Jay Hall
It is natural to take a plain reading of the Bible. What could be more clear than the teaching of Genesis on creation? A young-earth worldview should be the outlook for anyone who takes the Bible seriously. Often, due to peer pressure and other factors, Christians compromise in this arena. They overlook the noetic effects of sin and that non-Christian scientists may come to anti-biblical conclusions. Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Lk. 11:23).
Some claim they are compelled by the scientific evidence to abandon a young earth. Stars are too far away and very old. The Grand Canyon “must” have taken millions of years to form. There are a few options for explaining distant starlight. According to Tom Siegfried, editor in chief of ScienceNews, “No cosmic clock governs time’s flow for the whole universe …” [1]
We challenge the millions of years for earth’s features. Let’s take coal for instance. Even mainstream geoscientists Marshall Kay and Edwin Colbert in their textbook on Stratigraphy admit that polystrate fossils in coal beds indicate rapid deposition. [2]
One coal seam can be traced from Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky! [3] Such a widespread formation (260,000 sqr. km) makes more sense in the Flood Model. The 80 m thick anthracite seam in the Hongai coalfield of Vietnam speaks of catastrophic conditions, not a peat bog. [4] Andrew Snelling observes, “Some coal seams when followed laterally are found to split into two seams, separated by strata consisting of transported marine sediments.” [5] Thus, the whole sequence must have been transported. Marine fossils have been found in coal as well as boulders as heavy as 73 kg (164 lbs) – both point to catastrophe and not peat bogs. [6]
Go to a local coal mine and have a sample dated by radiocarbon. I predict that the sample will be dated in the 40K-60K range and not millions of years old. Significant amounts of radiocarbon has been found in coal in a number of cases. This should not be if the coal is really millions of years old.
Spiral arms show that the Milky Way is young. When you stir cream in coffee the swirls quickly disappear, yet we still see the spiral structure in distant galaxies. This shows they can’t be billions of years old.
The primary foundation for millions of years is radiometric dating, which is inconsistent and should be questioned. Precambrian feldspar, supposedly hundreds of years old, has been dated at around five thousand years old based on Argon diffusion rates! [7]
How did the animals spread across the globe after the Flood? Kangaroos in Australia and kiwis in New Zealand demand an explanation. Noah’s Flood provides a reasonable model for the modern distribution of various animals. Surtsey was a new land that popped up in the 1960’s and it was populated with many species fairly quickly. A cataclysmic eruption destroyed Krakatoa in 1883, but it only took a few decades for hundreds of species to reach the island. Regarding kangaroos, Paul F. Taylor suggests an interesting possibility:
… marsupials – because they bore their young in pouches – were able to travel farther and faster than mammals that had to stop to care for their young. They were able to establish themselves in far-flung Australia before competitors reached the continent.
Some skeptics point to the high rate of “evolutionary” change needed to fit with the limited time available since Noah’s flood. They ask how such wide variation occurred within the Genesis kinds after the Flood. Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart wrote The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma and proposed the theory of Facilitated Variation. [8] Modular regulatory mechanisms (switches) allow quick changes to occur. Furthermore, transposons are mobile genetic elements which sometimes create or reverse mutations. These may have pushed the rapid speciation we have seen after the Deluge.
Genesis is true and correct regarding origins. Genesis is right!
“Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever” (Ps. 119:160).
Notes:
1) “Anniversaries Inspire Timely Ruminations” by Tom Siegfried, Science News, Sep 13, 2008, p. 2.
2) Stratigraphy and Life History by Marshall Kay and Edwin Colbert (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1965), pp. 259, 261.
3) Earth’s Catastrophic Past (Vol. 2) by Andrew Snelling (Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, 2009), p. 551
4) Ibid., p. 552.
5) Ibid., p. 553.
6) Ibid., p. 554, 555.
7) “Both Argon and Helium Diffusion Rates Indicate a Young Earth” by Larry Vardiman, Acts & Facts, Aug 2011, pp. 12, 13.
8) summarized in “Facilitated Variation: A New Paradigm Emerges in Biology” by Alex Williams, Journal of Creation, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2008, pp. 85-92.
Read Jay Hall’s book:
YES – Young Earth Science and the Dawn of a New World View
What is Young Earth Science (YES)? How old is the world? Are radiometric dating methods reliable? Is Darwinism substantiated by scientific evidence and valid arguments? How does the Renaissance of Catastrophism relate to the age of the Earth? Has plate tectonics occurred more rapidly in the past? These and other queries are answered in this exciting new fully documented work. This widely illustrated book features support from history, philosophy, geology, biology and physics. Discover this creative and multidisciplinary approach which provides affirmation that this planet is thousands of years old and not billions . . . (continue reading)
Praise the Lord that people like Jay Hall are accepted in some colleges.
Not all enlightened leadership is dead. Some are not buckling under opposition.