>My children erred on the side of God. The evidence for evolution is not all
>that overwhelming. Would you bet your eternity with God on it?
I don't think my eternity depends on my belief or lack thereof in evolution.
Jesus didn't say,
"Believe in me and NOT in evolution and thou shalt be saved."
Jesus didn't say,
"Believe in me AND the constancy of the species and thou shalt be saved."
John 3:16 doesn't say "Whosoever disbeleives evolution shall have eternal life."
Suggesting that evolution is inconsistent with salvation is doing what Paul
warns us against in Galatians 1. It is a preaching a different Gospel.
> Don't you
>have a reasonable doubt on the truthfulness of evolutionary ideas?
I value truth very highly. When I find that christian apologists were not
teaching anything correct about geology and were ignoring clear disproofs of
their concepts, I began to distrust what they were saying. One instance From
Genesis Flood p. 388. Henry Morris said that one volcano could output
1/1000 cubic mile of juvenile water to the earth's surface per year. Since
there are 400 active volcanoes, each putting out 1/1000 cubic mile of
juvenile water per year that the oceans would be filled in only 340 million
years, much younger the 3.8 billion believed by the evolutionist. I found
that argument quite persuasive. I went to check it out. I found that there
are 400 active volcanoes, but that an active volcano is any volcano that has
erupted in historical times. An active volcano is not an erupting one. On
average there are only 40 erupting volcanos each year. Suddenly the 340
million years becomes 3.4 billion years for the oceans to fill up. Henry
didn't know the difference between an active and an erupting volcano.
Case after case like this happened and I began to realize that the
evolutionists were the ones telling the truth.
>> I get the hostility from
>>young-earth creationists far more often.
>
>I do not think any Christian should be afraid of where good science leads
>us. Christ said He is the Truth and so every search in any subject matter
>will invariably lead to Christ--"....in whom are hidden all the treasures of
>wisdom and knowledge." Col. 2:2. There should be little disagreement on the
>evidence, but there can be much disagreement on how the data should be
>interpreted.
Unfortunately too many Christians are afraid of what science teaches. And as
to how to interpret the data, what I have found is that when a christian
finds data that contradicts his position, the standard way to handle it is
to either not reply to the issue or to say, "The Future will provide an
answer". The great YETI search. But that isn't dealing with the data, that
is procrastination. This approach is taken so that one doesn't have to
explain the problematical data.
>As I have indicated an honest search for the truth will invariably lead us
>Christ.
If christians are not scrupulously honest with the facts, then they will
drive people away from Christ. I know several young-earth arguments that
have been disproven in young-earth literature yet young-earthers continue to
use it. ICR scientists have admitted that the vapor canopy calculation I
published in 1979 was correct in its conclusion, but they continue to teach
the vapor canopy.
"Morton(1979) was apparently the first to conclude that the canopy
would have made the earth's surface too hot for human habitation
(Kofahl did not calculate surface temperatures). Morton made a
number of assumptions that greatly simplified the problem, and his
surface temperatures are much higher than ours, but the general
conclusion is the same: Life as we know it would not have been
possible under a conopy of 1013 mb (1 atm), nor even with a canopy
of only 50 mb. When other features such as clouds are added to the
model, this conclusion could be modified greatly, however.
Preliminary explorations with cloud layers at the top of the 50 mb
canopy have shown significant radiation effects which lower the
surface temperature drastically. Unfortunately, while the surface
temperature decreases when clouds are added, so does the
temperature of the canopy, reducing its stability."~David E. Rush
and Larry Vardiman, "Pre-Flood Vapor Canopy Radiative Temperature
Profiles," in Robert E. Walsh, and Christopher L. Brooks,
Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism,
(Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1990), p. 238
So why does ICR continue to teach the canopy?
>It is poor scholarship not to confront all the data to make some sense out
>of them. Of course, some data may not be so readily amenable for
>interpretation. Everyone has a multitude of data in their life not only the
>ones found in the laboratory or out in the field. How about questions of
>meaning, value, purpose. What about the myriad of moral questions that arise
>in our lifetimes? Science has not answers whatsoever to such questions. Must
>we say that they are meaningless questions or say that the Christian
>answering are wishful thinking, as Weinberg says. I believe those questions
>are much more important than the scientific questions. Therefore, why should
>I give up meaningful answers to such deep question for the sake of a
>hypothesis which may even be false.
>
I fully agree that the moral questions are very, very important. But an
unwillingness to confront all the data is a moral problem if it is done to
avoid altering one's theology. It is a lack of trust in God.
>The word "kind" is used many times in Genesis with the same meaning and it
>seems obvious to me that for those who read it at that time it meant
>cardinals give rise to cardinals, lions give rise to lions, etc.
so are you suggesting that each and every species was individually created?
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm