@Rhernandez
Thank you for re-posting!
anyhow…
The Gospel is, of course, THE central teaching of the Bible (which is why your choice of verses mystified my previously). Genesis is also important, however, as it recounts the fall into sin (which made the Gospel necessary in the first place) among other very important things.
In my experience, AIG etc. does a good job of spreading the Gospel. A great deal of the Creation Museum is devoted to walking visitors (literally) through central Christian teachings (particularly sin, and our need for a savior [who has come in Christ Jesus]). [quote=“RHernandez, post:58, topic:36732”]
why are you asking about the K-T boundary and measurement of ages of rocks?
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Perhaps for the same reason you are asking me which of two Bible passages is more central.
What happens when people find out that what AiG and CMI are telling them about the creation isn’t true? If they are willing to lie about science that is relatively easy to check, why should anyone trust them on matters of religion?
You haven’t answered my questions. You are pretending that you are addressing my question about what Jesus Christ teaches us by telling us what Christian churches teach us. They are not the same, so that suggests to me that you don’t find the real teachings of Jesus Christ to be very important. Is that correct?
Before I go on to the flood issues… I should mention that Jesus also talks about a Rich Man, in Hell, having a conversation with Abraham in Heaven. Do you think this conversation actually happened, because Jesus said the words?
Chronology Problems caused by the Flood:
All Dinosaur bones (for animals above a certain threshold) found below the K-T Boundary,
aka K-Pg Boundary (Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary) - - Always.
All large mammal bones found above the K-Pg Boundary - Always.
No large mammal bones found chewed on by meat-eating dinosaurs - Ever.
Large mammals appear in the middle of the upper sedimentary stack, which would imply, if there was a global flood, that cows and horses tread water substantially longer than Brontosaurs or even Marine Reptiles. The actual meaning of these finds is that large mammals appear once giant predators are gone from the scene.
Until the arrival of humans and eventually dogs, Australia mammal diversity was limited to Marsupials. For this to have happened in a flood scenario, a huge array of marsupials would have had to race to Australia ahead of the placental mammals (even faster than the meat-eating placentals) - - followed by an immediate separation of Australia from the African coast, so that no placentals could follow.
Placental mammals were represented by bats on the Australian continent prior to the arrival of humans. The fact that the only placental mammals to make to Australia were either humans in boats or mammals with wings still fits with accepted evolutionary history.
No.[quote=“gbrooks9, post:64, topic:36732”]
Before I go on to the flood issues… I should mention that Jesus also talks about a Rich Man, in Hell, having a conversation with Abraham in Heaven. Do you think this conversation actually happened, because Jesus said the words?
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The Bible also says that that was a parable.[quote=“gbrooks9, post:64, topic:36732”]
How’s this for a beginning, @J.E.S ?
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Good. However, there are a lot of assertions there (just saying, not with intention of shifting the burden of proof).
My issue with AiG is that they spend great lengths on defense mode trying to poke holes. The logic comes across a lot like “EC can’t be true because our theology will be all thrown out of wack”. It also comes across like they believe in a huge conspiracy against them or the bible/Christianity where this whole big theory of evolution was created just to rebut them and discredit the bible. For me, the scientific evidence didn’t really convince me. I changed my views once it became obvious that Genesis is a different type of genre than we thought; namely ancient creation myth giving theological statements, not scientific ones.
Just to be precise, can you tell me when placental bats arrived in Australia?
I think it could actually be an nice point … the one early arrival that breaks the rule was the one that could FLY the gap between the coast and Australia in the middle of the ocean!
The earliest fossil evidence for bats in Australia dates back to 54.6 million years (paper here). This is about the same age as the earliest bat fossil finds on other continents from the webpages I am finding.
If that interests you, then you would be really interested by the Wallace Line, and other lines drawn by other early scientists working with the theory of evolution.
Biogeography is another great piece of evidence for evolution, and the intersection of Asia and Australia is one of the better known examples. East of Wallace’s Line you find Australian species and west of Wallace’s line you find Asian species. This all has to do with the ability of species to cross water, especially in eras where sea levels were much lower.
In fact, this observation is what led Alfred Russel Wallace to propose the theory of evolution, completely independently of Charles Darwin. Mutual friends got wind that both men were going to publish nearly the same theory, so Darwin and Wallace decided to co-author the first paper on evolution and with their conclusions thus was born the first draft of the theory of evolution. This is one of the overlooked pieces of history where it concerns the theory of evolution. The evidence was piling up so quickly for the theory that two scientists who didn’t know each other and who weren’t aware of each other’s work arrived at the same theory at about the same time. IMHO, the reason that Darwin is more prominently associated with the theory is that he fleshed out the theory more than Wallace did, and Darwin was a more prolific and eloquent writer.
Luke 15 says Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and scribes in parables.
But Luke 16, which is where we find the story of the Rich Man talking to Abraham, starts without such a mention - - and he is no longer speaking to the Pharisees:
Luk 16:1
And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.
Later in Luke 16, he derides the Pharisees. And then the tone of his words changes again:
Luke 16:17 quotes Jesus: “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”
And then he begins the story of the Rich Man.
Naturally, I must conclude that the text is a parable… but not because Luke says it was a parable!
Great detail, @T_aquaticus! Excellent bit of detail.
Now, if you said that placental “Wingless Bats” (i.e., mice!) spent that kind of time on Australia, I would have been worried !
Just for detail’s sake, I checked out rodents:
“This is the list of rodents of Australia. Australia has a large number of indigenous rodents, all from the family Muridae. These are presumed to have arrived within the last 4 million years from Asia.”
These footnotes can cloud up a narrative, but it’s important to have the details in hand - - should one need them!
Hey @T_aquaticus, here’s a footnote for your footnote!
The article below (the link you provided me!) mentions that the separation of Australia form Antartica/South America (I mis-spoke when I said it separated from Africa!) was about 38 million years ago!
“… the 38 million year (Myr) separation of Australia from Antarctica/South America”
[Footnote 3: 3. Veevers, J. J. (ed.) Phanerozoic Earth History of Australia (Clarendon, Oxford, 1984).]
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So, ironically, Bats, the one animal that probably could have made it to Australia in the middle of the ocean - - arrived when it was still connected to other land masses!
Either @Christy or @beaglelady pointed out quite a while ago that there are non-flying (non-volant) placental mammal fossils to be found in Australia. But they apparently went extinct before (or because of) the dramatic expansion in marsupial species on the isolated island.
The division of Placentals from Marsupials happened deep in “Dinosaur Time” … but apparently the successful placental species of that time was not geographically situated in a way to exploit Australia the way the Marsupials did!
@T_aquaticus
Of course, for instance, the geologic column which (in whole) does not exist in any one place, and has never been observed in it’s completion; _macro_evolution (better make the distinction again), which has never ever been observed and cannot be tested experimentally; and the never-observed Oort clouds which somehow allow comets to survive the billions of years.
Observable facts? I think not. [quote=“gbrooks9, post:74, topic:36732”]
I believe you have verses mixed up on this point.
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Perhaps it is called a parable in another Gospel…But I do not know. Anyhow, could you re-iterate your point with this?
As @T_aquaticus said, in the post to which you are responding here:
@J.E.S, as for your other points, please remember that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. And absence of direct evidence is most certainly not evidence of absence when indirect evidence is abundant and completely self consistent. The “were you there?” argument is patent nonsense. Stop using it. Just stop.
YECs are quick to insist that if Jesus mentions Adam, or Paul mentions Adam (especially without challenging Adam as he has been taught), then the story of Adam must be historical.
Using this same logic, then Jesus’s very detailed story of the Rich Man having a very long conversation with Abraham in Heaven - - all while the Rich Man is suffering terribly in Hell - - cannot be accepted as anything but historical.
Ridiculous.
No version of the Bible inserts a “this is a parable” text in Luke 16. All of the Bibles have that text in the early part of Luke 15, a context which shifts one or more times by the time we get to the story of the Rich Man.
