This is the first part in a four-part series by AAH Contributing Writer, Indy-based author, counselor and blogger, Dr. Phillip D. Sparks.
We welcome your comments, challenges, agreements, monkey wrenches, doubts, rants and questions.
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Old Verses Young Earth
By Dr. Phillip D. Sparks
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For evolution to be true the earth must be billions of years old.
For example, dinosaurs are said to have existed 65 million years ago. Gradual change brought about by selective mutation tries to explain our current life forms. This philosophy known as uniformitarianism assumes that past rates of change have occurred at the same rate that we experience today.
Furthermore, science attempts to show that everything that we see now in our natural systems can be explained by natural chemical and physical laws. Since God is excluded from that world view.
The evolutionary belief is inconsistent with faith in a creative God.
Man does not exist very well outside of a spiritual realm, so we find several spiritual avenues coming forth proclaiming to bring a life of peace but evading the debate about the history of life forms.
They just believe that there is a spirit of some type that we can contact but falls short of giving it a name other than calling it divine.
For creation to explain the current life systems that we see there has to be an explanation of the current fossil record based upon a shorter time frame, probably less than 10,000 years. The mysterious event recorded in Biblical history is the world wide flood. I call it mysterious because we fail to stop and think about the impact such a flood would have on natural geologic and biological systems.
Recently, geologists examining the sedimentation of earth strata are suggesting that the strata formed rapidly rather than over millions of years as originally thought.
Flood hydrology explains precisely how layering could have formed with simultaneous trapping of life forms within the layers. Layering would have formed based upon sedimentation rates rather than on geological time periods. So the flood explanation is consistent with Scripture and fits the scientific evidence of what we find in the earth.
Next time I will provide you with some more evidence for a young earth.
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Introduction to the series, The Evolution-Creation Debate.
To read the biographies of Dr. Sparks and our other contributing writers, and to find links to their posts at AAH, go here.
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For further reading on both sides of the question from bloggers, scholars, and so on. Be warned: It’s just the tip of the iceberg:
http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/ORIGINS/origins.html
http://www.creationresearch.org/
http://www.imagesandmeanings.com/2012/10/an-honest-look-at-flood-mythology.html#axzz2g6xYQ88C
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/evolution-creation-debate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation%E2%80%93evolution_controversy
http://thevirtueorreason.blogspot.com/
http://www.conservapedia.com/Evolution
http://ncse.com/rncse/24/6/winning-creation-debate
Michael E Conner
Sorry, I find this scientifically naïve. There are sixteen reasons that I know of why scientists believe the world to be very old. Many of these reasons are very coherent and testable. Potassium argon dating, continental drift, fission track analysis, lead-lead dating, fossil sequences, the detail of the fossil record, varves, etc etc
My PhD was on the creation evolution debate, and after reading both sides one conclusion was that most people who join the debate are reluctant to look at the evidence. I also wonder if the conservative branches of the Church are now being left behind because they persist on holding to outdated theology and make their religion seem like old superstition in the light of what we now know.
This is not a new phenomena, eg the Flat Earth society, the resistance to Galileo etc.
If you’re going to effectively proffer an argument for creationism you’re going to have to do better than a few simplistic and erroneous soundbites. Here’s a few thoughts:
“science attempts to show that everything that we see now in our natural systems can be explained by natural chemical and physical laws”
This is completely untrue. If it were true no theist would ever be a scientist, would they?. Be honest. The reason that science provisionally postulates naturalism is because, after centuries of observation and experimentation, no evidence whatsoever has been found for anything other than natural causation.
“Man does not exist very well outside of a spiritual realm”
Unsubstantiated assertion. Anyone can make claims of this quality. What evidence do you have that this is so? And I mean evidence, not opinion.
“Flood hydrology explains precisely how layering could have formed with simultaneous trapping of life forms within the layers.”
Does it? Name one national or state geological association, from any country in the world, that accepts flood hydrology. You won’t find one. Why? Precisely because flood hydrology has been tested and found not to explain geological layers.