>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Jonathan Clarke
>Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 1:35 PM
>Cc: asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: Re: Glenn makes front page of AiG today
>
>
>
>Hi Glenn
>
>Belief in a global flood does not make someone a young earther, at
>least not before
>the 19th century. We can say they were erroneous in their belief,
>and point out how
>this was erroneous in the light of contemporary knowledge
>(especially after the
>1840's) or even present day knowledge. But we should not equate
>belief in global
>dilluvialism with belief in a young earth.
>
I agree and I didn't and haven't said that. I don't even understand how you
get this from what I wrote. I specifically mentioned that Coooper was old
earth but global flood in that e-mail. As I said to Michael, I had two
categories--young-earth and global flood. THere were both in the 19th
century. I don't know why I must point out AGAIN and it was in your current
e-mail that I said:
>> "Currently I have in my personal library books from the following 19th
>> century young-earth/global flood advocates:"
That is 2 categories, not one. Repeat, that is 2 categories not 1. I don't
know how else to express this. If anyone else can do a better job at this,
please do it for me.
In the 19th century there was a position which is extremely rare today. The
old-earth global flood advocate. They believed that human history was
short, that there was a global flood. This is a variant of the modern
young-earthers in which youth is applied only to human history but not to
the earth's history.
Because claims are made that there were no YECs, I will post quotations
rather than just merely make the claim that they existed or didn't exist.
But there were YECs in the 19th century whom we would recognize today.
Mills is one.
”God, however, immediately summoned the murderer into his presence, banished
him from his father’s family, and sentenced him to become ‘a fugitive and a
vagabond in the face of the earth;’ But to remove his apprehension of
immediate death, he gave to the fugitive a sign of protection, and declared
that ‘whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold.’
“At this period, the world was one hundred and thirty years old,. . .”
Abraham Mills, The Ancient Hebrews: with an Introductory Essay concerning
the World Before the Flood, (New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1875), p. 11
An earth only 130 years old when Cain was slain is clearly a YEC position.
He was from 1875!
STrachan is another:
“If the Mosaic narrative be rejected, then we must believe that the world
was 3600 years without any written account of its own origin and of the
supervision exercised, over the affairs of men, by Divine Providence. Now I
ask the unbeliever himself, whether this be at all probable?” Rev. Alexander
Strachan, The Antiquity of the Mosaic Narrative, (Burnley: Thomas Sutcliffe,
c. 1852), p. 57-58
What an argument, but clearly this guy was YEC!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was 1852.
Murray was a young-earther:
“As for the question vexata of systems antecedent to man, with ‘millions of
ages,’ and ‘creations and destructions innumerable,’ I confess I have strong
objections to these dogmas. The phenomena of geology do not,in my mind,
warrant or require such deductions. There are difficulties, no doubt, but to
fly off from the orbit of induction to the eccentric regions of speculation,
is not a procedure best calculated to solve them.
. . .
“This applies to the existence of the world anterior to the Mosaic
cosmogony as well as to its eternity.
“Let it be remembered that there is no absolute CHRONOMETER in geology and
I very much doubt whether there yet be a fixed relative one among
fossiliferous rocks, because there are FOSSIL REMAINS COMMON TO THEM ALL;
and again, fossils innumerable are common both to tertiary and secondary
strata; a fact that repudiates the assumed distinction. The statics of a
sound chronology being absent, prudence would require us to be cautious and
less dogmatical in a science confessedly of intense interest, but
comparatively young in age. Besides, fossiliferous rocks are local, not
circumambient.” John Murray, Truth of Revelation, (London: William Smith,
1840), p. 141-142
This was 1840.
And then there is the guy that Miller felt he had to mention:
Then there was the guy who is quoted in Hugh Miller's Footprints of the
Creator (Hugh Miller was the writer of the Rambles):
"SIR—I occasionally observe articles in your neighbour and
contemporary the 'Witness,' characteristically headed
'Rambles of a Geologist', wherein the writer with great zeal
once more 'slays the slain' heresies of the 'vestiges of
Creation.' This writer (of the 'Rambles,' I mean)
nevertheless, and at the same time, announces his own tenets
to be much of the same sort, as applied to mere dead matter,
that those of the 'Vestiges' are with regard to living
organisms. He maintains that the world during the last
million of years, has been of itself rising or developing
without the interposition of a miracle, from chaos into its
present stat; and, of course, as it is still, as a world,
confessedly far below the acme of physical perfection, that
it must be just now on its passage, self-progressing,
towards that point, which terminus it may reach in another
million of years hence.[!!!] The author of the 'Vestiges,'
as quoted by the author of the 'Rambles,' in the last number
of the 'Witness,' complains that the latter and his allies
ware not at all so liberal to him as from their present
circumstances and position, he had a right to expect. He
9the author of the 'Vestiges') reminds his opponents that
they themselves only lately emerged from the antiquated
scriptural notions that our world was the direct and almost
immediate construction of the Creator, --as much so, in
fact, as any of its organized tenants,--and that it was then
created in a state of physical excellence the highest
possible, to render it a suitable habitation for those
tenants, and all this only about six or seven thousand years
ago, --to the new light of their present physico-Lamarckian
views. And he asks, and certainly not without reason, why
should these men, so circumstanced be so anxious to stop him
in his attempt to move one step farther forward in the very
direction they themselves have made the last move?—that is,
in his endeavour to extend their own principles of self-
development from mere matter to living creatures. Now, Sir,
I confess myself to be one of those (and possibly you may
have ore readers similarly constituted) who not only cannot
see any great difference between merely physical and organic
development[!!], but who would be inclined to allow the
latter, absurd as it is, the advantage in point of
likelihood[!!!]. The author of the 'Rambles,' however, in
the face of this, assures us that his views of physical
self-development and long chronology belong to the inductive
sciences. Now, I could at this stage of his rambles have
wished very much that, instead of merely saying so, he had
given his demonstration. Most that those men have written on
the question at issue I have seen, not fully made up their
mind on the point.[!!!] Perhaps the author of the 'Rambles'
could favour us with the inductive process that converted
himself; and, as the attainment of truth, and not victory,
is my object, I promise either to acquiesce in or rationally
refute it[?] Till then, I hold to my antiquated tenets, that
our world, nay, the whole material universe, was created
about six or seven thousand years ago, and that in a state
of physical excellence of which we have in our present
fallen world only the 'vestiges of creation.' I conclude by
mentioning that this view I have held now for nearly thirty
years, and, amidst all the vicissitudes of the philosophical
world during that period, I have never seen cause to change
it. Of course, with this view I was, during the interval
referred to, a constant opponent of the once famous, though
now exploded, nebular hypothesis of La Place; and I yet
expect to see physical development and long chronology
wither also on this earth, now that THEIR ROOT (the said
hypothesis) has been eradicated from the sky.[!!!]—I am,
Sir, your most obedient servant.
'Philalethes.'*
*It now appears that, though this letter was inserted in the
'Scottish Press,' the organ of the United Presbyterians, its
writer is a Free Churchman. He has since published a good
many other anti-geological letters, chiefly remarkable for
their facts, to which, with a self-immolating zeal worthy of
a better cause, he has attached his name."
Hugh Miller, Footprints of the Creator, (Edinburgh: William
P. Nimmo, 1869), p. 256-257
originally published in 1850
And this was from 1850. YECs were there all the time. Now if anyone wants
to dispute this please quote these fellows claiming an old earth, then I
will have to recant.
Just for re-iteration, there are 2 categories in my list of books not 1! Can
I say this in any other way? What exactly is wrong with my communcation
ability when I have aready stated as clearly as I can that I had 2
categories?
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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