Creation OR Evolution

[Quemtal]

Hi everyone. I stumbled across this site quite by accidence, though I’m terribly glad I did. It’s a lively and open site in which one may expound one’s views, and may hear myriad other opinions.
Reading many of the discussions however, something shocked me: the number of members who seem to believe in evolution/long-age earth and yet call themselves Christians. I’m new to the site, so maybe this issue has been explicitly dealt with elsewhere (if so, please inform me); but if not, it’s one I would like to raise. I’m a Christian, and only a young one at that (eighteen-years-old). The world constantly bombards us with long-age earth points of view, and I must choose whether to believe these or not. I choose to base my thinking upon the infallible Word of God—that God said what He meant to say. If God meant to say He used evolution and millions of years, He would have written Genesis very differently.
Below I’ve given just a few reasons (there are many more) why I believe that to be a Christian on MUST believe in a literal Genesis to be a Christian.
I would just like to hear what others think about this topic. What are your views, beliefs, &c?

Some people say that the Genesis account of Creation is only an allegory or a metaphor. If this is so, a new translation of the Bible is necessary:

‘Then the Lord God formed the metaphor from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the metaphor became a living creature’ Genesis 2.7

‘Through one Metaphor sin entered the world…’ Romans 5.12

‘Enoch, seventh from a Metaphor’ Jude 14

‘The son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli… Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Metaphor, which was the son of God.’ Luke 3.23-28

‘Thus it is written, “The first Metaphor became a living being; the last Metaphor became a life-giving spirit.”’ 1 Corinthians 15.45

Would you consider such a translation to be accurate? I hope your answer is no. So if the Bible doesn’t say this, why do some Christians?
Without a literal belief in Adam, there is no literal belief in Jesus, which is absolutely necessary to be saved. The truths of the Gospel are reliant upon the HISTORY of Genesis 1-11. Without a first Adam, there can be no last Adam! An allegorical or metaphorical reading of Genesis is incompatible with the Gospel. And anyway, how metaphorical could we be? If you don't take 'the first man Adam' literally, how is it you can take 'GOD CREATED the first man Adam' literally?

Millions of years and evolution place death before the Fall. But death cannot have occurred before the fall, otherwise (yet again) the Sacrifice od Christ is negated.

As Christians, we must follow the example of Christ. But Christ was not an evolutionist (I know, it didn't exist then as it does now). Also, he wasn't a long-earther (they did exist then). When Jesus was asked about marriage (Matt. 19.3-6), he quoted Genesis 1.27 and 2.24. Jesus knew that without the history of Genesis, then there was no foundation for His teaching--and without the teachings of Christ, there is no Christianity.

Many read the Bible by reading into it. They put thoughts between the lines, thoughts that are not in God’s Word. And as a result there are evolutionists who call themselves Christians.
So please let’s read the Word for what it says, not what we want or expect it to say. Let’s allow the Bible to shape our view of the world, and not let the world shape our view of the Bible. Let’s keep in mind the words that first deceived Man, the words of Satan in the Garden, ‘Did God really say…?’ If we try to add to God’s Word as did Eve, then we too will fall. Remember Paul’s plea in 2 Corinthians 11.3, ‘But I’m afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.’
Here’s an exercise to try: First, read Proverbs 1.5-6, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not in your understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him…’ Then, read the Creation account in Genesis, but lay aside all outside thoughts, all your own ideas and notions. Read it, not INTO it.
Thank you for bearing with me so long (if you made it this far). I know it’s a long post, but I thought it necessary, and still there’s so much I’ve left out. I want to hear your thought and opinions on this matter. Thank you.

[diciple_of_light]

If God meant to say He used evolution and millions of years, He would have written Genesis very differently.

Hear hear! I support your point of view entirely.

DanZ

I am going to have to disagree.
What if God told us what actually happened we are just interpreting things wrongly. What if God started the creation 10 billion years ago and his days as they are called in the bible are millions of years long. then could it be possible that what might have seemed like days for God could have been a few billion years for the planet.

[Titan]

I have heard a couple of responses to Juliod's comments. One concerns the gap theory, in which between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 there is a gap of billions of years (I think those are the two verses). The other part of that is that a text concerns the "spirit hovered over the surface of the deep" the word for hovered that is used there is used in only one other place, that is in Deuteronomy in which a Bird hovers over its offspring. They say these hebrew words give a hint of pre-existing life.

That is the best response I have heard.

[Gollum]

There is also the theory that the bible reads as it does because it had to make sense to those who were transcribing it (i.e. it's human authors.)

Would God have said

"I started the universe 4.5 billion years ago and created life from a primordial soup by facilitating the formation of this chemical that I invented that I called deoxyribonucleic acid. I also implemented a mechanism that I call evolution in which various forms of radiation and chemical interaction cause mutations in the deoxyribonucleic acid and then natural selection acts on the different characteristics that arise .... yadda, yadda, yadda ...
?

Much chance that his audience would have swallowed that?

[Aximili23]

I finally found a decent explanation outlining the evidence behind a popular model of abiogenesis. I can't take credit for the following; this is copied directly from a post written by someone else from a different forum (Jacen from evcforum.net). I can't defend the accuracy of the following either, except to say that the author appeared to me to be honest, intelligent, and well-informed, if his posts are any indication.

We do not know yet how the first cell came to be. There are several hypotheses that people have, but none of them have been accepted by mainstream science yet. I'll outline the most popular one, which is the four stage hypothesis.

Stage 1 Abiotic synthesis of organic monomers.

We know for a fact that organic molecules form natrually rather easily under certain condition. This was demonstrated by the Miller experiment in the early 50's. He basically created an enclosed apparatus and he put inside water, hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and a whole bunch of other non-organic molecules that thought to have existed in early earth environment. He then zapped the apparatus with electricity for about 3-4 days. He then took the apparatus apart and found amino acids, monomers of proteins, ATP, and a whole bunch of other organic molecules.

Repeats of the orginal experiment by other scientists have produced all 20 amino acids necessary for life, lipids, sugars, nucleotides of monomers of DNA and RNA, and ATP.

If you want, you can try to do this experiment at home. It's quite simple.

Stage 2 Abiotic Synthesis of polymers

The miller experiment have shown that organic monomers can form quite easily naturally without any divine intervention. This stage explains how these monomers could come together and form polymers such as proteins and nucleic acids without help from biological components today like enzymes.

Scientists have been able to create such polymerization without any divine intervention by dripping solutions of organic monomers onto hot sand, rock, and clay. The heat vaporizes the water in teh solutions and the monomres naturally establish bonds that form polymers such as chains of amino acids that make up proteins.

Again, you can watch this process happening in your own home. If you have a fish tank and a heater in the fish tank, you should notice that there are some solid stuff forming slowly on the heater glass. Same process.

The hypothesis goes that water may have splashed the monomers onto hot rocks of early earth and natural processes pretty much took care of the rest.

Stage 3 Self replicating molecules

The hypothesis suggests that the first replicating organic material were short strands of RNA. Laboratory experiments have shown that nucleotide monomers can naturally assemble into RNA molecules without divine intervention. This process happens without the presence of cells or enzymes. As you can imagine, the result is a pool of RNA strands. Now, what scientists have also observed is that some of these RNA strands actually self replicate without any help from anything whatsoever. Again, no divine intervention necessary.

Stage 4 Assembly of pre-cells

Again, laboratory experiments have shown that lipids can fold and establish a self-contained environment in the center from the environment.

For those of you that doesn't know what a cell structure look like, here is a brief explantion. A prokaryotic cell contains a cell wall that isolate the inside from the outside environment.

A pre-cell is pretty much very similar to this structural design. Lipids could have curved in itself and isolate a small pocket of envirnment in the center. When scientists put the pre-cells (which assembled without any help from anybody, not even God) into different solutions of salt concentrations, they found that pre-cells store energy in a form of voltage in their membrane (the cell wall equivalent). When introduced certain enzymes to the pre-cells, the precells displayed a very primitive metabolism. They absorbed substratesfrom their surroundings and release the products of the reactions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

All the experiments I mentioned above were performed without any prayer or divine intervention. Organic molecules naturally assembled on their own and eventually assembled themselves into pre-cells.

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi? ... &t=46&m=42

I think this demonstrates my earlier point even better than all of the links that I have already posted. Abiogenesis, while sketchy, is evidence-based. Creationism is not.

[diciple_of_light]

This person you quoted likes to point out that there is not divine intervention, well can they prove it. Even if the experiments were done without human intervention, which i doubt, there is no proof that there wasn't divine intervention it the experiments. One thing I also want to point out is that the scientists put the elements and chemicals into the experiment. I doubt that they replicated how the early earth truly was.

Since you have used these experiments as an example, lets say that the scientist did do everything correctly. Could it be that God, in the same way he started the evolution on earth, did the same thing in the scientific experiments?

[YEC]

I once did a study on the atmospheric contents of the early earth when life was said to have been first forming. From this study I have come to understand that the earth is theorized to have come from the condensing clouds of intersteller dust and gas. It is believed that the intersteller dust and gas contains hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor and it is suggested that the early earth atmosphere was then the same.

Then I read another resource that suggest that the early earths atmosphere just prior to life forming was derived from volcanic outgassing and was made up of water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and trace amounts of hydrogen.

It’s obvious to me that both can’t be correct as each defines a different source and make up of the early earth atmosphere.

Which theory do you prefer?


According to one of my books on evolutionism, highly reactive free oxygen in the earth atmosphere in low levels would have been extremely dangerous to the first prokaryotic cells. It would have kept the appearance of life as we assume it to be from rising in the first place.
The claim is that the early atmosphere had no oxygen (or very very little) and the organisms were anaerobic. They operate with out oxygen.

As time crept on, photosynthesis from the the blue-green scum began to produce oxygen. This rising oxygen level triggered the evolution of higher, nucleus containing eukaryotic cells. Thanks to the blue-green scum this 2 BY stalemate was over and allowed for the developement of higher life, animals and ourselves.

It appears that the dangerous oxygen would have kept life from forming, thus the need for a no oxygen early earth.

Lets look a little closer at one part of the early earth atmospheric..... water vapor. I believe there is no argument that it would have been present prior to the formation of life.

Water molecules present in the water vapor contain oxygen and hydrogen molecules.
According to science a process called photodissociation would occur when the suns ultraviolet rays split apart these molecules.
The lighter hydrogen molecules would escape to outer space leaving behind the oxygen.
This process would have been occurring from the moment water was on earth.....and we all know that evolutionism teaches water preceded life.
We also know that the evolutionism teaches that prokaryote cells first arose and lived in the water.

The problem is, evolutionism teaches that dangerous oxygen would have prevented the first prokaryote cells. They claim photosynthesis was the process that brought about oxygen...after life formed....forgetting that photodissociation would have formed dangerous oxygen long before .... preventing the formation of life.

ref: From so simple a beginning, The book of evolution, Philip Whitmore

[YEC]

Quote from, Darwins Black Box. by, Michael Behe, page 169-170

Moreover, joining many amino acids together to form a protein with a
useful biological activity is a much more difficult chemical problem than
forming amino acids in the first place. The major problem in hooking
amino acids together is that, chemically, it involves the removal of a
molecule of water from each amino acid joined to the growing protein
chain. Conversely, the presence of water strongly inhibits amino acids
from forming proteins. Because water is so abundant on the earth, and
because amino acids dissolve readily in water, origin-of-life researchers
have been forced to propose unusual scenarios to get around the water
problem.


In Robert Shapiro's book, Origins, a skeptics guide to the creation of life on earth, pages 173 and 174 you will find a similar explanation to what Behe wrote. Shapiro is a Professor of Chemistry at New York U and an expert on DNA research and on the genetic effects of environmental chemicals.

This is part of what Shapiro wrote: Water happily attacks large biological molecules. It pries nucleotides apart from each other, breaks sugar-to-phosphate bonds,and severs bases from sugar. (The book goes on to talk about how we developed a means to defend against the water then continues with:) On the early earth, such defenses didn't exist. Water continually opposed the assembly of large biomolecule and attacked those that successfully formed. Yet it is the task of the prebiotic chemist to demonstrate that such molecules could be formed. Much as he would like to , he cannot employ Grignardtype conditions. He must settle for much evasive maneuvers. (end quote)

[Aximili23]

there is no proof that there wasn't divine intervention it the experiments

So you think that god directly intervened in the results of those experiments? The idea seems a bit silly to me, but there's no proof one way or the other, so if this is what you'd like to believe then be my guest. Of course, these experiments were probably replicated, so to you god must have intervened each time...

the scientists put the elements and chemicals into the experiment. I doubt that they replicated how the early earth truly was.

You'll have to take this objection up with the scientists in question. Without any details this is an empty assertion.

Could it be that God, in the same way he started the evolution on earth, did the same thing in the scientific experiments?

If you believe that God has a hand in the natural, repeatable, observable processes that we study today, then I really have no problem with that. I think many christian scientists see the wonders of nature in the same light. My only point is that the current models of the origin of life are evidence-based.

[Aximili23]

It's probably clear from my previous posts that I'm no expert on the origin of life. If there are valid scientific objections to the current models then I'm not the best person to either assess or refute them. Nevertheless I can take a stab...

Water molecules present in the water vapor contain oxygen and hydrogen molecules. According to science a process called photodissociation would occur when the suns ultraviolet rays split apart these molecules. The lighter hydrogen molecules would escape to outer space leaving behind the oxygen. This process would have been occurring from the moment water was on earth.....and we all know that evolutionism teaches water preceded life. We also know that the evolutionism teaches that prokaryote cells first arose and lived in the water.

The problem is, evolutionism teaches that dangerous oxygen would have prevented the first prokaryote cells. They claim photosynthesis was the process that brought about oxygen...after life formed....forgetting that photodissociation would have formed dangerous oxygen long before .... preventing the formation of life.

Maybe photodissociation doesn't happen much. Maybe the early earth already had a good ozone layer in place to stop the UV light (but I strongly suspect this isn't the case, since ozone is oxygen). Maybe the reactive oxygen only built up only to extremely low levels. Maybe the oxygen hardly diffused into the water, where early life probably formed. Maybe the oxygen was bound and inactivated through reactions with other inorganic compounds (e.g. by iron, in iron oxide). Maybe the earliest enzymes were the precursors of modern ones that disabled reactive oxygen species (catalase, oxidase, peroxidase, etc.) Maybe early life really was a one-in-a-trillion chance because of the oxygen, and it still happened.

Quote from, Darwins Black Box. by, Michael Behe, page 169-170

Moreover, joining many amino acids together to form a protein with a useful biological activity is a much more difficult chemical problem than forming amino acids in the first place. The major problem in hooking amino acids together is that, chemically, it involves the removal of a molecule of water from each amino acid joined to the growing protein chain. Conversely, the presence of water strongly inhibits amino acids from forming proteins. Because water is so abundant on the earth, and because amino acids dissolve readily in water, origin-of-life researchers have been forced to propose unusual scenarios to get around the water problem.

Michael Behe's book has been refuted by other scientists; I wouldn't be too surprised if this point has also been addressed. Nevertheless, what's so wrong with unusual scenarios? Unless you demonstrate that those unusual scenarios couldn't have happened, then this argument doesn't hold any water. And besides, the polymerization problem has already been addressed in my earlier (copied) post:

Scientists have been able to create such polymerization without any divine intervention by dripping solutions of organic monomers onto hot sand, rock, and clay. The heat vaporizes the water in teh solutions and the monomres naturally establish bonds that form polymers such as chains of amino acids that make up proteins.

Again, you can watch this process happening in your own home. If you have a fish tank and a heater in the fish tank, you should notice that there are some solid stuff forming slowly on the heater glass. Same process.

The hypothesis goes that water may have splashed the monomers onto hot rocks of early earth and natural processes pretty much took care of the rest.

Water happily attacks large biological molecules. It pries nucleotides apart from each other, breaks sugar-to-phosphate bonds,and severs bases from sugar. (The book goes on to talk about how we developed a means to defend against the water then continues with:) On the early earth, such defenses didn't exist. Water continually opposed the assembly of large biomolecule and attacked those that successfully formed. Yet it is the task of the prebiotic chemist to demonstrate that such molecules could be formed. Much as he would like to , he cannot employ Grignardtype conditions. He must settle for much evasive maneuvers.

Oooh, now this argument I'm qualified to refute. This is a gross exaggeration of how strongly water attacks large biological molecules (the correct term is hydrolysis) such as nucleic acids. I work with DNA; we store them all the time in aqueous (meaning water-based) buffers. DNA is in fact well-known for being quite stable; this is why DNA is so frequently found in crime scenes. It is simply inaccurate to imply that water quickly destroys or pries apart nucleotides.

But all of this dodges my main point: Current models on the origin of life have a basis in empirical evidence. A lot of details are poorly understood, and perhaps there are real scientific objections, but nevertheless, these models are the best we have so far. You can use science to refute these models all you like; in fact good objections are very welcome; scientific knowledge would get nowhere if we treated our ideas as unassailable dogma. What's extremely silly is to say that, because these objections exist, then a creator must have supernaturally created early life, when there is absolutely no evidence for such an assertion.

[Jose]

why repost these from http://www.christianforums.com/t91772&goto=nextnewest ?

I once did a study on the atmospheric contents of the early earth when life was said to have been first forming. From this study I have come to understand that the earth is theorized to have come from the condensing clouds of intersteller dust and gas. It is believed that the intersteller dust and gas contains hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor and it is suggested that the early earth atmosphere was then the same.

Then I read another resource that suggest that the early earths atmosphere just prior to life forming was derived from volcanic outgassing and was made up of water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and trace amounts of hydrogen.

It’s obvious to me that both can’t be correct as each defines a different source and make up of the early earth atmosphere.

Which theory do you prefer?

Even though they are reposted, I'll comment: the the condensing clouds of interstellar dust and gas were a few years before the volcanic outgassing. Life didn't start as the earth was condensing. It took a while for things to calm down a bit. But what's a few billion years here or there?

According to one of my books on evolutionism...

[I won't quote all of this, since it is reposted and a bit wordy]

...According to science a process called photodissociation would occur when the suns ultraviolet rays split apart these molecules.
The lighter hydrogen molecules would escape to outer space leaving behind the oxygen. [they would?]
This process would have been occurring from the moment water was on earth.....and we all know that evolutionism teaches water preceded life.
We also know that the evolutionism teaches that prokaryote cells first arose and lived in the water.

The problem is, evolutionism teaches that dangerous oxygen would have prevented the first prokaryote cells. They claim photosynthesis was the process that brought about oxygen...after life formed....forgetting that photodissociation would have formed dangerous oxygen long before .... preventing the formation of life.

ref: From so simple a beginning, The book of evolution, Philip Whitmore

This is a nice little story, but it turns out that the rate of photodissociation is lower than the rate at which oxgen radicals react with other things. That is, the oxygen produced this way reacts with stuff pretty quickly. There's not enough to kill the anaerobes.

Of course, if you actually look at the proposed mechanisms, we're talking about surface chemistry under rocks, or in cracks, where the sun's UV light doesn't reach. It's a non-issue. (Although it makes an amusing straw man to knock down.)

Moreover, joining many amino acids together to form a protein with a useful biological activity is a much more difficult chemical problem than forming amino acids in the first place. The major problem in hooking amino acids together is that, chemically, it involves the removal of a molecule of water from each amino acid joined to the growing protein chain. Conversely, the presence of water strongly inhibits amino acids from forming proteins. Because water is so abundant on the earth, and because amino acids dissolve readily in water, origin-of-life researchers have been forced to propose unusual scenarios to get around the water problem.

So this explains why it's impossible to make soup. The proteins and carbohydrates dissolve so quickly when you put them in water that there's nothing left in a matter of minutes. Y'know, anyone who has ever looked at anything that's wet can tell that this argument is completely off the wall. Maybe there's something weird about Michael Behe's kitchen, so that steaks dissolve as soon as he gets them home.

Water happily attacks large biological molecules. It pries nucleotides apart from each other, breaks sugar-to-phosphate bonds,and severs bases from sugar. (The book goes on to talk about how we developed a means to defend against the water then continues with:) On the early earth, such defenses didn't exist. Water continually opposed the assembly of large biomolecule and attacked those that successfully formed. Yet it is the task of the prebiotic chemist to demonstrate that such molecules could be formed. Much as he would like to , he cannot employ Grignardtype conditions. He must settle for much evasive maneuvers.

Another guy with a magical kitchen! This is very interesting. We have some people here who are extremely creative in coming up with scientific-sounding stuff that they can pretend are Insurmountable Obstacles to all theories of a natural origin of life. And yet, the evidence is right there before us that these wonderful arguments are piffle.