Posted on 05/29/2014 7:46:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Creation Museum CEO and President Ken Ham responded to what he called an "anti-creationist rant" by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who criticized the $43 million in Kentucky tax incentives being given to his ministry's full-sized Noah's ark attraction.
"Rachel Maddow just went on a long anti-creationist rant on MSNBC (for anyone who still happens to watch low-rated MSNBC) as she commented on the Creation Museum's new Allosaurus fossil (she showed photos of our new exhibit)--then she mocked our Ark Encounter project--actually spent quite a lot of time mocking and scoffing, and totally misrepresented how the construction of the Ark is being funded," Ham wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
Answers in Genesis, the ministry behind the ark attraction and which Ham heads, has clarified earlier that "no money is coming out of the state budget to build the Ark." "[L]et us say for the umpteenth time: no state monies will be used to construct the Ark," the group has stressed.
Maddow criticized the Creation Museum and pointed out that the Kentucky state government has offered $43 million in tax incentives for the Ark Encounter project, which is currently being built. She was also critical of the museum's presentation that dinosaurs lived alongside people and were present on Noah's Ark at the time of the great flood as described in Genesis, arguing that fossil records prove otherwise.
"If you are a Creationist, if you believe that God created the world in six days, and that the Bible is a literal history, then fossils are an awkward thing for you," Maddow stated.
The host highlighted critical studies of the new Allosaurus fossil and the museum's claim that it is thousands, and not millions, of years old.
"... there will be dinosaurs on the new Noah's Ark that's being built in Kentucky, along with all the people and the animals as if they all lived at the same time," she said. "There will be dinosaurs on Noah's ark, just as soon as the creationists finish finding the dinosaurs in piles of leaves and plant debris, and putting them on the ark with little assist from state government – 43 million in tax incentives. Your tax dollars at work – amazing."
Ham has stated numerous times that he believes dinosaurs really were on Noah's ark.
"Evolution has used dinosaurs more than almost anything else to indoctrinate children into millions of years of evolutionary ideas. Evolution has claimed dinosaurs evolved over 200 million years ago. That no humans ever lived with them…that some mysterious event led to the extinction of dinosaurs," Ham, a Young Earth Creationist, said in a 2013 interview.
"But the Bible gives a different history. God tells us he created all land animals the same day He created man about 6,000 years ago and what's more there were even dinosaurs on Noah's ark because God told Noah to take pairs of every kind of land animal. You see, dinosaurs are no mystery at all if you accept the Bible's account of creation," noted Ham.
In his latest Facebook post, he thanked Maddow for "one of the longest pieces I've seen on secular TV on the Creation Museum--which means we are making an impact!"
Earlier in May, Ham also criticized CBN host Pat Robertson for calling Young Earth Creationists "deaf, dumb and blind" for their view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
"Pat Robertson illustrates one of the biggest problems we have today in the church-people like Robertson compromise the Word of God with the pagan ideas of fallible men!" Ham wrote in response to Robertson's statement that evidence such as oil samples show that the Earth is much older than Young Earth Creationists believe.
Intelligent Design fully agrees with the Biblical account of creation, and doesn’t compromise anything in the Bible - not one whit.
“Young Earth” Creationism, on the other hand, makes Bible-believers look like fools in the eyes of the very people we are trying to reach.
There are those Christians who view it that way, 6000 years and then 1,000 years of peace. We’re currently in year 5774.
That’s the current year under the Hebrew lunar calendar. Take it up with them, lol.
Does Believing in Inerrancy Require One to Believe in Young Earth Creationism?
By Norman L. Geisler
The age of the earth is a hotly debated issue among evangelicals. Old Earthers believe, like most scientists, that the universe is billions of years old. Young Earthers, measure the age of the universe in terms of thousands of years. The debate is not new, but the insistence by some Young Earthers that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible demands a Young Earth position is relatively new.
The Biblical Status of the Young Earth View
In order to establish the Young Earth view one must demonstrated that there are (1) no time gaps in the biblical record and that (2) the “days” of Genesis are six successive 24 hour days of creation.
Possible Gaps in Genesis
Unfortunately for Young Earthers, these two premises are difficult to establish for many reasons. (1) There could have been a gap of long periods of time before Genesis 1:1 (called Recent Creationism). (2) There could be a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 (called the Gap Theory with or without and intervening fall of Satan, as C. I. Scofield had it). (3) There could be long gaps between the six literal 24-hour days (Alternating Day-Age Theory). The point here is not to defend any one of these views, but it is to note that belief in an Old Earth is not incompatible in principle with belief in inerrancy and a literal interpretation of Genesis. (4) There are known gaps after Genesis. For example, Mathew 1:8 affirms that “Joram begat Uzziah.” But in 1 Chronicles 3:11-14 it mentions three missing generations between Joram and Uzziah. Likewise, Luke 3:35-36 lists one missing generation (Cainan) not mentioned in Genesis 11:20-24.
So, with demonstrable gaps in the genealogies, the “Closed-Chronology” view needed to support the strict Young Earth view is not there. This would mean that a Young Earth view of creation around 4000 B.C. would not be feasible. And once more gaps are admitted, then when does it cease to be a Young Earth views?
Evidence that the “Days” of Genesis May Involve more than Six 24 hour days of Creation
Not only is it possible that there are time gaps in Genesis 1, but there is also evidence that the “days” of Genesis are not 6 successive 24 hour days, called the Day-Age View (see Hugh Ross, Creation and Time and Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth). Consider the following:
(1) First, the word “day” (Hb. yom) is not limited to a 24 hour day in the creation record. For instance, it is used of 12 hours of light or daytime (in Gen.1:4-5a).
(2) It is also used of a whole 24 hour day in Genesis 1:5b where it speaks day and night together as a “day.”
(3) Further, in Genesis 2:4 the word “day” is used of all six days of creation when it affirms: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day [yom] that the LORD God made them” (Gen. 2:4).
(4) What is more, on the “seventh day” God “rested” from His work of creation. But according to Hebrews 4:4-11, God is still resting and we can enter into His Sabbath rest (v. 10). So, the seventh day of creation rest is still going on some 6000 plus years later (even by a Young Earth chronology).
(5) Further, there are biblical alternatives to the strongest argument for a 24 hour day. (a) For example, numbered series with the word “day” (as in Genesis 1) do not always refer to 24 hour days, as Hosea 6:1-2 shows. (b) Also, “evening and morning” sometimes refers to longer periods of time rather than 24 hours, as they do in the prophetic days of Daniel 8:14. (c) And the comparison with the work week in Exodus 20:11 need not be a minute-for-minute but a unit-for-unit comparison. Further, the seventh day is known to be longer than 24 hours (Heb. 4:4-11). So, why cannot the other days be longer too? (d) As for death before Adam, the Bible does not say that death of all life was a result of Adam’s sin. It only asserts that “death passed upon all men” because of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:12, emphasis added), not on all plants and animals, though the whole creation was subject to “bondage to corruption” (Rom. 8:21).
(6) Others like Hermon Ridderbos (Is There a Conflict Between Genesis 1 and Natural Science?) took the “days” of Genesis as a Literary Framework for the great creative events of the past. Still others (Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture) considered the “days” of Genesis to be six 24 hour days of revelation (wherein God revealed what he had done in the ancient past to the writer of Genesis) but not literal days of creation. Again, the point here is not to defend these views but to point out that there are alternatives to a Young Earth View, most of which are not incompatible in principle with a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture.
(7) The Relative Time View claims the Earth is both young and old, depending on how it is measured. Gerard Schroeder, a Jewish physicists (in Genesis and the Big Bang), argued that measured by God’s time when He created the universe it was only six literal days of creation. But measured by our time, the creation of the universe is billions of years old.
(8) The Apparent Age View proposes that the universe just looks old, even though it is young. The book by Philip Henry Gosse was titled Omphalos (1857), meaning navel, proposing that Adam had a navel, even though he was created as an adult. Likewise, on this view the first tree would have had rings in them the day they were created.
If there is evidence for Gaps in Genesis and longer period of time involved in the six day of Genesis, then the Young Earth view fails to convincingly support its two pillars. At a minimum it leaves room for reasonable doubt. In view of this, one can ask why is it that many still cling to the Young Earth view with such tenacity.
A Theological Assumption
For some the belief in a Young Earth seems to be based on a kind of intuition or faith in God’s omnipotence. It reasons that if God is all powerful, then certainly He would not have taken millions of years to make the earth. However, by reduction ad absurdum, one could ask why God did not create it in six minutes or six second rather than six days? If He is all-powerful and can make something from nothing, then why did He not create the whole thing lock-stock-and barrel instantaneously!
The Evolutionary Fear
Many Young Earthers seemed to be afraid to grant long periods of time for fear that it may help support an evolutionary conclusion. However, this is unnecessary for two reasons. First, time as such does not help evolution. Dropping red, white, and blue confetti from an airplane a thousand feet above the ground will not produce an American flag in one’s yard. And going up to ten thousand feet (and giving it more time to fall) will not help. Time as such does not organize things into complex designs; it further randomizes the material. It takes an intelligent cause to form it into an American flag. Further, separating God’s supernatural acts of revelation to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets by many hundreds of years does not make them less supernatural. It just makes his revelation progressive over a period of time. The same could be true of God’s acts of creation, if they were separated by long periods of time.
Second, there are plenty of other problems with macro-evolution for it does not explain (without an intervening intelligent cause) how (a) something can come from nothing; b) how non life cannot come from life; c) how non-consciousness can produce consciousness, and d) how non-rational beings can produce rational beings. Longer periods of time as such do not overcome any of these problems; it takes intelligent intervention to do it.
As we have seen, both premise of the Young Earth View are open to serous objections. There is no air-tight case for a Young Earth from a biblical point of view. So, while it may be compatible with inerrancy, nonetheless, inerrancy does not necessitate a belief in a Young Earth.
The Historical Status of the Young Earth Theory
Historically, the Young Earth View has never garnered an important, let alone a crucial role in the history of the Church. It was known to the early Church Fathers (see St. Augustine, City of God 11.6), but it was never made an essential doctrine, let alone given a special status.
First of all, Young Earth creationism was never given a creedal status in the early Church. It does not appear in any early creeds or in any other widely accepted creed in the history of Christendom.
Second, it was not granted an important doctrinal status by the historic Fundamentalist (c. 1900). That is, it was not accepted or embraced by the Old Princetonians B. B.Warfield, Charles Hodge, or J. Gresham Machen.
Third, Young Earth creationism is notably absent in the famous four volume series (1910-1915) The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth edited by R. A. Torrey and C. C. Dixon. In fact, not a single article in this landmark set defends the Young Earth Creationism view. Indeed, all the articles on science and Scripture were written by scholars favorable to an Old Earth view.
Fourth, the founders and framers of the contemporary inerrancy movement (ICBI) of the 1970 and 80s explicitly rejected the Young Earth view as being essential to belief in inerrancy. They discussed it and voted against making it a part of what they believed inerrancy entailed, even though they believed in the “literal” historical-grammatical view of interpreting the Bible, a literal Adam, and the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis. Given this history of the Young Earth view, one is surprised at the zeal by which some Young Earthers are making their position a virtual test for evangelical orthodoxy
If the Young Earth view is true, then so be it. Let the biblical and scientific evidence be mustered to demonstrate it. Meanwhile, to make it a tacit test for orthodoxy will serve to undermine the faith of many who so closely tie it to orthodoxy that they will have to throw out the baby with the bathwater, should they ever become convinced the earth is Old. One should never tie his faith to how old the earth is.
Even if the Young Earth view were true, it would not thereby earn it a position in the Christian Creed or the equivalent. That is another matter altogether reserved for truth that are essential to the Gospel (see Geisler and Rhodes, Conviction without Compromise). There are many minor Christian doctrines that have not earned creedal status along with The Apostles’ Creed which declares of creation only that “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth” (emphasis added) and nothing about how long ago it happened.
Some Concluding Comments
After seriously pondering these questions for over a half century, my conclusions are: (1) The Young Earth view is not one of the Fundamentals of the Faith. (2) It is not a test for orthodoxy. (3) It is not a condition of salvation. (4) It is not a test of Christian fellowship. (5) It is not an issue over which the body of Christ should divide. (6) It is not a hill on which we should die. (7) The fact of creation is more important than the time of creation. (8) There are more important doctrines on which we should focus (like the inerrancy of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and the death and resurrection of Christ, and His literal Second Coming. As Repertus Meldenius (d. 1651) put it: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things charity.” And by all counts, the age of the earth is not one of the essentials of the Christian Faith.
“Look at turtles. Born small. Go to your state fair and they have a HUGE one that is 300 years old. It kept growing with time.. Couldn’t it be POSSIBLE that dinosaurs were the same???”
Well, we know dinosaurs started out pretty small, because we have the eggs to see exactly how large they were at birth. So it’s not far-fetched that someone might have been able to pack up a bunch of juveniles on a boat without a lot of trouble. It might have gotten a little cramped after a year of growth though.
Still, we can look at similar-sized animals we can observe, like elephants, and see that even 1 year old elephants have a way to go to get to adult size. Also, elephants are mammals, so they have several months of headstart on reptiles, since mammals can start growing while in the womb. A similar sized reptile, all other factors being equal, should be smaller at one year than a mammal.
One thing that is fascinating to me about the size question is that it doesn’t seem possible for any creature to grow to the size of the larger dinosaurs in today’s environment. Anything much bigger than an elephant or a giraffe just wouldn’t be able to live without some new kind of biology. Yet, not just dinosaurs, but all sorts of creatures like insects and plants grew to enormous sizes at some point in history. I tend to think that it was very different atmospheric conditions that allowed this hypergrowth, and that could explain how dinosaurs died suddenly, if it was an atmospheric change they could not adjust to.
“If you narrowly and mindlessly trace back the events in the Bible, and insist that a “day” is only a 24 hour period (which even the Bible says it isn’t), then yes, the Earth and the Universe is only 6,000 and some years old. I’m sure there are even more misguided calculations that say the Universe began on Monday, April xx, 6xxx BC. At 6:00 am, EST.”
Misguided calculations like the traditional Hebrew calendar, which gives nearly the same date range as Usher’s calculation?
I just find it funny that so many Christians seem so quick to scurry and line up behind the wisdom of the world if there might be a conflict with the Word of God, and the traditional reading thereof, when it comes to this one point.
You don’t see that reaction so much when it comes to other issues, at least not yet. Who knows, though? Maybe in a few years we will be lucky enough to have people coming around telling us that it’s only a narrow, mindless reading of the Bible that could arrive at the conclusion that two men can’t marry, or that murder is murder whether the child has been delivered or not.
Good luck pinning down the “1000 year” crowd with inconvenient issues like that. Apparently, you are only supposed to apply that rule to a single account in the Bible, written long before the rule was given, even though there are no actual references between the verses to suggest that they are connected. Also, after applying the rule, you must immediately stop once it becomes inconvenient, lest we have Adam become hundreds of thousands of years old (and let’s not even mention Methuselah!), or Noah floating around in the Ark for aeons waiting for the water to drain.
Yeah, well I think you and I have been around this issue before.
Have a good night.
He SURE was. I just read his biography on Wikipedia. What an interesting life he had, Iowa boy with a love of magic tricks!
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