Answers in Genesis?

Yesterday many people watched the debate between Bill Nye, the Science guy, and Ken Ham, a creationist who has founded “Answers in Genesis” to advocate a young earth, created by God exactly as the biblical account states.

I wasn’t able to watch the debate, and won’t be discussing it, but I will discuss the fact that Christians nowadays are really becoming enamored with evolution to the point of denying the 6-day literal creation. Granted, the church hasn’t been united in believing Genesis 1-2 are historically accurate as you can see here. However, what strikes me the most is that I see how easily the possibility of arguing for a literal 6-day creation gets thrown aside. Most of the Christians that dismiss the Genesis account as historical are too quick to go to the side of the scientists and antagonize Christians who take the bible more literally, and that to me is pretty tough to see.

More recently, I’ve come across this e-book from Kurt Willems, a young Anabaptist pastor and theologian. I think the e-book has many valid points and he presents his arguments well, but I feel like a big piece of the puzzle is missing. That would be Jesus Christ’s own words. I’ll present some of my arguments as part of my questions to him, and to other non-literal interpreters of Genesis.

Jesus told the pharisees once, “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,'”  (Mt. 19:4) They are an exact quotation from Genesis 1, Genesis 5.

I also don’t think we can escape that the words ktisas and epoiesen mean anything other than how it reads. The latter, for instance, only means appointed as it’s argued in the book, in a minority of verses.

Jesus held a very literal view of Genesis, pointing out Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and many others with nothing but a literal perspective. There is absolutely no hint from Christ (or the entire bible for that matter) on either the fact that other homo sapiens existed prior to Adam and Eve or that the story of creation was merely poetic or allegorical.

Jesus presents the Satan as a literal being multiple times in his teaching and dialogue. I find it very hard to believe that prior to Adam and Eve, the entire universe had not fallen into sin or that Satan was only permitted to tempt Adam and Eve millions of years after the origin of the universe… he didn’t try to make any other creature rebel?

Besides, again, absolutely no hint that mankind had previously existed before them. Isn’t it odd that we cannot find the truth about our origins from God’s inspired word but we actually reject the plain narrative find the truth about that from a 200+ yr old theory?

If we are having problems with the narrative (such as how can plants grow without sun) let’s just try to find the answers within the biblical narrative first and not external sources. We see that in Gen. 2:5 the plants had not sprouted prior to the 6th day… perfectly natural for the seeds to be germinating for a day in the ground before the sun light, besides what is the light from Genesis 1:2? Isn’t it the same light described in Revelation in the New Jerusalem, where the sunlight does not shine? Yet there are all kinds of fruit trees growing (Rev. 22:3).

I would much rather Christians tried to find a compatible scientific explanation to our revealed origins from Scripture than completely ignore the possibility of its accuracy based on 200+ years of modern science.

Let alone that the premise for the scientific method is being observable, yet no one has observed macro evolution at work and yet one stakes their life and now faith on it… a little bit naive in my opinion.

I understand that a theory is not just pulling things out of thin air and making assumptions. It is based on evidence (somewhat). However, we don’t see even a hint of macro evolution, but we see tons of observable forms of micro evolution. To me, to neglect the biblical account as historical and interpret it as allegorical, poetic, illustrative is another theory that’s neglecting the more visible evidence.

If we believe the gospel accounts are true and how God healed people by just a touch or a spoken word, why would we have a hard time believing he made Adam out of the dust, that there were no others before him?

I’m not negating the theory of evolution as much as I am appalled to see that Christians nowadays are so quick to dismiss the scriptural accounts in favor of a 200+ yr old theory that has no observable macro evolution examples.

They accept that by faith based on much less evidence, in my opinion, than believing in a young earth, literal 6-day creation.

Besides, it could very well be that the Universe as we know it was in existence but “formless and void”… that I can’t deny, it’s what the Scriptures say. But in terms of the earth itself, it seems to me that it is a 6,000 or so yr old planet.
If we believe the historicity of the flood, it can explain many of the apparent contradictions one might find when comparing a young earth theory to the theory of evolution.

What if the earth did have a layer of water above the atmosphere that broke and flooded the planet? What if the mountain and rock formations that we do see today came from the extreme violence of waters from above and below during the flood? What if the fossil layers that we find which appear out of order from an evolutionary perspective happened because all those animals were indeed being violently moved around below the flood waters and finally settled in these “weird” spots?

I’m not a scientist by any stretch or claim to know much about that at all, but one must at least try to reconcile the biblical account with those possibilities before diverting to evolution, in my opinion. What do you think?

I also got a kick out of these messages from creationists to evolutionists and vice versa.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/messages-from-creationists-to-people-who-believe-in-evolutio?bffb

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/messages-for-creationists-from-people-who-believe-in-evoluti?bffb

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