Want Some Answers ???

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the mail and complements. I was rather expecting someone to tell me the days in Genesis don't mean 24 hour days. But I see you agree, no mistake what they mean.

>>I agree with your sentiments that the writer of Genesis Chapter 1 mean’t literal 24 hour days as we know them.<<

Yet is the bible your authority in all matters? Men have ideas of an old earth "billions of years". The reason is because the theory of evolution requires vast time to be creditable.  It's unlikely a monkey will change into a man, so they argue 'give it enough time it's possible'. But they must have the billions of years or the theory is impossible to believe. The millions of years have increased over the last 150 years as we discovered how complex life forms are. The millions of years exist in the minds of those who believe they are there.

As one who studies the bible, I can't fit the billions of years into it without destroying the gospel or the bible becomes a fraud. If the rocks (a history of death, bloodshed, disease) are a record before Adam lived, then Adam's fall into sin and death as a punishment are not true. And Christ's death is a non-event and unnecessary.

I heard Dr Sarfati in Auckland he had good reasons why the earth is not millions of years old, his books go into the detail.  As a scientist he uses science which confirms the bible, as trustworthy and actuate.      

>>Nobody questioned him in the audience except me. He avoided my questions and just said to look up AiG website and I would find the answers there. I did. They weren’t.<<

Perhaps he didn't give the answer you wanted. Keep in mind there is always someone in the audience that wants to act clever, or debate for the sake of debating. When I look up the AiG website, I find answers. And others do as well it's one of the world's most visited websites every month. 

>>Last year another AiG person Dr David Catchpole ?? (an Australian) came here. I listened to his presentation, which was almost identical to Jonathon’s. Same dogma. We spent 2 hours at end of meeting in debate and as nearly midnight, arranged to meet next day where we had another 6 hour session. Like me he is a soil scientist/agronomist and understands nature of soils and soil chemistry.<<

I think your mind is already made-up and no one can change it. You & Catchpole look at the same evidence. He doesn't see 'millions of years' but you do. You both look at the same evidence with different glasses. You from human viewpoint, and your understanding, and 'science' so-called and you believe what you want. But he looks at the evidence from a biblical viewpoint, God's revelation and science. And he believes what he wants.  

>>Problem is though, that the nature and make-up of our soils and natural flora suggests a planet a lot older than 6,000 years. For instance, here in the North Island a lot of our soils are of volcanic origin. The Taupo ash soils from the Taupo eruption nearly 2000 years ago are very recent and cover quite a lot of the Central Plateau.<<

This is all assumption and poor science. How do you know what the soil content was 6,000 10,000 or a million years ago? You don't, you can only guess. Our "soild and natural flora" do not 'suggest' any such dogmatic assumptions.

>>When we consider the amount of carbon that has been sequestered on these soils, and compare them to soils from much older eruptions such as Mairoa Ash soils around Te Awamutu and Te Kuiti, or Waihi Ash soils around Waihi, the amount of carbon build up (organic matter) and general weathering characteristics such as soil particulate size, aluminium and iron concentration, etc, of these latter soils, they are often at ten times that of the Taupo ash, and are acknowledged to be from eruptions 20,000-50,000 years ago.<<

What? "are acknowledged to be from eruptions 20,000-50,000 years ago" this is assumption based on a 'millions of years' theory. Base what you believe on the facts not assumptions about theoretical ages. You would need to know 'the amount of carbon" in the soil at the start of the test, and compare that with today's test. And comparing soils with other eruptions is equally full of assumptions.

'Organic matter' might take up less carbon than would be expected and so would test older than it really was.  Also different types of soils are different. This also has to be corrected for comparison test. Secondly, the ratio of 14C/12C in the atmosphere has not been constant over time. Eg., it was higher before the industrial era when the massive burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide that was depleted in 14C. This would make things which died at that time appear older in terms of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in 14CO2 with the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the 1950s. This would make things carbon-dated from that time appear younger than their true age.

So the fact some soils have different concentrations or content has nothing to do with making a certain test of age of the earth.

>>However this obviously does not fit within the framework of a 6,000 year old Earth or a global catastrophic flood which should have washed all this topsoil away 4,500 years ago.<<

But you are basing your belief on the assumptions of men which are always changing.   The old age theory is a 'recent theory' and it only exists because Darwin's evolution demands it for things to slowly develop (without God) by natural means. The whole evolution idea was to remove God and explain creation by natural means. Everything happens over time by itself. 

I can argue the continents are eroding too quickly for the earth to be millions of years old.  If the continents were billions of years old, they would have eroded by wind and water many times over. Mountain uplift and other ‘recycling’ processes are nowhere near capable of compensating for this.

And I can argue that rocks can be formed quickly and layers were deposited by Noah's flood. There are signs that fit better with a "global catastrophic flood" (ie., deserts, oil, coal, bent rock formation, millions of fossils, etc) rather than long ages.

In fact, polystrate trees are found all around the world in sandstone, siltstone, and coal seams. And many buried through strata, some with 1,000's of layers of microscopic skeletons of water creatures (ie Central Queensland Aust). Such layers can’t represent accumulation of time. Due to the immense size of the coal-beds it points to catastrophic deposition on a huge scale, not millions of years (www.creationresearch.net click ‘WEB BOOK”).

 >>My conclusion is that although these guys may have had an academic training to get their MSc or PhD, but they are locked in a dogmatic paradigm of Biblical literalism and when presented with science that contradicts such views, they shrug their shoulders and don’t want to know.<<

And I know a dozen PhD's and science is their reason they reject the 'millions of years'. And you are locked into "a dogmatic paradigm of" long age assumptions "and when presented with science that contradicts such views" you prefer to trust the evolutionist rather than the bible. I became a Christian because I took the bible literally. I believe what the bible says is true. It explains how life was created, what went wrong and why Christ died. When I look at the world, its everything I would expect, if the bible is taken literal. If words don't have their plain literal meaning there is nothing one can believe in the bible as true. The gospel (like the bible) must be taken literal.

>>If we are going to be scientists (I see you also have a PhD) then lets be honest scientists….look at the evidence before us and not be blinded by dogma.<<

But whose 'dogma' is best? The evolutionists are just as dogmatic that evolution is a proven fact!  Yet a good scientist is known by his quest for the truth, not by an insistence based on assumptions.  All theories of science are fallible, and new data often overturn previously held theories. But the bible declares God created the earth in six days and its history indicates the earth could not be over 10,000 years. I would rather put my trust in God's revelation. God was there in the beginning, what He says in His Word is better to trust, than the theories of men (that change) who weren't there.

>>I know of several other soil scientists and agronomists here in NZ who like me also share the Christian faith, and I doubt any of them would hold to a literal view of Genesis 1.<<

But there are hundreds of scientists from all fields of science who hold a literal view of Genesis, based on science (knowledge) and God's revelation.  The fact is, God reveals knowledge too. There are many things we wouldn't know apart from what God has revealed. 

>>Most of us would see it as being merely analogical. I accept it was written by someone who actually did mean 24 hour days, and who actually did believe God made plants before He made the rest of the universe, and actually did believe the sun was a light God made that travelled over the Earth’s stratosphere, and that the stars were also lights in Earth’s stratosphere, specifically put there to shed light on the Earth and for navigational purposes. Hello???<<

The fact is creation is a miracle. As to how God made life remains a miracle and men might joke about it and not know how, but God made it anyway. Men have strange ideas about creation and doctrines but I don't throw out the bible. I know all about the weird ideas of men and I tell you, the bible is not deceitful but reliable and one can believe it as written unashamed.

>>Less than 100 billionth of the universe is visible to the naked eye!! If God had told the writer of Genesis the real facts about the universe, its size and scale, and even the size and scale of the sun compared to our planet, or even that the Earth was round, then no one would have believed it back then. Such was their world view 4,000 years ago.<<

But God has revealed facts about many things men don't want to accept. It has many facts science affirms. Genesis 1 is written for us. The reason its so clear and simple is because God knew in these days men would foolishly believe the world made itself (over billions of years). Men came from apes. Men would believe God is some kind of evil fool who took ages of mistakes making creatures that kill and He loves to see death. So He gave Genesis chapter one for us, nice and clear "morning and evening" day 1, day 2 etc. Written for those who want to believe anything but the truth.

>>Look what happened to Galileo and Copernicus when they tried to present facts. If you have a PhD, you too should be interested in facts, not fiction and dogma.<<

All anti-Christian propagandists make much of the conflict between Galileo and the church or religion verses science. Galileo and Copernicus didn’t disprove the Bible. They would have been shocked at the thought. They accepted biblical authority more faithfully than church leaders today. The four main heroes of heliocentricism – Copernicus Galileo, Kepler, and Newton were all creationists and also the great astronomers Herschel and Maunder. None of these used ‘naturalism’ (interpreting the world without God).

Galileo thought that the simpler mathematics of Copernican system would best reflect God’s mathematical simplicity (His Tri-unity). The main opponents of Galileo are the scientific establishment, “The Aristotelian professors, seeing their vested interests threatened, united against him. They strove to cast suspicion on him in the eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities because of [alleged] contradictions between the Copernican theory and scriptures” (p638 The New Ency. Britannica 19.638-640. 15th ed. 1992).

I am interested in facts not 'fiction'. That's why I reject old age assumptions. I base what I believe on what I know, not on what I don't know. As for dogma, there is nothing wrong with been dogmatic that the facts confirm the bible. Thanks for the mail. Hope this is helpful.

Mark

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