Terri ponders evolution today, and I love it!
If humans evolved from primates, was it because of a physical advantage–standing upright, opposable thumbs, stronger immune system–or a mental advantage? For instance, let’s say that a primate evolved opposable thumbs, maybe even a more upright stance, all at the same time. While certainly being physically advantageous, how would that translate into intelligence? Maybe they would survive more easily on a daily basis, but would that lead to them being smarter? Would it lead to them developing concepts about their world and universe which had no immediate impact on their lives, environment, or survival? So, instead of wondering how they would catch their next meal or find shelter in inclement weather they would need to be able to plan how they could grow their own food, make tools, build their own shelters, or keep peace in their social group.
From my Christian perspective, this is what I think is meant by “being made in the image of God.”
What separates humans from animals is not only a biological advantage, but the agility and ability of the human mind. It is safe to say that humans are the most advanced species on the planet. Why is that? If evolution and natural selection are always at work, why is there only one species on the planet that has achieved the same status as humans? Shouldn’t each species be continually improving and getting “smarter” if intelligence is so important to the survival and dominance of a species? Shouldn’t there be more than one intelligent, enlightened species after all these billions and millions of years?
This is, of course, only one of Terri’s points, but it’s the one that stood out to me the most. It fits right in with the kind of logic that I’ve been reading about in Letters from a Skeptic. These are questions that I’ve never seen adequately answered before.
I honestly don’t know where I stand regarding Creation vs. Evolution. I’ve fought hard, in the past, on behalf of Creation. (Let me clarify that “Creation” the way I’m using it here refers to the literal 6-day account of Creation given in Genesis). But now? I have to say I don’t know how it happened. 6 days? 6 billion years? I don’t know. Does it really matter? What I do know is that however long it took, God was in charge of it. Beyond that, I’m not sure I need to know.
And fighting about it is just…silly. Arguing over what God did and how he did it is pretty pointless.
It is safe to say that humans are the most advanced species on the planet.
This is by far the most common misperception about evolution that there is. It is the sheer presumption that we are more advanced, as if there is an end goal somewhere. There is no end goal of super intelligence. The only goal of an evolutionary process is to multiply by dominating resources. This can be achieved by having good smarts, having insane reproductive abilities, having limbs that are well adapted to certain environments, having superior strength, etc etc. Or any combination.
We are one of the most successful species on the planet in our environment. For example, how are successful are we in an underwater environment? In a microscopic environment? In an arctic environment? not at all. We no not exist at all in these environments. All the intellect in the world, opposable thumbs and so forth would still not make us successful as a species in these environments.
So when someone who is unfamiliar with evolution says something to the effect of ‘humans are the most advanced species’, I know they have not bothered to understand evolution to any significant degree. Jellyfish in the atlantic are more ‘advanced’ for that environment than we are.
As for land animals, we are supremely successful (but not as successful as cockroaches, who do not have our mental abilities), but once again, I see another common misunderstanding. This is not the end of evolution. We are more successful now, and its totally true that we may be the only animals on the planet with our mental abilities, but to claim “that’s it!” presumes no change for the next 100 million years. We didnt get here overnight, it took millions and millions of years. Two great apes didnt get together and squirt out a homo sapien.
Something amazing did happen, most definitely, somewhere between great ape and homo sapien, a pair of chromosome combined (I learned this last night). It could very well happen again, to another species (but what are the chances?). The reason that creationist have such incredulity about the chances of change in an evolutionary process is the same reason that this process takes so long. The entire recorded history of man is but a blip on the evolutionary timescale.
BTW, tons of animals and insects do make tools and shelters to survive. They also plan their hunts and gathering activities. None of these items separate us from animals.
The part most often forgotten (or never understood) about evolution is that it is a cumulative process. Creationists love to use the bomb in a junkyard, or other such nonsense, to describe evolution (and therefore getting it completely wrong). The reality is that its slow, its works on geological time scales, but it is there. Each tiny minor advantage, or neutral trait, gets added to the millions of other traits that have been accumulated so slowly over time, they are almost imperceptible (another reason for creationist incredulity). You have to be able to look at differences over huge time scales to see it at all. This is how we find transitional fossils.
It does matter that we all learn and understand evolution. In particular the difference between the evolution as an observable fact (that things change) and evolution as a theory (the explanation as to why things change). It matters if we want to have a society that values and uses data and evidence to push society forward or if we want to just cast all that off and choose the equivalent of astrology to guide our actions and reactions. I choose data.
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What I do know is that however long it took, God was in charge of it
And this is where the big problem is. You can’t know that. Even if you are right and God exists, you still can’t know that because there is no evidence for that. For all you know it was God’s uncle who did it. Or a different God. Or it happened despite God, where he wasn’t in charge of it at all. As I understand it, all the observable evidence you have is that God can heal, this says nothing about his ability/desire/willingness to create life. Doctors can heal also, this does not make them gods (although some may think so!)
Science doesn’t make any claims about the supernatural. so if you want to say God made the big bang, well, thats your perogative. Or god made the first protein. Or god put in place the physics that allows organic chemical reactions, well OK. Its a supernatural phenomenon and science doesnt say you are wrong, but all you are doing in invoking God of the Gaps.
All your book says is that God created light and dark (without any sources for light BTW as the sun and stars were created a few days later, after the plants that need it), man, animals, and women were created (or is it man, woman, animals? or is it animals, man and woman? the bible can’t make up its mind), and so forth. The reason why it matters is that these kind of stories need to be taken just like that, as stories, metaphors and moral anecdotes (well at least the ones that actually contain useful morality).
All those smarts terri talks about are not useful if we can’t progress past our childhood stories. Our societal advancement comes so slowly due to this very clinginess.
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I agree with you. Who really cares? I’m not a historian or a scientist. I think why we are here matters less than what we are going to do now that we *are* here.
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And fighting about it is just…silly. Arguing over what God did and how he did it is pretty pointless.
I could not agree more. I’m working toward an anthropology degree, an Orthodox Christian in a field that is pretty emphatic about the evolution of man from a common ape-like ancestor. The Orthodox Church, so far as I have learned, doesn’t have a position on evolution aside from affirming that God created the world and created humans in his image. How? I kinda figure that’s up to Him.
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Here is why we need better education about science and to focus on evidence for things we need as a society.
Instead of paying politicians to pray to the sky daddy, like an ancient aztecs did (have we truly not advanced further than this?), we could prepare for droughts with water storage tanks, conservation, etc. If need be, we may even be able to seed rain clouds. But one thing that will surely do nothing at all is to stand there and pretend to make rain come down by mentioning verses from a distorted book. Like any other time prayer is invoked to make something happen.
The sad part is that they may pray for 20 days straight… and when it does start to rain, as it will eventually, it will be because of the prayer and not any other reason.
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Emily and Kristen,
that is correct (and amanda, I reread my first two posts, once again it came out in a tone i did not intend, no offense intended). As I have said many times on here, I wish more religious folks we like you guys. As I understand the Catholic position on this is to accept the evidence, effect and the reasons for evolution, big bang, etc and then say “God is responsible for all of that”. this in no way interferes with the progress that can be made by examining evidence and coming up with theories as to why things happen the way they do. If God is what caused it all, that works fine. The problem is that this sane perspective is not shared by huge swaths of people on this planet.
but alas… maybe I should pray for them to come around.
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Amanda,
Thanks for the hat tip.
hey tech!
Did you watch the PBS Special last night about the Dover,PA school brouhaha? Very fascinating stuff! I assume you are referring to chromosome 2?
Anyway….my point is not that other animals are not intelligent or don’t use tools. My post is more about the abstract thought process used by humans. AS far as being the most adaptive “land animals”, I will only reply that while there may be other life forms which are well-suited to their environments, how many have the ability to construct a means to live in another type of environment? There are no jelly-fish in space or sharks wandering about in water suits looking for prey on the land.
The post at my home page is a little longer, but even that I didn’t have the chance to finish this morning ‘cuz I had to go to this thing called a “job” that sucks away all my prime writing time!…not that I’m complaining…I actually like my job.
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Good for you Terri! I’m glad you have found a job that you love. It seems so rare these days.
Its true, there are no sharks in “land suits”. but the point is that adaptation doesn’t imply superiority. Why is our superior intellect better than an orangutangs superior strength or an amoebas superior reproductive abilities? they are all means to an end, an end that results in success of the species.
We benefit greatly from our happenstance set of traits. We think we are happier, or perhaps capable of greater happiness…but are we? Do you have a dog? We don’t really have any way of knowing or evaluating this, we just make shit up.
Most everything that we tend to assume about our superiority are totally anthropomorphic and egocentric. none of this means that in 5 million years there won’t be the exact same accident happen in octopi in such a way that make our power of intellect and creativity look infantile compared.
to be clear: the fact that we have developed traits that make us successful relative to other animals (which BTW, we need to have around in order to maintain our success) doesn’t mean that those traits any less real. They are as real as ever. So the sublime joy we get from accomplishing things, the utter anger we get from being treated unfairly, intense pleasure from sex and food and relationships, and the horrific fear we perceive from danger and death are all part of what has made us successful, and they are real and beautiful attributes to our humanity. Same goes for our ability to reason, use language and our sense of morals (an outcropping from logic).
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You can’t anthropomorphize humans. WE are humans. To attribute human characteristics to ourselves is to simply recognize we are humans.
I respond in greater depth to your comment at my blog.
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P.S..I don’t think that being the most advanced species has anything to do with “happiness”. A dog or amoeba may be more happy than humans. I know some days I’d like to lay around all day being petted and loved…….uh that sounds a little more freudian than I meant it!
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Hmm, now it will get more confusing if I resond here. I’ll keep at it at your place. but quick…
happiness was just one example
I didnt mean to anthropormophize human (that would be weird). What I meant was comparing our traits to other species and saying one is more advanced or better is to anthropomorphize the other species.
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False Statements About Genesis
No one else, presently walking on this Earth, is an expert on Genesis. There is no “close second”. Do not even listen to anyone else trying to expound what Genesis is saying, or what “creationism” is, for they do not understand the text, and are speaking from ignorance. Anyone else speaking about “what Genesis says”, or comparing it to evolution should be considered unqualified to speak on the subject, no matter how many credentials it seems they have. There is no “creation account” in Genesis. There is no such thing as a “creation/evolution” contest. It is “evolution” verses the “Observations of Moses”, shown to him by God in 1598 BC, in biblical order, as revealed by the Living Word in the Gospels.
The world of theology (and creationism) has never understood Genesis, so of course they would not have told us the truth, since they never did their “homework”. Each day in Genesis, from Gen. 1:2 thru 2:3 was a 24-hr day , shown to Moses, taken from seven different weeks (1 day from Creation Week, 6 days from 6 restoration weeks), and each (first) week was from a different geologic age. The seven days conveyed to Moses were not linear.
Genesis chapter two covers about a 200 yr period, starting in about 7200 BC, and has nothing to do with chapter one. There was no “evolution”. The 600+ million year fossil record shows that there was Creation, followed by escalating extinction, then six periods of restorations, with five more extinction events in between, ending each era of life. With the third era of mankind (the second restoration), God “redesigned” mankind to be in His image, after His likeness, in about 64 Million BC.
If you have comments, issues, or questions, direct them to me (ephraim7@aol.com), or read the book “Moses Didn’t Write About Creation!”, now in print.
Herman Cummings
PO Box 1745
Fortson GA, 31808
Ephraim7@aol.com
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Wow. Just so everyone knows, I emailed Mr. Cummings and asked if his comment meant that he was the only expert on Genesis. His reply:
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hehe…well think how privileged you are that he came to your blog! I mean really, the only expert on Genesis in the world and he chose to reveal the truth of the Universe to you!
You must be special!
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I wonder how much God told him to charge for his book.
(wow. I can be so cynical)
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Give the man a break. At least he doesn’t think the world is only 4,000 years old.
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LOL…that was really funny.
Can’t say I haven’t heard it before. Just never seen it written with such audacity.
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Wow.
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um….neither do I.
I am not sure if that comment was directed at me or not.
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Fighting, ok– but for me it is important to know that what the Bible says about the beginning of the world is true. And I’ll give you two reasons why.
1. If it’s not true– how do I know that any other portion is true?
If it doesn’t reflect accurate history, why is it still there. Why didn’t Jesus (whom the Bible states is the Son of God) not set the record straight? We should find some discourse where he corrected the record– instead he actually used it as fact.
2. If the Bible says (as late as the New Testament) that sin brought death, how can there be death before sin?
Wouldn’t God be a really cruel God to call something “good” that had death included in it? How can something “very good” include defects? Is God incapable of creating something that does not die?
Christianity’s foundation is that sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, and Christ came as a sacrifice to restore that relationship through the offering of a perfect substitute. If the whole part about Adam is false, why should anyone believe the part about Christ?
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1. If it’s not true– how do I know that any other portion is true?
Great point min! finally!
Answer: you don’t.
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To MinTheGap:
<<2. If the Bible says (as late as the New Testament) <<that sin brought death, how can there be death <<before sin?
Are you a creation sceintist? You are making the very mistake that I wrote against earlier. You have no idea what Genesis is saying to mankind. Even Moses didn’t understand what he saw…, yet he wrote it down as he was told.
If all of you want to make “silly comments” among yourselves, then stay buried in ignorance. If you want to learn what the truth is,……
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Herman…sorry if the silly comments bother you, it’s just seems strange to have someone waltz into a conversation, say everybody’s wrong and how if people really want to know the answer, they should just read the book he’s written.
You say no one on earth is an expert in Genesis, and then go on to imply that you are. Then, instead of furthering the conversation here, you direct everyone to e-mail you.
It comes off as if you’re trying to sell your book.
and then when you come back…you don’t actually say anything, but leave us with:
It’s like the cheesy question mark at the end of a B movie horror flick.
?
Amanda,
Sorry if I just ranted on your blog. PMS can be killer sometimes.
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And thank you, tech, for making my point exactly. I wrote a post the other day stating that one professor believed that Evolution is one of the biggest influences on people leaving religion. Once you take out the foundation of Christianity (how sin came into the world), you don’t have a strong foundation on which to stand, and you’re left defending pieces but not the whole.
Herman, I’m not a Creation Scientist, but I’ve done some study on the topic. I’d like to know what evidence you have in regards to the exact date Moses compiled Genesis and the source. According to some of my reading, it is probable that Moses would have had access to documentation that we don’t have simply because of how old it would be now versus the time in which he had it.
Picture this, recorded history since the time of the flood, brought on board the ark, and available to those that were in ancient Mesopotamia, but decayed and long gone by now.
It isn’t as far fetched as people want us to believe– we know that they had writing because of cuneiform clay tablets and the rosetta stone. Just because the stone is the only thing still around does not mean that there were not other documents. Plus, how do we know that there were not blueprints for the pyramids and other structures that we do not have now.
The point is, historically, there’s a lot we do not know about how things came to us, but we have faith that Moses recorded actual history in Genesis. If this is true, then we can trust a plain reading of Genesis and do not need one person to miraculously tell us what happened.
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Min….Why do assume that Moses had access to documentation?
Doesn’t Exodus portray everything that Moses wrote as being personally revealed by God?
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Sorry to jump in so late in the game, but there’s a technical misunderstanding here. What caused humans to split off from primates was genetic isolation. We just weren’t breeding with the other chimps enough to keep our populations tied together.
This was probably cos we’d set off across the savanna whilst other chimps had stayed in the forests. There’s a similar jungle/plain split between two elephant subspecies at the moment.
What caused our apparently-unique mental prowess is of course a great question, but I could go on for pages about that so I’ll forbear.
…we should open our checkbooks? I don’t think so.
But let’s be charitable and assume that you’d send us your opus free of charge. Why should we accept alleged knowledge when we can’t see how it was derived? If someone told me the world is going to end in 2012 because aliens told them so, I would first ask for evidence of this alleged alien visitation. If someone claimed that homeopathy can cure cancer, I’d first ask them what their trial procedure was.
Knowledge is justified by its audit trail. Yours, if I understand correctly, has half a dozen links of dubious veracity:
1) God -> Moses
2) Moses -> Pentateuch
3) Pentateuch -> You
4) Jesus -> You (from Amanda’s follow-up email)
Being an atheist, I find it implausible that step #1 went off without a hitch. Having read up on scriptural history, I’m very dubious about #2. But that’s just me.
What I think all the regulars on this blog can agree on is that steps #3 and #4 in your purported flow of information are dubious, to say the least. Until you provide some evidence that you did indeed gain miraculous insight from Moses and Jesus, rather than merely being one of the legion of crackpots that claim such insight, we are not going to be convinced.
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min,
Once you take out the foundation of Christianity (how sin came into the world), you don’t have a strong foundation on which to stand, and you’re left defending pieces but not the whole.
Nonsense of course. Why arent all the athiests in jail? Why am I not in jail due to my tendencies toward anarchy and sin? Why am I sitting here by the fire with my wife and child and not out raping, killing and stealing? I presume all those child molesting priests are real christians..right? They are what…atheists? LOL.
Monkeys aren’t christian, why aren’t they slaughtering each other? Muslims aren’t christian and yet they somehow manage to be the fastest growing religion on the planet.
Your morals are ingrained and reinforced by logic. Its as simple as that. You don’t need some convoluted bible, or invisible daddy in the sky to figure out that being horrible to people around you, will lead them to be horrible to you. you don’t need a glorified childrens story to teach you that if you cheat on your wife, she won’t trust you, if you steal from your friends and neighbors, they wont trust you either, and those close to you that you hurt, are hurt more than people not close to you. You don’t need any of these made up stories to figure that out. In fact a nice set of clear childrens stories (I was just reading Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, a great anecdote for conservation) is far better than a gigantic self contradictory set of legends that people can use to justify any action from racism, to genocide.
Without the nonsense bible we can finally focus on what really makes our species great. Humanity. we can make a concerted effort to root out the things that cause suffering and boost up things that increase happiness. We can do this by posing a solution to a problem (say starvation in africa, poverty in the US, high abortion rates) or whatever, and then try them, if they don’t work, get rid of them. This is a far better method of improving our lives than listneing to your version of the Bible, or Herman Cummings, or someones version of the Koran (which is also apparently innerrant and literal, hmm how can that be?).
True morality that can be universally agreed upon will only arrive when we cast of our pretend deities and superstitions.
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I was just over at pharyngula discussing discovery Institute nonsense (I was trying to get from people more knowledgable than me, what the real controversies in evolution are). I came across this comment which I thought really cut to the core of the problem with our desire to believe in made up things like God and magic.
Evolution doesn’t need to prove itself to scientists. In the hotbed of creo nonsense, the USA, acceptance of the fact of evolution runs around 99% among relevant scientists. It is higher in Europe. You can find more scientists in the relevant fields who are locked up in mental hospitals for one reason or another.
The amount of evidence after 150 years is gigantic, whole libraries full. No one person can know it all anymore. Plus, evolution is fully consistent with everything found in geology, genetics, paleontology, and astronomy. And cretinism isn’t consistent with anything.
One of the reasons scientists hate this sort of thing. We’ve seen it before. We’ve assumed it was dead and over. And like a zombie, every few decades creationism lurches from the grave to bother another generation of scientists.
As to when the masses will be convinced. Today 400 years after Galileo, Bruno, and Copernicus, 20% of the US population still believes the sun goes around the earth. Even the fundies have mostly given up on the geocentric universe theory. Mostly. That tells you that people will believe anything no matter what and 20% is probably the lowest we will ever get. The rate limiting step isn’t evidence, it is human nature.
(my bold, and 55% of Americans believe creationism over evidence based evolution, probably for incredulity reasons like Terri pointed out at her blog)
I don’t think I could have said it better myself (in fact, I know I couldn’t have with the frequency at which I am misunderstood). We could be doing so much better, in health, science, social equality, reduction of societal ills, if we as a society could learn to could cast off all this superstition and learn to understand what evidence is and the difference between a hypothesis and theory.
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The world of theology lends itself mostly to belief in the “God of the present and future”. But when it comes time to discuss the “God of
the past”, theology fails miserably. It has not done it’s homework, in addressing the reality of the past. Therefore, theology mostly runs
away from the “arena of origins”. Their “comfort zone” is gospel singing and trusting Jesus Christ as your Saviour.
The world of current creationism does not understand the Genesis text, and is fragmented into various factions which teach misinformation,
with doctrines which vary from the false to the foolish. However, creationism can’t be taught, without the teachers first being trained
with the facts. Otherwise they would be teaching “propaganda”, and misrepresenting the Genesis text, and nothing of value would be gained.
The world of science is mostly atheistic, which has been misled by the falsehoods and foolishness of current creationism, and has blindly decided
upon unrealistic theories of our origins and history of life, in an attempt to explain our beginnings and continued existence.
Yet the Word of God has always been true, even though those whom we thought could correctly explain it, actually did not understand the text
themselves. Using correct literal interpretation, the biblical truth of Genesis reveals far more about our ancient prehistoric past, than modern
science has ever known.
Those which teach that modern science can not tell the difference between the remains of life forms that died 30,000 years ago, from the remains of
life forms which died 300,000,000 years ago, are very foolish, and deny scientific reality. Do they also teach that the world is flat?
The book of Genesis does not contain any “creation accounts”. Chapter two tells us about the origins of modern mankind, starting in about 7200
BC. The chapter ends in about 7000 BC, with the addition of Eve, the helpmate for Adam. Chapter one is the rendition of the “Observations
of Moses”, which were six visions given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, during a six day period in 1598 BC. Chapter one covers a period of time that
spans about 4.5 billion years, but each 24-hr day was taken from the first week of each geologic era, in biblical order.
The correct reading of chapter one of Genesis gives undeniable proof of the existence of the Living God. Unlike other (human inspired) books, that
have been called “holy”, the Bible is actually a given interface between our finite physical (natural) world, and the infinite supernatural realm, as
conveyed to more than 40 people over the course of nearly 1700 years. No one person, shrouded in suspicion, created this collection of literary works.
The proof of God’s existence is His revelation to Moses, defining seven geologic eras of the past, which Moses could not have known about on his
own. Secular science would not discover geologic time until 3000 years later. Merely reading the “first day” through the “seventh day” has little
meaning, and has been called “a constructed creation myth”. However, in the Gospels, the Lord Jesus reveals the chronological order of the days
of Moses, to where their true meaning is uncovered. Consider the following:
A. The Fourth Day of Moses, from Creation Week
1. Covers the period 4.6 Billion BC to 245 Million BC
a) Depicts the creation of the (other) celestial bodies
B. The fifth day of Moses, from Restoration Week 1
1. Covers the period 245 Million BC to 65 Million BC
a) Depicts the creation of “sea monsters” and birds
b) Discovered life forms
i. ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, pliosaurs, plesiosaurs,
and archaeopteryx
C. The sixth day of Moses, from Restoration Week 2
1. Covers the period 65 Million BC to 42 Million BC
a) Depicts the creation of herbivores, large animals, and the
“remaking” of mankind into God’s image
b) Discovered life forms
i. eohippus, indricotherium
ii. mankind of the period not yet discovered
These, and the remaining eras of geologic time, are given in the book “Moses Didn’t Write About Creation!”, published by PublishAmerica. Starting with the Fourth Day, the book puts the seven days in chronological order, as revealed by the Living Word.
The secular world of science may call this a “convenient coincidence”. But it is extremely difficult to “explain away” the fact that the “Observations of Moses” follow the order of the discovered geologic record of Earth, with visions of the ancient life forms shown to Moses, that lived during those time periods. Finally, this is the proof that God revealed prehistory history to Moses.
Herman Cummings
PO Box 1745
Fortson GA, 31808
Ephraim7@aol.com
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How did you come to this view?
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LOL herman,
this was very funny.
It reminds me of this or this or this
Did God ever explain why Pi=3 when he explained the history of the earth to you?
“Observations of Moses” follow the order of the discovered geologic record of Earth, with visions of the ancient life forms shown to Moses, that lived during those time periods
really? which version are you talking about? The one where light was made before light emitting objects were made? Or the one where animals come after man? Or the one where women come after men? Or the version where men and women come at the same time, but after animals?
Cracks me up. I have no doubt ‘god’ talks to you.
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Hermann: Again, you are making a heck of a lot of bald assertions. You are not providing an audit trail for these assertions. Therefore we have no way of knowing that these assertions bear any resemblance to reality.
Given the number of assertions you’re making, it would perhaps be unreasonable to ask you to justify all of them. So, for the purposes of this thread, I would suggest that you pick the one that is most important to you and provide a thorough justification for it. We can then judge how well your argument stands up to critical analysis.
“Those who assume hypotheses as first principles of their speculations [...] may indeed form an ingenious romance, but a romance it will still be.” – Roger Cotes, preface to Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.
One specific quibble:
Why start with the fourth day? Just because days 1-3 (which suggest that plant-life was created before the Sun) don’t match the evidence so well?
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Dear Lifewish:
You seem to be sincere, instead of trying to “be funny”. So I will respond. The worlds of theology and creationism never “did their homework”, and have not understood the Genesis text. Everyone assumed that the seven days of Moses were a description of Creation Week. But that is false. Moses didn’t know what he was seeing. God didn’t tell him. But by the choice of God, it was revealed to me, because I was willing to do what was necessary to find the truth, regardless of what it was. When I set to find the truth, I didn’t care if I discovered Genesis to be “just a myth”.
Jesus revealed the chronological order of the seven days of Moses, but theology never realized it. Why start with the “Fourth Day”? Because God chose to reveal seven different days of the past, from seven different geologic ages, concealing that fact until after mankind learned of geologic time periods. Once it is established that Moses saw the very life forms,
as they lived in the ancient past, that secular science would discover 3000 years later, this would be the undeniable proof of the authenticity of Genesis.
Scientifically, it predicts that science will someday soon find evidence of human habitation of Earth that is earlier than 30 million years ago. Once that is done, what happens to the established theory of evolution?
How many of those, which are now laughing, and think it funny and fashionable to “crack jokes”, would be silenced upon that discovery? Speak up, you skeptics!! How many “believers” out there are declaring the existence of mankind as early as 64 million years ago? Is there anyone else? No, I have not heard of any.
All others quickly “run out of ammo” in the arena of origins, and run under the umbrella of “faith in Christ” when asked to explain the facts of scientific reality, and how it compares to what is perceived to be written in Genesis by Moses.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a “nobody”, who has none of the “desired credentials” that the world would expect me to have to make such statements. What I have been given is the authority to teach, and the knowledge of the truth of prehistoric history, which the correct literal interpretation of Genesis gives to mankind.
That is why my book is titled “Moses Didn’t Write About Creation!”, because Moese was writing about restoration…., seven different periods of them.
Herman Cummings
Ephraim7@aol.com
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Sorry Herman, its still ludicrous.
Scientifically, it predicts that science will someday soon find evidence of human habitation of Earth that is earlier than 30 million years ago. Once that is done, what happens to the established theory of evolution?
LOL, you are acting as if this so-called, discovery has already happened.
So what you are saying, is that in the face of the fact that a fossil, of any organism, has never been found in the wrong strata, (i.e. we never found amphibians before fish, mammals before reptiles) somehow man appeared at the same time as dinosaurs despite all the contrary evidence we have now.
And your evidence of this is…..well someday we will find the fossil…god told me.
So there is no evidence, just what god told you. 140 years of gathering evidence and more evidence, without once the fossil record doing something unexpected.
Let me get this right: we should listen to some guy who speaks to his invisible friend or we should listen to 140 years of thousands of scientists who actually study the material and have been throwing stones at this theory for all of that time.
There is a very good reason no serious scientist says there were humans 64 million years ago.
Its because there weren’t, there is no evidence that there were. Anything you say that counters that requires VERY strong physical evidence. Not “god told me”.
and you wonder why i think religion is nonsense.
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No Terri my comment was not directed at you! It’s just something I’ve read on quite a few blogs!
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It would be helpful if you’d go into more detail on how you found the truth, and what steps you took to confirm that it was indeed the truth. Until you provide that information I will not be able to compare your conclusions about the world with those of other groups (such as mainstream science).
For example, you said:
How precisely did God reveal this to you? If it was through direct revelation then we have a problem, because to the best of my knowledge there’s no way to provide an “audit trail” for divine communications.
As a silly example, if someone told me that the moon was made of green cheese because God told them so, I would reject their belief because I would have no way to confirm that its basis was valid.
By contrast, if your belief is founded on specific evidence, it will be possible for me to check your belief by confirming that your evidence is real and your logic is valid. For example:
This is an extremely good example of a valid scientific prediction – kudos. If you were to make such a prediction, and if that prediction were subsequently found to be accurate, that would be strong evidence in favour of your argument. A few such predictions would be enough to convert me.
At present, it seems fairly unlikely to me that this prediction will be confirmed. The scientific community currently estimates that the human lineage split off from chimpanzees between 8 and 4 million years ago. We have a decent number of fossils going back over 4 million years. You’re saying that humans first appeared over 20 million years before this – why, then, would there be no reflection of this in the fossil record?
Moreover, why would the genetic evidence appear to show exceptionally close homologies between human and chimp genes if there was no relationship? This relationship currently enjoys the status of a predictive hypothesis – for example, the fact that one human chromosome closely resembles two chimp chromosomes fused together was predicted prior to its demonstration.
In the interests of fostering mutual understanding, I’d like to point out that most skeptics would change their stance if presented with that discovery. That’s why we feel it’s safe to laugh: because there are many ways we could be proven drastically wrong, and all of them have repeatedly failed to happen.
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Hi again, Lifewish.
The “audit trail” of my quest to uncover Genesis is written in the book, which I will not rewrite here.
But I will include a letter to someone that answers a question which they asked of me. It concerned the difference between God’s relationship with modern mankind, and that of prehistoric mankind.
* * * * *
I’m guessing at the nature of your question. I’m of the opinion that you are aware of the existence of prehistoric man, but am wondering how that relates to God’s present interaction with modern mankind.
My first suggestion is that you read “Moses Didn’t Write About Creation”, where all of this is covered and explained in detail. But since you asked, I’ll try to give you an informative reply.
First off, God created our Earth for the habitation of mankind, and our surrounding universe for mankind’s future exploration, in 4.6 Billion BC, according to the geologist. God put Lucifer in charge of our Earth, as an overseer or “property manager”.
Lucifer wanted original mankind (not in the image of God) to worship him. Mankind refused, and Lucifer got mad, and took his frustrations out on lower life forms that lived in the water. What secular science views as
“evidence of evolution”, was actually “death by escalation”. Lucifer had to first learn how to cause death, starting with simple forms before advancing to higher forms (staying with sea life, which was “out of
sight of mankind). But God knew what Lucifer was doing.
The patterns of extinction I define as evidence of “temper tantrums of Lucifer”, when he couldn’t “get his way”. God created all life at once, but Lucifer started destroying them ever so often, over millions of years, starting in maybe 640 Million BC.
It soon got to the point where Lucifer was tired of any “interference” from God, concerning what Lucifer considered to be “his domain”. Lucifer decided to rebel against God and try to gain total control.
However, we know that Lucifer lost his takeover bid, and escaped back to Earth to wage his wrath upon the whole solar system.
This would be in 245 Million BC, when Revelation chapter twelve gives a short narrative of what occurred on Earth. The book gives much more coverage, and details the sequence of events from the planning of the “war in Heaven”, to the aftermath of the great
extinction of the Permian Period. This ends the first era of mankind on Earth.
Restoration Week 1 begins in let’s say 244 Million BC. Moses was shown Thursday of this week, the day of the creation of sea monsters and birds. Mankind of this era was made on the sixth day (Friday) of this week, which was not shown to Moses. This era ends with the extinction of 65 Million BC.
Restoration Week 2 begins in about 64 Million BC. Moses was shown Friday of this week, with the creation of land animals and the making of the mankind of that era. But in this case, it is the first time that God
decides to make mankind “in His image”, different from what mankind was created as earlier in Earth’s history (the first two eras).
There are seven eras of mankind in all so far. Each began with restoration (or creation in 4.6 Billion BC), and ended with extinction caused by Satan.
Now I can answer your question. The only difference between the previous eras of mankind and our own, is that Satan was successful in “taking the birthright” from the first set of humans (Adam and Eve). Each first set of humans (first male and first female) maintained the law of God and didn’t condemn their offspring. At some point, Lucifer would either get later generations to do evil (the remains of Neanderthals, homo erectus, etc), or would cause catastrophes, which both scenarios would remove mankind
from the face of the Earth. Once mankind is no longer on the earth, the “signs” which were given in the heavens (Sun, Moon) go dark.
But in our era, the first of modern mankind sinned, and gave control of man’s soul to Satan. This opened the door for God’s plan to both save modern mankind, and finally destroy Satan once and for all.
I hope this helps.
Herman Cummings
ephraim7@aol.com
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oh boy…. I see… you got your evidence from the bible to prove your interpretation of the bible. so much for providing evidence…
I’m guessing you got your evidence that god exists because its in the bible, and when you are asked who wrote the bible, your answer is god.
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Herman,
Why is it that you feel God has chosen you to reveal this to the world?
How did you receive this revelation?
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the revelation was received in a dream after drinking a bottle of PA Dutch Egg Nog. (Read my recent post and it’ll make sense, then go buy my new book which will tell you all about my blog and how I came to learn about it’s contents.)
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Min – I was just wondering where does Jesus use the creation story as fact?
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Ok Lifewish, and Terri. I’ll submit my last post.
Yes, the book answers the questions you asked, but I’ll revisit it here. I was visiting a church on Easter Sunday in 1990. A lady asked the pastor in his Sunday School class, “how can I teach my teens about Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden, while they are being indoctrinated at school about evolution?”. The pastor only said “just believe the Bible”. I felt that the pastor was “dodging the issue”, and the lady needed help and she didn’t know where to turn.
So, I decided there and then that I would resolve the so called “creation /evolution debate”, and settle the issue once and for all. I began reading books about prehistoric man, cosmology, geology, ancient Egypt, Genesis, and every creation book I could find. I was VERY disappointed in the creation books. The authors were “apologizing” for the scriptures, and it was obvious that they didn’t understand the text themselves. Statments such as “we’ll understand it all when we get to Heaven” were positions of ignorance. So how could they convey the truth to others? In fact, I didn’t assume that Genesis was true. I didn’t care if science was wrong, or if Genesis was a big joke. I was going to expose one or both of them as frauds.
One year later, in February 1991, a revelation came to me…., that Moses wasn’t writing about creation week. He was describing something else, but I didn’t know what. The first day was clearly something that occurred after a period of creation, and some sort of “ruin and restoration” was being documented. But the fourth day was clearly more than just the “clearing away” of clouds or some other obstruction, which definitely belonged to the early
stages of our universe.
About every week after that, certain “realizations” I uncovered, but the last piece didn’t come until December 1993, when a voice spoke to me at night in bed, speaking into my mind nine words. The next day, I went to the library to seek a Hebrew to English translation of Genesis, to confirm what I heard. After reading again the gospel of John, I was given both the revelation of, and the authority to teach,
the book of Genesis. The words spoken to me conveyed more than just what could be written in English. Essentially, I was told that the seven days in Genesis were not contained in the same week (not linear), and that they had a certain order which was revealed in the book of St. John.
Those of you reading of me for the first time, I am the author of the book “Moses Didn’t Write About Creation!”, produced by PublishAmerica. I am out to educate the public about the prehistoric history of Earth, creation week, and the truth of Genesis. So with any articles I see in the news (given to me by google alerts), I will either send a letter to the editor or place it in the comments.
Herman Cummings
ephraim7@aol.com
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Herman: thanks for the summary of your thought processes – that was precisely the information I was after.
As previously advised, I can’t accept your conclusions purely on the basis of this evidence, because (for example) I have no way of confirming that the voice you heard was indeed a divine being. That’s not something I’d be able to take on trust.
From my perspective, the best approach would be if you were able to derive a novel prediction from your model that we could sit down and test. For example, if you could produce any predictions relating to phylogenetic trees (inter-species family trees), that would be very easy to test using the Entrez Gene online database.
If you’re interested in developing the predictive power of your model (and thus convincing a lot of skeptics), please feel free to get in touch with me via my weblog.
I must say, I’m impressed by your imaginative solution to the questions posed by the geological column. It beats hydrological sorting hands down.
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