Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Kenyan Creationism

We've already heard that creationists in Kenya are trying to hide the evidence of fossils but pressuring Kenya's natural history museum to push the fossils into the back room and present evolution as one among many theories. However, it seems that these creationists can't even get their creation myth right.

According to CNN, "Bishop Adoyo believes the world was created 12,000 years ago, with man appearing 6,000 years later. He says each biblical day was equivalent to 1,000 Earth years."

So apparently he doesn't take Genesis literally on units of time, but he'll take it literally in regards to God poofing man into existance. Looks like yet another case of cherry picking. And it doesn't even fit with the typical young earth creationist model.

4 comments:

nullability said...

Kenya believe it?

Stephen said...

I've heard the celestial_day_is_a_thousand_years before. I've just finished reading the entire christian Bible. It doesn't come off reading like that. A quick check reveals Psalm 90:4, and 2nd Peter 3:8 references: that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day. Both references talk about the perspective of God - not some bizzare recalibration of time.

And how would believers in Moses' time have interpreted Genesis? There was no mention of it in the first five books. You'd expect that people would hear 'days', but that is unlikely. Modern interpretations say 'days', but the original word used can also mean 'epoch' or 'era'. It should be noted that millions or billions of years was not something many (if any) at the time would have any way to understand.

Besides. Details like this have nothing to do with faith. If your faith depends on these things, you've missed the point. Jesus urge people to have faith like a little child. He did not encourage people to act like little children. It's very strange.

As a Christian, such nonsense is offensive. It gives one the idea that Christian theology is either not understandable (so what's the point of learning it) or that it is utter nonsense (discrediting the whole enterprise).

Plenty of very smart sounding people have promoted this nonsense. Cynically, I don't think these people are really that stupid. They must have an agenda. That agenda is to gain influence over the gullable. To what gain? Well, the Discovery institute makes a living at it.

Anonymous said...

The "day = 1,000 years" idea is particularly odd as the Biblical text talks of evening and morning.

Not to mention, plants were created on the 3rd day, and the Sun on the 4th day ... so there were 1,000 years between the creation of plants and the Sun?

Stephen said...

I've heard the celestial_day_is_a_thousand_years before. I've just finished reading the entire christian Bible. It doesn't come off reading like that. A quick check reveals Psalm 90:4, and 2nd Peter 3:8 references: that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day. Both references talk about the perspective of God - not some bizzare recalibration of time.

And how would believers in Moses' time have interpreted Genesis? There was no mention of it in the first five books. You'd expect that people would hear 'days', but that is unlikely. Modern interpretations say 'days', but the original word used can also mean 'epoch' or 'era'. It should be noted that millions or billions of years was not something many (if any) at the time would have any way to understand.

Besides. Details like this have nothing to do with faith. If your faith depends on these things, you've missed the point. Jesus urge people to have faith like a little child. He did not encourage people to act like little children. It's very strange.

As a Christian, such nonsense is offensive. It gives one the idea that Christian theology is either not understandable (so what's the point of learning it) or that it is utter nonsense (discrediting the whole enterprise).

Plenty of very smart sounding people have promoted this nonsense. Cynically, I don't think these people are really that stupid. They must have an agenda. That agenda is to gain influence over the gullable. To what gain? Well, the Discovery institute makes a living at it.