Day Age doctrine in regards to scripture, and God's character

[Canuckster1127]

Here's a radical thought .... rather than just relying upon the characterizations of AIG or other YEC sites, why not see how OEC and even Theistic Evolutionists define their own beliefs?

Granted, weighing contrary opinions and examining evidence is a highly dangerous path to take for those who have a vested interest in keeping the group think going, but maybe such a radical approach could work?

[jlay]

The earth is 6000 years old????!!!

Do you honestly believe this?


Do religious people believe anything science says? If not, please stop using anything developed by science as it is obviously ALL lies (e.g medicines and just about everything you see around you) and continue with your primative beliefs.

Waz,
This is laced with prejudicial fallacy, ad-hominem, and I think has a few other issues as well.

Everyone believes the earth is 6k years old, at least.

The advances in medicine are not dependent on one's view of the age of the cosmos. A person who holds to a 6k year or 6 billion year old cosmos can equally understand medicine among a myriad of other scientific advancements. There is vitually, if literally nothing that one is precluded from using in physics or biology based on their view of the age of the cosmos.

Next, science doesn't SAY anything. Scientists do. Science is the study of causes and involves multiple areas of inquiry.

[dayage]

Dave,

I hold the Day Age view and would like to discuss it, but you need to stick to one topic or text at a time.

For example, what text(s) do you use to support the idea that NO death existed before Adam sinned?

[RickD]

CallmeDave wrote:

1. I made the specific point that OECism has to be read into scripture in Genesis. The 10 dangers of Theistic Evolution including Day Ages , addressed that and specifically listed why millions of years to create is an affront to Gods character .

Dave, First off, Here are a couple of links for you to read, so you can see what Day-Age/Progressive Creationist believe, from their point of view. These links do not show what some misinformed Young Earth Creationists think of DA/PC. So, for us to be clear what you are arguing against, here:http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth ... ation.html
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/day-age.html

The "10 dangers" that you posted, do not pertain to DA/PC. The "10 dangers" is more of a general argument against evolution. Day Age/Progressive Creationists do not believe in evolution, as described in your 10 dangers.
The 10 dangers says the following, about why millions of years is an affront to God's character:

Danger no. 1: Misrepresentation of the Nature of God

The Bible reveals God to us as our Father in Heaven, who is absolutely perfect (Matthew 5:48), holy (Isaiah 6:3), and omnipotent (Jeremiah 32:17). The Apostle John tells us that ‘God is love’, ‘light’, and ‘life’ (1 John 4:16; 1:5; 1:1-2). When this God creates something, His work is described as ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31) and ‘perfect’ (Deuteronomy 32:4).

Theistic evolution gives a false representation of the nature of God because death and ghastliness are ascribed to the Creator as principles of creation. (Progressive creationism, likewise, allows for millions of years of death and horror before sin.)

What it doesn't do, is say why millions of years of death and suffering maligns God's character. It just makes a statement, then has no supporting scripture, or science to back up the statement. Why don't you tell us, by using scripture, or any other means, to back up your statement?

[Stu]

The earth is 6000 years old????!!!

Do you honestly believe this?

Do religious people believe anything science says? If not, please stop using anything developed by science as it is obviously ALL lies (e.g medicines and just about everything you see around you) and continue with your primative beliefs.

Ah I see you're more than comfortable in your little closed bubble of "truth"

You committed so many logical fallacy's in your comment I don't even know where to start.. so I won't even bother attempting to point them out.

Seeing as you are so confident in your position of an old world, let me ask you this -- what are three of the strongest evidences you think prove an old earth?


I posted this in another thread but I'll repost it here:
How do you explain 150 million year old dinosaur tissue samples?

It's all about assumptions, or as this article refers to, the "power of the paradigm" can be blinding. The "deep time" mentality is fixed in evolutionists (and even some creationists) and any evidence to the contrary simply requires an extraordinary explanation to wish it away; rather than the obvious one.
And these "fresh tissue finds" are now becoming more frequent as scientists know to actually look for them...


Dinosaur Bones Crack Open Surprises: Original Tissue

Sensational dinosaur blood report!

More Soft Tissue Found in Old Fossils

[zoegirl]

I'm moving this, and starting a new topic, so this thread won't get bogged down. Here's the link to the new topic:http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... =6&t=37045

I look forward to your reasons for your conclusions, Dave.

For all interested in the topic, lets keep the discussion respectful. We all know how these OEC/YEC discussions can quickly get out of hand.

Thanks

REPLY: I thought we could cover the whole shebang of a Young Earth / Theistic Evolution and the Theological implications of both since they are all inter-related . So , please...let us start with Young Earth Creationism and the evidence i presented by Prof. Humphreys (which sums up my own personal view as well)...then we can move to the Old Earth view which accomodates theistic evolution .

Typical misrepresentations and deliberate ignorance, nothing new here.

So here are the evidences for a Young Earth and I await your rebuttal to each point :

Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers listed below in bold print (usually in the millions of years) are often maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages.

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Spiral galaxy NGC 1232 in constellation Eridanus (photo courtesy of European Southern Observatory).

Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers listed below in bold print (usually in the millions of years) are often maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. The numbers in italics are the ages required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the Biblical age (6,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages. Thus, the following items are evidence against the evolutionary time scale and for the Biblical time scale. Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled with the old-age view only by making a series of improbable and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a recent creation.

1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.

The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this “the winding-up dilemma,” which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same “winding-up” dilemma also applies to other galaxies. For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the puzzle has been a complex theory called “density waves.”1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope’s discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the “Whirlpool” galaxy, M51.2

2. Too few supernova remnants.


Crab Nebula (photo courtesy of NASA)

According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas.3

3. Comets disintegrate too quickly.

According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical “Oort cloud” well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.5 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the “Kuiper Belt,” a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Some asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the evolutionists’ problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.

4. Not enough mud on the sea floor.


Rivers and dust storms dump mud into the sea much faster than plate tectonic subduction can remove it.

Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters.7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago.

5. Not enough sodium in the sea.



Every year, rivers8 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.9,10 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today’s input and output rates.10 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.10 Calculations11 for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean.

6. The earth’s magnetic field is decaying too fast.


Electrical resistance in the earth’s core wears down the electrical current which produces the earth’s magnetic field. That causes the field to lose energy rapidly.

The total energy stored in the earth’s magnetic field (“dipole” and “non-dipole”) is decreasing with a half-life of 1,465 (± 165) years.12 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.13 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, most startlingly with evidence for rapid changes.14 The main result is that the field’s total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 20,000 years old.15

7. Many strata are too tightly bent.

In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.16

8. Biological material decays too fast.

Natural radioactivity, mutations, and decay degrade DNA and other biological material rapidly. Measurements of the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA recently forced researchers to revise the age of “mitochondrial Eve” from a theorized 200,000 years down to possibly as low as 6,000 years.17 DNA experts insist that DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer than 10,000 years, yet intact strands of DNA appear to have been recovered from fossils allegedly much older: Neandertal bones, insects in amber, and even from dinosaur fossils.18 Bacteria allegedly 250 million years old apparently have been revived with no DNA damage.19 Soft tissue and blood cells from a dinosaur have astonished experts.20

9. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic “ages” to a few years.


Radio Halo (photo courtesy of Mark Armitage)

Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.21 “Squashed” Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale.22 “Orphan” Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply accelerated nuclear decay and very rapid formation of associated minerals.23,24

10. Too much helium in minerals.

Uranium and thorium generate helium atoms as they decay to lead. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that such helium produced in zircon crystals in deep, hot Precambrian granitic rock has not had time to escape.25 Though the rocks contain 1.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay products, newly-measured rates of helium loss from zircon show that the helium has been leaking for only 6,000 (± 2000) years.26 This is not only evidence for the youth of the earth, but also for episodes of greatly accelerated decay rates of long half-life nuclei within thousands of years ago, compressing radioisotope timescales enormously.

11. Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata.



With their short 5,700-year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it. Lately the world’s best such laboratory which has learned during two decades of low-C14 measurements how not to contaminate specimens externally, under contract to creationists, confirmed such observations for coal samples and even for a dozen diamonds, which cannot be contaminated in situ with recent carbon.27 These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old.

12. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.

Evolutionary anthropologists now say that Homo sapiens existed for at least 185,000 years before agriculture began,28 during which time the world population of humans was roughly constant, between one and ten million. All that time they were burying their dead, often with artifacts. By that scenario, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies.29 If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 200,000 years, so many of the supposed eight billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, perhaps only a few hundred years in many areas.

13. Agriculture is too recent.

The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 185,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.<Deevey, E. S., The human population, Scientific American 203:194–204 (September 1960). Yet the archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the eight billion people mentioned in item 12 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture for a very short time after the Flood, if at all.30




14. History is too short.

According to evolutionists, Stone Age Homo sapiens existed for 190,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.31 Why would he wait two thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely.<Dritt, J. O., Man’s earliest beginnings: discrepancies in evolutionary timetables, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 73–78.

All of these rely on bad science done by YEC and have been shown to be false multiple times.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~matthewt/yeclaimsbeta.html

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/magnetic.html

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/dinoblood.html

[zoegirl]

Dave, That's fine if you want to discuss Humphreys in the other topic. Frankly, what you posted from Humphreys, has no relevance to the statement you made:

Ive concluded that if Day Age philosophy is true that it causes specific scripture and major doctrines to make no sense whatsoever, and, has a direct bearing on our Creators nature and character in a dissending way.

Let's keep this on topic, and about how you have concluded that Day Age/Progressive creationism undermines scripture, and maligns God's character.

Very well then....heres what I entirely endorse and embrace :

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10 Dangers of Theistic Evolution ---

The atheistic formula for evolution is:


Evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods.

In the theistic evolutionary view, God is added:


Theistic evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods + God.

In this system God is not the omnipotent Lord of all things, whose Word has to be taken seriously by all men, but He is integrated into the evolutionary philosophy. This leads to 10 dangers for Christians :

Danger no. 1: Misrepresentation of the Nature of God

The Bible reveals God to us as our Father in Heaven, who is absolutely perfect (Matthew 5:48), holy (Isaiah 6:3), and omnipotent (Jeremiah 32:17). The Apostle John tells us that ‘God is love’, ‘light’, and ‘life’ (1 John 4:16; 1:5; 1:1-2). When this God creates something, His work is described as ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31) and ‘perfect’ (Deuteronomy 32:4).

Theistic evolution gives a false representation of the nature of God because death and ghastliness are ascribed to the Creator as principles of creation. (Progressive creationism, likewise, allows for millions of years of death and horror before sin.)

Danger no. 2: God becomes a God of the Gaps

The Bible states that God is the Prime Cause of all things. ‘But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things . . . and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him’ (1 Corinthians 8:6).

However, in theistic evolution the only workspace allotted to God is that part of nature which evolution cannot ‘explain’ with the means presently at its disposal. In this way He is reduced to being a ‘god of the gaps’ for those phenomena about which there are doubts. This leads to the view that ‘God is therefore not absolute, but He Himself has evolved—He is evolution’.2

Danger no. 3: Denial of Central Biblical Teachings

The entire Bible bears witness that we are dealing with a source of truth authored by God (2 Timothy 3:16), with the Old Testament as the indispensable ‘ramp’ leading to the New Testament, like an access road leads to a motor freeway (John 5:39). The biblical creation account should not be regarded as a myth, a parable, or an allegory, but as a historical report, because:
â–  Biological, astronomical and anthropological facts are given in didactic [teaching] form.
â–  In the Ten Commandments God bases the six working days and one day of rest on the same time-span as that described in the creation account (Exodus 20:8-11).
â–  In the New Testament Jesus referred to facts of the creation (e.g. Matthew 19:4-5).
â–  Nowhere in the Bible are there any indications that the creation account should be understood in any other way than as a factual report.

The doctrine of theistic evolution undermines this basic way of reading the Bible, as vouched for by Jesus, the prophets and the Apostles. Events reported in the Bible are reduced to mythical imagery, and an understanding of the message of the Bible as being true in word and meaning is lost.

Danger no. 4: Loss of the Way for Finding God

The Bible describes man as being completely ensnared by sin after Adam’s fall (Romans 7:18-19). Only those persons who realize that they are sinful and lost will seek the Saviour who ‘came to save that which was lost’ (Luke 19:10).

However, evolution knows no sin in the biblical sense of missing one’s purpose (in relation to God). Sin is made meaningless, and that is exactly the opposite of what the Holy Spirit does—He declares sin to be sinful. If sin is seen as a harmless evolutionary factor, then one has lost the key for finding God, which is not resolved by adding ‘God’ to the evolutionary scenario.

Danger no. 5: The Doctrine of God’s Incarnation is Undermined

The incarnation of God through His Son Jesus Christ is one of the basic teachings of the Bible. The Bible states that ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14), ‘Christ Jesus . . . was made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:5-7).3

Danger no. 6: The Biblical Basis of Jesus’ Work of Redemption Is Mythologized

The Bible teaches that the first man’s fall into sin was a real event and that this was the direct cause of sin in the world. ‘Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned’ (Romans 5:12).

Theistic evolution does not acknowledge Adam as the first man, nor that he was created directly from ‘the dust of the ground’ by God (Genesis 2:7). Most theistic evolutionists regard the creation account as being merely a mythical tale, albeit with some spiritual significance. However, the sinner Adam and the Saviour Jesus are linked together in the Bible—Romans 5:16-18. Thus any theological view which mythologizes Adam undermines the biblical basis of Jesus’ work of redemption.

Danger no. 7: Loss of Biblical Chronology

The Bible provides us with a time-scale for history and this underlies a proper understanding of the Bible. This time-scale includes:
â–  The time-scale cannot be extended indefinitely into the past, nor into the future. There is a well-defined beginning in Genesis 1:1, as well as a moment when physical time will end (Matthew 24:14).
â–  The total duration of creation was six days (Exodus 20:11).
â–  The age of the universe may be estimated in terms of the genealogies recorded in the Bible (but note that it cannot be calculated exactly). It is of the order of several thousand years, not billions.
â–  Galatians 4:4 points out the most outstanding event in the world’s history: ‘But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son.’ This happened nearly 2,000 years ago.
â–  The return of Christ in power and glory is the greatest expected future event.

Supporters of theistic evolution (and progressive creation) disregard the biblically given measures of time in favour of evolutionist time-scales involving billions of years both past and future (for which there are no convincing physical grounds). This can lead to two errors:
1. Not all statements of the Bible are to be taken seriously.
2. Vigilance concerning the second coming of Jesus may be lost.

Danger no. 8: Loss of Creation Concepts

Certain essential creation concepts are taught in the Bible. These include:
â–  God created matter without using any available material.
â–  God created the earth first, and on the fourth day He added the moon, the solar system, our local galaxy, and all other star systems. This sequence conflicts with all ideas of ‘cosmic evolution’, such as the ‘big bang’ cosmology.

Theistic evolution ignores all such biblical creation principles and replaces them with evolutionary notions, thereby contradicting and opposing God’s omnipotent acts of creation.

Danger no. 9: Misrepresentation of Reality

The Bible carries the seal of truth, and all its pronouncements are authoritative—whether they deal with questions of faith and salvation, daily living, or matters of scientific importance.

Evolutionists brush all this aside, e.g. Richard Dawkins says, ‘Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants’.4

If evolution is false, then numerous sciences have embraced false testimony. Whenever these sciences conform to evolutionary views, they misrepresent reality. How much more then a theology which departs from what the Bible says and embraces evolution!

Danger no. 10: Missing the Purpose

In no other historical book do we find so many and such valuable statements of purpose for man, as in the Bible. For example:
1. Man is God’s purpose in creation (Genesis 1:27-28).
2. Man is the purpose of God’s plan of redemption (Isaiah 53:5).
3. Man is the purpose of the mission of God’s Son (1 John 4:9).
4. We are the purpose of God’s inheritance (Titus 3:7).
5. Heaven is our destination (1 Peter 1:4).

However, the very thought of purposefulness is anathema to evolutionists. ‘Evolutionary adaptations never follow a purposeful program, they thus cannot be regarded as teleonomical.’5Thus a belief system such as theistic evolution that marries purposefulness with non-purposefulness is a contradiction in terms.

Conclusion

The doctrines of creation and evolution are so strongly divergent that reconciliation is totally impossible. Theistic evolutionists attempt to integrate the two doctrines, however such syncretism reduces the message of the Bible to insignificance. The conclusion is inevitable: There is no support for theistic evolution in the Bible
.

Interesting, although you have made the error of equating OEC with evolution, be it theistic or naturalistic. Day Age does not equal TE.

[jlay]

I wouldn't the link is a hand down victory. In fact it is shallow and a little off on how it deals with some of the arguments. And paper thin in addressing the C14 issue, focusing on an obscure issue.