Was the world created in 7 days?

[CarlosG]

Where then do you draw your own line between what you believe because of faith… and what you believe because it can be proved (in your own eyes).

Let me preface everything im saying with the fact that I do it all with a charitable heart; my posts tend to be somewhat combative in tone but they are not.

Well, im not sure what you mean by ‘faith’ because it seems to me you are using it in an unbiblical way as it sounds that you are implyingthat we should all become fideists. It seems to me you are asking if I believe anything blindly. It seems to me that you think the apostles, had someone told them Jesus rose from the dead, would automatically believe them? I highly doubt it. They would ask, “well where is he?! Let us see him!” And if they didnt, you think they would have proclaimed it so openly? Let alone lay their lives down for it.

So firstly I would ask you to clarify what you mean by ‘faith’

The mere fact that you try to contain God’s authority to what is possible, and not possible, according to what YOU believe seems contrary to what the Bible central message is- accepting God’s will and Providence above our own.

Sorry but I did nothing of the sort. God contained himself by giving us the world He did and the natural laws He created. God could CERTAINLY have created a young world with the appearance of an old one but this seems contradictory to his nature to try to ’ fool’ us and then use a few passages out of the bible that have no evidence to see if we would believe Him blindly unless you are suggesting we are now worshiping Loki the trickster God. I despise how evangelicals and apparently Catholics use this as the litmus test to see if you are a Christian.

Let me put it as bluntly as I can, the Bible is not wrong in what it has to say, nature is not wrong in what it says, so all thats left is our understanding of them and how and where the two SEEM to contradict given your literal interpretation.

Since you seem to have such a grasp on the rhealm of scientific evidence… please take a moment to explain in scientific terms the concept of heaven and resurrection from the dead. Or, the concept of a soul.

I’m listening…

You seem to think I will fall for your false dichotomy between no natural evidence needed and the needing of natural evidence for EVERYTHING. Science says nothing about IMMATERIAL things such as a soul or supernatural things like the resurrection of the dead. Heaven is not a concept unless maybe you are John Lenon. This has nothing to do with with NATURAL MATERIAL claims, which you seem to think the Bible is making in the first few chapters of Genesis. Those can be tested, not to disprove the Bible, because as you may or may not know the people who developed most of the dating techniques around today were Christians so you can put your vast conspiracy to bed now.

 

[steveandersen]

precisely… but my response was to Tim’s assertion where he stated that because the concept of heaven and resurrection were supernatural, they were outside of science and cannot be debated.

they can’t be debated with naturalistic tools or evidence

The argument made seems like a adolescent, playground game of “you cannot get me inside this square because”… (fill in the blanks with your own example).

I’m not sure what you mean?
Science by definition has limits. It can only deal with observable data. That is not a cop out that is what it is. A cow don’t make ham.

If you want to take a scientific approach to refuting God’s word about Genesis, then take the same litmus test to it ALL.

Once again that is why they call it faith.

Scripture says that the world had a beginning and will progress linearly to an end.
Science tells us the same thing but it tells us the how and when it happened rather than the Who.

 

[carol_marie]

I really should avoid the Evolution threads. Hearing so many Catholics say that we evolved from apes seriously makes me wonder why I ever left the Evangelical Church.

We discount so much of the Bible - to believe it literally is to be thought of as some sort of ignorant fool because it’s so OBVIOUS that science has shown that much of what the Bible claims is ridiculous. I have been told over & over again that Catholics DO NOT take the Bible literally - like the Fundamentalist - it’s symbolic - oh wait… excpet John chapter 6. Then I’m told we need to listen to the Church Fathers - SHAME on those Evangelicals for not paying attention to the Church Fathers - except now our own Church totally ignores what the Church Fathers said about the Creation up until 1950.

To the Southern Baptist who is thinking of becoming Catholic - PLEASE get this issue straight in your mind before you convert. It was a HUGE red flag in my conversion process and it’s never gone away - it just gets worse. I was told that I was free to believe the Creation account just as it’s written in the Bible. That’s true - except that almost no one else believes that including apparently our Pope.

 

[VociMike]

Because with one your an ape, and slowly over time your now some how man. The point at which you became man is kinda … fuzzy. No pun intended.

The other your clay, God breaths life in you and your man with a spirit.

It’s not fuzzy at all. At one moment the ape/man has no human soul, so he’s not a human being. The next moment he does and he is. Nobody argues that the human soul evolved.

I’m sure there were loads of bacteria in the dust-man of Genesis, but nobody says the point at which that life became human life is fuzzy.

Honestly, I don’t care if God used dust to create us, or dust-bacteria-mice-apes to create us. But I think we head down a disasterous road (one that Fundamentalist Christianity has gone down full speed, to its great harm) if we deny actual scientific evidence. If even we Christians think that faith and science are incompatible, how can we ever hope to convert the secular world?

 

[VociMike]

I really should avoid the Evolution threads. Hearing so many Catholics say that we evolved from monkies seriously makes me wonder why I ever left the Evangelical Church.

The problem comes when we believe our faith requires that we believe that God engaged in a vast and elaborate scientific deception to disguise the origins of the universe, life and human beings. That we must choose between faith on the one hand, and cosmology, physics, chemistry, biology, paleontology and anthropology on the other hand.

 

[carol_marie]

Honestly, I don’t care if God used dust to create us, or dust-bacteria-mice-apes to create us. But I think we head down a disasterous road (one that Fundamentalist Christianity has gone down full speed, to its great harm) if we deny actual scientific evidence. If even we Christians think that faith and science are incompatible, how can we ever hope to convert the secular world?

Ok - so the secular world is with you on creation - Big Bang theory - slimy organism crawling out of the muck eventually becomes Ape becomes man over billions of years.

Yep - they agree with you. Actually, you agree with them.

So what? Do you really think now the secular world is going to believe Jesus fed 5,000 with a couple loaves & fish? Will they believe he walked on water? He died on a cross, was dead for 3 days and rose again? That it’s ACTUALLY Jesus Christ in a cracker? Where is your scientific proof? The secular world will demand scientific evidence - just like they demand scientific evidence for creation.

 

[LJN21]

It’s not fuzzy at all. At one moment the ape/man has no human soul, so he’s not a human being. The next moment he does and he is. Nobody argues that the human soul evolved.

I’m sure there were loads of bacteria in the dust-man of Genesis, but nobody says the point at which that life became human life is fuzzy.

Honestly, I don’t care if God used dust to create us, or dust-bacteria-mice-apes to create us. But I think we head down a disasterous road (one that Fundamentalist Christianity has gone down full speed, to its great harm) if we deny actual scientific evidence. If even we Christians think that faith and science are incompatible, how can we ever hope to convert the secular world?

I agree that we can’t deny scienctic evendace. Nor do I think science and faith are incompatible. I also think there are a lot of huge gaping holes in evolution that some people as Christians tend to ignore so they can “fit in” in Science.

TEN MAJOR FLAWS OF EVOLUTION - REVISED
by Randy Alcorn (with additional editing by Jim Darnall). I wrote the following article many years ago, but it needed to be thoroughly revised and updated. Thanks to Jim Darnall for adding some important new information.

1. The complexity of living systems could never evolve by chance—they had to be designed and created. A system that is irreducibly complex has precise components working together to perform the basic function of the system. (A mousetrap is a simple example.) If any part of that system were missing, the system would cease to function. Gradual additions could not account for the origin of such a system. It would have to come together fully formed and integrated. Many living systems exhibit this (vision, blood-clotting, etc.). When you look at a watch, you assume there was a watchmaker. A watch is too complex to “happen” by chance. Yet such living systems are almost infinitely more complex than a watch. They could not be random—they simply had to be designed and created.
2. The high information content of DNA could only have come from intelligence. Information science teaches that in all known cases, complex information requires an intelligent message sender. This is at the core of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). DNA is by far the most compact information storage/retrieval system known. A pinhead of DNA has a billion times more information capacity than a 4-gigabit hard drive. Ironically, evolutionists scan the heavens using massive radio telescopes hoping for relatively simple signal patterns that might have originated in outer space, all the while ignoring the incredibly complex evidence of superior intelligence built into every human’s DNA. While we’re waiting to hear signs of intelligence behind interstellar communication, we’re ignoring those built into us.
3. No mutation that increases genetic information has ever been discovered. Mutations which increase genetic information would be the raw material necessary for evolution. To get from “amoeba” to “man” would require a massive net increase in information. There are many examples of supposed evolution given by proponents. Variation within a species (finch beak, for example), bacteria which acquire antibiotic resistance, people born with an extra chromosome, etc. However, none of the examples demonstrate the development of new information. Instead, they demonstrate either preprogrammed variation, multiple copies of existing information, or even loss of information (natural selection and adaptation involve loss of information). The total lack of any such evidence refutes evolutionary theory.
4. Evolution flies directly in the face of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. This law of physics states that all systems, whether open or closed, have a tendency to disorder (or “the least energetic state”). There are some special cases where local order can increase, but this is at the expense of greater disorder elsewhere. Raw energy cannot generate the complex systems in living things, or the information required to build them. Undirected energy just speeds up destruction. Yet, evolution is a building-up process, suggesting that things tend to become more complex and advanced over time. This is directly opposed to the law of entropy.

(cont…)

 

[LJN21]

1. There is a total lack of undisputed examples (fossilized or living) of the millions of transitional forms (“missing links”) required for evolution to be true. Evolution does not require a single missing link, but innumerable ones. We should be surrounded by a zoo of transitional forms that cannot be categorized as one particular life form. But we don’t see this—there are different kinds of dogs, but all are clearly dogs. The fossils show different sizes of horses, but all are clearly horses. None is on the verge of being some other life form. The fossil record shows complex fossilized life suddenly appearing, and there are major gaps between the fossilized “kinds.” Darwin acknowledged that if his theory were true, it would require millions of transitional forms. He believed they would be found in fossil records. They haven’t been.
2. Pictures of ape-to-human “missing links” are extremely subjective and based on evolutionists’ already-formed assumptions. Often they are simply contrived. The series of pictures or models that show progressive development from a little monkey to modern man are an insult to scientific research. These are often based on fragmentary remains that can be “reconstructed” a hundred different ways. The fact is, many supposed “ape-men” are very clearly apes. Evolutionists now admit that other so-called “ape-men” would be able to have children by modern humans, which makes them the same species as humans. The main species said to bridge this gap, Homo habilis, is thought by many to be a mixture of ape and human fossils. In other words, the “missing link” (in reality there would have to be millions of them) is still missing. The body hair and the blank expressions of sub-humans in these models doesn’t come from the bones, but the assumptions of the artist. Virtually nothing can be determined about hair and the look in someone’s eyes based on a few old bones.
3. The dating methods that evolutionists rely upon to assign millions and billions of years to rocks are very inconsistent and based on unproven (and questionable) assumptions. Dating methods that use radioactive decay to determine age assume that radioactive decay rates have always been constant. Yet, research has shown that decay rates can change according to the chemical environment of the material being tested. In fact, decay rates have been increased in the laboratory by a factor of a billion. All such dating methods also assume a closed system—that no isotopes were gained or lost by the rock since it formed. It’s common knowledge that hydrothermal waters, at temperatures of only a few hundred degrees Centigrade, can create an open system where chemicals move easily from one rock system to another. In fact, this process is one of the excuses used by evolutionists to reject dates that don’t fit their expectations. What’s not commonly known is that the majority of dates are not even consistent for the same rock. Furthermore, 20th century lava flows often register dates in the millions to billions of years. There are many different ways of dating the earth, and many of them point to an earth much too young for evolution to have had a chance. All age-dating methods rely on unprovable assumptions.
4. Uses continue to be found for supposedly “leftover” body structures. Evolutionists point to useless and vestigial (leftover) body structures as evidence of evolution. However, it’s impossible to prove that an organ is useless, because there’s always the possibility that a use may be discovered in the future. That’s been the case for over 100 supposedly useless organs which are now known to be essential. Scientists continue to discover uses for such organs. It’s worth noting that even if an organ were no longer needed (e.g., eyes of blind creatures in caves), it would prove devolution not evolution. The evolutionary hypothesis needs to find examples of developing organs—those that are increasing in complexity.
5. Evolution is said to have begun by spontaneous generation—a concept ridiculed by biology. When I was a sophomore in high school, and a brand new Christian, my biology class spent the first semester discussing how ignorant people used to believe that garbage gave rise to rats, and raw meat produced maggots. This now disproven concept was called “spontaneous generation.” Louis Pasteur proved that life only comes from life—this is the law of biogenesis. The next semester we studied evolution, where we learned that the first living cell came from a freak combination of nonliving material (where that nonliving material came from we were not told). “Chemical Evolution” is just another way of saying “spontaneous generation”—life comes from nonlife. Evolution is therefore built on a fallacy science long ago proved to be impossible.

(cont…)

 

[LJN21]

1. Evolutionists admit that the chances of evolutionary progress are extremely low. Yet, they believe that given enough time, the apparently impossible becomes possible. If I flip a coin, I have a 50/50 chance of getting heads. To get five “heads” in a row is unlikely but possible. If I flipped the coin long enough, I would eventually get five in a row. If I flipped it for years nonstop, I might get 50 or even 100 in a row. But this is only because getting heads is an inherent possibility. What are the chances of me flipping a coin, and then seeing it sprout arms and legs, and go sit in a corner and read a magazine? No chance. Given billions of years, the chances would never increase. Great periods of time make the possible likely but never make the impossible possible. No matter how long it’s given, non-life will not become alive.

The scientific method can only test existing data—it cannot draw conclusions about origins. Micro-evolution, changes within a species on a small scale, is observable. But evidence for macro-evolution, changes transcending species, is conspicuous by its absence. To prove the possibility of anything, science must be able to reproduce exact original conditions. Even when it proves something is possible, it doesn’t mean it therefore happened. Since no man was there to record or even witness the beginning, conclusions must be made only on the basis of interpreting presently available information. If I put on rose-colored glasses, I will always see red. I accept the Bible’s teaching on creation, and see the evidence as being consistently supportive of that belief. When dealing with origins, everyone who believes anything does so by faith, whether faith in God, the Bible, himself, modern science, or the dependability of his own subjective interpretations of existing data. I would rather put my faith in God’s revealed Word.

 

[carol_marie]

. That we must choose between faith on the one hand, and cosmology, physics, chemistry, biology, paleontology and anthropology on the other hand.

Does physics, chemistry and biology allow me to believe that it’s actually JESUS CHRIST in a cracker?

 

[Orogeny]

Not much new there, LJN21.

talkorigins.org/indexcc/

Peace

Tim

 

[Orogeny]

Does physics, chemistry and biology allow me to believe that it’s actually JESUS CHRIST in a cracker?

Of course they do! They are fields of study, not some omnipotent being that sets rules.

I can give you some direct evidence that one can accept the findings of those disciplines and also accept that it is Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

Peace

Tim

 

[VociMike]

Ok - so the secular world is with you on creation - Big Bang theory - slimy organism crawling out of the muck eventually becomes Ape becomes man over billions of years.

Yep - they agree with you. Actually, you agree with them.

Well, I agree with them that it is possible to make accurate statements about the physical world using the methods of science. Do you think this is correct or incorrect?

So what? Do you really think now the secular world is going to believe Jesus fed 5,000 with a couple loaves & fish? Will they believe he walked on water? He died on a cross, was dead for 3 days and rose again? That it’s ACTUALLY Jesus Christ in a cracker? Where is your scientific proof? The secular world will demand scientific evidence - just like they demand scientific evidence for creation.

You are mistaking my objection. My objection is that where there is vast scientific evidence spanning many scientific disciplines, then if we refuse to believe that evidence we must believe that God has engaged in a vast and elaborate deception. Please address that point.

Since there is no scientific “counter” evidence to the miracles you cite (miracles which as a Catholic I believe, let’s be clear on that), then the miracles you cite are simply not relevant to my point.

 

[JamesBraganza]

Hello to everyone,

   Here are my views regarding the Six day creation:

   I believe God created all things in 6 days literally
   there is a day and night that God made, as we see 
   it today. God call that one cycle 1day. From nothing
   God can create anything. God created time that is our
   time, God dwells from eternity to eternity. God's time is 
   eternity. It was written during "creation"that the time of ours
   started that is why it says God calls the light Day and the
   Darkness Night ( Gen 1: 5 ) God was measuring the time
   base on day and evening as we see today. God really
   created us in just Six days of our measure.

 

[VociMike]

Does physics, chemistry and biology allow me to believe that it’s actually JESUS CHRIST in a cracker?

Physics, chemistry and biology have absolutely nothing to say about the innermost substance, the deepest reality of the host. There is a point at which science simply cannot see any further. So again, your objection is not equivalent to my objection. I am not arguing against miracles or the supernatural. I am arguing against faith that requires one to reject outright the proven fruits of human intellect (a God-given intellect, BTW, in His own image and likeness).

And don’t take that to mean I think e.g. evolution is “proven”, but what I do think is that the totality of scientific evidence points to a creation story far different in factual details, but not in truth, from that told in Genesis. And since Catholicism is not Fundamentalism, it must be able to reconcile faith and true (not agenda-manipulated, but objective) science.

 

[LJN21]

Physics, chemistry and biology have absolutely nothing to say about the innermost substance, the deepest reality of the host. There is a point at which science simply cannot see any further. So again, your objection is not equivalent to my objection. I am not arguing against miracles or the supernatural. I am arguing against faith that requires one to reject outright the proven fruits of human intellect.

I’m not sure how I see how her example is that much different. It looks like a cracker it smells like a cracker it much be a cracker!

You don’t have other scientist trying to convince you its really a cracker tho. Actually there are a lot of other forces wanting you to believe its just a cracker … and you know what 70% of Catholics do think that. Does that mean they are right?

Scientifically its just a cracker, the reason we know its not is our faith. The same faith some are so eager to toss out the window when it comes to creation.

 

[carol_marie]

Physics, chemistry and biology have absolutely nothing to say about the innermost substance, the deepest reality of the host. .

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought as Catholics we are to believe that the cracker & the wine are no longer cracker & wine - they are Jesus. (Lutherans believe it is both - Jesus & cracker) but I thought as Catholics we don’t believe it’s both - only Jesus - I thought that was the difference between con & trans.

I got this from the CA Library:

Wherever a priest, in the name of Christ, pronounces the sacramental Consecration,** the substance of the bread and the substance of the wine are changed into the substance of Christ’s body and the substance of Christ’s blood.**

So if we had to take into account all that we know of science, how could we ever say that it’s no longer a cracker? Scientifically of course it’s a cracker - just a cracker - just wine. Scientifically the substance hasn’t changed at all - relying on human intellect alone would never allow for us to say otherwise.

But at some point don’t we say, I don’t care what science says, I KNOW it is Jesus? Likewise, can’t the same be said of Creation - scientific evidence or not?

 

[carol_marie]

Hello to everyone,

Here are my views regarding the Six day creation:

I believe God created all things in 6 days literally
there is a day and night that God made, as we see
it today. God call that one cycle 1day. From nothing
God can create anything. God created time that is our
time, God dwells from eternity to eternity. God’s time is
eternity. It was written during "creation"that the time of ours
started that is why it says God calls the light Day and the
Darkness Night ( Gen 1: 5 ) God was measuring the time
base on day and evening as we see today. God really
created us in just Six days of our measure.

Thank you for posting your views James - and welcome to the forums.

 

[VociMike]

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought as Catholics we are to believe that the cracker & the wine are no longer cracker & wine - they are Jesus. (Lutherans believe it is both - Jesus & cracker) but I thought as Catholics we don’t believe it’s both - only Jesus - I thought that was the difference between con & trans.

This is correct.

So if we had to take into account all that we know of science, how could we ever say that it’s no longer a cracker? Scientifically of course it’s a cracker - just a cracker - just wine.

This is also correct. But science doesn’t claim to know what matter is made up of. If science examined a consecrated host they would find “regular” molecules and atoms and subatomic particles, but then their ability to observe ceases. Science does not claim to know what is underlying matter, so there is no conflict in saying that science says it is bread and wine, and faith says it is Jesus. Let me say this again - there is no conflict in what science says about the bread and wine, and what faith says about the bread and wine, because they are addressing two different realms of reality (accidents vs. substance in the usual terminology)

But this is not the case with the origins of the universe and life. Here for example, science says that creation took trillions of days, and Genesis says creation took six days. Now there is no accidents vs. substance distinction, now there is days vs. days, and if one insists that both days are literal, then either science is grotesquely wrong, or God has deceived us.

The Eucharist has no conflict because it is apples vs. oranges, but the creation account, if read literally, has a conflict because it is apples vs. apples.

There really are only three choices.

1. Science is flagrantly wrong.
2. God has created an elaborate deception.
3. The truth contained in Genesis is not historical and scientific truth, but another kind of truth.

I go with #3, and I am not in any way in oppositon to the Church in so doing.

 

[carol_marie]

1. Science is flagrantly wrong.

.

Given those choices, I’m going with #1

If I am to believe that it is God’s Word - that everything contained in the Bible is TRUE - when God says he formed man out of the dust I have to believe Him.

On one hand I have God’s own Word.

On the other hand I have scientists - most of whom are atheists.

I cannot reconcile the two - so I’m going with God.