Old Earth Debate: Need Arguments and Resources

[lnx990]

I am aware that this is a more or less controversial topic among creationists and evolutionists; however, my AP Biology class is having an inclass debate on the topic. Essentially I have been chosen, along with another, to defend the old Earth viewpoint, and I would like to know what you 'all thought would be good arguments, counter arguments, and resources.

Any help is appreciated,
-Lnx990

 

[Janitor]

I go through phases of listening to Christian radio and TV. (Last night, for instance, they were claiming on TBN that Jan Crouch, the hostess with the purplish wig, has undergone a PET scan and she has been found to be absolutely free of colon cancer.) On the way home from work today I listened to the local Christian station. The guest was Tom Vail. He is a raft guide in the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He has written a book that is sold in a bookstore within Grand Canyon National Park. The book pushes the Biblically-literal point of view that the Earth is just a few thousands of years old. He gave this website address:

http://canyonministries.com/

I have spent a few minutes looking at the website today, and so far I have not found anything I can sink my teeth into on the issue of whether there is good evidence in the Grand Canyon for a Young Earth. I suppose he wants you to have to buy his book to see what his evidence is.

 

[BlackVision]

I am aware that this is a more or less controversial topic among creationists and evolutionists; however, my AP Biology class is having an inclass debate on the topic. Essentially I have been chosen, along with another, to defend the old Earth viewpoint, and I would like to know what you 'all thought would be good arguments, counter arguments, and resources.

Any help is appreciated,
-Lnx990

Why is creation even being brought up in a biology class? It has no science relation whatsoever.

But anyways, the list of evidence supporting the fact that Earth is indeed 4.6 billion years old is quite heavily substantiated and irrefutable. There are fossil records, radioactive dating, etc. Just tons of evidence.

Here are some sities listing some of them:

http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/docs/parks/gtime/ageofearth.html
http://www.millennium-debate.org/ind11janu8.htm

 

[enigma]

Talk origins.

Anytime you are debunking creationist garbage, first stop should be talk origins.

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html

I am aware that this is a more or less controversial topic among creationists and evolutionists

The only folks who believe there is a controversy are those who are uneducated in the facts. There hasn't been a controversy among any scientists, whether they are biologists, geologists, cosmologists, or any other "ist" for over 200 years when creationist geologists (there wasn't anything else back then) went looking for evidence of the flood and couldn't find any evidence other than that of an old earth.

 

[Janitor]

Thanks for the links, guys.

The radio guest that I mentioned was proud that so many people with advanced degrees in science were on his side of the issue, so such people can be found out there.

I haven't believed in Creationism since I was a kid. I can remember feeling guilty when I first read in National Geographic and in other literature about how the universe was billions of years old, and that the Earth was a fair fraction of that age, and that life itself was on the order of a billion years old.

It seems to me that Believers in the young Earth could reasonably refer to their Deity as "The Great Deceiver." Of course they wouldn't dare do that!

 

[Chrono]

Why is creation even being brought up in a biology class? It has no science relation whatsoever.

Aren't there a bunch of scientists researching trying to find that the Earth was created by God or a higher being? Of course, more and more evidence that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old seems to just keep piling up, and I don't think the creationists have hardly any evidence.

 

[enigma]

Aren't there a bunch of scientists researching trying to find that the Earth was created by God or a higher being? Of course, more and more evidence that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old seems to just keep piling up, and I don't think the creationists have hardly any evidence.

No. Creationists would love you to think that there are though... Yet another case of lying for Jesus.

There are a few organizations that claim to be... Answers in Genesis is one which comes to mind.

The truth is that they don't do any research. All they do is go around the country and the world peddling pseudoscience. There hasn't been a single article submitted to any scholarly journal seriously trying to prove a young earth. Please note, that's not: "we submitted our research, but they can't drop their dogma and give it a look"... that's "we haven't done any research to submit".

 

[enigma]

Not to mention the fact that you don't do research to find something... you do research and then draw conclusions based on what you find.

If I wanted to do research to prove that Leprechauns lived in my backyard, I'm sure I could find something which "proved it".

 

[Chrono]

No. Creationists would love you to think that there are though... Yet another case of lying for Jesus.

There are a few organizations that claim to be... Answers in Genesis is one which comes to mind.

I think that's the organization that I heard of that was doing it. But you're right. I haven't heard of any evidence that supports their claims.

That brings up something that I don't really understand. Why, if the evidence supports evolution, still so strongly believe in creationism? I guess that's just what they were brought up to believe. I don't know.

 

[enigma]

Why, if the evidence supports evolution, still so strongly believe in creationism?

Religion. If evolution is true, then a literal interpretation of the bible is false.

The fact that a literal interpretation of the bible falls flat on many more levels than just Genesis doesn't matter much to them...

Science is something which those who are uneducated or undereducated don't understand and may even be afraid of. That means it's easy to demonize it.

 

[Janitor]

In the circles I was raised in, there seemed to be an eagerness to group certain types together. Evolutionists <--> atheists <--> Communists <--> Satanists <--> Union members <--> homosexuals <--> ACLU members <--> Mormons <--> etc. I guess it was sort of a domino theory. You start by accepting evolution of life, then you move on to believing this or that other thing.

 

[Andre]

And I thought that this place was hardly ever visited.

Nothing more to add on the subject.

 

[Phobos]

As enigma said, go to Talk.Origins.

I have spent a few minutes looking at the website today, and so far I have not found anything I can sink my teeth into on the issue of whether there is good evidence in the Grand Canyon for a Young Earth. I suppose he wants you to have to buy his book to see what his evidence is.

The Grand Canyon "proof" tends to be a claim that the Grand Canyon was formed (or "could have been formed" if they're playing the "reasonable doubt" card) in a rapid catastrophic event (e.g., the Flood) rather than slowly over millions of years of being carved out by the Colorado River. He may point to other canyons that were carved out from a natural disaster (e.g., volcano eruption that caused a flood/mudslide that carved into the land)...of course, those do not look like the Grand Canyon...and they do not have the layering rocks and fossils that show the expected age changes over time.

 

[Andre]

Well IIRC on the bottom of the ocean there are numerous canyons, rift valleys, etc only to expose stratified layers that can be dated being progressively older. But it's very unlikely that rivers carved them out. It looks that we are only beginning to understand tectonics, if at all. For instance, when India -moving northwards tectonically- hit the Asian contintent it really started to accellerate, pushing up the Himalayas. No it's not on the net. I happen to know the geologist who investigated it.

 

[Janitor]

... a claim that the Grand Canyon was formed... in a rapid catastrophic event (e.g., the Flood) rather than slowly over millions of years of being carved out by the Colorado River.- Phobos

Thanks. In fact, I kind of remember the fellow saying something along those lines while he was in the radio studio. He certainly offered no evidence, at least during the fragment of the program that I listened to. I have read that there is a place up in the northwestern U.S. where geologists think an ice dam broke and the resulting large flow of water through that bottleneck left evidence. Of course, that sort of idea doesn't do Young-Earthers any good, since it probably has been dated back to one of the Ice Ages, farther back in time than the Young-Earthers are willing to admit time goes.

 

[Andre]

That's the Lake Missoula story

 

[jcsd]

I do find it amazing that thte topicx should even be brought up, you might as well febate whether the moons made out of cheese or not.

 

[Andre]

Well those debates are not that silly. It may raise some interest and it may set a lot of misinformation straight.

 

[Janitor]

Andre, thanks for the link.

The linked page says, "When Glacial Lake Missoula burst through the ice dam and exploded downstream, it did so at a rate 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world." Now that's impressive!

I have been somewhere that had a large 3D relief map (15 feet by 15 feet or so) that included the area in question. I'll bet it was either in the visitor's center at Flaming Gorge Dam, or in the visitor's center at Craters of the Moon, Idaho.

 

[Janitor]

I caught a small portion of a program on the Animal Planet channel this morning. They showed a male sea louse pulling a female down into a borehole in the sand to impregnate her. She stays in the hole, along with any other females he has captured. Her offspring literally eat out her insides, killing her.

It might be a neat tactic to describe this process, and then ask you opponent: "Um, on which of the six days of creation did God create the sea louse? And why did He design it to behave in this particular way? Why did He look at it and say 'It was good'?"

 

[Andre]

Well, if you check upon biology in general, it's one big string of vicious assassinations and murders. I'm not sure if appealing to ethics subjectively would really enhance the position against creationism.

 

[Janitor]

Andre,

My point is that the murdering done by carnivores and parasites is not particularly puzzling if today's biosphere is the result of amoral evolution. But Creationists always believe in the existence of some deity which came before life on Earth, a deity which presumably would continue to be interested in the welfare of living things on Earth and wouldn't just wash His/Her/Its hands of things and walk away at some point after creating life, let alone design a murder instinct into it right from the start.

 

[Janitor]

I tuned into Christian radio for a few minutes this morning. The program was Hank Hanegraaff, "The Bible Answer Man," who is president of the Christian Research Institute (CRI). He invites listeners to call in. One caller was a minister who asked Hank for a five-minute monologue he could give to convince people that creationism is correct and evolution is wrong.

I'll give a quick summary, by memory, of Hank's answer.

(1) There are no transitions between kinds, only within kinds. [Hank definitely used the word "kind," and did not make use of terms like "species" or "genus" which may be more sharply defined biological terms.] Darwin can be forgiven in this regard, says Hank, because in Darwin's time fossils were still a rarity. Now that we have a great deal of fossils in collections throughout the world, we can see (says H) that there simply are no transitional organisms.

(2) In Darwin's time people thought the fertilized human egg was a simple ball of protoplasm. We now know it is incredibly complex. Nothing that complicated could have arisen by chance.

(3) The Earth is precisely located in its orbit around the Sun; not too hot, not too cold. The Moon is just the right mass to form some tides on Earth, but not to make really huge tides. Only a caring God could have arranged this.

(4) The mind is not equal to the brain. Science cannot explain this. Also, we cannot explain ethics without a God.

Hank speaks with great sincerity in his voice. I get the feeling he truly believes creationism is how it happened. He probably believes that only people who have been blinded by the wiles of the Devil could ever swallow the pack of lies that he believes evolution theory to be.

I pass these ideas of Hanegraaff on since they might be used by your debate opponent, and you should be prepared to rebut them.

Here are my own thoughts, with the understanding that I have never done much reading on biology and am far from any kind of authority on that subject...

(1) Aren't horses and donkeys an example of one species (or "kind" if you prefer) caught in the process of diverging into two species? You can mate them, and sometimes they will give birth to a live offspring called a mule, but the mule is always (?) sterile, so you could say that the mating process is only partially successful. Also, I saw recently in a magazine (I think it was Scientific American) where a fossilized imprint of a dinosaur with feathers has been found in some place like Mongolia. Would this satisfy Hank as being an example of a transition between the dinosaur 'kind' and the bird 'kind'?

(2) "Chance" is kind of a misleading term to use for evolutionary change, isn't it? Evolution is not teleological, but there is a natural selection aspect to it which weeds out things not good at reproducing.

(3) Given how many stars there are in the universe, if even ten percent of them have planets, that is a staggering number of planets. So it seems reasonable that here and there, peppered throughout the universe, there are planets which are amenable to life getting started. Once life does start, evolution gives it the ability to adapt to slow changes in things like temperature, humidity, windiness, and so on. Ice Age coming? No problem. Migrate to a tropical latitude, or migrate to lower altitude, or evolve somewhat thicker fur. Why a creationist should be so concerned with tides, I don't know, and Hank did not say why. Isn't it evolutionists who suggest tidal pools as a good environment for getting life started?

(4) AFAIK, science has not yet been able to say much about this issue. I don't doubt that in a thousand years we will know much more about how consciousness and even a sense of ethics can arise from a few pounds of brain tissue.

I have just thrown some of my thoughts out here as to how to answer these four objections that creationists have. You may well be able to do better.

 

[enigma]

I tuned into Christian radio for a few minutes this morning.

Why oh why do you subject yourself to willful ignorance like that?

And his "objections" are ludicrous.

(1) If you look through the fossil record a clear pattern emerges of animals evolving into other types. You can even look at silliness of current animals's DNA to prove it. e.g. chickens have an inactive gene which causes them to grow teeth. Explain to me why an "intelligent" designer would put redundant DNA which causes a feature which a creature a) wouldn't need and b) (according to creationism) never had.

(2) For the upteenth time... It isn't chance which caused evolution. It is chance + selection + time. Noone is claiming a fully formed egg materialized out of the ooze.

(3) Anthropic Principle. 'Nuff said.

(4) Inability to fully explain thought (yet) is not a disproof of evolution. Ethics can (and has... see "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins for one take on it) be explained without God.

I cannot stand luddites.

 

[Janitor]

Why oh why do you subject yourself to willful ignorance like that? - Enigma

I just get a kick out of hearing viewpoints that are so different from my own. If there was a Muslim hour or a Satanist hour or a Hindu hour on the radio, I would probably tune in now and then to those programs as well.

Was it Izzy Stone who wrote, "If I can only afford the time to read one newspaper, let it be the newspaper of the opposition?" I kind of admire that philosophy.

Maybe I listen because it takes me back to my childhood. I spent many thousands of hours in a church where most of the congregation would have denied evolution.

I will tell you a story from my churchgoing days. One woman in the congregation was convinced that a foodmaker (Procter & Gamble, if I recall) was promoting Satanism. Her evidence was that they had a logo showing a moon and stars on the labels of their soup cans. Somehow--I have forgotten how--she tied that symbology to the Devil. She urged the adults to write letters to the company demanding that they drop this symbol from their labels. That gives you an idea of the mindset of some of the adults I grew up around.

 

[Andre]

Just avoiding the usual evolution argument. The place were you really can see evolution happening is in the sediment cores obtained from the ocean bottoms. Foraminifera are plankton like creatures which shells fossilize to about 100%. The life span of a particular species is limited to some hundred thousand years. So investiging such a core, the deeper you go, the more you go back in time, literally seeing older species to become extinct and new species to evolve. Actually all those species are captured in a database, including their apparent age this way a continues dating reference can be obtained, just by determining the particular foraminifera species you know it's particular time of occurance in the past.

Continuous evolution. Its a small scale but it is there.
Ref:
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/fossil/fossil_1.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/collections/micro.html

 

[Dissident Dan]

I do find it amazing that thte topicx should even be brought up, you might as well febate whether the moons made out of cheese or not.

That's what you get in an area developed by puritans and the like.

 

[Andre]

This might certainly help in the discussion

 

[Phobos]

Just to add to enigma's post...
(1) There are plenty of examples of transitions. Creationists simply reject them. If you have species A and C and you later find B and say "see? here's a transition!", then Creationists simply reply "well, you don't have A.5 and B.5, so the link is still missing. Or, they say that B is just a variation of A or C. Or they call it a hoax.

Also important to note that modern evolutionary biologists primarily look for transitional features rather than a "missing link" (which really is a misnomer anyway).

(3) The perfection they refer to isn't as perfect as they usually think. The Earth's distance from the sun varies by millions of miles over the course of a year. The Earth used to be colder/warmer. The distance from the Earth to the Moon, and therefore the tidal force, has changed over time. Etc.

Like you, I find hearing different viewpoints very interesting. Granted, some Creationists are a bit more sophisiticated that we're describing here, but many of the common misconceptions and outright mistakes are touted by some very prominent Creationists (Johnson, Morris, Gish, etc.)

It's particularly interesting to see how the debate eventually boils down a worldview...a kind of bias in the way one interprets data that is hard to get around in public forums. Creationists will be quick to point out that scientists have a worldview bias too, which is fine, but science has the benefit of peer review and scrutiny/revisions of theories. (Andre - - thanks for the link)

 

[Janitor]

but many of the common misconceptions and outright mistakes are touted by some very prominent Creationists - Phobos

More than once I have heard TV and radio preachers make the claim that the Second Law of Thermodynamics in and of itself is enough to rule out the evolution of life. I believe this creationist claim is based on the false premise that the Earth is a thermally closed system. Because of the presence of the sun, the Earth is far from being a closed system.

When sincere believers like Hank Hanegraaff read tracts which make the claim that thermodynamics absolutely rules out evolution, they must think The audacity of atheistic scientists to support a theory which they well know is ruled out by their own fundamental scientific ideas! Evolution is a lie straight from the pit of Hell. Those scientists are Hell-bound, and they want to take as many other people with them as they can.

I am guessing that Hank has never read a book on thermodynamics and has never taken a course on that topic. He probably feels that creationist literature is written under the guidance of the Christian God, so that there can be no errors in that literature, and accordingly he has no need to read scientific literature, which is not under the guidance of God and thus can be riddled with error.

One would hope that if the Hanks of this world could be forced to learn thermodynamics, they would publicly renounce at least that portion of anti-evolution literature which is based on false ideas about the Second Law. Does someone like Hank have enough intellectual honesty that he would do that? To me, that is an interesting open question.

 

[Janitor]

I heard through the grapevine that radio advice-giver Dr. Laura Schlessinger set up her camera to take some risque photos of herself back when she was 28 years old. This behavior seems so contrary to what I know of her views on morality.

Without admitting anything with regard to whether I am piggish enough to have done a search on the Net for said photos, let me say that I stumbled onto this website:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0226DrLaura.asp

The gist of the website is that Dr. S now believes that the Genesis account is fanciful, and evolution is how life really works. The website does link to another which has a list of "PhD scientists" who support creationism.

 

[Janitor]

And since I brought up Dr. Laura...

It seems to me that one of the strongest attacks a creationist can bring to bear on evolution is that something like two percent of the human population is homosexual. How could millions of years of evolution not have weeded that out?

The only answer I have seen to that question sounded highly speculative. It was along the lines of, "Maybe whatever genes lead to that orientation also have an affect on the opposite-sex siblings that leads to them being above-average in reproductive success, so that in the net, there is an advantage to passing those genes on to offspring." Of course that answer presupposes that sexual orientation has genetics as its root cause, and that in itself may be somewhat controversial.

 

[lnx990]

im sorry that i haven't been able to reply back... I've had 3 projects as well as the lacrosse championship to worry about. anyway the debate was today. the teacher didnt really take sides as to who won, but i did provide much more evidence. Actually it was kinda funny because in my opening statement i shot down all of the arguments that they should of made. Anyway, i feel i won. And thanks to all who contributed.

 

[russ_watters]

My point is that the murdering done by carnivores and parasites is not particularly puzzling if today's biosphere is the result of amoral evolution. But Creationists always believe in the existence of some deity which came before life on Earth, a deity which presumably would continue to be interested in the welfare of living things on Earth and wouldn't just wash His/Her/Its hands of things and walk away at some point after creating life, let alone design a murder instinct into it right from the start.

Interesting idea: if God created the animals, why aren't they all herbivores? I'd never considered that.

Of course that answer presupposes that sexual orientation has genetics as its root cause, and that in itself may be somewhat controversial.

It could also simply be a common defect...not a popular view though.

 

[Phobos]

It seems to me that one of the strongest attacks a creationist can bring to bear on evolution is that something like two percent of the human population is homosexual. How could millions of years of evolution not have weeded that out?

Obviously, the cause is complex & unknown. It's not as simple as homosexual kids coming from homosexual parents. Genes interact & feedback in many ways...we could speculate that this variation is only expressed under certain conditions. And then there's the whole nature vs. nurture question. So who knows.

Evolution does not have to hone everything to a fine edge. Variations which can seem unusual can still propogate so long as the species as a whole does well. Remember, evolution pertains to populations, not individuals.

And millions of years? We only have evidence of homosexuality for thousands of years. Maybe it's new. (speculating wildly of course...especially since I seem to recall hearing some evidence of homosexuality in other animals)

 

[Phobos]

I am guessing that Hank has never read a book on thermodynamics and has never taken a course on that topic. He probably feels that creationist literature is written under the guidance of the Christian God, so that there can be no errors in that literature, and accordingly he has no need to read scientific literature, which is not under the guidance of God and thus can be riddled with error.

Very often true, I'm sure.

One would hope that if the Hanks of this world could be forced to learn thermodynamics, they would publicly renounce at least that portion of anti-evolution literature which is based on false ideas about the Second Law. Does someone like Hank have enough intellectual honesty that he would do that? To me, that is an interesting open question.

Maybe someday AiG will add it to their list of arguments not to use...
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/faq/dont_use.asp
looks like they came close

 

[Janitor]

Phobos, thanks for the link.

One item on the Answers in Genesis page is, "all beneficial processes in the world, including the development from embryo to adult, increase the overall disorder of the universe, showing that the Second Law is not inherently a curse." That is quite enlightened compared to much of Creationist literature. Once a Creationist admits that the Second Law is not violated in the development of an individual organism, it is probably easier for such a person to also be willing to buy the idea that evolution itself doesn't violate the Second Law. (The Creationist may still harbor other reservations about evolution, of course.)

EDIT: spelling mistake

 

[swansont]

It seems to me that one of the strongest attacks a creationist can bring to bear on evolution is that something like two percent of the human population is homosexual. How could millions of years of evolution not have weeded that out?

Attributes can be genetic without being hereditary.

 

[Janitor]

Swansont, if you have time, would you elaborate?

Is childhood leukemia an example? Before modern medical treatment, it may have been uniformly fatal for all I know. If so, then nobody who had it lived long enough to reproduce. Does that mean that if it is not due to some environmental cause, it must be due to a mutated gene?

 

[Oochy]

Okay, going to jump in here.

Disclaimer: I am a Christian


Basicly, I gave up young Earth creation years ago, after seeing vast amounts of evidance against it. I'm now a progressive creationist, which basicly means, instead of calling the brillant minds of the world liars, I look objectivly at what they say, and for the most part agree, unless I have severe evidance for another view. I'm not a theological evolutionist, as I would like to see MUCH more fossils showing transisitions between animals for me to adopt this view point. But, I would like to present another view of creation as natural evolution has to many holes in it, such as the simple lack of evidance for it... but it's late and I'm heading to bed, so I'll be back. ;)

Just wanted to explain who I am before jumping into the battle field. ;)

 

[Andre]

Young Earth - Old Earth OK, Although always interesting I'm not sure if this is the most correct place for a creation - evolution discussion. Although I would be very curious to lean what the creationist point of view is about the continuous unambiguous records of foraminifera evolution in the ODP ocean sediment cores.

 

[Janitor]

May I be staked to an anthill if this is too religious of a post.

Oochy, when Genesis says that there was no pain or suffering on Earth prior to the presence of the first humans, do you dismiss that as poetic license? To me, that is such an important principle of the Biblical description of who God is, that when you put it in the 'fable' category, you have gutted the Bible so badly that it basically has no credibility.

 

[swansont]

Swansont, if you have time, would you elaborate?

Is childhood leukemia an example? Before modern medical treatment, it may have been uniformly fatal for all I know. If so, then nobody who had it lived long enough to reproduce. Does that mean that if it is not due to some environmental cause, it must be due to a mutated gene?

I don't know if childhood leukemia is an example or not - I don't know enough about it. All I was noting was that you can have conditions that are caused by genetics that are not inherited. Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) is one example - only a small fraction of cases have a heritable factor.

 

[Janitor]

Swansont,

That example helps--thank you. I remember now that Downs is due to the fertilized egg getting extra copies of certain chromosomes. I've heard that the age of the mother is correlated with the liklihood of the child having Downs, but I don't know what the mechanism behind that fact is.

 

[lnx990]

Originally posted by Janitor.
I've heard that the age of the mother is correlated with the liklihood of the child having Downs, but I don't know what the mechanism behind that fact is.

the reason downs syndrome is related to the mothers age is because of the complexities involved with meiosis/oogenesis. When the cells are older they seem to have a harder time dividing the chromosomes evenly, this results in abnormalities. 21 out of 23 times this leads to a miscarrage. 1 out of 23 times it leads to downs syndrome, and the other possibility is either XXX, XXY, or XYY. there's all sorts of names to go with those conditions, but i can't remember any of them.

 

[Janitor]

lnx990, thanks for the additional info. I have heard that XYY men are more likely to be criminal, but I don't know if there was a careful study done on this, or whether it falls into the category of urban legend.

 

[Oochy]

Oochy, when Genesis says that there was no pain or suffering on Earth prior to the presence of the first humans, do you dismiss that as poetic license? To me, that is such an important principle of the Biblical description of who God is, that when you put it in the 'fable' category, you have gutted the Bible so badly that it basically has no credibility.

No, it never says there was no pain or suffering. Like Hugh Ross put it, it's hard to imagine walking through Eden without smashing a few ants. We have assumed much about the Bible, and made it say, what it doesn't. The next creation will be perfect, this one is not, and never was. It was better before "the fall", but not perfect.

 

[Phobos]

Oochy - I'm curious...
How do you reconcile the Garden of Eden story with an old Earth? Billions of years of lost human history? The Garden created long after the Earth was? A varying flow of time?

 

[Janitor]

The next creation will be perfect, this one is not, and never was. It was better before "the fall", but not perfect.- Oochy

I don't mean to seem like I am beating up on you, but it sounds suspiciously like your viewpoint is God was unable to get things just right on the first try, but I'll just bet that with the experience He gained from that try, He will get it right on the second try. That is an interesting theological stance, to say the least.

 

[Oochy]

Oochy - I'm curious...
How do you reconcile the Garden of Eden story with an old Earth? Billions of years of lost human history? The Garden created long after the Earth was? A varying flow of time?

Actually, it's not as hard as it seems. The garden was grown to be ready for when God created the first humans. I'm not sure when that occurred in our model, but I believe we maybe looking at 25,000 years... Don't quote me though.

I don't mean to seem like I am beating up on you, but it sounds suspiciously like your viewpoint is God was unable to get things just right on the first try, but I'll just bet that with the experience He gained from that try, He will get it right on the second try. That is an interesting theological stance, to say the least.

No, that's a simple way of looking at it, but don't feel bad for questioning me. That's how science and research works. No, this is an imperfect world that God created. Why, you ask? For the purpose of creating mortal beings to worship Him, and that choose to worship and love Him, not robots. Unfortuantly, to do that, we must have a free will, and with that, we can choose not to obey Him. Now I'm getting really philisophical here, but bear with me. So to get us to love Him in this life by choice it MUST be an imperfect world, the next world is the reward to us for following Him. Did I make on lick of sense?