AY Honors/Creationism/Answer Key

Creationism

Skill Level

2

Year

2012

Version

25.11.2024

Approval authority

General Conference

1

Define the scientific model and theory.

A scientific model seeks to represent empirical objects, phenomena, and physical processes in a logical and objective way. All models are in simulacra, that is, simplified reflections of reality, but, despite their inherent falsity, they are nevertheless extremely useful. Building and disputing models is fundamental to the scientific enterprise. Complete and true representation may be impossible (see non-representational theory), but scientific debate often concerns which is the better model for a given task, e.g., which is the more accurate climate model for seasonal forecasting. A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, and repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation. As with most (if not all) forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive power and explanatory force.

2

List three principal differences between the creationist model and the evolutionist model.

Creationist model

Supernatural Designer, the world was made in 6 literal days, and the world is only a few thousand years old.

Evolutionist model

There is no intelligent Designer, the world and universe was made in a few billion years, and the world is a few billion years old.

3

Read and respond to the following:

3a

1 Timothy 6:20, 21. What relation can exist between this passage and the evolutionism?

20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith. Grace be with you all.

After giving Timothy six chapters of instruction, Paul tells him to “keep” all the things that had been committed to his trust. The word “keep” in this verse means “to guard.” Paul is warning Timothy to guard the teaching that he had been given from being polluted by the false ideas of the world. Paul then describes the kinds of things that he wants Timothy to guard his mind from. Paul’s literal intention of this command was for Timothy to avoid arguments from men who claimed that they had intellectual oppositions to the gospel. Paul knew that many men would claim that their “wisdom” and “knowledge” kept them from believing the truth. But their so-called “knowledge” was not knowledge at all. It was “falsely so called.” But while Paul’s literal intention for this verse was broader, we can certainly apply Paul’s point to the more specific subject of modern-day science. For over 150 years now, ever since Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859 and evolution became the accepted theory for the origin of life, the mainstream scientific community has been in direct opposition to God’s Word and what it has to say about how the universe and life began. Christians often become fearful and timid when they hear that “science” seems to contradict the Bible. Some allow their faith to be shipwrecked. Others just try to make the Bible fit with each new prevailing scientific theory, but we need not be intimidated. We are not on shaky ground as believers. Those who claim to use science to refute the existence of God are the ones who are on shaky ground.

3b

Genesis 1, 2. Can someone disagree with these texts and remain a member of the remnant? Justify the response.

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Adam and Eve 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[b] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[c] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man[d] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin[e] and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.[f] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam[g] no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[h] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[i] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

---

The doctrine of the remnant is outlined as follows; "13. Remnant and Its Mission: The universal church is composed of all who truly believe in Christ, but in the last days, a time of widespread apostasy, a remnant has been called out to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This remnant announces the arrival of the judgment hour, proclaims salvation through Christ, and heralds the approach of His second advent. This proclamation is symbolized by the three angels of Revelation 14; it coincides with the work of judgment in heaven and results in a work of repentance and reform on earth. Every believer is called to have a personal part in this world wide witness. (Rev. 12:17; 14:6-12; 18:1-4; 2 Cor. 5:10; Jude 3, 14; 1 Peter 1:16-19; 2 Peter 3:10–14; Rev. 21:1–14.0” We as Seventh Day Adventists and as faithful Christians as a whole we are called to believe and uphold the scripture, keep the commandments and the faith of Jesus. Jesus is the Father and the Holy Spirit made manifest in human form. If we are called to uphold the scripture and keep the faith of our lord then we can not simply refute and run counter to what is said, as such one cannot disagree with the texts of Genesis 1 and 2 or any of the other Gospels be they the old Hebrew texts of the Old Testament or the Early Christian texts of the New Testament why? Because we are not on shaky ground as believers if we follow and uphold our beliefs but it is those who claim to use science to refute the existence of God and his word, who are the ones who are on shaky ground. And as such cannot remain a member of the faith.

4

Share at least five passages from Ellen White’s Writing in the book “Patriarchs and Prophets” that mention the “young” age of the earth.

Page 111, paragraph 3: "But the assumption that the events of the first week required thousands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite periods."

Page 112, paragraph 1: "'By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.' 'For He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.' Psalm 33:6, 9. The Bible recognizes no long ages in which the earth was slowly evolved from chaos. Of each successive day of creation, the sacred record declares that it consisted of the evening and the morning, like all other days that have followed."

Page 112, paragraph 3: "But apart from Bible history, geology can prove nothing. Those who reason so confidently upon its discoveries have no adequate conception of the size of men, animals, and trees before the Flood, or of the great changes which then took place. Relics found in the earth do give evidence of conditions differing in many respects from the present, but the time when these conditions existed can be learned only from the Inspired Record. In the history of the Flood, inspiration has explained that which geology alone could never fathom. In the days of Noah, men, animals, and trees, many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history; but men, with their vain reasoning, fall into the same error as did the people before the Flood—the things which God gave them as a benefit, they turn into a curse by making a wrong use of them."

Here is a good, short article on Ellen G. White and Creationism.

5

Investigate the fundamental belief, “The Creation,” of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Demonstrate the base of this fundamental belief through the Bible, finding from memory at least five passages that talk about this idea.

God is Creator of all things, and has revealed in Scripture the authentic account of His creative activity. In six days the Lord made “the heaven and the earth” and all living things upon the earth, and rested on the seventh day of that first week. Thus He established the Sabbath as a perpetual memorial of His completed creative work. The first man and woman were made in the image of God as the crowning work of Creation, given dominion over the world, and charged with responsibility to care for it. When the world was finished it was “very good,” declaring the glory of God. (Gen. 1; Gen. 2; Ex. 20:8-11; Ps 19:1-6; Ps 33:6,9; Ps 104; Heb. 11:3.)

6

Read chapters six through nine of Genesis. Afterwards, do one of the following activities:

6a

Investigate and elaborate a detailed schedule about a theory accepted by scientific creationists about how the events occurred.

6b

Make a list with at least five biblical mentions of the flood and give at least five historical and scientific evidences of a global flood.

Biblical

Genesis 7:4 - "For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made."

Genesis 7:21-23 - All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark.

Isaiah 54:9 - "For this is like the days of Noah to Me, When I swore that the waters of Noah Would not flood the earth again; So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you Nor will I rebuke you.

Genesis 8:21-22 - The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. "While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease."

Genesis 7:24 - The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days.

Historical and Scientific

Robert Ballard - Four hundred feet below the surface, they unearthed an ancient shoreline, proof to Ballard that a catastrophic event did happen in the Black Sea. By carbon dating shells found along the shoreline, Ballard said he believes they have established a timeline for that catastrophic event, which he estimates happened around 5,000 BC. Some experts believe this was around the time when Noah's flood could have occurred.

A theory goes on to suggest that the story of this traumatic event, seared into the collective memory of the survivors, was passed down from generation to generation and eventually inspired the biblical account of Noah.

Noah is described in the Bible as a family man, a father of three, who is about to celebrate his 600th birthday. "In the early chapters of Genesis, people live 800 years, 700 years, 900 years," said Rabbi Burt Visotzky, a professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. "Those are mythic numbers, those are way too big. We don't quite know what to do with that. So sometimes those large numbers, I think, also serve to reinforce the mystery of the text." Some of the details of the Noah story seem mythical, so many biblical scholars believe the story of Noah and the Ark was inspired by the legendary flood stories of nearby Mesopotamia, in particular "The Epic of Gilgamesh." These ancient narratives were already being passed down from one generation to the next, centuries before Noah appeared in the Bible.

In pre-Christian times, fossils found on land were thought by Greek philosophers, including Xenophanes, Xanthus and Aristotle, to be evidence that the sea had in past ages covered the land. Their concept of vast time periods in an eternal cosmos was rejected by early Christian writers as incompatible with their belief in Creation by God. Among the church fathers, Tertullian spoke of fossils demonstrating that mountains had been overrun by water without explicitly saying when. Chrysostom and Augustine believed that fossils were the remains of animals that were killed and buried during the brief duration of the Biblical Genesis Flood, and later Martin Luther viewed fossils as having resulted from the Flood. Other scholars, including Avicenna, thought fossils were produced in the rock by "petrifying virtue" acting on "seeds" of plants and animals. In 1580 Bernard Palissy speculated that fossils had formed in lakes, and natural historians subsequently disputed the alternatives. Robert Hooke made empirical investigations, and doubted that the numbers of fossil shells or depth of shell beds could have formed in the one year of Noah's Flood. In 1616 Nicolas Steno showed how chemical processes changed organic remains into stone fossils. His fundamental principles of stratigraphy published in 1669 established that rock strata formed horizontally and were later broken and tilted, though he assumed these processes would occur within 6,000 years including a worldwide Flood.

The team claims to have found in 2007 and 2008 seven large wooden compartments buried at 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) above sea level, near the peak of Mount Ararat. They returned to the site with a film crew in October 2009. Many Christians believe the mountain in Turkey is the final resting place of Noah's ark, which the Bible says protected Noah, his family, and pairs of every animal species on Earth during a divine deluge that wiped out most of humanity. "The structure is partitioned into different spaces," said Noah's Ark Ministries International team member Man-fai Yuen in a statement. "We believe that the wooden structure we entered is the same structure recorded in historical accounts... "The team says radiocarbon-dated wood taken from the discovery site—whose location they're keeping secret for now—shows the purported ark is about 4,800 years old, which coincides roughly with the time of Noah's flood implied by the Bible.

7

Attend a meeting on creationism sponsored by the school, faculty, Club, church, district, or region.

7a

Prior to your attendance, write some of the anticipated doubts that people may have about a scientific presentation from a Creationist viewpoint. If possible, present them to a speaker or participant so they can clarify responses from a biblical and/or scientific basis.

7b

As you debrief the meeting, share at least fifteen objections that can be made by the evolutionists for a creationists viewpoint. Share some of the biblical and scientific ways that you can refute objections.

8

Investigate and demonstrate how to argue in favor of creationism, using three of the following questions:

8a

From the biological point of view, what are the systems of irreducible complexity?

8b

From the geological point of view, investigate and draw a geological column of creationism and compare it with the evolutionary model. Explain how the gaps in both models are completed with philosophical bases (not scientifically checked).

8c

From the oceanography point of view, how can we know, through oceanic sedimentation, that the oceans are “young”?

8d

From the astronomical point of view, how does the progressive distance of the moon, in relation with the gravitational center of the earth (take into account the “limit of Roche”) indicate a “young” earth and moon?

8e

From the archaeological point of view, what are the transitional fossils? How does their absence argue in favor of creationism?

9

Based on what you have learned in this honor and from other sources, present a project titled “Why be a creationist?” through one of the following:

9a

Electronic presentation

9b

Written paper

9c

Video

9d

Storyboard / poster

10

With the instructor as the mediator, have a debate about how it is possible to have science and faith in harmony.

11

Visit one of the following and give your club director a report of the diversity and wonder of the things you saw of God's creation:

11a

Zoo

If you are planning to visit a zoo or aquarium, be aware that there are various honors that have requirements which can be met by visiting a zoo or aquarium. Individuals can work on multiple honors in one visit, or parts of your group may work on different honors during the same visit.

Here is a list of honors which have requirements that can be met by visiting a zoo or aquarium:

Animal Camouflage

Bogs & Fens

Creation

Dunes

Endangered Species

Harmful Animals

Island Fishing

Marine Mammals

Marsupials

Marsupials & Monotremes

Migration

Oceans

Palouse

Rainforests

Raptors

Sharks

Taiga

Temperate Deciduous Forests

Temperate Grasslands

Venomous Animals

11b

Aquarium

See Zoo above.

11c

National/State/Provincial Park

11d

Nursery

11e

Gardens

11f

Equivalent location

References

Good talk on creationism and how evolution is "stupid" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Mcsi7ylbE