bgbloedel
Newbie Alert
Joined: 05 Jan 2007
Posts: 3
Location: USA
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 Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 6:00 pm Post subject: The Shermer letters |
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Greetings! I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. My name is Brian Bloedel. If you have visited Arthwollipot's site lately you may have noticed that he printed and commented on the "letters to the editor" resulting from Dr. Shermer's "Skeptic" article in the October 2006 Scientific American. I am one of the many people who wrote to Scientific American, and select letters were published on The Skeptic Society's web site. I appreciate the opportunity to reply to Arthwollipot’s comments to my letter to Dr. Shermer and Scientific American, and am using that material as my first post.
Obviously such a letter had to be short in order to have any chance of being considered for publication. Therefore detail was necessarily left out. To start, the word “evolution” must be carefully and honestly used in order to prevent needless confusion and conflict. It really needs to be prefaced with “atheistic”, “generic”, “theistic”, etc. so that there is no doubt as to what type of evolution is being discussed. There is no chance for any meaningful communication on any subject if the terms of discussion are muddied and confused; hence my ongoing dispute with Discover magazine.
My point regarding the interpretation of the word “Yom” is that if the original Hebrew language truly restricted a “day” to only twenty-four hours, then Creationists really would have no choice but to either ‘keep the faith’ or else throw their Bibles into the trash can. However, if “Yom” can literally and properly extend to the large but finite time frames demanded by Big Bang physics then Genesis can stay in the game. In brief, here is the “day/age” Creationist take on Genesis 1 using an abbreviation from the NIV:
“In the beginning…” 13.73 billion years ago---a finite time allowed by “Yom”---is conclusively established by science. A specific ‘beginning’ for time and space is not a universal feature of either scientific theories or creation myths. “God created the heavens…” Einstein’s General Relativity Theory allows (if not requires) outside Agency for the origin of the universe. Also, a distinctive feature of the Bible is that God was in no way exhausted, depleted or consumed by the act of creation as is the case in many other creation myths from antiquity. “…and the earth.” is confirmed by astrophysics and planetary geology as a remarkable dynamic part of a Big Bang universe, having been formed about 4.5 bya. It is critical to note that the first 9 billion years of the universe represent a Darwinian “dead zone” during which no life could have existed anywhere in the universe. Conditions were simply too immature and hostile to allow life to originate and survive naturalistically. The clock does not start ticking on organic evolution until life can come into existence and persist.
“The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” This is an outstanding summary description of primordial earth shortly after its formation. When not being vaporized by asteroid impacts, earth’s surface would have been covered by water at that time. Also, there would have been a thick Venus-like atmosphere. Combine that with a significantly dimmer infant sun and residual dust, rock and debris between earth and the sun, little if any light would have penetrated to the surface of earth. It is very important to maintain this visual perspective of “hovering over the waters”. It is a common mistake of theist and non-theist alike to assume a visual perspective for Genesis 1 of floating in outer space while looking down on earth. The correct visual perspective is that of ground level while looking around and up; that is, Genesis 1 chronicles what would have been seen by an observer standing on the surface of earth during all six “days” of creation. As you will soon see, this corrected perspective will eliminate all of the usual absurdities charged against Genesis 1.
To begin the transformation of earth into a livable habitat, God caused a Mars-sized planet to collide with earth soon after earth formed as a planet. This event was so utterly unlikely, and the precise timing and very tight specification required by this event were so stringent, that it is reasonable to say that earth is unique in the Milky Way galaxy---if not the entire universe. This collision formed the moon, blasted away the thick primordial Venus-like atmosphere to allow a thin replacement atmosphere, and started long term geological activity within the new planet. “And God said, ‘Let there be light’”, and for the first time light from the infant sun could penetrate down to the surface of the deep. “God separated the light from the darkness” and a day/night cycle began. A very busy first day drew to a close.
“And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.’” Earth began to recover from the moon formation event and a hydrological cycle was established. However, conditions were still extremely hostile due to frequent hits from comets and asteroids. Not until about 3.8 bya did conditions moderate to the point that life could possibly survive on earth. Although not specifically mentioned in Genesis 1, life did appear immediately at that time, planet-wide and in abundance! There is simply no Darwinian explanation for this. The lengthy time frames necessary and assumed for a naturalistic origin of life just didn’t happen. Day two came to a close.
“And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’” The newly created single-cell microbes began the slow process of cleaning the oceans and atmosphere of poisonous gases, elements and minerals. As a long-term result of the moon formation event, geological action caused dry land to rise from the waters covering the earth. “Let the land produce vegetation”. God created the first life-forms pertaining to man. These plants were essential in the formation and retention of new continental landmass. Thus ends the third day.
“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky…’” It took over 2 billion years, but the microbes God created on earth succeeded in cleaning up the atmosphere to the point that the sun, moon, planets and stars could now be clearly seen from ‘the surface of the deep’. Earth is now ready for advanced life at the end of the fourth day.
“And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth…’” About 530 mya God created a wide variety of complex sea creatures during an event dubbed by science as the “Cambrian explosion.” With no naturalistic explanation, those creatures appeared on the scene all at once, and every living creature God as created since then has been based on one of the body plans God decreed at that time. The fifth day ends.
“And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds…’” Working from the design base established at the Cambrian Explosion, God created all of the creatures that either appear in the fossil record or live to the present day. During this time frame, God continued to use living creatures to shape and condition earth in preparation for the special creation of Adam and Eve. As an older set of creatures fulfilled its purpose, God brought them to an end through mass extinction events and replaced them with new sets of creatures to continue the work. A distinctive feature of more than one of those mass extinction events was the very rapid replacement (sometimes in just a few thousand years) of the older set of creatures with new and obviously different creatures. There is no atheistic explanation for this. It stands as a deep mystery and serious obstacle to Darwinian naturalism.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness…’” Science has established through paleontology and genetic testing that modern man originated from a very small initial population (you can’t get much smaller than two) in northeast Africa (Bible scholars can make a good case that Eden could legitimately extend from Mesopotamia to northeast Africa), and that modern man is the most recently appearing advanced life-form on earth. “And there was evening, and there was morning---the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.”
Arthwollipot, what we have here is an amazing and unique account of the Creation of the universe from the very beginning to the appearance of modern man. There is no other work of myth, religion, philosophy or even of science (until well into the 20th century) that even comes close to the dovetail fit between Genesis 1 and the cutting edge of modern science. This is truly God’s thumbprint of authorship placed upon the Bible. And that is really the only reason for Genesis 1 to even appear in the Bible. A creation account is not a required feature of a holy book, and Genesis 1 could easily have been left out with no serious theological or historical impact on the rest of the Bible. Indeed, leaving Genesis 1 out of the Bible would have given a wide separation between religion and science. God very intentionally put His creation account front-and-center in the Biblical story.
Now I want to clarify the “Rocks, magma, liquids…” portion of my letter. What I was getting at was that natural selection must have something from which to select, but that “family values, moral precepts or free-market economics” simply don’t exist in the inorganic world. Indeed, virtually all of the characteristics, capabilities and features of life (from microbes to man) have few if any counterparts in the non-living world. That is, there is nothing to select, and no atheistic mechanism or pathway to supply the needs of evolutionary life.
This point is critical. Life is supposed to have originated from the inorganic world. Discounting God, there is really no other possible source for origins. Atheistic naturalism must account for the primary origins of dozens (if not hundreds) of complex and often abstract capabilities from out of a physical background devoid of those capabilities. Evolution can select, but it cannot invent. It can possibly modify and innovate from what already exists, but cannot create ex nihilo. The actual history of life on earth shows that much of this would have had to originate very early, very quickly, and under very hostile and unfavorable conditions. I really don’t think science can deliver the goods here. Most of the rest of the complex capabilities of life would have had to appear suddenly at the Cambrian Explosion. Again, I don’t think science can explain this; but it must.
This should be enough for now. I’m sure there will be more later. Thank you. Now I'll go over to the CreationTalk forum and see what I can stir up there. Bye! |
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