Appendix C

The Secular World View

Geologic Time

Avoid... profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called. 1 Timothy 6:20.

In reconciling secular history with biblical history there are three secular scientific disciplines that need to be considered. First is Geology's claim to eons of time for both the Earth and the, supposed1y older, universe which is the foundational assumption to evolution. Second is Anthropology's attempt to prove an evolutionary growth of man from primate to homo erectus. And, third, Archeology'sclassifications of man's history by stone and metal artifacts. The latter will be touched upon in this chapter but will be dealt with more extensively in the second volume on the post-diluvian era. The findings of anthropology and archeology are exclusively from our era since the Flood destroyed almost [5] everything, although researchers claim their findings are enormously old.

GEOLOGIC CHART

To support the theory of vast stretches of time, secular geologists have developed a geologic time scale (see table) that breaks down the Earth's physical history into three main eras: recent history called the Cenozoic Era (Ceno-zoic means "recent life") which supposedly lasted 66 million years; middle history called the Mesozoic Era (Meso-zoic means "middle life") which is said to have lasted 165 million years; and the distant history called the Paleozoic Era (Paleo-zoic means "ancient life") which is supposed to cover 310 million years. Before life began they also claim a Pre-Cambrian Era (Cambria is another name for Wales in Great Britain) that lasted 3 billion years. Secular geologists claim a total of 541 million years of evolution and another 3 billion years of the Earth's existence, which rounds off to 3 and a half billion years.

The geologic chart is an arbitrary division of time made up for the evolutionary theory. The premise of the chart is that the Earth's rock strata has layered over the eons and contain fossils which demonstrate simple life forms at the lowest, and therefore oldest levels, then become.more complicated the closer one comes to the surface of the Earth. As Dennis Petersen points out, there are no such progressions of rock layers found containing such a fossil arrangement anywhere on the Earth [6]! In fact, there is a quarry in Lompoc, California where miners in 1976 found fossil remains of a whale's skeleton standing upright through 80 feet of rock surrounded by millions of simple one celled fossils [7]. According to the chart's premise, the bottom of the 80 feet should be many thousands of years old. This whale covers what is supposed to be several thousand years. This obviously is not: possible, given the single whale fossil that is there!

Furthermore, evolutionists want us to believe that it takes millions of years for a fossil to be developed. That is not so. Fossils are bones that have had the cell tissue replaced by minerals as water washes the minerals through the bone. This same process is what causes wood to petrify. All that is needed for fossilization of organic material are three conditions:

The truth is that it only takes a short time for fossilization to occur. Researchers have found that chicken bones and wood can be replaced with minerals in just five to ten years [8] . In fact, many dinosaur bones which supposedly lived during the Jurassic age 186 million years ago have been found only partially fossilized with original bone material remaining [9]! The fossils of today are more likely to have been caused by a universal catastrophe such as the Noahic Flood than by the gradual sedimentation assumed by the geologic chart.

The geologic chart has been used by paleontologists (people that study fossils) as a means of dating the age of the fossil found. The type of fossil found (a trilobite, for example) would be compared to the chart (Cambrian era) which concludes that it is 450 million years old. The problem with the system is that the chart was drafted according to the type of fossils it should contain, not by any real rock and fossil combination in existence. The chart assumes that simple life forms should proceed from the bottom up to complicated life forms at the top. Of course, there is no such thing as simple life forms; even single cells are very complicated. Geologists using the chart are arguing from circular logic. As geologist R.R. Rastall wrote in 1956, "The succession of organisms has been determined by the study of their remains embedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organisms they contain" [10]. Or, in other words, the age of the organism is dated by the rocks they are in, and the rocks are dated by the organism they contain! The Geologic Time Scale is circular reasoning based upon the desire to support the theory of evolution and not upon genuine facts.

Lastly, there is a striking contrast between what evolutionists say is the sequence of life formation, and what the biblical narrative says. There are many conflicts between the two. Below is a list declaring what the evolutionists say came first, then what the Bible says.

Clearly there are significant differences between the geologic chart (ignoring the time differences of 3½ billion years to 6 days of creation). First of all, the Bible states that the Earth was created before the stars and the sun. Also, plant life on land was created before aquatic life. And, finally, there is no simple to complicated creation of life sequence in the Bible. All forms of the specific category in that day were created at once.

RADIOMETRIC DATING METHODS

The element of time is difficult to prove or disprove. We are all confined to the present. Therefore, elaborate systems of calculations have been devised to project the estimated time for a given object. There are several means for estimating ages that dominate the evolutionary community's effort to corroborate their claims. Radiometric dating techniques have been one of their most frequently used means to prove their arguments for vast eons of time.

Radiometric dating measures the proportions of various radioactive isotopes, and their decay products in a given material. Three methods are commonly used: 1. Potassium Argon (KAr), 2. Uranium Lead (UPb), and 3. Carbon 14 (C-14). All three rely on calculations using the known rate of radioactive decay (the "half-life") of the various radioactive elements and their decay products in the material being tested.

The first two types of testing are used to date igneous rock (molten rock that cools and hardens, such as lava flow). The quantity of radioactive potassium or uranium present is compared to the quantity of the decay products of those elements, i.e., how long the radioactive decay has been occurring. The problem with this method is that, although the rate of radioactive decay is known with great precision, the original proportions of the elements cannot be known. Those proportions are based on completely unprovable, untestable assumptions about conditions that (supposedly) existed billions of years in the past.

Carbon dating compares the proportion of radioactive carbon-14 to one of its decay products, carbon-12, in once living organisms. All living organisms continually metabolize carbon, consisting of two chemically indistinguishable isotopes, C-14 and C-12, from the environment into their cells. When the organism dies, replacement of carbon atoms stops, and the proportion of C-14 to C-12 begins to decline as the C-14 atoms decay. Because of the relatively short half-life of C-14, carbon dating cannot be used to date things more than 20 to 40 thousand years old, and is most reliable for a 5 thousand year dating. Again, the untestable assumption here is the amount of C-14 in the environment when the organism was alive.

The first two tests are known to bring inconsistent results. For example, when the Apollo 11 mission brought back moon soil and rocks for testing, the results of the uranium lead test gave four different dates: 4.6 billion years, 5.4 billion years, 4.8 billion years, and 8.2 billion years [11]. The use of potassium argon tests concluded the age of the moon rocks to be 2.3 billion years [12]. So which age is to be believed? Not only are the tests inconsistent, but dates have been erroneously given to volcanic rock, when the time of eruption was historically already known. Lava from Hawaii was dated at 160 million to 3 billion years old when it was known to have come from an eruption in 1801 [13].

The igneous rock testing has also been in conflict with carbon 14 testing of fossils embedded in the same rock. For example, the Australopithicus bones of Ethiopia and the Zinjanthopus bones of Kenya were dated at 1-2 million years old by the overlying rocks, using potassium argon: yet other mammal bones dated with carbon 14 in the same deposits were dated at 15,500 years and 10,000 years respectively [14]. Such incongruities bring doubt to the accuracies of their measurements.

Carbon 14 is also unreliable. The system of measuring unstable carbon 14 isotopes requires an unprovable assumption that the radiation in the atmosphere has had a steady unchanging level for the last 30,000 years. This uniformitarian thinking lies at the heart of all evolutionists' conclusions. There are many factors that can change the amount of carbon 14. Air pollution from volcanoes and industry; solar flares and sunspots; cosmic radiation entering the atmosphere; and meteors hitting the earth, to name a few. Furthermore, there are many examples of erroneous dating by carbon 14 where the known historical dates conflicted with the test results. Living mollusks have been dated at 2,300 years old; mortar from an 800 year old English castle was dated at 7,370 years old; and fresh seal skins have been dated at 1,300 years old [15]. Today, even many secular scientists are shying away from these test results because of their inconsistencies and gross inaccuracies, even though most of them still rely on these faulty gages.

GEOCHRONOLOGY

Geochronology is the science of determining the age of the earth by geologic and natural events. There are more than 30 different ways to measure the earth's age. All of them disagree with the evolutionary claim of billions of years. Some reach as high as 14 million years, but most average around 10,000 years [16]. When high numbers do ensue, the question of accuracy falls on the testing means, not the biblical record. Two examples are presented here.

1. Lunar Dust

When the Apollo spacecrafts were designed, they assumed that the moon would be covered with a deep layer of cosmic dust. Therefore, the landing pads were made to "float" on that supposed dust. About 20,000 tons of cosmic dust falls on the Earth every year - or about 50 tons a day. Since secular scientists assume that the Earth is about 4½ billion years old they calculated that 50 to 180 feet of dust would be on the moon's surface. Yet,,, when the moon landings occurred, there were only a few inches of moon dust, which add up to only a few thousand years [17].

2. River Sediment

On the Earth there are various natural clocks to guage the age of the planet. River sediment can be measured both by the rate and volume of silt flowing down river as well as by the depth of accumulated silt at its mouth. The Mississipi, for example, has been assumed to be from 60,000 to 25 million years old by evolutionists. Yet when the army corp of engineers calculated the actual measurements of the Mississipi they came up with an age of 4,563 years [18]. This figure is nowhere near the evolutionists' assumption that silt had been accumulating for millions of years. Yet, the age is close to the time of the Flood, when the new river would begin its process of sedimentation.

There are many more examples of natural clocks that demonstrate a young Earth and universe. Without taking time to explain them, the reader is encouraged to read the book by Dennis Lindsey, The Birth of the Planet Earth and the Age of the Universe, published by Christ for the Nations.

THE ICE AGE

This is another secular teaching that creates confusion in understanding biblical and secular history. There is no doubt that glaciers and ice sheets have covered different parts of the northern hemisphere at different times. The conflict of interest comes in determining when they did so. The secular view is that these occurred during the pre-historic era, whereas, creationists believe they occurred in the ancient world shortly after the Flood.

The geologic chart lists the Pleistocene (from the Greek meaning "most recent") epoch as the period of the rise and dominance of man. The last 500,000 years are to be a time of 13 different glacial encroachments upon EuroAsia and North America. In regressing chronology the list is as follows:

Because the Bible states that "Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and ... there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground" (Gen. 2:5b & 6), we know that the climate for the first 1,700 years (2,300 BC; the time of the Flood) was mild without weather conditions of today. It is also believed by Creationists that there was an ice or vapor canopy over the Earth (which provided a green house like effect upon the planet [19]), that collapsed with the Flood. So the "Ice Age" for believers has to be sometime after the Flood.

While it is probable that glaciers formed in the barren world of the Flood, with all the vegetation washed away, and new icy winds blowing without the canopy, it is also possible that the "Ice Age" could have occurred much more recently. According to many ancient maps, no ice was once found on Greenland, but is covered with ice now. Northern Iceland supported agriculture as late as 1,200 AD! That is only 800 years ago; but by 1,400 AD it could not support agriculture at all [20].

It is ironic that politicians and others have fallen victim to the fear of either global cooling or global warming that the environmentalists promote. Disregarding biblical views, their own theory is that the Earth has experienced up to 13 ice ages and warming over the last 500,000 years. So why the anxiety over the normal course of events? To suggest it is caused by people when their geology says it has happened repeatedly without people is unjustifiable blame. Besides, the global climate is beyond our control. The panic is unfounded and has harmed many good people due to hasty legislation.

In keeping a true biblical world view, remember that the "Ice Age," did not exist during the antediluvian era and was a post-diluvian phenomenon that occurred at various times and places throughout history.

A MATURE CREATION

We, as temporal creatures who experience birth, growth, aging, and death, have difficulty imagining life otherwise. But the answer to the age old chicken and egg question of which came first, is "the chicken." When God created everything He created all things mature and even with the appearance of age. The first living creatures, including Adam and Eve, were fully "grown" and mature. Consider antique furniture. There are real antiques that have suffered the scars and marks of the passage of time. Yet an expert craftsman can "recreate" the appearance of an antique that could fool many experienced collectors. So, too, God created everything new with the appearance of age and maturity.

The distance of the stars and the speed of light is an argument for evolution. The assumption, however, derives from our own birthed viewpoint. It is assumed that the star was birthed (a form of anthropomorphism!), then the light had to travel the distance to reach us. That would take a very long time since the stars are so far away. Yet God could create the stars on the fourth day with the light already reaching the Earth. No time, no travel. Then the light that follows would travel. This is the creationist view on the apparent age of the universe..