Gladys wrote: This will be a short reply (1) I need time to go through the previous postings (2) I have a busy weekend ahead of me.

The fact is that some books for children written about 1975 indicated that in respect of fossil-finds that they proved the Bible account of origins to be incorrect. It would be of interest to know how that affected the Christian understandings/faith of some children and whether conflict was caused between them and their parents.

Chris responded:

The fact is, fossil finds do prove that the biblical accounts are not literally historical, and this has been in many books from the nineteenth century onwards. Nor is this the only example.

Astronomy proved the biblical account of Solar motions incorrect from about 1660.

Geology proved the biblical account of a global flood to be unhistorical from about 1830.

Paleontology (fossils) proved the biblical account of the creation of life to be unhistorical from about 1850.

Here is some more detail.

1. Astronomy. ————-

From about 1660s, astronomy had proven that the biblical model of the Sun in motion about the Earth was incorrect.

The bible speaks of Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still, and that it did so.

Joshua 10:13 “And the Sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is this not written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hastened not to go down about a whole day.”

The plain meaning of this passage is perfectly clear, and this passage was used by church leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin to disprove the notion of Copernicus that the Earth was in motion about the Sun.

Christians (mostly; there are still exceptions) now consider that Luther and Calvin were incorrect to use the bible in this way to refute the findings of science.

2. Geology ———-

Prior to 1600 or so, most people considered, by inference from biblical history, that the Earth was around 6000 years old, more or less.

By 1800 it was recognized that the Earth was much older, although the actual age was then not known to any level of accuracy.

The downfall of the global flood is another instance of geology showing that a naive historical interpretation of scripture is untenable. In 1510 Leonardo Da Vinci disproved a global flood using fossil evidence from seashells; although it took much longer for this to be generally accepted.

One of the major figures in English geology in the nineteenth century, during the time of the revolution in geological thought, was William Buckland. He was (initially) a strong supporter of the notion of a global flood, based on scripture. He attempted to use geology as a proof of scripture and the flood; but he was also a scientist of integrity and ability. In 1830 Lyell (who had been Buckland’s student) essentially made the scientific case for “uniformitarian” geology and no global flood; this was widely accepted, with some holdouts like Buckland. But by 1836 Buckland had conceded in the face of the overwhelming evidence that the global flood model for geology was unworkable and plainly disproved by the evidence.

A good historical overview of how geology developed and overcame the naive “biblical” models is on-line at <http://home.tiac.net/~cri/1998/geohist.html>

These days, most Christians recognize that the flood, like the Sun standing still in Joshua, should not be taken as literal history just as described in Genesis.

3. Biology. ———–

Long before Darwin, fossil evidence had shown that there is more to the history of life than can be gleaned from Genesis, and many naturalists recognized that life has a long history of development; and that in the past life was very different from what it is now.

Darwin, in 1859, was able to explain how this could occur, and his model of evolution has since be confirmed and developed to become the foundation of modern biology.

This model conflicts with interpretation of Genesis as literal history for formation of life. There are still Christians who do not accept the findings of science in this matter; but as far as empirical science is confirmed the long history of life on Earth over billions of years is as well confirmed as any other scientific discovery.

Many Christians continue to reject such a model, but the empirical evidence refutes without question any alternative which involves the sudden introduction of modern life forms in roughly their present form at a point some several thousand years ago.

The problem for a rational educated Christian is to come up with a way of understanding scripture that does not conflict with matters that are plainly revealed by empirical studies: such as the motion of the Earth about the Sun, the great age of the Earth, the lack of any global flood, and the long history of life.

Gladys again:

In the world we do see reproduction according to particular types of living organisms. Humans reproduce humans; even if there comes after many generations a child of a different group ie negroid in a caucasion family because the genes for negroid came from an unknown previous ancestor. My information is that happens in the eighth generation.

Chris:

Where do you get this “information”??

The very concept of “negroid” and “caucasoid” is suspect. What passes for races within humanity do not break down into simple binary categories. There are differences corresponding to the way people have traditionally classified races; but those differences are spread out into broad continuums, with no clear marker between one group or another.

When we say “negro” or “caucasian”, we generally conjure up a kind of ideal model; and generally we have no problems in classifying such models. But take a large group of real individuals and it gets much more difficult. Some people may approach the racial model, and others will be further away, and others will be hard to fit. This was plainly seen in some of the absurdities when a binary racial classification is attempted, as in the old apartheid in South Africa.

For humans; biological diversity within races is greater than the diversity between the racial ideals; and the races do not break into easy categories, rendering the whole concept of race a bit problematic.

But this is not because one racial ideal can give birth to another. It is because individual are diverse, and freely intermix, and because there is a lot of diversity in various characters that we do not use in racial profiling.

If you take a family of caucasian ideals; “pure-bread” Aryans or whatever, and then let them reproduce without mixing, you would not get “negroid” children, not even after fifty generations (if they lasted that long!). You would rather get an artificially in-bred group in which caucasian characteristics continued to be emphasized. An unhealthy idea, by the way!

Evolution does not generate diversity quickly enough to deal with the problems of that kind of in breeding; and you will NOT get children showing negroid ideal characteristics no matter how long you wait.

Gladys:

However, more modern studies could give other information. It is also something that happens in animal and plant breeding, where it can be observed in shorter time periods.

Chris:

It is not that modern studies may give other information in the future. It is that you are using sources that are misleading you, and that you simply do not know about the existing state of knowledge on many things.

Gladys:

I believe that everything in the universe from the largest to the smallest was created by the Almighty God of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Some aspects of that creation are still impossible for us to view because microscopes and telescopes are not powerful enough to view them.

Chris:

The issue here is not about whether God created the universe. The issue is whether or not Genesis is a literal account of how it was done; and what should be taught in a science class.

I can accept that many Christians continue to take Genesis as historical. What I object to is the notion that this view is consistent with empirical science, or that science classes should consider models that have nothing to do with science.

I think there are three basic alternatives.

(1) The position of scientific creationism; an attempt to defend a young earth, or global flood, or sudden creation of life, based on empirical methods of science. This position is one for which I have only contempt. The treatment of empirical evidence by scientific creationists is ludicrous. This is not a matter of being an atheist, or rejecting the bible. When you look at the way evidence is presented and handled, the work of scientific creationists is seen to be nothing but a shoddy and dishonest fraud.

(2) The position of biblically based young earth creationism. This is to accept a young earth, global flood and/or the sudden creation of life because of a faith in the bible as literal history. This is naive, but honest. It is recognition that such views are based on the bible, not on empirical studies. It does not attempt to distort empirical science to shore up the view.

There are many Christians in this category, who are not expert in empirical science, and who cannot judge the competence or worth of empirical analysis by scientists and by creationists in the first category. Such folks should not presume to instruct in science, obviously. That is not their area of competence.

(3) The remaining position is to take account of what we learn about the world by empirical means, and to adopt a faith which is not disproved by science.

You may think science is wrong if you like. But in teaching science, it is utterly wrong to include creationist models. They are not science, and teaching them as science is an indication of gross incompetence, or total lack of integrity.

Gladys

I can accept diversification, but I can’t accept atheistic evolution.

Chris:

You do not accept diversification. Diversification means that one form can over time diversify into a range of related forms. This is how evolution works.

You should also be cautious of the term “atheistic evolution”. Evolution is atheistic in the same sense that chemistry is atheistic; neither field makes an explicit appeal to a God to explain the phenomena under consideration. Both evolution and chemistry are used, without any difference as far as science is concerned, by atheists and theists alike.

Gladys

For me, then, the issue is whether God created through millions.billions years of death and bloodshed as God used diversification through mutations to bring the creation to the present time OR did He create a perfect universe, sometime in the past (leaving out the issue of whether that was 6 000 years or much longer for the present) and that universe came to have problems within it.

Chris:

That is a fair statement of the problem; but there is another more subtle problem you face as an educator if you are teaching science.

If you are teaching science, you should teach science.

If, because of your religious beliefs, you cannot accept the standard conclusions of science, regarding millions and billions of years of diversification and birth and death and so on, then you would be better simply not to teach those sujects.

It is best to be honest about the basis for rejection of those discoveries; a religious and faith based rejection.

You enter a morass when you try to argue for some kind of empirical basis for skepticism.

The problem is that the all attempts I have seen to give empirical or scientific reasons for rejecting an old Earth etc are nonsense; and are easily seen to be nonsense by those who know any of the evidence and arguments involved.

Cheers — Chris