Expelled Exposed!

Visit the National Center for Science Education's new website (ExpelledExposed.com) for updates on Ben Stein's latest fiasco.

BC (Biblically Correct) Tours

Sometimes it's hard to be biblically correct. But these folks try really hard.

Here are some fun quotes.

Narrator: They say Adam and Eve walked with dinosaurs. And there was no such thing as death, not even meat eating animals, until Eve ate fruit from the tree of knowledge. So, for instance, they say that Tyranosaurus rex with those enormous, ripping teeth was designed to eat vegetables.

BC tour guide (pointing at a T. rex): If this creature was designed to eat meat from the very start, what would he have to do until Adam and Eve sinned and death entered the world?

(Tour Guide answers since none of the kids knew the BC answer): Fast and pray until the fall.

Tour Guide: Is that likely?

Tour Guide (not waiting for a response): The answer is, everyone look at me and say, "no".

Tour guide (since the kids didn't respond satisfactorily): Try that with me: "No".

The kids looked confused by all that. I don't blame them.

But they were no more confused than the BC tour guides.

Narrator: Their time line for their 6000 year history is a little hazy.

BC tour guide: For the flood there was a period there where we believe people lived to be 800, 900 years old, almost 1000 years old.

Narrator: So how long was that? How many generations of 800 year old people did we have?

BC tour guide: Without doing the math, I think there's about 6 or 7 generations.

Narrator: In doing the math that would take about 5600 years during which people lived roughly 800 years.

BC tour guide: So from Adam to Noah, I think it's about 1000 years. I could be wrong about that.

The biblically correct answer is 1656 years. (The ABC folks forgot to figure in when the old guys did all that begatting.)

BC tour guide: Is evolution a religion?

Everyone (more or less) answers together: Yes

BC tour guide (pointing to some fossils): What do you see right here?

BC tour guide (not waiting for a response): You're looking at God's judgment of a sinful world. You're looking at the remains of the flood.

Narrator: Why are human and dinosaur remains not found in the same sedimentary layers?

BC tour guide: Okay, there are several problems for the creationist. There's no doubt about that. And one would be that.

BC tour guide: How do we know that God made birds to be birds?

Everyone all together: It says it in the Bible.

(via Pharyngula)

Evolution Creationist Style: It all happened in 1656 years

In the beginning, God created everything good. No predators, parasites, pathogens, pain, disease, or death for any of God's creatures. Every living thing (except for maybe the plants) lived forever in a vegan paradise that was all "very good."

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. Genesis 1:30-31

But Adam screwed all that up by sinning (or whatever) and God cursed the ground causing thorns and thistles to grow (Genesis 3:17-18), creating the cruel and brutal place that we see today. It went from "very good" to "no country for old men" in just 1656 years.

How do we know this? The Bible tells us so. Here's how.

	Years after the creation of Adam
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son ... and called his name Seth: Genesis 5:3	130
And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos. Genesis 5:6	235
And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan. Genesis 5:9	325
And Cainan lived seventy years and begat Mahalaleel. Genesis 5:12	395
And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared.Genesis 5:15	460
And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch. Genesis 5:18	622
And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: Genesis 5:21	687
And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech. Genesis 5:25	874
And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: Genesis 5:28	1056
And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. Genesis 7:6	1656

Okay, so the flood happened 1656 years after the creation of Adam. But how do we know that creation had completed its transformation (evolution?) from kind and gentle to cruel and brutal by the time of the flood?

Well, again the Bible tells us so.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Genesis 6:11-13

The whole earth "was filled with violence" (God made it that way), so God had to kill everything on earth to make it less violent. Fair is fair.

So nature was "filled with violence" by the time of the flood. The only question is how did it get that way? Did God re-create it immediately after Adam's fall in a second "there will be blood" creation? Of did it evolve naturally without God's involvement in the 1656 years between fall and flood?

Can some Bible believer clarify this for me?

David Snoke's "A Biblical Case for an Old Earth"

David Snoke is a physics professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. His latest book is A Biblical Case for an Old Earth.

Facing the facts

First of all, I must say that I like the way Dr. Snoke is thinking, when he says:

We must face the facts: if the Bible is wrong, utterly wrong, about the history of our origins, then we should dump it. (p.120)

Of course the Bible is wrong, utterly wrong, about the history of our origins (and just about everything else). But Dr. Snoke is reluctant to dump it. His challenge, then, is to try to find a way, any way, to interpret the Bible so that it does not conflict with science.

In many people's eyes, I have probably lost before I begin, because no matter what I argue from the Bible, they will say, "But you have come up with this just because you want the Bible to agree with science." I freely confess to this charge. (p.9)

Saying as little as possible

Snoke's little book is remarkable for how little it says about the history of life or the age of the earth. You'd think that a book about an old earth would say how old it is. But if the author has an opinion on the subject, he doesn't say so in his book. The closest he comes is this:

In this chapter [Chapter 2: The Scientific Case] I have argued that the world looks as though animals and plants have been living and dying for millions of years. (p.43)

From which, I guess, he (sort of) thinks that life on earth is at least several million years old. It seems that Dr. Snoke, like Ann Coulter, is not particularly interested in the details.

Here are just a few questions that he doesn't address:

• How long has life existed on earth?
• How old is the earth?
• How old is the universe?
• Is the fossil record reliable and what does it say?
• How long have humans existed?
• Were all of the species created in the beginning, or did God intervene periodically by creating a bunch of new species while causing others to go extinct?

Old Earth Creationism

Throughout the book, Dr. Snoke makes it clear that although he accepts an old earth, he rejects evolution.

Many people seem to assume that if the earth is as old as science indicates, and animals have lived and died during that time, then evolution must have occurred. Not so! (p.44)

An old-earth view is not synonymous with evolution. (p.193)

...evolution, which I reject... (p.164)

Lord of the Fleas

Dr. Snoke spends two chapters on the important scientific question of whether animals suffered and died before Adam and Eve sinned. Evangelical Christians are divided on this issue. I discussed his views in a previous post (For thy pleasure they were created), so I’ll skip over them here, except to say that he believes that God purposefully designed animals to prey on one another from the very beginning.

God … is not just the way we would like him to be. We may hate the wrath of God, but we cannot say it is illogical to believe in it. What is illogical is to believe in a God who would never harm a flea when we see lots of harmed fleas around us. (p.96)

Utterly wrong non-negotiables

Dr. Snoke admits that he "wants the Bible to agree with science." But he says there are three biblical "nonnegotiables" which science cannot contradict.

1. "Adam was one, real, historical man."
   (Adam was specially created by God just like it says in Genesis. And all humans are descended from him.)

2. "Noah was one, real, historical man."
   (Snoke thinks the flood was local, making biogeography a bit less embarrassing. But he insists "that the flood killed every other person on earth except those on the ark, so that every person today is descended from one of Noah's sons.")

3. "Life in al its diversity was created by sovereign, miraculous acts of God."
   (Evolution did not occur.)

Dumping the Bible

"If the Bible is wrong, utterly wrong, about the history of our origins, then we should dump it.” His non-negotiables are utterly wrong about the history of our origins. I guess it’s time to dump the Bible.