Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism by David Mills

Author:David Mills [Mills, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781569752630
Google: dtQ421wWeGUC
Amazon: 156975263X
Barnesnoble: 156975263X
Goodreads: 8470964
Publisher: Perseus
Published: 2010-05-07T05:00:00+00:00

“The study of anthropology

confirmed my atheism,

which was the faith of

my fathers anyway. Religions

were exhibited and studied

as the Rube Goldberg

inventions I’d always

thought they were.”

—KURT VONNEGUT, JR.,

“Self-Interview”

Difficult for creationists to explain, however, is the fact that the Tigris-Euphrates Valley Civilization (in the Middle East), the Nile Valley Civilization (in Egypt) and the Aegean Civilization (in Greece) maintained uninterrupted written historical records extending before, throughout and following the year 2348 B.C. Their written chains of history were unbroken by the flood. Peoples of these vast civilizations failed to notice their own “destruction.”

Creationists occasionally admit that the heavens and the Earth appear to be billions of years old. But this “appearance of age” is a “deceptive illusion.” Writes Henry Clarence Thiessen in Lectures in Systematic Theology, “The fact that Adam was created full-grown seems obvious from Genesis, Chapter 2. Therefore, in at least the creation of Adam, we have the appearance of age. Is it not also conceivable that the whole creation of God had the appearance of age, perhaps even including the fossils?”

Several responses to Thiessen:1. The entire “appearance of age” contrivance is another sorry example of creationists’ illogically incorporating their argument’s conclusion into the “supporting” premise. To “prove” their conclusion that the Genesis genealogies are correct—and that Earth is actually young—creationists assume as factual the Genesis account of Adam’s being created with the “appearance of age.” In other words, we can “prove” Genesis reliable if we first assume that Genesis is reliable. Such “logic” is analogous to claiming proof of Rudolph’s red nose by citing Dasher’s eyewitness testimony. What creationists are really saying is that they know the Bible is true because it’s the Bible.

2. For what conceivable reason would God salt the geologic column with fossils of animals that never existed? To create the “appearance of age”? Why?

3. If our planet is only 6000 years old, how could Earth’s plate-tectonic activity separate North America from Europe, and South America from Africa, with spreading rates of only 4 inches per year? The separation of these continents took at least 200 million years.

4. Why do river and ocean sedimentary deposits consist of hundreds of thousands of annual layers, all of which lie above much older rock?

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