How does a Christian reconcile Creation with fossils?

[dangermom]

Here’s my offering (as a believing Christian): God is probably a pretty good chemist and biologist. He made the earth and the universe, but I don’t know exactly how. I don’t have to know exactly how everything works–at least not right this minute. I plan on learning a lot after I die. Meanwhile, I don’t worry a whole lot, and try to live right. Just MHO.
(Note that this does not mean that I avoid anything on earth science or the universe. As a self-respecting librarian, I read a lot and try to keep up with things.)

[Mangetout]

*Originally posted by genie *
**Here’s my offering (as a believing Christian): God is probably a pretty good chemist and biologist. He made the earth and the universe, but I don’t know exactly how. I don’t have to know exactly how everything works–at least not right this minute. I plan on learning a lot after I die. Meanwhile, I don’t worry a whole lot, and try to live right. Just MHO.
(Note that this does not mean that I avoid anything on earth science or the universe. As a self-respecting librarian, I read a lot and try to keep up with things.) **

That’s OK, I won’t criticise, and nobody should be able to criticise you for applying this to yourself (it’s not as if you’re harming anyone, just minding your own business), trouble is, there are those amongst the creationist camp who would like to extend this sort of (non)approach to science in general, particularly the science taught in schools.

[Polycarp]

7 After these things Moses came down from the Mountain of the Most High, and entered into the camp. And he bespake Aaron, and said unto him,
8 "Lo, the Most High God has spoken kindly unto the Children of Israel, and has commanded me to write down of His work in Creation.
9 "For He showed me marvels, a great explosion in the void where formerly there was nought.
10 "And swirls of stars like unto milk poured into dark fluid, and stars condensing from them like sparks from a fire.
11 "And then he brought forth the Earth, and lo, it was of fiery rock. And then the rock cooled, and clouds condensed.
12 "And torrents poured forth from the clouds, and made the Great Deep.
13 "Then He caused me to look closer, and lo, smaller than a mustard seed, there came a speck like unto two strands of twine wound together.
14 "And he gave me to understand that in this speck there was life. And the speck flourished, and changed subtly, and then greatly.
15 "And then I saw crawling things on the floor of the sea. And then there were fishes of myriad kinds, some armed like warriors, some larger than the largest horse.
16 "And then he showed me that some fish climbed forth onto the dry land, and became like unto salamanders.
17 "And then there were great beasts like unto elephants, but partaking of the nature of the lizard. And beasts like unto lizards on two legs like the jumping mice, but as large as elephants preyed upon them.
18 "And then He caused a star to fall from the sky, and they all died.
19 "And then He caused a creature like a small rat to flourish and change greatly, and its progeny were like the stars in number.
20 "And among them were wolves the size of bears, and great camels, and elephants with thick fur, and many other beasts, too many to name.
21 "And lastly He caused an ape to grow into a hairy man of cumbrous visage, and then his children to grow into men and women like ourselves.
22 "And He told me that all this took ten thousand times a thousand years to encompass, and that wise men might someday learn how all this was accomplished.
23 “All this He commanded me to write down.”
24 Then Aaron said unto Moses, "Let it be as the Lord has commanded. Nonetheless, hear thy servant.
25 "For we are in the desert, far from the land of Egypt, and have but little papyrus.
26 “And I fear there will not be enough to record all these wonders.”
27 Then Moses said unto Aaron, “Let us then hit the high points, telling the Children of Israel that God created. And let the wise men of whom He spoke discover the details and how He accomplished it in due time, as is His will.”

(An extract from the unabridged version of Exodus)

[Ross]

*Originally posted by Lemur866 *
**Of course, the idea that dinosaurs went extinct during Noah’s flood is complete blasphemy, as any close reading of the Bible will easily show. How, you ask? Well, Noah took pairs of EVERY creature onto the Ark. EVERY creature. And that means EVERY creature. So therefore, he must have taken pairs of dinosaurs onto the Ark with him. The must have died out AFTER the flood. Anyone who says they died during the flood is not using their heads. **

Oi reckons he didn’t take the fish. Bain’t no mention of no goiant taaanks. So loike Eddie Izzard 'imself once saaid… aaall the baaad ducks survoived (“quack… heeheehee”). Aaaand the baaad lobsters. Aaand so forth.

Oi know, oi know, there ain’t no baaad ducks, the-er-logircally speakin’. But oi’ve met a few in moi own paaarsonal experience which 'ave given me caauuuse for thought.

*The accents in this post have been provided by Radio 4’s The Archers, every weekday at 7pm. Sunday omnibus at 2pm.

[andros]

Too bloody roight.

[dangermom]

Not sure what you mean, Mangetout. It’s not like I’ve ignored the existence of science; I’m well informed and keep up with new developments. I just figure that I don’t know everything, and that while God certainly had a hand in it, I don’t know exactly how and don’t want to waste my time or yours arguing and speculating.

If I were to put that approach into schools, it would be pretty much what we get now (only I would make it more thorough and more interesting, and I wouldn’t let conehead idiots teach biology–I’m looking at you, Mr. Morgan!). Everybody should learn as much as possible about science. What religious spin they choose to put on it is their business, but doesn’t belong in school. That would be my approach.

[tracer]

Polycarp quoted the, ahem, unabridged version of Exodus:

22 "And He told me that all this took ten thousand times a thousand years to encompass,

Er … Moses appears to have been off by about a factor of a thousand there. Ten million years is hardly a drop in the bucket.

[Mangetout]

*Originally posted by genie *
**Not sure what you mean, Mangetout. It’s not like I’ve ignored the existence of science; I’m well informed and keep up with new developments. I just figure that I don’t know everything, and that while God certainly had a hand in it, I don’t know exactly how and don’t want to waste my time or yours arguing and speculating.

If I were to put that approach into schools, it would be pretty much what we get now (only I would make it more thorough and more interesting, and I wouldn’t let conehead idiots teach biology–I’m looking at you, Mr. Morgan!). Everybody should learn as much as possible about science. What religious spin they choose to put on it is their business, but doesn’t belong in school. That would be my approach. **

I think I misunderstood your stance, sorry.

The thing that I object to (and I’m not tarring you with this brush genie) is the approach “There are things that are beyond our understanding, so we should stop trying to investigate them” (vast oversimplification of the kind of fear-driven religious fundamentalist attitude, which (IMHO) if we examine it closely, really means “my God only inhabits the gaps in your science, please stop closing them”)

FTR, I’m a theist myself; I’ve rejected creationism fairly recently - I can’t bring myself to believe that God would put us here (by whatever means) in such a vastly complex and exotic universe, only to have us blinker ourselves.

[grimpixie]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
**(An extract from the unabridged version of Exodus)

**

Original?? I seem to remember a similar article in Punch magazine?

GP

[DeadlyAccurate]

My husband’s grandmother believes they were put on Earth by Satan to confuse us. I’d only recently heard the God = testing us theory.

Quite frankly, if I were Satan, I’d put the Bible on Earth to confuse us.

[Polycarp]

Throatshot: Mine’s a paraphrase of a piece by, I believe, Isaac Asimov, but I doubt it was original with him either.

Tracer: Whaddaya expect when somebody goes quoting Scripture – literal accuracy?

[Mangetout]

*Originally posted by throatshot *
My husband’s grandmother believes they were put on Earth by Satan to confuse us. I’d only recently heard the God = testing us theory.

Satan as a creative force?!? - novel idea, certainly.

[vanilla]

IMHO, I believe the Bible and God creating the world in 6 literal days by faith, not proof.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

*Originally posted by sqweels *
**But how do YEC’s explain how bones become fossilized? It takes more than simply being buried. IIRC the fossilization process takes roughly 1 million years, and paleontologists can no doubt give a detailed explanation (I would like to see a link).

So what is the creationist explanation of the fossilization process? **

Any of the following approaches seem to work well for them.

1. Ignore it. Change the subject abruptly.

2. The “Appearance of Age Theory”, meaning that God created everything, including seemingly ancient fossils, all at the same time.

http://www.lamblion.com/other/religious/RI-16.html

…special creation always carries with it the appearance of age. Think about it. If I were to instantly create an adult man and then present him to you as my miraculous creation, you would respond by saying, “But, David, this man is 30 years old!”

The same would be true of a full grown tree. If I created it that way, I would have a tough time trying to convince you that it did not grow from a seed.

The same is true of our universe. When God created it, He created it in maturity. The light from the most distant stars did not have to travel hundreds of millions of miles over millions of years to reach the earth. The stars were created with their light already reaching the earth.

3. The “It’s an Evil Conspiracy by Godless Scientists” Theory, nicely summarized on this page.

The supposed proof for evolutionary theory is the so-called geologic column. Its arrangement is based on the theory of evolution. It can be seen in most any high school or college level science textbook. It is divided into five eras, 12 periods, and each has its appointed age. (Cenozoic 25 thousand to 70 million years ago, Mesozoic 70 million to 200 million years ago, Paleozoic 200 to 600 million years ago, Proterozoic 600 million to 1 billion years ago, and Archeozoic 1 billion to 1 billion 800 millions years ago.) Certain types of fossils called index fossils are found in these supposed ages of sedimentary rock layers. All but the latter two, that is. They contain no fossils. The first three are subdivided into the 12 periods, each of which has its own appointed age given according to the index fossils it contains, the simpler ones in the lower strata and more complex in higher levels. This is highly oversimplified but is the basic teaching of evolution.

It is an amazing thing that scientists can not (will not) see the circular reasoning involved in proving evolution. They have a preconceived idea when certain things happened. They date rocks by the type of fossils which they contain. They date the fossils by the layer of rock they are in! Around and around we go and where they stop nobody knows. This truly is the foundation of Darwinian evolution. It tries to prove itself by itself. This kind of reasoning would certainly not stand scrutiny if that is the type of argument creationists made to prove their theory! It certainly isn’t scientific.

…The geologic column only exists in one place on earth and you can’t take a field trip there to see it. It only exists in textbooks. It is a farce! There is no such thing. Certainly there are layers and layers of sedimentary rock covering most of the earth’s surface, but not like it shows in books. Hitler’s idea of telling the same lie often enough that it will eventually be believed is nowhere better supported than with the geologic column.

I especially enjoy that nice touch of comparing the entire scientific community to Hitler.

In other words: “We only ‘know’ how long it takes to fossilize a bone because that’s what Science tells us, and since Scientists are by definition ‘godless’, because only godless men would go around questioning God’s Divine Plan, therefore everything Science tells us is a lie, including how long it actually takes to fossilize a bone.”

The “God put fossils there to test our faith” theory is now largely discredited in the mainstream Creationist community, due to the belated realization that a God Who would make fake fossils and plant them here and there in the earth’s crust seems a tad, well, deceptive. “Is your God a liar?” sneered the Godless Scientists, so the Young Earth people had to modify the party line a bit.

[sqweels]

Just as I thought; a load of BS.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Well, yeah, but it’s BS based on religious faith, which puts it in a whole 'nother category of BS.

Not your garden variety “the check is in the mail, really” BS, in other words.

[Mangetout]

*Originally posted by vanilla *
**IMHO, I believe the Bible and God creating the world in 6 literal days by faith, not proof. **

Erm…

I should warn you that I hear the approaching intangible hoofbeats of a non-observable, mono-horned cerise equine entity.

[sqweels]

Right, Ducky, it’s Super BS. Facts are useless against it! Logic bounces right off! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

[ExTank]

This is just my view, and not necessarily representative of the views of management.

In the beginning, there was nothing. How this can be, I dunno. Ask Hawkings.

God, wherever he was, snapped his fingers (or something like that) and the void was filled with existence. This existence coalesced into what we call The Universe.

Pretty much everything else after just happened, except maybe God reaches into our Universe every now and again and nudges things along in the direction he wants it “All To Turn Out.”

Maybe the dinosaurs displeased him. After all, he was a collosal prick in the Old Testament; think about what he may have been like hundreds of millions of years ago?

Maybe he planted them there, to encourage us to question and explore the nature of His Creation. Maybe there really is a bad guy named Lucifer, and he planted them there to place doubt in our minds.

Maybe religion is merely a construct used by primitive people to rationalize the natural world and the behavior of man and societies.

Maybe I’m talking out of my ass, and have nothing real to contribute to this conversation.

Masybe it’s time to get something to eat. No maybe about it, my stomach’s rumbling.

The only thing I know for sure: if you want answers, you got to figure it all out. This may require some thought and work on your part. Kind of like an infintely large jig-saw puzzle with amorphous shapes.

So pull up a chair, get yourself a cool, refreshing beverage, kick up your feet and set a spell. This is going to take a while.

[Dale_The_Bold]

God created dinosaurs millions of years before humans. That’s just the way it went. Dinosaurs became extinct millions of years before humans were created. Why did God do this? Well, if I were God, the first thing I’d do is make something really cool, too. Even Job 40 refers to the “behemoth” being among the first of His creation. The notion of dinosaurs and man co-existing is an embarassment to Christianity. That is unless your bible states that Adam’s first words were “Yabba dabba doo.” Science can only show how God does things, not whether or not God exists. Before Newton there was no proof that gravity existed, but that didn’t stop gravity from existing. In the same way, evolution only proves to us that the Creator is creative. What, are we supposed to be surprised?