Hi Jeanie

I'm not so sure you are right about Catholocism, but am not Catholic so can't answer to that point, either.


The paper goes on to discuss how man was created when god took an existing line, presumably an ape, and at a time undetectable by science injected a soul into him creating the first man. It is non specific enough to be interpreted as either one man and one woman were created or the ‘race’ were all upgraded to humanity by god which is more in keeping with the current scientific findings which don’t suggest a genetic pair of progenitors to our line at any one time in our history.

Your other points about timelines, etc. also make sense from your perspective.
I would suggest that it is not a matter of perspective rather an appreciation of the totality of the evidence for this position. A full understanding of the evidence behind this position would convince most of the validity of it. YEC’s spent quite some time trying to produce well credentialed YEC believing geologists by sending their own children to university with that specific aim in mind. It took them many attempts before one of their ‘recruits’ managed to make it through geology at university and still believe YEC ideas. Most simply realized that YEC was untenable when presented with the evidence in depth, and so lost their YEC faith.

I don't know enough, honestly, to comment intelligently on the matter. To me....however the creation happened or how long it took does not matter so much. I don't think it affects my salvation.
How would it affect ‘your salvation’ if you really understood the evidence which clearly shows that much of the bible is simply false? Is that one reason why so many creationists avoid studying these fields in depth?

I just know what I believe. I'll just say that whatever the absolute truth turns out to be....it will be consistent with Gospel truths.
That’s a very limiting and unscientific preconception. Does it worry you at all to hold such preconceptions above all evidence? Is there any evidence that you can imagine which would change your mind? Does that make you incapable of accepting the truth if it turned out that the truth lay with the scientific world view which so clearly contradicts the bible?

Perhaps this earth was recycled????
There’s no evidence for it beyond the well understood recycling of matter in stars to produce the raw materials of this planet or the crustal recycling of plate techtoncs at least.

I really don't know..... My church simply teaches that we don't know.
But you do claim to know, you claim to know that it will be consistent with the gospel. That’s a very limiting position; it closes you off to all sorts of possibilities.

[W]e do believe that each creative day was at least 1000 years (as in God's time being a day to our thousand years based on a planet closest to where he resides and how large it is and how long it takes for it to rotate - obviously its quite large) but that the days were specified without exact time frames..that the "days" basically specified a "period of time" or a distinction for that process (for what occurred during that part of the creation) vs. the other creationary periods. (In my own words). So it could leave more time...definitely.
The amount of time is far from the only problem with this view, 1000 years per day is a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the time we know it took for the earth to form to this point and the order of creation listed in Genesis is wrong regardless of how long the times were between days. Of course you still have the problem that the bible is very clear about the rising and falling of the sun over the new earth as the limits of the days cited suggesting that its authors at least meant 24 hour periods on earth.

I personally do believe the earth is old...(which I've stated about 50 times).
Do you accept that it is around 4 700 000 000 years old?

But I do not accept that we came from apes. If we are related....and I believe we are cause we are all God's creatures - it isn't, to me, because we evolved from each other. I really and truly believe that we were created more or less as we are now and simply made adaptions...at least within species or "kinds" as its put in the Bible.
How then do you explain the genetic defect in our vitamin C pathway that we share with the great apes? This is a very specific error, we carry in fully working form 3 of the four metabolic steps to produce vitamin C and we have one damaged step which we share precisely with the great apes and no other known animals. How do you explain that? That’s just one example of shared genetic defects that we humans share just with the creatures that science shows we are most closely related to.

And, again, don't know how to answer to how old artifacts, etc. are.
But not knowing you are happy to accept as truth something which contradicts a whole range of evidence from many fields of science? How can you really be comfortable doing that? Is the truth not important enough for you to want to unravel these conundrums? Your salvation is at stake is it not?

Adam and Eve were the first. I accept that on faith.
I would suggest that faith is the only think you could possibly base that belief on, there’s not evidence for it and much against it.

Do you really believe the cave man nonsense? (I know I'm baiting you here, but not my intention). I mean I know that men have lived in caves, but except for the dark ages, men were a lot more progressed at times than people may realize.
Are you suggesting that humans were never primitive cave men? Some tribes who lived till quite recently without contact with the outside worlds still displayed cave man behaviours. Is it really so hard to believe? There’s tones of evidence to support this idea. In Australia we have some really well preserved sites from very primitive human camps showing how humans lived here well over forty thousand years ago. You may say that the dating is wrong but until you understand how the dating is done and why it’s trusted I would suggest that you are grasping at straws to say so.

Abraham himself knew about the solar system and universe and beyond.
Well sort of, Kolob doesn’t exist at least not as described and the other information given is vague enough to be next to worthless. What did Abraham really know accurately about the solar system and beyond? The description ignores the inner planets altogether and talks about the stars as if they are fixed on the firmament pretty much as described so inaccurately in genesis.

There were civiilations here on the America's that were quite advanced at times. I personally think to discount history via actual records kept and the Biblical (and other scriptural) accounts based on pottery, etc., and perceived ages of them is kind of.....well...missing out on something.
I’m not suggesting that there is no value or true to these accounts but we have to take them with a grain of salt. We know that humans get it wrong for all sorts of reasons even when they have the very best intentions so when one of these accounts disagrees with the physical evidence we have to consider that it is almost certainly wrong. Can you do that with these works or do you give them special privileges just due to their age?

You have to keep in mind, though, that I believe so strongly in my faith that I would deny what to you is accepted as fact if not consistent with revealed truth.
And here you see the foundational difference between us, I hold no ideas above future evidence, none. Show me real evidence that the earth is just 6000 years old and I’ll change my mind, show me real evidence that we have a soul and I will change my mind the only real fixed idea I carry is that evidence is the decider. I would reject ToE today if you could show me real evidence against it but you would not change your beliefs in the face of similar evidence.

Good luck for the next week.

In Reason

Russell