Christians: Why is it...?

I call them fence sitters.

There is nothing in the Bible that disinherits evolution. Likewise, there is nothing in the Bible that says that Earth is only 6000 years old.

When God created Earth, He did not reveal to us His method or tools. He only revealed that it was Himself who did the creating.

Likewise when God created humans, He did not reveal His method or tools, only that it was He who did the creating.

Nothing in the Bible prohibits the theory of evolution, the big-bang theory, or any other guess that we humans have made or will make about the origins of the universe and of ourselves.

As for the age of Earth, there are gaps in the telling of creation that are not timed and God's "day" can be anything from a matter of a few entoseconds or less to billions of years.

Once again the small groups of Atheists and Creationists are trying to make us believe that we have to choose between God and humanity's ongoing discovery of God's Creation through Science. This is not true.

Truth cannot contradict Truth. -- Pope Leo XIII

Most Jews and Christians do not take the stories of creation in the Bible literally. We believe the stories included in first 11 chapters of Genesis tell religious truth but not necessarily historical fact.

One of the religious truths is that God created everything and declared all was good.

Catholics can believe in the theories of the big bang or evolution or both or neither.

On August 12, 1950 Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Humani generis:

The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.

Here is the complete encyclical: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encycli...

And here is the Address of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996 speaking of the Theory of Evolution: http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm

Here is an interesting article about Pope John Paul II's opinion in the matter: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm...

The Church supports science in the discovery of God's creation. At this time, the big bang and evolution are the most logical scientific explanations.

As long as we believe that God started the whole thing, both the Bible and responsible modern science can live in harmony.

Here is a nice list of Christian thinkers in science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thi...

The Clergy Letter Project an open letter endorsing the Theory of Evolution signed by over 12,000 clergy from many different Christian denominations: http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evol_sun.h...

I suggest you read "New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy" by Robert J. Spitzer http://www.amazon.com/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Con...

http://www.magisreasonfaith.org/

With love in Christ.

1) What AnswersinGenesis is not telling you is the diamonds they have dated to 55,000 years (along with the coal veins they also like to bang on about) were found next to veins of radioactive material such as uranium. We know it is possible to manufacture C14 by exposing C12 to a radiation source. That means the Creationists' diamond samples were contaminated and they left that fact out when having the diamonds dated... so that can be tossed as the Creationists doing bad science.

2) The moon currently recedes at a rate of about 4 cm per year. Now, it's important to note first off that the rate of lunar recession is constantly increasing, because the farther away from Earth the moon gets, the weaker the Earth's gravitational hold on it. However, I will disregard that to give Creationists the maximum distance possible to see if their claim that the moon would have been touching the Earth 1.5 billion years ago holds up.

4 cm a year = 40 cm a decade = 400 cm a century.

400 cm = 4 meters

4 m a century = 40 m a millennium = 400 m every 10,000 years = 4,000 m every 100,000 years.

4,000 m = 4 kilometers

4 km every 100,000 years = 40 km every million years = 400 km every 10 million years =

4,000 km every 100 million years = 40,000 km every billion years = 60,000 km 1.5 billion years ago.

The moon currently occupies an elliptical orbit of between approximately 354,000 and 405,000 kilometers from the Earth, so the Creationists are flat out lying about this one. Claim #2, discarded.

3) Rubbish. Even if a global flood could account for a reversal of the Earth's magnetic field (and it would not), it could only account for the reversal on a single occasion, or for a series of very rapid reversals over a short interval. The tell-tale markers from these field weakenings and reversals would leave tell-tale evidence in ferrous containing rocks, and should indicate that a period approximately equivalent to the first third of Earth's history elapsed with no weakening or reversals, followed by a sudden rapid reversal of the magnetic poles (or rapid series of reversals), followed by a period of approximately 2/3 of the Earth's history with no reversals. This is not what the geologic evidence reveals. It reveals a series of slow, gradual destabilizations and reversals interspersed throughout the Earth's history. #3, gone.

4) "Soft tissue" is a relative term, and Creationists are misusing it here. What was found inside a few well-preserved fossilized bones was a small amount of plasticky goo containing broken-down, denatured remnants of proteins. It is entirely possible for that organic matter to have been preserved, provided the bone was either fossilized rapidly enough or encased in watertight material (buried in a clay-rich mudslide, for example), regardless of how long it had been sitting around simply because there was nowhere else for it to go and nothing else for it to do except sit trapped inside the fossilized bone. Creationists ignore this because the plausible explanation defeats their attempt to grasp at straws. #4, bunk.

5) I'm a Sociologist, so I know something about demography. This is utter horse$#!+. Population growth isn't a constant process. It's dependent to a great extent on the external environment. Our population has expanded from 2 billion to nearly 7 billion since the 1930s. Using Ken Ham's logic, that growth rate would mean the Earth's population didn't start with 2 people 6,000 years ago. It started with 2 people in 1897. Obviously horse$#!+, so Ken Ham & company are talking our their @$$es. Claim #5 dismissed.

6) Also horse$#!+. Rocks may also deform elastically without irreversable cracking or damage provided the stress load being put on them is below a certain threshold. Mild pressure over great periods of time would account for the type of folding seen in areas such as the Grand Canyon, which is subject to slow, regular geologic upheaval. Only Creationists have trouble explaining why this happens in context of observed geologic processes... largely, I suspect, because being honest enough to do so would seriously hurt their BS case.

So, that's all six claims of AiG dealt with. Any other nonsensical lies of theirs you'd like us to deal with for you?

First of all, evolution and the Big Bang haven't been disproved. That is absurd.

As for the rest of the question:

There are different types of truths contained in the Bible depending on the genre in which a book was written. For example, this is part of the preface to Genesis in my Bible (the New American Bible).

"To make the truths contained in these chapters intelligible to the Israelite people destined to preserve them, they needed to be expressed through elements prevailing among the people at that time. For this reason, the truths themselves must be clearly distinguished from their literary garb."

"Genesis contains many religious teachings of basic importance: the preexistence and transcendence of God, his wisdom and goodness, his power through which all things are made and on which all things depend; the special creation of man in his image and likeness, and of woman from the substance of man; the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman; man's original state of innocence; man's sin of pride and disobedience, its consequences for the protoparents and their prosperity...hope of reconciliation."

While explaining the truths above, historical and scientific truth is not necessarily used. "While we do not view the account of the patriarchs as history in the strict sense, nevertheless certain of the matters recounted from the time of Abraham onward can be placed in the actual historical and social framework of the Near East in the early part of the second millennium B.C.(2000-1500), and documented by non-biblical sources."

The Catholic Church accepts evolution and the Big Bang Theory(which was created by a Catholic priest).

I do not believe that the bible, anywhere, tells us the earth is only 6,000 years old. This is a guess on the part of people who count back the generations in the bible. It is best not to guess at things that the bible does not clearly state.

I agree that, if you believe the bible, you cannot agree with evolution. Unfortunately many Christians never study the bible.

You are so right. Creation and evolution cannot be harmonized.

For one thing, evolution teaches that death was natural from the beginning, while the Bible clearly teaches that death entered this world as a result of sin.

Years and days in the Old Testament become contraversial when taken at face value not simply due to science but due to the meaning of such statements, as well as the existence of possible analogies and such.

If AIG says something, it is probably false.

your web link is flawed, and has no supporting evidence that is actually ... supported.