>Hmmm.. on your web page you attach humanness to evidence of activity and
>do not mention how to correlate this with the above.
>
>"Before we exclude some of the fossil men from humanity, we
>need to have a very, very clear definition of what humanity is. There
>was a time, not too long ago in this country, when Africans were not
>viewed as human since they were so different in appearance from
>the Europeans. God judges what is inside of us, not what we look
>like. Thus I would define man as any being who engages in human
>activities."
>
>Leaving the dating aside, I tend to agree with you on this approach and
>argument. I'd like to see a stronger link to the relationship with God
>and resulting evidence that should be found for that... something oddly
>missing in the anthropology. Why do we not find the cultural artifacts
>and evidence of a people who held a relationship with God, the center of
>their life and world, from whom they gained their substance, the
>knowledge of whom has been around since their creation? Perhaps it was
>because the keeping of that faith was through an oral tradition. This
>requires Adam to possess the mental capacity to keep, understand,
>communicate, and know the value of the Genesis story from generation to
>generation. By your model, Australopithecines would have had to
>accomplish this.
>
The evidence for religion in the fossil record is limited. This is true all
the way up until around 4000 B.C. when the temples on Malta were built. (see
Death Cults of Prehistoric Malta, Scientific American Dec 1993.
Consider the nature of the problem. We find a bunch of statues of naked
ladies. Some cultures use things like this for fertility cults which is a
form of religion. But are these really religion? Can't prove it beyond a
shadow of a doubt.
Look around your church. In a million years what will be left? All wood and
pictures will have rotted away. Books likewise will be rotted. All iron will
have totally rusted into iron oxide. I do not know the lifetime of rayon
carpet but lots of buildings have rayon carpet. Does your church have stone
statues? If not, I would dare say nothing of your religious activities will
survive 1 million years from now.
Assume an alien comes to earth and finds these statues of a lady wearing a
head covering and robes. What can they prove about that? There are statues
of naked ladies, naked men ladies holding a child. But how do you prove that
these are evidence of religious beliefs?
In short, religion does not fossilize. Neither does morality. Behavior does
fossilize. Thus the only way we can be sure if someone is human in the fossil
record is if they do what we do.
Now, there is a lot of naked lady statues called Venus Figurines which were
once believed to be the sole province of the Upper Paleolithic. But one has
been found in rocks dated around 300,000 years ago. It is called the Berekhat
Ram figurine or the Golan Venus. Schepartz writes:
"Lower and Middle Paleolithic art is as rare as the earliest ornaments,
but the evidence is accumulating, both within and outside Europe. The
earliest known depiction of the human form is from the Acheulean site of
Berekhat Ram, Israel, and predates 230,000 BP. A female form was detailed by
altering the surface of a scoria pebble, which is the only piece of that
material recovered from the excavations. It shows exaggeration of the female
form, similar in that regard to Upper Paleolithic figurines from Europe.
Another early art object is a mammoth tooth carved into a plaque and covered
with red ochre from the Middle Paleolithic site of Tata in Hungary [dating to
approximately 100,000 BP.
. . .
"Davidson and Noble represent the opposite position, rejecting all claims of
symbolism before the Upper Paleolithic because the objects do not appear to
have non-utilitarian functions or display recognizable, repeated symbols in
the pre-Upper Paleolithic context. (It will be interesting to seee how they
interpret the Acheulean human figurine from Berekhat Ram.)
~L. A. Schepartz, "Language and Modern Human Origins," Yearbook of Physical
Anthropology, 36:91-126(1993), p. 117
>Actually, when God did it is not as important as what he did.
>Personally, I see your model of the image of man arising from a
>miraculously revived chromosomally fused still born animal 5.5 million
>years ago as an attempt to satisfy two pre-assumptions... that gene
>similarities are proof of evolution and that man thus evolved
>genetically from apes. God miraculously fashioning man out of clay and
>then breathing his life into him at a single point in time is at least
>as rational and possible according to the evidence.
Sure it is an attempt to fit both pieces of data. That is what a good theory
should do--fit data. A theory that does not fit the data, is called a bad
theory or a false theory. The 5.5 MYR time frame is also an attempt to give a
reasonable explanation for the Flood. Every other theory of the flood that I
have heard, from the global deluge of the young earther's to the Mesopotamian
valley flood of the old earther's, is geologically or physically ludicrous.
People may not like my suggestion, but it does fit the facts of geology.
When God did it is quite important if you have any hope of explaining the
geological data within a Biblical framework. We don't talk geology very much
here (I would love to), but ICR misrepresents the data of geology. Don't
teach your children the ICR stuff and let them go to college and become
geologists. They may not remain Christian.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm