The Missing Links in the Fossil Record

iouae

Well-known member
It may be quite literal to you, but I hope you know that Saul was not hit by the arrows or lightning.

I grabbed a Louis L'Amour novel "Passin' Through" and thought I would type the opening paragraph to see if it passes the literal test...

"Behind me a noose hung empty and before me the land was wild.
I rode a blue horse to the trail's divide and tossed a coin to choose my way. The coin fell left and I turned the roan, but doubt rode my shoulders like an evil thing"

I know exactly what he is saying, but I note how he lapses into non-literal speech in that last line.

And I can see that the story is told out of order. And there is a play on words that behind him (in time) a noose hung empty, but stretched out before him (in space and time) the land is wild.
And part of the story is left untold. I presume he wore that noose, or it was intended for him, but he obviously escaped it.

And the coin did not literally fall left. It fell heads or tails, which decided that he went left.

Why is it that we have no problem with other writing, such as Shakespeare or Louis L'Amour being non literal, but we get our underwear in a wad, whenever the Bible is non literal, or out of order? Do we start questioning if these authors exist if their writing is colourful or allegorical?
 

2003cobra

New member
No, you don't. You have 2nd or 3rd hand accounts written many years afterward.

No, we have the eyewitness account by John.
Mark spent years with eyewitness Peter recording his experiences.
Luke interviewed eyewitnesses.
Peter also wrote a letter himself.
Paul spent time with the brother of Jesus and the other eyewitnesses.
 

2003cobra

New member
I grabbed a Louis L'Amour novel "Passin' Through" and thought I would type the opening paragraph to see if it passes the literal test...

"Behind me a noose hung empty and before me the land was wild.
I rode a blue horse to the trail's divide and tossed a coin to choose my way. The coin fell left and I turned the roan, but doubt rode my shoulders like an evil thing"

I know exactly what he is saying, but I note how he lapses into non-literal speech in that last line.

And I can see that the story is told out of order. And there is a play on words that behind him (in time) a noose hung empty, but stretched out before him (in space and time) the land is wild.
And part of the story is left untold. I presume he wore that noose, or it was intended for him, but he obviously escaped it.

And the coin did not literally fall left. It fell heads or tails, which decided that he went left.

Why is it that we have no problem with other writing, such as Shakespeare or Louis L'Amour being non literal, but we get our underwear in a wad, whenever the Bible is non literal, or out of order? Do we start questioning if these authors exist if their writing is colourful or allegorical?
I am certainly not bothered by the nonliteral.

And plays on words — Adam and Adamah are great examples.

Go a few chapters deeper into Genesis and the entire development of civilization is figuratively told using a few people.
 

iouae

Well-known member
I am certainly not bothered by the nonliteral.

And plays on words — Adam and Adamah are great examples.

Go a few chapters deeper into Genesis and the entire development of civilization is figuratively told using a few people.

In Medieval times one had travelling minstrels who would go around telling stories.
And in ancient Greece, they had Homer with his Iliad and Odysse and all the Greek mythology.

I think that some of the best storytellers of modern time are the evolutionists, palaeontologists and anthropologists. It's amazing how they can take a scrap of skull here and a tooth there and weave a wonderful story around these. Their stories are as good as Louis L'Amours. And its amazing how literally the students hearing these fables take those stories to be.
 

6days

New member
2003cobra said:
Go a few chapters deeper into Genesis and the entire development of civilization is figuratively told using a few people.
Iouae.... I'm not sure what drives you to distort what God's Word clearly says. How do you pick and choose what to believe? Was the Tower of Babel just a so so story? Is the Virgin birth just a so-so story? How about the resurrection? As Jesus asked if you don't believe Moses how can you believe in him?


If the the genealogies between first Adam and Last Adam or allegorical.... you have destroyed the gospel. Atheists seem to understand that making Genesis allegorical destroys the gospel ... so why do you keep trying to distort what Genesis clearly teaches? I understand why atheists encourage Christians not to believe the Bible but I can't understand you and your beliefs
 

2003cobra

New member
Iouae.... I'm not sure what drives you to distort what God's Word clearly says. How do you pick and choose what to believe? Was the Tower of Babel just a so so story? Is the Virgin birth just a so-so story? How about the resurrection? As Jesus asked if you don't believe Moses how can you believe in him?


If the the genealogies between first Adam and Last Adam or allegorical.... you have destroyed the gospel. Atheists seem to understand that making Genesis allegorical destroys the gospel ... so why do you keep trying to distort what Genesis clearly teaches? I understand why atheists encourage Christians not to believe the Bible but I can't understand you and your beliefs

The gospel is not destroyed by the first chapters of Genesis being figurative. Your doomsday, all-or-nothing tactic has no foundation.

Look at Genesis 3 and 4. That text is a figurative telling of the development of society.

* Cain and Abel develop the two methods of providing food: agriculture and animal husbandry.
* Enoch builds the first city and develops urban life.
* Jubal develops music
* Tubal-Cain develops metallurgy (bronze and iron at the same time: compressing the Bronze Age and Iron Age into one lifetime while skipping the copper age!)
* Lamech develops civil law and the right of self defense

This is obviously a synopsis of the development of society rolled into a few hundred years. All the evidence that God has given us in creation shows it is not actual history. And the two creation stories with different methods and orders of creation show us, from the Bible itself, that the first two chapters of Genesis are not to be taken literally.

So we have the stories that Bronze Age farmers and herdsmen could understand. God does not expect you to stay thousands of years in the past, pretending the real world does not exist.

Even the New Testament tells you not to rely on the genealogies. Why do you think Luke and Matthew have different genealogies for Joseph, genealogies that are literally contradictory? Perhaps it is so you will know better than to make the claims that you made in your post. No error in genealogy and no figurative rather than literal early chapter of Genesis can destroy the work of Jesus Christ the Savior. He is much greater than that.
 

6days

New member
2003cobra said:
The gospel is not destroyed by the first chapters of Genesis being figurative
Your low view of Scripture is what has lead to your low view of God. He is not a God who tinkered and experimented and had failures. That low view of God has lead to your mis-understanding or rejection of the Gospel. If first Adam and the geneaologies are figurative, then the cross becomes meaningless. If the geneaologies are fake, then Paul and Luke were duped... and we can keep going through Scripture noticing many authors and Bible characters referring to the people and events in Genesis as true history.


Then, after noticing how the entire Bible is internally consistent with Genesis as history, we can look at the history of the early church fathers discussing the importance of accepting Genesis as literal history.. (Even in scripture we can see Paul making arguments against those who believed in an old earth).


American Atheists understand the significance of historical Adam far better then the Christians who compromise on what the Bible says. They have said "No Adam and Eve means no need for a savior. It also means that the Bible cannot be trusted as a source of unambiguous, literal truth. It is completely unreliable, because it all begins with a myth, and builds on that as a basis. No fall of man means no need for atonement and no need for a redeemer". In an atheist article titled "You know it's a myth; This season celebrate reason"
 

2003cobra

New member
Then, after noticing how the entire Bible is internally consistent with Genesis as history

The first two chapters are not even consistent as history. The first creation story says plants and animals came before man. The second creation story says man was formed before any plants and before animals.


If first Adam and the geneaologies are figurative, then the cross becomes meaningless.

Present your argument for this.
 

iouae

Well-known member
Iouae.... I'm not sure what drives you to distort what God's Word clearly says. How do you pick and choose what to believe? Was the Tower of Babel just a so so story? Is the Virgin birth just a so-so story? How about the resurrection? As Jesus asked if you don't believe Moses how can you believe in him?


If the the genealogies between first Adam and Last Adam or allegorical.... you have destroyed the gospel. Atheists seem to understand that making Genesis allegorical destroys the gospel ... so why do you keep trying to distort what Genesis clearly teaches? I understand why atheists encourage Christians not to believe the Bible but I can't understand you and your beliefs

6days did you notice that it was 2003cobra who wrote what you attribute to me. To me Genesis is literal. There was a tower of Babel, which is probably a mound or tell somewhere now, due to the mud bricks not lasting.

I am a Bible literalist. You need to update your science and update your reading of the Bible and Genesis. If you did, you would acknowledge that Adam never had to live in Jurassic Park.
 

6days

New member
iouae said:
6days did you notice that it was 2003cobra who wrote what you attribute to me.
Yes... I apologize.


iouae said:
There was a tower of Babel, which is probably a mound or tell somewhere now, due to the mud bricks not lasting.
We agree. And, from the description, and from archaeology of that time, it was likely a ziggurat. (Some of these towers still exist). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggurat


iouae said:
You need to update your science
I'm sure that is true. However, when we briefly discussed science a few times, you confused your beliefs about the past with science. Neither of your beliefs, nor mine, are science. However, when your beliefs were challenged by science, your only rebuttal was logical fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum


iouae said:
and update your reading of the Bible and Genesis.
Well....I am pretty old fashioned. I accept the plain meaning of the creation account as did Jesus. Jesus believed and taught that Adam and Eve were from the beginning of creation... the six day account in Genesis 1.


I also trust His Word that...

* He created light before He made the sun and stars

* He made the earth before He made the stars.

* The earth was water first, and dry land came later.

* Flowering plants were made before insects.

* Fruit trees were created before certain other types of plants.

* Man existed before death entered the world.

* "Sea monsters" / whales existed before land animals.

* Plants existed before the sun.

* Birds were created before reptiles
 

iouae

Well-known member
These graphs show the temperature of earth, its CO2 levels and its O2 levels over time.

Marit%20article%202_1.png


Estimated average global temperature changes (red curve), atmospheric concentration of CO2 (ppm: parts per million, blue curve), and oxygen (O2, green curve) in per cent throughout the past 3.9 billion years of Earth’s history. Climate today is in fact colder than the average for much of Earth’s history and the concentration of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 are correspondingly low. (Credit: Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz)

From http://sciencenordic.com/what-makes-climate-change-part-two

With this long term perspective, one sees that we are at a temperature low, a CO2 low and an O2 high period in earths history.

During the age of the dinosaurs, there were 3500 ppm CO2 whereas today there is less than 500. So there was 7 times more CO2 in earths atmosphere, and earth was 10 degrees celsius warmer (50 Fahrenheit). But there were no cows or ruminants around burping and farting methane, so I presume, there were lower methane levels. The conditions looked perfect for cold blooded animals such as reptiles and dinosaurs. It would have only taken a cold snap to wipe them out.
 
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iouae

Well-known member
Modern science is using the latest techniques to unravel past climate.

Having an overview of earth's past climate shows us that the earth was a lot hotter in the past with a lot more CO2. But at those times reptiles ruled.

The question is how would a higher temperature suit humans.

It's fascinating to examine the science which goes into past climate determination.

The following site for example explains how certain types of species/fossils only survive in certain climates, and certain types of rocks are only formed under certain climatic conditions.

https://www.palaeontologyonline.com/articles/2017/patterns-palaeontology-cambrian-environments/
 

iouae

Well-known member
The trouble with YEC is that it is a lie.

And anything one says in defence of an earth being only 6000 years old, also is a lie.

So in any discussion of fossils, or past climate, YEC has to shut up or go into denial.

And YEC like to homeschool, so their kids are never exposed to the truth.

And its such a pity, because the record in the rocks, the Cambrian explosion, and the mammal explosion and the many explosions (adaptive radiations) in the fossil record, where one mass extinction is followed by a creation event of a new biome - all these point to the glory of God.

Christians should be embracing palaeontology, learning palaeontology, enrolling to study palaeontology, and then teaching palaeontology.

And the truth is that the fossil record has evidence of a Creator creating consistently over time, creating suddenly, with new life forms appearing from nowhere. This is the true story which must be told, not the evolutionist's fables.

Biology, anthropology, and palaeontology have been monopolised by atheists and evolutionists because we religious folk ran away and did not confront them with the truth. Instead, we just mumbled our mantra "The earth is just 6000 years old, Genesis says so" while ticking off another bead on our rosary. It's really pathetic.
 

Ktoyou

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
These graphs show the temperature of earth, its CO2 levels and its O2 levels over time.

Marit%20article%202_1.png


Estimated average global temperature changes (red curve), atmospheric concentration of CO2 (ppm: parts per million, blue curve), and oxygen (O2, green curve) in per cent throughout the past 3.9 billion years of Earth’s history. Climate today is in fact colder than the average for much of Earth’s history and the concentration of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 are correspondingly low. (Credit: Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz)

From http://sciencenordic.com/what-makes-climate-change-part-two

With this long term perspective, one sees that we are at a temperature low, a CO2 low and an O2 high period in earths history.

During the age of the dinosaurs, there were 3500 ppm CO2 whereas today there is less than 500. So there was 7 times more CO2 in earths atmosphere, and earth was 10 degrees celsius warmer

Then we need to get the CO2 levels higher because it is far too cold on most of the earth.
 

iouae

Well-known member
Then we need to get the CO2 levels higher because it is far too cold on most of the earth.

From a long time perspective, earth is currently in an interglacial period, meaning we came out of an ice age and are heading back into an ice age, if the pattern continues. The amount of CO2 we humans have produced is minor by comparison with what nature produced in the past where CO2 levels were seven times higher, and earth 50 F warmer.
 

6days

New member
iouae said:
And anything one says in defence of an earth being only 6000 years old, also is a lie....
I would be careful saying things like that Iouae. After all Jesus seemed to defend the truth of Genesis, saying that humanity existed from the beginning of creation... the account found in Genesis 1 where the heavens, and earth and everything in them were created in six days.
iouae said:
Biology, anthropology, and palaeontology have been monopolised by atheists and evolutionists because we religious folk ran away and did not confront them with the truth. Instead, we just mumbled our mantra "The earth is just 6000 years old, Genesis says so" while ticking off another bead on our rosary. It's really pathetic.
For many years, Christians compromised on God's Word thinking they had to somehow fit billions of years into God's Word. About 55 years ago there were only 2 scientists willing to stand on the authority of God's Word, and reject consensus 'science' and evolutionism. Today, there likely are tens of thousands of committed Christian scientists, defending the Gospel through Genesis.... and science. There are now Bible believing scientists in virtually every field of science, and in many countries throughout the world.
EXAMPLES:
Paleontology, Dr. Kurt Wise: "The fact that God created the universe is not a theory—it's true. However, some of the details are not specifically nailed down in Scripture. Some issues—such as creation, a global Flood, and a young age for the earth—are determined by Scripture, so they are not theories. My understanding from Scripture is that the universe is in the order of 6,000 years old. Once that has been determined by Scripture, it is a starting point that we build theories upon. It is within those boundaries that we can construct new theories."

Geology and Biology
, Dr Gary Parker: " ...At first I reacted strongly against the book, using all the evolutionist arguments I knew so well, ...so I resolved to pursue doctoral studies in biology, while also adding a cognate in geology to check out some of the creationist arguments first hand. To my surprise, and eventually to my delight, just about every course I took was full of more and more problems in evolution, and more and more support for the basic points of Biblical creationism outlined in The Genesis Flood and Morris' later book, Scientific Creationism"

Geology, Dr. Andrew Snelling: "Invariably what I discover reveals more of God’s wisdom, awesome power, and His character which loves beauty and order. Yet we also see disease, decay, and death that mar the entire world around us (Romans 8:20–22). These are the result of God’s judgment of man’s rebellion and sin in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:14–19). Fossils, for example, are testimony to the global Flood judgment (Genesis 7:19–24), and the different human languages are a reminder of the dispersion judgment at Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). "

Nuclear Physicist, Dr. Robert Gentry; "According to evolutionary geology, the precambrian granite containing these special halos had crystallized gradually as hot magma slowly cooled over long ages. On the other hand, the radioactivity which produced these special radiohalos had such a fleeting existence that it would have disappeared long before the hot magma had time to cool sufficiently to form solid rock. It was a true enigma. Would I resolve it?....an instantaneous creation of the granite collapses several billion years of earth history to almost nothing… . The billions of years believed necessary for the earth to evolve from some nebulous mass simply evaporate when confronted by such evidence. The essential time element needed for evolution to occur just vanishes;"

Astronomy, Dr. Danny Faulkner: "Were the six days of creation literal days? How old is the world? The answers to these two questions are related. The best exegesis of the creation account of Genesis 1 is that the days were literal (roughly 24-hour) days. Many Christians attempt to find ways to read these days as long periods of time, but I am convinced that these attempts start with the assumption (from science) that the world is very old. This is eisegesis, not exegesis. The chronologies of the Old Testament give us a pretty complete history of mankind, and allow us to roughly date the period of time since the creation week at about 6,000 years."

Anthropology, Dr. Neil Huber: "“I grew up in a climate of believing that everything was very old, that dinosaurs were very old, and that fossils were very old, and so forth. And I learned that, not only at home, but in high school, long before I went to college....Then I suddenly realized that this was clearly inconsistent with my trusting the New Testament, and that troubled me very much.... I began looking at the evidence the Old Testament presents, which is a very consistent view of the trustworthiness of God. Carefully studying the Pentateuch, including Genesis, blessed me with a complete trust in the power and faithfulness of the orthodox, ‘fundamentalist’ interpretation of the Creation account. And in its importance, too. A whole edifice of basic doctrines are founded upon it—the Creation, Adam and Eve, the Fall, the Curse on creation, the Promise of a Saviour, the Flood, marriage, Original Sin, etc. But it contradicts evolutionary theory and also all long-age thinking in general (Romans 5:12). And if Genesis 1–11 is myth, or not reliable history, then Christianity would be (God forbid) bunk, a house of cards.

Genetics, Dr. John Sanford: "There is a desperate need for more creation researchers. The fields are white and ready for harvest, but the workers are very few [John 4]. Although there are thousands of creation-believing scientists and engineers, there is very little original research being done that significantly impacts the creation issue. Mainstream funding patterns, ideological presuppositions, and ideological filters ensure that almost all origins-related research will continue to beat the Darwinian drum. Bright, independently-minded scientists are desperately needed to swim against the current, critically examining all the Darwinian assumptions, and analyzing raw data for themselves. Even as I have found that evolution’s “Primary Axiom” (i.e., mutation plus selection created all higher life functions) is demonstrably false, so there are many other “sacred cows” waiting to be de-throned.
‘I believe the Lord is saying, “Whom shall I send?”
 
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iouae

Well-known member
I would be careful saying things like that Iouae. After all Jesus seemed to defend the truth of Genesis, saying that humanity existed from the beginning of creation... the account found in Genesis 1 where the heavens, and earth and everything in them were created in six days.

For many years, Christians compromised on God's Word thinking they had to somehow fit billions of years into God's Word. About 55 years ago there were only 2 scientists willing to stand on the authority of God's Word, and reject consensus 'science' and evolutionism. Today, there likely are tens of thousands of committed Christian scientists, defending the Gospel through Genesis.... and science. There are now Bible believing scientists in virtually every field of science, and in many countries throughout the world.

6days, while flicking the religious channels on TV, I came across a program called "Awesome Science" by Kyle Justice. I really liked it, but you would have loved it, because it was some YEC explaining the Grand Canyon fossil layers and Yellowstone petrified forests - all created by the Noah flood. I have asked but never managed to get an explanation from you for the arrangement of fossils into the paleontological sequence.

Some precocious 10 year old, who no doubt had been home schooled by his retarded parents, was doing an awesome job of explaining something as complicated as the geological column, how fossils arranged themselves in order of Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary and Quaternary fossil layers. The kid was parroting the lessons his avaricious parents had taught him. Why is it that Mat 10:8 "...freely ye have received, freely give" is universally ignored by Christians of all stripes, including those claiming to take scripture literally? But I digress...

The fossils organised themselves during the flood, with the fish and marine organisms being buried first since they were the lowest, in the ocean...

Bad start precocious kid....
Fish, you may not have noticed, like water, and are most likely to survive a flood. In my book, they would either survive, or be the last to "drown".

Then there was something about the mammals running for the hills, and being buried last. So why did the dinosaurs not do the same? In fact, dinosaurs like water and swamps, and had those long legs and snorkel like necks, like Nessie, and they should have also been buried last since they were the tallest animals and would have still been standing while the smaller mammals were all treading water. These awesome science folks come up with some awesome tales.

Yet, I could imagine you, 6days, lapping this up like a trilobite lapping up detritus in a Cambrian sea.
 
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