Creation / Evolution Books?

[mattrose]

Matt wrote:

I figure it's something that people won't be open to believing until they've come to a point where they see Jesus and Scripture as authoritative.

But people like Hugh Ross DO view scripture, and Jesus as authoritative. In fact he goes to great lengths to explain just how Genesis 1 IS consistent with ages old cosmology. Of course YE'ers would disagree, but I dont think it is quite fair to say that OE'ers dont view scripture or Jesus as authoritative. I lean toward the OE view, but I have no question that the bible is authoritative.


TK

I didn't mean to imply that Old Earth people don't view Scripture and Jesus as authorities.

My meaning was that, in my opinion, Young Earth creationism is not a very good evangelistic tool. It is an in-house Christian debate.

[TK]

Gotcha- thanks matt.

TK

[TK]

Just today I read that they found what they believe to be the oldest human hair, in a fossilized piece of hyena dung, of all places.

The previously oldest human hair was from a 9000 year old Chilean mummy (but even this is older than some YE-ers say the earth is- a guy in my chruch says that the earth is only 6000 some odd years old).

At any rate this new hair they found is dated between 195,000 to 250,000 years ago.

I've said it before and I will say it again-- i could see dating methods being off a good bit, but the difference between 15,000 and 195,000 is huge.

TK

[steve7150]

1) The age of the earth. How do scientists test and come up with millions and millions of years old as the date of the earth? Every discovery I read of recently always has a date in millions of years... and I realize some of this is based on the index fossils, but that can't be the only thing. And how does that harmonize with the Bible if at all?




Brian, It's just that in the natural world many things we find in the earth and in the universe would have taken billions of years to evolve within the physical laws of the universe.
If God created things with the appearance of age built in then the YECs could be right but IMHO that's to big of an assumption to make. The bible allows for the creation days to be any length of time so i think this issue should'nt be as big as it is.

[mattrose]

There's a difference between creating something with 'an appearance of age' vs. creating something 'functional.' The former assumes that everything comes to maturity through an evolutionary process. The latter recognizes God's ability to create things in a very good way. In my opinion the Old Earth'ers in this thread are very much overstating the strengths of their position.

[Seth]

For a look at the evidences for the age of the earth, as well as a survey of Christian thought on this topic, I heartily recommend Christianity and the Age of the Earth by D.A. Young. He also has a recent work, The Bible, Rocks and Time.

For a challenging (for the anti-side) look at Evolution, I recommend Kenneth Miller's Finding Darwin's God. I found it excellent and actually fairly convincing.

Just for clarity, I'm solidly old earth and lean toward "Evolution looks solid but I'd rather not fight."

[anochria]

Darin,
Just curious if you've ever met Hugh Ross? I have and I have a lot of respect for the guy. I also support reasons to believe monthly and have found them to be thorough, trustworthy, and patient in the face of less-than-respectful attacks by young earth creationists.

[darinhouston]

yes, just in a group setting -- he speaks at our church every few years it seems.