In Sunday School curricula, their illustrated Bibles and even famous illustrations and paintings over the centuries, literal interpretations have formed our image of the ecology of the Garden of Eden. But even literalist are not likely to explore the theological implications of the specific features of the Garden of the Eden and are even less likely to ask what the regions outside of the Garden was like and why.
The Toba volcano is found near the center of Sumatra, Indonesia. It has been estimated that at least 2800 cubic kilometers of material was thrown into the air during the explosion or series of explosions. To put that in perspective the Krakatoa volcano threw just over 2 cubic kilometers of material into the air some of which circled the globe causing dazzling sunsets in Europe.
Not enough moon dust! It's the argument for a young earth that just won't die even though many YEC leaders have said it should. I was prompted to think about moon dust two days ago, after a 15 year break, when a colleague of mine stopped by my office and told me that she had... Continue Reading →
Many people have a perception of scientists as white-coated individuals hunched over at a lab bench performing experiments. They are doing experimental science which include the testing of hypotheses and determining which ones are supported and which should be discarded. Others scientists are imagined as collecting observational data using telescopes to describe distant planets and... Continue Reading →
I think it is safe to say that the average person has little appreciation for the diversity (eg. number of species) and the total numbers of whales in the world. What most people hear about whales is that there are some that are hunted to near extinction. This tends to create the impression that whales are rare animals. Yes, there are many rare and endangered species of whales but there there are many that are very abundant.
I am updating some web traffic data and adding a few new sites. I was wondering how the traffic of some of the prominent creation evangelism sites such as Answers in Genesis (AIG) and the Institute from Creation Research (ICR) compared to that of other general Christian web sites and reformed Christian organizations. I got... Continue Reading →
Recently I shared evidence of an ancient forest preserved in amazing detail in a thick layer of volcanic ash (An Ancient and Alien Forest Reconstructed: A challenge for young earth creationism). I raised a number of challenging questions that this spectacular fossil discovery raises for those that hold to a young-earth creationists (YEC) understanding of... Continue Reading →
A comment on another site captures the essence of where I think Christians who have been told the Bible teaches the earth must be young are putting their confidence. Their confidence is placed in the belief that experts in scientific fields have provided them with not only enough evidence but overwhelming evidence that earth is young. This person is putting his faith in experts which, he admits, have bolstered his faith in the Word of God.
The following image comes courtesy of Biologos.org which has created the easy to visualize summary of some of the most recent polling data regarding American's views of the origin of man. The questions posed by several national polling specialists are rather simple and many people clearly do not fit so easily into the boxes that... Continue Reading →
Can you find the gecko in the picture to the right? Yeah, it is that brown leaf-like things toward the top of the image. I saw this image being used as the profile image for the facebook page "we CAN and we WILL find 1,000,000 Creationists." The suggestion of course is that such an amazing... Continue Reading →
One way of looking at the origins debate is by looking at the publishing scene. I have observed elsewhere that the last 20 years have seen more books published on the topic than the prior 100 years combined. The creation science movement has pumped out an astounding number of books and seminary professors... Continue Reading →
Returning to John Walton and his recent contributions to the Genesis debate: Previously I mentioned that I had picked up Walton’s book “The Lost World of Genesis One” again. I also have read his more recent book which is a more academic follow-up to that book entitled “Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology.” There have... Continue Reading →
Recent studies of multiple intact fossilized forests provide a very detailed account of the presence of an seemingly alien forest that was found multiple locations across the entire globe at some point in the past. A forest completely devoid of the presence of any flowering plants such as oaks, maples and beech trees or even... Continue Reading →
All movements have extremist and young earth creationism also has its own extremists that work on the fringes of the movement. In 1997 I had an experience that strongly effected my view of the age of the earth debate within evangelical Christianity and the reformed church in particular.
After a mental break on the issues revolving around reading Genesis 1-11 for about year the topic moved back to the front of my mind again about six months ago as I prepared to get back to a couple of larger writing projects that will focus on the age of the earth. As a way... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 