress and improvement of life on earth. He asks them to pattern their human week after his Creation Week. How are we doing?
Let Ellen White Be Human
What do we do with the fact that Ellen White wrote that God’s creation days were 24 hours long just like our days, and that this all happened as many others before her had taught, only about 6,000 years ago?
Admit that our departed prophetess was not error-free about dates and chronologies, and never claimed to be. Agree that in this case of the chronology of creation and age of the earth she was wrong. Forgive her for that and move on to a broader larger understanding of the truths about creation, unhampered by our errors on the chronology of creation. Agree with her that Creation did not happen by itself but has God’s fingerprints all over it. Understand that Creation also has Satan’s fingerprints all over it.
God Does Not Lie and the Stones Don’t Lie
God does not lie, the Bible does not lie, and the stones do not lie. Adventists must not lie either. As we stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon we can see that life was created over a long period of time best understood as stages or eras. We can see that there was plant and animal death before the creation, much less the fall of mankind. That it was human death, not plant and animal death, that came from Eve and Adam’s sin.
This does suggest to me that the Great Controversy has been going on before the beginning of God’s Creation Week, much as it continues to do today, but that is a subject for much further discussion.[7]
1Christa Sadler, Life in Stone – Fossils of the Colorado Plateau, (Grand Canyon Association, 2006), 15.
2https://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/04/scienceshot-oldest-cardiovascular-system-found-ancient-shrimplike-creature
3Genesis 1:20
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase has a great graphic showing the Grand Canyon’s layers to the right and the younger higher layers of the Grand Staircase to the left. These steps are from bottom (above Grand Canyon) up as the Chocolate Cliffs, the Vermillion Cliffs, the White Cliffs, the Grey Cliffs, and the Pink Cliffs. Each can be reached within one day’s drive going North from the Grand Canyon on highway US
5 https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/hebrew-bible/the-animals-went-in-two-by-two-according-to-babylonian-ark-tablet/
6 Revelation 12:7-9
7 For different ideas on how animal death came to be, I’d suggest you consider the following approaches to death before the fall:
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain—This modern prophet suggests that death before the fall was due to Satan’s fall before the creation. I agree with him.
William Dembski, The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World – says that there was death before the fall of Adam. In anticipation of the fall, God permitted or created a good and evil world because he knew Eve and Adam would need it based on his foreknowledge of their disobedience. Interesting, and a bit convoluted, but worth a read.
Gregory Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy—I haven’t read this yet, but I’m ordering it based on Ronald Osborn’s recommendation.
Jack Hoehn, “The Greater Controversy—How Ellen White’s Great Controversy Theme May Help Coordinate Geologic and Biblical History” – article Submitted to Adventist Today print magazine, awaiting publication; subscribe now so you can be the first to read it.
Jack,
Interesting blog… I hope to visit the GC one day (Grand Canyon that is!)
I will give a TIC answer to just one of your questions.
" He [God] asks them to pattern their human week after his Creation Week. How are we doing?"
Pretty good I reckon….. After another period of darkness and possible conflict… we get our act together… and then, after another period of possible conflict we… Well..
It's still tooth and claw, dog eat dog (god eat god), survival of the fittest, with the beauty of sunrises, sunsets, love and joy, and the GC all in together…
I didn't think anything had changed really…:)
You do make some good points, though I don't agree with how you apply most of them..
Cheers
Good blog Jack, as always!
Dr. Hoehn,
Thank you for your perspective.
We we were privileged to spend a few days at the canyon with family in late March. Our stay included the two day trip to the bottom of the canyon on mules, staying at Phantom Ranch, and then back out again. Our guide, a full blooded Navajo, took great pride in showing the many points of interest including sacred Indian sites and carvings. He began our descent with a Navaho prayer for a safe journey and end the experience the next day with another prayer of thanks in his native language.
There was much time for contemplation of the majestic beauty of the canyon and the overwhelming insignificance of each of us as we inched along the canyon walls. Each time the guide pointed out the age of a particular layer, however, it was a struggle in my mind as to where the truth lay between what I was taught as a child, and what current secular interpretation would suggest.
I appreciate your analysis even though your wife may not always agree with you. At the end of our journey, I had many more questions than possible answers which leads me back to my personal belief that now I see through a glass darkly, but then……….
Thank you again
You are moving in the right direction, it seems to me. I have seen snail shells on some Colorado mountain peaks, limestone layers around Breckenridge, Colorado (9,000 ft.), the petrified sand dunes that make up much of the red rocks of the Colorado Basin (extending over Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona), the Grand Canyon. Wherever one travels in the world geology can only be interpreted in terms of eons. Your efforts at honey coating to "make the medicine go down" to placate the staunch creationists is a bit of stretch, almost humorous. Reinterpretation is probably a necessary step, however, and it is an enterprise without real limits. I commend you for putting your conclusions into print, a risky venture in your position. You are a brave dude!
Outstanding, provocative, and inspiring, as always Jack! Thank you.
Jack,
Have you had the chance to see the Grand Canyon from the air? I did several years ago on a flight from Reno to Dallas-Ft. Worth. It is impressive because the altitude of a commercial airliner lets you see the great distance it spans from one end to the other and put it in perspective with other terrain features of the area.
I visited the Grand Canyon with my family when I was a teen and the impression it made on me continues to this day. The immensity of that place is mind-boggling. One particular memory from that visit was in the visitor's center on the South Rim. They had a chunk of rock brought up from the river. Attached to the display was a large file with which to try and scratch the rock. I used similar files at home in our garage to smooth wood and metal, so I knew how tough they were and what they could cut. But the teeth on the file had been rubbed almost smooth by the rock and the rock was barely scratched! So I went to the desk to ask if they could replace it. The Ranger explained that they had to replace the file at least twice a week because the rock was so much tougher than the metal, yet the river eroded several inches of the rock each year. I was quite impressed.
William,
In college a class on creation and evolution pointed out that fast moving water creates a straight canyon with steep sides, and slow moving water creates a meandering river bed with sloping sides. The class also pointed out that near the Grand Canyon is a canyon of comparable proportions that both is meandering and has steep sides. The professor said that if the layers were soft from top to bottom at the time of erosion, one could end up with a meandering canyon with steep sides.
While flying over the Grand Canyon area the following year, going west and east, I looked for the canyon he had described. On one flight I saw the Grand Canyon. On another flight I saw the canyon he had described, and it was indeed striking. The sides were steep like the Grand Canyon, but it was extremely meandering.
I do not see how Jack's hypothesis and evolution, since they call for the bottom layers to be rock solid hard before the top layers are eroded, can explain why that canyon is both meandering and has steep sides, not to mention the fact that they can't explain why there was no significant erosion for 10's of millions of years between the deposition of consecutive layers. But those who believe the Bible have no such difficulties, since the layers in question could be soft enough all at the same time.
Bob,
A couple years after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington as researchers began doing detailed studies of the area where the ash plume fell most heavily they documented some surprising things. One was the rate at which plants and wildlife were rebounding and establishing themselves in areas thought to be uninhabitable. Another was the rate at which water runoff was cutting a canyon through the thick ash layer. Clearly seen in their photographs were distinct layers differentiated by the density and type of ash that had fallen and the amount of compression from the weight above them. There were distinct layers that the observers compared to the layering seen in the Grand Canyon. By applying their observations to the Grand Canyon and including the Biblical account of Noah's flood, they projected that the soils in the area had been washed-in over a short period of time, compressed and then were cut-through in the matter of a few weeks or months by water draining from an alluvial lake in the basin areas drained by the Colorado River.
I can't prove it and have no credentials in geology so I'll just say their hypothesis was interesting and sounded potentially credible.
Jack,
As you will recall from your last blog at https://atoday.org/article/2424/opinion/hoehn-jack/time-will-never-be-a-test-again I raised the issue of the lack of erosion between layers at the Grand Canyon being evidence of rapid deposition. You declined to provide an explanation for that fact there, and I can't find where you addressed it here. And yet you assert above that these layers were laid down over millions of years of time, despite the striking lack of erosion.
You will also recall from your last blog that you asserted in the comments that you believe that Ellen White was divinely inspired and received visions from God, but that she made mistakes. You sort of re-assert the same above, and yet you fail to address the points raised at your last blog from 3SG 90: "I was then carried back to the creation and was shown that the first week, in which God performed the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week." She said she was "shown" this, Jack. And so if you really believe she was inspired by God, you'll quit trying to prove that that vision was a lie.
If we are really interested in having a rational discussion on the topic, I don't think we will simply be re-asserting the same old points that have already been falsified, without somehow trying to show that those falsifications weren't really falsifications. And yet, that is exactly what has happened here regarding the lack of erosion between layers at the Grand Canyon, and 3SG 90-91 stating that Ellen White received a vision showing that the days of creation were 24-hour days, and to believe that they weren't 24-hour days is to believe "the worst kind of infidelity."
Jack, you write above:
"But Noah’s flood did not create the sedimentary layers in 40 days and 40 nights, and then cut through them on the 41st day of the flood!"
You made a less-detailed, similar comment on your last blog. I responded: "Perhaps the problem, Jack, is that you have never really investigated or thought through the scientific evidence for creation and the Flood. … I suggest this because you speak of how the layers of the Grand Canyon couldn't be laid down in 40 days, as if you think that the Flood event only lasted 40 days, when the biblical record is quite clear that it lasted longer. Don't standard Flood models take this into account?" That you would re-assert here the same erroneous statement is dumbfounding.
40 days was the length of time that it rained. The entire Flood event lasted 1 year and 10 days. The waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days. Nearly 2 1/2 months later, the tops of the mountains were finally seen.
Thus, certainly the turbidites found in the Grand Canyon would not have had to all be deposited within the first 40 days. There certainly could have been turbidites (and other deposition-causing phenomena) all during the 150 days, or even some after 225 days. And the catastrophic release of water from Grand Lake and Hopi Lake which has been proposed as the cause of the creating of the Grand Canyon could have occurred long after Noah got off the ark, much more than 1 year and 10 days after the Flood began. All this is just basic stuff.
Hi Bob, just to clarify, Jack is not an evolutionist. He is an old earth creationist
In terms of 3SG 90-91 and other passages, it makes no difference. It's still "the worst kind of infidelity."
But in reality, he isn't an "old earth creationist" as the average Seventh-day Adventist would define the term. He doesn't believe that God created the word in 6 literal days, but that the planet itself is billions of years old. Robert Brown would not be considered a young earth creationist, but he does promote a literal creation week.
Bob,
It does not matter how you want to slice your canyon – the layers demonstrate changes from marine, to deserts and back again… imagine all you want, but you will not fit deserts and dunes, and oceans and marshes, and desterts and sun baked earth and back to marine and on to rivers etc etc, into ANY flood time frame.
That you would even try is the dumbfounding thing. I may not agree with how Jack applies his slices of the canyon over a Biblical "week", but that the layers are there with their vast spectrum of environments and eons of time is there for all to see..
Turbidites… that sounds so, um, Walter Veith like…. mmm
Vol. 1 of my SDA BC (1978) discusses turbidites in the section on Genesis and geology. Walter Veith did not return to the Catholic faith until after that. GRI's video Evidence, which came out long ago, covers turbidites and the Grand Canyon, and Veith is not on it.
Given the striking lack of erosion between the layers, despite evolutionists' assertions that the contact points between layers sometimes represent 10's of millions of years, perhaps the identification of some of the layers as deserts is wrong too. If you think otherwise, why not post a picture of the very largest fossilized sand dune that has been identified, which should break the continuity of flatness between two layers. When I lived on the Arabian penninsula, there were some sand dunes that were quite large. There should be one around the Grand Canyon, should there not?
Another thing to consider is that sand dunes are formed of sand, and dry sand is very abrasive when driven by wind. Why the absence of significant wind erosion, then, between layers if the skeptic's time frame is correct? There are places in the U.S. where you can see features that have been carved in such ways. Why aren't they there at the Grand Canyon? (Because, the layers were deposited so quickly, there wasn't time for erosion to occur between layers.) Further, if the tracks in the Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon, formerly thought to be tracks on sand dunes, was shown decades ago to really be tracks on submerged sand, it is certainly possible that evolutionists are simply wrong.
Jack's excellent discussion includes a comment that identifies the critical problem that the Adventist tradition has in coming to terms with the reality that our created world and life upon it are billions of years old. As Jack notes: "What do we do with the fact that Ellen White wrote that God’s creation days were 24 hours long just like our days, and that this all happened as many others before her had taught, only about 6,000 years ago?" Jack's answer is "Admit that our departed prophetess was not error-free about dates and chronologies, and never claimed to be. Agree that in this case of the chronology of creation and age of the earth she was wrong. Forgive her for that and move on . . ." Well stated. EGW was wrong about this and move on. Simple and straightforward. Would it not be glorious if our faith community could be mature enough to follow that simple suggestion?
Ervin,
It isn't that simple, according to Jack himself. He said he believes that Ellen White was a prophet who received visions from God. He claims to believe her visions. Inconsistently, though, on the matter of the length of the creation week, he flat out rejects her vision, but thus far has declined to try to explain this inconsistency.
If Jack was adviocating the repudiation of Ellen Whtie as a messenger of God, then your post would fit better. But that isn't what he's advocating. He's advocating a broader application of the idea that she got the number of windows wrong when writing about a building in a private letter. But no matter how broad we try to stretch that idea, it just doesn't reach beyond the prophet to the vision itself, a vision that said that the 6 days of creation were literal days.
Chris, are you following me đŸ™‚ Maybe we will have a better meeting of the minds here than over there.
The issue with the strata that Jack is referring to (the Cambrian and on up) is that there is a progression of life forms that do follow the progression of creation as outlined in Gen one. One of the most important features of the fossil record in these strata is this progression. The Ecological Zonation Theory attempts to explain the sequence found worldwide by the waters of the flood in that as the water rose the larger creatures moved to higher land. Therefore the mammals are buried on top layers and the lower zones have smaller animals.
The problem with this is the perfection of it. There are never Mammals found in the lowest strata. Why would this be without exception. The flood does not really explain the fossil sequences. But the 6 days of creation and the sequence there does.
And it is possible to date some of the fossils in strata by the very simple method of finding granite dikes (veins) that have penetrated (poured through) older rocks with fossils. Calculation how long it would take that granite dike to cool and you have somewhat dated the fossils.
If the granite dike took 50,000 years to cool (based on its size and depth) then the fossils which were there before the dike poured in, must be older. Obviously the granite was formed after the intruded rocks
Granite filling cracks in fossil-bearing rocks suggests a natural formation of granite. Even more convincing for a naturalistic origin of granite is the discovery within granite of shells of a number of fossil species of brachiopods . One could hardly argue that God would place fossils in granite He was creating.
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Regarding Granite, years ago the Geoscience Research Institute looked into Dr. Gentry’s ‘Creation's Tiny Mystery, (Origins 15(1):32-38 (1988). and concluded that his view has some serious problems. Some of these problems were:
The inconsistent use of radioactive disintegration rates;
The fact that polonium halos appear to be derived from uranium;
The evidence for the origin of polonium halos by aqueous transport; and
The fact that polonium halos are found in secondary rocks.
If it turns out that long ages is correct, we must remember that this in no way supports the myth of macro evolutionism. As Jack has mentioned the Cambrian Explosion and I would add the Genetic Revolution have truely falsified the theory.
If the dike cooled in 50,000 years, then a smaller piece could cool in less time. Therefore we can test the abvoe hypothesis in the laboratory by attempting to synthesize granite. All such experiment shave failed. We therefore should consider other theories for the origins of such rock formations.
As far as Brown's GRI article goes, he asserts that Gentry proposes an inconsistency in increasing radioactive decay rates. Where is the evidence to support this assertion? He asserts that aqueous transport along cracks could deposit Po-218 in time to produce Po halos. What about in fluorite crystals that have no such cracks? Anyone who has read Gentry's book and reports would know that that is a very basic question.
And why are there Po-218 halos in granite, but none in coalified wood? Why could aqueous transport only get the longer living isotopes into soggy wood, under ideal conditions, thus only producing Po-210 halos in the coalified wood, but supposedly aqueous solutions could produce even Po-218 halos in solid rock, far from ideal conditions? Again, this is a basic question, but Brown's article makes no attempt to address this issue.
~~Well it depends on which type of granite we are talking about. I-type (igneous) granites are from the melting of preexisting igneous rocks, S-type (sedimentary) granites from melted sedimentary rocks M-type (mantle) granites are rarer and come directly from deeper melts in the mantle.
The important point I think is that there are many examples of dikes pushing through strata. In these cases the granite dike cutting through the shale with fossils must be younger. This is true, correct?
It has been proposed that such dikes could actually be creation rocks that were re-arranged during Day 3 of creation or during the Flood. If the strata containing the "intrusion" melts at a lower temperature than granite, and if that strata does not contain the expected metaphormism (including destruction of fossils) that should be caused by contact with a slowly cooling granitic melt, some other explanation should be considered than the one that evolutionists propose.
I don't think interpetations of stratigraphic relationships based on uniformitarian presuppositions can trump laboratory experiments. Often, such interpretations call for magma cooling to form granite. That's an hypothesis in itself. Well, then, let's test it. Let's try to produce granite in the laboratory mimicing the conditions of heat and pressure that we think created the granites we see. Such experiments have been done repeatedly, and have always failed. Thus, the skeptic's interpretations of stratigraphic relationships must be in error.
Bob, what are you hoping to gain by being the barnacle on the side of a sinking creationist ocean liner? I'm not a geologist, not educated about the issues you are finely tuned to tease. But I know desperation when I see it. You have lost the argument, the overall facts contradict you, and as your rubber life raft hisses its air as it sinks with you, you loudly announce to the world "I am not sinking!" You lose nothing by accepting reality. Science and faith are separate domains, each is credible-until leverage to harmonize is introduced. You will never win the creationist argument by pricking the huge body of facts with puny needles.
Faith, I maintain, is the language of hope. With Pauls' definition of faith, you can safely unshackle yourself from flotsam that is going nowhere but down! Enjoy your faith. It doesn't need an ancient world full of imaginary water to help you live life to the fullest as you journey to the end of days!
Bugs,
I think it would be far more helpful if you suggested some sort of scenario other than rapid deposition that could produce the layers of the Grand Canyon, without significant erosion between layers. Otherwise, it is evolution and the kindred theories of skeptics that are sinking, not the biblical accounts of creation and the Flood, and not the Sabbath commandment.
Bob, are saying that dikes of granite, that are vertical through strata of sedimentary rock with fossils are original granite " re-arranged " in that position?
That's what has been proposed: Since granite cannot be synthesized in the laboratory under conditions akin to what evolutionists assert is how granite formed in nature, and since the presence of Po halos indicate rapid crystallization within a matter of minutes, that is what has been proposed.
Darrel,
Before I even go past your first sentence – No. Look who posted on Jack's thread first up..
Oh, you are right! I repent!
Actually Darrel, it is interesting you asked the question though.
The other day there was a thread that had no comments for some time, and I thought it made a point or two worth comment. I said to my son, take a look at this thread. I'm going to make a comment and you just watch – within no time certian names will turn up (I gave him the names). Guess what, they did!
I was probably early with Jack's thread, but I did note some names popped up shortly after I posted, and I do wonder if my presence annoys certain ones to the point they check out what drivel I'm up to next:) !
So, I do take your question…
I am not annoyed at all Chris; I hope vis versa.
Whoops. uh uh, don't go there Chris. C a r e f u l. Caveat emptor. it may bite you.Clairvoyance is not your area of expertize. no, no Sir, uh uh. Remember the axiom, "contra-causal". You can't make that leap.
Nearly 54 years ago I was teaching elementary school in Prescott, AZ, where I taught all subjects in grades 1-8 in the SDA school. In OCT 1960 I took my seventh and eigth grade boys on a weekend hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back out. It was a wonderful and inspiring, if difficult, experience for all of us, but I think it was especially valuable for two of the boys, Teddy and Eugene. I would be surprised if they would not agree with me that this was a life changing experience.
Not long after that I had the wonderful experience of flying on a commercial airliner below the rim of the canyon. As traffic increased and a tragic collision occured, that practice was suspended. I have since flown over the canyon many times, and at various times across most other parts of the Colorado River watershed.
Much has been written about the canyon, and other canyons, and stratified areas all over the world. I think it is worth examining the evidence and the explanations of the evidence. My personal opinion is that there is much more to these canyons than there is to ink blots–even though many people seem to only be able to see what they want to see or already believe to be true. This CAN be true for people from any perspective or system of beliefs–but some people are more highly motivated to see confirmation of their world view than are others. My advice, without preaching or trying to convert anyone, is just to evaluate the evidence carefully. But, of course, I should also issue a disclaimer. An unbiased look at the evidence could be hazardous to your faith, unless your faith is big enough to accommodate the evidence, wherever it may lead.
Now, lest I should fail to alienate someone, I want to state that I think there are some people here who have the kind of faith that can embrace all the information that nature can reveal. Others? Well, maybe not so much….
Just a factual correction to the above. The terrible collision of commercial airliners over the Grand Canyon occurred in 1956. It is remarkable that my Continental flight from LAX to San Antonio, TX, in FEB 1962 actually flew down into the canyon. That likely was already against "the rules" (whatever those were–I mean, that was probably not an authorized deviation from the flight plan). Commercial small aircraft were still allowed to do this, though, at least until another collision occurred in 1986. In any case, the Grand Canyon is truly magnificent and inspiring. Nice pictures, Jack.
It's time to accept that the Biblical creation story, and that of Noah, are beautiful myths, similar to many others from that period, written by person(s) using their best guess with, no scientific information, to provide a needed explanation. The world is billions of years old.
Yes it is time to move on. No, current theories can't completely explain everything including the creation of the Grand Canyon. The rise of the Rocky Mountains (in Colorado and elsewhere), cannot be explained by continental drift, as another example. However, the creation story and the Noah deluge are not reality based, and explain nothing. If myth is reality, why doesn't the Greek order of the gods and their arrangement in the night sky explain astronomy for our modern times?
The function of faith is diminished by forced attachment to the un-attachable. The dancing, the jiggling of facts to make them enjoy a happy union with belief is endless, needless, and futile. Enjoy the myths as wonderful stories from the past, accept science (with its limitations), employ faith to cope with death and live life to its fullest! Eat (keep clear of "health" foods), drink (only good stuff), cultivate happiness (faith is part of that), for tomorrow we do die.
Is it possible to be so enamored at how things came to be that we lose sight of their meaning? Sometimes I am tempted to say, what difference does it make, if we aren't asking the right questons. What if it were a "myth" does that make its meaning less true?
For those opposed to the Bible and its stories, are you/they willing to throw out the wisdom of Proverbs, Psalms, the teachings of Christ as false? Do the ten commandments have no value in society?
Do we really think we know truth, when we are so microscopic compared to the cosmos? We have some ancient writings to learn from back from the beginning of civilization and some base their faith on it; how is that so different from the faith based on time being the same now as in the past? Do we really understand time?
There is a new scientific theory on the cosmos, that the space out there is an illusion or a hologram. Could that be just as valid?
Good point, Ella M. the time may come when current understanding of physics, astronomy, geology and related sciences will be dismissed as an interesting, misdirected, relic from the past just as we peer back and discount the ancients explanations and conclusions. As I wade through the available materials on these subjects I'm also in search of for the meaning. The one constant, driving the search for meaning, is the unwavering arrow flying from time of the ancients to our time is death. They and us, in spite of passing eons, share exactly the same, unmodified, issue of death. Comprehension or resolution is no closer than ever. We live by myth just as the first humans did. That is, there is/must be some value and meaning for popping up of our minuscule personal collection of atoms for a brief peek at the universe. Faith is the internal "language" of myth and provides the "popping up" moment of existence with hope.
So current comprehension of the universe has moved the science goal posts, but existence as purpose has not budged a smidgen. So, what meaning have I discovered? So far, only that the search is exhilarating! Just as Einstein's cosmological constant turned out possibly to be viable after all, maybe the God of the Gaps might be revived somewhere in the wild world of quantum theory! So far, dream on!
Bugs Larry. i am inconsistent in my praise of you. One day i agree with your wisdom, the next, not so much. Sorry Bro, but millions, perhaps billions of human
creatures disagree with your summation of "attachment to the unattachable is needless and futile". You would give a dog a bone to gnaw on, wouldn't you?? So why not speak a positive word for the FAITH, whatever it be "attached to", to those who derive comfort and solace from their faith, in a harsh cruel world where
claw and fang, beheadings and torture is before their eyes, daily. It lets them go to their promised land in peace, and thats a good thing.
"The function of faith is diminished by forced attachment to the un-attachable." (Science and faith).
I subscribe to Pauls' definition of faith as: "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". Faith then, is a way of encountering the ultimate (God) without attachment to proof, verification, or scientific reasoning. It's an exercise of the mind on a personal level. My contention is that the attempt to prove a faith stance through concrete verification is futile and results in endless contradictions and inescapable futility . The lack of a verification requirement in the quote above means to me it isn't necessary or even possible. So one can have all the arguments they want about the accurate nature of Biblical stories as long as it isn't an attempt to buttress faith. Faith is not discredited regardless of the outcome. So the solace, guidance, ability to face a cruel world, and hope for a final solution to death, humanity finds in faith is the balm needed to survive. Me too.
I believe there is something better ahead (that doesn't create truth, however, just my hope), the Christ story, all of it, nourishes my hope (the substance of my hopes). I don't care about the details (my reliance on things not seen) since I can't see things not seen. That is where I rely of on God as love (I don't care for Super Guy) to handle the details.
As I detailed on a previous post, one of my roommates, who left Adventism years ago, fairly recently joined the Church of Christ. Though that is a step I could never take, I congratulated him on finding a way to enhance his faith.
See, Earl, I'm pro-faith!
The function of faith doesn't depend or rely on science. And it shouldn't, it can't and it won't.
Good statement!
There is no reason for faith to deny fact. It is my impression, Earl, that you are a person of great faith, and that your faith is a joy and solace to you. I would not advocate that anyone attempt to diminish your faith.
At the same time, there are some stories that have been told that do not need to be believed or defended. I think your faith is big enough to accommodate any facts that exist and that there is no need to try to change or explain away really strong evidence.
One of the reasons faith is important, I think, is that our access to facts and very strong evidence is limited, along with our abilities to understand what is true and why things are as they are.
Thanks Larry and Joe. my faith is built on a solid ROCK, Jesus Christ. my foot will not be moved. i was speaking for the untold numbers who frequent this Blog who are not active participants. Your friendship and participation is greatly appreciated.
I am not a geologist, I am a diagnostician trained and daily practiced in trying to explain to patients what is causing their signs and symptoms (and hopefully how to treat them).
Geologists have not explained to universal satisfaction of other geologists a single theory answering all the facts of this huge wonder. You can NOT see all the Grand Canyon from any airplane, you would have to be in the Space Shuttle to be high enough to see all of it (277 miles long) at one time. But all of us can see part of it, from a helicopter, airplane, from a few miles hike along the rim, to days or weeks or months of hiking or boating the Colorado river in its base. So I am not promoting a single theory of how the Grand Canyon was formed.
Nor am I requiring that the ages proposed by science for the different layers are all correct. I am a generalist and taught to look at the whole patient, not just one specialized part of a patient. So I am giving a broad overview of the Grand Canyon, not a detailed analysis of it. But the broad view is clear that it could not, as others have pointed out, have happened in any short single Noah flood. In one year or 10 years of 100 years. That is the broad overview, irregardless of any of the many details.
And the broad view is that there was plenty of plant and animal death by the millions and billions of organisms, long before humans appeared on earth, with apparent benefit to creating a planet suitable for Eden and for our lives post Eden. Theologically this means that while Adam's fall brought human death on us, animal and plant death came from the fallen created beings on earth before God started creating on His Day One, Satan and company.
I am able to study and read "creation myths" and find that the Bible is absolutely unique from all of them from the Koran to the Egyptian Creation Stories, to the Babylonians. I am enough of a diagnostician to see a huge difference in style and content. And while all testify that there was a creation and a Creator, none of them apart from the Bible are coherent and realistic. The pagan stories while interesting are fantastic and humanistic, with gods in our image, and men as their slaves. Only one creation myth presents an orderly intelligent pattern of creation, and a noble motivation for creation compatible with an orderly, intelligent, and loving God worth worshiping.
While Moses was educated by the Egyptians he does not just retell the Egyptian Myths. While he may have learned of the older Babylonian Myths, he does not repeat their simplistic, humanistic motivation of fallible gods squabbling. Scripture is noble, uplifting, and rational.
It is also incomplete and an outline, not a detailed exposition. It is a human story with human words, but it is not just another creation myth in my opinion. As a poem, as a song, as an outline of Creation, I consider it remarkable that this sacred song, written thousands of years before anyone studied the Grand Canyon, or considered the meaning of a fossil, it has the outline right. No other creation myth that I have ever seen does that.
Interpreting the Bible literalistically and simplistically as I have previously done, obviously doesn't fit what the evidence before our eyes sees. We have tried and failed to make a 144 hour creation and 6,000 year history of life on earth fit the evidence. It is obvious that my previous interpretation of Genesis is severely damaged by the evidence. But letting the scientific evidence help me understand the Genesis myth, only makes the creation poem, the creation song, more honest, it makes the Bible truer, when we see the Days were stages, and the Nights were conflicts, in preparation of earth as we find it today. That our human week is a memorial of the ancient Creation Week of God's time.
I admit that I am a concordist, trying to make myths that claim to be information from supernatural sources inform our interpretation of nature, but also letting information from God's second book, the book of Nature inform my understanding of the Bible. And I'm enjoying the result. The Bible and Ellen White helping me understand who created and why, and nature helping me understand how and when.
"Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders." (Martin Luther at Wurms and Jack Hoehn at the Grand Canyon).
By the way–in the last photo in the essay, the small one next to the last paragraphs,
There is an adult human standing at the edge of the Canyon on the top of the rim at the right of the photograph. You won't see him without a magnifying glass or zooming up the page on your computer. But that human's height compared to the size of the Grand Canyon, shows how important my little ideas are in comparison with the huge information before me. Very small ideas, about a very huge Canyon. Very small ideas about a very huge God. Grand Canyon is humbling. I offer this essay in that spirit.
How small we are, and how little we know! There is, all around us, a lack of certainty. Sometimes it is as if we are adrift. How can we cope? What can we do? Is there nothing certain we can hang onto?
What do we make of the Grand Canyon? Can we, will we, ever know for sure, exactly how it came into existence?
Humans have invented some ways of reducing uncertainty and anxiety through science and religion. Both of them can help us feel less adrift or at the mercy of unseen or unknown forces.
Scientific studies of physical characteristics of the canyon do not yield uniform results for all locations. The canyon is complicated. No simple explanation explains everything satisfactorily. Science and scientists have limits. It should come as no surprise at all when scientific studies raise more questions than answers. The point of science is to examine what can be examed and to attempt to understand from such glimpses what might have happened. Don't expect more of science than it can deliver.
Faith is another way of coping with uncertainty. I could have faith that regardless of the uncertainties, everything will turn out alright in the end. That can be comforting. My faith can be that there is a personal and all powerful Designer and Creator and Force who loves me and is watching out to be sure I come to no harm. That can be fulfilling.
Neither science nor faith can provide detailed or satisfactory answers to all imaginable questions. There is a sense in which each aspires to provide some level of confidence and optimism. Positive feelings come from illusions of understanding–whether the understanding is accurate or not.
I'm not so sure knowledge exists without some element of faith, nor that faith can exist without some knowledge. While I aspire to obtain reliable knowledge through the use of scientific methods, I do not expect what I find to be perfectly true and free of error. But I do try to be as honest and objective as I can be and to design methods of obtaining information such that the information is pretty trustworthy. I do not expect myself or anyone else to be error free. I expect to find some results that are contrary to my previous expectations.
To have faithful certainty about God's love and protection is not the same thing as having certainty that everything in the world aligns with ancient stories or traditions. One can believe (if one can) that God loves them, without believing that God has provided exact details about earth's history and origins in ancient writings. There is no need to bring faith and fact into conflict. There is no need to put God in a box.
Joe,
I was very moved by your comments above. I can see an openness that has developed in your comments over time.
Ella
Jack,
"I am not a geologist, ….
"So I am giving a broad overview of the Grand Canyon, not a detailed analysis of it. But the broad view is clear that it could not, as others have pointed out, have happened in any short single Noah flood. In one year or 10 years of 100 years."
So I am correct that your blogs are not about considering scientific evidence against the biblical account or the visions God gave Ellen White. They are instead about the promotion of a philosophical agenda irregardless of what the scientific evidence, the Bible, and the SoP say. And that leaves me with the question: Why? Why stubbornly cling to the idea that the Grand Canyon formed over long ages when the striking lack of erosion between layers makes such a view impossible? Why cling to that idea when you haven't properly analyzed the evidence on either side of the question, and when you aren't conversant in the Flood models that Bible believing scientists have proposed? Why?
"It is obvious that my previous interpretation of Genesis is severely damaged by the evidence."
What evidence are you referring to? You already said that you aren't giving a detailed analysis of any evidence. And you certainly haven't addressed the strong evidence against "the infidel supposition, that the events of the first week required seven vast, indefinite periods for their accomplishment " (3SG 91) that we find in the striking lack of erosion between the layers of the Grand Canyon.
If the layers were laid down over millions of years, we would see significant wind and water erosion between layers, especially when evolutionists and skeptics who hold kindred views assert that 10's of millions of years passed between the laying down of one layer and the laying down of the next. The erosion simply isn't there. Therefore, these layers were laid down so rapidly, there wasn't time for erosion to occur between layers.
You will always be able to find holes in every scientific explanation, endeavor, and theory. But put your evidence for the Genesis story on the fulcrum across from current geological explanations. In truth, there is no evidence to support the Genesis story. Jack has done considerable reinterpretation to harmonize the two, which is fine. But he obviously doesn't attempt to neutralize what any fool can see with his own eyes, verified by geologists, that the layers, formations, uplifts, continental drift, the Grand Canyon creation, and all the rest took eons to produce. Divorce yourself from the compulsion to defend the indefensible, a young earth covered by water (where did a quantity to cover the whole earth come and go?) to account for all the worldly upheavals that one can see. Faith doesn't depend on a literal view of an errant scripture.
Faith doesn't depend on a literal view of an errant scripture.
"In truth, there is no evidence to support the Genesis story."
Why resort to dishonesty when supporting your pet theory? I have repeatedly pointed out the striking lack of erosion between the layers of the Grand Canyon, and that that points to rapid deposition of those layers. You then try to pretend that there really is significant erosion between layers, since you now calim that that evidence does not exist, even though everyone in the world can tell from photographs that there is no significant erosion between layers.
Bob, Jack is not your problem. Ellen White is your problem. I love Ellen White, she has blessed me many times with spiritual illumination and guidance. She has however given us bad information on dangers from masturbation, dated information on use of medicines (true then, but not todayJ), and she used in her messages to 19th century people 19th century theories on fossilized giants, origin of races, cause of volcanos, age of the earth, length of God's creation days and age of the earth. She was a good woman, and God used her to direct the Adventist Movement. In later life she publically stated she was not a prophet, but a messenger. Her supporting children and grandchildren have publically affirmed that she was not to be taken as a divine authority on dates of history. I wish they had been courageous enough to admit she was sometimes quite wrong. She surely had visions. But she interpreted what she was shown, sometimes it is clear she misinterpreted them.
Believing that life happened by itself with out direction from a supernatural source of information, intelligence, is infidelity. Believing that life happened in a recent 144 hours of creation about 6,000 years ago is even more dangerous. It is making Ellen White more important than the evidence God has left us to see in the earth. Please study the fallibility of the Spirit of Prophecy as closely as you study possible evidences for a young earth. There is a new Encyclopedia of Ellen White available, and an even more unbiased evaluation in a new book on Ellen White from Oxford University Press. Study them with your respect and appreciation for Ellen White, and you will learn that you must not make Ellen God the voice of God in perfection. Let Ellen be human, our "Sister" White, not the "Reverend Immaculate Inerrant Voice of God on Earth" White we have been in danger of promoting. Adventists have long been in danger of cherishing in spiritual pride a secret source of insider knowledge what lets Adventists be right while all the rest of the world is wrong. Let's come clean and offer the world insights into the character and purposes of the Creator from Sister White, not a secret source of divine information about geology.
No, Jack. You have that wrong. I have no problem with Ellen White. You do, and that is why you insist on attacking her in your blogs.
"But she interpreted what she was shown, sometimes it is clear she misinterpreted them."
Are you finally beginning to address my question? Are you asserting that Ellen White minterpreted the vision she described in 3SG 90 ff.? Are you asserting that God really showed her that the days of creation were long ages, but that she so drastically misinterpreted it that she thought God had shown her that the days of creation were really 24-hour days, and that any idea to the contrary was a most dangerous and most insidious form of infidelity, the worst kind of infidelity?
It appears that this is indeed what you are asserting. Therefore, a follow-up question is: If this is how radically errant you believe inspiration can be, how can we believe anything at all that the Bible or Spirit of Prophecy says? If a prophet can say black when it is really white, and God never corrects that prophet even if they live on for another 51 years, how can we trust any description of any divine vision or dream?
"Believing that life happened by itself with out direction from a supernatural source of information, intelligence, is infidelity."
And so is proposing that the days of creation weren't really days (see the vision described on 3SG 90).
"Believing that life happened in a recent 144 hours of creation about 6,000 years ago is even more dangerous."
Jack, why would you say such a thing? It makes you look like some sort of radical extremist. Do your local church and pastor know that you've gone this far, that you are now publicly proclaiming that believing the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy is more dangerous than atheism and deism?
"It is making Ellen White more important than the evidence God has left us to see in the earth."
What evidence? Remember, you said you're not here to analyze evidence. But let's be plain about the matter: You're making more important the conclusions of skeptics than the explicit statements God has sent us in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. And again I ask: Why?
"Please study the fallibility of the Spirit of Prophecy as closely as you study possible evidences for a young earth."
Nothing I recall seeing, other than your blog here, suggests Ellen White so radically misinterpreted a vision that she thought black was white and white was black, and that God never corrected her despite her living on for 51 more years. You are going far beyond simply suggesting that Ellen White was not infallible. You are attacking the prophetic gift itself.
Let's consider some basic information that any child will learn in high school geology class. I don't know, maybe they don't teach geology in high school anymore. But this is not hard to understand.
One of the most remarkable features of the living world is that the majority of living organism are too small to be seen with the maked eye. We are now, through advance microcopy, able to see much more of the Creator's handiwork.
A bucketful of sea water taken from the mid-oecean contains thousands of tiny marine organisms–thousands of different species of miniature floating shellfish
Most of these are either Foraminifera and Coccolithophores having shells of calcium carbonate. These die and accumulate on the seafloor forming a 'clalk-ooze' which eventually solidifies to become chalk. The chalk hills and cliffs of south-east England are composed almost completely by Foraminifera and Coccolith micro fossils.
The other group of these creatures is Radiolaria and Diatoms. These have shells made of silicon dioxide and form a brown ooze and later lithifies to be flint or chert.
Tests have been done, in the lab, you might say. In the Pacific ocean there is ooze over 5000 miles wide and average depth of 1500 feet. The rate of death and ooze formation and lithification is known. No matter how you speed up this process one can't get the math allow the world chalk formations to logically happen in a few thousand years.
The Bahama banks are made of limestone know as Dolmite–18000 feet down. The Banks can not be made of fossil material that grew somewhere else and deposited in a heap. It formed there. It is made of organism, corals that grow only in shallow water and they grew and died generation after generation right there.
Take rivers! We can measure the rate of deposition as rivers dump continental sediments in their basins. The greatest thicknesses occur near the moths of large rivers In regions around the delta of the Mississippi, geologists working for oil companies have measured the thickness of the sedimentary rock formed at its mouth to be over 7 miles. 7 miles!! The crust is slowly sinking under this weight; its like a pit that keeps getting deeper and deeper. It is sinking at a rate of one or two inches per year under two million tons deposited every day.
One could never make the math of this process fit a few thousand years no matter how you want to tweak it.
There are anomolies in trying to date things. I do not trust the orthodox dates of the age of this or that strata either. But what is clear is that the earth and life has been here much much longer than 6000 years. We have historical records going back further than that.
We could talk about the yearly layers of summer and winter rings in ice cores in the Artics. Truly amazing!
My thing is, we are putting stumbling blocks in the way of educated people, preventing them from believing in Scripture due to our mis-interpretations which are obviously not the case regarding this 6000 years thing.
If all limestone and chalk deposits precipitated out of seawater, and if seawater today is already pretty much saturated with CaCO3, then how do you explain how the limestone and chalk deposits formed? We can't just assume that uniformitarianism is correct. We have to think through its implications. Flood models don't have such challenges if the fountains of the great deep consisted of highly mineralized waters.
"The Banks can not be made of fossil material that grew somewhere else and deposited in a heap. It formed there."
Why do you say this? Scientists by 1981 recognized that coral reefs could "grow" seemingly overnight during violents storms as the storm broght coral together from different localities.
~~Hi Bob, “Scientists by 1981 recognized that coral reefs could "grow" seemingly overnight during violents storms as the storm brought coral together from different localities.” This is interesting, but I would have to see documentation for such a thing. I am not saying you made this up, but real proof that see coral reefs grow so quickly. Sea coral growth rates are well documented and it is not a quick process.
The worlds calk deposites are not precipitated out of seawater are better the micro-fossils of mostly calcium carbonate which consists essentially of detritus from calcareous algae, coccospheres. and foraminifers. Precipitate calcium carbonate would be the smallest source of these chalk beds.
These white chalk cliffs dominate many parts of the landscape from southwest England eastwards into Kent. The chalk passes under the English Channel and way into continental Europe. The edge of this chalk also stretches diagonally across the UK landscape from Dorset up into Yorkshire.
The prevalence of chalk on either side of the English Channel means that when the sea floor (which would be the continents) were lifted out of the ancient ocean on the third day of creation, the chalk micro-fossils were exposed as the Europian plate and the British plate split.
All this chalk took some time to form!
~~Hi Bob, “Scientists by 1981 recognized that coral reefs could "grow" seemingly overnight during violents storms as the storm brought coral together from different localities.” This is interesting, but I would have to see documentation for such a thing. I am not saying you made this up, but real proof that see coral reefs grow so quickly. Sea coral growth rates are well documented and it is not a quick process.
The worlds calk deposites are not precipitated out of seawater are better the micro-fossils of mostly calcium carbonate which consists essentially of detritus from calcareous algae, coccospheres. and foraminifers. Precipitate calcium carbonate would be the smallest source of these chalk beds.
These white chalk cliffs dominate many parts of the landscape from southwest England eastwards into Kent. The chalk passes under the English Channel and way into continental Europe. The edge of this chalk also stretches diagonally across the UK landscape from Dorset up into Yorkshire.
The prevalence of chalk on either side of the English Channel means that when the sea floor (which would be the continents) were lifted out of the ancient ocean on the third day of creation, the chalk micro-fossils were exposed as the Europian plate and the British plate split.
All this chalk took some time to form!
RE – Mr Lindensmith says: "Jack is not an evolutionist. He is an old earth creationist"
——
I would humbly disagree. From what I have gathered, Dr Hoehn believes that God used evolution over hundreds of millions of years to 'create' mankind. This is theistic evolution at best. He believes that for millions of years a very long cycle of life and death occurred before sin entered the world (without any scriptural evidence to support this of course), and as a result he denies a worldwide flood. Of course like all those with similar views Dr Hoehn has to also dumbed down Ellen White – but in his case I admire his diplomacy and careful wording which, as he calls it, is merely ‘disagreeing with mother’ – as opposed to those who summarily dismiss her inspired writings altogether, or relegate her to the nineteenth century.
The term 'old earth' is based on the estimated age of certain particles contained in rocks on the assumption that 1] these certain particles were there in the first place when the rock was formed, 2] these rocks formed over millions of years ago as opposed to catastrophic flood conditions and 3] the rate at which these rocks formed was in current real-time time. These basic assumptions alone are passed off as concrete empirical evidence, even though there is absolutely no observed data or scientific analysis taken at the time of the rock formation or during subsequent changes that may have occurred at a later date. The fourth assumption is to assume that the elements found in the rock itself was observably an original part of the rock formation and that the rate of rock formation occurred over millions of years with these elements used for dating not being the contaminants – or – to assume the other non-datable elements found in the rock are not the contaminants that entered at a later date.
The bottom line is that these assumptions form part of a scientific worldview no matter how they may be camouflaged by scientific jargon. They conveniently support a non-God worldview to explain our origins and existence and what we can observe in the Grand World around us. To simply extrapolate the 'estimated dating' of these particles found in some rocks to mean that that is concrete scientific proof of the date these rocks were formed is reckless indeed and deceptive on the part of those within the scientific community who support this particular worldview that is without proper empirical evidence and built on mere assumptions. For Dr Hoehn (and others) to buy into such a guessing game worldview and have this as his basis for arguing deep time ‘old earth’ is just adhering to the core doctrine of evolution belief which teaches that all this took place over millions of years.
Darrel, Jack, and some others here, recognize that the "6000 year thing" does present an insurmountable hurdle to many thoughtful people who are aware of the overwhelming evidence against the young earth claim. Even though I had grown up in the church and attended church schools up through a couple of years at PUC, I was not really aware of how compelling the evidence against YEC was until I began to travel and go on to non-adventist colleges and universities. In my youth, YEC in the SDA church was a pretty tightly held and brittle tenet. When I became convinced by the overwhelming evidence that it could not be true, I felt I could no longer be a member of the church. Right or wrong, that is how I felt.
But even then, I did not see long earth or lengthy evolutionary history as a threat to Christianity or the existence of a loving God. It only meant to me that the church I had grown up in was pushing a concept that could not be accurate. If they were wrong about that, what else were they wrong about? I find it refreshing to see thoughtful adventists recognizing that the Bible does not specify a literal 6000 year age of the earth or life. It is a story about origins, much like stories from other traditions. There is no need for it to be regarded as a test of faith. When it is, it diminishes faith and turns away people who might otherwise be able to maintain and sustain faith. There simply does not need to be a fight between evolution and God. Faith in God must be big enough to accommodate all evidence and truth.
My contention Joe is that the path you’ve chosen, and where you are now—after having become convinced of your position on YEC—is the inevitable and logical conclusion that many other so-called “thoughtful people" will take and (even now) are taking: they will eventually abandon belief in God. Why should “thoughtful people" believe in God if the informational source of that very concept is so inaccurate and therefore unreliable?
(I believe that the Bible is clear that the earth existed for an indefinite period of time prior to Creation Week. Death before sin is a Biblical non-starter.)
Joe,
"… the overwhelming evidence against the young earth claim."
What specific evidence are you referring to?
What is interesting to me is that I don't ever remember being taught that the earth itself was only 6,000 years old. Maybe it wasn't discussed. By the time I took religion in college in California, they were saying that there was large time span between Gen. 1 and 2 and the earth was not young, which I think you mean by YEC. Maybe I just had teachers that were more enlightened, but never heard the earth itself was 6000 years old, so I accepted that as being the Adventist stand.
Now we do run into theological problems with life or human life being more than 6-10,000 years old. It would definitely undermind the salvation story with death before sin, and I don't have an answer for that. But do we need an answer? I have said many times, that we can get too obsessed with a literal interpretation that we ignore the meaning behind the Creation story and other Bible stories.
I can see what Jack is trying to do–there must have been a creation before. And I still think we don't know enough about the nature of time or space.
~~Ella, you have a very sensible question about death in Creation. My understanding of Paul is that death is the result of sin, but not in the way we normally view the time of the implementation of its causation. From Romans 8 I understand that The Creator, before he created, took responsibility for “all” the effects of freedom that an ‘open creation’ (free choice and Randomness resulting in sin) would unleash in human society. God did this by punishing himself on the Cross, taking the responsibility for our sin. The important point is that God did this from the beginning. “Foreordained before the foundation of the world, but manifested at the end of time for your sake." I Pet. 1:20
"The Lamb . . . was slain from the foundation of the world." Rev. 13:8
We see from these verses that The Creator, from his eternity, saw and re-acted to the sin situation before it actually ‘happened’ in the stream of earth-based time!
If this were not so then when mankind first sinned, mankind would have died “that very day.” Gen. 2:17.
Symbols of the Cross were placed on mankind before the event the symbols pointed to happened. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” Gen. 3:21
The reality of the death of Christ on Calvary was pro-actively applied to mankind in the garden, thousands of years before the event. In the same way, the effects of sin (death) were applied to nature before creation.
The Creator, before He created, would foreknow perfectly the negative outcomes due to free choice, and from the beginning He would design nature with the ability to adapt and maintain balance.
Nature was “made subject to vanity, (death) not of its own [God’s] will . . .” Rom. 8:20 which is not referring to Adam but to God.
From the beginning (outside the garden) Death and predation–“Vanity” according to Paul, would be a reality until the “restoration of all things.” Acts 3:21
The Creator, in the final day, would free nature from this “bondage and corruption.” Paul again reminds us, “The creature was made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him [God] who subjected the same in hope.” Rom. 8:20
“In Hope!” Our desire and hope for a ‘better world’ resonates with Scripture’s promises someday “. . . the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Rom. 8:21
Darrel, This is an interesting concept as you have explained it. I have always taken seriously that Christ's death was not time sensitive, but from the foundation of the world. Therefore, His death was for all who came before Him and after Him. "He died for all" is quite literal.
Now you've expanded this and given me something to think about.
Yes, the evidence in geology, in the Grand Canyon and other Earthly locales speak of a great span of Earth time. There were human like creatures and grotesque animal creatures on the earth and in the sea. Giants that lived here and died here before the first truly human had life. They lived, they died by cataclysmic events.The fossil record is available for all to see.
If one can believe that life began on earth within the past 10,000 years, given the abundant evidence
to the contrary, one can believe almost anything. To believe in a literal recent creation requires one
to deliberately ignore enormous amounts of information. I hate to see people teach others to be
ignorant while claiming to represent truth. And it is all so unnecessary!
People can believe in an awesome and loving creator God without attempting to box that God into an
untenable schedule–just to defend their own prejudices. When one packages God into
an unsupportable little framework of human device, he or she only diminishes God and erodes
the credibility of any case they make about His nature. Further they alienate sensible people
and drive them away from faith for no good reason.
Would it NOT represent any leap at all to suggest that since one who believes that life on earth began within the past 10,000 years can believe anything, that “anything” includes a belief in God?
Especially as there are ways to sugges the world (and life on it) is both billions of years old, whilst also maintaing that the world (and all life on it) were created in 6 literal 24-hour days (or in 144 hours).
"If one can believe that life began on earth within the past 10,000 years, given the abundant evidence to the contrary, one can believe almost anything."
Again, Joe, what evidence are you referring to?
Let's put it differently: Since there is a striking lack of erosion between the layers of the Grand Canyon, showing that these layers were laid down so quickly there wasn't time for erosion to occur, what alternative theories for its origin can you come up with that account for this fact, other than that life began on earth within the last 6,000 to 10,000 years?
As you're pondering that one, do remember that the Pb and He retention rates from Precambrian zircon crystals in granites dated by evolutionists at 1.5 billion years only permitted those granites to be thousands of years old. So alternative theories for the appearance of life on earth and the formation of the Grand Canyon should account for the appearance of young age in Precambrian granites. (Shall we speculate that God created everything over long ages, but created things to have an appearance of young age?)
It is sad to see how easily people paint themselves into corners. By being inflexible, and not open minded (or even "large-faithed"), they put themselves in the position of defending the indefesible. Such seems to be the situation with Mr. Pickle's critique of Dr. Hoehn, in which he reaches the following point: "…how can we trust any description of any devine vision or dream?" Indeed. Black or white. All or nothing. Blog without end.
But Joe isn’t this ‘all or nothing’ approach the path that you have chosen? What sense did it make to believe in the God that the Bible describes when the Bible couldn’t describe Earth accurately? You had eventually concluded that the Earth’s origins had been inaccurately described in the scriptural account, which had been emphasized by the church of your childhood and youth, so you decided it wasn’t for you.
As I’ve said, that was logical; but why be critical of Bob for taking an all or nothing approach as well?
Joe,
Are you intentionally misrepresenting what I wrote, or did you misunderstand it? I'm not the one who painted myself into a corner. Jack has. Jack is the one who earlier claimed to believe that Ellen White received visions from God. Jack is the one who now claims that Ellen White so radically misinterpreted, mis-saw, or mis-heard what she was shown or told in vision in 3SG 90, and that God never corrected her, despite having 51 years to do so.
It is simply a natural conclusion of such a position that nothing recorded in the Bible or the Spirit of Prophecy is reliable. Everything potentially could have been misinterpreted and never corrected. If Jack's position wasn't so extreme, then maybe this wouldn't be the case. But it's kind of like Rome's claim that it changed one of the 10 Commandments. If she really can do that, then what else can she do? Just about anything she pleases. Similarly, what else might be misinterpreted and never corrected? Just about anything, despite God promptly correcting Nathan and making sure Balaam only said what he was supposed to say.
But maybe Moses misinterpreted what he wrote about God correcting Balaam, and maybe the writer of the correcting of Nathan misinterpreted that too, such that neither correction really happened. Or maybe God considered telling David he could build the temple a far, far worse mistake than Ellen Whtie's enrdorsement of something Jack says is more dangerous than atheism or deism, the idea that the days of creation were really days.
Bob,
I am trying to think if EGW ever actually saw in vision anything having to do with geology, biology, dating, or anything to do with the earth. I can't think of such. Much of what she said in these areas echo the beliefs of the day, like the cause of earthquakes, and are no longer credible. The term "I was shown" can mean anything from reading about something or feeling directed to a source. She seemed to believe many of the ideas of the time. Maybe these things are not important to know, but what they mean. Are days more important than creation itself? Is Sabbath more important than what it represents–Christ Himself our Rest.
Hi Ella.
"I was then carried back to the creation and was shown that the first week, in which God performed the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week" (3SG 90).
"Carried back" certainly doesn't sound like simply reading something. And I am unaware of her writing anything about the cause of earthquakes that has since proven to be unsound.
The reason why she might seem to believe the ideas of her time regarding creation is that a larger segment of the population than today believed what the Bible said about such things. And the days of creation are an inseparable part of the event itself: If the days aren't days, then God didn't create the world in the way that He said He did, by just speaking everything into existence, death existed before sin, etc.
Natural things and spiritual -who separates those two…
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude.
Elizabeth Barret Browning, from Aurora Leigh
~~Hi Bob, my post above would not work, so I will come to the bootom
“Scientists by 1981 recognized that coral reefs could "grow" seemingly overnight during violents storms as the storm brought coral together from different localities.” This is interesting, but I would have to see documentation for such a thing. I am not saying you made this up, but real proof that see coral reefs grow so quickly. Sea coral growth rates are well documented and it is not a quick process.
The worlds calk deposites are not precipitated out of seawater are better the micro-fossils of mostly calcium carbonate which consists essentially of detritus from calcareous algae, coccospheres. and foraminifers. Precipitate calcium carbonate would be the smallest source of these chalk beds.
These white chalk cliffs dominate many parts of the landscape from southwest England eastwards into Kent. The chalk passes under the English Channel and way into continental Europe. The edge of this chalk also stretches diagonally across the UK landscape from Dorset up into Yorkshire.
The prevalence of chalk on either side of the English Channel means that when the sea floor (which would be the continents) were lifted out of the ancient ocean on the third day of creation, the chalk micro-fossils were exposed as the Europian plate and the British plate split.
All this chalk took some time to form!
FIW: On posting, I've found if I open up multiple replies, sometimes posting malfunctions and the post goes in the wrong place. Your post appears twice above as well, as mine have done before.
The class I took at Southern in 1981 on creation/evolution covered how our scientists looked at Capitan Reef, and then tried tweaking environmental conditions to speed up coral growth. They succeeded in doubling the growth rate from what I recall. The professor teaching the class had been part of the team working on this. In the meantime a storm at sea caused a reef to suddenly increase in size, and I recall him saying that scientists had since determined where this part or that part of Capitan Reef had come from before an ancient storm had slammed material together to form the present formation.
My inadvertent mistake or imprecision on the precipitation of CaCO3 from seawater, but the question remains. Where did the creatures get the CaCO3 to form the deposits you refer to? From seawater. If seawater is presently pretty much saturated with CaCO3, such that the deposits we now see couldn't all dissolve in today's seawater, how did the deposits form to begin with? Flood models that call for the fountains of the great deep to be highly mineralized have no such conundrum.
In the dying days of any system of thought that has long outlived its usefulness or wide spread support, it's last also dying supporters become even more extreme in their protestations of how "truthful" is the almost extinct system. Such were the believers in Osiris and Isis in the late Roman Empire. Such is the case with current believers in a young earth and young life on earth who have such vested emotional attachment to such a view. Onlookers need to feel sympathy for such individuals.
It's curious how often closed minds dedicated to discredited positions urge all to have an open mind!
Indeed, Larry, how true! I immediately read Erv's statement, and thought, "You mean like neodarwinism, naturalism, and catastrophic AGW?" Such generalizations, because they are so subjective, and issued with blinders on, do nothing to actually advance an argument, but only serve to keep us smug in our own cocoons.
I appreciate that both Darrel and Bob have knowledge and understanding on the issues they are discussing that is way over my head. And I have been educated by both. Simply disparaging data or arguments which we are unwilling or unable to engage with or refute, because they appear motivated by a desire to advance conclusions we reject, may make us feel emotional satisfaction. But isn't it really a waste of space? Is the fact that you and Erv think Bob Pickle is closed-minded and uninformed of any value at all to readers of this thread? Heckling is poor form, even when it takes the shape of bien pensant tropes.
Ervin,
I take it from your comments that you have the answer which has thus far alluded Jack to this question: If the layers of the Grand Canyon were formed over millions of years, and since evolutionists assert that the contact point between layers sometimes represents 10's of millions of years, why is there a striking lack of wind and water erosion between layers?
It is unworthy of a scientist to ignore evidence and resort to belittling and pontification.
I congratulate Mr. Pickle on at least focusing on a very interesting geological phenomenon which several GRI and other young earth/young life advocates have focused upon. Geologists have examined a number of these contact zones and have documented small erosional features. Nevertheless, there will always be a small subset of phenomenon in any field which do not fit exactly the overall generalizationals of normative science at any one time. Unlike a fundamentlist theology which, of course, must, by definition, know the "truth", a scientific approach looks for additional data. In many cases, what was an anomaly turns out to produce some additional research, which has produced a better model of what has happened. Such was the development of plate tectonics. Just as halos in zircons were viewed as a hopeful piece of evidence of a rapid creation and originally classed as a minor anomaly, further research produced enough data to show that the observations demonstrated that there were small cracks along which ground water could travel carrying certain radioactive isotopes which then produced the halos. The geological observation concerning non-conforming contact zones are in the class of "a small anomaly" which have been and are continuing to be studied.
Ervin,
Could you answer this question for us? Have you ever read Gentry's peer-reviewed, published reports on Po halos? I ask this because you refer to halos in zircons, and I don't recall any published reports about halos in zircons. So I just wonder if you've never really read his reports in a careful way, carefully examining the evidence they present.
I will remind you that Po halos are found in regions of fluorite and biotite crystals where there are no such cracks as you propose. And do recall the published experimentation which failed to reveal any excess fossil alpha recoil tracks near halo centers, demonstrating that there had never been any flow of isotopes toward the halo centers. Since in coalified wood, a best-case scenario involving water-soaked wood, only Po-210 halos formed, how in the world could isotopes ever make it into solid rock in time to form Po-218 halos, especially since Rn-222, Po-218's precursor, is inert?
Thank you for acknowledging that the striking lack of erosion between layers at the Grand Canyon is an anomaly for which evolutionists do not yet have a satisfactory answer. That should settle the matter as far as whether there is evidence supporting a contrary view to what Jack has presented here. The question is what weight shall we give that evidence. Any anomaly that doesn't fit conventional theories has the potential of causing a scientific revolution, and this particular anomaly is visually inescapable, even if you're sitting in an airplane high overhead, given its immensity.
Bob,
Seeing you are such an authority on the GC and its erosion patterns.
I'm wondering if you could offer a YEC based chronological explanation of the multiple lava flows into the GC that have taken place.
You may care to include data and explanations of how the multiple lava dams (over a dozen) and their subsequent erosion, with resultant lava cliffs etc, or their catastrophic failure/s, can also be fitted in to some kind of post flood YEC chronology.
Chris,
Could you post links to pictures and such of the flows you are referring to if you believe they cannot possibly fit into the following description?
"And because they became satanic in their nature, rather than divine, the Lord sent the flood of waters upon the old world and the foundations of the deep were broken up. Clay, lime, and shells that God had strewn in the bottoms of the seas, were uplifted, thrown hither and thither, and convulsions of fire and flood, earthquakes and volcanoes buried the rich treasures of gold, silver, and precious stone beyond the sight and reach of man. Vast treasures are contained in the mountains" (2MR 307).
Bob,
I'm sure you're a skilled surfer (google one), and there are images aplenty of the varying lava flows in and on the GC. You should be fully informed about them if you know anything more about the GC than the old YEC favourite: (The Great Unconformity)
Even if one were to believe the quote you gave above, logic would demand that flood/fire, earthquake/volcano, flood/volcano are going to leave very obvious signs of sequence or timing because of their conflicting nature of effect on geology and geography. Combine this with YEC's view of rapid rock formation of the canyon followed by erosion and I am wondering how such a sequence would happen.
You may also like to include any relationship of the sequence to the absence of vertebrates among the fossils of the "ocean floor communities" of the GC strata, when vertebrates inhabit today's ocean floors; and how the different kinds of sediments in the GC (limestone, sandstone, shales, mudstone, siltstone etc) found their way to North Arizona/GC as a restult of one catastrophe as described in your quote, and ended up so neatly stratified with little mixing? Not to mention the apparently marine/arid events/eras displayed in the Canyon walls.
So, back to the question. A YEC based chrononlogical explanation of the lava flows, dams, erosion or catastrophic failures etc, would be of great interest.
Again, Chris, please post links to pictures and such of the flows you are referring to. You specifically referred to subsequent erosion of the flows in question, and yet at the same time you appear to admit that there is a striking lack of erosion between layers. So I am unsure what "subsequent erosion" you are referring to if you admit that there is no significant erosion between layers.
Because of the striking lack of significant erosion between layers, we can conclude that the length of time for deposition was very, very short. That should not be a conclusion limited to simply YEC, unless, of course, "science" is strongly influenced by prejudice, philosophy, worldview, subjectivity, etc.
Chris,
Would you have any comments on the article at http://www.icr.org/article/excessively-old-ages-for-grand-canyon-lava-flows/ ?
I searched for "Grand Canyon" on that site and found, amongst other pages, a page of links which included a link to http://www.icr.org/articles/view/4468/259/ which is an anstract of a linked PDF addressing, I think, the very question you are raising.
Bob,
The article by Austin looks at dating, not sequence or chronology. (you will find criticism of his dating argument here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-science.html) But, I'm not asking about dating as such.
The other also fails to address key issues raised.
Here are a couple of examples.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7521
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/oldroot/volcanoes/volc_images/north_america/uinkaret.html
Chris,
Could you mention which points you personally found compelling in the apologetic talkorigins website article?
I see it faults Austin for how he selected his samples, but isn't that a basic argument against radiometric dating, that it's highly subjective and depends on rejecting any dates that don't fit? Note that the author admits that "Leeman's paper" had "sufficient scatter."
btw, you ask about erosion.
Yes, I did refer to the issue. And yes, I am asking about erosion of lava flows. I've not indicated how much did or did not take place. I'm asking you for a chronology of the events.
I'm not saying there is a "striking lack of erosion" between the layers. It is just as possible that the "missing" layers are "striking evidence OF erosion". These (missing) layers in fact do appear in some other examples of the geologic column, so their absence in the Disconformity may not be evidence of their non-existence, but of their complete erosion in that location.
But, that it getting off my point. I'm interested in your chronology of YEC flood events which can accomodate these lava flows, walls, dams, etc in and on the GC..
Chris,
Can you point to anywhere on the globe where erosion today removes material in a flat sheet, without leaving behind valleys, gorges, ravines, and canyons? If not, then I don't think your proposal for explaining the striking lack of erosion between layers makes sense. For one thing, it would go beyond uniformitarian principles and would perhaps therefore be in the realm of the miraculous.
As far as the lava flows go, I'm unsure exactly what you're driving at. I would simply say that the lava flows that overflow the canyon walls occurred after the canyon walls formed, and that if there has been erosion since, it happened since. I don't understand what specific problems you see that wouldn't fit into a YEC/flood scenario.
If you believe that erosion can repeatedly, over millions of years, remove material in flat sheets without leaving behind canyons or valleys, when nothing of the sort occurs today, and when nothing of the sort occurred when the Grand Canyon itself was eroded, then it shouldn't be difficult to believe just about anything.
more btw…
Here's a link below which may help you to understand the unconformity and that it actually lies on an angular unconformity. This would be evidence of massive erosion. NOT the "striking lack of erosion".
As for absence or presence of erosion between other layers. I suppose your conclusions that there is, or is not, enough can only be based on a blind acceptance of uniformity! Something that would really surprise me for a YEC'er who in every other instance would deny uniformity…
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105b/images/gaia_chapter_6/unconformities.htm
Chris,
The GRI video Evidence about the Grand Canyon covered the angular unconformity, but that isn't what I've been talking about when I speak of flat layers one on top of each other, with little or no erosion between layers.
I am unaware of any Flood model that calls for a suspension of the laws of erosion, or any reason why such would be necessary. If the Flood's purpose was to destroy the world, then that purpose could only be achieved if the water that gushed forth did indeed cause erosion.
However, the evolutionary model does indeed require a suspension of the laws of erosion, a suspension of how water and gravity behaves, in order for the layers to be flat one on top of another, with the contact points between them representing sometimes an alleged 12 million or 100+ million years. Yet such a suspension contradicts evolution's foundational presupposition of uniformitarianism.
Tell me, Bob, Trevor, and Stephen Foster –
How does the tenacity with which you cling to Biblical literalism, when it comes to creation/flood issues, impact the way in which you live, or the manner in which you respond to God's Spirit in the quotidian paths of life that you travel?
Every path we choose has logical – though not, thanks to human freedom and the grace of God, inevitable -consequences that may lead to abandonment of faith in God. There is no path or place on earth hermetically sealed off from the temptations of evil, or the world views which it propagates and nurtures – not even a Garden of Eden or The Incarnation. Without Jesus' presumably exceptional upbringing, steeped in His own eternal purposes and divine/human encounters throughout Biblical history, the satanic seductions in the wilderness, following His baptism, would have had no logical appeal.
I happen to believe that the creation story, the Flood story, the Sabbath gift – and yes, the entirety of scripture – are revelations of an astonishing God who both created the natural order and then liberated the jewel of His creation from reflexive and logical bondage to that natural order. The SDA disillusionment and falling out that occurred in the 70's, as a result of disclosures that Ellen White was human and fallible, were the logical, though not inevitable, result of the same naturalistic presuppositions, foundational to the modern world, that emerged from the Renaissance – namely, that nature has empirically knowable form, structure, and predictability by which the veil between transcendent God and immanent natural order can be parted and overcome, so we no longer, in the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, have to take off our shoes to see the burning bush.
All I can do is hold, with an open hand, the truth abstractions which feed the convictions that I commit to with my heart and mind, trusting in God's Spirit to guide me into the truth I need for the path which I and those I encounter are on. I have two primary rational filters that I use for evaluating the truth claims that ostensibly guide the lives of myself and others: 1) How are those truth claims transforming the lives of those who contend for them and for competing truth claims? 2) What capacity for self-criticsm and "beneficial" change exists in the "tribes" that are built around those Truth claims?
Nathan,
The belief in what the Bible actually says impacts those who believe by giving them (including Bob, Trevor, and myself) the audacity/delusion to know that God will and does hear and answer our prayers; and that He will fulfill His promises, and that He can be relied upon to do what we can’t or won’t—which includes the good that we would.
Belief in what the Bible actually says that God Himself actually did translates into a belief that God can and will actually do what that same Bible tells us what He can/will do through/in us.
I’ve never met Bob or Trevor and am taking the liberty to include them. In speaking for myself, this knowledge doesn’t make me better than anyone at all. In fact, if anything, it would seem knowing it makes it less ‘excusable’ that I am not better than I am. Is that the point you are making?
On the other hand, not believing what the Bible says leaves some very confused (and confusing) as to what they believe.
Fair questions, Nate. I would second Stephen's first two paragraphs of his reply.
To me, a major issue throughout Scripture is belief/faith in God's word, from the drastic consequences of Eve's failure to the redeeming nature of Christ's success in the wilderness of temptation when He quoted, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." And so I see that same issue playing out over and over again, not excluding the 1970's through today.
The God who created something out of nothing 6000 years ago can create something out of you and me today. The biblical story of creation is a foundational truth that lies beneath the biblical reason to worship God, the biblical reason for keeping the Sabbath, the biblical promise of transformation in conversion today, the biblical promise of living throughout eternity in the earth made new, and the biblical end-time message of the three angels' message. In short, it underlies much of Adventist theology, thought, and mission.
Self-criticism? "Beneficial" change? On the one hand, the authenticity of the Word is a non-negotiable for me. Yet perhaps paradoxically and contradictorily, I certainly can't be accused of being unwilling to discuss the scientific evidence that relates to the questions at hand, and to critically examine such evidence. I think that is a happy medium, though the latter should be done with caution.
Thanks to both of you, Bob and Stephen –
I share your convictions. I guess I just don't have quite as much confidence as you in the adequacy of finite language to convey infinite, eternal dimensions of reality that are beyond human understanding or the grasp of human language. For example, I don't believe that God literally, actively "hardened" Pharoah's heart. I could go on and on with examples, many of which you would agree require "interpretation." This is where God's Spirit, reason, and experience all mix in non-formulaic ways.
But on a deeper level… the devils believe and tremble. You haven't really answered my question. You've told me how your believing impacts your beliefs. But I am more interested in how one's believing transforms his life, and the lives of those around him. In other words, what do the hands and feet of your beliefs look like, and what do they do that is beneficially different from the hands and feet of folks like me, Jack, and Darrel, whose beliefs you see as dangerously misguided? Maybe you don't know. If so, that's okay, because we don't really know each other. But just tell me how your life is singularly transformed and how the lives of others who believe as you are singularly transformed by a belief in creation literalism as scientific truth.
Well said Bob.
You’re right Nathan, we don’t know each other beyond the bounds of this cyber space; and besides, there are conceivably people who don’t believe the Bible at all who engage in more good works than all of us combined. But as for transformed/transforming lives, we are transformed by faith which includes belief that God can literally renew our minds, Nathan.
This renewing is a process for me. I occasionally think differently and react differently than I would have at one time. While some would no doubt attribute this to maturation, I happen to know better.
Let me reverse the question; since you believe some things literally, as we do—because you believe those things—how has that literal belief transformed you and others? How would your answer differ from mine? How would your answer differ from Bob’s?
I would answer you, Stephen, by telling you stories – stories that would never have happened had it not been for my faith in a creator God and a crucified, risen, living Christ. You have read some of them in comments I have made on this website. I can't think of any transformative stories in my life that are conceivably dependent upon a belief that science supports a literal 7-day creation. Do I, as a matter of faith, accept the creation myth of Genesis as God's word to me? Yes, because I believe it conveys deep, transformative truths about who God is and who I am, truths that are not affected in any way by the scientific evidence regarding the likely time periods over which our present world came into being.
Then again, there are many stories that can be told that are not based on the faith of the speaker but are explicable and/or understood by no other means than the faith of the hearer. Similar stories, or occurrences/experiences, have happened regardless of the faith of the individual(s) involved.
It seems neither of us has answered your question in a mutually satisfying manner. I still don’t understand how your belief that some things in the Bible were literally supernatural occurrences (as I do) has transformed you (or anyone) any differently than my belief that other supernatural occurrences in the Bible were literal has transformed me.
How is any story you might tell in any way different than the answers that Bob and I provided to you about how our beliefs effect other beliefs?
Nate,
I do know of an atheist now deceased who became a Seventh-day Adventist in part because there really was scientific evidence that supported the biblical accounts of creation and the Flood.
Allow me to comment on Jack’s article.
;I feel Jack is being disingenuous in this article. Firstly he highlights that scientific evidence shows a long ages creation but when asked to produce such evidence he does not. Furthermore, when Bob challenged you on the erosion of the layers, he highlighted that he was not a geologist. I think he is being unfair, sly and not consistent. He writes a plethora of articles positing theories and beliefs, but when his theories are challenged, he dodges amd says I am not a scientist, geologist etc so which is it? if you are not an expert, why write articles you cannot defend? also, if you are not an expert, how can you be so sure that this group of experts is right and this one is wrong?
The second thing I have an issue with as your self contrdictory stance on E G White. You praise her withvyour lips but your belief system and worldview are antithetical to her work. When Ellen White says the earth was made in a normal week like ours, she is not just making a theological statement, or is she reviewing scientific evidence or using deductive or inductive reasoning, but she is making an eye witness account. You are basically saying she did not see and hear what she claims she saw and heard which means you are calling her a liar or a deluded confused person. and this is based on unproven, unfalsifiable scientific evidence which you yourself admit are not educted enough to understand or defend! wow, just wow
I have always maintained that it is rationally and logically impossible to be a Christian and believe in long ages creation ( theistic evolution) for many reasons which you have yet to address in your multitude of articles so here is another chance.
1. how would you explain death before sin? No speculation please use the bible?
2. is eternal life a reality? if so based on what?
3. what did Jesus come to save us from if death was not caused by our sin?
4. if The flood was localised, you would be basically calling God a liar as he promised not destroy using the same method. but the thing is that there are many locLised floods so your God does not keep his promises right?
please try to answer these question and not dodge them like before if you want us to take your assertions seriously as a Church
These statements below by Ellen White are quite clear regarding her position on a literal reading of creation week as revealed plainly in the Bible.
(As a point of interest from what I have gathered, a number of bloggers and those commenting on these boards hold very similar views to Dr Desmond Ford on a number of issues, including his position on evolution, which I think Dr Hoehn also holds in common, with Dr Taylor as well, although, Dr Taylor in my opinion is more of a hardcore evolutionist who teaches evolution theory for a living. In addition to this, Dr Hoehn and others are very much followers of Dr Ford's view on women ordination, long age creationism (non-literal seven day week creation), Ellen White, the IJ and so forth. In fact I believe that the 'Adventist Forum' has been a long standing platform supporting Dr Ford's views and a propaganda channel for his followers to continue attacking our Fundamental Beliefs from the sidelines. It was at one such Forum meeting where Dr Ford presented his views on Dan 8:14 and the IJ which eventually led to Glacier View. As an aside, those Adventists who claim to hold true to our traditional historical positions of doctrine and faith that are now supporting WO may very well be succumbing to Dr Ford's teachings/worldviews).
Here are the Ellen White quotes:
Quoting Ellen is the last defense of true believers.
The difference between "creationists" and "evidence viewers" (my term) is the poking with tiny needles by "creationists" to drill teensy-weensy holes in the overwhelming evidence against them (look back through the posts on this forum, to verify). The contrast is that "evidence viewers" have nothing to prove. No argument or defense is necessary. Standing still is a good defense, watching the literalists Lilliputian pointy pricks bounce against a mountain of irrefutable evidence, though insipid, strike one as mildly humorous.
A literal interpretation of Genesis transported inside the feeble defensive walls of Fort Ellen reveals the utter abandonment of reality in favor of mindless hope (this is not a criticism of EGW but of the hostage takers who use her as an innocent shield-she isn't alive to adjust her erroneous statements).
Yes, I do understand the pain of facing the demise of literalism, the crush on the soul by Scriptural inerrancy scuttled. I've suffered the pain. But now there is peace. I no longer fear or agonize or grieve-over or deny, new discoveries in science, astronomy, geology, biology, and physics. Faith is not challenged or threatened by these intellectual enterprises. Only the psyches of the religious equivalent of the flat earth-ers are in peril, one of which I once was.
I don't quite follow or understand the meaning of Jack's reinterpretation (I do understand why). However he is to be admired for his clear voice on the main points of the issue.
I don't suppose for one second anything I write will budge one creationist to change course and embrace the facts. But, take it from one who once shared your experience, faith is not sullied by accepting the obvious.
Bugs,
Trevor is quoting Ellen White to show her position on the matter, which is indeed appropriate since Jack referred to her in his article.
But more importantly, you refer to "overwhelming evidence" and "a mountain of irrefutable evidence." Could you please be specific so that we can discuss what you feel is so overwhelming and irrefutable? For me, I would say that Po halos is solid evidence that has yet to be refuted, and I'm happy to discuss that. Please be specific about the evidence you feel supports your view.
May I suggest that Mr. Hammond's summary of the views of Ellen White on earth history and associated topics are representative and correct. She did hold to the views that are stated above. EGW expressed views in this area that were widely accepted among the individuals with whom she interacted. Why should we be surprised?
Dear Dr Taylor
The second quote I posted above "…that the events of the first week required seven vast, indefinite periods for their accomplishment, strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment…" shows that Ellen White did not support what Dr Hoehn has presented here and on some of his previous blogs.
That is my main reason for posting these quotes. Adventists can't sit on the fence on issues like this. They have to either believe that Ellen White was a Messenger of the Lord or that she was not. Cherry picking only makes matters worse as in the case of Dr Hoehn's position regarding Creation. Ellen White's inspired writings on this matter as well is in full harmony with what the Bible teaches.
If it is so clear cut, that one can't cherry pick (one might instead talk of contents, or understanding the limits and human element involved in prophecy), then I assume you endorse wholeheartedly the following statements also:
The amalgamation of man and beast (which we now know is genetically impossible):
"But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere. God purposed to destroy by a flood that powerful, long-lived race that had corrupted their ways before Him." Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p. 64.
That stars shine by virtue of reflecting our sun (whereas, stars are actually other suns, so they don't reflect our sun but shine in of themselves):
"As the moon and the stars of our solar system shine by the reflected light of the sun," Education, p. 14 (same statement, The Desire of Ages, p. 465).
That masturbation causes a range of illnesses, including cancer (where modern medicine knows it is not only not harmful, but actually healthly, and universal by most females and virtually every male):
"Children who practice self-indulgence [masturbation] previous to puberty, or the period of merging into manhood or womanhood, must pay the penalty of nature's violated laws at that critical period. Many sink into an early grave, while others have sufficient force of constitution to pass this ordeal. If the practice is continued from the age of fifteen and upward, nature will protest against the abuse she has suffered, and continues to suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgression of her laws, especially from the ages of thirty to forty-five, by numerous pains in the system, and various diseases, such as affection of the liver and lungs, neuralgia, rheumatism, affection of the spine, diseased kidneys, and cancerous humors. Some of nature's fine machinery gives way, leaving a heavier task for the remaining to perform, which disorders nature's fine arrangement, and there is often a sudden breaking down of the constitution; and death is the result." An Appeal to Mothers, April 1864
Incorrect statements about geology and volcanology (very relevant to this debate about the age of the earth):
Including statements that: coal produces oil; earthquake and volcanic action are linked together as products of these underground fires; and limestone and iron ore are connected with the burning coal beds and oil deposits.
Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, pp. 79-80 (1864); see also The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 1, pp. 82, 83 (1870); Signs of the Times, Mar. 13, 1879; Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 108, 109 (1890); Manuscript 21, 1902, cited in Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, pp. 946, 947
That women using corsets cause their children to be born themselves with thin waistes (which is like saying a circumcised male will result in his child being born circumcised, which is wrong):
"But rather than regard such forms as beautiful, they should be viewed as defective. These wasp waists may have been transmitted to them from their mothers, as the result of their indulgence in the sinful practice of tight-lacing, and in consequence of imperfect breathing." Review and Herald, October 31, 1871
A false prophecy about England declaring war in the US during the Civil War:
"When England does declare war, all nations will have an interest of their own to serve, and there will be general war, general confusion" Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 259
That some who were alive in 1856 would still be alive to see the Second Coming:
"I was shown the company present at the conference. Said the angel, 'Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus."
Theologically incorrect statements, including the daming idea of the shut door:
With Ellen White having to later admit: "I am still a believer in the shut-door theory, but not in the sense in which we at first employed the term or in which it is employed by my opponents."
Need I go on?
The point being, these issues are only a problem for the fundamentalist or fanatic, who is inclined to view Ellen White in an impossible and indeed unbiblical way. It fails to consider the fallability of a prophet and the human element in interpreting and communicating a vision. Moreover, it fails to consider the great SDA idea of present truth and progressive revelation. Finally, it provides fodder for our ex-Adventist and anti-Adventist friends, who then insist that Ellen White must be a false prophet and a charlatan.
…and for those who view falibility and the element of human interpretation "solutions" as nothing more than yet another attempt to rescue the un-rescuable – EGW is fertilizer all the way down.
Stephen, these problems are for any thinking person, not just "your" fundamentalist or fanatic!
And so the extremes on both sides crowd-out the silent majority in the middle. So goes the history of the world.
cb25
Sounds like you also see everything in stark absolutes of black and white as do your opponents, and life is not like that, niether is any realistic belief system. I don't think even Jesus as a human in his time frame understood science as we do or any of the revelations to come. Only after His resurrection and return to heaven did he have a transformed mind and body. He was perfect in love, thought, and behavior as a human being.
Steve,
That stars shine by virtue of reflecting our sun (whereas, stars are actually other suns, so they don't reflect our sun but shine in of themselves):
"As the moon and the stars of our solar system shine by the reflected light of the sun," Education, p. 14 (same statement, The Desire of Ages, p. 465).
You stated and quoted the above to show an alleged error in Ellen White's writings. Would you be so kind as to explain to us all how the "stars of our solar system," such as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Venus, "are actually other stars" rather than planets reflecting the light of the sun? I've just never heard such a claim before.
You also assert that amalgamation of man and beast is genetically impossible. I am unaware of any such limitations, and such limitations would make no sense given that they can now amalgamate fish and tomatoes, and bacteria and corn. If we can take the genes of one species and insert them into another species, crossing the boundaries of plants and animals, or bacteria and plants, then what sort of boundary are you proposing is utterly impossible to cross?
I hate to go here, but are we to believe that certain races of men upon earth are the result of cross-breeding of humans and animals?
According to Bob
I never said anything about "cross-breeding," but if you think about it, if evolutionists assert that there has been horizontal gene transfer between lizards, mammals, and amphibians in the distant past, then there really isn't any bar against horizontal gene transfer between animals and humans, according to evolution.
As far as which races might contain genes introduced in such ways, I am unaware of any research into that area. But according to evolution, such research should turn up something.
Darrell, I have had some relatives who could pass the test!
Steve,
Theologically incorrect statements, including the daming idea of the shut door:
With Ellen White having to later admit: "I am still a believer in the shut-door theory, but not in the sense in which we at first employed the term or in which it is employed by my opponents."
How careful were you when you put together this list? When she said she believed in the shut door at first, wasn't she talking about right after Oct. 22, 1844, before she received her first vision? Didn't she say she had given up that idea by the time she received her first vision? And didn't she say that she received a vision in early 1845 that corrected her understanding about the shut door?
Are you anti-the 12 apostles too because they believed the door of mercy was shut for Gentiles, and were corrected by a vision years later (not months later as in the case of Ellen White) when God told Peter to go preach to Cornelius?
Bob you mistake me. I support Ellen White and believe in her gift. I just understand her limitations. Indeed, we should only judge her by the biblical standard, which you rightly point the parallel between Ellen White's statement about the shut door and Mark 13:30.
My problem is not with Ellen White but unrealistic and unbiblical views about her. You can't use her to support scientific ages of the earth any more than one can use Isaiah to support the idea of the world being flat or the world a round disk. The visions are from God, but the words are a humans, not some grand supernatural language.
Then if you really believe in her gift, you will not have any problem accepting her statement regarding the length of creation week in 3SG 90 ff. We're not talking about "limitations" when we talk about that statement. We're talking about what she was shown in vision.
The vision is from God, but the words are hers. God is with the penmen, not in the pen.
If you accept that way of looking at it, then I assume that you also believe that the thoughts expressed by her words are God's thoughts. Therefore, I'm unsure what other point can be made from 3SG 90 than that the 6 days of creation were 6 literal days, according to the vision God gave Ellen White.
Trevor, when you post statements of Sister White that are demonstrably erroneous, you, yourself, are demonstrating her fallibility, and that she should not be seen as you seem to see her–and insist that
others also see her your way. Perhaps there are not only two ways to see this. Maybe she was God's
messenger–just not infallible (maybe many of God's messengers have been fallible to varying degrees).
Perhaps even yourself….
Let’s face it Joe, what you consider to be "demonstrable" and what those who disagree with your perspective view as demonstrable are clearly not one and the same. We should look at it that way.
Trevor: 'Adventists can't sit on the fence on issues like this. They have to either believe that Ellen White was a Messenger of the Lord or that she was not.'
On another point, why do Adventists have to pick? Are you saying accepting Ellen White as a Messanger of God should be a test of faith for acceptance in the SDA Church? Ellen White herself explicitly said accepting her gift should not be a test of fellowship:
"Such should not be deprived of the benefits and privileges of the church, if their Christian course is otherwise correct, and they have formed a good Christian character." -1T 328:0 (for a fuller statement, see especially pp. 328, 329, and-in 1863-"Wrong Use of the Visions," pp. 382-84).
I can't see why accepting Ellen White should be required either. She herself of multiple occassions made the point that the Bible alone is the test of faith, our own creed, for the SDA people.
As I just posted, in part, above: "Quoting Ellen is the last defenese of true believers."
Accepting Ellen White is not a test of fellowship. But engaging in active warfare against her, or publicly attacking the biblical teaching of creation, I think that ought to be grounds for church discipline.
If you read 1T 328 and such, it is talking about accepting as members those who have not yet had opportunity to test the gifts, and thus who do not yet feel free to accept the gifts. That's quite a different thing than actively warring against.
It depends on which one means by 'warring'. I would argue that liberals in the Church trying to point out Ellen White's limitations are not against her but actually her defenders. Because if one adopts the hardline of SDA fundamentalists, then it means Ellen White must effectively be a false prophet.
So then, how would you categorize Jack's interaction here? Is he simply a liberal that is warring against those who have confidence in Ellen White's messages, or is he warring against those messages themselves?
Remember, Jack here has made clear that he believes to be more dangerous than atheism or deism her statement in 3SG 90 that she was "carried back" and "shown" that the days of creation were literal days, and that ideas to the contrary are a most dangerous, most insidious, and worst kind of infidelity. I don't see how you can say that isn't warring against the message itself.
I don't judge Jack. I can only speak for myself.
I doubt it's really 99.9%. Any surveys been done?
Her statement about creation week being like any other week is in terms of earth time. So I don't see how the theory of relativity helps at all, since both sides are talking about earth time.
You mention "overwhelming undisputable science." What exactly are you referring to? Opinions? Or tangible evidence, like what I have been referring to, the striking lack of erosion between layers at the Grand Canyon? Please be specific in your reply.
Who says? No doubt Isaiah may have thought the world an actual disk and John had four literal corners, and that is perhaps even what they saw, given God was trying to explain something that was incomprehensible.
Even if we look at the Bible itself, there are problems with the chronology. This includes the fact the sun was not created until day 4, or that there would not have been enough time in one 24-hour earth day for Adam to name all the animals. The only way out of these conundrums is to take a less than literal reading of the Bible.
As for scientific support, it weighs on my mind that the scientific consensus, according to a poll:
"A 2009 poll by Pew Research Center found that "Nearly all scientists (97%) say humans and other living things have evolved over time – 87% say evolution is due to natural processes, such as natural selection. The dominant position among scientists – that living things have evolved due to natural processes – is shared by only about a third (32%) of the public.
…An expert in the evolution-creationism controversy, professor and authorBrian Alters, states that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution".
…A 1991 Gallup poll found that about 5% of American scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
"The only way out of these conundrums is to take a less than literal reading of the Bible."
What you are really suggesting is that we not believe what the Bible says about the creation account. You aren't really proposing that we assume that the author of the creation account intended us to understand that the words he was using were symbolic.
What chronological problem do you see with the sun being created on Day 4? Why couldn't Adam have named all the animals that God brought to him on Day 6? The text specifically says that he named the animals that God brought to him.
I would not think WikiPedia to be necessarily reliable when it comes to a topic of this sort. Where did Brian Alters get that 99.9% figure from? But really, consider how large a faith community these scientists represent, regardless of their percentage, since they believe something occurred even though no one has yet demonstrated a mechanism whereby the required genetic changes can take place within the alleged time frame.
I will add that "every" in the first chapters of Genesis sometimes does not mean "every" in an exhaustive sense. For example, Adam and Eve in ch. 1 are told that they can eat of every tree, but Gen. 2 shows that there is one exception. Noah is told that he is to take 2 of every animal into the ark, but then it is later explained that the clean animals come on the ark by 7's.
So when Genesis seems to say that God brought every animal and bird to Adam and Adam named them, "every" doesn't necessarily have to mean every last animal and bird on earth. However, if all the Genesis kinds could fit on the ark, then it would not take a huge amount of time to name them all anyway.
Steve: good points, my thoughts as well, or close to them. Especially about time.
Steve Ferguson,
Your reasoning here is baffling. We’ve done this before, but again, 100.0% of biologists will tell you that a virgin could not conceive without the introduction of human spermatozoa into a human egg. 100.0% of scientists will say that it is not possible for a corpse to completely resuscitate by voice command as well.
I can understand that you think that the Biblical language was symbolic or poetic; but not because of 99.9% of scientists.
Stephen I am more satisfied with the argument that God made it appear that the earth was billions of years old, but is only 6,000 years old, than the flawed argument that 99.9% of scientists are wrong. Science is only what is observed, not necessary what is. God made Adam a grown man, not an infant.
That is what I take you to be saying, because you don't strike me as one of this more deluded people who argues the science is wrong. You seem to be suggesting whether the science is right, it only tells us what is observed, not what actually is. If so, then I am happy to largely agree with you.
I just personally think there is a possible extension of that argument as well.
Yes, to an extent you read me. The science is clear and absolutely unanimous that a virgin birth with no humanly introduced sperm to egg is 'not possible;' and the science is clear that a corpse 'cannot' be resuscitated by voice command.
While I do not believe that the science is as clear on the age of rocks related to eons, I acknowledge that it is indeed almost (as) unanimous; but that this reality does not alter or affect God’s capacities in the least.
Think of it this way, if Adam and Eve were created as full-sized adults, the same principle could apply to anything.
Or Stephen, think of it this way. If God can do anything any way He decides to do it, why could He NOT have done so across millions and hundreds of millions of years, instead of the way you thnk He did it? Maybe all those fossils from millions of years ago simply testify to His existence across deep time and are there to help you appreciate His majesty and enduring magnifcence. There are people who believe that there was a Designer who started things off waaaaay back. Their faith is not encumbered by denial that plants and animals existed 100 million years ago, and more, as the rocks reveal.
I find it difficult to take seriously belief systems that require people to deny enormous amounts of geological and paleontological evidence. It is so unnecessary. All one needs to do is expand one's faith to acknowledge that God is bigger than one thought. Or, of course, one can simply conclude, as I did, that a religion that is so deeply committed to denial of reality is not for me.
Here’s the thing Joe (and maybe Steve), I just don’t believe that it’s actually possible to determine what happened hundreds of millions of years ago here on Earth. Perhaps I should repeat that phrase for emphasis, “hundreds of millions of years ago.” I do not have faith—and it takes faith—to think that that’s possible.
I admit that I don’t know what happened millions or billions of years ago. I just do not have the faith to believe that anyone else does either.
Joe, think about it; you left Adventism. There are other Christian faith communities in which your faith in “geological and paleontological evidence” could’ve been ‘accommodated’ with ‘no problem.’ Why haven’t you followed your own advice and expanded your own “faith to acknowledge that God is bigger than one thought”?
Instead you have apparently taken another path. I maintain that your path is the logical and inevitable path for such “faith” wherein “geological and paleontological evidence” trumps scripture.
Yes, I am much happier with that sort of argument. It cuts through the pretense.
Of course that also raises its own theological problems.
Namely, why would God create a world that looks like it is 6,000 years old? And why does it looks like billions of years of suffering with various fossels? Who were these other proto-humans; did they really exist or God just created their fossels to look like they once existed? What about dinosaurs? How did the lion gets it carnivorous teeth then, if created to eat grass? Is God a trickster God?
These aren't issue for science (which I know nothing about) but issues of theology and philosophy – especially theodicy.
"Science is only what is observed, not necessary what is."
Yet no one has observed genetic changes spontaneously occurring at a rate and magnitude sufficient to produce the varieties of life we have today, within a time frame of a billion years. Therefore, by your own definition of "science," scientists who believe in evolution believe in something that goes beyond the realm of science.
Stephen, while opinions do vary on how physical reality can be demonstrated, the demonstration of spritual realities is even more elusive. Rejection of any demonstration of physical reality that disagrees with one's spirit world concept does not seem to me to be a valid criterion–but, my notion of reality just is not spirit based. So what one interprets and believes an ancient writer was meant by God to say about things that writer really had no tools for understanding nor language to convey (as was also true of the audience of the time and far into the future from the time of the writing) seems like a shaky place to anchor one's grip on reality. Why not simply admit that God only knows and not be so confident that one knows what God only knows–and let those who evaluate physical evidence go about what they do. There is no need to argue or make claims that one knows things one cannot know? If you wish to be spiritual, fine, be spiritual, but don't pretend to be able to define God or what or how He did whatever you think He did, or when.
Joe,
Perhaps I am misunderstanding this post. If “opinions [actually] do vary on how physical reality can be demonstrated,” then why don’t you take a dose of your own medicine and “not be so confident that one knows what God only knows.”
“…let those who evaluate physical evidence go about what they do.”
Who is stopping them from doing what they do Joe? I have issues when those who evaluate physical evidence argue against spirituality and scriptural authority. Let those who believe the Bible go about doing what they do too.
“There is no need to argue or make claims that one knows things one cannot know?”
One cannot possibly KNOW what happened eons ago. Does this include them? Only God knows what happened eons ago. However we cannot demonstrate that God exists.
“If you wish to be spiritual, fine, be spiritual, but don't pretend to be able to define God or what or how He did whatever you think He did, or when.”
The Bible, from whence I get my concept of God, defines God as love, and as a spirit; and it describes Him in terms of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. (That’s not me.) I just ask questions on occasion Joe I just ask questions on occasion Joe; because from what I see His existence makes all the sense in the world.
"… and let those who evaluate physical evidence go about what they do."
How do we determine whether or not the person evaluating has done what you recommend? For example, Ervin acknowledges that the lack of erosion between layers is anomalous. What if an evolutionist is the one doing the evaluating, but that evolutionist has either rejected or overlooked the demonstration of physical reality that disagrees with his or her spirit world, that striking lack of erosion?
I therefore think it highly dangerous to abdicate thinking for ourselves, to shift the object of our faith from the infallible Word of God to fallible and sometimes faithless scientists. We aren't promised any salvation if we believe in the assertions of fallible men, who more often than not have proven to be wrong.
If I go to the doctor and he suggests I take a certain treatment, do I believe the doctor? I can certainly look it up for myself on Google, but sometimes that is actually pretty dangerous, as anyone who has a cold and looks up Google has found out they seem to have the symptons for the Bubonic Plauge. Or instead do we trust the doctor, who has 6 years of professional experience, has years of experience and stays up to date with the latest peer-reviewed research?
For those who continue to be convinced that modern Adventism must adhere to what is a literalistic, fundamentalist position on earth history because that is what EGW believed, perhaps they might wish to read some other perspectives to appreciate why that position has been questioned by so many Adventist theologians and scientists. There are three books that are available that consider this issue from an Adventist perspective. They are (1) J. Hayward, editor. 2000. Creation Reconsidered: Scientific, Biblical and Theological Perspectives. Roseville: Adventist Forum, (2) Brian Bull, Fritz Guy, and Ervin Taylor, editors. 2006. Understanding Genesis: Contemporary Adventist Perspectives. Riverside: Adventist Today Foundation, and, (3) Brian Bull and Fritz Guy. 2011. God, Sky, and Land: Genesis 1 as the Ancient Hebrews Heard It. Roseville: Adventist Forum.
Erv,
To be accurate, didn't you mean to say: "For those who continue to be convinced that modern Adventism must adhere to what is a literalistic, fundamentalist position on earth history because that is what EGW shown, …"?
Otherwise, wouldn't you really be saying that Ellen White never really had a divinely inspired vision or dream, and that Advenitsm should abandon its belief in the Spirit of Prophecy?
Erv,
Do the books you list (a) describe the reasons why the authors have abandoned a biblical worldview, reasons which may or may not have to do with science, or (b) only describe justifications for the positions that naturally result from a different worldview?
For example, because of some traumatic experience, some decide that there cannot possibly be a personal God out there who cares about us, and they therefore cannot accept the Genesis acocunt and must therefore justify an alternative view. Others may decide to sit at the feet of skeptics in order to gain the credentials they desire, end up imbibing their skepticism, and then must justify evolution in order to maintain their new philosophical position.
While it may be helpful to just read the justifications, I personally think it also helpful to read the reasons why the justifications are being given. Otherwise, the picture seems incomplete when trying to figure out why scientific evidence, experminetal evidence, that supports the Genesis account is being ignored or rejected.
Mr. Pickle: If you would read the books suggested, you can then form your own opinions concerning the questions that you are asking about what is contained in the books. Or are you afraid to do so, worried that you might see the logic of some of the statements contained in these books?
Erv,
If something would be gained by reading those books, then I would consider doing so. But given that you were an editor of one of the titles, you certainly are qualified to say whether or not the books give the real reasons why the authors may have abandoned a biblical worldview, or whether they instead justify such an abandonment after the fact.
"…a nice sentiment…but not very realistic."
Cannot great faith exist alongside sanity? Must we be deliberately ignorant or engage in endless
contortions of rationalization in order to sustain faith?
If God exists at all, isn't S/He large enough and powerful enough to encompass all of reality?
“Cannot great faith exist alongside sanity? Must we be deliberately ignorant or engage in endless
contortions of rationalization in order to sustain faith?”
Why would you possibly contrast “great faith” and “sanity” if not to make the point that they are not the same?
Yeah, we know; you’re not trying to proselytize, you’re just asking questions.
(Please don’t get all offended now, brother.)
Joe are you really agreeing with Bob here? Wow
No, as before, I am not trying to change your mind or lead anyone astray or otherwise.
My point is that exactly the opposite of your conclusion. I think great faith and sanity CAN exist together. What I have difficulty understanding is why so many people of faith choose to deny and/or depart from reality, as if they thought that was God's plan for them. I just don't think one has to act nuts to believe in God. What sort of god would demand denial of reality?
Joe,
I think three times at least experiments have been conducted and the results published concerning Precambrian zircons which had been dated by evolutionists at around 1.5 billion years. And yet the Pb and He retention rates of those zircons, the amounts of Pb and He that had not diffused out of the crystals despite the high temperatures in nature they were found in, supported only an age of thousands of years.
Would you include these published results as part of the reality God would not want us to deny, despite the implications that the layers of the geologic column atop the Precambrian layers must be younger than this calculated age?
Again, at least Stephen Foster's approach to this issue seems to lack the sort of increduality of those, like Bob, who try to make a scientific argument for YEC.
Steve,
Aren't you exhibiting incredulity if you are in a "state of being unwilling or unable to believe" the peer-reviewed published results of scientific experiments that contradict evolution's conclusions? I certainly am not in a "state of being unwilling or unable to believe" that scientific data. I readily believe that the Pb and He levels in those zircons are too high for those rocks to really be 1.5 billion years old.
Just a minor correction to Mr. Pickle's statement that "Precambrian zircons which had been dated by evolutionists at around 1.5 billion years . . ." "Evolutionists" are biologists. They do not do the dating by isotopic dataing methods. That is done by geochronologists who are usually geochemists or geophysicists. It is a common misconception of YEC/YLCs that "evolutionists" do the dating. They do not. The data for biological evolution and the data that supports the age of the earth and the age of fossils come from vastly different scientific disciplines.
Erv,
I think your definition of "evolutionist" may be too narrow. It is true that Gentry's report says the age of the rock was "estimated to be 1.5 billion years old by conventional geochronology." However, the abstract of Zartman's 1979 report states, "This amount of time is also required for the whole rock to evolve essentially as a closed system from an initial lead isotopic composition similar to that of the microcline."
Zartman's use of the term is not an isolated one. Some speak of "evolution of the solar system," etc. "Evolution" is a broad theory that takes in various disciplines, not just biology.
But it was a geochronologist rather than a biologist that originally provided the date, though there probably aren't any evolutionary biologists that would dispute that date.
To clarify, Zartman's 1979 report is the citation in Gentry's report that supports the statement, "estimated to be 1.5 billion years old by conventional geochronology." Zartman is the one who did the estimating, and he believed that the rocks evolved.
Bob, one can have tangible physical existence without fully understanding it, don't you think? Not everything in the world is satisfactorily explainable, nor are all plausible explanations valid. There is much uncertainty. How do you think I would know what "God would not want us to deny?" I do not presume to know the mind of God. Your reasoning is irrational.
Joe,
In what way is my reasoning irrational?
You have above repeatedly referred to strong evidence against the biblical accounts, though you have declined to say what that evidence is when asked. You went so far as to say:
"I find it difficult to take seriously belief systems that require people to deny enormous amounts of geological and paleontological evidence."
And yet now you say that we should ignore obvious conclusions based on a variety of physical evidence, since we simply don't know everything. Are you not dramatically contradicting yourself? Which must it be?: (a) Accept obvious conclusions based on physical evidence, whether or not they agree with a preferred worldview. (b) Be wary of the interpretations of physical evidence that support differing worldviews, since we simply don't know everything, and must accept some things by faith.
The problem here isn't really whether some have an uber faith that denies reality. Such an assertion begs the question: What constitutes reality? Do the inferences which really smart people think they can and should draw from the presuppositions and methods of naturalism/materialism define the boundaries of reality?
In the present context, blanket observations that the person you disagree with is denying reality does nothing to advance the argument. Such statements are simply self-gratifying, rather childish, ways of saying, "I'm smart and you're dumb. So if I don't respond to your arguments or 'facts,' it's because they're not even worth responding to." In a recent column, George Will referred to this tactic as one of four characteristics of adolescent rhetoric. I wish it could be eradicated from the blogs and comments on AToday.
Very few of even the most fundamental creationists deny reality or even hard science. They just see reality differently and weight evidence differently. Uniformitarianism, catastrophism, punctuated equilibrium – intelligent design, random beneficial mutation leading to natural selection – none are scientifically, definitively provable as historical reality. Proponents of the various views seldom disagree about the actual science and the evidence. What they disagree about is the reasonable inferences (theories) that can and should be drawn from the evidence. And they also disagree about what type of data and information can be counted as evidence. This is not a disagreement over reality, and should not be so characterized.
For those of you who haven't read George Will's recent column about adolescent arguments, he looks at four teenage tropes – all of which should be avoided on the AToday website, for pride, if for no other reason: 1) Invocation of the straw man; 2) truncating an argument by saying that the debate is settled and over; 3) refusing to acknowledge any problems or weaknesses in one's position; and finally, 4) characterizing opponents as dishonorable, uninformed, and/or of inferior intelligence.
While I do not agree with the conclusions of those who advance the YLC/YEC arguments, my impression, in reading the comments of those who smugly denigrate the arguments, is that the latter are revealing themselves as the adolescents in the conversation.
~~Shall I suggest we move the discussion away from radiometric dating and halos to a category of evidence a little less theoretical—the fossil record itself. The interesting thing about the fossil record is that it does not fit the evolutionary theory overall and also does not fit a 6000 years period of creation.
The record is mark by abrupt appearance of different forms of life. The Cambrian explosion for example, which Darwin said was a huge problem for the very heart of his theory.
The upper part of the Precambrian is filled with stromatolites and blue-green algae. For what at least would be 1000s of years the little factories were transforming the carbon dioxide of the planet into breathable air.
Then, and only then you have the explosion of life. Nearly every Phyla or body plan—vertebrates, invertebrates, exoskeleton creatures and mollusks simply appear out of nowhere. Even Richard Dawkins states it correctly: “It is as though they [the phyla] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.” Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 229.
The fossil record continues to have these sudden appearance of different creatures. This is well known in Paleontology. The Flood nor evolution explain this.
Fossil kinds are not mixed up as some would expect to have happened during the deluge. Another problem in the fossil strata is an “increase in complexity,” overall and within Phyla. For example, within the vertebrates there is an increase in complexity from bottom to top in the “Phanerozoic portion of the geologic column. “Fish are the first vertebrates to appear, followed by amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds.” Origins Ariel Roth pg.163
I used to teach from Dr. Roth’s text to help my students understand that the sequence of the fossil record was not explained by the Flood Event, which I do believe in by the way.
But The Flood and the Ecological Zonation Theory do not explain the fossil record. Dr. Roth made this point on page 172: “The major problems facing the theory all relate to the extreme sorting of many organisms as found in the layers of the fossil record.” “The scarcity or total absence of mammals, flowering plans, and their pollen in the upper Paleozoic and lower Mesozoic are the most serious problems the ecological zonation theory must answer.”
So, what Jack is doing here, (correct me if I am wrong Jack) is attempting to make Biblical and logical sense of the evidence as we have it. Just because one does not agree with Ellen White on this time question does not mean one is an evolutionist and not a creationist.
Darrel,
I don't see what is so theoretical about halos, but consider this:
"For what at least would be 1000s of years the little factories were transforming the carbon dioxide of the planet into breathable air."
Isn't that theoretical?
"The Flood nor evolution explain this."
But a Flood that buried creatures would produce strata that contained the sudden appearance of creatures, so why can't the Flood explain this? Especially when evolutionists agree that floods are what produced much of the geologic column?
"Fossil kinds are not mixed up as some would expect to have happened during the deluge."
Are we absolutely certain that no such mixing has ever been found?
I agree that a proposal like the Zonation Theory should be able to accommodate the general sorting seen, but any other proposal should likewise be able to explain the striking lack of erosion between layers. It also should be able to explain the presence of soft tissue in dinosaur bones, something less theoretical than radiometric dating.
Hi Bob, yes well “The little factories were transforming the carbon dioxide of the planet into breathable air." There presence before any other life forms, for what seems a period of it, is well documented. I would call this "Divine Terraforming "
“But a Flood that buried creatures would produce strata that contained the sudden appearance of creatures” The is the critical point for me, Ecological Zonation would not separate the life forms in ascending categories of greater complexity. As Dr. Roth expressed it “the problem of extreme sorting.”
You are very right here Bob in my view, “the presence of soft tissue in dinosaur bones” is dramatic evidence, to me, that we are not talking about 100s of millions of years. The earth is old, but not THAT old I feel.
My opinion is that the radiometric dates are surely off to a great degree.
Well documented? Are you positive? From http://www.halos.com/book/ctm-app-32-a.htm
"The author fails to acknowledge the report [H. J. Hoffman, Precambrian Fossils, Pseudofossils, and Problematica in Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 189, 30-34, (1971)] which questions their authenticity, but does admit (C/E 28) that these structures do not contain any organic matter that authentic stromatolites always exhibit. This admission of nonexistent organic matter is repeated in the Second ICC material. Clearly, if the structures at Bancroft were genuine stromatolites, they would contain organic matter."
Greater complexity? Are there not trilobites buried at higher levels that are "simpler" than those at lower levels? Why not give a specific type of creature that you think should be lower than another specific type of creature, if the Flood produced fossils of both. I think it would be interesting to explore possibilities tied to density, habitat, tenacity, mobility, etc.
Well there is no end of documentation for answering your question Bob. But I will only use Dr. Roth, a respected Adventist and Scientist. If the documentation were not real, He would not make the following facual statements: “Fish are the first vertebrates to appear, followed by amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds.” Origins Ariel Roth pg.163
This fact is not to be mis-understood to mean that life in the fossil record begins "simple!" There is nothing simple about blue-green alge, shrimp or vertibrate fish. Life starts out highly complex.
But it is the sequence and progression of life forms with sudden appearance of major groups that is anti-evolutionary and pro-creation in its implications. The flood does not explain this "extreme sorting."
Again Dr. Roth on page 172: “The major problems facing the theory all relate to the extreme sorting of many organisms as found in the layers of the fossil record.” “The scarcity or total absence of mammals, flowering plans, and their pollen in the upper Paleozoic and lower Mesozoic are the most serious problems the ecological zonation theory must answer.”
I used to teach from Dr. Roth’s text to help my students understand that the sequence of the fossil record was not explained by the Flood Event, which I do believe in by the way.
But The Flood and the Ecological Zonation Theory do not explain the fossil record. Dr. Roth made this point on page 172: “The major problems facing the theory all relate to the extreme sorting of many organisms as found in the layers of the fossil record.” “The scarcity or total absence of mammals, flowering plans, and their pollen in the upper Paleozoic and lower Mesozoic are the most serious problems the ecological zonation theory must answer.”
Darrel,
You stated before regarding stromatolites and blue-green algae:
"There presence before any other life forms, for what seems a period of it, is well documented."
I asked you if you were sure that this was well documented, but you have not produced any documentation to support the statement, nor have you addressed the point that the presence of stromatolites is proven by organic matter, of which there is allegedly none, according to the quote I gave. I was not asking for documentation regarding the relative positions of fish and repitiles in the geologic column.
Darrel,
Look at http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Liquefaction4.html particularly the caption under Fig. 98. Note that it refers to an unpublished Loma Linda experiment in which "a dead bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian were placed in an open water tank," and that that "experiment showed that the natural order of settling following death was, from the bottom up: amphibian, reptile, mammal, and finally bird."
The liquefication scenario Brown proposes on that page sounds plausible to me. It could also result in the sorting of sediments, not just organisms.
We should also look for things that don't fit. For example, the fossil forests at Yellowstone were believed to have grown in situ. But no one seemed to notice the absence of a normal soil layer, with more organic material at the top and less at the bottom. No one seemed to notice the absence of normal root systems or branches. Etc. In actuality, those "forests" were all floating together, with some trees sinking sooner than others, with some leaves and such settling down to form the "soil" that was found, and those trees getting buried by a turbidity current or the like before the next bunch of trees sank. Thus multiple Sequioia "forests" were buried rather rapidly, one on top of the other, and later become a evolutionary textbook illustration of the formation of the geologic column over aeons of time! So again, is there anything that doesn't fit the view that the fossil-bearing portion of the geologic column wasn't deposited during Noah's Flood?
Sorry, missed that one. Well, stromatilites are not always associated with blue/green alge. But those that are, are structures formed by colonies of photosynthesizing cyanobacteria. What stromatilites are exactly is controversial since they can be explained by either biogenic or abiotic processes. But of course the point is about the highly complex photosynthesizing cyanobacteria not stromatilies. The point was that blue/green alge dominated the early strata.
The point of the quote was that if there is no organic material, we can't say for certain that they are stromatolites. I would think we therefore cannot say that they are cyanobacteria, since, I assume, such would contain organic molecules.
~~Thank you Bob, very interesting. There might have been a reason it was not published. I don’t know!
But,
“Sorted to some degree” evidence.
“sorted to some degree by size into at least seven layers” and
“often ended up in the same” layer evidence.
“In each geographical region, organisms with similar size, shape, and density (usually members of the same species) often ended up in the same lens” is not help us here.
It is interesting and I am sure Dr. Roth knows the very people who did these experiments, but the fossils are “perfectly” segregated with no exceptions. No mammals, at all, below a certain level. No reptiles, at all, below a certain level. This is the issue
How do we know there are no exceptions? Many evolutionists would explain such away or fail to report it.
So how could we determine the limits on liquefication-caused sorting when talking about tsunami-like waves repeatedly washing over the continents? And how could we identify the deposition that occurred during the great wind, which wind took off the tops of mountains and piled rocks, trees, and earth upon carcasses?
Bob [to me]: 'Aren't you exhibiting incredulity if you are in a "state of being unwilling or unable to believe" the peer-reviewed published results of scientific experiments that contradict evolution's conclusions?'
I am no scientist, as I have said repeatedly. Can someone (including Bob) point me to this supposed peer-reviewed results of scientific experiments that supposedly contradicts evolution's conclusions? Providing me with a link would be best.
Steve,
Go to http://www.halos.com/reports/ and click on the reports about Pb and He retnention rates. That is the topic I mentioned to which you responded with your incredulity comment. ICR reproduced the results of those expermients as part of their RATE project, with some refinements, arriving at the Pb and He levels using a lab that did not know what results were expected or desired.
The implications of these expermients was brought out in a 1984 AAAS report found at http://www.halos.com/reports/aaas-1984-perspective.htm
Steve, may I ask, are you presupposing that if the earth is old then materialist evolution of life must be true? Huge mistake!
Anyway, "peer-reviewed published results of scientific experiments that contradict evolution's conclusions" are numerious. Here again the scientific findings that "contradict" evolution DO NOT 'prove' that God must have done it. This would be a negative argument for God's existance.
Scientific finds that contradict evolution do however "falsify" THAT THEORY!
The argument for the Creator is best explained by the "positive evidence" of life's designs and the remarkable digital information system that run everything. That said, there is one category of scientific falsification of evolution that might be important to look at for this discussion. That woud be the fossil record itself. The fossil record does not at all match the expectations of evolution.
"Evolution at the level of populations and species might, in some cases, appear as nearly continuous change accompanied by divergence to occupy much of the available morphospace. However, this is certainly not true for long-term, large-scale evolution, such as that of the metazoan phyla, which include most of the taxa that formed the basis for the evolutionary synthesis.
The most striking features of large-scale evolution are the extremely rapid divergence of lineages near the time of their origin, followed by long periods in which basic body plans and ways of life are retained. What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types."
(Carroll, Robert L. [Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, Redpath Museum, McGill University, Canada ], "Towards a new evolutionary synthesis," Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2000, Vol. 15, pp.27-32, p.27).
Chris,
Above you said that the Grand Canyon has layers representing going back and forth between marine and desert environments. I pointed out that the Coconino sandstone has tracks produced underwater, and that was probably by amphibians rather than by reptiles. We can exclude that layer from my question since its cement is silica. We couold also exclude any sandstone with coarse grains on the bottom and fine grains on the top, since that would show that the sandstone was a turbidite, not a fossilized sand dune.
For the layers that are sandstone containing CaCO3 as the cement (I assume some qualify), it seems reasonable to me that a fairly uniform sandstone, uniform in hardness and CaCO3 content, would more likely be in a ready-mix condition pror to deposition. Otherwise, we have to have water containing CaCO3 seeping through the sand in such a way that the addition of CaCO3 is universally uniform, regardless of horizontal or vertical location of a portion of the sand. The water would, to me, seem more likely to contain CaCO3 and to seep through the sand if there was overlying limestone and if that limestone was above water. But this might create problems if soft sand overlaid with rock was uplifited, so maybe the lithification of the sandstone should take place before uplifting.
At any rate, can you tell us whether CaCO3 cemented limestone in the Grand Canyon that you think was desert, can you tell us whether or not that sandstone is uniform in hardness and CaCO3 content, and can you share a uniformitarian scenario that you think could result in the sandstone getting the CaCO3 required to form the present rock?
Bob,
No, I have no interest in taking you up in an argument over whether CaCO3 cemented anything or not. Your set up for the question is full of qualifiers and probabilities, just as my answer would be, so why begin? Even if we presented a pretty good argument one way or another – it would not resolve the big questions re the GC.
As for the chronology of the lava flows I asked for above. Yes, how profound: They flowed over the canyon wall AFTER the canyon walls formed. Of course they did!!
Multiple lava flows? Time separations? Multiple lava dams? Multiple lake formations? Some catastrophic failures? Some erode away? Some still eroding away?
Fit the time suggested by all of that into post flood sequence and chronology and you are a genius…
.. Or DESPERATE!!
I'm satisfied I know which one.
Like I said, Chris, I don't understand what problem you see.
Imagine the upheaval inspiration describes occurring at the second coming. Then imagine us today looking at the results of that upheaval, and trying to determine how long that upheaval took at today's rates.
I wonder if that's what you're trying to do with these lava flows. Noah's Flood involved an incredible amount of upheaval to the earth's crust. We can't simply try to analyze it in terms of today's rates.
But I think another problem is that you are assuming as true the interpretations of skeptics, without requiring that they prove that their interpretations are true, and then asking me to accommodate those interpretations within my model. That's quite different than my asking that the observable lack of erosion be taken into consideration. The lack of erosion is not an interpretation. Neither is the presence of CaCO3 in certain sandstones.
Chris,
You refer to multiple lake formations and the alleged impossibility of getting it all to fit within a biblical time frame. Yet http://www.gcrg.org/bqr/16-4/dams.html points out that no deposits from deep water lakes linked to lava dams have been identified. So where is the evidence that there ever were large lakes for extended periods of time? And http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/upload/Tuweep-Geology.pdf says that in less than 24 hours in 1995, half a large debris constriction in Prospect Canyon was removed.
Perhaps http://static.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Lava-Dams-of-the-Western-Grand-Canyon-Arizona.pdf contains the discussion and scenario you are looking for.
‘The Force’ is with you Bob Pickle! I appreciate your postings on this topic. I particularly appreciate the spirit in which your responses are worded—no matter what.
Yes,..
The force of gravity as the YEC liner sinks…
Gotta love you guys, but you do cling to the indefensible on some things. Like I said earlier on in Jack's thread. I don't agree how he applies his conclusions, but the basis of his reasoning re the GC is Rock Solid! It aint goin nowhere, and no matter how much folks want to get tizzed up over trivia, the suggestion the GC is the result of one catastrophic event would be funny if they were not serious…
Oh well…
Yeah, that’s cute and all; but Chris, what is trivial or inconsequential appears subjective. In any case; whatever Jack’s agenda is (or perhaps is not), would you not agree that where you are (and where Joe is), in terms of scriptural belief in general—and Adventist beliefs in particular—is the logical, intellectually coherent, and inevitable consequence of being influenced by this evidence?
Once you concluded that this and other related evidence is in fact overwhelmingly reliable; then you had to conclude that the ‘inspired’ scriptural record is, at best, not. And since it’s ‘not,’ who knows what is true and what isn’t in it? Isn’t this the logical and inevitable conclusion?
You claim intellectual integrity; what say you?
Chris,
If you are still clinging to the idea that the Grand Canyon's layers formed over millions of years,despite the striking lack of erosion between layers, then it is you, not I, that is clinging to the indefensible, despite the overwhelming evidence. Erosion doesn't behave the way you proposed.
Dear Mr Fergusen
You asked 'Need I go on' when raising all your accusations claiming Ellen White was a false prophet which all the detractors usually rattle off like you've done. Ok I say: Go on! You will find not very much more to accuse Ellen White of than what you have already mentioned and these issues have already being addressed many times already and reasonable explanations given. Sir, if self abuse has been given the green light by medical science and whatever they say is the gospel truth to you then go ahead by all means and practice your self-abuse but don't say you haven't been warned of such behaviour eventually taking its toll on you. If medical science knew it all then they should have all the cures for all diseases and illnesses and health problems on the planet yeah – but they do not. A recent medical research find at John Hopkins found that wine and chocolate aren’t of any health benefit as opposed to what researchers said yesteryear when it was claimed that ‘resveratrol’ which is found in wine and dark chocolate – and some berries – had antioxidant benefit. Medical Health research often changes positions on many issues – often depending on who’s funding the research I would say.
Cherry picking from Ellen White writings seems to be a favourite pastime for many who chop and change whenever secular worldviews and cultural moods sway. Dr Desmond Ford does the same with Ellen White and this pattern of ‘we love Aunty Ellen but she was only human and many messages from God were her own opinion and erroneous – or her writings were influenced by erroneous sources and just nineteenth century where it belongs, blah blah blah…fishpaste’ reasoning which seeks to filter her so-called errors but we respect the rest of her work is the common line used. Worse still are detractors who pose as her vanguards. Who’s foolin’ who?
Again I say – Ellen White did not subscribe to the long age creationism which others tout here on the boards and I only used the quotes above to verify this. Her belief, like mine too, is based on what the Bible plainly teaches with regards to Creation week being a literal week with twenty four hour days as we see today. Based on the Bible constuct of the Creation account it is quite clear that long ages of creation or evolution over millions of years is not in any way taught in the Bible. Those who embark on this kind of reasoning based on their particular worldview and the assumptions that go with it will eventually become disillusioned and become antagonists of our faith.
When it comes to Creation there is no middle ground. One has to either choose the millions of years concept or a literal week as is strongly suggested and taught in the Bible. Your 'earth time = deep time' long age creation theory is not in harmony with the Bible. It is not in harmony with a biblically based belief and is one which Ellen White did not in any way support. Those who believe otherwise are skating on thin ice and are at risk of losing faith in God entirely. ‘Never give the devil a ride in your car, he’ll always want to drive.’
Link below is to a very clear presentation (pdf) of the geology of the GC.
It makes questions like those about CaCO3 look like majoring over minutia imho.
Great read:
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aipg.org%2Fsections%2FGA%2Fpdf%2F2012%2520seminar%2FPresentations%2Flunch%25202-Grand%2520Canyon.pdf&ei=cJV1U5zKLdG4kAWr8ICwDg&usg=AFQjCNGPGM8szqE80VedBVCenhlvYRUtAw&sig2=Dcks_Ml7zmVqm1skBjHtjQ&bvm=bv.66699033,d.dGI&cad=rja
Chris,
The PDF you link to is filled with interpretations. Shouldn't we be discussing how to fit the evidence into a particular interpretation rather than just reading through the interpretations of a skeptic or infidel who just might be an alcoholic to boot, based on the amount of beer he claims he took on his trip? Did he conduct his analyses while under the influence?
Does he explain at all why there is such a striking lack of erosion between layers? No. He doesn't even explain where all the sediment came from that produced the layers he asserts were deposited over millions of years. He really doesn't explain anything that would support his model, a model constructed in defiance of the biblical record inspired by the Almighty God.
And yet you call it a good read.
I must say, even though it's over my head, I find the discussion between Bob and Darrel quite fascinating. Responses like, "You can't say absolutely," "How do you know there are no exceptions," or "Maybe researchers are falsifying the data," strike me as very weak arguments. But I appreciate that both Darrel and Bob acknowledge and deal with the evidence.
Also, when one responds to an evidentiary argument with, "You're just majoring in minutiae," it is generally a sign that the responder doesn't have a good argument or countervailing evidence. It was incremental minutia that paved the way for falsification of Ptolemaic astronomy. It is the minutia of population genetics, the foundation for the modern evolutionary synthesis, that is falsifying much of that theoretical leviathan. As it turns out, most scientific debates that have been declared over and settled weren't really over and settled at all. The need to declare a debate over and settled usually evinces a desire to suppress what threatens an elitist coercive agenda built on a highly controversial foundation . Useful paradigms come and go. What is important is that we remain open and humble, resisting the temptation to become ego invested in the evidence which we find most compelling.
Trevor: '…all your accusations claiming Ellen White was a false prophet which all the detractors usually rattle off like you've done.'
I never said Ellen White was a false prophet. I actually said quite the opposite. In fact, I think I am upholding her gift. My point is when people adopt unrealistic and unbiblical notions of how the gift works, as you seem to do, then it simply opens her up to the sort of criticism that those who claim she is not a prophet routinely make.
'Sir, if self abuse has been given the green light by medical science and whatever they say is the gospel truth to you then go ahead by all means and practice your self-abuse but don't say you haven't been warned of such behaviour eventually taking its toll on you.'
Sorry Trevor, my eye sight seems to be going, so I had trouble reading this. I can't quite work out why I might be going slightly blind? Any ideas? How is your eyesight?
You again miss the point. Perhaps I need to remind you what the Ellen White Estate itself says in relation to these various accusations against Mrs White:
"Attention has been called to statements that seem to show that Ellen White made grievous errors regarding scientific issues. Prophets are not called to update encyclopedias or dictionaries. Nor are prophets (or anyone else) to be made "an offender by a word" (Isa. 29:21). If prophets are to be held to the highest standards of scientific accuracy (every few years these "standards" change, even for the experts), we would have cause to reject Isaiah for referring to "the four corners of the earth" (Isa. 11:12) and John for writing that he saw "four angels standing at the four corners of the earth" (Rev. 7:1)."
My point is don't misunderstand how the gift of prophecy. Be careful of using it for aims it was never intended to be used for. That's my point.
http://www.whiteestate.org/issues/faq-unus.html#unusual-section-c4
'Dr Desmond Ford does the same with Ellen…'
Are you trying to place me in such illustrious company. Thank you greatly for the compliment.
'Ellen White did not subscribe to the long age creationism which others tout here on the boards and I only used the quotes above to verify this.'
Do you think any of the biblical authors subscribed to the idea of the world being flat, or being a round disc with a hard dome above and a dome below?
'Her belief, like mine too, is…'
Ellen White died nearly a hundred years ago. She probably believed in a whole lot of things you no longer believe in, but who knows, maybe you do have the mindset of someone from the 19th Century? But she was only human, and only had special insight on certain things, and only then it was only a glimpse of the truth.
She herself says she was not infallible. She herself says in the future others will learn things she and her generation don't know. She herself makes the point that knowledge is progressive and truth present. I am not sure if you yourself are cherry picking in not understanding that point.
'Based on the Bible constuct of the Creation account it is quite clear that long ages of creation or evolution over millions of years is not in any way taught in the Bible'
Trevor for the record, I don't know exactly what the Bible or science teaches on the subject. I am, however, willing to listen to the arguments, as long as they don't undermine the Bible. That is the nature of Sola Scriptura, where the Bible is the premier source of divine knowledge, but can be seen through the filter of lesser formative factors. Science is one of those lesser lights, as is Ellen White herself.
Now what the Bible teaches exactly on the subject is not clear. On what basis do you say the Bible unequivocally teaches creation as a 24-hour period. Again, I am a rare person here in being willing to listen to your arguments with an open mind – not simply arguing with you.
'When it comes to Creation there is no middle ground. One has to either choose the millions of years concept or a literal week as is strongly suggested and taught in the Bible.'
Why? Show me from the Bible.
'Your 'earth time = deep time' long age creation theory is not in harmony with the Bible.'
Why? Show me from the Bible. My theory on this seems to preserve a literal reading of creation as an actual 6×24-hour creation period (but as the clock ticked in heaven not on earth).
Be sure you understand what I am actually saying and not saying. I am not saying 1 day = 1 eon of time exactly. I am saying 1 day = 1 literal 24-hour day. I am just pointing out as a question of undeniable scientific fact, proven to the same degree as the world being round, that time ticks away at different rates in different places.
So if the earth was created in 144 literal hours, my question is 144 literal hours from where – as viewed from heaven or from earth? Because Einstein's Theory of Relativity suggests those outside the earth's orbit (i.e. like angels watching the creation event) would not have experienced 144-hours of creation; and vica versa, 144-hours in heaven would not be 144-hours experienced on earth.
'…is one which Ellen White did not in any way support.'
I don't see anywhere where Ellen White commented on my heaven-centric model of literal 144-hours of creation – do you? Because my theory is based on Einstein's Theory of Relativity, published in 1915, when Ellen White died.
In fact, the nature of prophecy might support my view. We can expand the discussion further, but don't prophets, when in communion in heaven, experience a different concept of time than we do here on earth? That's all I am saying. It suggests "heaven time" is different from "earth time".
Credible science is constructed on systematic skepticism of observations that need to be reproduced, otherwise is just unproven idea.
In a closer look the theory of evolution is buildup in a very questionable foundation. The corner stone of the theory of evolution is biology, if biology does not support the theory falls like a “castle of cards”. So where are the reproducible biological facts that support the theory of evolution?
Chris,
I will try again regarding your statement about sand dunes and deserts. The sandstone you are referring to, is it cross-bedded? The Coconino Sandstone is, but like I said, it contains tracks made in submerged sand. Coffin's book indicates that crossbedded features would indicate that the sand was deposited by water, not by wind, since wind-blown sand does not produce cross bedding. Would you agree? Would you agree that nowhere on earth today do we observe cross bedding of desert sand dunes, and thus cross-bedded sandstone couldn't form from desert sand dunes using processes we see in operation today?
Is there any part of the Grand Canyon's layers that you think was not deposited by water action?
I have read many times on the blog here about the lack of erosion between layers in the Grand Canyon.
I don't understand why we would expect there to be erosion if these strata are ancient sea beds never exposed to "weathering" anyway? Obviously I am missing something?
Darrel,
Do evolutionists assert that the entire Grand Canyon above the unconformity at the bottom was deposited into an ancient sea bed, with no uplifting above sea level in the interim? I think you will find that this is not the case.
"Shouldn't we be discussing how to fit the evidence into a particular interpretation…?"
Why not do exactly the opposite of this, and develop and test explanations of the evidence as it emerges? Why decide in advance what it all means, and then argue about which evidence fits and which does not? What we see all too often here is minds already made up quibbling about trivial minutia and ignoring enormous amounts of consequential information–just because that information does not fit with one's world view.
Neo, I'm not sure what you are asking for that you do not have access to. The biological facts are such very real things as genomic structure of existing humans and other animals, comparative anatomy and physiology, and fossil evidence. There are more facts now than existed ten years ago. Ideas about how evolution occurs and has occurred are constantly revised as new evidence comes along.
I get the sense from some here that they think of science, and especially evolutionary biology, as something between mere opinion and a vast conspiracy of infidels. Worse yet, they seem to be defending their choice to teach young people to learn not to seek high quality evidence and evaluate evidence on its merits, but rather to nitpick around the edges. Then, anyone who dares to challenge that view is accused of being an adolescent or of using some devious devices to mislead.
I'm not asking anyone to follow me or believe as I do; however, I do encourage young people and others who have some interest in better understanding nature and our place in it, to examine the evidence carefully and honestly, and reach their own conclusions based on evidential merit.
Joe,
You come across to me as if you are contradicting yourself. You first suggest that rather than fit evidence into an interpretation, that we develop interpretations from the evidence. But then you state, "Ideas about how evolution occurs and has occurred are constantly revised as new evidence comes along," as if evolution is a fact. And yet no one has yet come up with a viable mechanism whereby the required genetic changes can occur within the asserted time frame. Therefore, what evolutionists are really doing is fitting the new evidence into their existing interpretation, and you don't seem to have a problem with that.
I agree that theoretically it would be great if we started with evidence without any presuppositions, but it would be a rare evolutionist who would be willing to do that. And that is perhaps the one point of commonality between creationists and evolutionists.
The lack of a viable mechanism to produced the required genetic changes, and the lack of erosion between layers, neither of those points constitutes trivial minutia. They pertain to tests of the theories proposed by skeptics, and open-minded skeptics should be willing for their hypotheses to be tested, or else they should stop describing them as scientific.
I'm in La Jolla just now, preparing to attend a symposium on "Male aggression and violence in human evolution," a topic that is surely outside the interests of many here–obviously, the creation of infidel scientists who should be shunned.
One of the organizers is Christopher Boehm, a professor of biological sciences and anthropology at USC. Among other things, he studies political and moral evolution. Maybe heshould be invited to speak at the LLU Sabbath School sometime. Erv, I expect you know Chris.
The other organizer is Richard Wrangham, professor of biological anthropology in the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard. Note that neither of these is a public institution, so they are not part of a secular campaign to indocrinate our youth in atheism.
Other participipants are from Yale, Rockefeller, Emory, Max Planck Leipzig, etc., as well as a number of strong public universities (UCLA, Washington, UCSD, and others). For some here, an assembly of such people just reinforces their stereotypes about the conspiratorial nature of science, scientists, infidels, and evolutionists. Ah well….
What can I say? Nothing I say will make any difference.
Joe: Sounds like a facinating topic. La Jolla is only a couple of hours from Loma Linda. I wish I could get down there. Perhaps you have time to swing past Loma Linda over the weekend? If so, please email me.
With regard to our topic: It stikes me that fundamentalists need mythical "infidel scientists" as straw people. As a hobby, I get the newsletters of a number of fundamentlist "ministries" such as "Answers (sic) in Genesis," They commonly point out how they are standing for "truth" against "infidel science." They seem to get a lot of donations using that tactic.
I sense a little male aggression here. “…obviously, the creation of infidel scientists who should be shunned,” “not part of a secular campaign to indoctrinate our youth in atheism,” “for some…such people just reinforces their stereotypes about the conspiratorial nature of science, scientists, infidels, and evolutionists.” That’s not hostility?
If it’s not, then “fundamentalists [needing] mythical ‘infidel scientists’ as straw people” sure is.
I don’t recall posters here saying much about shunning infidels, indoctrination (propaganda?), and conspiracies; but perhaps I’ve missed a few things. I would like to hear what Christopher Boehm has to say about “moral evolution.” It would seem obvious that this scholarship would certainly include why we have a sense of moral responsibility and moral accountability.
Now “moral evolution” implies that morality has evolved (and is evolving, I suppose) from the beginning, as opposed to devolving from the beginning (and getting progressively worse); right?
If you attend this Joe, please provide us with a summary on that topic. Better yet, have this gentleman join us. I would guess that what he might have to say would be more appropriate here than it would at Sabbath School. (Then again, I’ve never visited Loma Linda.)
i have digested all the above, day after day, and i see no coming together on acceptance of a common belief or truth. Just a repetition of the same data, oer and oer. i am but a student observer in Geology. i have visited the GC twice (South rim) and although an Airforce vet, never ventured to the very edge to look over. When i first visited i couldn't buy the info passed out about the GC being of millions of years in formation. i thought it just one of the awesome wonders God
had given to Earth's people, of His Almighty power, and i still do. i subscribe to Darrel's suggestion of it being an ancient sea bed that was thrust up from the deep at the same time Mt. Everest, and othermountains, land based and sea locales, ( CONTINUED )>
Joe,
What did you think you said that might make a difference? Since when is a large group aof people saying something similar a criteria for determining truth?
Erv,
Why would you say that "infidel scientists" are mythical? By definition, if a particular scientist rejects the Scriptural accounts of creation and the Flood, are they not dabbling in infidelity?
Earl,
There are deposits at the Grand Canyon that evolutionists think are land deposits, and thus they call for an uplifting prior to the carving of the canyon. Yet such an uplifiting should result in significant erosion, which is absent. However, a Flood model would call for the deposition to be during the Flood, much of it being into an underwater basin of some sort. That would be akin to an ancient sea bed, and I think would allow deposition in deeper water than what evolutionists think existed, which would further protect from significant erosion.
(continued)> this accounts for the lack of erosion Bob comments on when at the time of Creation, when on the the third day the dry land appeared. Before the third day the land was under water. When a portion of land arose above other portions, coming up out of the waters, mighty waves of water cascading down to the seas, formed many deep troughs in the continental shelf, outward for many miles. There were many mountains and ridges over the whole Earth. The Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean, would have been a greater spectacle if it had been above water. In order to remain a protected planet for man, the Earth in its surface reshapement had to be formed perfectly for it to maintain its equlibrium as it rotates around the sun. In Aircraft, the plane must have proper weight and balance of its cargo proportionate to its center/gravity to minimize the controlled surfaces operation, likewise any atmospheric mass, Earth, must be uniform in order to maintain its orbit around the Sun. Hope this info will help solve your questions.
Earl,
Your suggestion would help for strata that does not contain fossils, whether bones or tracks or whatever. But how would we propose that fossil-bearing strata was deposited in an ancient sea bed, and thus after Day 3 and after the uplift that occurred on that day, in such a way that no signficant erosion occured between certain layers?
I still do not understand this question! When the ancient continents experienced up lift where are we thinking to see erosion?
"There are deposits at the Grand Canyon that evolutionists think are land deposits, and thus they call for an uplifting prior to the carving of the canyon." I get it–i think. This point is such a minor item; i am seeing the big picture so it this kind of up lift is true or not is neither here not there for me!
Just as in systematic theology, so too in palentology I believe. We have to take the overall evidence as our primary guide; whether or not there are little erosions here or there is extraneous!
Hi Bob, well, “Do evolutionists assert that the entire Grand Canyon above the unconformity at the bottom was deposited into an ancient sea bed, with no uplifting above sea level in the interim?”
If one uses the word “entire” then NO! I need to study the Grand Canyon to be honest, but my understanding is that “Most” of it was deposited in warm, shallow seas and near ancient, long-gone sea shores.
I do know that both marine and terrestrial sediments are represented, including fossilized sand dunes from an extinct desert.
So Bob, are you saying that if there is very little evidence of erosion associated in these areas then the whole thing (all the strata) must be 6000 years old?
Or are you saying that the flood waters deposited the various layers, then later water swept through to cut the canyon as we have it?
Darrel,
No, it is not extraneous. If a theory calls for deposition over long ages under conditions and processes similar to what we see today, and if those conditions and processes today result in erosion and the creation of ravines, canyons, gorges, gullies, and valleys, then we should expect to see the same in the past, if that theory be true.
Claiming to take the "overall evidence" and the "big picture" while refusing to allow the testing of the hypothesis puts that hypothesis out of the realm of science, by definition. And that testing could refer to anything, whether large or small.
Coffin's book Origin by Design says that geologists think the Shinarump Conglomerate is a land deposit because it has trees in it. It's a thin deposit, usually not more than 50 ft. thick, covering 10's of thousands of sq. mi. No such deposits of comparable extent are forming on the earth today. If a sea bottom slowly rose until fresh water could spread its deposits on it, there would be erosion when the sea floor came near to and broke above the surface. And streams and rivers running down over the newly exposed surface for 100's of thousands of years would cut gullies and gorges. There are no such gullies or gorges in this formation (pp. 88-89, barely paraphrased).
Darrel,
Shallow seas might not be deep enough to avoid forming the erosional features we are talking about.
I would appreciate the identification of which sandstone is supposed to be fossilized sand dunes. The Coconino can't be if it has cross bedding and tracks made on submerged sand.
All I'm saying is that the lack of erosion is evidence of rapid deposition. Other lines of evidence would pertain to dating the earth or the canyon. The lack of erosion pertains to the length of time it took to form, not the age of the entire earth.
I will look up the sand dunes Bob, I am not sure.
The lack of erosion points to the lenth of time it took to form? So you are saying that these strata were form by the flood waters in a matter of just under a year or two. Or at least within one hundred years of so?
Some of the features require the consideration of catastrophic flood(s) to account for their formation. Repeated catastrophic floods unlike anything we see today doesn't sound as reasonable as Noah's Flood, which would have most of the deposition occuring in well less than a year. So I think 100 years or so is less reasonable.
Darrel & Bob. i understand that the clear cut walls of the GC at the South Rim have no life form fossils. But to the East at higher elevations there are life form fossils. This indicates to me that the lower elevations were never exposed to sea (salt) water, but were deposits of land and fresh water deposits(extremely large deep landlocked lakes), seldom exposed to wind currents or fast water currents, which would't have caused much surface erosion of its billions of years existence of laying down strata. As far as the "cementing phase" perhaps all needed would be the massive weight of the newer stratas and the water weight to be sufficient to cause the lower levels to reform into a vitreous like state, perhaps you know the correct title of the process i'm thinking of, perhaps heat also being a catalyst. If there were no significant chalk strata in the exposed South Rim, this should also indicate this was an inland fresh water sea area, right?
Earl,
From what I can tell, both rims are capped with the same Kaibab Limestone. Are you referring to the walls of the Inner Gorge?
Perhaps the Coconino Sandstone would only need heat and pressure since the cement is silica, and that is said to be derived from the sand. But sandstone that contains CaCO3 as cement, which is more common, rather than silica, could not have formed without the presence of CaCO3.
Take a look at the evolutionary explanations at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Grand_Canyon_area which asserts that a number of layers were deposited in a coastal plain. They aren't proposing that it was all laid down in a deep, deep sea.
So I assume you feel that all the strata, not just of the Grand Canyon but of earth, are explanable by the Great Flood. I am not trying to be difficult Bob and I respect your understanding completely. But if this is so, it brings us full circle to the reality of perfect sorting found worldwide. Ecological Zonation nor its cousins can explain the perfection of the fossil strata and of course evolution can not explain the abrupt appearance of the Cambrian Phyla either. This is the "big data" or the larger picture!
The even larger picture is the enormous numbers of fossils and fossil derivitive produces found in the earth. The quantity and number is truly incredible!
Darrel,
The Precambrian strata could be the result of Day 3. Fossil bearing strata I do see as the result of Noah's Flood.
Are we sure the sorting is perfect? How do we know? Evolutionary scientists aren't going to necessarily notice or report on or resist explaining away anything they find that is out of their assumed "perfect" order. What about liquefication and density, the discussion Walter Brown had on that web page I provided a link to?
We don't know exactly how every layer formed. But we do know that they couldn't possibly have formed over millions of years through uniformitarian processes because of the striking lack of erosion between layers, the widespread uniformity of certain thin layers, etc. We also know they were deposited by catastrophic water action. Certainly sounds like Noah's Flood to me.
On the number of fossils, I wonder if non-Flood models have a problem accounting for the vast number of fossils found in certain formations.
Joe “ The biological facts are such very real things as genomic structure of existing humans and other animals, comparative anatomy and physiology, and fossil evidence”
Exactly that is the point, comparative anatomy and physiology is just that, to compare stricken similarities or profound differences, that part is reproducible. But the evolutionists don’t stop with the mere tangible facts, they have to speculate about similarities to support the theory of evolution. That is just ideas no proven facts! Is like comparing bicycles with “Vespas” and “Harleys”. We will find similarities and differences that are reproducible, but to speculate due to similarities the “Harleys” evolved from the bicycles is just incredible. Comprede amigo?
The genomic structure is even more complex; here is the weakest point of evolution. The more we know about the reproducible tangible facts the more difficult to support the theory of evolution, for example “the Junk DNA”, mutations, epigenetics, and genetic entropy.
Until is proven by reproducible tangible facts “evolutionary biology” is a mere opinion. To teach young people to accept unproven ideas and not high quality reproducible facts is not the best service.
What part of the “fossil evidence” by itself without the help of elaborated speculation support evolution?
Hi Neo, I am perfectly fine with people just being able to look at the tangible evidence without uncritically accepting anyone's interpretation of what the evidence means. Anyone's. Not the speculation about evolution. Not the efforts to explain away tangible, objectively verifiable specimens. Have a look at hominin fossils. Just the specimens. The specimens really exist. What various people think they mean is debatable–and the debate is ongoing. Have a look at comparative genomics. Just the actual evidence. Not the spin, regardless of who is doing the spinning. The advances in actual facts in recent years is dramatic. Debates about meaning continue. No problem. The point is to not simply make up the answers in advance and force the facts to fit what one already believes. Just consider the evidence and ignore the spin.
Joe,
A relatively recent discovery is summarized at http://www.uta.edu/ucomm/mediarelations/press/2008/10/invader-transposons-found.html and was published in 2008. The same DNA was found in five mammals, a frog, and a lizard, from different continents. The evolutionists think this is evidence of horizontal gene transfer, genes received hoirizontally from divergent species rather than vertically from an ancestor.
If this genetic material is not evidence of a divine Creator using the same building blocks when making divergent species, then it sounds like an explanation for Ellen White's description of post-flood amalgamation.
If we eliminate all the spin and explanations, then we simply have the same genetic material in widely divergent species, and must come up with some sort of explanation as to how that came to be.
Nate,
"Responses like, 'You can't say absolutely,' 'How do you know there are no exceptions,' or 'Maybe researchers are falsifying the data,' strike me as very weak arguments."
Certainly. But if the claim is made that there is perfect sorting of fossils, especially if that claim is used as a basis for questioning the biblical account, then that claim should not be accepted on blind faith. What is the basis for such a claim?
Falsifying data wasn't quite what I had in mind. Take for example the KBS tuff dating controversy described in David Read's Dinosaurs, pp. 622 ff. The rocks were originally dated at 212 to 230 million years (m.y.) via radiometric dating. But that didn't fit the place on the geologic column that Leakey was working on, and so they were then dated "incontrovertibly" at 2.61 m.y. A few years later a human-like skull was found beneath the formation, requiring either that the theory of human evolution be revamped or that the rock be redated. In the end, the rivalry of three labs led to the revelation that the 1.6 to 1.8 m.y. date of lab #2 was picked from a scatter of 1.5 to 6.9 m.y., lab #1's published scatter of .5 to 2.64 m.y. was in fact only for one sample, while another sample had a scatter of 8.43 to 17.5 m.y., and one of lab #3's samples had a scatter of 4.11 to 7.46 m.y. (As Read puts it, Richard Milton has stated that if all the results of such datings were published, "the combined results would show the scatter that could be expected from random chance.")
If it hadn't been for the rivalry and lack of courtesy between the labs, the truth of the spread of the isotopic ratios would never have been published, and we would likely not know it today. It's just a fact of the world we live in that if an out-of-place fossil were found, an evolutionist might not recognize it as such, or might explain it away, or might fail to publish it. In the case of the KBS tuff, we had an out-of-place fossil in relation to an "incontrovertibly dated" rock. In the end, the rock was redated in order to make the fossil not out of place anymore, but when redating, the date that was picked was picked because it made the fossil no longer out of place. And that is circular reasoning.
Hi Bob, yes I agree with your above comments to Nathan, and earlier–"Evolutionary scientists aren't going to necessarily notice or report on or resist explaining away . . . " This is the sad fact of the "Peer reviewed" filters.
Reporter or researcher bias goes both ways of course. This is why I attempt to look at people I trust who do not agree with me. I quoted Dr. Roth because I know him and I know he has a strong bias, which is fine if one acknowledges it. And he does. Here is the point, inspite of his bias, he reports that the large picture sequence of animal groupings from marine to mammels is the way the fossil record is.
The fact that this is a fact is why we have an "ecological zonation" theory–to explain this fact in the 6000 year context. Steve Gould who was an uber-darwinist had every reason to falsify the picture of palentology regarding the many "out of nowhere" appearances of new creatures in the fossil record. "It is about as un-darwinian as you can get!" This fact is why he developed the " punctuated equilibrium " theory–a theory without a mechanism, but in harmony with the fossil facts. Punctuated equilibrium and ecological zonation have failed to explain all the facts however.
Roth is open about this regarding "zonation." If we would find a mammal associated with trilobites in the Cambrian then we would have a major major Paradigmatic Revolution in Palentology. As I write this, I am, believe it or not, speaking against my own bias. These facts are certainly not my perfered view of things. It has been difficult for me to work through this psychologically. But I have learned that God Almighty is bigger than I thought. I did not, nor do I have all things rapped up in a package Theologically. I have in a way become a child again!
Why not conduct some experiments similar to what Brown writes regarding that unpublished Loma Linda expermient?
Roth could be correct, but even if his bias is similar to mine, I would not necessarily accept it without analyzing it for myself.
Can you think of any reasons why liquefication can't explain the apparent sorting we see? If trilobites were bottom dwelling, and if they therefore got buried first in Noah's Flood, why would we expect any mammals to get buried with them? Are there any bottom dwelling mammals in fresh or sea water today?
Darrel, nice work. All anyone can ask is that the evidence be given due consideration. And I agree with you that the concept or reality of God is big enough to handle any tangible and verifiable reality. That is what I have meant when I have frequently urged people not to "put God in a box."
Bob, it is well established that the genomes of humans and other animals (and plants) include many sequences introduced from some other source–especially as inserted by retroviral infection and persistent fragments that are called transposons or retrotransposons. Such mobile elements are major sources of genomic variation, the kind of variation that enables selective processes to work. So, it has been asserted that "transposons drive genome evolution." Before just making up an answer that suits you, you might want to actually learn a little more about this extremely interesting and exciting field and the range of discussion about the roles of the "mobile elements." I'm not advocating this concept, but you might want to consider that God could use transposons and associated enzymes as a part of His creative process.
Since we do have inspiration telling us today that amalgamation of man and beast took place in the past, and since genetic engineering uses viruses today to do their engineering, it seems reasonable to me that viruses was how this was accomplished in the past. And I do think that the machinery of the often pictured bacteriophage virus suggests an intelligent designer.
But I don't know of any reason why that intelligence would have to be God, espcially since the amalgamation that took place before the Flood was one of the main reasons why the Flood took place.
~~You are right Joe, Yes, God is bigger than our constructs. Genetic engineering uses viruses to deliver information to a location. Could be the case, because we do this now. Of course making use of the technology does not explain where the technology comes from. I think we are moving in the wrong direction when attempting to explain mechanisms in nature by Human genetic tinkering 1000s of years ago. To propose this amalgamation stuff of Ellen White as having a role in Creation/development is.., well, please, let’s not go there.
When "transposons drive genome evolution” is it really evolution Joe. In other words, is it completely an undirected process? For example, Shapiro's natural genetic engineering view is that organisms are programmed with intelligence to do their own designing. But the structures they need to do their own engineering are themselves devastatingly complicated. How did these arise? Indeed, why should it be a stretch to think that these structures are themselves the product of design? But since they are presupposed by living systems (all cells do natural genetic engineering according to Shapiro), ‘they must derive from a designing intelligence (which may be external to nature or immanent). Far from refuting intelligent design or minimizing its relevance to biology, Shapiro is thus actually supporting it.
It seems to me we are stumbling on to the amazing engineering of the self –programming that is a 1000 years ahead for our own advancing technology.
I think that years ago, Charles Kingsley, of Westminster Abbey got it right in his 1871 lecture on “The Natural Theology of the Future,” when he singled out the ‘modern’ views on adaptation, stating:
“We knew of old that God was so wise that He could make all things; but behold, He is so much wiser than even that, that He can make all things make themselves.”
Charles Kingsley, “The Natural Theology of the Future,” read at Sion College Jan. 10, 1871, published in Scientific Lectures and Essays (London: Macmillan, 1880), p. 332.
Self programming? They are really proposing such? And what mechanisms or machinery have they observed whereby such can take place?
The Genesis report is that the Earth was covered with water. Darkness was on the face of the deep. The waters were seperated so as to provide firmament, sky, heaven. This was a catastrophic event. As the land rose out of the WATERS, there was tremendous hydralic tidal actions that were the most dramatic than any other recorded event in the Bible, including Noah's flood (if it occurred). There was obviously some of Earth's strata that was fragile, and these fractures caused the deep chasms, gullies, etc, and occurred when the waters cascaded down to lower areas. Volcanic action was also evidenced, as the uncovered domes permitted internal Earth heat to escape. The combo of water and heat (exploding gases) are the most violent of natural forces on Earth. Earth in upheavel. Earth in downheavel. The Earth's plates fractured to permit seperation of land masses, of which they are still moving today, Continental Drift, which causes the massive Earth Quakes, as one layer dives deeper under another. Brothers and Sisters, this is what caused the initial forming of the stupendous topographical conditions on Earth, The many mountain ranges, the Grand Canyon, the Dead Sea, the great Salt Lake, Salton Sea in Death Valley, the terrible hot springs of many mineral deposits under the Yellowstone Nat. Park in Wyoming, which is estimated to possibly cause the greatest vocanic eruption, ever, some day in the near future, making Mt St Helens just an ordinary event. These and many other topographical features of Earth, we observe today, were caused by the Creator's mighty usage of His power, for us to begin to appreciate His Almighty sole origin of all things, animate and inanimate, on Earth and in the cosmos.
In 1987 Dr Robert Gentry requested the National Academy of Sciences then President, Dr Press, who claimed that "evidence for creationism" has been scientifically invalidated, to show evidence contrary to his findings in the scientific research he conducted with Polonium-Halos. He asked Dr Press and other prominent evolutionists to explain how the polonium-halo evidence for creation has been invalidated as claimed by him.
In 2000 Dr Gentry sent a letter to Dr Alberts of the National Academy of Sciences who had claimed that "the evidence for special creation has been experimentally falsified" and asked why published evidence for creation was rejected. Thirty five years later Dr Gentry's findings have stood unrefuted in the open scientific literature.
The significance of Dr Gentry's unrefuted findings is that "that the presence of Polonium halos in granite demonstrates that granite had to have formed suddenly (i.e., was specially created)."
This is the reality…
Agreed, Trevor.
Earl,
Walter Brown at http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Trenches5.html#wp16551179 gives 17 reasons why plates are not subducting. Are we positive one plate is diving deep below another?
Good question Bob, I get this data and theory from University of Chicago molecular biologist James Shapiro. Dr. Shapiro is not an Intelligent Design Creationist, but his discoveries in genetics are the cutting edge of our understanding of God's Information Systems at the basis of life. Most of this is in his book Evolution: A View from the 21st Century.
Shapiro rejects classical modern neo-Darwinianism. He believes that in a sense, "biological organisms are programmed" to develop and adapt.
He opens his book by asking "How does novelty arise in evolution?," observing that "Innovation, not selection, is the critical issue in evolutionary change. Without variation and novelty, selection has nothing to act upon." (p. 1) But how does that change arise in the first place?
Shapiro makes an interesting observation that evolution's insistence upon "countless random small changes over long periods of time" and that are "accidental and random with respect to biological function or need" arose as a reaction to "the perceived need to reject supernatural intervention." (pp. 1-2), very interesting obervation!
Dr. Shapiro believes this tradition extends into the present day: "the accidental, stochastic nature of mutations is still the prevailing and widely accepted wisdom on the subject." (p. 1)
But Shapiro wants to resurrect forms of goal-directed evolution, where novelty and variation are not produced randomly with respect to biological needs, and in fact organisms activate mechanisms to induce genetic and epigenetic changes at times when 'a change would do you good.' He takes this view because (1) modern biology has uncovered various mechanisms by which organisms can "rewrite" their own genomes, especially in response to stress, and (2) many biological pathways and structures are not amenable to stepwise Darwinian evolution. Shapiro explains:
(1) "The perceived need to reject supernatural intervention unfortunately led the pioneers of evolutionary theory to erect an a priori philosophical distinction between the "blind" processes of hereditary variation and all other adaptive functions. But the capacity to change is itself adaptive.
Over time, conditions inevitably change, and the organisms that can best acquire novel inherited functions have the greatest potential to survive. The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable. Our current ideas about evolution have to incorporate this basic fact of life." (p. 2)
(2) "Do the sequences of contemporary genomes fit the predictions of change by 'numerous, successive, slight variations,' as Darwin stated, or do they contain evidence of other, more abrupt processes, as numerous other thinkers have asserted? The data are overwhelmingly in favor of the saltationist school that postulated major genomic changes at key moments in life developments. … [L]ittle evidence fits with the theory that evolution occurs through the gradual accumulation of "numerous, successive, slight modifications." (pp. 89, 128)
Evolution: A View from the 21st Century includes somewhat technical explanations of the latest findings in cellular complexity — complexity which in the opinion of many pro-ID scientists defies a classical Darwinian explanation. Shapiro's book contains stunning descriptions of biochemical complexity and complex cellular regulation pathways that provide compelling arguments for biological fine-tuning that indicates intelligent design. For example:
"One of the great scientific ironies of the last century is the fact that molecular biology, which its pioneers expected to provide a firm chemical and physical basis for understanding life, instead uncovered powerful sensor and communication networks essential to all vital processes , such as metabolism, growth, the cell cycle, cellular differentiation, and multicellular morphogenesis. The life sciences have converged with other disciplines to focus on questions of acquiring, processing, and transmitting information to ensure the correct operation of complex vital systems." (p. 4)
"Genomes are sophisticated data storage organelles integrated into the cellular and multicellular life cycles of each distinct organism. Thinking about genomes from an informatics perspective, it appears that systems engineering is a better metaphor for the evolutionary process than the conventional view of evolution as a selection-biased random walk through the limitless space of possible DNA configurations." (p. 6)
"Because the interactions in any cell process invariably grow more complex and involve more molecules as we investigate them in greater detail, most biologists agree that we are now in the systems biology era of research. Although this term is subject to various interpretations, a widespread view is that systems biology implies understanding how groups of molecules work coordinately (as a system) to achieve some useful function dependent upon conditions. Gone is the atomistic view that molecules act independently and automatically." (p. 8)
"There are a number of described cellular information processing from a semiotic or linguistic perspective." (p. 10)
His discussions of the biochemical mechanisms that regulate accurate DNA replication show the complexity of basic biological systems that neo-Darwinians often take for granted.
We can think of this two-level proofreading process as equivalent to a quality-control system in human manufacturing. Like human quality-control systems, it is based on surveillance and correction (cognitive processes) rather than mechanical precision. The multistep nature of proofreading is typical of many control processes in cells, where final precision is achieved by a sequence of two or more interactions that are each themselves inherently less precise. In this regard, the most applicable cybernetic models are fuzzy logic control systems. In such systems, accurate regulation occurs by overlaying multiple imprecise ("fuzzy") feedback controls arranged so that each successive event results in greater precision. (p. 14)
Natural Selection replaced by "Cognitive Networks" and "Self-Modification"
Shapiro describes "sudden genome restructuring by sensory network-influenced cell systems … It replaces the 'invisible hands' of geological time and natural selection with cognitive networks and cellular functions for self-modification." (pp. 145-146)
Rather than assembling by "random" mutation, Shapiro believes that much biological complexity arises through directed mutagenesis of the genome, often in response to outside stresses. Shapiro gives many examples of how organisms use what he calls "cellular regulation of natural genetic engineering" (p. 69) to reorganize the genome in times of stress.
One example regarding Joe's transposons, is that with starvation-induced rearrangements studied in the 1980s and 1990s, the increase in transposon-mediated events increased by at least five orders of magnitude (that is, by a factor of over 100,000). They went from undetectable in more than 1010 bacteria under normal growth conditions to more than once per 105 bacteria on starvation plates. (p. 74)
According to Shapiro, such processes show that "the cell rewrites its genome" (p. 5) when needed.
So programmed to do so by The Creator of course.
But how did these supposed "natural genetic engineering" abilities arise? Well, he does not get into that of course, but these new findings strongly support an amazing intelligence to create life with the ability to reprogram itself to adapt to the changing needs of changing envirnments
Joe
“ The point is to not simply make up the answers in advance and force the facts to fit what one already believes. Just consider the evidence and ignore the spin”
I agree 100% with that statement Joe. For the last 3.5 decades I have been studying researching and teaching subjects of molecular biology so I a have a little background. I know first hand that sustainable and credible science is constructed on systematic skepticism of observations that need to be reproduced, otherwise is just unproven idea. I learned the hard way to distinguish tangible facts from fancy and attractive speculation. So I look first what I know most.
Several years ago when the human genome was complete we learned that less that 5% was for coding proteins (more than 95% we didn’t know its function). Very quickly even respectable people in the field jump to call the non-coding DNA as “JUNK DNA”. Furthermore they speculated that was a proof of the process of evolution (vestigial DNA). The sad part is that concept was spread like a fire even in the academic centers to young students as part of the evidence of evolution. Also lay people accepted as another proof of evolution. Only few critical researchers and thinker were skeptical of such statements. As time past and more information came of the non-coding DNA (JUNK DNA) we learned that t his DNA is highly essential and precise for regulation of the expression of the genome. Now we know that JUNK DNA is not JUNK at all, is fundamental for life. This became to be an embarrassment for the evolutionist. To me this was a rush to sell a pre conceive believe. More to came meanwhile enjoy southern California.
Hi Neo, I agree with you about the rush to label non-coding regions as "junk." That was an over-reach, but it also is an illustration of how many people think. Not knowing of a function is far different from knowing about some specific functions (like coding for producing proteins). Fortunately, some curious people thought those noncoding regions might reveal information about genomic change in the absence of selective pressure. As they got into such studies they began to find all sorts of interesting things. The inclination of many scientists was to ignore everything but the exon/coding regions. I think some scientists should be embarrassed by focusingonly on the coding regions. I'm a little embarrassed for them, but, since I was one of the people who continually argued against replication errors being totally random and was already concerned about epigenetic factors by thelate 1960s, I'm not too embarrassed for myself, or for the scientific processes that have helped to correct some of the errors of the past. I arouse the hackles of some of my colleagues when I point out that there is inherent "design" (in the sense of structural and functional "intelligence" embedded in genomes and cells and organs and organisms). BTW, Darrel, I do agree with much of what you quoted from Shapiro. You know, all those past mistaken ideas about biology and evolution are the reason I have often claimed here not to be a "Darwinist." I'm not even a "Fisher-ist" or "Mayr-ist" or "Dobzhansky-ist." Or a "Crick-ist" or "Watsonist."
Biological knowledge continues to emerge. New discoveries are common. Sometimes there is a need to radically revise one's ideas about how things work. But that is really what the scientific process is about. It isn't about accepting and defending dogmatic traditions. Evolutionary and developmental biology, and genomics and proteomics is an exciting arena of science.
We all get in trouble when we think we know more than we really do.
Darrel,
Interesting, but I'd like more specifics. On the one hand, anything that indicates that an individual can acquire traits, character or otherwise, that are then inheritable is of interest, because of some of the statements Ellen White made. On the other hand, I'd like more specifics about what mechanisms Shapiro is referring to.
The one specific I see is about transposon-mediated events in starving bacteria. Are we talking about improper DNA replication due to stress? How many generations are we talking about before it went from not 1 in 10^10 to 1 in 10^5? Does this same mechanism occur in higher organisms too, or just bacteria? What limits are there to this sort of thing? At what point would a widely spread species such as man or dandelions become incapable of breeding with other members of the species if the two widely separated populations had drastically rewritten their genomes in drastically different ways?
Is Shapiro just trying to come up with a way to save evolutionary theory from complete failure by proposing innate intelligence, rather than accepting the fact that the Intelligence responsible is transcendent rather than innate?
~~These are good questions Bob. Most are beyond my ability to answer. The answers would be found in the new fields of Epigenetics and Cells ability to re-write its code to adapt to environmental circumstances. Regarding self-programming mechanism, NO, this is devastating to evolution Bob, because it throws out mutation/selection as a creative force and investigates yet another level (a higher level) of programmed self-repair and developmental propagation. This “intelligence” is far beyond our own programming technology. Far beyond! Powerful Positive Evidence for a Creator. Dr. Shapiro and others investigating this have been strongly reprimanded by the evolutionary community.
There is a good chapter on this subject in Stephen Meyers' book "Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design" The chapter is "Natural Genetic Engineering.
Please, i recognize your scientific interest in whether we had supernatural origin (SO), or SR & evolution, or Darwin evo., but would there be any reaction to my suggestion of the answer to the GC was forces of Creation?
The evolutionist believe that live evolve from simple to complex and most of them from “nothing” up to what we have today.
The evolution from simple from of live to a complex one requires changes at the genome level, that means mutations in the DNA. What we know about mutations? Mutations happen quite often but we a have a robust system to correct almost all of them. The ones that are not corrected could be negative neutral or positive. The great majority probable are neutral as far we know. There is reproducible evidence of many negative mutations (almost 6000 disorders/diseases have been associated to alterations in the DNA) on the contrary there is a tremendous silence of the “positive” mutations, almost non-existing. The tangible and reproducible facts don’t support the cornerstone of evolution, “evolving due to mutations”. So what is left … just ideas and speculations.
I know some honest evolutionist to admit that evolution is more a believe that a proven fact, that is OK with me, there some many religions in this world that one more is not going to make a difference.
earl,
Above I wrote in response:
Walter Brown at http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Trenches5.html#wp16551179 gives 17 reasons why plates are not subducting. Are we positive one plate is diving deep below another?
Any thoughts?
I don't see how Day 3 of creation can account for the fossils in the strata of the Grand Canyon.
Darrel,
I just read several blogs by Shapiro, and it is interesting stuff. Of course, as Advetnists, we should have known that some sort of discoveries in genetics along these lines would have been made, given what Ellen White has said about inheritance and amalgamation. Any of the folks on the forefront of this research Adventist?
Does Shapiro describe how new information can be created, as opposed to the transfer of old information from one organism to another?
That a species can keep track of acquired immunity information from one generation to another is fascinating.
Yes, you are right Bob. This is a fascinating new field of study in its nascent development. Epigenetics in a since harkens back to Lamarckianism as a highly sophisticated feed back information system informing genes how to modify their code to adapt–turning genes off and on to orchistrate a new form or possibly organs. Like the keys on the piano are the same, but how played and with what rythum can produce millions of different song and melodies. Except in this case the millions of pages of different sheet music is already there, waiting to be used when needed. So in this since there is no "new information created" as such. It is truly fascinating as you say. Breath taking really in its complexity and we are just scratching the surface of this.
Darrel,
I can see turning on and off genes, so that cave fish no longer have eyes. Has anyone been able to get cave fish to produce fish with eyes, thus demonstrating that those genes can get turned on again?
Ervin,
How would you propose that the epigentic mechanisms came into being? Does the complexity of it all, including the way DNA is folded in different cells controlling which sequences get used by which tissues, pretty much exclude blind chance as the creator of the genome? Or can you think of any plausible way that blind chance could produce the genomes of life on earth in a billion or so years?
Neo, just a cautionary note. Not all "evolutionists" believe the same things, so it is not quite valid to represent what some evolutionists may believe as what others believe. Many people who believe in evolution do not have very current understanding of genetics and genomics–and even those who may have had current understanding ten or twenty years ago, might not have keep up with current developments. I'm just saying, it is best not to paint with too broad a brush. I am guilty of doing this with regard to adventists, Christians, fundamentalists, etc., and for this I apologize.
Bob, I am one who has argued for many years with colleagues about the role of "blind chance" or "random" mutation in the origins of genetic variation and environmental influences that can alter gene expression. As I have said here before, people use the terms "chance" and "random" in different ways, which tends to confuse matters. I focus on this because I see differing potential from one generation to the next–but the possibilities for offspring are limited in important ways by the genetic make up of the parents, as well as the environments in which they develop. There is inherent information in each genome that constrains what information can pass to offspring. Exposure of genomes to viruses and particles of viruses can result in the insertion, deletion, or rearrangement of that information. Other factors, even temperature, can result in changes in what genes are passed on or how they are expressed. Some DNA and RNA is more vulnerable to influences that modulate expression or disrupt or distort reading or assembling copies. Yes, it is really, really complex, and terribly difficult to understand, let alone explain. So, I'm just saying that there are other alternatives besides "blind chance" and intelligence programed in by a personal designer. But what do I know? I certainly do not have all the answers….
A lot of this is beyond me (but isn’t that the point of religion?). I would like a simple possible explanation as to how original/any genetic information can exist without a source of genetic information. If there is a source of it, how can it not be considered intelligent?
Of course I’m certainly not the first person to ask these very simple questions. What has at least one answer been?
Stephen,
Yes… such questions have been mulled over…
May I remind you of one answer to "How can any genetic information exist without a source?"?
In the same way the intelligence one feels is required to cause such information can exist without a source.
If one chooses to stop their regress at God, they are welcome to do so, but if another chooses to not begin a regress, why should that be a problem or any less valid?
"Who made God"? and, "Who/What caused the genetic information?" are exactly the same questions.
The latter person would seem to be making the least assumptions…
I should add. Re the questions "Who made God?" and "Who/what caused the genetic information?"
I wonder why we seem to not need an answer to the first question (who made God?) yet we do for the second question ("What caused the genetic information?"
Rather odd really…
Chris, It is not needed to explain the source of information to recognize information as information.
Nor is it needed to explain the source of intelligence to recognize intelligence as intelligence.
I didn't ask the question….
"Who made God"? and, "Who/What caused the genetic information?" are exactly the same questions.
Uh…no they’re not Chris; not at all! We know that genetic information is the stuff of life that we have observed. So if God was also a product of DNA, it would be the same—but since we have no idea of what God is materially composed, it’s not. We haven’t studied the material that comprises God. I would think that a materialist wouldn’t even be interested in who made God.
The fact that there is something rather than nothing means that something somewhere had to not have a cause. We can’t really grasp that based on our experience. But is it really philosophical to acknowledge that something rather than nothing does exist?
Besides, I didn’t ask “Who made God?” nor did I ask “who wrote the original genetic code?” or “what caused it?” I asked “How can original/any genetic information exist without a source;” because it’s information. How might any source of such information somehow be anything if not intelligent? I didn’t even capitalize the word “source.”
Of course I firmly believe the Source of the genetic code—and everything else—to be infinitely intelligent Creator of everything. I also believe that this discussion (who or what caused and created everything, and how?) is the inevitable logical conclusion of Dr. Hoehn’s way of approaching the Bible.
Stephen,
I was going to not bother answering your point, but for the record a few things need to be pointed out.
You have addressed my point as if I said that studying God and genetic information are the same thing. That was not the point. The question is cause.
We don't know what "caused" God (If He exists) and we don't know what "caused" the genetic information (which we do know exists). We can study its existence, but its cause is more difficult. Sure, there may be some pointers as to its cause by studying its matter, but they are not the same thing. The fact that some here suggest that genetic information was caused by an intelligence, which seems to be something rather intangible, also puts the two questions on a par.
Yes, I agree, studying genetic material and studying God are not the same. But I think the question of causes have no essential difference, except as I suggested above that the person not making a "regress" beyond evidence is making the least assumptions.
You have still totally missed my key point about how we answer the cause question:
"In the same way the intelligence one feels is required to cause such information can exist without a source.
If one chooses to stop their regress at God, they are welcome to do so, but if another chooses to not begin a regress, why should that be a problem or any less valid?".
Yes, I know you firmly believe in the Source. You are welcome, but for God's sake just admit that it is a personal choice to take your regress to that point. If someone else chooses to believe the genetic information is the source of itself just as your Source is the source of Himself, why and how could you object? It's a personal choice for you, so why not for them?
I would actually suggest folks like you are the militant theists because you make these claims and hold others to account for failing to do so when your own position is logically and philosophically indefensible.
Chris,
"If someone else chooses to believe the genetic information is the source of itself just as your Source is the source of Himself, why and how could you object?"
And on what grounds is such a belief in any way plausible, given its underlying presuppositions of the non-existence of a personal God? Has anyone come remotely cloose to demonstrating how such a complex information sytem could create itself, or even an information system 1% as complex?
Bob,
Unless you are going to argue (as some do) that God is not a complex "being", your question is dead because you are deciding that a (Complex?) God can just exist without cause, but that a complex system cannot, or even a system 1% as complex cannot!
If you are saying that we don't have to know the cause of a complex system to believe it exists, agreed.
But, if you are going to make that complex system evidence that something greater exists because you find it implausible that it could exist without a cause, you are embarking on a philosophical regress and your stopping point is nothing more than personal choice.
To refuse to embark on that regress is just as plausible on the very same grounds upon which you stand! In fact, as I've noted, probably more plausible because there are less assumptions required.
Chris,
To me, the position you are proposing doesn't make sense. Complex information systems in this world only exist if someone created them. Someone holding to an atheistic theory of origins that is approaching such questions scientifically and objectively must demonstrate that complex information systems can spontaneously generate, or else abandon their atheistic theory.
The consideration of such a fact does not require that we figure out why the Designer exists in order to conclude that He must exist. So I don't see how your point is sound.
Chris,
Why would you bother to tell me that you were “going to not bother answering my point”? What’s that about?
I take your point that studying the causation of God and studying the causation of genetic information is the same question. (If indeed that is actually your point.) I do disagree with it of course.
Let me try this by asking you if you believe that everything we have ever observed have been caused by something? If you don’t believe that then we have no basis to further discuss this. (As a materialist in search of true answers, I would think that you would be interested in how the things you observe have been caused in the first place.)
“If one chooses to stop their regress at God, they are welcome to do so, but if another chooses to not begin a regress, why should that be a problem or any less valid?"
Who said it was a problem Chris? I am just asking a few questions. Remember, I didn’t broach the existence of God when I asked about the source of genetic information (—and didn’t capitalize “source”). If science had determined the source of the original DNA code, it could then have been provided as an answer. (Of course we both would then have been interested in how this observable source of genetic information would have done this.)
“If someone else chooses to believe the genetic information is the source of itself just as your Source is the source of Himself, why and how could you object?”
What is science about if it isn’t about an effort to acquire knowledge? What scientist is satisfied with the notion that “the genetic information is the source of itself”? Are you serious about that? I would “object” to that as science; but if that was a faith position I wouldn’t object to at all, Chris.
My belief in God is not science. I do believe it to be logical to the extent that faith can be. I actually try to engage non-believers such as yourself and Joe on that basis. It appears that your understanding of the origins of genetic information is not science either—if indeed you believe that “genetic information is the source of itself just as [my] Source is the source of Himself.” Is that the point you’re making? Is that what you mean by “choice”? Are you suggesting that you have faith in the uncaused intelligence of genetic information, just as I have faith in the uncaused intelligence of the Source of everything?
If so, what about basic atomic information? Does that have its’ own causation too? Wouldn’t that be another faith assumption?
“I would actually suggest folks like you are the militant theists because you make these claims and hold others to account for failing to do so when your own position is logically and philosophically indefensible.”
We are all free to ask questions. We all challenge each other’s faith claims. If I am a militant theist, then you are a militant agnostic (or atheist?). How does labeling each other help?? Besides, I probably would ‘rather’ be labeled an adamant. (As if that were up to me.:)
Joe,
The human genome, with 3.2 billion base pairs, is the equivalent of an 800 MB computer program.
"So, I'm just saying that there are other alternatives besides 'blind chance' and intelligence programed in by a personal designer."
What other alternatives do you see?
It looks to me like we have in genomes systematic (as opposed to utterly chaotic) replicating assemblages of molecules that are susceptible to change and alteration across time and generations, that also have enormous potential for emergent functional change that depends in part on the environments in which development occurs. Ontogeny and phylogeny occur, it seems to me, within the boundaries imposed by genomes and their environments. Genomic variation is stimulated by a host of influences, including the presence of viruses and their residual particles that cleave, insert, delete, and transpose genomes–sometimes in germ lines and sometimes not.
So, there is no doubt that all this is complicated–exceedingly so, and beyond the abilities of most or all of us to "wrap our minds around."
I'm suggesting that genomic information constitutes what can be appropriately called "functional intelligence." The genomic sequences have consequences. I am not suggesting that molecules have "awareness" or "consciousness" or "minds" that are capable of planning or foreseeing or acting "on purpose." The genomes seem to be "self designing" only in the sense that what they can become is strongly influenced by what they are–such that the "intelligence" of generation X is determined in part, in a step wise and progressive manner, across all previous generations.
So, I do not claim to know where the first living and replicating cells got their genetic information–their intelligence, if you will, but it seems to me that ever after that, all cells got their set of instructions (their "programs") from their parent cells/molecules. And I am even okay with people speculating about where the original instructions came from–although I prefer to see them humbly admit that they are just speculating, rather than confidently stating that they "know" for certain where those instructions came from. "Believing" or "accepting" or "having faith" about the ultimate source is fine with me, and I readily admit that any One or any Force capable of designing and implementing a functioning biological system out of nothing would certainly be Awesomely Worshipful.
Isn't it remarkable that, with all that replication; with with all that potential for emergent functional and structural change; and with all the variation that we see in the natural world, that we see so little empirical evidence of change in form or function?
Of course no one can prove ultimate cause. But there is much evidence and many arguments that tend to undermine most of what has been theorized about how multiple sets of unfathomably complex instructions, purportedly potentiated in a hypothesized original single cell, became, and sustained in relative fixity, what has been the natural world throughout known human history.
So it would really be nice, if those who ask for humility from believers would exhibit the same humility about their faith in the latest intellectual fads d'jour – like inherent intelligence – defensively invoked as fingers in the dike to conceal the structural defects in the dam of neo-Darwinian speculation.
Representation of speculation as revelation is a problem in anyone's hands.
The "who made God?" question easily yields to the concept of God that asserts that "God is the uncaused cause." The problem, of course, is that this is a human concept of God, and is just one more indication that God is a concept invented by humans.
"Theistic revelation" is difficult or impossible to substantiate–no matter how much one may believe in God or revelation. As to "atheistic speculation," who cares? If the "speculation" is nothing more than that, and is identified as such, what is the problem? Atheistic or not, presenting speculation as fact, is misrepresentation and is dishonest.
Claiming to know what is not known, is dishonest, regardless of who does it. But claims to know things that are unknowable are all too common, both by theists and by atheists. I do not support militants of either extreme–although both have the right to say whatever they say.
"Remember, Jerry. It isn't a lie, if you believe it."
What does a “militant” theist believe, Joe; and how does a militant theist differ from a run of the mill theist? Perhaps an even better question might be is a militant atheist any different than a regular atheist in terms of non-belief.
Are you suggesting that you have little tolerance for those who are not agnostics? If so, are you a militant agnostic?
Supporting and tolerating are different. Brother Stephen, I'm not interested in fighting (or arguing) with you about this. Claiming to know what is not known or knowable is a dishonest position, regardless of whether one is a theist or an atheist, in my opinion. And this is why I cannot justify to myself being either one or promoting either one. No, I don't think I am a militant agnostic, but maybe it is difficult for anyone who is militant in any direction to see how intolerant of other perspectives they may seem to be.
“Claiming to know what is not known or knowable is a dishonest position, regardless of whether one is a theist or an atheist, in my opinion. And this is why I cannot justify to myself being either one or promoting either one.”
Theists and Christians in particular, claim belief. They claim to have faith, don’t they? Claims of knowledge are related to experience and conclusions about what they observe; e.g. Job 19:25, Psalm 19:1, and Psalm 100:3.
On the other hand, there are some who claim it is possible to know what happened tens and hundreds of millions, even several billion, years ago. That literally represents the unknowable by definition; doesn’t it?
But it’s not “dishonest” to claim that is knowable if you believe it is. (What is that you said about “Jerry”?)
Christians believe that God created this world and life not because is proven by science (this can’t be proved) but because is register in the Bible. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Evolutionists believe that science supports the theory of evolution. This is more a believe that proven fact. If we take out all the speculations and imaginations and we stick to strict principals of “proven by repetition” this theory also can’t be proven. Force science “to say what is not saying” is falling into delusion. Today in serious research one of the most difficult things to prove is causation. Many times we have to accept only associations.
Jack for what I read you are a physician so you have background in biology, molecular biology, and genetics. I invite to review these subjects.
Neo, I agree 100% with you. I am not an evolutionist. God's fingerprints as Creator are all over each created innovation. You are correct in all your observations. Science today falsifies Darwinism and its proposed mechanisms of advancement and change by randomness and mutation as working as his followers propose.
Science supports an Intelligent Designer that you and I know as God.
Truth as visible to believers and scientists alike just does not support the 7 day/ 6,000 year chronology we placed on God's creation in the days of our ignorance.
The truth suggests that God is indeed the "Ancient of Days," and that as Psalm 102 says, "Of OLD thou hast laid the foundations of the earth…" I don't know if the dates science suggest are true, I do know however that the dates young earth creationists suggest can not be true. Black is not white because we claim the Bible says it is. The Rocks do not lie any more than the Bible does not lie.
Was Earl onto something in suggesting that the creation event itself as described in Genesis would have necessitated such major seismic activity (earthquakes, volcanic events) that along with existing water (“the deep”), and a flood, might account for what rocks are 'saying'?
I’m obviously not a scientist Dr. Hoehn, but rather a fundamentalist rube of sorts; but is this totally impossible to you?
Yes the rocks in the basement of the Grand Canyon do suggest major seismic and volcanic activities in even the granites at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The major granite is called Vishnu Schist, but it has cracks filled with a younger Granite called Zoroaster Granite. These so called "dikes" that are described as "thin bands of pink granite rise like fossilized stripes and cut through the swirling Vishnu Schist…"
The older dark colored Vishnu obviously formed first, cooled from its molten state with cracks, later filled by another granite, the newer pink Zoroaster Granite dikes.
For molten rock to be extruded, then cool, then for another type of molten rock to be formed and flow up through the cracks in the older cooled down stuff, obviously is not the work of 24 hours.
So the story of the rocks at the base of the Grand Canyon are telling us this had to happen either long before the Bible's Creation Week started in the pre-creation earth, or else Creation Days 1,2,3 and 4 were much longer than 24 hours each.
The creation of Animal Life (fossils) starts above these Granites, with bacteria of Day 2, and then what the Bible would call Day 5, with the Cambrian Layer Explosion. The rest of the Grand Canyon, all the rest of the one mile up with 40 layers, record the work of one Creation Day, Day 5 .
As the article above reminds, Creation Day 6 land life, is not shown in the Grand Canyon, except for a few tracks in the solidified sands near the top.
So yes the story in the rocks is that creation events did include major things in the deep, molten lava, cooling, cracking, new types of rock extruding into the cracks or dikes. and changes from moving landmasses on Creation Day 3 when the rocks were lifted up above the deep. Then they drop down again, and lift up again, time and time and time again. It was a wonderful and complex story.
I think it happened in a pattern summarized by Genesis 1. But the rocks do say with the authority of truth, it couldn't have happened either during a 144 hours literal creation days or even in 365 days of a Noah Flood.
They could have happened in Creation Days are eras or stages of creation.
Many floods have happened, all of them before Noah's existence, and his was the last of the great floods. His flood may have cut a canyon like the Grand Canyon, but it could not formed the layers of the Grand Canyon for many many perfectly understandable reasons.
David R. Montgomery, from Seattle, has written "The Rocks Don't Lie. A geologist investigates Noah's flood." If you wish to study this in detail from a sympathetic geologist.
Jack,
You're basing your conclusions on the assumption that granite can form from magma. What evidence do you have for that assumption? Laboratory experiments mimicing the proposed temperatures and pressures and conducted by multiple researchers have repeatedly shown that assumption to be false. What new evidence do you have to the contrary that granite really can form from magma?
"But the rocks do say with the authority of truth, it couldn't have happened either during a 144 hours literal creation days or even in 365 days of a Noah Flood."
Where? Where do the rocks speak with more authority than divine visions or the infallible Word of God?
Hi Bob, Bob, who are the multiple reseachers that have shown that molten rock can't form into granite??? “Igneous rock infusions” are common (dikes). These do come from rising magma. μάγμα means "mixture” of molten rock and under the earth as it cools it does form granite. Many granite dikes of magma have pushed through cracks in strata filled with fossils, have cooled and formed granite. This is soooo well documented!
Since our last discussion I have been caught up on the halos in Dr. Gentry's granite. In his writings, Gentry is vague about the locations from which he obtained his granite crystal samples. Geologist Jeffrey Richard actually visited all of Gentry's sample sites. Through a series of phone conversations with Gentry as well as a trip with him to one site, Wakefield pinpointed the exact locations from which all of Gentry's samples were taken.
Wakefield discovered that in every case Gentry's samples came not from primordial granites as he had claimed, but rather from young dikes (Igneous rock infusions into vertical fissures) that crosscut older igneous and sedimentary rocks.
Wakefield, Jeffrey Richard, "The Geology of Gentry's Tiny Mystery," Journal of Geological Education 36 (1988), pages 161-175
Wakefield, J. Richard, "Gentry's Tiny Mystery–Unsupported by Geology," in Creation/Evolution, XXII (1988), pagers 13-33.
Darrel,
One such researcher, Dr. Larry Taylor, was a professor at UT who publicly challenged Gentry at a presentation Gentry was giving at that school. Taylor claimed that he could make granite in the lab, but in fact had never made a piece with visible crystals. The experiment has repeatedly been done, and what is always produced is a fine-grained rock similar to rhyolite, not a coarse-grained rock like granite. "Soooo well documented"? The only "documentation" out there is assertions and assumptions, not the results of experimentation.
It sounds like Wakefield and Richard have bought into uniformitarian presuppositions, and then are using those presuppositions to attack Gentry's work. Day 1 and/or Day 3 of creation could easily produce dikes crosscutting other rocks. If the dikes really did form naturally, then how did they end up with Po-218 halos in them, without excess fossil alpha recoil tracks?
Have you read Gentry's published reports? It would make no sense to read his critics without also reading his published reports. Note that "The Geology of Gentry's Tiny Mystery" is posted at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/gentry/premise.htm and that a graphic has been added that has a caption suggesting that Po halos may be Rn-222 halos, despite the fact that the Rn-222 and the Po-210 rings are distinct in fluorite. I pointed out this problem over 11 years ago to both Wakefield and Collins (it's Collins' site), and still that caption deceitfully suggests that Po halos might be Rn halos because the Rn-222 and Po-218 rings are indistinguishable. Pretty shady. (Wakefield never responded. Collins admitted I was right.)
~~Igneous intrusions are formerly molten rock that were once injected upwards into the earth’s crust, like insulating foam being injected into the wall cavity of a house. Just as foam is always of more recent date than the brick walls surrounding it, so igneous intrusions are bound to be younger than the sedimentary rock which it forced apart and infiltrated.
This did not happen on day one or two because often the rock so infiltrated is filled with fossils.
If the rock is really filled with fossils untouched by the extreme heat of the alleged magma, then there was no magma. If the rock being intruded melts at the same or a lower temp as the intruding rock, and if there is no mixing of the two, or no alteration of the host rock, then how could there really have been an intrusion of magma?
At any rate, we should be able to conclude that the intrusions weren't intrusions of magma if the crystal size is large since slow cooling of magma under extreme pressure in the lab never produces such crystal sizes. Another interpretation of the rock relationships must be sought.
Darrel,
I'll add the following. Note that at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/gentry/tiny.htm Wakefield gives room for Gentry's response, but has no response posted. Yet the response at http://www.halos.com/book/ctm-app-32-a.htm was apparently published by 1992, the same year the deceitful graphic and caption were copyrighted.
On 2/21/2003 I wrote Wakefield about the graphic and also asked, "Why have you made it look like he doesn't want to reply or can't reply?" when Gentry had already replied at least 5 years before the article was posted on Collins' site.
Wakefield in his article quoted, "'In both cases conclusions vindicating preconceived religious convictions were desired so badly that often scientific integrity was compromised, intentionally or inadvertently'" (Hastings. 1982, p. 51-52). And yet this is the very thing Wakefield and/or Collins has done in having a deceitful graphic associated with his article, and keeping it posted there 11 years after being called on it.
"Day 1 and/or Day 3 of creation could easily produce dikes crosscutting other rocks" so then you do believe it is possible for magma to become granite?
What we know is that slow cooling under pressure of a melt does not produce granite today. Whether how God created granite involved magma or not, this we do not know.
It isn't difficult for me to imagine upheavals that resulted in sedimentary rock surrounding dikes.
Jack,
Here are some important questions.
Below the tram ride at Palm Springs there is supposed to be gabbro intruding granodiorite, and granodiorite intruding gabbro. One of those rocks melts at a substantially higher temp than the other. The contact point between them is supposed to be distinct, without mixing, indicating that both were fluids at the same time, and both crystallized at the same time, which fits the biblical creation scenario.
Have you observed any alterations or mixing in the Vishnu Schist that one might expect to see if magma really did fill cracks in it, some cracks being thin, and if that magma really did cool slowly to form the Zoroaster Granite, even though repeated experiments show that slow cooling of magma under pressure doesn't form granite? Or are the contacts between those two rocks types fairly distinct? What size are the smaller of the "thin bands" of Zoroaster Granite?
Correction:
They could have happened IF Creation Days are eras or stages of creation.
Jack Hoehn,
I appreciate your response; as my concluding question to you was: is it totally impossible to you for the major seismic and volcanic activity that would’ve had to occur in any supernatural creation event of a period of 24-hour days with water, and a subsequent deluge, to have left the evidence that persuades you.
Another way of asking this is: was it totally impossible for God to have literally done what the Bible claims He did—given “the deep, molten lava, cooling, cracking, new types of rock extruding into the cracks or dikes, and changes moving from landmasses on Creation Day 3 when the rocks were lifted up above the deep…[then them dropping] down again, and [lifting] up again, time and time and time again,” with the effects of The Flood—as rocks could be telling us that?
You’re putting God in a box that absolutely prohibits Him from doing in any one day what might currently appear to have taken billions of years to do. (On film, even we can condense/lapse time.)
I suppose you might imagine that God will one day confirm you were right; and say “You know folks, never mind that evening and morning stuff, that version wasn’t meant to be interpreted as literal.”
Personally, I find that to be incredible.
Joe,
"'Theistic revelation' is difficult or impossible to substantiate–no matter how much one may believe in God or revelation."
But I have thought for some time that we have a double standard going on. Suppose I pick up a history book that says that George Washington was the first American president, or that Brutus helped assassinate Julius Caesar, or that Marc Antony lost to Octavian at the Battle of Actium, no one questions it. Everyone accepts such things as fact without dispute, even evolutionists.
But if I pick up a history book that says that God created the world, even describing in some detail how He did it, and that says that He then destroyed the world with a flood, then all of a sudden evolutionists want to quibble over the reliability of the historical account. That's a double standard. Why don't they quibble over the recorded accomplishments of Hammurabi? Why this inconsistency?
Mankind doesn't exist. All life is an illusion. Science can't replicate the human creature, or any other life form, from nothing. The original seed and its illusional DNA is required. In order to replicate any "real" solid substance and the instructions to animate it, and give it life, from nothing, requires intelligence of the highest possible existent quality, on Earth, or outside of Earth, to achieve. But in our delusion, we know it doesn't exist, therefore we don't exist. In our delusional/illusion it's so obvious that complexity in a continuing strain of illusional intelligence requires intelligence, which doesn't exist. Therefore we don't exist. It is vanity to think we exist.
Yes, Bob, I agree that there is a double standard. It is independently verifiable from multiple sources that George Washington was the first president and chief executive of the United States. Many other historical events are verifiable. Even so, scholarly historians do not merely accept everything they hear or read. Much scholarly effort is expended attempting to verify events or call into question traditional beliefs about history. Some approaches are more scientific than others, but to suggest there is no skepticism of historical tradition seems unwarranted.
Accepting any single source uncritically and without independent verification, while applying extreme and sometimes extraordinary skepticism of science and history, seems to me to be the double standard.
Earl, dear friend. Sarcasm can be humorous and sometimes serves well as ridicule. I want to assure you that I do not consider you or myself (or Bob), a figment* of any of our imaginations. We are real, flesh-and-blood, tangible people with objectively verifiable existence. One has to twist one's mind quite a lot to reach any other conclusion.
* For "figment" I prefer to to use the term "fig newton" but then I might convey the impression that I am not a serious person, seeking to carry on a deadly serious discussion.
Bob, I'm confident that you could find quibbling squabbles among scholars who have studied Hammurabi. Quibbling and squabbling is the job of scholars. What you don't like is the conclusions people reach when they seek independent verification of the things you accept uncritically on faith.
Why not just step back and not claim to be so certain about things that do not stand up to critical examination? These need not be tests of faith.
Joe,
I still see inconsistency. Here we have historical accounts in the Bible, written by those who personally knew the eyewitnesses, if they weren't eyewitnesses themselves, and evolutionists and other skeptics do not give those accounts as much weight as they give to other histories. One case in point is how critics rejected the authenticity of the book of Daniel because it said that Nebuchadnezzar built Babylon and Belshazzar was the last king, since such details seemed to contradict later Greek historicans. Why didn't they suspect that the later Greek historians were just uninformed, as archaeology has now proven?
To be more specific, can you name an evolutionist who has given as much deference to the historical records in Genesis as he has given to other historical records?
"Why not just step back and not claim to be so certain about things that do not stand up to critical examination? These need not be tests of faith."
I'm unsure what exactly you mean. If you mean we can't be sure about all the minute details of Noah's Flood, then I already do what you're asking. If you mean that we shouldn't make the reality of a 6-literal-day creation and a worldwide Flood a test of faith, then I don't buy the assumption you're basing your question on. The latter do stand up to critical examination, they are testified to in no uncertain terms in Scripture, and we were explicitly warned by Peter and Ellen White about delusive theories to the contrary.
Bob, you are accepting the Bible as authoritative in ways that few historians accept any document–not that there is anything wrong with that, if that is who you are. No, nothing at all. But it does make discussion and careful thinking and reliance on real evidence moot. You actually are insisting on special status for the descriptions included in scripture, and you are not at all evaluating what is said there with what is said elsewhere. You are free to do that. You are even free to pretend and assert that you are not doing that. And you are not lying because you really believe you are correct.
Joe,
Certainly I'm accepting the Bible as authoritative, but that isn't the issue I'm raising. I am questioning the double standard on the part of skeptics/evolutionists where they give greater weight to non-biblical historical records than they give biblical historical records, even if the non-biblical records were written much later. I even cited two examples where this type of thing was done, and the reasons given at the time eventually proved erroneous.
"But it does make discussion and careful thinking and reliance on real evidence moot."
So are you saying that historical records aren't real evidence? So the writings of Josephus or Herodotus or Xenophon or Tacitus aren't real evidence of any sort?
The real problem is that the religious beliefs/worldview of evolutionists require that they deny that the biblical historical records are really historical records, without evaluation, despite those records being eyewitness accounts or the accounts of those who spoke with eyewitnesses.
Bob, the thing is, I am not a defender of atheism. I think people who are rigidly atheistic sometimes do as you have said–they are not willing to consider that biblical records are sources of credible information.
My own position is different. My tendency is to hold information gently. I recognize that there are many sources of information. Even the information that seems credible to me today, might turn out to be less credible tomorrow. So, I am nearly always prepared to discard what I think I understand today or modify it in accordance with future credible information.
So, I agree with you that various ancient writings provide information that should be considered on its merits–whether it is the writing of Josephus or Solomon. But just because someone wrote something, whether recently, or long ago, does not make the content valid or inerrant. Things are not necessarily what they claim to be or seem.
Now, I should mention also that the terms "evolutionist" and "atheist" are not synonymous. One can be an atheist without accepting or having any real understanding of evolution, and not all who accept that evolutionary processes are real deny the existence of God. I certainly do not claim to be certain that God does not exist. I am quite confident that evolution has occurred and continues to occur–and that is based on recognition of abundant evidence and evaluation of that evidence on its merits.
But what is the point of this discussion? I have no need for you to believe as I do, and that is probably a good thing. Our styles of thinking are very, very different. I expect you think I am an idiot. Oh well…. That just doesn't matter much to me.
Joe, Bob can correct me should he not agree with me. i believe what he is asking is how certain can one living today know if there is anything that can be proved to be true, if it occurred before the year 1300?? i visited Dachau after WWII, so can testify to the reality of the Holocaust, and know of the trials at Nurenberg, of some of the Nazi leadership. Yet there is already a lot of skepticism that it occurred.
Hi Earl, how certain can one be about anything? There are people out there saying all sorts of things, many of which contradict each other. How long it has been since something reportedly happened is certainly an issue, and whether any hard artifacts remain. I also visited Dachau–more than 50 years ago, but not immediately after WW II. When I lived in Germany, many artifacts remained from WW II, and many people who lived there had fresh memories. Now there are people who claim the Holocaust either did not occur, or that the facts have been distorted. My impression is that it was even worse than most people can imagine and affected a wider array of people than is usually believed. With all the documentation of the atrocities during WW II, it takes lots of denial to ignore Dachau and the other camps. Our camps here in California for people of Japanese ancestry should not be forgotten either. I have direct memories of these dating back to shortly after the war. The housing at Dachau was better, but I saw no gas chambers or ovens in Stockton.
Joe, as the last eye witness to an event dies, it seems that "proof" ceases to be acceptable. The "last witness", was probably mistaken, or a prevaricator. i would suggest that all skeptics, have a bone of contention, to be given credence.
Therefore the statement "I am quite confident evolution has occurred and continues to occurr, and is based on abundant evidence and evaluation of that evidence on its merit", is a very strong assertion that is highly contested. The main contention of most atheists is that origins of the Earth and its life forms can be explained, evaluated, and proven, that it occurred without any input from an "Intelligent Designer". That's impossible to prove to intelligent human creatures.Just as its impossible, for a Christian to prove (to the masses of the world) that a "Almighty Intelligent Creator" of the universes, created all that there is ,on Earth, and in the Cosmos. You've agreed that PROOF, according to many qualified living eye witnesses, once the eyewitnesses have past to their rewards, is impossible, as revisionists are busy rewriting the facts. Therefore my contention is that all on Earth live by "faith", enabling many different philosophies. Your contention that you are quite confident of your "choice faith, evolution", and its evaluated evidence, is merited, compared with all other non-corroborated theories, carries no more weight than any other open ended "no actual evidence theory", just a theory, thats all. No proof in the links; also suggesting that utter complexity in the life forms did not have INTELLIGENCE of ORIGIN is mind boggleling. We definitely came from outer space. WE ARE OUTER SPACE.
Joe,
"… and that is based on recognition of abundant evidence and evaluation of that evidence on its merits."
What evidence are you referring to? I would appreciate a discussion of that evidence.
Well I have seen the typical mix of good arguments, factual errors, logical fallacies, and outright mis-information from all sides.
Let me start by saying that Evolution unaided by any external source of intelligence, like Intelligent Design or Special Creation are NOT theories in the strict sense because there is no agreed-upon way to falsify any of them. Strictly speaking they are at best working hypotheses or paradigms.
Then I have seen the fallacy of claiming that Harvard is not a secular institution because it is not a public institution. By law in the US of A all public insittutions must be secular (as opposed to religious) but the converse is not true. There are many private secular institutions in the US of A.
In 1636 the college that later adopted the name of John Harvard of Charlestown, was an overtly religious institution. The Harvard University of today has long since abandoned any pretext of being other than secular.
More comments to follow regarding science and sci-fi. I know these comments may be repetitive but most of the regulars here seem to thrive on repetition. It is almost as-if they hope that by simply writing the same things over and over again their arguments will become more convincing 8-).
Re sci-fi:
"Time Travel" as used by one commenter is sci-fi NOT science. First of all, this would be a one-way street – you could hypothetically go forward in time but you could never go back. And the assertion that different observers experience time differently is NOT part of Special Relativity. Quite the contrary, relativity occurs precisely because all observers experience time identically regardless of their velocities relative to other observers.
But the much bigger problem is that even if you could do it you would no longer be You. Why? Because in order to experience significant relative time displacements one or both of the observers must be accelerated to velocities that are non-trivial fractions of the speed of light (tens of thousands of miles per second, as opposed to per hour like space vehicles). There is no known way to accelerate an object of non-trivial mass to these velocities (or energy levels) except in the vicinity of a super-massive object (think Quasars, Neutron Stars, Black Holes etc). And if you could it would break apart into atoms, small molecules, etc. These minute particles we can accelerate to relativistic velocities in giant accelerators.
One may assert that celestial beings do not have physical mass. By the same reasoning they do not have physical velocity or physical space or physical time. General Relativity ties these phenomena together in a multi-dimansional space-time fabric. Heaven as Christians understand it is outside of our observable physical space-time cosmos.
It does not help us understand God to try to reduce the Divine to our physical models of reality, be they science or sci-fi. God transcends our cosmos and our physcial frames of reference and our physical understanding.
Re saturated solutions:
I totally misunderstand the point of the argument about saturated solutions of Calcium Carbonate in sea water. Saturated solutions of ions are in a dynamic equilibrium. But the chemical reactions still occur according to the equilibrium conditions. The instantaneous point of saturation is a function of temperature, pressure, turbulence, etc. Saturation is a stochastic process described by equilibrium equations. Compounds do dissove in saturated solutions – at equilibrium the rates of solution and precipitation are statistically the same. Chemical reactions do not cease.
The comments seem to misconstrue the behavior of the chemical system. Since I could make no sense of these arguments given the equilibrium equations I learnt many years ago in Freshman Chemistry I have basically ignored them.
Re radioactive decay halos in biotite crystals:
I have read all of Gentry's published papers and also a few unpublished ones he kindly sent to me. I have also read a cross-section of the rebuttals. And I think I have a good enough grasp of physics and physical chemistry to actually understand what I was reading.
Gentry did not run afoul of the scientific establishment because of his published observations. He got in trouble when he publicized plausible (to him) implications regarding the ages of the crystals he was observing. Although plausible to him, these conclusions are not inescapable consequences of his observations. There are other possible explanations.
Gentry's detractors also have a problem that nobody wants to talk about. Micro-fissures in some of the most impermeable crystals naturally occurring in rocks, that are sufficient to allow intrusions of Polonium (or Uranium as some have claimed), are also large enough to allow migration of Potassium, Argon and other elements used for radio-isotope dating. You do not get to cherry-pick which elements will migrate and which won't to suit your particular working hypothesis.
Permeability of various rock crystals was fundamental to what Gentry was being paid to study. The funding came from the Department of Energy because it was important to understand what would be the long-term consequences of storing nuclear wastes in various kinds of rock formations and man-made crystals.
Clarification – I have read all of Gentry's published papers re radioactive decay halos in biotite crystals. I have read a few of his other papers but they are not germane to this topic.
Jim, within the confines of my admitted "confirmation biases," I agree with many (even most) of your comments (trying hard to be sure not to take an "all or none" position). I may have been the one who claimed Harvard was not a secular institution. I agree with you that it is, at least, mostly a secular institution now, even though it began primarily to educate men to be religious clerics. There is some sense in which its growth into a largely secular institution was based on finding that gaining useful knowledge did not depend on a theo-centric world view. Even many institutions of higher education that are owned by religious organizations, have become, at most "quasi-religious" institutions (even if they require some religion courses for undergraduates). [examples: Georgetown, Catholic, USC, Notre Dame, UOP, but maybe not BYU or Liberty or LLU]
Jim, I wonder if you see any parallels between sci-fi and religion, at least as practiced by some. You seem less inclined than many to "put God in a box," as I have suggested that some people are doing.
Well I would like to make it clear that I DO believe in God, in the Bible and even in Ellen White.
I believe that God is infallible. I believe the Bible is the best revelation of God that I have seen in writing, but I do not hold to verbal inspiration or Biblical inerrancy. I think Ellen had an amazing ability to get the big picture right even when she was unclear or mistaken on many of the details. She drew heavily from the work of others, including many of their errors. But she was way ahead of her contemporaries on many important topics and I think that was more than coincidence.
Good sci-fi like other good fiction is a blend of fact and fantasy. Fiction that has little or no basis in fact generally does not fare very well. I would agree that religion as often practiced is also a blend of fact and fantasy so I suppose there could be an analogy with sci-fi. But I would say the same about much of what emanates from dogmatic evolutionists. I guess it is human to choose our favorite fantasies.
For me God is more than a fantasy because I have experienced His power in my own life and seen it in the lives of others. But this may sound like a fantasy to those who have not shared this experience. God is not amenable to scientific investigation. Those who think they can describe or predict God with a high degree of certainty probably know less about God than they might fancy.
I think it is also more than coincidence that most of the world's greatest universities were founded by people who had a theo-centric world view (yes even the great public universites were mostly founded by theo-centric people). Especially the Judeo-Christian view that God embodies ultimate truth and that God reveals truth to humans.
The world-views of the Communist and Eastern Mystical regions have produced some excellent science and technology schools, but they have done much less to advance human knowledge in other realms. They can give you MIT but not Harvard.
Jim,
Walt Brown's discussion about limestone and seawater is found on four pages, the first of which is http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Limestone.html with the others linked at the bottom. Please read it and tell me what you think.
As CaCO3 was precipitating out of seawater, what would be the ongoing source of Ca and C to keep the seawater at a fairly saturated state, if all the limestone we see formed in the manner that evolutionists assert? Would that ongoing source erode at the required rate?
So I read the article you referred. I saw the basic equilibrium equation for dissolved / Calcium Carbonate in water. No argument there. I saw a bit of geology where he estimates the amount of Carbon in the earth's crust and biospehere. I do not know how he arrived at this estimate but for sake of argument I will say it seems plausible. Then I saw a lot a hand-waving where he propounds his hypothesis (without supporting evidence) for the condition of the earth before a universal flood.
The first thing he ignores is that most of the earth's mass is underneath the crust and biosphere. How much Silica and Carbonate is contained in minerals in the mantle is nowhere estimated. It is known that today volcanism is a major source of transport of minerals from the mantle to the crust. He seems to be fixated on trying to do the job with water because it supports his view of the flood mechanisms. It is not clear to me whether he has any model at all that accounts for the contents or dynamics of the mantle, or how it interacts with the crust and the biosphere.
I see here no dispassionate attempt to compare various mechanisms for bulk mineral transport, their assumed rates of action, arguments for or against different assumptions regarding initial conditions, etc. Rather I see a small amount of data and a large amount of propaganda, which I routinely filter regardless of its source.
I might add here that most popular writings from the proponents of the naturalistic models for the development of the earth are not much better – long on rhetoric, short on meaningful comparative analysis of different models and their supporting and contravening data, etc. Basically everyone is trying to argue their case rather than produce anything like an objective analysis or comparison from which the careful reader might draw one's own conclusions.
I do not need "experts" of whatever stripe trying to tell me what to believe, and by implication if I do not agree with their conclusions that I am ignorant or stupid or stubborn. So far nobody has convinced me that they know very much about what actually happened in earth's distant past.
Disclaimer – those who know me can testify that I am stuborn, but they will also testify that I am neither ignorant nor stupid 8-).
Comments both in this thread and also in the article referred by Bob seem to ignore or dispute the common understanding about the current deep structure of the earth.
Let me start with some observed facts (not interpretations). Since its first triangulation, the world's tallest land-based mountain has risen by at least 35 feet. For many years surveyors simply assumed their predecessors had not measured correctly. However satellite-based measurements have confirmed that this mountain is indeed rising by a few inches per year, relative to the center of the earth about which the satellites orbit.
As the glaciers on Greenland have melted over the past number of years, saltellite-based measurements have confirmed that the land mass of Greenland is slowly rising.
Some of the earliest satellites that bounced radar signals off the earth's surface confirmed what many scientists had suspected. The earth is slightly pear-shaped, the surface of Southern Hemisphere riding on average a few miles higher above earth's center than the Northern.
These three current and repeatable observations lend themselves to interpretations that seem to run contrary to the aforementioned comments.
First, those who doubt that subduction is presently occurring need to offer some alternative explanation for the continued and rather dramatic rise of the moutain called Chomolungma by Tibetans, Sagamartha by Nepalese or Everest by British. Perhaps the more remarkable considering the reasons why Greenland is rising and the Souther Hemisphere rides higher than the Northern.
Most geologists agree that the earth's crust floats on a highly viscous mantle of molten rock. The crust is generally lighter than the mantle, and of course the seas are lighter than the continents. The weight of accumulated ice on Greenland has actually caused the underlying crust to sink down into the mantle. As the ice melts and the water runs-off Greenland is slowly rising. More os the Southern Hemisphere is water and less is continents so it floats on average higher on the surface of the mantle thant does the Northern.
So why would not the highest land-based mountain (and indeed the entire Himalaya range) be slowly sinking into the mantle? I am waiting for a credible alternative explanation from the subduction deniers.
And the skepticism expressed in the web pages by Dr Walt Brown (referred by Bob Pickle), that the deep subsea limestone deposits would gradually sink as more limestone accumulated, can be rebutted by the same mechanism that is making Greenland slowly rise.
If someone wants to know how we have accumulated a fairly accurate map of the deep sturcture of the earth, I could answer that question also but I hope I have made my point.
Thank you Jim, you have made your point well!
Jim,
You refer to volcanism transporting minerals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt states that as basalt chemically weathers, it loses Ca cations, which bind with CO2 to form CaCO3. It also states that volcanic eruptions of basalt are associated with the release of CO2, as if CaCO3 is involved in the volcanism itself, which brings to mind EGW's PP 108 statement linking the burning of limestone with volcanic activity. If today's volcanism at times involves limestone, then today's volcanism doesn't necessarily tell us where the original Ca and C came from to form the limestone that already exists.
As far as limestone under the Bahamas subsiding, I think Brown's main point is that it is difficult to imagine the sea subsiding at the rate required over the length of time required, since limestone is supposed to form in "shallow seas." (I don't necessarily agree with every single point Brown makes.)
"First, those who doubt that subduction is presently occurring need to offer some alternative explanation for the continued and rather dramatic rise of the moutain called Chomolungma by Tibetans, Sagamartha by Nepalese or Everest by British."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but evolutionists do not currently believe that subduction is causing the ruse of Everest.
The collision of the Indian Ocean plate with the Asian plate is causing the up-thrust of the Himalayas. But if somewhere rocks are moving up, somewhere else they must be moving down, relative to the mantle. Or is there a huge void slowly forming underneath the crust?
Calcium and Carbon and Oxygen are indeed bound together in limestone. But that doesn't mean they occur only or primarily in limestone. I never said that volcanism ejects limestone. And sorry but I think Ellen was dead wrong in her description of the causes of volcanism. Coal fires were big news in her day and she probably read this in some newspaper or elsewhere.
Strictly speaking there is another possibility, that molten rock is being extruded into the crust from the mantle. This is generally called volcanism, but you might not call it volcanism if the extruded magma never reaches the surface.
However, if this is the primary process driving upthrust, and there is no subdiction, then the volume of the mantle will shrink and the crust will fold-in and collapse to conform to the shrinking mantle. I am not aware of any evidence that this is happening on a major scale.
I suppose you could believe that God is creating new rock in the present ex nihilo, but most Biblical literalists tend to view the earth as a closed physical system for the past however many thousands of years.
For myself I do read the Bible as saying that God could not create anything material before Day 1 nor after Day 6. I am convinced that God can do whatever He chooses, wherever and whenever He chooses. But if every time we have no easy explanation for something we simply attribute it to another miracle, scientific knowledge will cease to advance. And I also think our knowledge of God will cease to advance. I do not wish to drag either Science or Christianity back into the mists of superstition where both resided a thousand years ago. We call it the Dark Ages for very good reasons.
I recognize that there may be people who wish the microscope, telescope, seismograph, photograph, satellite, etc, had never been invented. I am not of this persuasion.
For some this last comment of mine does bring the discussion full-circle. Some writers have hypothesized that there was a layer of water underneath the crust, and that at the time of Noah's flood, this water was ejected and the earth's crust did indeed fold in upon itself and collapse. Some of the arguments I have read for this hypothesis might be plausible, but some were manifestly false in my opinion.
Given that we now have the capability from space to measure the lateral and vertical relative motions of various parts of the crust to an accuracy of millimeters per year, it seems more plausible to believe that the mechanism that drives the currently observed motion was active in the past, possibly at a different rate. That makes more sense to me than trying to postulate a different mechanism that cannot be observed today.
However none of us were around thousand, millions or billions of years ago. Nor did anyone who might have been present bother to record precise measurements of the various motions for subsequent study. So we are all into the realm of speculation here.
Jim,
I wasn't suggesting that you said that volcanism ejects limestone. I was only suggesting that limestone could be a source of the CO2 and Ca emitted by volcanoes, and I think those CO2 emissions support Ellen White's statement. If the source of the CO2 isn't limestone (or coal or oil), what would it be?
As far as the mantle contributing to volcanism, Walt Brown makes the point that the weight of a certain depth of rock is supposed to close off all channels, and thus he asks, How would the magma get from the mantle to the surface? Since you weren't proposing that it get to the surface, to what extent could it extrude into the crust? Any thoughts?
I think you've made an excellent point that none of us were around when the events under discussion occurred, regardless of when they occurred.
Actually if you read what I said, I never proposed that magma was rising under the Himalayas. I merely pointed out that those who do not buy into plate tectonics might offer this explanation for the observed present upthrust.
You seem reluctant to admit to plate tectonics. Are you concerned that it undermines the hypothesis that the current surface features of the earth were formed during a recent flood by rapid ejection of a very large volume of subterranean water and suspended solids, and a consequent collapes of the crust?
Or is it only subduction that makes you skittish because of the implications that Carbon and/or Calcium currently in the crust could be recycled through the mantle via subduction and volcanism?
What if anything do you believe about the present (static and dynamic) conditions beneath our feet? Beyond your suggestion that coal fires are indeed a contributing factor to volcanism? And if the latter is true can you cite any corroborating physical data?
Jim,
I'm uncertain why you are asking these questions. Why "admit to plate tectonics" if I don't know of any compelling reasons for doing so, especially when that theory contradicts Scriptural chronology? I don't know of compelling reasons for accepting subduction either.
Your suggestion about recycling C and Ca, that was in essence my suggestion (though I wasn't suggesting that it be so deep). That's why I was pointing out CO2 emissions from volcanos. Recycling doesn't address where the CaCO3 originally came from. My question was about where the Ca and C originally came from. Erosion of basalt would be a possibility, but if the basalt is merely recyled crustal Ca and C, it doesn't say anything about where the original amounts came from.
I didn't really refer to coal fires as a contributing factor to volcanism. I was talking about limestone, not coal, though for accuracy's sake, I did acknowledge that CO2 emmissions could come from coal or oil as well as from limestone. But the CO2 emissions, unless you can give some other source for them, would themselves be corroborating physical evidence of burning limestone, oil, or coal. And if you don't mind C in the crust recycling via volcanism, then you already believe that limestone (or some other C source) is a contributing factor to volcanism. So what would be the issue here?
Are you really serious about not believing in plate tectonics and subduction? I'm just hoping you don't have any lethal weapons….
If it's true that neither pushing nor pulling can overcome the forces that would prevent subduction, then I'm presently unsure how subduction could take place.
Modern plate tectonic theory calls for earth's continents to have drastically moved over millions of years. So of course I don't believe that, since I don't believe the earth is that old. Brown's hydroplate theory might be a better option.
Well this seems to harken back to an old fallacy I encountered in a book I borrowed many years ago that claimed to have a "scientific" model for the Flood. Sorry but I do not now recall who was the author but it does sound like some of what Bob is attributing to Walt Brown.
To its credit this book did have a reasonably complete description of hypothesized pre-flood earth structure, and the mechanics that transformed it during the flood. But then it blundered right into this "pushing and pulling" argument that exhibits a complete misunderstanding of the forces driving plate tectonics.
To understand plate tectonics you need to understand that the forces driving the plates arise in the mantle, not in the crust. Plate tectonics is NOT about the crust pushing or pulling. It is about the crust floating atop a viscous fluid mantle that is being heated from below and cooled from above.
To understand this watch a pan of water or oil that is being heated from below but not yet boiling. For any fluid (gas or liquid) the molecules are not tightly bound together but are quasi-randomly moving about according to the laws of thermodynamics. The lower the viscosity the more independently the molecules of the fluid can move. But even at very high viscosities like those of molten rock, there are strong vertical and lateral convection currents.
Now put some wood chips into your pan and watch how they move around as they float on top of the heated water (lower viscosity) or oil (higher viscosity). They may appear to be pushing or pulling each other but the actual force driving their relative motion is the currents in the underlying heated fluid on which they float.
Of course there is an important limitation to this experiment – the edges of the pan. Imagine a pan with no edges. The surface on which the chips float is topologically equivalent to the surface of the roughly spherical mantle on which the crustal plates float.
For an even more accurate experiment replace the wood chips with relatively thin flakes of ice floating on water. To keep the ice from melting you will have to have a layer of extremely cold air above the heating water. But that is a better representation of the thermodynamic condition of the crust relative to the mantle. Even if you start out with a single large flake of ice, you will end-up with multiple smaller pieces, because the lateral tension (pulling) and compression (pushing) forces in the ice are totally dominated by the force of the convection currents in the liquid water beneath. Your single thin ice sheet will be gradully broken up into smaller pieces. You will see upthrust and subduction and creases and pressure ridges.
Get the picture?
It seems to me that your illustration only partly explains the problem described at http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/TechnicalNotes14.html. What you propose would negate Brown's frictional forces below the plate, but not those above the plate. What about those?
Wood chips and ice chips floating on heated water or oil does not take into account the massive weights of the plates we are talking about, which would create immense frictional forces. How are these forces overcome? Would the alleged circulations within the mantle be enough?
Obviously, current plate tectonics theorists do not believe circulation in the mantle is enough to create subsduction under Mt. Everest, since they have instead upthrust there, and presumably buckling. So at what point do plate tectonics theorists believe subduction becomes impossible? How thin must the plates be for subduction to occur? Has there been any discussion on this?
Actually surface tension of water under ice or wood chips creates major friction on the wetted bottoms of the chips or flakes, relative to their mass. The same for the wetted rocks at the inerface between the crust and the mantle.
Friction actually helps drag the chips or flakes through the water. You need to understand that the currents in the mantle are what transport the crustal plates – the plates are floating in the currents. Brown totally does not understand the transport mechanisms of plate tectonics which is why he uses all the wrong arguments against it.
For many years I had a canoe in my yard and lived on a lake. For many years when I was young I spent much of my vacation time in canoes. It is much easier to float with the currents than to paddle against them. Brown argues that crustal plates could only move across the mantle with difficulty and I agree. He does not understand that plate tectonics is about the crustal plates being crried along WITH the convection currents in the surface of the mantle. This requires no "effort" at all on the part of the plates. The "effort" happens when and where the plates collide. At that point they are fighting against the currents. Sort of like being caught by some snag on the surface of the river. Then you have to work real hard not to capsize your canoe and/or be "subducted" under the snag.
For the same reason the plates tend to fragment in the subduction zones. That is why in the Cascadia Subduction Zone the Juan de Fuca Plate has broken off from the Pacific Plate.
I found the hypdroplate theory intriguing. But I have a hard time trusting any "scientific" analysis regarding the past from someone who totally does not understand how and why the crust is moving around in the present.
So are you saying that there is more friction between the viscous mantle and a plate than there is between the horizontal surfaces of two plates?
What do they propose causes the currents in the mantle, currents which do not vary much for perhaps millions of years?
I have already explained that convection currents occur in any fluid that is not at a totally uniform temperature. The mantle is a viscous fluid heated from beneath and cooled from above.
I said nothing about friction between plates but I will answer that obvious question now – earthquakes !
One very brief clarification – my generalization about the behavior of fluids under differential thermal conditions, definitely holds when the fluid is constrained by gravity. What happens in space under so-called weightless (actually free-fall in orbit) conditions is an interesting questions. I know they did some experiments in space but I have not seen any conclusive results.
Oops!
I just discovered a very unfortunate typo in this sentence:
"For myself I do read the Bible as saying that God could not create anything material before Day 1 nor after Day 6. " should read "For myself I do NOT read the Bible as saying that God could not create anything material before Day 1 nor after Day 6. "
I object to labeling anyone who hews to modern interpretations of PRESENT geological activity as an "evolutionist". My comments about present geological activity hardly qualify as "evolution" in any historical sense.
It appears that you like to apply the label "evolutionist" to anyone who does not regard the Bible as their primary source for interpretation of natural phenomena be they past present or future?
Given that the authors of the Bile wrote long before the invention of the telescope and microscope, I do not see why the Bible should be considered a primary source for understanding what cannot be observed with the naked eye?
Please note that I do believe the statement in John that allthings were made by Him (the Word) and without Him was not anything made that was made. This tells us who is the Author of physical processes but it does not tell us a lot about the mechanics of these processes.
I don't think I labeled everyone who believes in plate tectonics an evolutionist. However, if no evolutionist believes that subduction is the cause of Everest's continued rising, it isn't likely it will even be an issue in a discussion of this sort.
Bob,
I think it is for those who claim that subterranean limestone dissolved in water and then ejected during the flood, to offer more than hand-waving to support their hypothesis. I have not offered my own explanation of what occurred in the distant past. It was you who pointed me to a web site and have not seriously responded to my problems with what I found there.
I have not claimed here anything about the composition of the mantle, other than it is not likely to include water based on any present observations that I am aware of.
You are tyring to make me say some things that I never said. I never claimed that subduction is causing the upthrust of the Himalayas, only that subduction elsewhere is replacing the rock in the mantle. Living as I do in Oregon between the Coast Range and the Cascades, not far from the Juan de Fuca Plate, in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and experiencing frequent minor tremors, and occasional venting of steam from Mt St Helens, and measurable upthrust of some of the other mountains I can see from my house, the question of whether subduction is occurring strikes very near to home for me – right now in the present.
Forgive me, but I care less about your flood ideas than about what is happening beneath me feet right now. If not subduction, then what is causing all this geological commotion all around me? With all due respect to Ellen, ther nearest known subterranean coal fires are perhaps a thousand miles from my house. The nearest Scoria that I have personally seen is in the eastern parts of Montana and Wyoming.
Given that you have ignored my objections to the web site you referred, let me ask you some more questions. Where did all that underlying limestone come from that ostensibly was dissolved, then precipitated and then ejected under pressure of super-heated water? And what heated all of that water? Were there sub-terranean coal fires before the flood? Or did God create an enormous reservoir of super-heated water and limestone (a ginormous boiler awash with boiler scale and whatever else) underneath the crust just in case He might need it to douse evil and/or amalgamted creatures? Or did that pre-flood limestone gradually precipitate within the great abyss that Genesis 1 suggests existed before Day 1?
We can indulge our pseudo-scientific fantasies ad infinitum, or we can admit that a God who could super-naturally create a world (in whatever time period you prefer to envision), could destroy it using whatever natural or super-natural methods He chooses.
I think this is an important part of what Peter is saying in 2 Peter 3. He is not offering a naturalistic explanation based upon the known "elements" of earth, water, air and fire. He is not saying that water is stronger than earth but fire is stronger than water or earth. He is saying that God can use and/or destroy the known and unknown components of His creation when and as He chooses.
Jim,
"I have not claimed here anything about the composition of the mantle, other than it is not likely to include water based on any present observations that I am aware of."
Did someone claim that the mantle contained water? I don't recall Brown doing so.
Your original question about subduction sounded like you thought subduction was causing the upthrust, and that's why I responded the way I did.
"With all due respect to Ellen, ther nearest known subterranean coal fires are perhaps a thousand miles from my house."
Since Ellen White described volcanism occurring during the Flood, she most certainly did not mean us to think that all volcanism is caused by coal fires.
"Where did all that underlying limestone come from that ostensibly was dissolved, then precipitated and then ejected under pressure of super-heated water?"
Brown's newer edition has more material than I remember. However, I missed where he said that it was limestone that dissolved. Previously he had referred to granite and basalt eroding after the fountains of the great deep broke open, but now he talks about limestone forming before the Flood after the dissolving of certain minerals. I didn't see where he said what those minerals were.
"And what heated all of that water?"
I don't know. Perhaps God turned up the decay rates. Who knows? As you rightly point out, God could have used any natural or supernatural means He chose. But we do know that the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and we do know that some, not all, aspects of Brown's theory agrees with Ellen White's description of what happened during the Flood.
I am not sure that we are making any progess in this discussion, but I will answer a few more things that I think should be obvious.
The fountains of the great deep were not necessarily or primarily water. There could have been subsea volcanism. There could have been enormous tsunamis triggered by massive undersea earthquakes in existing or newly formed overthrust or subduction faults. The Genesis description seems to me like Noah's flood could have been triggered by forces unleashed within the mantle. I think a lot of the sediments look like they could have been transported by tsunamis. Look at how much devastation was caused by just one recent tsunami. Or look the other way if you must deny subduction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
And what about giant meteorites? Why not hypothesize that the earth collided with a metoerite so large that the impact splashed through the sea and the sea floor into the mantle? Could the problem be that this sounds too much like Infidel Evolutionist Geology?
I do not find it useful to invent novel subterranean structures and processes in order to construct "scientific" explanations for Noah's flood when known present process suffice. But then, if the inventor does not understand the present processes (s)he can work from a clean slate. Why not hypothesize giant space-ships piloted by Martians or Jovians or demons, flushing their bilge tanks?
Can you point us to even one example of a volcano caused by a coal fire?
In order to melt most rocks using a coal fire you need a blast furnace. Where underground are the gale-force winds needed to feed enough oxygen to super-heat that coal fire to high enough temperatures to melt rocks?
If all prophecy is conditional (except prophecies related to salvation) and OT writers believed in flat earth and other scientific fallacies, why can't E. G. White be granted the same freedom to be in error in fields of science as are the writers of the OT?
Hal,
3SG 90 describes a vision Ellen White had in which she was shown that the days of creation were 6 literal days. I don't think we want to suggest that God was in error in fields of science.
Is. 40:22 refers to the "circle of the earth." Which OT writer did you think taught in Scripture that the earth was flat?
Hal,
There is a big difference between conditionality and being correct. Conditionality is like God's promise to destroy Ninevah. He would have done it except the people repented so God no longer had a valid reason to destroy the people. Being correct is a yes/no, right/wrong issue that assumes the speaker has the authority to speak with definitive knowledge on the topic. Since prophets, including Ellen White, are prone to error and only God has the authority to speak with authoritative knowledge, I don't think what she wrote should be part of the discussion.
Thank you, WN. As a retired SDA minister and chaplain, I always was more comfortable in a chaplain's role of building on another's faith base instead of trying to impose an EGW belief system on someone in crisis or a catastrophic situation. Your comments have helped me resolve some long standing questions since my introduction to radical 24/7 teachings in the church of my childhood. My high school biology teacher taught that God created through evolution. Thesis-antithesis-synthesis is alive and well with AT. PTL – Hal
Hal,
Amen! Praise the Lord! Whenever and wherever.
We have far more important issues on which to focus our attention than debating the age of the earth. Things like telling people that God loves them.
None of my foregoing comments should be construed as an objection to what Jesus said about the existence of Noah. Jesus was more than a human prophet – He was the Son of God. One could debate the extent to which His reference to Noah was an allegory as opposed to a literal fact. I prefer to take His recorded statements at face value.
But I cannot tell you precisely when or where Noah lived. Those who can have built their conclusions on many, many layers of inferences. The more layers of inference from observable facts to reach our conclusions, the more opportunity there is for human fallibility to intrude, especially when we are dealing with phenomena where we cannot go back and make additional observations to confirm our hypotheses and inferences.
Bob – You might want to check out some of the comments on "Long Ago." My Dad used to say, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." "The Open and Closed Mind" by Milton Rokeach (Basic Books, 1960) deals with the dynamics of primitive credulity like those with belief systems accepting EGW statements introduced by "I saw" and "I was shown" as examples of verbal inspiration originating in the mind of the prophet without reference to other sources of information.
Probably your dad was right. That would explain why Jack claims to believe that Ellen White received visions from God, knows that she said she had a vision showing that the idea he is pushing here about the days of creation nbot being days is a most dangerous form of infidelity, and yet won't stop pushing that idea.
However, I don't follow your comment about "primitive credulity." Are you suggesting that the biblical concept of faith and becoming like a little child in order to enter heaven must be rejected, because that's "primitive credulity"?
Luke 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
2 Chronicles 20:20 Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.
Must we toss out these Bible verses?
Do you believe the Bible when it suggests the world was flat or has corners?
Do you believe the Bible when it suggests woman should stay silent in Church, and not teach or have authority over men (which is exactly what Ellen White did)?
Do you believe Isaiah when he suggests in Is 66:17,20 that in the new earth people will live long lives until over 100, but still nonetheless will die?
I suspect the problem is not the Bible nor the prophets, but the way you read the Bible and listen to the prophets!
Do you believe the Bible when the Gospel stories contradict each other? For example, did the Centurion speak to Jesus personally or not – compare Matt 8 with Luke 7?
1. I asked for a verse on the "flat earth" idea and haven't seen it cited yet. But I do believe that there are four directions on the compass, N, S, E, and W, if that's what you mean by "corners."
2. This one doesn't make sense. Of course I believe what the Bible says on this matter, but the Bible also makes clear that women can serve as prophets, and that is exactly what Ellen White did. So I don't see where you are coming up with the idea that Ellen White contradicted the Bible.
3. You must have cited the wrong verse. But I think you err in assuming that Isaiah is saying that the new earth is created before hellfire takes place. Sometimes descriptions of distinct events are mingled together in the OT. Descriptions of the 1st coming and the 2nd coming definitely are. So the sinner being accursed in Is. 65:20 could be referring to before the new earth is created. Whether the child dying is talking about hellfire, or whether it is talking about a child growing up, I don't know. Barnes does cite Hesios as saying something similar.
4. The Centurion both spoke to Jesus personally and through messengers. See DA 315 ff. I imagine you can find quite a few non-Adventist commentators who say the same.
I suspect the problem is not the Bible nor the prophets but the way you read the Bible and listen to the prophets.
I doubt it. See if you can find me reading the Bible to mean something different than what the authors intended.
Bob, I understand completely where you are coming from but we must be careful in placing Ellen White as an infallible interpreter of Scripture. She was wrong regarding some things—certain races arising from amalgamation of men and animals, people on the planet Jupiter, the shut door teaching for examples. We must do what she herself told us study it out from God's word.
Darrel I wholly 100% agree. The question is whether we truly are believers in sola scriptura – the Bible and the Bible alone – or not?
Dear Mr Ferguson
And along with that I should just add, sometimes people confuse the notion of what the Bible says compared with a particular interpretation of what the Bible says. Similar but slightly distinct concepts.
No one (as far as I can tell) is denying the world was made in 6 days. The question is, how long is that?
And for me, the question is 6 days from whose perspective – God and the angels in heaven or from humanity on earth?
It’s almost funny (almost) how often these supposed EGW errors are referenced. I rather strongly suspect that they are all of the ‘shut door teaching’ variety; which is to say they aren’t mistakes.
The “shut door teaching” is one of the most misunderstood and misapplied passages ever. Rather than a blanket condemnation, it’s a reference to an attitude of derision and hatred on behalf of a few toward revelation.
This was discussed this at length a while back following the blog https://atoday.org/article/1813/opinion/foster-stephen/2013/the-mini-great-controversy.
If her ‘mistakes’ are all of this variety; then her ‘case’ is even strengthened. Perhaps that is not what this thread is about, then again maybe it is.
Darrel,
By appealing to biblical verses about how we should treat even non-canonical prophets, which is what 2 Chr. 20:20 is all about, that isn't elevating a non-canonical prophet to the level of Scripture.
But your reply surprises me. How do you know that there are no races of men that have experienced horizontal gene transfer? Where did she ever say that she saw people on Jupiter? Where did she ever say she believed in a shut door of mercy for all sinners, other than immediately after Oct. 22, and between Dec. 1844 and early 1845?
Hi Bob, Yes you are correct about non-canonical prophets-they did exist. The Apostle Paul and Ellen White both appealed that we test all things by Scripture. If we use Ellen White as an infallible interpreter of Scripture then she naturally take a higher place than Scripture. We must not settle an issue simply quoting Ellen White.
I think you understand that she was mistaken in the early years about all sinners being lost. So you see my point that she is fallible as we all are. This is a healthy admition for all of us.
Darrel,
"I think you understand that she was mistaken in the early years about all sinners being lost."
I don't know what you're talking about. I asked you, "Where did she ever say she believed in a shut door of mercy for all sinners, other than immediately after Oct. 22, and between Dec. 1844 and early 1845?" Immediately after Oct. 22 is prior to her first vision, so that has no bearing whatsoever on the reliability of her writings. Between Dec. 1844 and early 1845, I don't know how you can say that those few months are "in the early years." And what does her personal beliefs have to do with the reliability of what she wrote or spoke when under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Are we to say that Peter's sermon in Acts 2 is unreliable if he happened to believe at that time that the Gentiles were lost?
"If we use Ellen White as an infallible interpreter of Scripture then she naturally take a higher place than Scripture. We must not settle an issue simply quoting Ellen White."
But what we have here in this blog are people who don't what to accept what the Bible plainly says. It isn't a question of differences in interpretation of what the author of Genesis and Ex. 20:8-11 meant by the words they chose. And since this website is Adventist Today, we are disussing the topic from an Adventist perspecitive. In that context, it is definitely appropriate to quote Ellen White on the matter. And since she saw in vision that the idea that the days of creation were literal days, and since she saw that ideas to the contrary are a most dangerous form of infidelity, and the worst kind of infidelity, then that should settle the matter.
Dear Mr Lindensmith
People on the planet Jupiter? Please show where Ellen White wrote this. Thanks.
Yes, Trevor, I understand your consternation. You can imagine mine when my 6 year old son came home from church school talking about the tall men and women on Jupiter that his teacher had instructed the class on from some quotations from Ellen White. Yes, my first reaction was: "What??" From what I know it was in 1846 that Mrs. White saw the solar system. A Mrs. Truesdail was present. And she explained how Mrs. White saw a "tall, majestic people" living on either Jupiter:
"Sister White was in very feeble health, and while prayers were offered in her behalf, the Spirit of God rested upon us. We soon noticed that she was insensible to earthly things. This was her first view of the planetary world. After counting aloud the moons of Jupiter, and soon after those of Saturn, she gave a beautiful description of the rings of the latter. She then said, 'The inhabitants are a tall, majestic people, so unlike the inhabitants of earth. Sin has never entered here.'"
Taken from Mrs. Truesdail's letter, Jan 27, 1891. So this letter was then published in J.N. Loughborough's "The Great Second Advent Movement, pp. 260-261
In 1942, SDA historian Spalding wrote:
"In vision, then, Mrs. White was taken to see these planets, and as she talked about them, describing them, Captain Bates, his face wreathed in smiles, would say, 'Now she is viewing Jupiter,' and, 'She is describing Saturn,' and so on. She told much more than astronomers knew about these, for they are not sure the planets are inhabited, but she saw that they are. On Saturn she saw good old Enoch, who was translated five thousand years ago, without dying. He said that was not his home, that he was only visiting there, that he lived in heaven, where God dwells, and there he was waiting until the earth should be restored as it had been in Eden. The people of these worlds were all very much more beautiful and strong than the people of earth, for sin has never entered there."
Spalding, Pioneer Stories of the Second Advent Message, chapter 17, "The Opening Heavens and the Unchanged Law", (1942).
All this with the Whites' blessing. Later the this was not allowed to be printed about for obvious reasons. This does not mean at all that God did not use Ellen White in her ministry, not at all. But we must not make her an idol. She was human!!!
Darrel,
Think about what you wrote. It isn't even logical, because what you're suggesting is that God gave Ellen White a false vision about people on Jupiter.
Did Ellen White ever identify the planets she saw as Jupiter and Saturn? Not that we know of. Bates identified them as she spoke during the Topsham vision. Did she see an inhabited planet at that time or another? We don't know for sure. She didn't record seeing an inhabited planet until three years later, and so she could have seen them in a totally different vision.
But if she saw the inhabited planet in the Topsham vision, it should be noted that she saw the planets Bates identified as Jupiter and Saturn while en route to the New Jerusalem, and she said she saw the inhabited planet after leaving the New Jerusalem.
To me, primitive credulity can be compared to a baby duck imprinting on the first moving being it sees as "mama." My imprinting began at 2 years of age in a country church where EGW and a 24/7 creation "not indebted to pre-existing matter" was gospel. My high school biology teacher taught that God created through evolution. I have moved beyond my early EGW "mama" imprinting to believe that what EGW says or "saw" about the days of creation is a reflection of the Biblical literalism of the 19th century with no reference to the science of the 21st century.
Hal,
Could you explain to us why you decided to "imprint" on your high school biology teacher instead of the Bible and SoP? Why did you decide to give more credence to the assertions of a fallible human being who rejected the biblical accounts of creation and the Flood, than to the Bible itself?
How does your choice back then compare to Eve's choice in the Garden of Eden to disbelieve what God had said in favor of believing what the serpent had said?
You did not cite a single scientific fact as justification for your choice.
'Is it sola scriptura to suggest that the six literal days of Creation plainly taught in the Bible were long ages of 'God-time?' Please show this in the Bible?'
I never said I don't believe in anything but 6 x 24 hour literal hours of creation. My point is different, about 144 literal hours from whose perspective – God and the angels in heaven or mankind on earth?
But in any event, the Bible only tells us creation was in 6 days. I believe the Hebrew word there (don't quote me) is yom. I also have read somewhere that 'yom' can mean a period other than just 24 hours.
This is seen plainly in the opening of Gen itself. In Gen 1:5 it says God called the light Day (yom), and the darkness He called night. So here we at the very least have an example where God is treating day (yom) as something other than a 24-hour period – in Gen 1:5 it at the very least means a mere 12-hour period of daylight.
But back to your point, I am happy to assume the world was created in 6 literal 24 hour days. However, as proven by the theory of relativity, 144 literal hours would not be 144 literal hours for someone above the earth (say in orbit or in outer space) as someone on the earth. Thus, one must ask the obvious question – 6 literal days from whose perspective – God's or mankind's?
The whole context of Gen 1 suggests it is creation from heaven's perspective – not mankind's perspective. Gen 1 is all about God seeing things, doing things, and declaring it good. There is no earth to begin with. There is no humanity until the very end. And God's only companions are the other heavenly creatures (or possibly Himself in the Trinity), where in Gen 1:26 let "us" make mankind.
So Gen 1 seems to plainly be a heaven-centric story. Earth (and humanity) is the object but God (and the heavenly host) is actually the subject. Thus, as a point of sheer logic (if not grammar and syntax), isn't it 6 literal days of creation from God's perspective up in heaven?
I am reading the Bible plainly and literally – probably more plainly and literally than you are. You probably have to engage in all sorts of theological gymnatistics to make the story work as a logical narrative, such as explaining: how there was days and nights when the sun only was created on day 4; or how Adam had enough time to do everything in 1 x 24-hour period on day 6.
Now I am not convinced on this issue either way. I am merely pointing out the obvious
theological problems (not to mention the immense scientific ones). I do believe the world was created in 6 days, even in 6 literal 24 hour periods. I just question 144 literal hours from whose perspective?
Steve,
Gen. 1 pictures creation occurring in 6 days, with each day having an evening and a morning. Thus, the 6 days are from the perspective of this earth, since the evenings and mornings would have to be from the perspective of earth.
There were evenings and mornings before the sun was created because God created light on Day 1. If Noah could go through the ark and look at all the animals in less than a day, I'm certain Adam could name the animals God brought to him on Day 6.
'There were evenings and mornings before the sun was created because God created light on Day 1.'
Bob, not sure if that makes much sense to me.
What was the evening and morning if not given by the sun? You will say God is the light, noting Revelation – and rightly so. To me, that only seems to promote the possibility that it is an evening and morning wholly according to God, a 'heaven' evening and morning, as will eventually be found when heaven and earth effectively become one in the future as depicted in Revelation.
If Gen 1 meant the evenings and mornings to be earth evenings and mornings, as opposed to heaven evenings and mornings, then can I suggest God would have made sure the sun was created on day 1. Logically, because an 'earth' evening and morning is one retotation of the earth against the sun, Gen 1 can't possibly be refering to an earth evening and morning if there is no sun.
The fact God chose to make the sun on day 4 suggests He doesn't want us to see this as 'earth' evenings and mornings.
So again my point and question – how do days pass in heaven? How are days, including evenings, mornings and even the Sabbath marked there?
Steve,
According to the text, God created light on Day 1. It makes no sense to say that God created Himself on Day 1, and so the light God created on that day wasn't God.
According to the text, God made the sun and moon on Day 4. An earth evening and morning are one rotation of the earth against the light, which light is not necessarily the light of the sun.
I see no indication in the text that the author intended us to understand anything other than earth evenings and mornings, and that agrees with Ex. 20:8-11, and that agrees with 3SG 90 ff.
'I'm certain Adam could name the animals God brought to him on Day 6.'
Does it suggest Noah named all the animals in one day in a forensic way like Adam did? Happy to be corrected.
Given the billions of species of animals, I believe Adam would have had to name something like 5 or 6 animal species per second for an entire 24-hour period. And that doesn't consider the fact that it would have been dark night for half of that time, plus Adam was asleep getting Eve made during part of that time. And finally, that is just the species known today, being some 10% or so, and not the 90% or more of species that have since become extinct, like dinosaurs.
So I suggest saying this all happened in one 24-hour 'earth' day is impossible if you think about it logically. Adam could have done it if you consider God in Gen 1 is actually describing a 'heaven' day or some other period of time.
You're making assumptions that you first would need to prove. For example, you're assuming that there had to be billions of species of animals, and that Adam would have had to name every last species and subspecies, even though billions of species never could have all fit on Noah's ark.
So how many types of animals are we really talking about that Adam would have had to name? Only about the number that Noah had on the ark. That's all. And I don't think he would have had to name both the Golden Eagle and the Bald Eagle that day, if both were present then. Just naming the eagle as a group should have sufficed.
Remember that Noah's Flood destroyed species that God never created. Thus, at the time of the Flood, there were probably more species on the earth than there were at creation.
I have been an Adventist for a long time now, and I had never heard that God created Eve on Day 6; and neither had I heard that Adam named the animals on Day 6.
I thought the stuff from which woman was formed was created on Day 6; and that naming the animals was never the same thing as creating them.
Steve, does EGW say that both of these things happened on Day 6 or something?
I know that Genesis 1:27 says that “…male and female created he them,” but I always thought that was a statement of fact rather than of same-day sequence. My understanding had been that God’s Genesis 2:18 observation, and what He subsequently did about it, came after the seventh day; and that what happened in Genesis 2:19 occurred after the seventh day as well.
I’d be interested in what EGW said. I may well stand to be corrected.
It seems, Stephen, that postponing the creation of Eve until after creation week would go contrary to the meaning of Ex. 20:8-11 and Heb. 4:3. The idea seems to be that God created everything in 6 days, and then rested on the 7th day. The works were finished from the foundation of the world. To say that God created women after the 6 days would mean that He created a lot of what is on the earth outside of those first 6 days, contrary to what Scripture states.
I don't know where EGW directly addresses such a question.
I hear you Bob, and maybe you’re right; I can’t say for sure. I’m just relaying what my impression had always been; for what little that’s worth.
It’s certainly not clear that Adam named the animals on the sixth day however. If we go by the order in which things are mentioned it’s more ambiguous.
If one can believe in an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscience God, I think one can believe that God is the source of everything, and that the Genesis story is a human attempt to articulate that mystery in some finite way–using only the tools available at the time the story was written down. Clearly, there are some difficulties with a literal application of the story–and Steve has identified at least one of those (our definition of a day does not apply to the first few "days"). So, why not just believe that God the Creator created on God's own terms?
Joe,
I don't see why "our definition of day" can't work for Days 1-3 of creation week. Since on Day 1 God created light, and divided the light from the darkness, He started the daily cycle of light and darkness that makes our evenings and mornings. So I don't see any reason why we have to wait until Day 4 before we have evenings and mornings, especially since Gen. 1 explicitly says that there were evenings and mornings from Day 1.
How was there an 'earth' day before day 4, when an 'earth' day by definition is one rotation of the world on its axis in relation to the sun? That makes no logical sense whatsoever!
Don't you think that God is perhaps making a point for us, in suggesting it isn't an 'earth day', given He deliberately chose to make the sun on day 4 and not day 1?
Yes, there were 'evenings and mornings' from day 1, but perhaps they were 'heaven' evenings and mornings and not earth ones?
And there are further allusions to this issue in Revelation 22, where it mentions there will eventually be no day or night, because God will be with us.
I think you're trying to impose ideas on the text that aren't there, and that the author never intended.
There will be no night in the New Jerusalem. That doesn't mean there is no evening and morning anywhere on the planet. Is. 30:26 indicates that there will be a sun and moon in the new earth.
Steve,
You’re trying to have it both ways with the light; aren’t you? If Revelation 22 indicates that we will need no sun, why did there have to by a sun to have light? The earth rotating on its axis is all that may have been necessary, period. God’s presence could have provided light on one side, at least according to Revelation 22.
The longer this goes on, the more I’m convinced that it’s those who can’t (won’t?) believe the Biblical record that are attempting to put God in a box.
Thank you Steve and Joe for getting us back on track. My Bad!!
A similar question related to this is:
'how do prophets experience time – is a minute experienced in vision communing with heaven equate to a minute here on earth'?
When in communion with heaven, does time subjectivel pass for the prophet at the same rate as the objective passing of time here on earth? Any glimpses of that issue in the Bible or SOP?
Bob: 'But if she saw the inhabited planet in the Topsham vision, it should be noted that she saw the planets Bates identified as Jupiter and Saturn while en route to the New Jerusalem, and she said she saw the inhabited planet after leaving the New Jerusalem.'
Steve,
"For example, atomic clocks on satellites demonstrate that the clock in space ticks at a different rate than the clock on earth – if ever slightly."
Perhaps, perhaps not. What if gravity is affecting the rate at which atoms do their thing, rather than time itself?
"So how do you know that the world was only created in 6 x 24hour earth days?"
Because God said so. He was there. I wasn't.
"That to me would seem a more plain and literal reading of the Bible, and avoid the illogical contradictions that you seem intent on sticking to."
What illogical contradictions?
"In fact, I suggest you are not reading the Bible as literally as I am."
Would you agree that the light God created on Day 1 is what the words "evening and morning" pertain to in Gen. 1?
Bob,
The discussion here is based on the assumed use of the word, 'created' or 'create' … If this means ex nihilo, which is the assumption in use here, then we have the discussion we are engaged with.
However, if the word is organizational, as in creating a government, then we are in the common parlance, barking up the wrong tree.
I'm thinking you may likely have read John Walton's book, The Lost World of Genesis One. He makes for me a convincing argument that the Hebrew word for create, bara, is actually used for either meaning, employing the usual economies of expression that language often exhibits, including Biblical Hebrew.
So it is useful to assess how we read the word read, say, or in this case how we read the word bara. Keep in mind that Walton is a professor at Wheaton, where all provessors are required as a condition of continued employement to each year sign a statement of personal beliefs that includes the enerancy of scripture and the verbal inspiration of scripture. In short, Walton is putting his job on the line here with his book.
And Walton maintains his employment while making, for me the convincing, argument that Genesis One describes God as organizing the earth under His control, rather than describing making ex nihilo the elements described day by day for six days.
For me either way, God is established as the one responsible for life as we know it. And that seems the purpose of Genesis starting with this description, does it not? Is this not sufficient?
I enjoyed dinner with a physicist last evening and went over how matter is created under the terms of the the so-call 'Big Bang.' It was pretty intersting and absolutley convincing with regard to the mechanics of turing energy into matter, by definition ex nihilo creation it would seem. I'm sure you are better versed in this than I by a long shot. I'm not certain or even if this plays a role in Genesis as you see it. All the same, sorting this out sure feels like the unnecessary genesis of more than a little kvetching.
Hi Bill.
Does John Walton in the end believe that God created the world in 6 actual days? Or does he believe that creation week took longer than an actual week? Regardless of the meaning of bara, this is the essential question.
People who otherwise strongly support the Bible will sometimes not do so when it comes to the length of creation week. Consider William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes trial when being grilled by Clarence Darrow. Bryan affirmed his belief in one Bible story after another, and yet when it came to the length of creation week, he amazingly said something like, "It doesn't say that" regarding it taking 6 days.
And why would this be? Because saying that creation took other than 6 days undermines the 4th commandment, and thus helps to justify the Protestant world suicidingly continuing to go by tradition rather than by Scripture when it comes to the question of the Sabbath.
Is it possible that putting forth "scientific" arguments that everything we can now observe was created in a few days 6,000 years ago, and that the geological column is mostly accounted for by a one-year worldwide flood 4,000 years ago – when these arguments do not stand-up under even casual scrutiny – might also undermine our teaching regarding the Sabbath?
I am not here claiming when the world was created, or exatly what happened in the 6 days of Genesis, or when and where and how extensive was Noah's flood. But we do not help our cause by propounding "junk science" to buttress our claims. If this is the best argument we have for keeping the Sabbath then we will not prevail. There is plenty about the Sabbath and God as Creator and Redeemer throughout the OT and NT. We do not have to base all of our claims on a particular reading of one verse in Exodus 20. The Sabbath is at least as much about the future as it is about the past. It is Heaven on Earth in earth time.
I am unaware of any alternative readings, i.e. translations, of that verse in Exodus 20.
Which arguments do not stand up under even casual scrutiny? On this page are many references to the lack of erosion between certain layers at the Grand Canyon. Ervin admitted that this lack of erosion is an anomaly that evolutionists cannot yet explain. That being so, I don't see how the lack of erosion would fit your statement.
Read Ellen White's comments on this issue, and she clearly says that believing that the days of creation weren't really days undermines the Sabbath. Somewhere I've seen where she cites avoiding the Sabbath as the reason behind many not believing that the days were days.
"Infidel geologists claim that the world is very much older than the Bible record makes it. They reject the Bible record, because of those things which are to them evidences from the earth itself, that the world has existed tens of thousands of years. And many who profess to believe the Bible record are at a loss to account for wonderful things which are found in the earth, with the view that creation week was only seven literal days, and that the world is now only about six thousand years old. These, to free themselves of difficulties thrown in their way by infidel geologists, adopt the view that the six days of creation were six vast, indefinite periods, and the day of God's rest was another indefinite period; making senseless the fourth commandment of God's holy law. Some eagerly receive this position, for it destroys the force of the fourth commandment, and they feel a freedom from its claims upon them. They have limited ideas of the size of men, animals and trees before the flood, and of the great changes which then took place in the earth" (3SG 91-92).
Well Bob,
Since you do not seem inclined to offer specifc answers to my specific questions about subduction and plate tectonics and mechanisms for transport of minerals between the crust and the mantle, I am not sure why I should take the trouble to offer you any more specifics regarding "scientific" explanations that do not hold-up under scrutiny.
You can throw around Ellen quotes and brand anyone who disagrees with your favorite proof texts an "infidel". If an Infidel is one who asks difficult questions and does not accept hand-waving responses then I confess that I am guilty. Though I have never said how old is the earth or when and where was Noah's flood. Quite frankly I do not know these answers with any degree of certainty. And quite frankly whenever and however I finally learn the correct answers, it does not affect my belief in a Divine Creator, a Divine Redeemer, a future restoration of all things (the true Sabbath Rest), and my belief in the Sabbath. None of these rest upon a single "proof text".
I might add that Ellen says in Patriarchs and Prophets that Abraham lived a thousand years before Christ, and that in Acts of the Apostles she confuses two different Heords. Those who accept the chronology of Bishop Ussher would claim Abraham lived more like two thousand years before Christ. And the publishers of Acts of the Apostles felt obligated to add a footnote regarding her comment about Herod. So if I do not accept the notion of verbal inspiration of Ellen's writings then I also stand condemned as an Infidel. If an inspired writer could skip some generations of Herods could (s)he also skip some generations of patriarchs? If an inspired writer could be off by a factor of two on the elapsed time between Abraham and Christ, could (s)he also be off by a non-tirvial factor regarding other historical time intervals?
Sorry but I have a hard time shutting-off my brain when I read the Bible and Ellen and also writings by "scientists" and "theologians" of all persuasions.
Jim,
Which questions did I not answer? I thought I did answer them. But I see that I missed two of your replies.
I'm not the one who called disbelief in a literal 6-day creation infidelity. God did. And this question goes right to the heart of the sin problem on this earth, since it was unbelief on the part of Eve that got us all into trouble, it was unbelief that kept the Israelites from entering into His rest, etc. So we can't say it's unnimportant.
If you are referring to PP 138, I think that is putting roughly 1000 years between the recording of the event and the writing of Heb. 13:2. Are you sure you mean AA? I think you're mistaken on that one. But even if you were correct re: PP and AA, that could not be used to justify ignoring the divine message found on 3SG 90 ff. The words are not inspired, but the thoughts behind those words definitely are.
I believe Ellen did indeed think the earth was 6,000 years old.
But if we insist that everything that came from her mouth or her pen came straight from God this is a very interesting problem.
It would be interesting to ask God about this question. Someday I hope to do that. Until then a lot of faith and a lot of humility would seem appropriate all the asy around the table. And a lot less name-calling.
There should be no question that the message of 3SG 90 ff. came straight from God.
"This act of courtesy God regarded of sufficient importance to record in His word; and a thousand years later it was referred to by an inspired apostle: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Hebrews 13:2. " (PP ch 12)
Your apologetic is novel indeed. Would you claim that Genesis was written during the time of David? Elaine might agree with you for once.
Perhaps you can tell us when Genesis and the remainder of the Torah was written by indisbutable evidence. The best that scholars can do is to study these writings and seek out what can be shown to give an approximate date.
If you know that Genesis was written during the time of David, who was the writer?
Jim,
PP was published in 1890. 6T came out in 1900. 6T 342 says, "These acts of courtesy God thought of sufficient importance to record in His word; and more than a thousand years later they were referred to by an inspired apostle: 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.' Hebrews 13:2."
6T would have been an excellent time for the text to be revised to say 2000 years instead of 1000. Instead, it was revised to read, "more than a thousand years," a more precise statement that fits the time period between the writing of Genesis and Hebrews. The PP statement is expressing the same basic thought using a round figure.
Who changed the prophet's words betweem 1890 and 1900?
I still find it hard to read Hebrews as referring to the recording of the incident at whatever point your or Ellen believed the book of Genesis was written. Hebrews as i read it refers to the incident itself. And ellen as i read her refers to the incident itself.
Every time you find a discrepancy in a sacred text, you can admit it is a discrepancy or you can go through contortions to prove that both versions are correct.
The same goes for the religion called evolution.
Neither theology nor evolution can ever be falsified. The anointed prophet (Charles or Ellen) can never be wrong. It must be a matter of misunderstanding or mis-interpretaion. But never a flawed premise or proclamation.
Why not simply admit to a mistake? If one mistake can take down your edifice of faith you live in a very fragile place.
She would be the one who chose different wording, unless the 6T wording is the original wording, and a couple words were inadvertently left out. I would think that she simply chose to be more precise in 1900.
"These acts of courtesy God thought of sufficient importance to record in His word; and more than a thousand years later they were referred to by an inspired apostle: 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.' Hebrews 13:2."
God recorded it in His Word, and more than 1000 years after that recording, Paul wrote such and such. Such an interpretation results from a natural reading of PP and 6T. There are two interpretations: (a) The (more than) 1000 years is after the incident. (b) The (more than) 1000 years is after the recording.
Saying that such and such in inspired writings was a mistake is the easy way out, and that results in a position that often prevents one from finding the correct answer. If you think it was a mistake and it really wasn't, you won't be inclined to recognize the correct answer when it comes along.
I see that in the current online version (AA ch 15) has been corrected by the White Estate. If you look in older print editions you will find a footnote explaining the difference between the two Herods. In the book as originally published there was neither correction nor footnote.
So if Ellen was verbally inspired and historically accurate, then why do the trustees of her estate find it necessary to revise and correct factual errors in her published writings?
How dare they change what came straight from the mouth of God?
I think you are incorrect on AA. I don't think the White Estate "corrected" AA in the way you are asserting.
I don't believe in verbal inspiration. But neither do I buy into theories of inspiration that deny that the thoughts are inspired.
I am incorrect on AA – right story about the Herods – wrong book.
The error is in Early Writings and is corrected in a footnote on p 185. I do not bleive this footnote was in the 1882 edition but it appears in the 1945 edition. I conclude that it was added by the Trustees after the death of Ellen but I lack provenance as the footnote itself is undated.
And we can see here another example where Ellen herself corrected in her later writings an error in her earlier works. Who knows what other erros she might have discovered and corrected had she lived longer?
(Apologies – when I wrote the first references to AA and PP I was in a hotel room without access to my shelf of Red Books. My memory is reasonably good but not perfect.)
Jim,
I have a 1918 edition of EW, with a copyright date of 1882. It has the footnote. The White Estate says that the earliest edition they have, the 6th from 1894, has the footnote too.
The text you should be pointing at as being possibly uncorrected is 1SG 71, of which the EW text is a reprinting.
The footnote you refer to explains how the text as it reads is not incorrect. At any rate, you earlier referred to generations of Herods being skipped. In actuality, Herod Agrippa I was Herod Antipas' nephew and brother-in-law, so there was no generation to skip. Unlike Antipas, both Agrippa I and his sister Herodias, Antipas' wife, had Hasmonean Jewish blood in their veins. That fact coupled with the fact that Agrippa I wanted to gain power in Palestine would, I think, motivate Agrippa I to be present in Jerusalem during the Passover of 31 AD. This seems all the more possible given the fact that http://books.google.com/books?id=exBKKcXH_SQC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46 (pp. 46 ff) associates Agrippa I with Antipas and Herodias about that time period.
Bob,
Could you please give us a straight Yes/No answer to these simple questions:
1) Is subduction of crust plates into the mantle occurring in the present?
2) Is subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate (or some other plate if you don't like that one), a primary cause of earthquakes and volcanism in the Pacific Northwest region of North America?
I can't give you a Yes/No answer because I've never seen one pate diving into the mantle under another plate. If Brown's calculations are correct, then subduction is impossible. If his calculations are incorrect, or if he overlooked some other factor, then maybe subduction is possible, maybe not. His hydroplate theory calls for the movement of plates, but at different speeds and for different reasons than plate tectonic theory.
Well I have it on the authority of Jesus Christ that we are not called to judge who is or is not an infidel. In the Sermon on the Mount, in the Parable of the Tares, and elsewhere we are warned against this all-too-common practice.
I have it on the authority of Jesus Christ, and you do too, that unbelief in a literal 6-day creation is a most dangerous form of infidelity, and the worst kind of infidelity, for Jesus testified by His Spirit through his messenger in 3SG 90 ff.
It isn't judging to say that adultery is a sin, since Jesus in His Word said it is. Therefore, it isn't judging to say that unbelief in a literal 6-day creation is a most dangerous form of infidelity.
So we have here an interesting example of the fickle foibles of epistemology. Bob can tell us with certainty that his favorite Ellen verse came straight from the mouth of God. And he apparently admits (or does not deny) that some of her other verses were later modified and/or amended and/or clarified. By what criteria are we to determine which of her writings are verbally inspired?
Meanwhile Bob who to my knowledge does not claim to have directly seen any of Ellen's visions, cannot tell us whether subduction is occurring where I live in Oregon because he has not directly seen it.
Bob may or may not have directly seen a seismograph, but I have seen several and in these parts the traces are often wiggling due to slight vibrations. By carefully timestamping and comparing the traces from numerous seismographs all over the world, using digital signal processing algorithms, it is possible to reconstruct a fairly accurate 3-dimensional picture of where and in what directions the earth is moving beneath us.
My daughter-in-law claim to be preganant. She claims to feel her baby kicking. Using digital signal processing algorithms, admittedly grainy and incomplete pictures of my purported grand-child can be reconstructed from ultrasound. I believe I have a living grand-child that neither I nor any other human has ever seen.
Likewise I claim to have felt the earth kciking beneath my house, and I have seen the grainy and incomplete pictures of the seismic activity in my neighborhood and I believe in subduction.
Whereas I believe in subduction, I am left wondering whether Bob believes in my unseen grand-child?
I do believe that some but not all of what Ellen wrote was a product of visions and dreams from God, and much more from inspired study and contemplation. But I am not sure that I am qualified to determine which verses came straight from the mouth of God.
Jim,
I believe in thought inspiration, not verbal inspiration.
Whether there are vibrations in the earth at your location is not in question. The cause is the question. Are they caused by subduction or not? Is the subduction of plate tectonic a reality or not? That is the question.
3SG 90 ff says that she was carried back and shown that creation week was a week just like today's weeks. I don't see how it can get any plainer than that. Questioning that would be akin to questioning whether the prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit was really inspired.
"Which arguments do not stand up under even casual scrutiny?"
I referred to the arugments on the web page you recommended we read to understand why the deep limestone deposits we find today could not have precipiatated from bodies of surface water.
Subsequently you have seem to distance yourself a bit from that web page. But you are the one who recommended we read it to understand the current geological fallacy.
Without taking any position on the age of current sediments, I stand by my assessment that said web page is very short on science and very long on speculation.
What I recall his material concentrating on before is the origin of the limestone if the source was seawater and today's seawater is already fairly saturated. That's why I was originally trying to provide a link to his material.
I will look at your comments above and see if you responded to my inital question as to how today's limestone deposits could have precipitated from "bodies of surface water" if those surface waters are already fairly saturated.
From high school chemistry we would expect that a solution from which a solute has precipitated would be fairly saturated afterwards. The rate of precipitation is related to the rate of saturation by the equilibrium equations.
The only thing Walt's web page "proves" is that there is more precipitated limestone than the present nearly saturated sea water could maintian in solution. Clearly the excess came from somewhere, but that does not in any way imply that it did not precipitate out of seawater, only that more minerals must have been available to replenish what precipitated.
Whether the present deposits came from solute or suspension can be determined by sturdying their structure and correlated with easily demonstrated experiments. There is a huge volume of both solute depostis and also suspended deposits.
The web page you referred does not offer any calculations to support its model of solute vs suspended transportation and precipitation, what volumes of each would be expected, how that compares with observed deposits, etc. It only offers a table of estimated total carbon distribution between air, sea, sediments, etc (source undisclosed), and an equilrium equation that can be found in any basic chemistry book.
Beyond that it offers a lot of speculation (charitable), unwarranted speculation (less charitable) or rash speculation (uncharitable) with no coherent supporting rationale.
"… only that more minerals must have been available to replenish what precipitated."
And that is my question. Can erosion of basalt or any other material, other than limestone, dolomite, marble, or rock containing Ca that was dervied from CaCO3 containing rocks, account for the vast amount of rocks composed of CaCO3 in the earth today? I 'm just asking the question. I'd like to know.
That depends on whether you try to do the job in one year like Noah's flood.
So if you insist that all limestone sediments must have precipatated and cemented during or shortly after Noah's flood, then you will naturally reject any evidence or hypothesis that might require more time. But I think even you might be reluctantly forced to admit that such a filter on evidence is injecting religious bias into science.
Without that particular restriction on your avialable explanations, I think other explanations are much more plausible.
For example if you admit that the Deep that appears at the beginning of Genesis 1 might have been a bunch of water over a bunch of rock, with potential sub-surface volcanism, there might have been a lot of limestone sediments before the dry land appeared on Day 3. I am not advocating this theory – only pointing-out that even for a Creationist there are other plausible explanations if you do not try to insist that no rock existed anywhere before Day 3.
Now suppose there might have been bacteria in all that water and rock before Day 5. Since Genesis says nothing about when bacteria appeared I will allow God to have done it whenever and however He chose. Were bacteria and other life forms already aggregating abound subterraneean mineral vents before Day 1? I see nothing in Genesis 1 to preclude this possibility unless you can tell me when tube worms were created? I haven't found that answer in Genesis either. Ditto for stromatolites. I see no evidence that Moses had any awareness or insight or revelations regarding these things.
All that being said, regardless of when these life forms appeared, I am pretty sure I know what was the souce of their DNA, RNA, Transcriptase, Reverse Transcriptase, and all of the other microbiological machinery that underlies all known life processes. Science has not answered this. They are still going in circles
"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." These words pretty much rule out the creating of any life on earth prior to Day 1, be it bacteria, tube worms, or anything else.
But my basic question, I think you misunderstood its intent, and have not really addressed it. For example, if it is impossible at present rates for the formation and erosion of basalt (basalt that formed from magma uncontaminated by contributions from limestone, dolomite, marble, etc.) to account for all the CaCO3-bearing rocks we see today, then theories involving long ages still aren't viable.
So rather than using the Bible as a filter when asking the question, I was probing the possibility that the presence of so much CaCO3 is further confirmation of the Bible, if theories involving long ages cannot account for it using today's erosion rates and hypothetical eruptions of basalt in the distant past.
I never claimed that geological processes in the past are limited to operating at present rates. I consider that assumption suspect except where we have strong supporting evidence. But even if it is true that is not necessarily a problem unless you insist that nothing we see today is older than a few thousands of years. For someone who accepts the possibility of millions or billions of years there is plenty of time for limestone to accumulate.
I find it interesting for you to suggest that not all stars occupying the "heaven" of Exodus 20 were created druing Day 4 of Genesis 1, while you insist that bacteria which are nowhere mentioned in the Bible must have been created sometime during the 6 days of Genesis 1. What is the basis for this assertion? Can you tell me on which day Genesis says bacteria were created?
What do you believe were the inital conditions at the beginning of Day1 before God created light? Which verses in Genesis 1 do you offer to support you assumptions?
First of all, Jim, what indication do you have in Ex. 20 that "heavens" is referring to the stellar heavens rather than to the atmospheric heavens?
As for the conditions prior to the creating of light on Day 1, see Gen. 1:2.
So then the sun could have existed before Day 1? And there could have been limestone precipitating out the watery Deep shrouded in all that darkness? And there could have been micro-organisms in and under those waters? And the earth's molten rock mantle and molten iron outer core and solid iron inner core could already have been in existence?
None of the above are precluded by a truly literal reading of Genesis 1 if you restict it to the hypothetical unaided human observer on the surface of the earth.
On the other hand none of the celestial bodies mentioned on Day 4 are within the atmospheric heavens, if you study them through a telescope. But then Moses did not have a telescope so how could he know unless God told him?
Jim, according to my understanding Most of the seabed limestone is the deposition of aragonite or calcite shells and skeletons from marine organisms and silica in the form of chert, flint, jasper or siliceous skeletal fragments from sponge spicules, diatoms and ect. IS this your understanding?? Is "limestone precipitate" something just from the chemicals or does the term include the skeletons ect? Thanks
Darrell,
I do not claim to know what is most of the seabed limestone or how it formed. I was merely suggesting other possibilities to Bob regarding the assumption that it was all deposited or since during Noah's flood.
I do not have any problem with the notion that the watery Deep before Day 1 contained creatures that are not directly dependent on visible light. Some other people do and they may well be right. So for me the possibility that some of the primitive sea organisms with siliceous shells or skeletons as well as those with calcium-based shells were in those dark mysterious waters is not excluded.
But if you must insist there was no life form of any sort before Day 3 (which I have not found in Genesis) then you can try to answer the questions a different way.
I am not myself married to any particular geological interpretation. I was not there when it happened and neither was any other human that I have met.
I will say that most of what I have read is very hazy about either their assumptions regarding initial conditions and/or why their assumptions are valid. I do NOT assume that conditions in the past resemble those today. I DO claim that if you do not take the trouble to understand how things work today I am not inclined to put much faith in your explanations of the past.
In other words, understanding how things work now is a necessary but not sufficient pre-condition for understanding how they worked in the past.
Jim,
"I do not have any problem with the notion that the watery Deep before Day 1 contained creatures that are not directly dependent on visible light."
How is this plausible, given the following?
Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.
Jim,
I don't see how the sun could have existed prior to Day 4, much less prior to Day 1.
A truly literal reading of Ex. 20:11, what would that preclude?
But you previously allowed for the possibility of other stars and deep-space objects before Day 1? Without a consistent frame of reference for initial conditions at the start of a given Day, or the frame of reference of the narrator, you cannot have any sensible discussions of any of this.
I have suggested various possible frames of reference but you do not seem to like any of them.
Another possibility you might wish to consider is that there was still enough dust and moisture in the upper atmosphere from the events of Days 1 to 3 that until Day 4 the sky was not clear enough to see distinct celestial objects. Again I read nothing in Genesis 1 that precludes this.
I think that a careful, literal readeing of Genesis 1 says less than most of the YEC crowd wish it to say (though they cannot agree amongst themselves on exactly what it does say). I think Genesis 1 does say that visible light first reached the surface of the watery Deep on Day 1, that what we now see as the sky was first visible on Day 2, that what we now see as land and surface vegetation was first visible on Day 3, and that what we now see as sun, moon and stars was first visible on Day 4. Similar comments coud be made about creatures that inhabit the sea and sky on Day 5 and creatures that inhabit the land on Day 6.
I think Genesis 1 says absolutely nothing about objects not known to exist in the time of Moses (deep-sea, sub-surface, things that can only be seen with a microscope or telescope, invisible forms of radiation, etc) except for the general statement that in the beginning (which Genesis does not say is the same time for different objects) God created everything.
Beyond that point, true Biblical literalists are left to speculate and/or consult extra-Biblical sources. And if you refuse to consult extra-Biblical sources then you are reallly a Biblical exclusivist which is not the same as a Biblical literalist, because elsewhere in the Bible we are told to study nature to learn about God.
Which brings me back to my previous comment that any attempt to understand nature, if I am to follow the Biblical directives, must include studying how nature works in the present.
Again, Jim, I do not see how a literal reading of Gen. 1 can allow the sun to exist before Day 4. The fact that the stars created on Day 4 might be referring to the stars of this solar system, such as our planets, asteroids, and comets, has no effect on when the greater light and lesser light were created.
Regarding Exodus 20:11, you can either generalize it to include everything that God ever made or you can limit it to what Genesis 1 says God made on Days 1 to 6 before He rested on Day 7. I take the latter view because i think it is more reasonable that Moses was referring to those particular 6 Days and not something more.
I find nowhere in the Bible that God did not create anything anywhere either before Day 1 or after Day 6. The Bible does not tell us everything that God has ever done or is doing or will do.
Other Bible references to the Sabbath give us other reasons for observing it. These reasons are not limited to those in Exodus 20:11. So I will not fixate on a single verse to the exclusion or even diminution of the rest of the Bible.
When I have taught a class on the Sabbath I did not start in Genesis or Exodus. I started in Isaiah and the Gospels and Revelation.
Why not take Ex. 20:11 as it plainly reads? God created the heavens, earth, sea, and all that in them is in 6 days. Period.
Certainly we can ask whether the heavens referred to are the stellar heavens or the atmospheric heavens. But the earth and sea, there's only one possible type of earth and one possible type of sea.that could be part of the discussion.
The addition of God resting on the seventh day was an edition by the priests who were berating the Jews for forgetting the Law which was the reason for their Persian captivity. There is no mention of the Sabbath, or any day set apart for worship until Sinai; which makes the anachronistic mention of the seventh day as God resting, completely out of place at the time of creation. Nor is there a single mention of any of the many generations of patriarchs from Adam to Moses who observed ANY day. There is absolutely no evidence for any day of observance for the Israelites or anyone untile Sinai. It's assumptions all the way.
You're making assumptions here ma'am. In Exodus 16 before Sinai when the manna was given, the Sabbath rest was also commanded by God.
"Nor is there a single mention of any of the many generations of patriarchs from Adam to Moses who observed ANY day."
Nor is there a single mention of the Sabbath, much less of someone observing the Sabbath, in Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings. And what does that prove?
That Sabbath was an unimportant event at that time. Later, when Sabbath was being desecrated there were many exhortations for the Israelites to return to the Law and not desecrate that Sabbath by selling on that day, etc.
Bill Garber,
For whatever it’s worth, I have long harbored the idea that the Big Bang theory was on the right track as to how ex nihilo creation might’ve taken place—with a Big Bang.
(By the way, the Bible never indicates approximately how long the earth had existed in a “without form and void” state. This seems to be a fact that few, if any, are willing to acknowledge.)
"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" (Ex. 20:11).
That possibly indicates that the earth itself was made within the first six days.
Hi Bob, regarding her first visions on the shut door we know view clearly from her now famious letter to Joseph Bates. This letter from Ellen White to Joseph Bates written in 1847 supported the view of shut door as prevailed among Shut-door Millerites, including Joseph Bates. The door of salvation for the world at large was shut.
The history of the Bates letter is really interesting. From my understanding the letter to Bates appeared as a first-page facsimile on page 104 of the 1915 edition of Life Sketches. It was to show an early letter in Ellen White’s handwriting and then to note that the letter specified December 1844 as the date of her first vision. The letter went under ground for long while and was “re-discovered” by Ingemar Lindén while doing research in the White Estate vault in the 1960s.
Ellen White was at Gorham, Maine, eight months pregnant with her first child, when she wrote this letter to Joseph Bates on July 13, 1847, in response to his request for information. Bates wanted to know if, before her February 1845 vision, she had been aware of Joseph Turner’s teaching regarding the significance of October 22. Turner, a prominent Millerite, believed that Christ had “come” as the Bridegroom to God the Father to receive His bride, the church—and that He would soon return to the earth as the Millerites had proclaimed and that the world was lost.
We know Joseph Bates noticed a similarity between Ellen White’s vision and Turner’s views from his own handwritten notes. He was aware of Turner’s viewpoint from both the Hope of Israel and Advent Mirror magazines. Ellen White’s letter to Bates declared clearly that she agreed with Turner who believed a closed door of salvation for all except Millerites.
We know that Ellen White did not really refer to a need to go out and evangelize until 1851. She held the shut door until then. 1851 just happened to be the year that Joseph Bates declared Jesus was going to come again. In his "Explanation of the typical and anti-typical Sanctuary 1850 pg. 10."
When Jesus did not come, it seems the door opened to the world again.
Darrel,
The letter to Bates does not say that she believed in a shut door of mercy for all sinners in 1847, much less 1851. 1SM 74 could not be plainer that it was on her first journey east, which occurred in February 1845, that she was shown "the open and shut door" and that "there was a great work to be done in the world for those who had not had the light and rejected it." Thus, your suggested date of 1851 is way, way too late.
Bob, you need to read the letter carefully. One conclusion about the letter from Robert Olson of the White Estate was:
"Ellen misinterpreted this vision…she incorrectly concluded that no one could accept Christ after October 22, that only the little flock remaining in the household of faith would be saved, and that everyone else would be lost." One Hundred and One Questions, 1980, p. 58.
Robert Olsen's confession was regarding his explanation for Ellen's stateements to Bates' in that letter.
If she misinterpreted the vision, then God corrected that misinterpretation in February 1845.
Rather than citing Olson's interpretation of her 1847 letter, why not quote for us her actual wording from that letter in which she says that the door of mercy was shut for all sinners on Oct. 22, 1844.
One of the better discussions of the shut door topic is Damsteegt's Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission, pages 106 ff.
Ellen White said that the idea that the door of mercy was shut for all sinners was generally held after Oct. 22, but then was "soon abandoned." Enoch Jacobs opposed it in Nov. 1844, and Himes must have by Dec. 1844. Ellen White herself said she had given up the idea that a door was shut on Oct. 22 by the time of her vision in December.
J. B. Cook in Jan. 1845 used the term "shut door" in reference only to those who had rejected truth, a view akin to Paul's in Heb. 6:4-6. Also in 1845, Jacobs, Cook, and J. D. Pickands were using the term "door of access" in reference to preaching the gospel. Joseph Bates said about the same in different words in 1847. The term, "shut door," can refer to:
~~Notice part of a paragraph found in Early Writing taken from the original sourses . Notice the statement NOT included in Early Writing (underlined), from the original paragraph in articles in the Present Truth 1846 and Day Star 1851magazines:
“The light behind them went out, leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and they stumbled and lost sight of the mark and of Jesus, and fell off the path down into the dark and wicked world below. It was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected.” This last statement makes plain what Ellen White believed at this time. This and other things did bother me as a very devout follower of the spirit of prophecy, but God has helped me to realize what Paul says, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” Ellen White was called by God, but she was also very human!
Darrel,
In commenting on your quotation above, Ellen White states:
"I will give the context, that the full force of the may be clearly seen: ….
"It is claimed that these expressions prove the shut-door doctrine, and that this is the reason of their omission in later editions. But in fact they teach only that which has been and is still held by us as a people [in 1883, when this explanation was written], as I shall show. …
"I was shown in vision, and I still believe, that there was a shut door in 1844. All who saw the light of the first and second angels' messages and rejected that light, were left in darkness. And those who accepted it and received the Holy Spirit which attended the proclamation of the message from heaven, and who afterward renounced their faith and pronounced their experience a delusion, thereby rejected the Spirit of God, and it no longer pleaded with them. …
"These two classes are brought to view in the vision–those who declared the light which they had followed a delusion, and the wicked of the world who, having rejected the light, had been rejected of God. No reference is made to those who had not seen the light, and therefore were not guilty of its rejection." (1SM 61-64)
You have misconstrued her words. But, you, like her, and like me, are human.
In all these discussions of creation can someone PLEASE explain why the earlier creation account recorded in the 2nd chapter of Genesis is completely ignored, as if it were not even included in the Bible? Why is that? If it were given the same authority as the Gen. 1 account we would not be having a discussion about days, the length of days, or the exact order as it is an entirely different story yet included in the Bible but totally dismissed as irrelevant. Why?
I don't understand your question. Above you will find references to Adam naming the animals, and that is part of the second account, not the first account.
Me: "So how do you know that the world was only created in 6 x 24hour earth days?"
Bob: "Because God said so. He was there. I wasn't."
But to play devil's advocate here Bob, where does God say the world was created in 6 x 24 hour periods? All it says is there were six days (Heb. 'yoms'), which as discussed, can mean different periods of time. Moreover, there might have been six evenings and mornings, but where does the Bible say they were six earth evenings (sunsets) and mornings (sunrises) when there was no sun until day 4?
If God alone absent a sun was making the evenings and the mornings, how do you know those days were not say 25 hours long, or 250 hours long, or 250 years long, or some other period of time?
Does not the Bible itself teach that God can make the days longer than an ordinary 24-hour period? Does not Joshua 10:13-14 tell us this, when God make the sun stop for a period and there was a longer day? Does not Habbakuk 3:11 tell us the same thing? Did not daytime run backwards for Hezekiah as described in 2 Kings 20:9-11?
So whilst the Bible says the world was created in 6 days, how can you be sure it was 6 x 24 hour periods? Where does the Bible spell out the hours? Do you deny God's power in having days of longer or shorter periods, and thus deny the scriptures?
John 11:9 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.
An hour, biblically, is 1/12th of the light part or dark part of the day, and thus varies in length from season to season and latitude to latitude. Using this definition of an hour when answering your question makes the question somewhat moot.
On Day 1, God created the light, and separated the light from the darkness. According to Ex. 20:11, this was part of the creation process that resulted in our earth, so the evening and morning of Days 1 to 3 should pertain to earth. I'm unsure why you want the light to be God instead of something apart from Himself. He simply created the light, and that light produced evenings and mornings for those first three days.
Taking the passages as they read, and setting aside all preconceived opinions, I don't see how we can suppose that anything other than days like we have today were intended by the authors of Gen. 1 and Ex. 20:8-11. There is nothing in the passages that hint at any other meaning. No one that I know of proposes that the Day 3 consisted of 125 years of darkness and 125 years of light, thus making a total of 250 years split between a single evening and morning.
'An hour, biblically, is 1/12th of the light part or dark part of the day, and thus varies in length from season to season and latitude to latitude. Using this definition of an hour when answering your question makes the question somewhat moot.'
Are very interesting. So you admit that an 'hour' is actually relative – not necessarily constant? That seems a watershed admission to me.
So you agree then that God could have made the day much much longer, in the same manner as He did for Joshua, and an 'hour' would have been 1/12th of that longer day?
'Taking the passages as they read, and setting aside all preconceived opinions, I don't see how we can suppose that anything other than days like we have today were intended by the authors of Gen. 1 and Ex. 20:8-11.'
But you must admit that is just your own human presumption? You can point to no 'Thus saith the Lord' that says the 12 'biblical hours' of creation, which you admit are relative and not constant, match the same length of time we usually experience in an hour here today?
My point is I don't suppose anything about how long a day or an hour of creation was – you do. I am simply having an open mind and asking if it could be a different length of time than what we usually experience here today. You seem to admit to that possibility, admit the relativity of 'biblical time' (as science itself teaches time is relative), and which the Bible itself explicitly says time such as a day is relative and subject to change (either lengthening or shortening) by God.
'There is nothing in the passages that hint at any other meaning.'
Of course there is. The fact that the sun (which is the usual way of marking time) doesn't get created until day 4, meaning God alone makes the evenings and the mornings, strongly hints that we are not talking about time in the usual way it is experienced here today. The "church father" Origen made that observation nearly 2000 years ago, so that 'hint' is nothing new.
I wouldn't call that a watershed admission. "Hour" is consistently 1/12th of the day or night, and thus it is constant, though not a constant in the mathematical sense. No, I don't agree that God could have made the day much, much longer.
"You can point to no 'Thus saith the Lord' that says the 12 'biblical hours' of creation, …."
I have consistently been pointing to a plain Thus saith the Lord when it comes to the first week of creation being like any other week: 3SG 90 ff.
"I am simply having an open mind and asking if it could be a different length of time than what we usually experience here today."
There is nothing in Gen. 1 or Ex. 20:8-11 that suggests that the authors intended such a meaning. You would not even be asking such a question if it weren't for the assertions of infidel geologists.
"You seem to admit to that possibility, admit the relativity of 'biblical time' (as science itself teaches time is relative), and which the Bible itself explicitly says time such as a day is relative and subject to change (either lengthening or shortening) by God."
Nowhere is there any indication in the Bible that a day composed of an evening and morning is a relative term.
"… meaning God alone makes the evenings and the mornings …."
And this demonstrates that you really aren't being open minded, since I already pointed out multiple times that it is the light, no God, that made the evenings and mornings of Days 1 to 3.
'No, I don't agree that God could have made the day much, much longer.'
Why do you say that, when the Bible depicts just that – God making days longer or shorter than usual?
'I have consistently been pointing to a plain Thus saith the Lord when it comes to the first week of creation being like any other week: 3SG 90 ff.'
Sorry Bob I don't get this comment here. Are you saying your only authority is basically Ellen White but not the BIble? What happened to sola scriptura for Adventist doctrine?
'There is nothing in Gen. 1 or Ex. 20:8-11 that suggests that the authors intended such a meaning.'
That's where you and I disagree I think. I really don't know the answer to all this – I really don't.
But I do think the fact that the sun is only made on day 4, plus the fact that the seventh-day of creation has no evening and morning refrain, is significant in some very important way. Origen and Augustine both thought those two points important, and whilst I am certainly open minded to reject their analysis, I suspect they are at least correct in pointing out they are relevant questions.
What do you say then is the purpose of those two bizare and unusual things as described in Gen?
'Nowhere is there any indication in the Bible that a day composed of an evening and morning is a relative term.'
But didn't you just say above that the term is relative? It is just 1/12th of the day, but is not absolute in a mathematical sense but varies, such as according to the season. That's what I thought you said.
And again, what of the significance of the seventh-day having now evening and morning refrain like the other 6 days, if we are to take the account absolutely literally?
'And this demonstrates that you really aren't being open minded, since I already pointed out multiple times that it is the light, no God, that made the evenings and mornings of Days 1 to 3.'
Yes I agree God made the light for evenings and mornings of Days 1 to 3. If the sun made the light we might assume it was 24 hours. But if it was God who made the light, then how do we know God also chose that light to be 24-hours (or rather 12 hours or a 1/12th of the daylight)? How do we know this when other passages of the Bible, such as stories about Joshua and Hezekiah, show God making the day longer or shorter than normal?
That's my conceptual point which I understand where you are coming from but not quite satisfied with your response. You say the world was made in 6 days, and I accept that, but how do we know a day in Gen 1 is just 24 hours? Where does it say that?
The Bible nowhere depicts God making a day last thousands of years.
Nowhere does the Bible say that the idea that the days of creation weren't days is not infidelity. But the Bible does tell us about the gift of prophecy being the testimony of Jesus, and it does bid us believe non-canonical true prophets. Therefore, there is no violation of sola scriptura to say that 3SG 90 ff. is a plain Thus saith the Lord.
I see nothing bizarre about the sun not being created until Day 4. If I built a house and put lights on the work area before actually installing any ceiling fixtures, no one would call that bizarre. And I see nothing bizarre about a change of pattern when talking about the 7th day. Since the works were finished from the foundation of the world, but keeping the Sabbath is an ongoing obligation, perhaps Moses was drawing attention to these facts with his difference is description.
My denial of a day being a relative term concerned the word "day," not "hour." You're delving into the topic of relative vs. constant. But even today, "hour" is relevant to the standard of the vibrations of certain atoms at a certain temperature. Similarly, "hour" in Bible times was relevant to the standard of the length of light during a single day.
The issue has never been whether the first three days of creation were each 12 hours long or 24 hours long. The issue has always been whether they were like our days today, or 10's of 1000's/millions of years long. No one proposes that the earth lay dark for half of a million-year-long day, and thus there is no way to come up with the idea that the authors of Gen. 1 and Ex. 20:8-11 intended us to udnerstand that the days of creation were millions of years rather than ordinary days.
Bob,
Somehow I feel like I am wasting keystrokes, but – –
Are you claiming that God created some temporary source of light to illuminate the earth for three days until He got around to creating the sun? If so then did He extinguish this source of light on or after Day 4?
This is a very interesting bit of speculation for which you have offered no evidence other than that it is consistent with your model of how God operates.
Of course God can do whatever He chooses so we could hypothesize that God could do anything that might suit our fancy. I suppose you could hypthesize there might have been a Supernova off in the same direction as the sun, but then either there were already stars before Day 4 of God simply faked it.
Meanwhile, are all those Quasi-stellar objects, distant galaxies, cosmic background radiation, etc that appear to be so far away just a hoax? Did none of this exist before Day 1 when God created all the matter in the "heavens"?
And where do these "heavens" stop? If God or the Angels dwell in Heaven what that also created on Day 1?
To my deluded Infidel mind it is absurd to claim we can know from one or two Bible verses that God never created anything (or anything material or physically observable or wherever you draw your line?) before Day 1. It seems like you have managed to confine your God inside a very tight box. My God cannot be confined in this way.
And it seems like your God left a lot of hoaxes around within our observable cosmos to trip us up if we do not have enough faith or discernment to properly interpret your favorite proof texts. Or did the devil create these hoaxes?
And how did these hoaxes become so convincing that even the GRI people who contributed to the recent SS lessons on creation, fail to preclude the possibility that there was matter and energy before Day 1?
Jim,
As you said before, none of us were there. What we do know is that God created light on Day 1, and the sun and moon on Day 4.
Note that I referred to the atmospheric heavens, not the stellar heavens. The stars that were made on Day 4 could have pertained just to our solar system, could be just our system's planets and such.
But there are other views out there. Yet I don't tend to think that the stellar heavens are the heavens that were created on Day 2.
Well maybe we have taken one tiny half-step forward, aided by our telescopes 8-).
If there were stars outside our solar system before Day 4, might there have been light outside our solar system before Day 1?
I happen to think the best modern words to describe Day 2 are Air or Sky.
Did you ever notice that Genesis never assigns creation of water to a day? It merely divides water from sky on Day 2 and water from land on Day 3. It has always seemd to me that the face of the Deep where the Spririt of God moved was a watery place. In this narrative water is the first primordial element, then fire or light, then air, then earth. By the middle of Day 3 we have the four primoridal elements that dominated human cosmological thought for thousands of years.
So for me the most important mesage of the first part of Genesis 1 is not the sequence in which God created the primordial elements but that He spoke them into existence – they were created, had a beginning, were not eternal as was commonly held from ancient philosophies right up until the Big Bang model. Modern readers often overlook this message because we do not view the cosmos like the original audience.
At the height of the Flood water again prevails over the earth – back to the Deep of Genesis 1. Then God dries up the sky (al la Day 2) and then uses the sky to dry the earth (a la Day 3) and erects a victory arch in the sky to promise that water will never again prevail upon the earth. In this story God uses air to defeat water and save earth.
Peter reaches back to these Genesis concepts to teach that God can also destroy the primordial elements. That they can have a beginning and also an end. That water prevailed in Genesis right on through the flood, but that God can use fire to destroy water and air and earth if and when He chooses.
One of the main things we Adventists lose in all of our quibbling over our favorite proof texts is the big message of both Moses and Peter to the Jews and the Christians of their times. God is in control of the elemental forces of nature. God is not limited to our knowledge and understanding of natural laws.
And Jesus makes it clear that God is not limited to our knowledge and understanding of the writings of Moses and the Prophets.
"What fools these mortals be."
Bob I thought I would share this with you all her. I am at a field museum in Chicago right now and have been examining this interesting little pleasour that is trapped in granite metamorphic white marble
My photo will not post here. Rats!
Bob: 'The Bible nowhere depicts God making a day last thousands of years.'
Apart from Peter saying just that, which is a day to God is like a thousand years to us.
And then God's promise to Adam that he will die the same day he ate the forbidden fruit. But Adam didn't die that same day but lived to some 900-plus years. So was God a liar? Or was God talking about a God-day of 1,000 years, which would mean Adam did indeed day the same day he took the fruit?
Bob, I don't pretend to have all the answers and I certainly remain open to the YEC view. I am just asking the difficult questions.
Peter never said that God made a day last 1000 years. He said that a day to God is like a 1000 years, and a 1000 years is like a day. He's talking about how God relates to time, not about the length of an actual day.
"The warning given to our first parents–'In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die' (Genesis 2:17)–did not imply that they were to die on the very day when they partook of the forbidden fruit. But on the day the irrevocable sentence would be pronounced. Immortality was promised them on condition of obedience; by transgression they would forfeit eternal life. That very day would be doomed to death" (PP 60).
Bob: 'I see nothing bizarre about the sun not being created until Day 4. If I built a house and put lights on the work area before actually installing any ceiling fixtures, no one would call that bizarre.'
Wow Bob, your mind must work differently to mine, because to my mind it does seem very strange that God only made the sun on day 4, when there were supposedly sunrises and sunsets for three days before, but without a sun!
A better analogy would be building a roof, and saying it was up over our heads, but before there was even walls or a foundation! It wouldn't make any logical sense how that roof was staying up. You'd have to think the builder had a very strange reason for building it that way.
So I want to know why? Why only make the sun on day 4? What could it possibly mean? Is God trying to say we can't use our usual assumptions, we can't make the sort of earthly comparisons we use today, like days and hours, to the original creation event?
God doesn't tell us all the reasons why, and we just have to be content with that. God never told Adam and Eve everything that might spark their curiosity about the forbidden tree. They were at some point just supposed to take His word for it. That's where faith comes in.
However, there is a literary structure to Gen. 1 that makes some sense of it all:
How do you know what God did NOT tell Adam and Eve? Were you there? Can you show me in the Bible where God did NOT tell them something?
If Yahweh and/or Angels visited them frequently then how can you be certain what they did NOT discuss?
Just because we do not know something does not mean it never happened.
The very nature of the test, the withholding of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, indicates that there was a certain knowledge that God was withholding. And Satan told Eve that if she ate the fruit, she would gain that withheld knowledge.
Have you thought that God might not want us to know exactly how long each day of creation was, and that your speculation (because that is what it is) that it must be 144 hours as we understand it is itself forbidden knowledge that God doesn't want us to speculate about. Why can't we just affirm that the world was created in 6 days and admit God has not shared in the Bible an accounting of exactly how long that is?
It is not speculation to say that the 6 days of creation were actual, literal days like what we experience today, since they were composed of evenings and mornings, and since the sanctifying of the 7th day is the reason we observe the 7th day as the Sabbath.
We can, though, say that the Bible does not tell us exactly how many vibrations of certain atoms at certain temperatures those first 6 days were. Did the earth spin slightly faster back then? Perhaps, but that question is inconsequential.
If you do not believe the sun existed befor Day 4 then the rotational period of the earth around its axis before Day 4 is irrelevant to the length of prior days. You need some other clock besides the earth's rotation to derive the length of those days. Or else you need some other quasi-stable celestial light source coming from the same direction as the not-yet-created sun.
There only has to be a fixed source of light to measure a twenty four hour day consisting of an evening and morning. Light was created on the first day (not the first million years). Gen 1:3, 5; 1John 1:5
Unless you know where was the physcial source of the light, and how distant from earth, you do not know when the light was created that reached earth's surface on Day 1. Or you can say it was a miracle and there is no point in trying to understand it.
The first is a matter for inquiry. The second is a matter for faith. Please forgive me for wearing both hats.
I agree that God is the author of both physical light and spiritual light. But He does not deliver these two different kinds of light to earth in the same manner, unless you are a sun worshiper.
Evening and morning is literally a period of illumination. This may or may not have been a period of rotation relative to a stable light source. The Bible says the first and we infer (rightly or wrongly) the second. If the inference is correct, then my comments about the distance from that light source would apply (in the physical sense).
Bob: ' But the Bible does tell us about the gift of prophecy being the testimony of Jesus, and it does bid us believe non-canonical true prophets. Therefore, there is no violation of sola scriptura to say that 3SG 90 ff. is a plain Thus saith the Lord.'
It isn't a violation of scripture to use prophecy as a 'lesser light' to filter scripture, just as using any other 'lesser light' like natural law (science) as Paul makes clear in Rom 1 and 2. But to say SOP says something is not quite the same as saying the Bible itself explicitly says something.
Using SOP is not a violation of sola scriptura but it isn't itself sola scriptura. SOP itself says we have to prove all our doctrines from the Bible, not SOP.
If you want to say the world was made in 6 days, that is 100% scriptural. However, if you want to say the world was made in 6 x 24 hours as we record time now, then that is just speculation not explicitly supported in scripture. You might think there is no reason to doubt that is what a 'day' means, but it is not quite the same as saying the Bible explicitly says a day is the exact length of time you have reason to believe it is.
One is what the Bible says; the other is just one of many possible interpretations of what the Bible says. It is a slight distinction and I'm not sure you'll get it I'm afraid.
In my view, you are completly correct that "SOP itself says we have to prove all our doctrines from the Bible, not SOP." We must stop this mis-use if we do not want to be misunderstood as being a cult.
Darrel,
In what way is it a misuse of the prophetic gift to cite a divine warning against the worst form of infidelity? If it is wrong to cite such a warning on such a serious issue, then it would probably be wrong to cite the prophetic gift at any time for any reason.
I just don't see how it makes any sense to say that one shouldn't cite 3SG 90 ff. when discussing a topic amongst Seventh-day Advetnists.
You are right Bob, in this context here, sure! I was jsut speaking in general terms. But even in any context we have to ask ourselves is my interpretation of something being too strongly influenced by Ellen White, by science articles, by my family, by my own desire for a certain outcome and so on. Ellen White could be and has been wrong! (I hope you agree, or is this where you are stuck? I have been frozen here too, so I understand) Science could be and has been wrong! My desire could be and has been wrong! We depend on the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. No matter what hermanutic or epistomological system we use–we could be wrong! If there are certain facts that have been established as facts we have to look them in the face and attempt to re-work or views with the Holy Spirit's help.
So it is the weight of evidence from everywhere that points us to factual answers. The weight of evidence.
I give little weight of evidence from radio meteric dating because it has been wrong many times.
I give some weight to Ellen White is some areas, not so much in others because she has been wrong in some. That does not mean I can't trust her at all. No! We must give weight where weight is due.
The NT says the gift of prophecy is for the edification of the church. It does no good to quote a prophet as an authority to one who does not believe in the inspiration of said prophet.
Far better to use a prophet for your own edification and not use him or her to berate others who differ with you.
But Jim, Jack let it be known on his last blog that he believed that Ellen White was a true prophet who received visions from God. In this context, it is certainly appropriate to cite 3SG 90 ff., and other passages. And this site is "Adventist Today."
I have previously noted the irony in the name Adventist Today. In fact I suggested in one comment on another totally different subject that perhaps there should be a separate section called Adventist Yesterday.
Nevertheless today I am still an Adventist. And I believe Ellen was a true prophet.
But that is a very different thing than choosing your favorite Ellen quote and making it an infallible and/or inerrant test of loyalty to her, the Bible or God. I do not think she ever intended to be used that way.
I will leave the matter of loyalty to the individual. For me it is more than enough to deal my own loyalty and I have no need to judge the loyalty of others.
Steve,
Of course we need to prove our doctrines from the Bible. And we do. Gen. 1 says that God created everything in 6 days, and Ex. 20:11 says that as well. Each of those 6 days was composed of an evening and a morning. That should settle the matter.
The idea that God created everything in 6 literal days is by no means just speculation. And for those who might be tempted to speculate that the days of creation weren't really days, we have a God-given warning in 3SG 90 ff.
It has been stated that there is no Hebrew scholar in any world class university anywhere in the world that thinks that the author of Genesis did not mean a literal day when he marked off the 6 days of creation. So I believe you are incorrect when you say that such an idea is only one of many possible interpretations. We aren't talking about apocalyptic literature in which symbols have to be interpreted, or even Hebrew words that the translation of is uncertain.
Not only our doctines but also everything we observe or believe or imagine can and must be proven from the Bible. The Bible is really our only reliable source of knowledge. We should burn all other books (sparing perhaps Ellen's alone). We should open Madrassas where only the Bible and the approved commentaries can be studied. Sola Scriptura should be our sola mantra.
We should certainly ban the use of the telescope and the microscope because they are not mentioned in the Bible, expose hoaxes that are not mentioned in the Bible, and were doubtless invented by Infidels if not the Devil herself.
If we manage to stick our shovels (which are permitted because they are mentioned in the Bible) into something beneath us that is not mentioned in the Bible, then we should bury that abominable hoax lest others stumble upon it and become Infidels.
And if we cannot agree on how to interpet the Bible than many of us are still destined to be Infidels, vessels devoted to destruction rather than honor. Then our various sects of Infidels can ex-communicate each other or perhaps try to exterminate each other to save the souls of the innocent.
We do not have to look very far in history or geopgraphy to imagine what a utopia that would be.
Or perhaps we should take a slightly more enlightened view and permit the use of the telescope and the microscope and the shovel as long as they confirm what we have learnt from our study of the Bible. Beyond that we must zealously ignore or suppress all those Infidel hoaxes like Red Shift and fossil bacteria in pre-Cambrian rocks.
Can you give us an example of a fossil that has been proven to be Precambrian fossil bacteria?
If I cannot convince you of subduction in the present, I doubt that anything I write would convince you of the presence of bacteria in pre-Cambrian rocks.
No one can show an actual video of suibdiction taking place, given the nature of the size of the purported phenomena, and the nature of the slow rate it is purportedly taking place at.
On the other hand, if fossil bacteria have really been found, then it should be no great matter to provide a picture of such.
The fact that you decline to do so, and the fact that think fossil bacteria in Precambrian rocks is something that one must be convinced about, or that can be denied, indicates that you may believe that this is something that scientists have some doubt about. And when I did some searching on it, I found scientists discussing the presence of such fossils with some uncertainty, which was what I suspected.
So you would not believe a video of my unborn grand-child for the same reason you would not believe a video of subduction. How do we know it isn't a fake? For that matter nobody can show you a video of quasi-stellar objects or black holes or many other things that do not emit or reflect light in the visible spectrum, except by digital reconstruction and false color rendering which are probably fraudulent. So I suppose for you none of these things are real because you personally cannot see them.
On the other hand you choose to believe in angels and visions and other things you do not claim to have personally seen. Have you seen a video of an angel or a vision that you believe?
I am reminded of the old joke that behind the iron curtain there was a teacher who insisted her students should not believe in God. She claimed to only believe in things she could see. One student asked her if she had ever seen her brain. Have you ever seen a video of yours?
There is currently more scientific debate over bacteria in pre-Cambrian rocks by far than over subduction. I consider the former to be an interesting open question, whereas the latter is firmly supported by an enormous amount of evidence. But you have managed to find the rare subduction denier and you are sticking to his story regardless of what evidence everyone else has accumulated. You cannot tell me the source of the earthquakes and volcanism in my neghborhood, only that you doubt subduction has anything to do with them – because Matt Brown says so and he claims to be able to explain a recent flood (though I have explained why his refutation of plate tectonics is totally bogus). Did you even bother to consider about my example experiment to understand the behavior of viscous fluid subjected to differential heating/cooling?
You have not admitted to even one scientific fact I have described in a plain and detailed and honest and candid manner. Should I really try to explain about anything else when you show no interest in learning from anything I have already written?
You accuse me of promoting various scientific theories. I consider myself more of a reporter. I suppose you might find it convenient to shoot at the reporter when you do not like the report. But I see no point in wasting more time trying to explain science to you since you cast a blind eye at any information I offer that contradicts your firmly held opinions. I will choose which errands I tend to. If I choose not to go on every fool's errands it is my prerogative. If this makes me an Infidel then I am resigned to may fate.
Scientific facts consist of things like the tremors you feel. These I do not question. Interpretations and theories that purport to explain those facts, that is quite a differrent matter.
A video of your unborn grandchild would be akin to a scientific fact. But subduction is not something we can observe. We can only hypothesize about it. No one can actually video it. An animation of it would illustrate the theory, not provide a view of what is occurring in real time.
We observe subduction and other deeper movements of the earth the same way we observe an unborn child. We use computers to build-up a visual image derived from input data. The input data consists of a collection of sonic impulses that propagate through the object being observed, with different modes of propagation (including absorption, reflection and refraction) therough different kinds of materials at different orientations. The sonic impulses used for imaging an unborn child are at frequencies above human hearing (ultrasound) whereas the sonic impulses used for imaging deep earth structures and movements are at frequencies below human hearing (infrasound).
In the case of the unborn baby you believe the images because you have seen babies, perhaps even witnessed the birth of a child as I have. In the case of the deep earth structures you may not have seen the results but the companies that drill for oil study them very closely. We have not yet drilled all the way into the mantle, though a few experimants have gotten close. But we have found and extracted a lot of oil form miles beneath the surface using this imaging technology.
If you doubt what I say then plan to stop using your car or fertilizer or plastics or anything else that relies on petroleum. If the ability to image many miles under the ground did not work, we would have seriously our petroleum supply. It is largely because of this technology that previous predictions that we are running out of oil have not yet come to pass. (Another vary important reason being more productive – or more destructive depending on your perspective – extraction techniques for romexisting known reserves.)
Not to mention that with satellites and lasers we can actually measure the movements of the earth at very high resolutions. Most of these movements occur at a rate of millimeters to centimeters per year so without good insturments we are not aware of them – the exceptions being the big ones called earthquakes. But we can indeed measure the little ones as well.
So we are basically talking about correlation between spatial measurements with frequency domain measurements. It may take decades or centuries to see or feel the seismic "baby" but it is definitely moving down there.
Jim,
Please provide a link to a video depicting subduction, a video based entirely on observations and not on theory.
The videos I have seen rely on the theories of how different frequencies and modes of acoustic signals propagate through different materials. These theories are confirmed by a lot of laboratory measurement on differnt meterials. This is true for doppler ultra-sound measurements of the blood flow in the cranial arteries of my unborn grand-child as it is for animation of seismic events where it is the earth taht is moving rather than blood. Of course the time scales involved are very different – blood can move as far or farther in a second than the earth moves in a year. So a video of the former must slow it down whereas a video of the latter must speed it up if either is to be of much value.
Then there is also the theory of digital signal processing which is required to reconstruct a good image froma a variety of individual samples. This theory must digitally compensate for all the known phenomena that occur in the sampling process. Also very mature theory with many practical applications.
If your theory is wrong regarding either mechanics or signal processing then your video is garbage.
There is no point in supplying you with video so you can argue about that. I believe I have explaind the phenomena well enough that if you want to learn more you will be able to find the information. If not, then I see no need to waste time haggling over the specifcs, and whether or not the dvelopers were believers or infidels, and whether the devil made them forge the images to suit their interpretations.
If you dislike digital signal processing because it was developed by infidels, then please by all means do not use your cell phone or your WiFi. I actually know many of the people who developed these products and I can assure you that most of them are ineed Infidels, driven by greed for filthy lucre.
On the other hand your heart monitor might be safe because one of the first digital signal processing programs for analyzing and displaying multi-channel EKG recordings was written at Andrews University many years ago by Yours Truly under the mentorship of an Electrical Engineering professor and an Applied Mathematics professor, all of us SDA members in good standing. But it is only fair to warn you that I never queried their loyalty to the testing truth of the age of the earth. So I may have been influenced by Infidels unawares.
Jim,
I don't see the point in resorting to ridicule when we are discussing the reliability of theories about origins derived by skeptics. Cell phones and WiFi vs., for example, the meaning of Christ's death on the cross, of course skepticism is inconsequential in the former topic and very consequential in the latter topic.
How far does today's plate tectonic theory say that a plate has subducted in the last 4500 years?
My point is that you appear willing to use technology developed by Infidels for some purposes at the same time you appear ailling to reject it for other purposes. How do you decide when and where to apply technology developed by Infidels? The only criterion I can detect is that you reject knowledge from Infidels when it exposes inconvenient information that might contradict your present knowledge or beliefs.
Science is full of contradictions. If you turn your back on contradictory information then do not presume that you understand science.
How far does today's plate tectonic theory say that a plate has subducted in the last 4500 years?
Bob: 'You're delving into the topic of relative vs. constant.'
Indeed I am Bob for the simple reason time itself is relative, not constant. That is what Eistein's relativity proves and which atomic clocks on satellites have 100% proven as fact.
If the world was created in 144 hours, it wouldn't actually be 144 hours exactly for everyone. It would depend on one's location in reference to the earth. An angel standing near a black hole watching the events (as in where heaven might be) would not experience 144 hours but a raddically different length of time.
Darrel,
Could you explain a little more about the "granite metamorphic white marble"? Marble is supposed to be metamorphosed limestone or dolomite. How does the granite fit in?
Yes, you are right Bob. This granite had been polished. If it is actually Marble then it would be of some limestone origin.
My basic question is how, in your model, do you explain fossils in granite?
I don't presently know of any proven fossils in granite. If you think about it, if granite really was igneous rock, then the fossils would have to survive the temperatures required to melt granite, because magma would at least be that hot. I think it is pretty much accepted that fossils can't survive those kind of temperatures.
Just look up "fossils in granite" search
I found some sites that say that there aren't fossils in granite for the reason I gave.
missed this Bob. Yes, fossils can not be preserved in magma, but magma can flow through and around sedimentary fossils. These dikes of magma become granite and sedimentary rock and fossils become assosiated.
I would agree that magma cooling at a distance of 100 yards would probably not destroy the fossils. But when I read the phrase "fossils in granite," I think the user of the phrase is referring to fossils within granite. But suppose the phrase really meant "in immediate proximity to granite." How claose can the fossils be to magma without being destroyed? That is my question.
Among other things the answer to your question depends on how much mineralization of the fossils has occurred.
If you assume that the granite must have flowed very soon after the creature became embedded in the sediment, then of course it would be destroyed by contact or proximity with molten rock. But for those who conceive that the fossil might have been buried for a long time and might be highly mineralized then the granite would not necessarily destroy it. For example, would pertified wood melt under contact with cooling lava? On the other hand coalified wood would probably not survive.
In the case of bacteria, there is another possibility that you might not like. Some bacteria colonies can actually work their way into rocks because their secretions dissolve certain minerals. So there is also the possibility that bateria can leave fossils in rocks after the rocks have solidified.
Somewhere I have a statement by an opponent of Gentry saying that there are no fossils in granite.
And how does said opponent prove this assertion?
The opponent had said something about fossils in granite, and Gentry asked for the locations of such. The reply was soemthing along the lines of what I said, and it was kind of like, "You know there aren't any." That's what I remember.
I wish my photo would load here because it is a very beautiful piece.
One of the best example of Hebrew scholarship on this point of 'days' is Nahmanides. He wrote 800 years ago, so does not have a bone to pick on this contemporary discussion. He affirmed that Yom can be used to refer to a period of time. And he applied that as a possibility in Gen 1. He went on to explain the Hebrew roots for ‘Evening and Morning’ which I find fascinating. In his Genesis Commentary on the Torah. Ed. C. Cavel. (Jerusalem: Rov Kook Institute 1958 (Hebrew), 1971 (English Translation) he shows the root meaning of Evening -(Erev) can be, “Disorder “ and the root meaning of Morning-(Boker) can be “Order.” For example, “And God said. Let there be light and there was light. . . . and thus there was disorder and there was order, day one.” And so on. As Evening comes, things get blurry, and as Morning comes, things come into view—the disordered becomes ordered.
Genesis one is the only creation story of ancient times where the universe begins in a burst of light, by the way. THis is just as we know now from modern cosmology regarding the beginning and contining Inflation of the Cosmos. Regarding the 4th day's light. The Hebrew says "let them (sun, moom, stars) 'appear.' In other words the atmosphere was cleaned and cleared so that from earth the lights could be seen and therefore used for seasons and times.
Darrel,
I don't see the word "appear" in Gen. 1:14. Are you sure it's there? The Hebrew appears to be the same as, "Let there be light," and "Let there be a firmament." Certainly you wouldn't say that the firmament "appeared" on the second day? And on the third day God commanded the dry land to "appear," using a different word than is translated "be" in vss. 3, 6, 14. I realize that some hold to that interpretation, but it's never made sense to me.
Do you have a link to Maimonides' comments on Gen. 1?
Sorry I don't
Yes, "let there be" is an ok translation I guess.
This ignores the question of Where – "let there be" by itself says What but not Where.
In some cases the text says Where – on Day 4 Where is in the firmament (ie the celestial bodies were commanded to exist in the firmament). On Day 3 Where for the plants is on the earth (ie the plants were commanded to exist on the dry land that appeared after the waters of the Deep were gathered together). On Day 1 the context suggests that Where is on the face of the Deep (ie the light was commanded to exist on the face of the Deep).
What the text is actually saying may not be what you were taught as a child in Sabbath School.
I think it is always helpful in a discussion of the meaning of “day” in Genesis to remember that "the discussion" began longgggg before the idea of Darwinism. Before there was ever a debate about the age of the earth due to the false philosophy of evolution, many First Century Jewish scholars and the early Christian church scholars interpreted the creation days as longer than a simple 24 hour day.
These include Philo and Josephus, while Christian fathers include Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus (through writings of Ambrose), Clement, Origen, Lactantius, Victorinus, Methodius, Augustine, Eusebius, Basil, and Ambrose acknowledged the likelihood that the creation days were longer than 24 hours.
If the day/age view is true, could our weekly cycle be given to us by God as a reflection of His Week of Creation yet on a larger longer time scale?
One example is Ezekiel, asked to symbolically commemorate 390 years Israel’s sin by 40 days of observation.
It is interesting that in the Creation Week, the Sabbath day does not close as the other days. It is open ended.
Some interpreters have seen this to mean that God stopped creating (directly anyway) at the close of the 6th era and the era we are now in is God’s rest from creation -thus we do not see new Families, Classes or even fully separate species being created in our time. God has rested from creating. —symbolized by each weekly Sabbath.
In this view the seventh-day is as an ongoing period of rest from God’s creating and so ‘natural laws’ that God placed in effect run the show as it were.
Key to this view is John 5:16-18. Jesus defended His healing on the Sabbath by saying that His Father is always at work to this very day, and I too , am working” (verse 17) God continues to do good on His Sabbath “to this day,” so fine for us also to do good on the Weekly Sabbath. “To this very day” –during this Sabbath Period of history where God has stopped creating, He still does works good in the world.
Thus each day of the week may commemorate the actual time periods of the actual creation “week.”
Moses was shown a Heavenly Sanctuary, upon which he was instructed to model an earthly sanctuary. The earthly was a “shadow” of the heavenly things; it followed the “pattern” of the heavenly sanctuary.
Now, we know for sure that the earthly sanctuary in the wilderness has a court of 50 x 100 cubits (90 x 180 feet) , and the sanctuary was 10 x 20 cubits (18 x 36 feet). This was Moses sanctuary; does it mean that God’s Heavenly Sanctuary was 10 x 20 cubits? Does God’s Court have to measure 50 x 100 cubits?
I think we all know that the Heavenly Court and the Heavenly Sanctuary are infinitely larger than 90 x 180 or 18 x 36 feet. The earthly sanctuary was modeled on the heavenly. It was made after the pattern. But it was scaled to fit our human needs.
So the earthly week with its 6 days of labor and 7th day of rest, could be patterned, modeled on God’s Creation Week. But it is scaled to fit humans. As God divided His work of creation into 6 yom so he asks us to divide their work into 6 yom followed by the Sabbath. This view does not damage the sacredness of Sabbath at all, rather it establishes it.
Can you give us actual references to such statements by the authors you mention? http://creation.com/josephus-says-genesis-means-what-it-says says that Josephus did not.
You say that the proposed view does not damage the sacredness of the Sabbath. The 4th commandment bids us keep the Sabbath holy, and the only reason we can keep it holy is because God sanctified/hallowed/made holy the 7th day. If God sanctified an indefinite time period that has not yet ended, then the weekly Sabbath is not the same thing that He sanctified/hallowed/made holy.
Further, your last paragraph would harmonize with the view that we can pick any day that we wish. There is no reason to rest on THE Sabbath. A Sabbath will be just fine, as long as it consistently comes every 7th day. Sunday is just as good a choice as Saturday, since neither 24-hour day was sanctified/hallowed/made holy by God in the beginning.
Upon investigation, I believe Ellen White was right when she said that such reasonings undermine the Sabbath.
"If God sanctified an indefinite time period …." No one said this!
But you did say as much:
"In this view the seventh-day is as an ongoing period of rest from God’s creating …."
That's an indefinite period of time, as I read it. While the Jehovah's Witnesses don't make the rest an indefinite period, but rather 7000 years in length, they use that very idea to try to negate the obligation of the 4th commandment.
I see what you are saying. Yes, well, I meant that the 7th day of God's rest from creating in this view would be a "period" of time. But the "sanctified" day would be the weekly Sabbath.
Okay.
"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made" (Gen. 2:2-3).
Are you suggesting that the "seventh day" of Gen. 2:2 is the period of God's ongoing rest, but the "seventh day" of the very next verse is the 7th 24-hour period of the week? And that thus "seventh day" in vs. 2 means something entirely different from "seventh day" in vs. 3, even though there is no indication in the text that the words "seventh day" have changed their meaning?
Bob,
You seem to be fixated on the Sabbath as primarily meorializing one prticular event in the history of God's dealings with man. Yet in Deuteronomy it symbolizes God freeing His people. There is no mention of creation.
I think you shortchange the larger meaning of the Sabbath by insisting on tying it primarily to one historical day (Day 7 in the Genesis narrative). The Bible notion of Sabbath applies to multiple time-scales – not just a literal 24-hour day.
Elsewhere in the Bible the Sabbath points ahead to a future eternal rest for God's people. This latter notion also appears in the Sabbatical Years and the Years of Jubilee. Jesus emphasized the relationshjip between these various time-scales of the Sabbath concept in His inaugural address to His own people on the Sabbath in the synagogue. He did not come to release the captives for only a day or only a year, but forever. He went out of His way to look for opportunities to fulfill His mission in tangible ways on the Sabbath for a very good reason. He was and is the fulfillment of the Sabbath.
You cannot understand the "it is finished" of Genesis in isolation. It stands in unison with the "it is finished" of Calvary (which some also consider in isolation) and the "it is finished" of Revelation. I call this the Divine Trifecta. Each one teaches important lessons about the others. The Sabbath embodies all three – not just one of them.
Jim,
Regardless of what the Sabbath does or does not memorialize or symbolize, it seems inconceivable that the "seventh day" of Gen. 2:2 is anything other than the same "seventh day" of Gen. 2:3, which was my point to Darrel.
We are to keep the seventh day holy because God made the seventh day holy. We therefore cannot divorce the idea of the Sabbath from a literal creation week.
Lev. 25 indicates that the sabbatical years derive their meaning from the weekly Sabbath. Proposing that the derived meaning lessens a word's ties to its original meaning makes no sense to me. Would you have an example of such in the Scriptures?
Where did I say (or where does the Bible say) that the Sabbatical Year or the Year of Jubilee "lessens" the Sabbath? These do not "lessen" the Sabbath anymore than Jesus' Jubilee proclamation or miracles "lessened" the Sabbath. Nor do the future Sabbath promises in Iasiah or Hebrews or Revelation "lessen" the Sabbath.
Each "it is finished" in the Divine Trifecta enlarges the predecessors. The "lessening" is only in the mind of one who thinks the weekly Sabbath is the most important Sabbath when arguably it is the least.
To the slave the Sabbatical Year was more eagerly anticipated than the weekly Sabbath. The weekly Sabbath might promise her freedom but in the Sabbatical Year the promise was fulfilled. Similarly the Year of Jubilee would be the greatest blessing to the child whoe parents or grand-parents had leased-out their land. The lease was not redeemed to the child's benefit until the Year of Jubilee.
Though I almost always worship with my fellow believers on the weekly Sabbath, this is a faint foretaste of the fellowship I will enjoy at the inauguration of the Eternal Sabbath. In my morning prayer last Sabbath, after praying for our congregation a Sabbath blessing, I prayed also for the greater Sabbath blessing promised with the return of Jesus.
For me the Sabbath is primarily a day of anticipation of promises not yet realized. Not to deny that it is also a reminder of past promises fulfilled.
"Where did I say (or where does the Bible say) that the Sabbatical Year or the Year of Jubilee "lessens" the Sabbath?"
This part of the discussion concerns the length of the 7th day in Gen. 2. That being so, I saw your comments as supporting the idea that the 7th day might not have to be a 24-hour day.
"The "lessening" is only in the mind of one who thinks the weekly Sabbath is the most important Sabbath when arguably it is the least."
The weekly Sabbath is in the 10 Commandments, in the ark of the covenant, as part of the definition of sin. The sabbatical years are not. I don't see how we can say that the weekly Sabbath is the least of the sabbaths in Scripture.
The place God inhabits has "NO NIGHT". He made light in order to observe His handiwork in fashioning the Earth to be inhabited. Not until the 4th day of Creation did He bring forth the Sun to rule the day, and the moon the night, that is to give its light to the Earth. God said let them be for signs in the firnament of the heaven to give light upon the Earth: and it was so. Our Earth rotating around the Sun gives us 24 hour days. This did not occur until sometime on day 4, therefore, day one through day 3 were not the 24 hour Earth of our time. How long each day, including days 4-5 and 6 could have been God's space time. The Earth's physical appearance indicates a very long creative cycle or cycles.
Disclaimer – –
I hold the Bible in very high regard. I began studying the Bible when I was 5 years old and I still like to study it. I also began studying astronomy when I was 5 years old. In my astronomy notebook I had written-out the number of miles in a light-year. And I knew that some stars were thousands of light-years away. My naive mind failed to appreciate this paradox because I had not stumbled upon the Bible verse that says Day 1 of the creation of everything was 6,000 years ago. And I still have not found that verse in the Bible.
The Big Bang model (which I did not study when I was 5) says there was light as soon as the expanding cosmos cooled enough for photons to condense out of the primordial particle soup. But these photons were well above the energy levels we would consider to be visible light (not that we would be there to see them). Eventually the cosmos cooled enough that the cosmic bacground photons included visible light, then cooled even further to produce the "dark ages", which lasted until enough matter had coalesced to form stars.
Some have called these Day 1 and Day 4 but I do not go there. It does not help to explain Day 2 or Day 3 because in the Big Bang theory the heavier elements did not exist until the stars had cooked a lot of Hydrogen and Helium.
Basically I do not think Genesis (or Exodus) is trying to describe the creation of everything. The description is largely focused on what today we would call the biosphere. In the first 3 days God creates a home for us. And yes this home is built from the roof down rather than from the foundations up. In the next 3 days He decorates and populates this home, again starting from the top with our skylights in the roof.
For me trying to "reconcile" this story with biological or geological developmental sequences is pointless. And for me it is equally pointless to insist that everything we see today must be fit into the sequence of the Genesis narrative (chapter 1 or chapter 2). I accept that God did it. More days than not I am glad that He did it.
I still love to study and contemplate what we can learn about the place from the telescope, microscope, shovel, and Bible. But I have long since abandoned the notion that I or anyone else will have a really good explanation in this life. There are too many unknowns and too many mysteries and too many singular occurrences that cannot be duplicated in the laboratory.
Like the Psalmists I stand in awe when I consider what is out there and in there and under there – seeking to comprehend while accepting that it is beyond my finite ability. I think that is the way God wants us to be. He wants us to know but not be know-it-alls. He wants us to do but not be do-it-alls. That is the true message of the Sabbath.
It is interesting that Adventists accept the Sabbath limits our compulsion to be do-it-alls, but not to to be know-it-alls. While the venerable Sabbath 11 O'Clock hour may temper our inner do-it-all, the venerable Sabbath School class certainly stokes our inner know-it-all. The venerable Sabbath afternoon nature walk (going to church in the Grand Canyon) should remid us that we can neither know it all nor do it all.
Still I find it intriguing to speculate – as long as we are honest enough to admit that we are speculating. With due respect to the various commenters on this forum, I am convinced that anyone who knows the answers is lying. To be a convincing liar you first have to deceive yourself. Man's first great deception was to think that because we can know so much and do so much, we can know everything and do everything. This deception is equally dangerous for theologians, scientists and engineers (my favorite avocations and chosen vocation – ouch!). That is one of the messages of Genesis 3. The first Sabbath began in Genesis 2 and ended in Genesis 3.
Big Bang theory calls for space to be expanding equally everywhere, which is what causes the redshifts. But the theorists acknowledge that space is not expanding within galaxies, and the reason given is that gravity within galaxies is so strong that it keeps space from expanding. Gentry uses calculations to show that there is more gravitational attraction between galaxies than within galaxies, and he uses this fact to show that Big Bang cosmology is wrong.
Do you have any thoughts on this issue?
Ther is "more gravitational attraction between galaxies than within galaxies,". "this fact to show that Big Bang cosmology is wrong." This doesn'take sense!!!
Check out http://www.orionfdn.org/papers/arxiv-3.htm for a discussion on this point.
Perhaps I should have said, "There was more gravitation attraction between galaxies than within galaxies." But read it and see what you think.
There is indeed more gravitational attraction between galaxies than you might imagine. NASA has published photographs of larger galaxies that have sucked-in smaller galaxies within the same galactic clusters. There is credible speculation that the Milky Way galaxy where we live, and our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, are on a collision course (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision).
The claim that this shows Big Bang theory to be wrong is mistaken.
Of course none of this makes any sense whatsoever if you believe that God created all of the matter and energy we observe, within the past several thousand years. In this case the calculated separation between Andromeda and Milkey Way of 2.5 million light-years is a hoax. Never mind that by triangulation we can calculate their relative positions and velocities.
By the reasoning of some other commenters we cannot know whether Andromeda even exists since we are looking at light that was emitted more than a million years ago, from an age where we can know nothing.
For my part i take the wonders of astronomy as evidence that God has been actively creating within our observable cosmos for more like 14 billion years. I do not blame Moses for not having a telescope or microscope and not telling us more about the creation of things that no human of his time was aware. Even if God showed him such things he would have had no way to describe them.
Correction – Andromeda is our nearest neighbor galaxy of comparable size. There are closer small galaxies (eg the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds). But the Magellanic Clouds are also so far away that their existence cannot also be verified according to those who claim we know nothing about what existed 1 million years ago. Never mind thaat they can be seen with the naked eye.
Bob,
Here I will reply to your specific questions regarding Big Bang. But plese read my more general comment below.
I am not certain which Gentry papers you have read. For myself I met the gentleman about 20 years ago and he furnished me with some of his unpublished papers on cosmology which I carefully studied. Although they were an interesting read, at that point of my reading they were already outdated considering the work of the most recent generation of physicists in this field.
Early models of the Big Bang did indeed hypothesize that space had expanded uniformly. The problem with these models after a generation of calculations was that it was difficult to account for the appearance of stars, much less galaxies, galactic clusters, etc. It was only after serious revisions to the the models of the "inflation" epoch that it was possible to account for the presently observed structure of the cosmos.
At the time where Gentry developed his Rotating Steady State model he may have been working from current data, but subsequent observations have clearly and convincingly (to this observer) refuted his hypothesis. I will try to briefly explain this conclusion. However I first want to point-out that here as in his own specialty of radio isotope halos, his scientific speculation based on adherence to traditional literal interpreatations of Ellen did not hold-up. Notably in this case his hypothesis that the observable cosmos rotates about a frame of reference that from earth would appear in the direction of Orion. He offered early observations of anisotropy in the cosmic background radiation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropy#Physics) in support of his hypothesis.
So what has actually happened that refuted Gentry's cosmology (or at least the version that I studied)? The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite as well as many other instruments have completed a survey of the cosmic background radiation in every direction from our planet. The resulting map shows a pattern that is remarkably consistent with the predictions of the revised inflation theory that most cosmologists now believe (I say predictions here because the computer modeling of the predicted distribution preceded by years the completed survey). Put another way, the finer structure of the cosmos does indeed exhibit anisotropy, but based on mapping the observable cosmos by several different methods, the overall structure nevertheless appears to be isotropic as viewed from earth. The degree to which the resulting distribution of cosmic structures exhibits fractal relationships has not yet been determined, but I would not be surprised if this holds true as it does for many other natural phenomena. (Fractal geometry is a branch of mathematics that among other things describes how a series of structures analyzed at different granularities can be both partially organized and nevertheless apparently random at the same time.)
More importantly for the models of inflation developed a generation ago, the observed distribution of anisotropy in the cosmic background radiation closely matches the predictions. I might add that recently astro-physicists have begun to measure not just the energy levels but also the polarization of the background radiation. Early results from polarization measurements appear to confirm the predictions of inflation theory.
I must say in defense of Gentry that his writings are indeed scientific. The hypotheses and supporting rationale are well constructed and therefore amenable to confirmation and falsification. The same cannot be said for many of his detractors. Every scientist who goes out on a limb by making new predictions incurs a substantial risk of being proven wrong. Gentry himself clearly understood this risk (though many of his adherents do not). But in all honesty the parts of his work that have been shown wrong are the parts based on ideas drawn from the Bible and Ellen.
I think one conclusion that can be taken from this is that apparently God did not intend for the Bible or other inspired writings to be used as primary sources for information about the physical world that we can learn from direct observation.
Please do not conclude from the foregoing explanation that I consider our models or understanding of the cosmos to be complete. Fat from it. The very detailed studies that have confirmed inflation theory regarding the structure of the observable cosmos, have raised a whole new series of issues and speculation about the nature of much the matter and energy that are apparently operating today, but that we have not yet been able to directly observe. In this field as in many others, every answer seems to bring more questions.
You spend a bit of time advocating for inflation theory, and yet Gentry, I believe, has incorporated the idea of inflation into his cosmology papers for many years now. He just doesn't think that Big Bang cosmology can explain the inflation deduced from the obsrved redshifts.
"… But in all honesty the parts of his work that have been shown wrong …."
Which parts have been shown wrong? Please comment on his current views on cosmology, or his published reports on radiohalos.
Regarding anisotropy I believe I have already explained his error. He claimed (in the papers he sent me) that the observed (from earth) anisotropy in the cosmos indicated that the entire observable universe was rotating around a unversal reference frame in the direction of Orion. Why orion? Apparently he got that idea from some of Ellen's writings. I suspect this may be a reason why you seem to approve of his work – you seem to be looking for sicnetific confirmation for what she wrote. In the realm of health there has been much confirmation of her work, but so far not much in the physical sciences.
Gentry further claimed that both the observed apparent red-shift of distant objects and the observed anisotrophy in the cosmic background radiation could be accounted for by his theory. For the reasons I have explained above I conclude he was wrong in both predictions.
I will admit that I have not taken the time to read the latest links you have provided. I doubt I will find anything more informative that what I have already read, but at some point I may circle back and verify this assumption.
I believe you anre confusing Red-Shift and Inflation. To tell a cosmologist that you believe in Inflation and but not the Big Bang is an oxymoron. That would be like telling a geologist you believe in the Cambrian explosion but not in the geologic column. What is the Cambrian if it is not part of the geologic column? You can use words however you choose but that is not terribly helpful in trying to speak to an audience where the word has a specific agreed definition.
In cosmology, Inflation is the epoch shortly after the Big Bang where much of the present extent and structure of time-space developed. It refers to an epoch of time billions of years ago. Red-shift is a phenomenon observed in the present that indicates the observable cosmos is still expanding – though orders of magnitude more slowly than during the Inflation epoch.
No massive objects we can observe through the telescope date back to the Inflation epoch, even accounting for red-shift. That is because during the Inflation epoch only subatomic particles could exist. That is why all we can see from that epoch is the cosmic background radiation (photons) or other sub-atomic particles. Only after the Inflation epoch did Hydrogen and Helium nuclei condense from the remnants of the Big Bang that had been cooled by Inflation. I might also add that another though less conclusive confirmation of the Big Bang model comes from particle physics where (again since the writings by Gentry) we have been able to produce in particle accelerators some of the particles thought to have existed earlier after the Big Bang.
I was initally skeptical of the Inflation hypothesis because I thought it was merely another intellectual crutch (there are plenty in science). But it has shown to have considerable predictive power which is a very important test for any scientific theory.
I do not believe anyone has a credible (ie supported by actual measurements) theory that fully accounts for the observed apparent Red-Shift. But I maintain the Gentry's hypothesis has been nullified by subsequent observations.
Just because I try to explain something scientific does not mean I am an advocate for it. I am not an advocate for anything in science – merely a very intent observer. But I am an advocate for honesty and integrity when evaluating scientific (as well as theological) claims.
Pardon me, Jim, but I don't follow how things appearing isotropic from earth refute Gentry's model that the universe has a nearby center.
I think I may have misspoke. Gentry does not appear to incorporate inflation, but I think he told me that he does believe that galaxies are moving outward.
If you want a brief rundown on Gentry's model, try "A New Redshift Interpretation" published in Modern Physics Letters A (1997) and at http://www.orionfdn.org/papers/arxiv-1998-redshift.htm. The outer shell of hot H he speaks of is a hypothetical outer shell of galaxies.
Could you please elaborate further on what observations have nullified Gentry's hypothesis?
As I recall that is one of the papers he sent me in draft form in the mid-1990s. I was unaware of its subsequent publication.
I stand by my comments. A generation of more recent measurements of cosmic background radiation (distribution and more recently polarization) and other deep space observations has confirmed inflation theory and refuted his hypothesis, in my opinion (and I am fairly certain I am not alone – I am a reporter not a primary source).
The similar (though not uniform) distribution of cosmic background radiation in every direction argues strongly against any common inertial frame of reference for the observable cosmos. There is no evidence for a center of the universe (as opposed to our galaxy or our solar system, which revolve around a central massive black hole in the first case and a central medium-sized star in the latter case).
I have also said above that the identifiable matter and energy in the cosmos is not sufficient to explain the observed red-shift of distant objects. This is an area where a lot more work is needed. But Gentry's hypothesois was a dead end according to two decades of measurements since he first drafted his paper (these things are drafted years before they get published, then accepted, revised etc).
If there is an outer "shell" of Hydrogen around a closed and roughly spherical universe, it should be interacting with the cosmic background radiation. I am not aware of any evidence of such interaction. As I said, Gentry went out on a limb when he put forward his model. I doubt that he would still be pushing that model without major revisions today. The cosmic background radiation just doesn't look like he thought it would. There are localized regions of anisotropy in every direction – not just one or a few as he surmised.
What about the gravity problem I provided a link to his report about? If inflation is a fact, what about the gravity problem?
I have already answered this question elsewhere.
The "shape" of gravitational bending of space-time today is a consequence of the distibution of matter today. This includes so-called "dark matter" whose effects can be observed and therefore its mass inferred.
The distribution of matter and energy today appears to be a consequence of anisotropies in the Inflation epoch. At that time the cosmos being almost entirely what we would call "energy" that had not yet condensed into "matter" it is not clear to me that gravitational forces were yet bending space-time.
This is very much a chicken-vs-egg argument. In this case it appears that much of the the shape of space-time was determined before gravity became a dominant factor. However this is an area of very active research and I am not reporting any final conclusions. When and if we can account for the "dark matter" and "dark energy" we may have a better answer.
It may turn-out at some point that Gentry was right, but I am not betting on it. As I have said elsewhere, so far his cosmological theories have not shown much predictive value, only retrospective.
If earth is near the center of the universe, then Gentry is correct that the apparent red-shift would be the same in every direction (with only a very small deviation). If we are near but not exactly in the center of the universe, then the cosmic background radiation should look different when we look towards the center than when we look away from it (anisotropic). At the time Gentry wrote his paper the first indications of local anisotropy in the cosmic background radiation had been measured, but a complete sky survey was only beginning. Gentry wrongly concluded that this anisotropy was an anomaly and indicated the universe did indeed have a center.
The completed sky survey indicates regions of local anisotropy in many different directions. This is predicted by Inflation (as revised) but totally takes away Gentry's argument for a center of the universe based upon observed cosmic background radiation. He guessed wrong.
I suppose you could go back and claim this supports the mediaeval theological/philosophical belief that earth is indeed the center of the universe, but I certainly do not intend to go there. Since we know that earth revolves around the sun and the sun revolves around the center of the galaxy, we would have an awful lot of explaining to do to convince anyone that Copernicus was wrong after all.
A consequence of the Cosmological Principle (a working hypothesis that has neither been proven nor disproven) is that wherever you are within our space-time cosmos, it will appear that you are at the center. In other words things basically look the same in every direction from anywhere, if time-space has expanded from a Big Bang. There is no "edge" to the universe because of space-time curvature. Now if it turns out that we are wrong about the curvature of space-time, then other possibilities appear. This question is tied-up very much with the search for the unobserved "dark matter" and "dark energy".
Gentry's conjecture that the Cosmological Principle is incorrect, cannot be proven or disproven based on current knowledge. Someday that could change but I am not holding my breath. So far the Cosmoligical principal has held up fairly well for the last century.
Jim,
I'm asking this out of ignorance. You say that Gentry's model was based on the idea that the CBR was anomalously anisotropic, and yet Gentry said in 1998 in the paper at http://www.orionfdn.org/papers/arxiv-1998-affirmed.htm that his model could account for "the 2.7K CBR's spatial isotropy." So why did he say that it accounts for the isotropy of the CBR if you're saying that his model was based on the anisotropy of the CBR?
Isotropy and anisotropy are two different ways of quantifying the same thing. This is like arguing about whether your should describe how hot is an object or how cold is an object.
I think Alan Guth is far more likely than Gentry to have a shot at a Nobel Prize.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Guth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_V._Gentry
This prediction has nothing to do with confirmation bias or discrimination by religious or atheistic establishments. Guth's theories have been confirmed by a lot of subsequent independent experiments. Gentry's have not. That is not to say Gentry's experiments are wrong, but more likely that he has drawn the wrong conclusions.
I see from Gentry's web site that he has some newer papers where he proposes a revised model that appears to back away from some of the claims of his 1990s papers that he gave me, that I consider to have been refuted by subsequent observations.
I will have to study his more recent papers before I can comment on his newer ideas. As I said, Inflation theory has proven to have considerable predictive value. I have not yet seen the same from Gentry's recent work but to be fair I will look further into this.
I must say the claims to account for so-called dark matter and dark energy seem to me to be a bit bold at this point.
OK – I have done a quick pass over some of Gentry's more recent cosmology papers that I had previously not read.
First let me re-emphasize something I wrote previously. The causes of the observed red-shift are a subject of much current cosmological debate. I am not going to take a position in that debate because I do not know the answer. Nor I suspect does anyone else, although there is no shortage of ideas.
According to Inflation theory (which I have never called a fact) there was sufficient local variation during the Inflation epoch to allow for the subsequent formation of stars and larger objects. It is certainly true that the original Inflation models would have prevented formation of stars and larger objects. I have also previously written this. But the current models have a reasonable degree of predictive value which Gentry seems to ignore in his zeal to disprove the underlying notion.
I share with Gentry the skepticism about apparent violations of the conservation laws of physics. This has always been my biggest problem with the Big Bang model. Obviously the energy has to come from somewhere and go to somewhere. At some point we need God in this system as a source and/or sink of primordial energy if nothing else. I think God is more than just a collection of equations and constants describing quantum fields.
This particular discussion quickly drifts off into how much vacuum energy exists in quantum fields, energy exchange between space-time and quantum fields, and other forms of what I consider to be mathematical speculation. You can postulate that the energy lost by the expansion of our own universe goes back into the quantum fields and rebounds as additional Big Bangs spawning other parallel universes. But I know of no way to test these hypotheses.
Here I think Gentry does a reasonable job of introducing the big problem. But I saw no attempt on his part to examine possible solutions other than his own. It is one thing to declare a theory flawed or broken. It is quite another to figure out how to fix it or replace it. Again I personally have no need to indulge in speculation. I am content to report that there are many things in cosmology we do not yet understand.
Finally let me say that I share Gentry's empiricist leanings. His complaint that modern cosmology has become more an exercise in theoretical applied mathematics than in empirical experimental physics is valid. Nevertheless the mathematicians do on occasion exhibit a brilliant penchant for coming up with ideas that actually seem to describe previously unpredicted observable behavior remarkably well. Einstein did it twice which is a record that may stand for a long time. Alan Guth may have managed to do it once.
I should add that Gentry's papers carry bold declarations about the demise of the Big Bang theory. To me these seem premature.
The strongest argument he makes against the Big Bang is that it violates conservation laws of physics. However this is not necessarily a death blow. Rather it means that a major consequence of the Big Bang theory is that the observable cosmos is not a closed system. It must exchange energy with other entities that are not visible to us. Many creationists would probably agree with this conclusion.
If you want to study Gentry's ideas regarding cosmology then you might also want to study this serious rebuttal:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/nri.html
I know that Gentry is one the Faithful and Scranton is evidently an Infidel.
The unsupported (by scientific evidence) claims by Gentry in his published papers concerning radio-isotope halos, relating to speculation that primoridial granites formed as recently as 6,000 years ago and coals even more recently.
Gentry presented scientific data supporting his claims regarding the rates of formation of these radio-halos. But his claims regarding when as opposed to how rapidly they formed come from the Bible and Ellen. Showing evidence that these geological structures could or did form rapidly (microseconds to a few years) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a claim that they formed recently (within thousands of years BP).
Again, I am not advocating for or against Gentry's work. I am merely reporting on my findings after carefully studying what he wrote.
Do not the published and duplicated results of Pb and He retention rate experiments of Precambrian zircons from deep granite cores provide a way to date those Precambrian rocks independent of the Bible and Ellen White?
Do not the U/Pb ratios from U-238 halos found in coalified wood samples constitute scientific evidence? Does not the fact that all U-238 halos in such coalified wood samples are embryonic fall into the realm of scientific evidence rather than speculation?
Were you unaware that his published scientific evidence supports a young age for radiohalos and coal, not just how rapidly they formed?
Gentry's work does not provide a way to date the samples he used for his research.
His results may bear upon how long it took those samples to crustallize. As I have explained elsewhere on this page, that does not say anything about when they crystallized. Gentry's speculation on the latter point may or may not be valid but it is not supported by his scientific measurements.
Jim,
You may be unaware of the He/Pb retention experiments which did in fact provide a date of thousands of years for the formation of Precambrian granites dated by evolutionists at 1.5 billion years.
The U/Pb ratios in the coalified wood U-238 halo centers were so high that, as I recall, the dating of the Triassic samples was too high by at least a factor of 760.
Most other measurements using other radio-isotope "clocks" yield very different conclusions. You can choose your favorite "clock" but that proves nothing other than you have a favorite "clock".
This argument over radio-isotope "clocks" depends very much on your starting assumptions regading formation and preservation of the crystals. All of them including Gentry's require a degree of circular reasoning.
The "clocks" astronomers use to date the formation of the universe, do not depend on radio-isotope dating but they require another specific set of assumptions about the behavior of subatomic particles at varying densities and energy levels. Many but not all of these assumptions have been confirmed by various measurements that can be duplciated in the present.
One (but certainly not the only) reason that geologists prefer the radio-isotope "clocks" that give longer ages is they are more consistent with models of how the solar system and the cosmos developed.
Jim,
1. The He/Pb retention rate experiments depend on temperature-dependent diffusion rates, not a "radio-isotope" clock. Therefore, He/Pb retention rates serve as an independent way to test radiometric dating and its assumption of invariable decay rates.
In what way do the He/Pb retention rate experiments involve circular reasoning?
2. If the infiltration by U-238 of soggy logs took place after all proposed singularities, then again the U/Pb ratios from U-238 halo centers in coalified wood serves as a way to test radiometric dating of Triassic, Jurassic, Eocene, and Devonian strata. Gentry's report explains why additions of U since then or removal of Pb would not be plausible.
Where is the circular reasoning in this?
Like every other dating method it depends heavily on assumptions about initial conditions and storage conditions.
Obviously Gentry disagrees with other investigators of various atomic and molecular "clocks" in ancient rocks. What is plausible to Gentry is not plausible to his opponents and vice versa.
There is not much point in my responding to your specifc questions as you have already decided to accept Gentry's conclusions over anyone who disagrees with him.
The only reason I know of that his opponents disagree with the above is that the conclusions disagree with their preferred worldview.
In other words, for #2 above, you can have U added or Pb removed in order to make the U/Pb ratios way too high, and still retain the older dates for those formations. Your response suggests that Gentry's work was based on the assumption that no U was added and that no Pb was removed. But this is not the case. The original report pointed out that since there is a high concentration of Pb in nearby Po-210 halos, it is difficult to say that a Pb was removed from the U-238 halo centers. Regardling later addtions of U: "The low U content of the Chattanooga shale (1 to 50 parts per million) makes it quite difficult to see how U remobilization could account for these very high isotope ratios."
So where are the assumptions? What assumptions do you see?
First of all is the unsupported claim that he was working with primordial rocks. If nobody can find those same rock formations and collect comparable samples there is no way to independently verify his work. Here the fact that Gentry is a physicist not a geologist does not help because he was dependent on others and their collection methods for his field samples.
Second, that his particular samples are representative of the broader variety of primordial rocks. Gentry was not being paid to research the structural porperties of a representative cross-section of rocks. He was paid to do very detailed analysis of natural and synthetic materials that were being considered as candidates for storage of hazardous nuclear wastes.
In fact in some cases Gentry carefully qualified his claim to say that his work applies to "some" of the primordial rocks. But his own disclaimers have been ignored by his promoters who want to claim he has found "proof" for very young primordial rocks.
As it happens I did read Gentry's papers publish until the late 1990s, regarding differential retention rates. I found them to be interesting and informative but not conclusive. I am not aware of any independent research that corroborates his conclusions. Again, I do not doubt the accuracy of Gentry's work. Only his (or in this case Bob's) claims to have proven some things. Gentry's use of "plausible" is a much weaker assertion.
Again for a rebuttal see this paper:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html
The title is a bit misleading because it does not necessarily rebut Polonium halos. But it does point-out a lot of gaps and missing information regarding Genty's work. Among other things there is no way to verify where he got his specimens and therefore the claims that he was working with primordial rocks are suspect.
As I have previously remarked, to claim that you have developed a new method for dating primordial rocks, you need to try it with a variety of different kinds of rocks of known composition, taken from known locations. There is no evidence in Gentry's own papers that he did this. He worked from samples provided by others, and from synthetic crystals designed to vitrify nuclear wastes.
This does not mean that Gentry's methods or his measurements are wrong. It does mean he has fallen far short of his rash claims to have discovered a new way of dating primordial rocks.
Every week the science news press announces amazing new discoveries. Usually when you read beyond the headlines they amount to much less than what was claimed. Some of these claims are eventually verified by further work. Many are not. But everyone is competing for attention so they have to put their boldest claims up-front to be noticed. In this regard Gentry's web sites are no different than the Infidel scientific press coverage. Too many sweeping revolutionary claims and too little independent corroborating evidence.
"Big Bang theory calls for space to be expanding equally everywhere, which is what causes the redshifts. But the theorists acknowledge that space is not expanding within galaxies, and the reason given is that gravity within galaxies is so strong that it keeps space from expanding. Gentry uses calculations to show that there is more gravitational attraction between galaxies than within galaxies, and he uses this fact to show that Big Bang cosmology is wrong."
This argument arises from a now discredited early interpretation of the Big Bang. Actually the reverse is now thought to be correct. Stars and galaxies occur because space did NOT expand uniformly during the Inflation epoch. It was anisotropy in the expansion of space that enabled the later formation of stars and galaxies.
Stars and galaxies and galactic clusters are a consequence of anisotropy, not the cause of anisotropy. The observed anisotropy in the cosmic background radiation confirms this, since the cosmic background radiation is residue from the Inflation epoch, long before the formation of stars and galaxies. The measured distribution of the cosmic background radition fits very well within the predictions of what would be the necessary conditions during the Inflation epoch to enable stars and galaxies to form later.
What would cause such anisotropic expansion? Why wouldn't gravity prevent such from occurring?
It sounds a little like circular reasoning to me: Since the CBR is residue from the inflation epoch, and since it is anisotropic, then the Big Bang must have caused an anisotropic expansion.
What sort of conditions would allow gas in a vacuum to collect in a ball to become a star? You have to have enough already collected to produce the gravity needed to draw more gas together, and gases expand to fill vacuums rather than naturally collect in a ball. So what collected it to begin with, whether the first time or the second time, since I believe the theorists postulate that this sort of thing occurred twice?
Bob,
I do not think I should take enough space and time here to do a more comprehensive tutorial regarding cosmology. You seem to visualize space as a collection of objects. That works for Newtonian mechanics, but there are a lot of phenomena for which it doesn't work.
A fold-out in the April 2014 gives a good visual summary of our current understanding of the history of our cosmos from the Big Bang. It may help you to visualize some of this stuff wbut it certainly does not answer all your questions. The interactions between space-time and gravity are a subject of active scientific investigation. Nobody has all the answers – certainly not me.
The reason Inflation has gained scientific traction is the same reason why Special Relativity and General Relativity gained traction. They have all had considerable predictive value (like some prophets?). In each case, subsequent observations have continued to confirm their predictions – all the more amazing because each of them seems counter-intuitve.
Regarding your specific questions, while space-time was rapidly expanding (and cooling) it was not possible for stars to form. Only after the expansion slowed was it possible for stars to coalesce. And were it not for the local anisotropy already discussed, Hydrogen and Helium atoms would not have coalesced into stars. In an entirely isotropic cosmos, every atom would experienced an identical gravitational field in every direction. There would have been Brownian motion within this giant gas bubble, but no coalescing into more massive objects.
It was the non-uniform variations in the post-Inflation gravitational field that allowed more massive objects like stars to coalesce. Of course these more massive objects have in turn warped the shape of space-time, but they did not determine its original shape. That was determiend during the Inflation epoch long before stars formed.
Jim,
It seems like all of this theorizing is an attempt to explain the existence of the cosmos without a personal God. Of course, some theorists are theists, but if all were Bible-believing theists, I don't think we'd have all this theorizing. I believe Einstein came up with relativity after he abandoned faith in a personal God, and he came up with it using philosophy rather than experimentation.
You've said before, None of us were there. It seems a bit egotistical for us humans to presume that we can describe what happened billions of years ago with such precision.
Bob, "Einstein came up with relativity after he abandoned faith and came up with it from philosophy in an to get rid of a Personal God???" THis is wrong on many levels Bob.
The theory of relativity ("relative theory") was coined [German: Relativtheorie ] by Max Plank, a very devoted believer in The Personal God. I can’t see how this theory, which is really a very well established fact, (not philosophy) {look up the Michelson–Morley experiments] Anyway, I don't see how this takes away the belief in a Personal God??
Simply stated, Space and Time are considered together in relation to each other, the speed of light is invariant, doesn’t change—it is the same for all observers. It is a “constant.” So, two events, simultaneous for one observer, may not be simultaneous for another observer if the observers are in relative motion.
Time dilation with moving clocks measured to tick more slowly than an observer's "stationary" clock is another example, although I wonder if the “movement” of the one clock could physically effect the mechanism of the the clock itself, thus effecting its measuring of time. Maybe, Jim can help me with this?
Anyway, as Brother alphameg shared above ‘relativity” makes his proposal very plausible: “Creation was on GOD'S space time , not man's.” But how ‘relativity’ effects the belief in a personal God I don’t understand.
Darrel,
I said Einstein came up with his theory after he abandoned faith in a personal God. I never said he came up with it in order to get rid of faith in a personal God. He was actually accused of being an atheist because of his disbelief in a personal God.
As far as whether he came up with his theory from experimentation or from philosophy, I read somewhere that he came up with nit from philosophy rather than experimentation. I did that research long ago, and do not recall where I read it.
Darrel,
I do not know whether or how God experiences time. We inhabit time whereas God inhabits eternity which is timeless. I suspect that for God all of our past, present and future seems like the present seems to us, just as Stephen pointed out that for God everything seems natural rather than super-natural.
Bob,
So Einstein has made your Infidel's list along with Alan Guth and Jack Hoehn and Joe Erwin and presumably Hubble and many others? I am not sure where I persoanlly stand but I suspect I myself am tottering on the brink of Infidelity because I acually enjoy their company (via their writings) even if I do not agree with everything they believe.
This kind of reasoning led Hitler to ban "Jewish Physics" until it was too late for him to recover from the consequent brain drain. The venerable Aryan Niels Bohr and his Gentile team were unable to figure out how to build an A-bomb before the war was over. Stalin had his own respect-hate relationship with Landau the Infidel (keep him locked up but keep him alive) and Russia did not even attempt to build an A-bomb until after the war. I am not a huge fan of warfare, but I must admit that I am glad that neither Germany nor Russia got an A-bomb before we in the US of A did.
The reason why the theories of Einstein and Guth are still in vogue has absolutely nothing to with religion and everything to do with predictive value. In the cases I have written heretofore, the theories have shown an amazing ability to predict future observations. The same cannot be said for Gentry at this point. Though I consider him to be a man of great personal integrity, so far his theories have shown little predictive (as opposed to retrospective) utility.
You can use religious criteria to determine whether or not to believe the discoveries of various scientists if you wish, but please do not try to convince us that this is "scientific".
Going back into history, you need to exclude almost all of mathematics before Napier and Newton because it was developed by Greek Infidels, notably excepting Algebra which hails from a Muslim Infidel. It was Christians who lynched Hypatia of Alexandria, one of the great mathematicians of her time, because they believed her work was demonic.
Oh, speaking of Newton, did you know he wrote a commentary on Revelation and espoused a year-day theory of prophetic interpretation? But when you compare his commentary with Ellen you will probably add him to your list of Infidels also. Not to mention that most if not all of the scientists Gentry references in his own writings are Infidels.
A Christian university near my home likes to invite Christians whose scientific work has been acclaimed, to deliver guest lectures. It has been my privilege to attend some of these lectures. One prominent physicist began by affirming that he believes in God as his creator and Jesus Christ as his redeemer, but that he does not believe in a recent creation. I stayed and listened to this Infidel's fascinating lecture and learnt a lot.
By the time you weed-out all the Infidels according to your criteria you will not have very many scientists left to learn anything from. Your suspicions most of their motives will have been confirmed – they were not using their science to search for the God that you have found.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" is not just a spiritual phenomenon.
Jim,
So do you accept or reject Ellen White's cautions about reading infidel literature?
As I have written elsewhere, I am not going to get in the middle of this debate over Ellen.
In my chosen profession if I did not read the works of Infidels I would be almost entirely uninformed and unqualified to make any non-trivial contributions.
I do not know how someone could do any serious studies in mathematics or he physical sciences and not spend most of their time studying the works of Infidels.
Reading a book about 2 + 2 that happens to be written by an infidel is a different matter than reading a book on origins or philosophy that happens to be written by an infidel. But of course, it would depend in part on the type of word problems that are included.
I think her cautions are particularly for young readers. If I recall correctly, both Einstein and Bohr were young when they were led astray by the reasonings of unbelief.
Sorry but I have only cursory interest in the personal beliefs of Einstein or Bohr regarding God.
I must confess to have considerable interest in their scientific accomplishments.
Unlike Nixon, I do not maintain an "enemies" list.
Certainly they must not be isolated cases that prove correct Ellen White's point about the dangers of our youth reading infidel authors. And since Einstein became a pantheist, that too should be of some interest to Adventists given the Kellogg controversy.
Spiritualism is supposed to bring down fire on the earth in the sight of men, we have been told. Thus it is of interest to see how many ties there are between spiritualism and the nuclear bomb. The quote from one history that when the first test bomb was soon to blow at Trinity, NM, that J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the project, stood in the door of a bunker and subconsciously summoned the spirit of an ancient Hindu to witness the occasion, that quote is intriguing.
Well in that case Spiritualism certainly produced a stunning and history-changing event. I certainly do believe that Satan is the author of war and destruction and confusion. And I can believe that he rejoiced in the success of the A-bomb, Auschwitz, the Stalinist purges, Mao's massacres and Pol Pot's pogroms.
But as I have said elsewhere, if someone was going to develop an A-bomb, I am glad we did it first. The consequences would have been far worse had it come from Germany or Russia. I think that the Infidel Polytheistic Einstein reached the same conclusion which is why despite his many personal misgivings, he signed that famous letter to Roosevelt that changed the world.
I have another friend who claims that a secret test of Tesla's energy beam weapon deep inside Russia triggered the devastating Haiti earthquake some number of years ago. It doesn't matter that his claim violates many of the known principles of physics. He is sticking to his story.
I suspect that you will stick to yours regardless of what evidence I offer. So why do I bother?
1) The faint hope that you might gain further enlightenment on these subjects.
2) The stronger hope that other readers will gain some idea what is the basis for our respective claims.
Adventists do not help our cause in reaching-out to the larger world of educated people when it becomes difficult for them to distinguish between reasonable faith and unreasonable superstition. I strongly believe there is a difference.
Correction – I should have written Pantheistic rather than Polytheistic. But then what does it matter when they are all just Infidels all the way down?
It seems like all of this theorizing is an attempt to explain the existence of the cosmos without a personal God.
Ironically, many atheistic cosmologists opposed the concept of a Big Bang because it suggested there was an active agency beyond our observable cosmos. They argued it was an attempt by Western scientists to bring God back into cosmology. As I have written elsewhere, a clear consequence of the Big Bang is that the observable cosmos is not a closed system. Furthermore time and space have a beginning and also potentially an ending.
I am not the one doing the theorizing, I am merely a reporter trying to answer your questions. If you do not like my answers that is not my problem because these are not my theories.
For myself, I believe in a personal God whose creative acts were highly intentional. I do not claim to know when or how He did everything. But I do find the questions intriguing and have devoted a lot of my spare time to studying them. And I have devoted a lot of attention to distinguishing between different sources of knowledge, what they can and cannot teach us, what is known vs what is merely speculation.
I can report that the Bible from cover to cover uses the known to teach us about the unkonwn. Why should science not teach in the same way? As long as we understand and accept the limitations of this kind of learning we can learn a lot. But until we learn what we know and what we do not know, we know very little.
There is much that cannot be known. (For instance, the Biblical creation narrative could easily just be talking about our galaxy.) The rub it seems is that those who aren’t scientists aren’t supposed to tell scientists what (can and) can’t be known. So scientists who claim to know the unknowable (like what happened even a million years ago) end up getting a pass.
In other words, some get to be know-it-alls, if not by anything but default. One must never even suggest they’re speculating. You just might be onto something Jim; if we could eliminate the double standard.
It is not just know-it-all scientists who get a pass from their audiences. Know-it-all pastors and teachers and theologians and evangelists also get a pass from their audiences. They are just speaking to different audiences and may not even realize they are hoping for a pass.
Being the son of a pastor and the father of a pastor and having many close friends and relatives who are preachers and teachers and theologians and evangelists, I have often let my mind wander in school and in church to the question of how do the speakers know what they are saying, if indeed they really do know? In this regard I am an equal-opportunity enquirer.
Let me give you one example. I have a huge respect for the ability of Shawn Boonstra (my fellow Frisian by the grace of God) to explain God and the Bible to a variety of audiences. But I happened to be there the night he didn't get a pass. In our row were my wife and some friends (the wife not an Adventist) and some of their friends from Switzerland. Shawn was preaching about Daniel and doing a great job. Until he got to the Ten Toes and the Ten Tribes and I inwardly said "please don't". And with the best of intentions he did, doubtless teaching what his teachers had taught him. And the Swiss family said "that's not where the Swiss came from". And the non-Adventist woman was not converted that night.
Jim,
I have had an interest in this for some time. Could you elaborate a little more? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgundians says "The descendants of the Burgundians today are found primarily in historical Burgundy and among the west Swiss." So is the problem that the east Swiss are descended from a different people? If so, which people? Or is the problem that most of the old Burgundians are in France?
As I recall his slide, Shawn did not show the Burgundians at all since they did not make the list of the Ten Tribes that overran the Western Roman Empire.
From my travels to Switzerland, the Burgundians did indeed rule part of Switzerland for awhile, as did the House of Savoy from Northern Italy (also not one of the Ten Tribes). Swizerland is a hodge-podge of leftovers with four legal languages (French, German, Italian and Romansch) and they would not claim to have descended from any single tribe.
I assume you might be aware that only Adventists of a certain vintage seem to be hung-up over who were the Ten Tribes. One topic of heated debate at the 1888 GC session was whether the Huns or the Allemanni should be included in the Ten. All this quibbling arises from an overly-literal interpretation of Daniel where if there were Ten Toes and Ten Horns then ther must be exactly Ten Tribes, not nine or eleven. I hold that the tens are symbolic and not an exact count of anything. But at the re-enactment of 1888 in 1988 in Minneapolis I played the role of J H Morrison who argued for the traditional view of Uriah Smith and others that the 10th tribe was the Huns.
Daniel 11:4 And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.
When Alexander the Great died, his kingdom was inherited by his posthumous son, Alexander Aegus (Aegus = Goat), and his half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus. More than four generals governed provinces beneath these two. At the precise moment mentioned in Dan. 11:4, when his son and half-brother were removed from power, there were four and exactly four divisions. And then there were five or so. And then there were four again. And then at some point there were three.
If there were exactly four at a specific time pointed out in the prophecy, then it is reasonable to look for exactly ten at a specific point in history. Criteria should include that they were once a part of the Roman Empire that went independent (such as foederati), since they are kings that arise out of the fourth beast. A. T. Jones concludes his chapter on the Burgundians in Ecclesiastical Empire by saying, "And thus the kingdom of the Burgundians of AD 407 is represented in the independent confederacy of the Switzerland of today." The key point appears to be the formation of a second kingdom of Burgundy in 888 AD which included all of Switzerland, and the union of the two Burgundies in 937 AD (¶¶ 2-3). Jones recognizes that this kingdom contains people of other descent (see for example ¶ 5). Do you see any fault in that chapter's recounting of the history?
Sorry but I do not have Shawn's slides.
Alonzo Jones and Uriah Smith haggled over this point and Ellen refused to take sides. I shall do likewise.