Catholics and evolution

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twf << AiG has actually publically critized Kent Hovind. It’s not appropriate to compare the two. He does resort to pseudoscience. >>

All right, they criticise him. I agree Hovind is kinda “out there.” So the respectable young-earthers are AiG, Ken Ham, and company? All right. I’ve read a good amount of material from AiG, listened to some of the archived radio shows, and see them constantly appeal to Genesis as their main argument the earth is young. That’s not science. But I can print out those articles you linked.

On the 2001 PBS special titled “Evolution” – while there were some minor put downs of religion here and there, they did a whole segment with biologist Kenneth Miller of Brown Univ who was the token “orthodox Catholic” and “orthodox Darwinist” which he called himself. Plus the final segment they did an hour or two on Ken Ham and his young-earth group AiG, and interviewed Christian students from various perspectives. So they were quite fair. I recorded the whole thing (8 hours?) over the week it aired. Great program, and indeed there were various responses to it – Discovery Institute (intelligent design folks), Reasons to Believe (old earth creationism), and the articles by AiG (young earthers) all tried to answer it. I saw the show and was impressed myself. It was an overview of the evidence for evolution.

twf << yet organizations like TalkOrigins continue to refute old and archaic forms of creationism >>

Ah, so there are really good “new forms” of creationism at AiG? I have printed out their articles in the past, mainly it is an appeal to Genesis as I mentioned. The science is just an afterthought. The old creationism would be ICR (Institute for Creation Research) I guess, who led the way in the 1970s and 80s (the Morris father and son team).

twf << For example, a while back Scientific American had a frontline article on “Refuting Creationist Nonsense” or something along those lines >>

Yeah, it was kinda brief. Didn’t go into the depth that TalkOrigins does in their articles. Reasons to Believe (Hugh Ross) also made a response. Interesting stuff. I’m open-minded, but honestly there is no scientific evidence the earth is young, and plenty of scientific evidence and reasons the earth is old. For the absolute ages, radiometric dating is used, but there are other techniques that corroborate the dates, all explained here

Age of the Earth FAQs

And one of the best articles on radiometric dating, and other techniques for determining the age of the earth, is by a Christian with a Ph.D. in physics here

Radiometric Dating, a Christian Perspective

If you can read Dalrymple’s book The Age of the Earth (1991) and still think the earth is young, I would be very surprised. Though Dalrymple can be somewhat technical. Dalrymple, though an agnostic himself, seems a very honest fellow, and he is the leading expert on the age of the earth. You’d think he would know if the earth were only 10,000 years old.

You can read the transcripts of his deposition and cross-examination in the 1981-2 "Arkansas Creationist Trial" available online. The star young-earther there was Robert Gentry with his ideas on Polonium Halos, and his transcripts are available as well. Dalrymple and Gentry crossed swords a bit. 👍

Phil P
 
EXCERPT: If science cannot be used to explain things in terms of what it cannot see and test, this doesn’t rule out other disciplines using non-natural explanations (like theology). It just means that science cannot use it as it undercuts the very notion of science.
Actually this notion is false from a Christian and historical perspective. Modern western science came directly out of the Church. It was Christianity that advanced the cause of science and in better days the sophisticated scientist called Theology the Queen of the science. The very western Christina worldview that gave us the sciences believed this and it was what drove them. Objective science not starting with basic world view assumption is a new idea in the history of science. Which the church gave to the world. But the reality it is Atheism 0 0a wrold view that drive and drove Evolutionary theory. Is starts with the assumption that there is no God and everything happened by random chance. Evolutionist science is driven by it’s Religion - Atheism. So it is just as biased as Creation Science. So it does matter who we choose to follow those who start with atheism or those who start with theism. The objectivity of science is a myth. Thankfully the rules of Logic can and do disprove the premise that evolution is a theory that grew out of neutrality.

Mel
 
Kris: Yes, I know. Please see my last post.

Even if you were still teaching biology, chances are your text books would still push dino to bird evolution…text books take years to change. It’s obviously not universal, but according to Scientific American (yes I realize this is a popular science magazine, not a proper journal) a growing number of scientists are doubting this popular model.

Phil P: On another note, what is your view on my theological problems with evolution in my original post on this thread? (Sorry if I missed your answer, if you gave one).
 
Did man come from ape? Well, I have a cousin that I am not too sure about. :hmmm:

First of all, let’s rule out Darwin’s theory. Man did not come from another type of being, especially the monkey, or they would not even be here now after all these years.

But as far as A theory of evolution, no problem. I do not believe the theory of our world evolving is against creation and in fact I think it proves creation. We know from Genesis that God created all that exist. Genesis did not say that God created lions and tigers and bears (oh my), those first animals could have just as well have been dinosaurs and in fact I believe that they were. Whose to say that Adam and Eve were not caveman and cavewoman and in fact I believe they were also.

Contrary to what a lot of Christians believe, I think science supports creation and does not contradict it. We have bones and relics of dinosaurs. That is a fact. So we know that God had to have created them since we know that God was the author of all life. We have bones and relics of those first "cave"men that inherited the earth and there is no denying that.

Even on a more modern take. Spend some time looking at movies and pictures from the 1920’s, and 1930’s or even before and look at the features of the people. They look even different than we do today.

Did we eveolve from some lower form? Nope. Was God the creator of all things including a creation of man in His image and likeness? Yup. Trying to prove science with the Bible or vice-versa is silly in a way. They are both designed with a different purpose. That is like trying to prove the correctness of English with Math. They both are designed for a different purpose.

Wisdom and knowledge are gifts from the Holy Spirit and we need to use them to help us to understand this world that God created and that we live in.

Well that’s my two cents and I am going to go now and try to find a bananna and shave all my hair off my body as I am still tryhing to evolve to where you are. 😃
 
Dr. Colossus:
The term “evolution” must be clarified a little. Darwinian evolution, i.e., every evolution present in nature has occured as a process of trial and error without the intervention or instigation of a Creator, is incompatible with the Catholic Faith. However, evolution in general, as defined as the idea that life has become more complex over time, that single-celled organisms replicated and became multi-celled organisms, and that these multi-celled organisms became more specialized, can be rectified with the account of Genesis.
There is no evidence that life has become more complex over time. Were you there for thousands of years observing this? In fact, recent discoveries in microbiology show that a single cell is the most complicated structure in the universe yet known to man. There are thousands of machines in one single cell carrying on astoundingly complex functions. The DNA molecule, just one facet of a single cell, has more information packed into it than 30 encyclopedic volumes. I’m sorry, life started out from the very beginning as wonderfully complex at its very base. It did not evolve from the simple to the more complex.

Recommend you check out the books “Darwin’s Black Box” by Dr. Michael Behe ( a Catholic from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania) and “Icons of Evolution” by Dr. Jonathan Wells.
 
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PhilVaz:
I wanna see some more book recommendations, especially by those who hate evolution. 😃 What have you people read recently?

Phil P
Oh good, I’m glad you asked. You really need to stop relying on TalkOrigins for all your information – It’s a Usenet forum, for cryin’ out loud! Any idiot can call himself a Ph.D!

Most recent book, “Darwin’s Black Box” by Michael Behe.

(By the way, I read Kenneth Miller’s rebuttal to Behe’s irreducible complexity argument, and it seemed to me he missed the whole point of the argument.)

Take “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown with a grain of salt. Some novel theories, some interesting statements, but some discredited stuff too.

But generally, I read “TJ, the in-depth journal of CREATION”. This is a scientific-journal format magazine. It’s also from Answers in Genesis, but MUCH more scholarly than their lay-level “Creation” magazine. Do the TalkOrigins people mention and rebut the articles in TJ much?
 
Background: I’m a neophyte, having joined the Catholic Church last Easter vigil. I’ve been an evangelical Christian for about 35 years before that, and a young-earth creationist for the majority of that time.

When I first read what the Catechism said about creation during my time of learning about the Church, I too was disappointed that it seemed to lean towards theistic evolution, and I wondered whether I could be a good Catholic and continue holding to a young-earth theory of origins.

This was largely because I too believed the argument that if these early chapters of Genesis aren’t literal, then maybe other parts of the Bible aren’t literal, either. Like the verses about eternal life, heaven and hell, judgement for sin.

However, I just (within the last week) was reading another thread about creation, and realized that the strength of this argument is based on the Protestant notion of Sola Scriptura. They have to take this all-or-nothing is literal stand, because the Bible is all the authority they have (poor dears 🙂 )

But once I realized that Jesus established a Church with authority to interpret the Bible and speak on matters of faith and morals, then it follows that taking one portion of the Bible poetically does not mean that I can personally pick and choose which other verses to take poetically. Where the Tradition and Magisterium has spoken, there is the authority that there is a heaven and hell, and that some things really are sinful.

My belief in those facts is no longer dependent solely (or sola-ly) on whether I choose to take the beginning of Genesis literally or poetically.

That said, I am still a young-earth creationist. I think there’s enough doubt on evolution, and enough science supporting creation, to make it a very viable theory. But the rest of my faith is no longer relying on it.
 
A priest with whom I taught once asked me if I found it difficult to reconcile science and theology. To me, the more you study, the more you have to give credit and glory to God. One of the perks of teaching in a Catholic school is that I get to point to the periodic table and discuss how perfectly it all fits together (my students don’t always appreciate that fact of course!) and know that some greater force had to create a world that works just so. If God chooses to work his creativity within the confines of evolution, wow. The hows of putting together a universe and humans is impressive no matter what method we say God used.
 
Deacon Dan
  • Whose to say that Adam and Eve were not caveman and cavewoman and in fact I believe they were also.*
It might be OK to speculate that Adam and Eve became the first caveman and cavewoman after the Fall, but it would be wrong to try interpret the Genesis creation account to say that God created Adam and Eve as creatures in a world where death was already reigning. To try to make that case, would be to deny basic Catholic doctrine.

** CCC 1008** Death is a consequence of sin. The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin. Even though man’s nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin.

Catholics should avoid like the plague all attempts to read into Genesis an interpretation that asserts that God created Adam and Eve in a world where death was already reigning. The Protestant sources that try to teach “young earth” Creationism or “old earth Creationism” are infested with both bad science and bad theology. These Protestant sources are basically denying the Church’s teaching on original sin.

One should also avoid the scientists that are infested with bad philosophy and bad theology. Many “Darwinists” are really nothing more than materialists in their personal religion. Men like Steven Gould and Carl Sagan will begin a sentence speaking about something that is the providence of science, and then, with out being aware of what they are doing, slip into bad philosophy. These men will make statements about how evolution brought about the emergence of consciousness. Really? How did chemical reactions bring about the emergence of consciousness? How did a bunch of soulless complex chemical reactions “evolve” the knowledge of the natural law?

A pox on both houses.
 
I just typed an elaborate response to all of you, but lost it since I "X"ed out of the page. :mad:

Here’s the recap. It makes no sense to recommend Michael Behe (especially young-earthers like BradW, or those of you who reject evolution), since Behe fully accepts “common descent” or what is called macroevolution (the evolution of plants, animals, and even mankind from the great apes). See Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, page 5. It is a great book, but he is not your typical creationist. He fully accepts the 4.5 billion year old earth and evolution (as pointed out by Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God also), but believes God intervened to create the first cell, or the molecular machines in that cell. These were designed according to Behe, the rest evolved (including man). So he doesn’t throw out all of modern geology and biology like the AnswersInGenesis or TrueOrigin sites, or your typical creationist would.

Second, Wells book Icons of Evolution is very superficial (I haven’t bought it, but flipped through it in the bookstore). Wells specifically got his Ph.D. so he could have some status in his critique of evolution, on orders from the Unification Church (Sun Yong Moon’s group). The documentation is online where he admits this. So he is not very objective. See these detailed critiques:

Icon of Obfuscation

Review of Wells by the NCSE

Finally, TalkOrigins is indeed just an online newsgroup, and the online articles and archives grew out of that newsgroup. But they do have many Ph.D.'s who participate, and the stuff you will find there goes much more in depth than what you find in popular books in the bookstores. I’ll agree some of them are amateurs, like Chris Stassen who is an amateur geochronologist (he’s just thorougly studied the literature), and Richard Wein, who has a mere bachelor’s degree in statistics, who has critiqued Dembski.

I also recommend and enjoy Dembski’s books, what I can understand of them. His Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology is a commentary of his Ph.D. thesis The Design Inference. Great stuff. He has recently co-authored a book with Michael Ruse, the famous evolutionist-philosopher. I’ll note that Dembski also has no problems with “common descent” (macroevolution), that is an “in-house” debate among intelligent design advocates. Dembski argues for intelligent design at a deeper level than simply rejecting evolution wholesale like your typical creationist.

I myself am no biologist, having a bare bachelor’s in Computer Science. 😃

Phil P
 
Matt1618 << Catholics should avoid like the plague all attempts to read into Genesis an interpretation that asserts that God created Adam and Eve in a world where death was already reigning. >>

Then logically, you are forced into the young-earth creationist position. You must believe therefore the earth is around 10,000 years old, and that God created all the separate “kinds” (including man) all at once, with no death possible at creation. This position has been falsified by science and known to be wrong for at least 200 years. Before Darwin, virtually all geologists were creationists, even they knew the earth was very old (by observing the rock formations, the geology of the earth, etc).

Changing Views of the History of the Earth

If there was no animal death before sin, you have to believe God created all “friendly” animals, they became meat-eaters only after the Fall. So the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a plant-eater before the Fall? And all the dinosaurs lived with mankind, and were quite friendly to live with, is that correct? 😃

All the carnivores were herbivores, huh? I know some creationists attempt to defend that, but it is not science (bad biology, bad botany). Now just a second, wouldn’t you also have to argue there was no plant death before the Fall? Nothing can die. No animals, no plants, no bugs, etc. No animal or bug could eat a plant. No animal or bug could eat another bug. And you mean to tell me Adam and Eve couldn’t even cut a plant, step on an ant, or a cockroach before the Fall? Warning: don’t click on that picture if you are eating. 😛 We have a lot of those in Florida. 😃

We learn this stuff in kindergarten

As for the “death before sin” objection, I’ve provided the links before. A couple answers are found below. It is a spiritual death, Adam and Eve did not die physically the moment they sinned. If you have more theological objections, lay them on me, I’ll try to answer. BTW, the theology of “original sin” is based on faith, not science. That the first man and woman had a soul, that’s faith, not science. So I don’t see that as a problem to evolution either.

Animal death before the Fall

Death Before the Fall

There’s also a paper at the Reasons to Believe site (Hugh Ross old-earth creationist) that deals with this…

Phil P
 
Anyone who says that Evolution and the Faith are incompatible is wrong.

I would encourage you to read 279 through 292 in the Catechism.

If I may quote directly from the Catechism: “The question about the origin of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms and the appearnace of man (283).”

Does this mean that there is no religious significance to evolution. No, of course not: “Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins…faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth. (286).”

An excellent short work on this subject is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s “In the Beginning…”: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall. Cardinal Ratzinger is certainly not on anyone’s top ten list of liberal theologians!

Of course, evolution is a favorite topic among Fundementalists. Proving evolution false is a major step in all of their arguments. I think this comes from their basic fallacy of sola scriptura and the need for the Bible to be literally true. I would encourage you not to fall into the trap of agruing evolution. If you do want to venture into that morass I would encourage you to read some good philosophy of science as well as philosophy of relgion books.

I think a better strategy is to ask them why it matters…this will generally lead to a discussion about sola scriptura which will lead to an argument about tradition (the proper starting point).

Just some thougths.
 
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Matt16_18:
The Protestant sources that try to teach “young earth” Creationism … are infested with … bad theology. These Protestant sources are basically denying the Church’s teaching on original sin.
I elided the “old earth Creationism” because I can see how that denies the Church’s teaching on original sin, but I’m curious how you see YEC as denying original sin? YEC does hold (at least everywhere I’ve seen it) to a literal Adam and Eve who were created to not die, with death entering the world as a result of their sin.

Now, many YEC protestants may not see that sin and its affects and remedies the same way the Church does, but I don’t think that necessarily follows from the YEC belief itself.

Could you explain further the connection you see?
 
Here’s the recap. It makes no sense to recommend Michael Behe (especially young-earthers like BradW, or those of you who reject evolution), since Behe fully accepts “common descent” or what is called macroevolution (the evolution of plants, animals, and even mankind from the great apes). See Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, page 5. It is a great book, but he is not your typical creationist. He fully accepts the 4.5 billion year old earth and evolution (as pointed out by Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God also), but believes God intervened to create the first cell, or the molecular machines in that cell. These were designed according to Behe, the rest evolved (including man). So he doesn’t throw out all of modern geology and biology like the AnswersInGenesis or TrueOrigin sites, or your typical creationist would.
Behe page 5 regarding Darwin’s mechanism “I do not believe it explains molecular life”.

I just wanted to add a bit more context.

Mel
 
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PhilVaz:
Here’s the recap. It makes no sense to recommend Michael Behe (especially young-earthers like BradW, or those of you who reject evolution), since Behe fully accepts “common descent” or what is called macroevolution (the evolution of plants, animals, and even mankind from the great apes).
Sure it does. For one thing, he phrases it in terms like “I have no reason to doubt”, “I find the idea…fairly convincing”, “have no particular reason to doubt it”. Thats a good deal less emphatic than fully accepts in boldface. Sounds like he’s leaving room for the possibility that something may change his beliefs at some future time.

Also, even if someone is wrong about one thing, doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything. And questions raised even by someone wrong about something should still have answers. Has someone on TalkOrigins given plausible sequences of evolutionary mutations, each beneficial in itself, that lead to the current state of affairs for the 5 biochemical systems Behe covers?
It is a great book, but he is not your typical creationist.
There are different schools of thought, and “in-house debates”, among creationists. There are old-earth creationists as well. It’s misleading to speak of a “typical creationist”. BTW, Behe makes the same generalization.
believes God intervened to create the first cell, or the molecular machines in that cell. These were designed according to Behe, the rest evolved (including man).
Not quite, as the examples he gives are more than just what was in the “first cell”. It discusses chemical structures and systems in both single- and multi-cellular organisms that arose after the first cell, in and discusses whether they could have come about by natural selection of mutations.
 
You evolutionary people can believe what you want, but there is no way that I will ever believe that I “evolved” from slime crawling out of the mud fifty billion or what ever years ago. When you look at what side of the religious aisle the fanatics of evolution come down on, does it not make you pause? They uphold that there is no God. They use evolution as a tool to disprove God. I know that the Lord works in mysterious ways, but to my way of thinking this would be way to mysterious. The extremes that they go to defend the theory also gives me pause. Look at the deceptive way that evolution was brought into the school system in the first place. The Scoops Monkey trial was entertainment parading as law.

The other thing that amazes me is how evolutionists change their story. Now I now for sure that when I was taught evolution in school it was taught that man descended from apes. You remember the picture of seven or so ape like figures, each successive frame the ape would stand a little bit more erect until at the end we have man. They brought out the evidence for all of this from fossil records but there was a gap. The gap was the missing link. I remember this because some one would get teased about being the missing “link”. Now I find that “no evolutionist believes that man descended from ape”. Why the change? Oh we are not descendants of apes but relatives, apes are my cousins. Well no I didn’t descend form my cousin but we are descendents of our grandparents.

I also find it to be amazing that any one still brings up Nebraska Man as evidence for evolution. An entire species from a pig tooth, amazing! The other fun one is archaeopteryx. Used to show how a bird feather evolved from lizard skin. Momma lizard gave birth to a bird. A prank created by students on their professor.

As to the age of the earth I can’t argue that it is only six thousand years old, pretty young if you ask me. Looking at the mathematical equation for carbon dating leaves a lot of room for error. It is an exponential equation if you are off a little, like just how much carbon was there fifty million years ago compared to today, your end result could be off by a lot. Most age studies are calibrated with tree growth. At least that’s what I remember from Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond.
 
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PhilVaz:
Now just a second, wouldn’t you also have to argue there was no plant death before the Fall? Nothing can die. No animals, no plants, no bugs, etc. No animal or bug could eat a plant. …No animal or bug could eat another bug. And you mean to tell me** Adam and Eve couldn’t even cut a plant,** step on an ant, or a cockroach before the Fall?
Uh, surely you know that eating part of a plant doesn’t kill the plant, right? I’ve never seen the issue directly addressed, but I really doubt any any creationist believes that no individual cell of a multi-cellular organism would ever die.

As for the bugs thing, there is some talk about insects not having “nephesh” life as higher animals do, and thus not really “dieing” either. I’m not certain of the arguments, beyond that is is based on the Hebrew used in Genesis, but again – “Creationism” is not a monolithic field of study.
 
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Benjamin:
You evolutionary people can believe what you want, but there is no way that I will ever believe that I “evolved” from slime crawling out of the mud fifty billion or what ever years ago. When you look at what side of the religious aisle the fanatics of evolution come down on, does it not make you pause? They uphold that there is no God. They use evolution as a tool to disprove God. I know that the Lord works in mysterious ways, but to my way of thinking this would be way to mysterious. The extremes that they go to defend the theory also gives me pause. Look at the deceptive way that evolution was brought into the school system in the first place. The Scoops Monkey trial was entertainment parading as law.

The other thing that amazes me is how evolutionists change their story. Now I now for sure that when I was taught evolution in school it was taught that man descended from apes. You remember the picture of seven or so ape like figures, each successive frame the ape would stand a little bit more erect until at the end we have man. They brought out the evidence for all of this from fossil records but there was a gap. The gap was the missing link. I remember this because some one would get teased about being the missing “link”. Now I find that “no evolutionist believes that man descended from ape”. Why the change? Oh we are not descendants of apes but relatives, apes are my cousins. Well no I didn’t descend form my cousin but we are descendents of our grandparents.

I also find it to be amazing that any one still brings up Nebraska Man as evidence for evolution. An entire species from a pig tooth, amazing! The other fun one is archaeopteryx. Used to show how a bird feather evolved from lizard skin. Momma lizard gave birth to a bird. A prank created by students on their professor.

As to the age of the earth I can’t argue that it is only six thousand years old, pretty young if you ask me. Looking at the mathematical equation for carbon dating leaves a lot of room for error. It is an exponential equation if you are off a little, like just how much carbon was there fifty million years ago compared to today, your end result could be off by a lot. Most age studies are calibrated with tree growth. At least that’s what I remember from Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond.
Amen, Benjamin. Excellent post.

Creationism (not necessarily young earth) should be common sense to the Christian. Evolution is utter nonsense and it militates against Christian common sense and logic. Caving to anti-Christian modern mythology is mere capitulation to humanism. Christians need not be ashamed of the faith of the fathers. And every father, every last one believed that God formed man as a man. Think about it, after thousands of years of human history we discover that God did not make man after all. He made primordial ooze that eventually became an a single cell, then a fish, then a monkey then a man! Man how come no one thought of that before! Evolution: Man making a monkey of himself. God made people seperate from animals. You don’t even need to be a biblical literalist to get that much from the creation account.

You theistic evolutionists are going to have embarassed great grand kids.

Mel
 
First off, good for your BradW! You realized why it is so important for Protestants to take a literal translation of the whole Bible. But thankfully, we Catholics have the Church to help us figure out if something was meant literally, poetically, etc.

Next point I don’t believe anyone else mentioned (if you did my apologies for missing it) is this: Until Darwin’s Theory came along, most Christians did not hold to a young earth theory. Verses in the psalms that refer to God being as old as the stars, naturally led people to think just the opposite.

For Darwin’s theory to be accurate Billions of years were supposed to be needed. So to couteract that, if a young earth could be proved, so could God.

I have looked at both sides extensively. In fact, I used to be a young earth creationist. But the more I looked into it, it seemed to be a question along the lines of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? I am just thankful I belong to a church that says my faith does not have to be proved through science.

God Bless
 
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