...Comparative Essay: Original creation of the Earth PHSC 210, D03-LUO I. Introduction The old-Earth evolution and young-Earth creation debate has been one that has gone on for centuries. Each viewpoint seeks to give an answer to life’s most difficult questions or origins and how the Earth came to be what it resembles today. While the Young Earth viewpoint has remained constant and unchanged throughout the centuries the Old Earth view seems to be continually evolving as new discoveries tend to discredit previous assumptions. One certainty is that both viewpoints take a dogmatic stance against each other in regards to the interpretation of scientific evidence. The purpose of this paper is to compare old-Earth and young-Earth viewpoints on the original creation of the Earth. II. Old-Earth Secular View The old-Earth evolution viewpoint on the original creation of the Earth is the nebular hypothesis. This viewpoint gave birth to evolutionary thought concerning origins. “…the history of evolution did not begin in 1859 with Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ but with the publication in 1796 of Pierre Simon Laplace’s so-called nebular hypothesis” (Numbers. 1977). This viewpoint suggests “About 4.6 billion years ago our solar system formed from a cloud of gas and dust which slowly contracted under the mutual gravity of all of its particles” (The Solar Nebula. N.d.). It is believed that this cloud of gas and dust was spinning at an accelerated rate and...
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...Geologic Paradigms: Uniformitarianism vs Catastrophism Charlotte R. Jones PHSC 210, Elements of Earth Science David Gilhousen Liberty University Geologic Paradigms: Uniformitarianism vs Catastrophism Introduction When discussing the geologic paradigms of Uniformitarianism and catastrophism the real question at the heart is twofold. First how the landscape of the Earth we now see came to be and then when it all happened. The debate can go deeper into whom or what began the process, however, the primary question asked by uniformitarianism and catastrophism is the how and when. Old Earth View Proponents of “old Earth view” believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God and believe the Genesis creation account is a historical narrative and not poetic expression. While Young Earth supporters believe a “plain reading” of the English translation of Genesis 1 necessitates belief that God created the world in six, 24-hour days some six to ten thousand years ago, old-Earth view supporters believe that textual and syntactic distinctions of the original Hebrew advocate six long epochs of time. Old-Earth view supporters oppose that a verbatim reading of the Biblical creation accounts in Hebrew provide evidences supporting a prolonged creation “day”. This view sates that the “biblical Hebrew has a very limited vocabulary (approximately 3,100 words) compared to the English vocabulary (estimated to be 1,000,000 words). Hebrew words often have several literal meanings. Linguistic scholars acknowledge...
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...Contents I. Introduction II. Old - Earth View III. Young - Earth View IV. Compare and Contrast V. Conclusion Introduction Christians today have a biblical principle and opinion of the universe existence. Christians believe that God created earth and that he accomplished that in only six days. Genesis 1 explains the creation and the interpretation is so utterly clear and one writer states “Thus, any interpretation that goes beyond a clear plain meaning of the text is considered to compromise Biblical authority and capitulate to evolutionary theories”. One look at the Young Earth View is said to be formed from the Modern English Bible. Jon W Greene also writes that “Two Christian apologists state this problem well: “When the ‘young earth’ creationist insists that the biblical evidence indicates an earth only six to ten thousand years old, all communication bridges to the secular science community break down. The communication gap widens and such reactionary creationist views are labeled as ‘folk science.’ The scriptures and the gospel are consequently dismissed as meaningless.” And, “Many non-Christians are driven away from the God of the Bible by the young-earth claims which are, frankly, ridiculous to most people who love science. It is a shame that people who love science, who would like to know the One who created the universe, reject, out of hand the Christian God, because they see Christianity as so unscientific. Old - Earth View The scripture shows only six literal...
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...PHSC 210 2014 Review of article “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson The following is a journal review over the article “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson. Overview In Dr. Terry Mortenson’s article, “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century”, the subject of Earth’s creation and age is briefly discussed. Several contributors to the theories behind the history of earth are introduced, along with their respective backgrounds. Dr. Mortenson explains the geological findings and resulting theories of each contributor regarding: the age of the earth, evolution, catastrophic events and their relationship of science to Christianity. (Mortenson, 2003) Strengths The importance of the history of science, especially relating to Christianity, is expressed early in the reading. Readers are also cautioned regarding views on evolution and creation and the consequences of those views (social, moral, spiritual) (Mortenson, 2003). Dr. Mortenson expresses the Christian mindset towards the creation of earth and mankind in a series of six 24 hour days, along with a detrimental flood accompanying Noah around 1600 years later. The author further presents that in the late 1700’s the non-Biblical history of earth began to theorized and become popular. The developing field of geology in early 19th century...
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...In my paper I will be talking about article The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for life in the 21st century by Terry Mortenson. I will discussing the main points of the article along with the strengths and weaknesses. This article is a breakdown of a huge debate that has been going on for years. As I mention before this article is based on a debate that has been occurring for years. It is just another argument between the theories of the young- earth and Old-earth. A lot of the information within the article is a based on the creation of earth. Mortenson, uses scientists of religious and non-religious backgrounds which had different philosophies. It is also includes the views of uniformitarianism and catastrophism events and how it was believed to impact the creation of earth. Article strengths in this article are large in number. The author gave us a good outline by the way he broke every paragraph down. Terry used several different scientists that had several different perspectives. These are just a few of the things that I feel were done right. Next I will talk about the points he had clear and if they were writing precisely. We started the article with a section pointing out the new theories on the history of creation. Terry beginning by using the Christian view that has been teach from thousands of years. Let us know that in the 4000 BC God created the world and everything in it within six 24-hour days. The same world he created was the same one he destroyed...
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...the article, The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century by Dr. Terry Mortenson, is the differing views between the Old-Earth and New-Earth beliefs. The main points given were that there were three views in the early 19th century: Catastrophists, Uniformitarians and scriptural geologists. “Catastrophists believed that several major floods destroyed a large percentage of living creatures and God replaced them with new living beings. Uniformitarians believed that all geological change happened at the same rate, intensity and power over history. And scriptural geologists believe in the biblical account of a literal six-day creation of all things by God, followed by a global flood which created that geological record.” (Mortenson) The strengths in the article are the differing views presented by various scientists and non-scientists both Christian and non-Christian based. Dr. Mortenson summarized these scientist’s views straight to their points of belief. The points that I found clear was that there was not proof to back the “theories” of the Old Earth views expressed and there was proof of the New Earth view, the Bible. I feel the weakness of the article was that there was not much elaboration on the scientist’s findings. There were a lot Journal Article Review One 3 of names and dates given but not a lot of detail. I feel there should have been more backing information on the views that each scientist or geologist...
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...The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century The theories and beliefs about how the world began can be a tense and hot button issue. Usually, it is the Christians vs. the scientists. However, in Mortenson’s article, he presents us with a third group of believers, the Christian scientists. Mortenson explores these beliefs and theories of all three groups, and explains to us the importance of the debate then and now. Brief Overview and Main Points Christians in Eastern and Western Europe and the United States believed overwhelmingly that the world was created by God in 6 days, and each day was 24 hours long. Belief in this was steadfast until the late 18th century, when different types of theories were developed. These new theories did not include God’s works (or flat-out denied them), but just focused on the origin and history of the earth (Mortenson 2003). . Three French scientists, proposed that the earth was anywhere from 78,000 years old to that the earth was formed an indefinite amount of time, but very, very long ago. These new theories were just focused on biological and geological ideas. At this same period of time, geology was becoming more a legitimate field of study. Abraham Warner, a German mineralogist, was really the first to state that geologically, the earth was at least a million years old. This continued to build and popularize the idea of old-earth theory (Mortenson 2003). James Hutton, a farmer turned...
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...historicity of Adam. These people’s views can be summarized into four basic positions [1]. The most liberal view, evolutionary creationism, holds that there was no historical Adam. This view has been expounded upon by Denis Lamoureux, a well-known professor who has lectured widely on the topic of evolutionary creationism. Evolutionary creationism posits that God used evolution to create man and used ancient views of science to impart specific inerrant truths [2]. This idea of using ancient science to give truth is called the “Message-Incident Principle” [3]. The second position is the archetypal view. Those who hold this view, such as John Walton, an influential scholar who has written several books on the topic, believe that Adam was a real man, but was used biblically as an archetype, or a representation of humanity as a whole. According to this view, Adam may or may not have been the father of mankind, and that the Bible should not be used as an argument against scientific evidence about human origins [4]. The third position, old-earth creationism, suggests that Adam was the real “[headwater] of humankind” but argues that the Bible does not limit the timeline of history to a young-earth perspective. This view has been vocally promoted by a seminary professor named C. John Collins, who has also written a famous book on the subject entitled Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?: Who They Were and Why You Should Care [5,6]. The fourth view, young-earth creationism, proposes a very literal...
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...Journal Article Review 1 “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson Introduction This paper is a review of the August 2003 article “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson. After a brief overview of the main points, the article’s strengths and weaknesses will be discussed. Concluding remarks will then be given. Brief Overview and Main Points The theme of the article is the question concerning the age of planet Earth. Mortenson’s main point centers on the debate (which has been going on since the early 19th century) between Christian scientists and new theorists concerning how Earth came into being. In short, Christian scientists believe Earth was a process of divine creation; non-scientists believe Earth came about through a process of evolution (Mortenson, 2003). Article Strengths Mortenson did an excellent job when describing the differences between the beliefs of the scriptural geologists (Christian scientists) and the new theorists. For the most noted ones, he gave a brief description of their background. This allowed the reader to understand a little about the person and the kind of research the person had been doing. When discussing the views of the scriptural geologists, Mortenson talked about how their views stemmed from what the Bible says about the creation of Earth. As far as the new theorists were concerned, he discussed...
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...Hindson states that “there can be no true kingdom without a king”, and the kingdom has to be associated with the king. [2] TIMING, DURATION AND NATURE: The word “millennium” is derived from two Latin words, mille and annus, which is translated as “thousand” and “year”. Thus it is a period of one thousand years. The Greek word that is used for millennium is chilias and this term is found six times in the book of Revelation.[3] It is the time after the church age and the Tribulation and prior to all eternity. All the promises and covenants that God made to Israel will be fulfilled at this royal reign of Christ on the earth.[4] Christ will return to the earth, Satan will be 2 bound, and because Satan’s world system has been destroyed the way is made for Christ’s kingdom on this earth. Because much prophecy of this time has been written in the Old Testament, the book of Revelation does not expand on it as much.[5] This period of time is characterized as being a period of joy and comfort due to Satan being restrained for the thousand years and is called the “theocratic kingdom” because it is ruled directly...
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...College Abstract In this paper I will discuss the different views on the second coming of Christ, the rapture of the church, how the second coming of Christ affects missions, and I give an exegesis of Revelation 20:1-6. I will also discuss why I believe the pre-millennial view is the correct view concerning the return of Christ. There are three schools of thought in the area of the thousand year reign of Christ. They are the amillennial view, postmillennial view, and the premillennial view. Those who believe in a amillennial view do not believe in a literal or an actual future kingdom of peace and prosperity here on earth that will last one thousand years. Those who hold this view tend to view Scripture in a more figurative way than a literal way. They believe the thousand year reign of Christ is symbolic of the church age between the resurrection of Christ and His return. Most amillennialists believe that a spiritual form of the Kingdom of God is present now. Amillennialism reject the idea of a rapture. They believe good and evil will increase in the world as God’s Kingdom parallels the kingdom of Satan. They believe Satan is bound but yet evil increases. They believe when Christ returns the end of the world will occur with a general resurrection and a judgment of all people. They believe Christ will never reign on earth in a literal way but the Kingdom of God exists on earth in the heart of believers. It was under Augustine of...
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...A PREMILLENNIAL VIEW ON THE 1000 YEARS OF REVELATION ________________ A Research Paper Submitted to Dr. Brian K. Moulton Liberty University ________________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for BIBL 450- B06 Daniel- Revelation ________________ By William E. Harris, III October 8, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction………………………………………………………………………………3 The Millennium Defined…………………………………………………………………3 Views of the Millennium…………………………………………………………………4 Premillennialism Amillennialism Postmillennialism Timing of the Millennium……………………………………………………………….6 Duration of the Millennium……………………………………………………………..7 Occupants of the Millennium……………………………………………………………8 Relationship of Israel and the Church to the Millennial Kingdom……………………..8 Personal Approach to the Millennial View……………………………………………..9 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….10 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..11 A PREMILLENNIAL VIEW ON THE 1000 YEARS OF REVELATION Introduction For many Christians, the millennium is a very important doctrine. The question of the differentiating views of the millennial kingdom in Rev 20:1-6 continues to be a source of fascination in evangelical discussion and dialogue. This paper will present the view of the writer as supported according to the scriptures. It will begin by defining the 1000 years of Revelation according to research and translation. It will briefly take a look at Premillennialism, Amillennialism and Postmillennialism...
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...This paper will contain a review of the article “Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century by Dr. Terry Mortenson, 2003”. Brief Overview and Main Points The theme of the article covered the long debated topics of the earth and universe being billions of years old, which was an idea with its origin and roots beginning in the 19th century, and was understandably named “The Genesis- Geology Debate”. Today, it is a very important topic, to science students, Christianity’s history along with science; and is also highly relevant to the current growing debate over evolution and or creation. The dominant view of the earth’s age in the 1800’s was mostly the creation theory that God created the earth in six 24 hr. days. However, by the end of the 1800’s, theories sought to prove earth’s existence only through natural and evolutionary means. This change in theory was mainly due to 3 French scientists, whose work revolved around natural laws in matter, time, chance and nature itself, leaving God out of the picture. Therefore, during the 19th Century there were 3 dominant earth views: 1) Catastrophists- who believed that creation was “untold-ages” old and that through catastrophic floods many life forms were died off, and God recreated new species. 2) Uniformitarians who ignored origins of life, and believed all geological processes...
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...The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st. Century By Jerome Schroder Instructor: Mark Ivins PHSC 210 B22-LUO January 31, 2015 Introduction The article, “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications of Life in the 21st. Century” was written by Dr. Terry Mortenson, a historian of geology on August 5th. 2003. Dr. Mortenson talks about the history of science and Christianity and how they relate to one another as well as the debated issues concerning the creation of the earth. Dr. Mortenson goes on to explain the relevance between evolution and creation and also the social, moral and spiritual implications in today’s society. Brief Overview and Main Points Dr. Mortenson focuses primarily on evolution and creation from both a scientific point of view and also from a Christian point of view. The main points that are emphasized in the article is the “New Theories about the History of Creation”, what the “Scriptural Geologist” had to say concerning creation, “The True Nature of the 19th. Century Debate” and “The Relevance for Today”. For example, Dr. Mortenson begins his discussion by explaining to the reader that God had created the earth in six 24 hour days however this has been a debate for years from evolutionary theories. Evolutionist and naturalist believe that there is another explanation for the creation of the earth as well as our existence. Article Strengths According to Dr. Mortenson, he pointed out several good points...
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...Angela Maguire Prof. David Gilhousen PHSC 210- Elements of Earth Science July 24, 2015 Radiocarbon Dating: Faith of Fact Introduction Archeologist and other scientists have used many different dating methods to establish the age of the earth and things on the earth. One of the dating methods that has been used is radiocarbon dating, also known as Carbon-14 dating. Radiocarbon dating is a prejudiced method that can be used to prove the desired outcome. Like many other methods, radiocarbon dating is inconsistent and constantly changing. The root of a scientist’s belief must come from a more stable foundation. Although, Old-earth and young-earth scientists agree on carbon-14 half-life, the scientists differ in areas such as finding C-14 in rocks and diamonds. To begin, we must first describe the process of radiocarbon dating. The half-life of Carbon-14 has been measured at 5,730 years. Therefore, the assumption has been made that radiocarbon dating is only valid to be used on objects older than 100,000 years. Morris (2011,63) describes the process in this way, “Carbon-14 is formed when nitrogen -14 interacts with a cosmic ray-produced neutron in the upper atmosphere”. This new isotope is only a small part of the total carbon. Within the isotope there is a ratio of Carbon-12, a stable carbon, to Carbon-14, a non-stable carbon. The isotope is incorporated into carbon dioxide, which is then breathed in by all living organisms. When living organisms are alive, the radiocarbon...
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