Could asteroids lead to the extinction of YECism ?

When every thread of evidence points to the same conclusion, that's the best corroboration you'll ever get. Creationists can criticize each individual method but they can't explain why they all get the same answer.

When I pointed out on the other thread that YECism was invented by SDAs, that should have been kind of a clue. What did you think fundamentalist Protestants thought before they were (as you suppose) enlightened by this non-Christian cult and their prophetess?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

As Bernard Ramm said just before "The Genesis Flood" was published, the Gap Theory had become the de facto orthodox position for the most conservative and fundamental of Protestant Christians. This included those who were strongly anti-modernism and those who were strongly anti-evolution (e.g. Wm Jennings Bryan, Charles Hodge, Harry Rimmer). It even included John Whitcomb himself, until a hydrologist persuaded him to accept an unscientific theory from a Christian cult (SDA) and to rework it into a form acceptable to conservative Evangelicals.You'll find a lot more information on this history from Ron Numbers' book "The Creationists". Ron Numbers was raised an SDA so has the "inside story" on lots of the goings-on.

I would have said that YECism as you call it goes back to Ussher's dating of the age of the earth, I wouldn't have connected it with the SDAs. I thought, as I said, that anyone who accepted the Old Earth was thinking like a "liberal Christian" which was a theological trend that started in the mid 19th century in Germany. kbertsche's list includes some of the greatest names in orthodox Christianity that I wouldn't have expected to give in to the Old Earth.ABE: One thing I did think, mostly from Darwin, was that the creationism in Darwin's time was pretty silly in a lot of ways and needed the criticisms and corrections his book made. it was probably much the same situation in Geology. And the problem with those creationist ideas was that they were unbiblical, a strange bunch of ideas that came from who knows where. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

All interesting history that I didn't know about, though I loved the Genesis Flood and probably got most of my views from that and other similar books. I didn't know about the SDA connection and if there are problems with that book it would be good to know about them but my impression has been that they don't affect the main argument.I know some of the reasoning for the Gap Theory and just find it unbiblical, an obvious attempt to bend the Bible to modern science, and even if it's held by very conservative Christians that's how it seems to me. In a way that is like Liberal Christianity which was an attempt to "save" Christianity from the effects of modern science.Same with Day-Age and Theistic Evolution. You have succeeded in convincing me, however, that I should learn more about these views. I'll check it out.ABE: Just read the introduction at Amazon, where he's saying basically what you said here. It's a rather expensive book so I have to decide if its information is worth it.ABE: I would like to know more about how those on your list thought, more than anything about the SDA background of Creation Science. Probably the links you gave earlier are the best guide to that information, rather than Numbers' book.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Note that the date of Day 1 of Genesis is a different question from the age of the earth. Most of those who accepted the Gap Theory also held to literal Days in Genesis, and accepted something close to Ussher's dating. The original Scofield Reference Bible incorporated Ussher's dates, and literal days, yet affirmed an old earth and old universe. I.e. many who held to Ussher's chronology also held to an old earth.If this does not make sense to you, you need to read up on the Gap Theory. The Gap Theory views the Days of Genesis as a recent re-creation, not the original creation. It views the original creation as occurring eons earlier and evidenced in earth geology.Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.

Yes I do need to read up on all these things, but what you say here is pretty much the idea I did have of Gap Theory, that there is a gap between the first and second verses of Genesis that allows for the old earth, after which I wasn't clear what supposedly occurred so it's interesting that apparently Ussher's dates took off from there.So what does this mean though? They apparently think of the creation of Adam and Eve as a special creation of God, and not as the culmination of evolutionary processes for starters, right? BUT they also, or some of them, Spurgeon apparently for instance, from the link you provided earlier, seem to think that animals had lived for millions of years before human beings were created. From what Spurgeon said that doesn't necessarily imply evolution, just many different kinds of animals that didn't exist in the present, which I suppose he gathered from the fossil record, understood already as a sequence of ages, but it does imply that animals did die during those millions of years.ABE: The Wikipedia article on Gap Theory says that different ideas of the previous millions of years were held by different men.It also says that the idea was invented to allow both science and the Bible to be true. Fatal temptation I would say. Or not fatal since it doesn't affect salvation but it shows the tendency to capitulate to old earth science on the basis of its mere plausibility rather than any supposed solid evidence that is always claimed for it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Observation 1: the first thing created in Gen 1 is light (1:3), BUT a watery abyss (presumably over an earth of some sort) already existed (1:2). The creation of this water (and earth) is not described in Gen 1. When/how was it created? We aren't told.
Observation 2: the Fall of Adam & Eve was NOT the first sin in God's creation. Satan must have fallen earlier, since he was the tempter of Adam & Eve.When did Satan fall? How did the earth get into the desolate, empty state described in Gen 1:2? It's not TOO big of a stretch to ascribe this state to a cosmic judgment in the wake of Satan's fall. (Though this is completely speculative; there is no biblical suggestion that Satan's fall would have affected the physical creation.). Hence, the basic idea of the Gap Theory: God created the entire universe long ago (Gen 1:1), it was put in a chaotic state when Satan fell (1:2), and then it was re-created recently, in six Days (1:3ff).This view has no problem fitting old geology; this geology is just a remnant of the original creation. As evidence mounted for old biology, it was postulated that the original creation included animals which were destroyed at Satan's fall and then re-created in Gen 1:3ff. Evidence for ancient hominids (e.g. Neanderthal) and evidence that homo sapiens was more than 6000 years old started to cause concern; some Gap Theorists proposed "pre-Adamic men", and others began to question their whole approach.Those who held the Gap Theory were pretty strongly anti-evolution. They certainly did not see evolution in the re-creation (Gen 1:3ff), and I don't think they saw it in the original creation, either. They DID see death of animals over millions of years in the original creation, but I'm not sure what they ascribed this to. Satan hadn't fallen yet, so why did animals die? (I'm not an expert on the Gap Theory; this would be a good question to research.) In the re-creation, they probably did not see animal death until Adam's fall, but I'm not sure that they all viewed it this way.

Oh it has its plausibility, but it's hard to get past the implication that all this was discovered in the text because of the challenges of the science of the time. There's nothing very clear about this in Spurgeon's view but if he took some of his belief in animals before the renewed Creation from the fossil record he'd have to be assuming death as part of the picture.Yes, I'd be interested in finding out more about how they thought about all this. What bothers me is that although I can see how easy it is for people to think there really is hard evidence for the Old Earth and even for evolution, that "evidence" is really nothing but mental constructs, interpretations, assumptions, unvalidated hypotheses. These men believed all this before the only objective measure existed, radiometric dating, and that too is open to question, all kinds of errors being rationalized away. But the point is the whole edifice of the sciences of the past is built on speculation (it sure SEEMS the Earth must be very old) and little else that can't be explained in other ways, because there is no way to confirm it as the hard sciences can do, and yet it has persuaded the whole world. I'm sure you would dispute this as everybody else here does.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

All this is off topic but it's hard not to get into it since it's here. No, but the way the text reads there is really no good reason not to read the next verse as following immediately. But the usual understanding is that the Earth was created FOR humanity, and in fact very likely in response to Satan's rebellion, as human beings are destined to replace the demonic realm in some way in the end, and what matters in this cosmic plan is the sin of Adam as the governor of Earth, not Satan's which long preceded it. EARTH is the focus here, not whatever existed before the Creation. [ABE In fact, now that I think of it, there didn't need to be anything before the Creation which began in Genesis 1 with "In the beginning." What there was is not clear but Satan and the angels didn't need the Creation, it was made for humanity. /ABE]Some time before the creation of the Earth. As it is normally read the amorphous state was simply a stage of the creation. I see no necessary reason to interpret it any other way. All I see in this barely plausible scenario is the desperation of these men in the face of the science of the day that they were unable to criticize. I can't fault them for this, I just think it is very sad.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That's a pretty good description of creationism in general.

I agree in general with this. The turn of science to antibiblical assertions put Bible believers in a difficult position. Having always admired science, and thinking it a gift from God, many scrambled to accommodate their beliefs to what the scientists were saying. I believe this was a fatal error, understandable though it is. By coming up with accommodating ideas like Gap Theory they avoided the conflict and appeared to find common ground sufficient to let them continue in their faith and preach their faith to their congregations.But the conflict is inevitable and can't be avoided. Gap theory is a wild speculative solution that ends up being no solution. Same with the other ways the Bible was compromised to accommodate science. I hadn't known until kbertsche demonstrated it that so many of the greatest preachers had succumbed to this kind of solution, and it was quite startling because those men preach solidly Biblical sermons, the best of the best. I had no idea there was a rotten spot in the floorboards as it were, that could bring the whole house down. That's the problem with ALL compromising efforts.It's the same problem with the modern Bibles. Christians can go along for years trusting in those Bibles and then suddenly grasp the implications of the untrustworthiness of the Greek texts that underlie them, and their lack of knowledge of the history of these things, and the corrupted nature of those texts, then cause many to lose their faith and leave them with a bitter cynicism about Christianity.Those great preachers who gave into the Old Earth and tried to make the Bible conform to it have built a house of cards that subsequent generations can blow down with a breath, leaving them with very flimsy grounds for their faith.I appreciate that they didn't have the time, and it wasn't their calling either, to try to answer the claims of science, but a strong stand on the Bible against the science they couldn't understand might have served us all better in the end. Others might have been inspired to learn more science earlier, might have seen through the purely interpretive and speculative and unprovable nature of the claims that were being presented as Fact for one thing, might have stayed on top of the claims down the decades instead of being lulled to sleep by a false reconciliation at the expense of the Bible.Hey I like this post. I think I'll post it on one of my blogs.

The problem, though, is that it's the Bible that's wrong, not the earth. If your faith rests on the Bible, then yes, your house is built on sand. I'm always happy to be an inspiration.

More accurately, it's some interpretations of the Bible that are wrong, just as in Galileo's day his opponents wrongly interpreted the Bible to teach geocentrism.

It isn't about scientists making announcements from up above. It is the EVIDENCE that contradicts your bible-based beliefs. It is reality itself that contradicts you. Why is it that you have to deny reality in order to "stand on the Bible"?