Re: Special Creation

I dont see anything in there that suggests that Ross thinks that all homo sapiens today are not human. I agree he claims that hominids, before anatomically distinct modern homo sapiens appeared are less than human. And I agree with you that one could argue that they are human, using Ross's own criteria (religious artifacts, burials etc.)

I expected them to say the same thing about h. floresiensis. They consider them less than human. Which leads me to another line of evidence against the RTB model. Does anyone know what the earliest date evidence for h floresiensis is? According to the RTB model, God rested after he created man, and no species should be created after Man, so according to RTB no new species after 100k years ago or so. If H floresiensis appeared after this date it would disprove their model.
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: glennmorton@entouch.net
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 5:16 PM
  Subject: Re: Special Creation

  For Jack Symes, Michael Roberts, For David Opderbeck

  Jack Wrote:

>>>I will have to look at what you posted over the past month later when I get home. And I dont have a copy of "Who was Adam" I was a subscriber to their message of the month for 2005 when they presented their human origins model over a span of 12 months. And the following is my understanding of their model, It is hard to go back over the old monthly messages as they are not indexed, so if any of you that have the book see anywhere that I am misrepresenting their model please correct me.<<<

  I will make it easy for Jack, here is a quote from the Fingerprint of God and he has not changed that position

  " Man is unique among all species of life. By
  'spirit' the Bible means 'aware of God and capable of forming a
  relationship with Him.' *** Evidence of man's spiritual dimension
  would include divine worship, shown by religious relics, altars,
  and temples. *** From the Bible's perspective, decorating, burial of
  dead, or use of tools would not qualify as conclusive evidence of
  the spirit. Moreover, nonspirit creatures such as bower birds
  decorate their nests, elephants bury their dead, and chimpanzees
  use tools."
      "While bipedal, tool-using, large brained hominids roamed the
  earth at least as long ago as one million years, evidence for
  religious relics and altars dates back only 8,000 to 24,000 years.
   Thus the secular anthropological date for the first spirit
  creatures is in complete agreement with the biblical date.
  "Some differences, however, between the Bible and secular
  anthropology remain. ***The Bible not only would deny that the
  hominids were men, it also would deny that Adam was physically
  descended from these hominids. *** Even here, support from
  anthropology is emerging. New evidence indicates that the hominid
  species may have gone extinct before, or as a result of, the
  appearance of modern man. At the very least, abrupt transitions
  between [hominid]species is widely acknowledged. ~ Hugh Ross, The
  Fingerprint of God, (Orange: Promise Publishing, 1991), p. 159-
  160.

  I have bolded the relevant sentences and since the archive does not use bold, I have offset them with ***'s.

  Two points, the first bolded sentence is his criteria for spirituality. The second is his statement that the hominids were NOT men. And that is why Hugh Ross' view has been falsified from the day it was first written. He claims that altars and religious relics are evidence of spirituality and then denies that what actually seems to exist (religious altars (Bilzingsleben) and what possibly exists,religious artifacts (Tan Tan venus figurine and the Berekhat Ram venus figurine). The latter two items are the first in a series stretching to the Mesolithic of tiny figurines depicting the human form of which the later ones, when found with anatomically modern man are known to have been used in worship as late as this century. It is the mother Goddess religion.

  From their broadcast pnm://broadcast.reasons.org/rtbradio/cu20041102.rm?start=00:04:30.0

  Air date: 11-02-04

  Fuz says, speaking of H. floresiensis:
  "Fuzz: Right, I like to think of the hominids in an analogous way to the way
  I think about the great apes, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans."

  And this:

  "***RTB's biblical creation model considers the hominids found in the
  fossil record to be animals created by God's direct intervention for
  His purposes. They existed for a time, then went extinct. These
  remarkable creatures walked erect They also possessed limited
  intelligence and emotional capacity. Such characteristics allowed them
  to employ crude tools and even adopt a low level of "culture," much as
  baboons, gorillas, and chimpanzees do. But while the hominids were
  created by God's command, they were not spiritual beings made in His
  image. This status was reserved for human beings."***
  "Furthermore, the RTB model treats hominids as analogous to, yet
  distinct from, the great apes. For this reason, the model predicts
  that anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and genetic similarities
  existed among hominids and human beings to varying degrees. But
  because the hominids were not made in God's image, they are expected
  to be noticeably different from humans, as reflected by their
  cognitive and communicative capacities, behavior,"technology," and
  "culture.""
  "The RTB model maintains that while human beings reflect God's image
  in their activities,hominids did not. The model asserts that humans
  are uniquely spiritual and hominids were not. The archeological record
  associated with hominid fossils supplies key data to evaluate this
  prediction." Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, Who Was Adam?, (Colorado
  Springs: NavPress, 2005), p.50

  ***
Received on Thu Mar 2 20:02:28 2006