Theoretical Bull

My first post ever. Hap-py-birth-day-to-me-hap-py-birth-day-to-me...

I signed up because I figured this is probably one of the best places to run my ideas and writing past other critically thinking people, and see what kind of challenges, feedback, and help I can get.

I often debate with an old friend of mine who happens to be a YEC. Most recently she told me that everything in the Genesis creation account is scientifcally sound, and that's what she bases her Christian beliefs on: Science and reason. She said that were I able to point out one scientific impossibility in Genesis, she'd promise to sincerely question her beliefs.

Getting to the point, this post is probably more ego-driven than anything else. I sent her the following thirty-one questions, and she never got back to me. Ever. Basically, I'm annoyed, and I don't want those questions to go unheard, unchallenged, and without feedback.

So here, I offer them up to you guys. The following is my letter to her. (Feel free to skip the whole introduction and move on to the questions. I left it in because I thought it was interesting and tended to give a little background.)

Have at it:

Dear ______,

From all of our conversations thus far, and based on everything you've written to me, I've gathered that you're about as much a scientific creationist as they come. (I scanned your email to see if you already attested to this, which would make me telling you seem a bit redundant.) In other words, you contend that everything you believe is in total accordance to scientific method, and is completely provable from a scientific perspective. You made the claim earlier that, throughout history, no layperson or expert in any field of science, philosophy or theology has ever been able to successfully discredit the Bible, and all it would take to do so would be one logically, historically or scientifically false account. So I suppose this is where I come in. Let me first begin by saying that I personally do not consider scientific creationism to be a science, and here are my reasons why:

All sciences (astronomy, geology, biology, archaeology, anthropology, etc.) have a very specific structure to them that scientific creationism does not. A scientist will begin with any observable fact about some aspect of nature, and start creating and testing hypotheses in order to give an explanation for that fact, hopefully coming to a provable conclusion. A scientific creationist will do the exact opposite. They begin with their predetermined conclusion (Biblical creation), and start searching for any observable facts that they think will help them support that conclusion, and then ignore or protest anything else. For example, if you show a scientist a dug-up human looking skull with what appears to be a slightly arched brow and somewhat extended jaw, the scientist might get to work on finding out how old the skull is, what classification of the homo genus it is, and so on. However, if you show a scientific creationist that same skull, he or she would immediately start trying to prove that the skull was less that 10,000 years old, that it was definitely a homo-sapien skull, etc., etc. And if they couldn't prove what they wished to with the facts provided, they might just dismiss the discovery of the skull as "one big hoax in a conspiracy to trick everyone into believing in evolution." The fact that scientific creationism starts with a predetermined conclusion and works it's way backwards toward any observable fact which might help prove it, makes it (in my opinion) not only a "non-science", but in a sense, the exact opposite of science.

Because so many new facts come in at such a quick rate, scientific theories are constantly being changed, revised and strengthened. (This is in every field of science, not just the study of evolution.) Scientific creationists seem to have no such interest in modifying their theories. In fact, they often pride themselves on the claim that their beliefs have remained so consistent. Why? Because they have a structure which is based on doctrine, not evidence. They make scripture a higher priority than observable facts, so if there is a contradiction between the two, they've put themselves into the position of having to come up with some justification for rejecting the facts. This usually means that they have a choice between ignoring it, or attempting to prove it bogus. Usually however, (from my experience) it's both:

(1) Creationist notices an observable phenomenon in mainstream science which contradicts scripture.
(2) Creationist comes up with some sort of quick straw-man or otherwise erroneous argument, attempting to discredit the observable phenomenon.
(3) Creationists celebrate and publicize the "victory" over mainstream science.
(4) Mainstream scientists hear about this "victory" and finally rebut the creationist argument, exposing the fallacies in it and hopefully laying the issue to rest.
(5) Creationists ignore the rebuttal from mainstream science and repeat (1).

I hope you don't find any of the above to be offensive, or even mean. Although it is never my intention, I have gotten that complaint in the past, so I'd like to apologize to you up front. It is not much more than an opinion based on my own experience in these matters, and you are of course welcome to throw it out the window. However, I do believe that this is an important issue, especially whenever the evolution/creation conflict comes up. I think that if a creationist is to be in a position of criticizing the validity of evolution from a scientific point of view, they ought to be able to "play by the rules" of science.

Moving on. Since I think the direction we happen to be moving in is the creation/evolution controversy, I've compiled a series of questions on the basic concepts behind the creation account as told in the first few chapters of Genesis. (If either of us had the time or the energy, I could probably cover the whole Bible with questions like these, but for now I'll limit myself to early Genesis.) The material covered by the questions moves somewhat chronologically, and drops off around chapter 11.

Questions on the Six-Day Creation

(1) Before God began the creation, was He the only existing being in the universe? Were there angels and heaven as well, or were they created with/after everything else?

(1a) If they were not created with/after everything else, had heaven and angels existed eternally alongside God? Or is there an entire other creation before the one in Genesis which was not accounted for?

(2) God created daylight before he created the sun, moon or stars. Where did the daylight come from, if not from the sun?

(2a) Most Biblical literalists will maintain that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old. However, some stars are known to be millions of light years away. How long did it take for the light of the stars to reach the earth once they were created? Millions of years, correct? If this were true, wouldn't we still be waiting for the images of the stars to arrive?

(3) God also created trees and vegetation before creating the sun. How did they survive without photosynthesis?

(4) In Genesis 1:6-8, God talks about the sky being an expanse between the water below it and the water above it. To what "water above the sky" is Genesis referring?

(5) Genesis 1:16 says that God created "two lights" to govern the day and night. But we all know that the moon isn't it's own light at all. It's merely a reflection of the light from the sun. Why would the Bible say something so scientifically inaccurate?

(6) Genesis 1:17 says that God created the stars and placed them in the sky to give light upon the earth. However, under the best possible conditions, only about 5,000 stars can be seen by the naked eye. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our relatively small galaxy alone, and there are about a hundred billion known galaxies. If the stars were created to light the earth, why do only a tiny fraction out of the trillions of existing stars in the universe do their job?

(7) Genesis 1:26 says that God made man in His "image and likeness". If man has the same "image and likeness" as God, wouldn't this mean that God has hands, feet, eyes, ears, and genitalia just like mankind?

(7a) If so, why? Has God always looked like this? Is there any particular reason that a god should need these body parts?

(8) Hypothetically: if Genesis were not divinely inspired, but an attempt by primitive societies (with no real knowledge of science or how the universe works) to give explanations for the existence of man, the world, etc., wouldn't it make perfect sense that we would find scientific absurdities, like the ones above, scattered throughout Genesis?

Questions on Eden and the Descent of Man

(9) God told Adam and Eve that they cannot eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If Adam and Eve did not possess the knowledge of good and evil before eating the fruit, how could they know that God was good, and the serpent was evil, which undoubtedly would have been necessary to fully understand why obeying God's order above the serpent's suggestion was the right decision?

(9a) Also, why would an omnibenevolent god want mankind not to know the difference between right and wrong?

(10) Genesis 3:1 has the serpent (or snake) talking to Eve about the Tree of Knowledge. Since snakes do not have vocal cords and are thus incapable of speaking, how would this be scientifically possible?

(11) Genesis 3:7 says that once Adam and Eve ate from the fruit, they realized that they were naked, and hid from God because they felt "shame". If it was inherently wrong for human beings to walk around naked, then why did God create them that way in the first place? Why would He want them to do something that He considered to be wrong?

(12) Genesis 3:8 says that God was "walking" in the Garden, "in the cool of the day". Is the word "walking" used metaphorically or literally?

(12a) If it is used metaphorically, isn't it possible that other parts of Genesis are meant to be metaphorical as well? In fact, isn't it possible that the entire account in Genesis is metaphorical?

(13) Genesis 3:9-13 has God asking questions like "Where are you?", "Is this true?" and "Who told you that you were naked?" Why would an omniscient being need to ask such questions? Wouldn't God already know the answer?

(14) If God were all-powerful and all-knowing, and didn't want Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, why wouldn't He simply prevent them from doing so?

(14a) If your answer is that God doesn't want to violate our freewill, why in Genesis 3:22-24 did He see to it that Adam and Eve couldn't have access to the other forbidden tree in the Garden, the Tree of Life?

(15) In Genesis 3:22, God says, "The man has now become like one of us". Who is the "us" to which God is referring? (Note that the words "one of us" is used in virtually every translation of Genesis, ranging from the NIV to the KJV to the ASV, so the use of a plural is apparently not in question among Biblical scholars.)

(16) Adam and Eve had two children, Cain and Abel, one of whom was killed. Genesis 4:17 says that Cain "lay with his wife". Who was Cain's wife and where did she come from?

(17) Genesis 5 is devoted entirely to the genealogies of Adam. Everyone mentioned in this chapter lives to be at least 700 years old. How can you scientifically justify this?

(18) Genesis 6:6 says that God saw the wickedness of mankind and "regretted" creating them. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why would he create something that he knew he'd regret later?

Questions on Noah's Ark and a Global Flood

(19) The Ark was to be 450 feet long, (Genesis 6:15), a generally small size considering there are cruiseliners nowadays much larger than this. However, the largest wooden ships ever built have only been 300 feet, and they required diagonal iron strapping for support. And still, the leakage was so bad that they had to be pumped and repaired several times in a year. How could Noah construct a wooden ship, at least one hundred feet longer than any that has been built since, able to withstand fourteen months of some of the harshest weather conditions ever heard of, with no way to pump, repair or dock it?

(20) How could Noah have been able to fit seven pairs of every clean animal on earth, seven pairs of every flying species on earth, and two of every other species on earth (Genesis 7:2-3), into an ark that was only 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high? Consider the following:

-There exist about 4,630 living species of mammal. That's 9,410 individual animals on the Ark (Including Noah's family and about 30 "clean" animals).
-About 9,675 living species of bird. That's 135,450 more animals to add to the ark.
-About 5,275 living species of reptile. That's 10,550 more animals.
-About 4,400 living species of amphibian. That's 8,800 more.
-About 55,000 living species of arachnid. That's another 110,000.
-And finally, an overwhelming 970,000 species of insect, ranging from a centimeter to six inches in size. That's almost 2 million more to fit aboard the ark.
-Also, consider the fact that the number of known extinct species are more than double the ones living. If Noah truly did take at least two of every animal at the time, the amount of animals calculated above would have to increase at least 200%. That makes a rough total of about 6,642,630 animals to fit aboard the Ark.

If we divide the amount of animals above into the volume of a 450x75x45 foot ark (18,225,000 cubic inches) we'd have about 2.7 inches of space for each animal. This is not including walls, walkways, food, supplies or ventilation. (Yes, I did research and calculate this all myself. I didn't just find the numbers on some suspicious, biassed website...I was bored, gimme a break!) Anyway, back to the question: How can you scientifically justify these mathematical absurdities without straying from the exact context and word-usage in the Bible?

(20a) The issue of breeds also arises. Many species have several breeds to them: Horses, dogs, cats, etc. For example, there are 138 pure breeds of domestic canine. If Noah had only two dogs on the ark to represent the canine species, (even if they were different breeds) they would have mated to create a mix of the two, which would have had to mate with it's siblings (eeeeeew!) to spawn more of the same mix, and so on. How could the wide range of animal breeds come about if the only mating option for a particular breed of animal is another of the exact same breed?

(20b) Dinosaurs. There are 300 known species of dinosaur, and counting. Were they all on board? How does scientific creationism fit them into the whole "ark equation"?

(20c) Microorganisms. Bacteria, viruses, protozoa, etc. Some cannot survive without a living host. Others need not only a living host, but one of a specific species. Did the animals on the Ark (including Noah and his family) have to play host to thousands of microorganisms in order for them to survive the flood?

(21) Not only must the Ark have been able to fit the animals, but it had to have held enough food (Genesis 6:21) on which they could all survive for about fourteen months. How did Noah and his family see to the special diets and living specifications required for certain species to survive? For example:

-Koala bears must eat a kilogram of fresh Eucalyptus leaves per day, which provide all their water and nutrition.
-All 320 species of humming bird must consume large amounts of fresh nectar through each day in order to survive.
-Parasitoid wasps and many species of snake will not eat anything that is not warm and moving (alive).
-Aphids are physically incapable of sucking from wilted leaves.
-Silkworms will only eat mulberry leaves.

(21a) The fact alone that many predators will only eat meat provides amazing difficulties for Noah. Meat rots extremely rapidly, and eating rotten meat can be fatal in most situations, especially when it has been lying around without refrigeration for a year. How did Noah keep his animals from dying of either starvation or food poisoning?

(22) The mammals alone would produce several metric tons of manure every day. The ark had to have had some sort of advanced waste-disposal system far superior to any we have today, in order to keep the millions of animals aboard from drowning in their own feces. Any animal left for fourteen months to dwell in toxic waste (and yes, it is toxic) will die. How did Noah and his family keep the ark sanitary, and how did they dispose of so much excrement every day?

(23) A few inches of rain a day would be considered a storm. For rain to have covered the entire planet so that the top of the highest mountain (Everest?) was completely submerged by twenty feet (Genesis 7:20) in only forty days, there would have had to be more than 722 feet of rainfall per day all across the entire planet (another extremely long and complicated calculation available upon request). This would be like having hundreds of billions of fire hoses completely covering the entire sky, aiming down on the earth at full blast. Aside from the fact that any ship under these conditions would be torn to shreds and submerged immediately, where did all this water come from? And where did it go? The atmosphere simply couldn't provide the condensation for this to be possible. How do you justify this apparent scientific impossibility?

(24) If it were true that every land animal left behind was killed during the flood, we would expect the fossil record to be a chaotic, sporadic mess. Human, dog and horse bones would be mixed right in with dinosaur bones. However, what we do observe is quite the opposite. We have a neatly layered set of strata that appear to be in chronological order, showing the evolutionary development from early, simple creatures up to modern, complex creatures. Why aren't dog skeletons mixed in with Stegosaurus? Why aren't lion skeletons lying next to Woolly Mammoths? Is it possible that they were not all alive (or even killed) at the same time?

(25) Can scientific creationism and flood geology account for the thousands of natural phenomenon in the geological column and fossil records which overwhelmingly indicate an old earth, but would be impossible to create in the span of a one-year flood? For example:

-Varves
-Coral
-Hematite layers
-Limestone deposits
-Chalk
-Magma
-Angular unconformities
-Granite batholiths
-Tree rings
-Ice caps, etc., etc.

(Please note that I'm not expecting you to know off the top of your head what these are, or why they are detrimental to young-earth scientific creationism, but you are more than welcome to look them up, and if you do have explanations for any of them, I'd love to discuss it.)

(26) Anyone who has ever owned a tropical aquarium will tell you how difficult it is to keep marine life alive. Most fish can only live in very specific conditions. Some need cool, fresh water. Some need warm, brackish water. Others need ocean water, and a few need water even saltier. For many known species of fish, it would be impossible to survive under the flood conditions described in Genesis. How could all of the marine life around today have survived such deadly and extreme conditions?

(26a) Sensitive underwater plant life such as tropical coral can only survive in shallow water because they require constant exposure to the sun in order to survive. How is it possible that coral and other sensitive marine life like it exist today if they would have undoubtedly been wiped out by a global flood?

(27) With nothing but millions of dead bodies, and the slush of soaked soil with hardly any plant life that would have survived the flood (another scientific problem), what would Noah's family and the animals have had to eat once they stepped off the ark? How could they have survived in a barren wasteland? What would the predators have had to hunt? Many, if not most of the animals would have starved to death.

(28) If you only answered one question of the whole batch, this is the one to which I'd most want to hear your reply: Taking into consideration all of the logical, scientific and mathematical absurdities displayed above, could you concede that it is possible that the story of Noah's Ark and a global flood could be allegorical? And if it's possible that this story is a work of literary symbolism, is it possible that the rest of Genesis could be too?

Miscellaneous Genesis Questions

(29) Genesis 10:5 and 10:20 describe how the different cultures of the world at the time were distinct with their own clans, territories and languages. Yet not too much later, Genesis 11:1 says "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech". Isn't this a blatant contradiction?

(30) In Genesis 11:4, the men of the world began to build a tower that would "reach into the heavens". This apparently worries God, since He believes that anything men plan to do will be possible for them if they speak one language (Genesis 11:6-7). However, today we have translators, people who bilingual, and distinct nations in which almost everyone is capable of speaking the same language. Yet even still we would not be capable of building a tower which reaches "into the heavens". This being the case, would it be accurate to say that God, in this particular passage, was incorrect?

Overview

Near the beginning of your email to me, you said that all we would need is one false account in order to throw out the entire Bible. The curse of literalist dogma. Above, I've provided a list of unavoidable questions regarding the many logical, scientific and mathematical errors found in Genesis alone, some of which I believe cannot be answered. I've been doing this a long time, and I know that no matter how impossible a Biblical account may be, there will always be a retort. Most of which are absurd, but from my experience, all of which are unfounded. What singles you out, however, is a combination of two very dangerous claims you've made: That the Bible is a literal account, and that it is scientifically verifiable. Claims like these are what obligate you to consider my questions as valid scientific problems which must be addressed, rather than rebellious and annoying technicalities which must be dismissed.

I understand that at this point in your life, you believe that science and the Bible are consistent with each other, and in fact strengthen each other. My last and final question for you is this:

(31) Do you accept the validity of the Bible because you believe it coheres with your previously existing adherence to science? Or do you accept the validity of science because you believe it coheres with your previously existing adherence to the Bible?

In other words, if you haven't already, I think you need to make a decision about whether you would abandon your religious beliefs for science or vise versa, should you find that there is a contradiction between the two. You once told me that everything you believe is in the name of science and reason. This article has been my challenge to that statement. As always, I may be wrong, but I believe that you will not be able to scientifically justify the problems I've provided above. You may of course be able to religiously justify them with responses like "God is all powerful, and with Him all things are possible, so somehow it happened and it is not up to me to question it." But I don't think you would resort to this because it would be hypocritical, and I know enough about you, Hoku, to know that you're not a hypocrite. But somehow, in the instance that I'm right and you cannot provide a scientific answer to my questions, I just can't picture you abandoning your belief in the Bible. It just ain't that simple.

Take care of yourself, and I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks for making me have to think.

With respect and affection,

Your favorite Heathen.

So there you go. Questions? Comments? Complaints? Our technicians are standing by.

-Scotty

terribleone

First I must say... WOW! That is really good and I totally agree with you. I have been wanting to make a list such as this for one of my friends with the same beliefs as your friend's. I highly commend you on a job well done. I found myself trying to defend these points from the Christian perspective and all I could come up with was what you said in the Overview section. Thanks for making me think about this harder as well. Keep up the good work man!

terribleone

Roland

Theoretical Bull

Welcome to the site and excellent post!

In terms of the plants being made before the sun, I think I have a better counter argument than the photosynthesis one. After all, plants can live at least a day without sunlight so they could probably make it through the 24 hour period before the sun arrived. A greater problem, I believe, has to do with the temperature of the planet. With no sun to offer warmth, I imagine that the air at the earth's surface would be close to absolute zero. What plant could live in that? And wouldn't all the oceans and lakes be frozen solid? How is it that in just a few days' time, all the bodies of water are teeming with sea creatures, many of them requiring warm tropical waters? And could Eden exist a mere 3 or 4 days after the sun's appearance? And Adam and Eve be running around naked? I've heard of a Spring Thaw but this is ridiculous.

It is impossible to support Genesis scientifically. One would have to posit divine intervention. So you're friend is wrong in saying that the Creation account can be explained SCIENTIFICALLY.

Vinnie

Posed Answers

1) Before God began the creation, was He the only existing being in the universe? Were there angels and heaven as well, or were they created with/after everything else?

The universe is part of creation. Christian doctrine says God created ex nihilo.

(1a) If they were not created with/after everything else, had heaven and angels existed eternally alongside God? Or is there an entire other creation before the one in Genesis which was not accounted for?

Bible doesn't say. Don't know when and where. Whats the point?

(2) God created daylight before he created the sun, moon or stars. Where did the daylight come from, if not from the sun?

God must have made some form of artificial light until he created the sun. Unless he made the sun already but it simply didn't appear from the earth viewers perspective yet. It did that on day four.

(2a) Most Biblical literalists will maintain that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old. However, some stars are known to be millions of light years away. How long did it take for the light of the stars to reach the earth once they were created? Millions of years, correct? If this were true, wouldn't we still be waiting for the images of the stars to arrive?

Not if the star light was created in transit. God did not do this to deceive us. He made the stars so that we could look up in awe and be reminded of him. What good would they be if we couldn't see them?

(3) God also created trees and vegetation before creating the sun. How did they survive without photosynthesis?

The artificial light source.

(4) In Genesis 1:6-8, God talks about the sky being an expanse between the water below it and the water above it. To what "water above the sky" is Genesis referring?

This is scientifically correct. Earth started covered in oceas (water below) above it we have the atmosphere which would have contained more water vapor then (waters above). The account is given from the perspective of an earthbound observer (see verse 2) between the waters. THis perspective shift is important.

(5) Genesis 1:16 says that God created "two lights" to govern the day and night. But we all know that the moon isn't it's own light at all. It's merely a reflection of the light from the sun. Why would the Bible say something so scientifically inaccurate?

Its phenomenological and anthropomorphic language. One does not have to generate its own "light" internal to be called a light source. Thats what it is, a source of light. Thats implicit.

(6) Genesis 1:17 says that God created the stars and placed them in the sky to give light upon the earth. However, under the best possible conditions, only about 5,000 stars can be seen by the naked eye. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our relatively small galaxy alone, and there are about a hundred billion known galaxies. If the stars were created to light the earth, why do only a tiny fraction out of the trillions of existing stars in the universe do their job?

Other stars serve other purposes. Whats your objection. The Bible is speaking about the stars seen from earth since that is where the oerspective is given from.

(7) Genesis 1:26 says that God made man in His "image and likeness". If man has the same "image and likeness" as God, wouldn't this mean that God has hands, feet, eyes, ears, and genitalia just like mankind?

No. It means patterned after him, with free will, cognitive functions and true power. We are theopomorphic. God is not anthropomorphic.

(7a) If so, why? Has God always looked like this? Is there any particular reason that a god should need these body parts?

God has no known body parts. Trascends physical universe. Comprehensive portait not known. We only have revelation.

(8) Hypothetically: if Genesis were not divinely inspired, but an attempt by primitive societies (with no real knowledge of science or how the universe works) to give explanations for the existence of man, the world, etc., wouldn't it make perfect sense that we would find scientific absurdities, like the ones above, scattered throughout Genesis?

Yes but there are none. Thats the point. Other ancient creation stories (of whic hthere are tons) are all errant. We STRONGLY expect this one to be as well. Since its not its absolute proof of its divine origins.


(9) God told Adam and Eve that they cannot eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If Adam and Eve did not possess the knowledge of good and evil before eating the fruit, how could they know that God was good, and the serpent was evil, which undoubtedly would have been necessary to fully understand why obeying God's order above the serpent's suggestion was the right decision?

One does not need a complete description of something to understand rudimentary knowledge ofi. Far from being a contradiction, the text may simply implicitly assume this.

(9a) Also, why would an omnibenevolent god want mankind not to know the difference between right and wrong?

THe full scale version? To not endure pain, suffering, sickness, death and so on.

(10) Genesis 3:1 has the serpent (or snake) talking to Eve about the Tree of Knowledge. Since snakes do not have vocal cords and are thus incapable of speaking, how would this be scientifically possible?

The devil posessed the snake. Miracles by definition are above natural law.

(11) Genesis 3:7 says that once Adam and Eve ate from the fruit, they realized that they were naked, and hid from God because they felt "shame". If it was inherently wrong for human beings to walk around naked, then why did God create them that way in the first place? Why would He want them to do something that He considered to be wrong?

Babies often go around naked with no shame. Older people (except for cultists) do not do this though. Walk through the mall naked if you think the Bible is wrong here. You have the shame. Why should you feel shame? After all we are born naked? The sense of shame has to be explained and we have a great solution right here!

(12) Genesis 3:8 says that God was "walking" in the Garden, "in the cool of the day". Is the word "walking" used metaphorically or literally?

Angels often represent God. He must have appeared to his children in a tangible, ostensive form they would recognize.

(12a) If it is used metaphorically, isn't it possible that other parts of Genesis are meant to be metaphorical as well? In fact, isn't it possible that the entire account in Genesis is metaphorical?

Neither are emtaphorical though the Bible has lots of metaphors.

(13) Genesis 3:9-13 has God asking questions like "Where are you?", "Is this true?" and "Who told you that you were naked?" Why would an omniscient being need to ask such questions? Wouldn't God already know the answer?

God was throwing out a test to Adam. He of course knew where he was!

(14) If God were all-powerful and all-knowing, and didn't want Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, why wouldn't He simply prevent them from doing so?

He made free will. Being all powerful indicates doiing what is "possible". Round circles = impossible. Free willed beings with not choice is the same.

(14a) If your answer is that God doesn't want to violate our freewill, why in Genesis 3:22-24 did He see to it that Adam and Eve couldn't have access to the other forbidden tree in the Garden, the Tree of Life?

He didn't ant man to live forever since he sinned. THe text states this. Read it.

(15) In Genesis 3:22, God says, "The man has now become like one of us". Who is the "us" to which God is referring? (Note that the words "one of us" is used in virtually every translation of Genesis, ranging from the NIV to the KJV to the ASV, so the use of a plural is apparently not in question among Biblical scholars.)

The trinity or the heavenly host of Angels or God likes to refer to himself in the plural. I do the same.

(16) Adam and Eve had two children, Cain and Abel, one of whom was killed. Genesis 4:17 says that Cain "lay with his wife". Who was Cain's wife and where did she come from?

Adam and Eve lived hundeds and hundreds of years and made lots and lots of babies besides the two recorded. He may have had a ton of potential hotties.

(17) Genesis 5 is devoted entirely to the genealogies of Adam. Everyone mentioned in this chapter lives to be at least 700 years old. How can you scientifically justify this?

There possibly was a supernova eruption which modified our metabolism just at the same time in history God shortened the age span or God did it himself through some means.

(18) Genesis 6:6 says that God saw the wickedness of mankind and "regretted" creating them. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why would he create something that he knew he'd regret later?

It was still the greater good.

Questions on Noah's Ark and a Global Flood

(19) The Ark was to be 450 feet long, (Genesis 6:15), a generally small size considering there are cruiseliners nowadays much larger than this. However, the largest wooden ships ever built have only been 300 feet, and they required diagonal iron strapping for support. And still, the leakage was so bad that they had to be pumped and repaired several times in a year. How could Noah construct a wooden ship, at least one hundred feet longer than any that has been built since, able to withstand fourteen months of some of the harshest weather conditions ever heard of, with no way to pump, repair or dock it?

First Noah may have had lots of help as he may have been wealuth and the ship did not need to sail or propel itself or anything. All it needed to do was float. Also I am sure God would have aided Noah's faithfulness and helped stop leaks.

(20) How could Noah have been able to fit seven pairs of every clean animal on earth, seven pairs of every flying species on earth, and two of every other species on earth (Genesis 7:2-3), into an ark that was only 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high? Consider the following:

This has been worked out by scientists like Morris, Gish, Hovind, et al for years. Hovind muight not be good at filing his taxes, but he knows his science!

(20a) The issue of breeds also arises. Many species have several breeds to them: Horses, dogs, cats, etc. For example, there are 138 pure breeds of domestic canine. If Noah had only two dogs on the ark to represent the canine species, (even if they were different breeds) they would have mated to create a mix of the two, which would have had to mate with it's siblings (eeeeeew!) to spawn more of the same mix, and so on. How could the wide range of animal breeds come about if the only mating option for a particular breed of animal is another of the exact same breed?

A couple different types of dog breeds is all thats required.

(20b) Dinosaurs. There are 300 known species of dinosaur, and counting. Were they all on board? How does scientific creationism fit them into the whole "ark equation"?

Baby dinosaurs. Given humans lives so much longer the animal aging process was probably also slower so baby dinos would stay small the whole duration.

(20c) Microorganisms. Bacteria, viruses, protozoa, etc. Some cannot survive without a living host. Others need not only a living host, but one of a specific species. Did the animals on the Ark (including Noah and his family) have to play host to thousands of microorganisms in order for them to survive the flood?

These things were not mentioned in the account.

(21) Not only must the Ark have been able to fit the animals, but it had to have held enough food (Genesis 6:21) on which they could all survive for about fourteen months. How did Noah and his family see to the special diets and living specifications required for certain species to survive? For example:

Mana from heaven anyone? Feeding 5000 with a few loaves? Water from a rock? Hello. God of the Bible here!

(21a) The fact alone that many predators will only eat meat provides amazing difficulties for Noah. Meat rots extremely rapidly, and eating rotten meat can be fatal in most situations, especially when it has been lying around without refrigeration for a year. How did Noah keep his animals from dying of either starvation or food poisoning?

God made the whole universe. Hamburger and pork chops not a problem.

(22) The mammals alone would produce several metric tons of manure every day. The ark had to have had some sort of advanced waste-disposal system far superior to any we have today, in order to keep the millions of animals aboard from drowning in their own feces. Any animal left for fourteen months to dwell in toxic waste (and yes, it is toxic) will die. How did Noah and his family keep the ark sanitary, and how did they dispose of so much excrement every day?

Millions of animals is a vast overstatement. They presumably worked hard and were given assistance by God.

(23) A few inches of rain a day would be considered a storm. For rain to have covered the entire planet so that the top of the highest mountain (Everest?) was completely submerged by twenty feet (Genesis 7:20) in only forty days, there would have had to be more than 722 feet of rainfall per day all across the entire planet (another extremely long and complicated calculation available upon request). This would be like having hundreds of billions of fire hoses completely covering the entire sky, aiming down on the earth at full blast. Aside from the fact that any ship under these conditions would be torn to shreds and submerged immediately, where did all this water come from? And where did it go? The atmosphere simply couldn't provide the condensation for this to be possible. How do you justify this apparent scientific impossibility?

A water canopy possible. The earth was smoother then. Have you considered that the majority of them and the highest mountains only arose during the flood.

(24) If it were true that every land animal left behind was killed during the flood, we would expect the fossil record to be a chaotic, sporadic mess. Human, dog and horse bones would be mixed right in with dinosaur bones. However, what we do observe is quite the opposite. We have a neatly layered set of strata that appear to be in chronological order, showing the evolutionary development from early, simple creatures up to modern, complex creatures. Why aren't dog skeletons mixed in with Stegosaurus? Why aren't lion skeletons lying next to Woolly Mammoths? Is it possible that they were not all alive (or even killed) at the same time?

Coincidence given the volume of land we have studied verses the larger amount we have not mapped.

(25) Can scientific creationism and flood geology account for the thousands of natural phenomenon in the geological column and fossil records which overwhelmingly indicate an old earth, but would be impossible to create in the span of a one-year flood? For example:

Of course it can.

(26) Anyone who has ever owned a tropical aquarium will tell you how difficult it is to keep marine life alive. Most fish can only live in very specific conditions. Some need cool, fresh water. Some need warm, brackish water. Others need ocean water, and a few need water even saltier. For many known species of fish, it would be impossible to survive under the flood conditions described in Genesis. How could all of the marine life around today have survived such deadly and extreme conditions?

The flood need not have been as intense as you suggested (See above).

(26a) Sensitive underwater plant life such as tropical coral can only survive in shallow water because they require constant exposure to the sun in order to survive. How is it possible that coral and other sensitive marine life like it exist today if they would have undoubtedly been wiped out by a global flood?

See above. You are assuming current topology was the same before the flood.

(27) With nothing but millions of dead bodies, and the slush of soaked soil with hardly any plant life that would have survived the flood (another scientific problem), what would Noah's family and the animals have had to eat once they stepped off the ark? How could they have survived in a barren wasteland? What would the predators have had to hunt? Many, if not most of the animals would have starved to death.

God could have sustained them for a generation. Then the food cycle would kick in.

(28) If you only answered one question of the whole batch, this is the one to which I'd most want to hear your reply: Taking into consideration all of the logical, scientific and mathematical absurdities displayed above, could you concede that it is possible that the story of Noah's Ark and a global flood could be allegorical? And if it's possible that this story is a work of literary symbolism, is it possible that the rest of Genesis could be too?

Maybe there wa a local flood as opposed to a global flood. Genesis 1-11 is all literal history, however.


(29) Genesis 10:5 and 10:20 describe how the different cultures of the world at the time were distinct with their own clans, territories and languages. Yet not too much later, Genesis 11:1 says "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech". Isn't this a blatant contradiction?

Chapter 11 is chronologically erlier than chapter 10 and gives reason for such diversity. The literary features of this book are beautiful. Here we see a nice inverted or hourglass structure i nthe narrative.

(30) In Genesis 11:4, the men of the world began to build a tower that would "reach into the heavens". This apparently worries God, since He believes that anything men plan to do will be possible for them if they speak one language (Genesis 11:6-7). However, today we have translators, people who bilingual, and distinct nations in which almost everyone is capable of speaking the same language. Yet even still we would not be capable of building a tower which reaches "into the heavens". This being the case, would it be accurate to say that God, in this particular passage, was incorrect?

Misunderstanding. They become proud so God scattered them. Its where the saying "pride before the fall" originally came from. The Tower of Babel which archeologists have actually found and dated! Reconstructing whats left convinces experts it was as big as the Sears Tower!

Godless Wonder

Hi, Theoretical Bull,

Welcome, and excellent first post, and BTW, I love your user name, "Theoretical Bull." I picture you barging around in the china shop of Christianity.

I'm in the middle of a similar email exchange with a Christian friend. She's not a YEC though at times I wish she were, easier to debunk.

BTW, one that I like for debunking the young universe is supernova SN1987a, which I didn't see you mention.

The distance to it can be measured independently of the speed of light, and shows that the speed of light has not changed in the last 167000 years since the light from SN1987a was emitted.

Quick google on this and I find: Supernova 1987A Refutes 6000 Year Old Universe

GakuseiDon

Theoretical Bull, read Vinnie's answers carefully. He has just mopped the floor with you, and he isn't even any kind of a creationist!

The only way to combat scientific creationism is through showing that the science is wrong, not unknown. Just posing a list of questions that the Bible doesn't cover is meaningless to the creationist, even though you yourself may think you have them on the back foot on this.

Yes, it makes arguing against scientific creationism difficult, since they don't give specific details all that often, but that is the only way you can show that it is wrong. Most of your questions are either irrelevent to them, or are more theological than scientific, in which case you'll end up arguing theology rather than science. The only real science question you ask seems to be Q25. And I loved Vinnie's answer!

In short, your list of questions won't solve anything, and all you are doing is preaching to the converted. Remove the theology questions (basically anything that could be answered by "God could do it, as He could do anything"), and look only at the science in scientific creationism, if you can find it. Then dialogue from there.

Vinnie

GakuseiDon is corect. If you ask a question about the flood story to Christians who assume the existence of a law defying supernatural entity, anything is posible.

Of course some of my answers are totally bogus and could be cut through but this requires more knowledge of science than the majority of people have (I can hold my own here).

But most importantly, you are not cutting through Christian presuppositions with this. This is what I managed to do oh so masterfully in my ongoing debate with Robertlw. I shifted the onus of "proof" exactly where rationality dictates it should be. There is no escaping my argument through any evasive means whatsoever. Robert is simply ignoring it and arguing circularly at this point.

When harmonizing bible verses Christians tend to think that if they come up with a solution that is "logically possibly" they have dismissed the error//inerrancy is safe. I cut through all this. In the case of ark and flood problems the Christians view on what is "logically possible" is not the same as yours. Since they believe God can essentially perform miracles at will there are no "logical impossibilities" here to them.

The point is not whether they are right or wrong. Young earth Creationism is most certainly false and demonstrably so. The point is will you reach them--which was the goal of this.

Theres not enough water? God could of made it! See the problem with findind impossibilities i nthe flood story? The yare only impossibilities in your worldview. Not in the Christian one and therefore, they will not be inclined to accept them.

What you need to challenge is the standard they use. Why is their hermenuetic valid? Make them substantiate it and mention the fact that you can use it to defend other creation stories. Do so and prove this! One story says humans first climbed their way out of a big vagina. Ask them to prove this story of human origins false!

Also simply undercut any bad science they throw at you (paluxy man prints, dust on the moon, shrinking sun and so on...).

Vinnie

From my thrashing of the doctrine of original sin:

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/originalsin.html

Here are some other "creation legends":

Godless Wonder

Theoretical Bull, if your Christian is of the type who considers the Bible inerrant, then scientific evidence may be of little value. (Although, every Christian is different . . . you never can know what will work and what won't with certainty.) In (many of) their eyes, if the facts contradict that Bible, then it is the facts which must be wrong. If that is the kind of Christian you've got, then the only effective medicine (if there is one) is internal Bible contradictions. You must pit the Bible against itself. If this is the situation you're in, you may find Dennis McKinsey's Biblical Errancy helpful, as this is the assumption he takes, that the Bible believer thinks the Bible trumps all other sources of knowledge.

You must be prepared also for the case that there is simply no convincing some people. If they've got their mind dead set against changing, which is the goal of many a church, whether they admit it or not, then likely you're up against a brick wall. I hope for your sake that this is only a friendly debate with an acquantance and not something more serious, of the type we see around here all too often. Christianity is not peace, but a sword indeed.

spin

Yes, I loved Vinnie's post as well for its amusement value. It is plain that he is clueless about the original text, but very funny anyway. My favourite was his response to 2a.

I should state from the outset that the church assumption of creatio ex nihilo is post-biblical, ie apocryphal, and based on an erroneous translation of Genesis 1:1, which better modern translations remedy: it's not "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . .", but "at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth, the world was without form and void . . .", ie there was a world/cosmos which was without form and void, and God's creation gave form to the world and filled the emptiness.

The firmament is not an empty space: it is a metal-like barrier, the name, raqi`a, is derived from the Hebrew verb to beat or work metal. It is a physical barrier which held the waters above up (and in which doors existed to let the rain, snow and winds through).

The notion that there must have been a source for the light created in Gen 1:3 means that the cosmology underlying the creation is not understood and that a modern idea is foisted onto it. It also totally misunderstands the structure of the creation story.

The creation structure is forshadowed by the world being without form and void. The first three days of creation give form to the world, while the second three days fill the void with inhabitants, for example on day one, light was created and separated from the pre-existent darkness; these two realms were filled on day four with the sun and the moon & stars (just as the sea and sky, given form on day two, were given their inhabitants fish and birds on day five). Light and darkness were part of the form of the world. There was no need for a sun or moon to give them light. They were merely inhabitants.

I don't think there is need to go through and deal with every error on Vinnie's part -- unless someone really and truly needs it. Can we leave it as a nice piece of sophistry?

Yes, God can do anything . . . well, not anything, but most things (he can't create himself, he can't create a being more powerful than himself, he can't create something that existed before himself, he can't die, he can't cut the crap and just create people worthy of worshipping him rather than this pre-season warm-up, etc). Yet would this omniscient all-powerful God do things that are so incoherent as to make the creation look ridiculous, such as the proposed creation of light in transit (hilarious) to explain the light that gets to us from stars that don't exist yet, if the world was created only thousands of years ago . . . Well, perhaps the stars don't exist at all and the wobbling of the lights we call stars doesn't come from planets circling the light-sources and the movement of binary stars such as alpha and proxima centauri is the result of some heavenly industrial light and magic company.

Yeah, sure God can do anything, at the cost of making the cosmos ridiculous. Hey, wait a minute, I get it, these things were created to confuse us mere mortals and let the clueless feel less alone.


spin