RE: Blind scorpions (or fish) as proof of evolution?

Hi Dick,

Thank you again for your reply. Much of what you've written raises
additional questions, but I will read the material you have available on
your website as my questions may already be addressed there.

In Christ,

Mike

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105).

  _____

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Dick Fischer
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 10:16 PM
To: ASA
Subject: RE: Blind scorpions (or fish) as proof of evolution?

Hi Mike, you wrote:

Thank you for the reply. I mean no disrespect, but wouldn't it also be wise
to understand the arguments that creationists, such as AIG, use before
claiming they're incorrect?

In the 1982 McLean vs. Arkansas Board of Education decision, Judge William
Overton made this comment:

While anybody is free to approach a scientific inquiry in any fashion they
choose,

they cannot properly describe the methodology used as scientific, if they
start

with a conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence
developed

during the course of the investigation.

So, you might ask, why not reach out to those dear ones in brotherly love,
and show them gently the abundant evidence for an old earth? If we just
present all the data, they will see the errors of their ways and come to
enlightenment. Right? Try it!

If you tell them about the speed of light and the billions of light years
between earth and distant galaxies, they will tell you the speed of light
may have changed. Demonstrate that radiometric dating confirms the ages of
rocks to billions of years, and they respond there is no way to know how
much decay element God put in when He created the earth in the first place

.

Explain that it takes millions of years for caves to form stalactites and
massive columns, and they will contend there are stalactites under the
Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. Show young-earth creationists 150
million years of dinosaur history, and you will learn about the angler in
South Africa who landed a coelacanth in 1938.

Talk about the layers worn by water erosion in the red wall of the Grand
Canyon where those particular layers were once on the earth's surface, and
prepare to hear that sub-aqueous water seepage could have caused it.

Point out that there are layers of salt evaporite deposits, hundreds of feet
thick, well beneath the earth's surface, covered by sedimentary rock they
say was laid down by the flood, and they will respond that underground
volcanoes may have boiled the water beneath the earth's surface, evaporating
the salt out of the sea water in the midst of a raging, global deluge.

Get the pattern? No matter what evidence, or what bit of data, or what
undeniable fact is presented proving the earth is old - and any answer, no
matter how incongruous, or how cockamamie, or how illogical, will suffice.
Do yourself a favor and delete AIG from your list of browser favorites. Oh,
and add the one at the bottom of my signature.

I'm curious as to your statement that God is "the first cause of all
events." By this, do you mean that God created and then simply allowed
everything to evolve from non-living matter? Or did God create the first
life form and then allow life to evolve from that point forward? If such
evolution was not directed by God, did it arise by mere chance?

Evolution only speaks to natural processes involved through time which have
resulted in better-adapted creatures. Evolution does not speak to how the
universe arose or how life formed on planet earth. You pose a false
dichotomy - either God-directed or mere chance. In God's foreknowledge he
can know the outcome without orchestrating the outcome. If God directs
evolution you must have an explanation for genetic mistakes resulting in
genetic diseases. Does God make mistakes? Does God cause disease?

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

www.genesisproclaimed.org <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>

 
Received on Thu Jun 1 11:38:15 2006