If the Genesis account is not correct, the entire Bible starts to unravel. There are many Christians that believe in Jesus as their Savior but they do not believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God which is beyond approach. In that world, there is nothing anyone can trust in. Nothing is sure. There is no rock for the wiseman to build his house upon.

John 1:1-3, 3:12; 5:46; 1 Colossian 1:16, 17; Luke 17:27; 11:50, 61; Mark 10:6; 13:19; Ephesians 3:19; Hebrews 1:1, Rev. 4:11; 10:6;



Indeed there are many evangelists that present a well-balanced presentation of the issues. There are also many goof-ball wackos that use arguments and theories that evolutionists can turn around and make them look like fools. The effective creation-scientist evangelist does not step into the areas where an evolutionist in his or her audience could discredit him or her.

I agree. Genesis, as an origins myth, has lots of stuff worth study. It is not inherently wrong just because it is not scientifically accurate.



As far as I know, the SDA church still teaches that the books of the Bible were written by Holy men moved by the Spirit, and does not claim a 'cover-all' infallibility for them or a verbal inspiration for them. It is widely acknowledged that there is irrelevant-to-salvation discrepancies between the books - and it is very clear that the both the OT&NT books were written by their authors with deliberate goals in mind. Just read the opening of Luke to see that, or any of Paul's writings.



I have yet to hear a scientifically solid pro-creationist speaker. Every time I have been pointed at one, it has taken me less than 5 minutes to determine that they are either woefully ignorant or dishonest.

Sometimes you will find a speaker who is neutral, who is prepared to admit that he prefers the creationist model but that the scientific evidence is solidly on the side of the evolutionists. I do not regard such speakers as pro-creationism.



Absolutely - unfortunately the SDA church has publically sided with suppressing this debate, and (contrary to the recommendations of their own Science and Faith series) continues to publically require their official spokespeople to act like creationism is the only valid answer. Just look at the last 2 Qtrs SS lessons for this foolishness in action.

/Bevin

I always find it humorous when evolutionists criticise their intellectual and academic superiors that hold PhDs and work in the field of science but are somehow not qualified to talk about science because they are creationists. Ahhhh yes, "they are either woefully ignorant or dishonest." Why? Well they don't believe in evolution. There is simply no other explanation.

Was Moses woefully ignorant or dishonest? What about Paul when he wrote, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction"? Well, they lived so long ago they had to be ignorant, right? The effects of thousands of years of sin has made us smarter,,, or has it?

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" Romans 1:20-22

Sounds like a good approach, Shane. The world needs more truth, especially the good news of how we got here.

Ken Ham shares this:

Having looked up all the verses you referred to, I actually agree with you about this, and that is why I am a creationist. I've seen how what you say works out in practice, particularly in my studies with Jehovah's Witnesses, who give as their reason for not accepting the Sabbath the misinterpretation they have of Genesis 2:1-3; which is, that the days in Genesis 1 and 2 were ten thousand years long. Their New World "Translation" of Genesis 2: 2,3 is the only one I know of, out of my 50+ translations, that says God "is resting" rather than that "He rested" on the seventh day. They use this as a reason not to believe in the seventh-day Sabbath, even though their own books readily admit that Sunday came into Christianity by way of paganism.

I don't think most people have thought the issues through as thoroughly as you have, and therefore they can't see the necessity of accepting the whole Bible, including the Genesis account of creation, the same as they do the Gospels. In my own mind, I could hold the truth of Christ and of salvation and eternal life at the same time that I could disbelieve the literalness of the Biblical creation account. I am not saying I disbelieve it now or anticipate a time when I would ever hold such a view. I am merely saying that because of my training in literature, I could hold that view and at the same time accept Jesus as a real Savior who really and truly died and rose for my salvation. But the danger is that I think if a lot of people were forced to make that choice, they might reject the gospel, because their hold on the gospel is not a profound one. That's the chief reason I don't think it's a good thing to compel people in that direction. I would like to see it discussed thoroughly but not be presented as if Christians can't have faith in Christ and at the same time hold various views on science and evolution. For me personally the most important thing is freedom and persuasion, not the feeling of being pushed or compelled into one view. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, and, as Saint Paul said, "Let every man be persuaded in his own mind."





I think, rather, that the most effective creation-scientist evangelist (i.e., the one who would have my trust) is the one who will admit when he does not know something or when creationism fails to explain something or even when evolution seems to be somewhat supported by the data. No one looks worse than someone who is too stubborn to admit he might not be right 100% of the time. That is what would make me wonder, What else is this fellow manipulating or hiding in order to win the argument? If creationism is true (and I believe it is), then it has nothing to fear from being generous and admitting when it is wrong or doesn't yet have answers. If it is not true, then I would be the first to want to know, because I am only after the truth, whatever that is and wherever it leads.

First, let me half apologize for this long and convoluted post. I will set what I consider my most pertenent remarks in bold letters so that people who are on the run may nevertheless read.

I cannot agree with you that Genesis is "an origins myth," although I can read it that way and still, like you, see much in it that is worth while. The question is, however, whether we can read the Genesis creation account as NO MORE THAN origins myth and still come to firm faith in God. I will never forget my teacher in one class that I took in The Bible As Literature at a public college. He told of how many times he had read the Bible as literature, yet he ridiculed it as theology and made fun of it as anything inspired by a god (small g no mistake). He read it entirely as an origins myth, and his seeing it merely as myth was directly connected to his attitude towards it as something altogether false and unworthy of his trust. (I still shudder to think of the blasphemies he uttered as we went through the Proverbs and the Psalms.)

I would be interested--if you care to share it--in knowing some examples of what you believe is right or worth while about the Genesis account but which you understand to disagree with modern science.





I think you are generally correct in what you say here. Unlike most conservative Christian denominations, we don't believe that the Bible was verbally inspired. It's also true that the SDA church doesn't believe the Bible contains no errors whatsoever. For one thing we don't have the original text of the Bible, and therefore it's impossible to know whether the original manuscripts were inerrant.

There are thousands of varients among the hundreds of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, but most of those are insigificant in terms of doctrine. In fact, most of them are of such a nature as to not even affect the translation because they have to do with spelling and word order (which is not nearly as important in determining sentence structure as it is in English). Therefore, even if we accept all the significant varients as being what the critics say they are, the Bible is not fundamentally affected. No book in the world has been picked apart and attacked as has the Bible, and yet after all that, the Bible still stands head and shoulders above every other ancient book for trustworthiness and for accuracy of transcription.





I have no doubt that what you say might be true. Few good speakers are great thinkers. As a matter of fact, the greatest and most profound thinkers have usually made poor speakers. Rarely do both talents meet in a single man, it seems. (Lincoln, Kennedy (?), and M. L. King are three that I can think of at the moment that come closest to qualifying.) Perhaps the greatest speaker of all time--if the amazing way he swayed the masses is any true measure of his talent-- was a very poor thinker indeed, one by the name of Adolf Hitler. On the other hand, Nietszche, though a brilliant thinker and writer, was, however, to put it kindly, a rather dull lecturer, if we are to trust his student's recollections. Other brilliant thinkers, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Saint Paul, might also be added to the list of bad-to-downright-poor speakers.

Consider who the really good speakers are. They are almost always actors, who are not exactly known as wise and intelligent or even informed people.

Well, the reason I bring all this up, if you are still reading, is that the best minds who've dealt with the subject are probably not going to be the ones you will hear talking about it in public. Rather, you will most likely find what they think by reading their books or essays.



I can't blame you at all for your opinion about those sorts of speakers. I don't understand, though, why anyone would prefer the creationist model if he's convinced that the scientific evidence is solidly on the side of the evolutionists.

What I've found is that most evolutionists are not even very well informed of the creationist model. When I took biology at public high school and then at a public college, I remember the teachers told me they had never read a book by a creationist. I gave my college teacher a small book about it and he told me frankly that he had never considered its views before. (I doubt he ever did after that, either.) Why is this the case? I believe it is simply because they are not exposed to them during their education and because it is not to their professional benefit to do so later, even though they might be introduced to them on a superficial level.

One problem I have experienced in dialoguing with people on this subject is that every time I bring up the name of a scientist who is a creationist, the pro-evolutionist almost always claims, for one reason or another, that the scientist is incompetent to judge the issues fairly, objectively, or intelligently. That has even been the case when the scientist was considered quite competent as an evolutionist, but when the scientist changed his viewpoint to that of a creationist, suddenly the scientist turned nincompoop in the eyes of those who earlier admired him and considered him highly intelligent and well informed on all the issues.





But I think you can well understand the situation. It wouldn't do to have church spokespeople getting paid by tithes to take a position at odds with the official positions of the church, which we can assume are the beliefs of the majority of people in the worldwide church.

I'm not really expecting you to give an answer to this because you may consider it rather a personal question, but I am wondering how many books from the creationist viewpoint you have in your library, and of those, how many you have actually read with an open mind-- that is, with a mind ready to try and understand what the writer is saying before you judge him to be crazy or stupid or ill-informed or dishonest, etc. I must say I enjoy reading Charles Darwin and some other evolutionists, if for no other reasons than to appreciate a wonderful style of writing and be amazed at Darwin's powers of observation. I would encourage you to do the same with books by creationists. There are some mighty fine ones out there.

These days? None.

The ones I had I threw out because I realised they were taking up more shelf space than they were worth.

Whenever anyone points me at one, I go to the book store or look at the online info, within about 5 minutes I find that the author is making one of the usual fundamental mistakes, and give up on them because they have clearly not done their homework.

For instance, the whole "irreducible complexity" argument falls apart as soon as you realize that it is possible to randomly evolve such systems by reduction from a more complex system.

And this is what is going to happen with these Creationist Evangelists. My friends and associates at work are intelligent and educated people. They are going to go and listen to one of these speakers, recognize within 20 minutes that the guy is wrong, and conclude that all of Christianity is stupid or dishonest because this representative obviously is.

/Bevin

However that is not what is happening at all. Creation-science evangelists are experiencing significant success which is why the movement is growing.



And there have been several evolutionists that switched to being creationists.



That is correct. Most are not well informed at all which is why schools should offer a philosophy of science class which teaches alternative world views of orgins.