Evolution as Inconsistent with the Bible

Faith & Science Conversation
41

Yes! The ever-popular “The lion that wouldn’t eat meat!” Every reader should click on that link to the Creation.com article (while repeating to oneself: “This is not a parody. This is not a prank to make Christians look bad.”) Notice how the owners of the lion went to elaborate lengths to concoct a special diet based on eggs and milk! Notice this excerpt:

The owners of Little Tyke, though apparently not Christians, were so reassured by this that they no longer worried about her refusal to eat meat, and turned their attention instead to refining her ‘vegetarian’3 diet further, learning of new grains to add to the lioness’s food. These numerous grains were ground and stirred together while in the dry state, then cooked and mixed with the milk and eggs.

Yes, it is OBVIOUS that because a lion by the name of Little Tyke managed to survive on an artificial diet prepared by their human owners, Creation.com has managed to sweep away all of the problems pre-fall carnivorous animals would have had subsisting on a vegetarian diet (assuming that somebody was grinding grain for them and mixing milk and egg proteins into it.)

Do I need to mention that milk and eggs don’t come from plants? They are animal products. Did pre-fall carnivores maintain dairy herds and milk them twice per day?

Do I need to mention that cooking the ground grain and vegetation accomplishes what cows have to do by means of multiple stomachs, chewing of cud, and the help of cellulose-digesting bacteria? Are we to assume that pre-fall carnivores cooked their food? Seriously?

With this kind of “logic” being considered at all plausible, I doubt that there is anything I can say that would help to resolve this debate.

Truly. I don’t know what more to say. So I’m done here.

42

Please try to stay cordial. If this is an impossibility as you say, than why would the description of paradise include the lion eating grass with the lamb?
And if physical death isn’t a bad thing, why do we mourn the death of believers, why did Jesus cry at the funeral of Lazarus.

43

Here’s a verse that talks about animals eating greens before the fall:
Genesis 1:29–39: And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.You shall have them for food. And unto every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

44

In conclusion, Christ and the bible make it clear that both senses of death, spiritual and physical are evil, as we see in Christ mourning the physical death of Lazarus, and if this is the case, the OEC view of the pre-fall world is inconsistent with the rest of scripture. With that, I’m done. Thanks for the interesting conversation, I appreciate the cordiality, and leave you with a quote.(though if anyone wants to message me that’s fine.)

Charles Templeton:

‘The grim and inescapable reality is that all life is predicated on death. Every carnivorous creature must kill and devour another creature. It has no option. How could a loving and omnipotent God create such horrors? … Surely it would not be beyond the competence of an omniscient deity to create an animal world that could be sustained and perpetuated without suffering and death.’1

45

The point of the lion article is to point out that not all lions eat meat, not that they ate spaghetti before the fall.

46

Er…doesn’t that refer to the new heaven and the new earth, where the old order of things has passed away?

47

I think Genesis 1:29-30 makes my point a bit more definitely.

48

@Nareus apparently agrees that an all new creation would be necessary to produce a non-carnivorous lion. Either that or he unknowingly posted an excellent counter-argument against his claim.

Of course, most of us assume that the lion laying down with the lamb is poetic imagery. It is a way to describe a very different world. That is probably why it is called a New Heaven and a New Earth.

I’d like to know where the Bible describes the new creation where carnivores got their new teeth and their new anatomy and physiology to free them from their former pre-fall vegetable-diet. This is a great example of how tradition introduces beliefs into the church that are totally absent from the Bible!

I loved the lion story. I’m saving that one. It is such a great example of how Creation.com sweeps away and ignores mountains of scientific evidence by replacing it with a silly story of how humans can use animal products to create meat substitutes. (As long as there was somebody around to milk cows, grind grain, and cook at high temperatures to do what a cow’s stomach would normally do to grass, then a lion can survive without meat. That is just too good.)

I had a friend who was absolutely positive that some Creation.com links he was sent were parody until I showed him that they have thousands of articles every bit as weird.

@Nareus, no real scientist would ever use carbon dating as evidence of millions of years. Carbon-12 has a half-life of less than 6,000 years. It has little value for dating beyond 50,000 and perhaps in some cases 80,000 years old.

However, Carbon-12 is a great way to debunk the idea of a 6,000 year old earth. As are tree rings, varves, ice cores, plate tectonics, better-chosen types of radiometric dating, and many many other methodologies.

Nareus, if you want to promote a young earth creationist view, I would recommend you ignore any mention of Creation.com. They have such a poor reputation for comical pieces like the lion story as well as dishonest quote-mining that people won’t take you seriously if you post their links.

You might want to check into Dr. Todd Wood’s writings. He’s a young earth creationist with a relevant science PhD. He has a good reputation for honesty and for avoiding the silliness of the off-the-rails, makes-no-sense ministries that have become so common today. You won’t find any grass eating lions or “there’s no evidence for evolution” nonsense at his website. I admire him for trying to clean up the bad reputation of YECism and to restore some basic science integrity. People can debate his success but not his integrity, in my opinion. I always mention him whenever someone makes over-generalizations about the pseudo-science and dishonesty of “creation science.” I do think it is possible for someone to be a young earth creationist without ignoring all of the evidence. If all YECs were like Dr. Wood, there would be a lot less silliness in evolution and age of the earth debates.

I hope you find Dr. Wood’s information useful.

1 Like
49

The point of the lion article is to point out that not all lions eat meat, not that they ate spaghetti before the fall.

50

If I get a Creation.com article that accurately shows my views and yours, would you agree to show me how its unreasonable? I’d also like to show you some of their articles dealing with the various dating methods you mentioned. Also in regards to lions eating meat, and not veggies, I believe a lot of things have changed since the fall as all of creation turned toward sin.

51

Could you please supply some examples of where they are incorrect, quotemining and provide context.

52

The only point that the lion story made was that humans can use animal products and extreme heat to do what a bovine digestive system can do. They basically manufacturer “artificial meat” so that a carnivore could survive on it. You chose to post it in a discussion about pre-fall, not-yet-carnivores. You are wise for now retreating from that argument. A lion anecdote in no way addresses the fact that the Bible says nothing about a second creation where God made carnivores or converted previously “abstaining” meat-eaters.

53

Genesis 1:29-39

54

A post was split to a new topic: Please explain the evidence for ancient earth in light of some creationist claims

55

I gotta go offline for a bit, I’ll reply later, bye.

56

There are several good compilations of YEC quote-mining examples on-line. One of the oldest is at TalkOrigins. It is no longer actively maintained so I don’t know if they have many of the latest examples from Creation.com but you should be able to Google for those at other websites.

The old link I have in records is:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html

Creation.com, like AIG and ICR, tends to recycle the classics so you shouldn’t have any difficulty finding that they’ve used many of the same quote-mines listed at TalkOrigins.

I wish such compilations had been around when I needed them most.

57

Just because they may have been wrong (I will look into that) on that does not mean they are wrong on everthing, and in regards to the no relevant PhD thing, most of them have PhDs in biology, science, geology, physics, or paleontology.

58

The pastor of my church in Indonesia liked to cite that scripture as proof that Genesis “got the science right long before modern science”. Plants, as harvesters of the sun’s energy, are indeed the foundation of the entire food chain! No matter what an organism actually eats, whether it be a vegetarian eating leaves, a carnivore eating meat, a parasite consuming blood nutrients, life on earth is built on plants being able to make their own food by mining the energy from the sun!

Yes, the boring caterpillar, the grazing mountain goat, and the prowling lion all depend upon plants for their food! The nutrients in all food come from soil, air, and water—but it takes plants to make them into food.

I’m a bit surprised that you agree with the famous atheist. He presumed to argue with God by saying that he refused to believe that God would ever choose to use death in his divine plan. Yet the Bible tells us that that is exactly what God did.

The Bible also tells us that God’s ways are not our ways and that we can’t presume to second-guess God and tell him how he should have set up the world.

For example, my digestive system seems rather gross to me. And a lot of the things my body produces are rather disgusting and malodorous. (Don’t stand too close to me after I’ve spent a half hour at the gym.) Do you, much like Templeton, think that God made poor choices? Do you think that God was wrong to create my body in such a way that my bodily secretions are often gross and foul smelling? Or do you think that God originally created my body to be “perfect” and everything smelled like roses, but when Adam sinned, there was a new creation (unmentioned in the Bible) when human anatomy (and lion anatomy) was changed so that it would become more disgusting?

Have you ever read Templeton’s autobiography? He and Billy Graham were both Youth for Christ evangelists. But Templeton eventually decided that God should have created things differently and more to Templeton’s liking. So I’m very surprised you cite Templeton as someone you want to agree with and look to for wisdom.

59

Biologos has lots of great articles and even videos which address many of your concerns. They deal with many of the topics Creation.com discusses.