By opening his article with what sounds like a believed and conclusive opinion statement “Everyone takes for granted that the universe and earth are billions of years old” (Mortensen 2005 para. 1), Mortensen creates a confusing hypocrisy to his later closing remarks about his belief in God and a need for scripture. He also makes some alarming assumptions in his statement that the “last one hundred-seventy years have confirmed scriptural geologists worst fears”. (Mortensen 2005 para. 28) He supports this statement with an opinion that the West is in a state of social and moral decline from drug abuse, sexual immorality, violence, etc.
The mentioning of four scriptural geologists and their backgrounds help defend the author’s argument. Christianity and science play a strong role in how and why people believe what they believe, and this is one of the biggest debates of both subjects. Dr. Terry Mortenson has a superb argument on the ramifications of the Old-Earth Theory in this article, as well as a few areas he needs to expand on. Article Strengths Dr. Terry Mortenson mentions many important people when it comes to the theories of the world and creation in this article. The information included about each person was very professional and well
Many cultures believed that gods or goddesses created life. For example within the Christian religious tradition, it is believed that organisms were created by an almighty god. Due to the lack of scientific material, scientists are unable to test this theory of life, leading them to seek answers from a naturalist explanation. Up until the mid- nineteenth century, naturalists held onto the idea of spontaneous generation. This theory suggested that life was created out of nothing.
Uniformitarianism vs. Catastrophism Uniformitarianism and catastrophism are the two theories that are said to shape the Earth’s surface. Before James Hutton wrote his book about uniformitarianism, called Theory of the Earth, in 1788, nobody even considered that something other than catastrophism shaped the Earth’s surface. This was because they could see catastrophic change but they could not see gradual change. After Hutton published his book, people started to debate that the Earth was a lot older than they previously thought. Charles Lyell, a British geologist, reintroduced the idea of uniformitarianism when he published a series of books called Principles of Geology.
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.
Therefore, the literal day theory is consistent with the rest of scripture. Coogan finally states that the attempt to reconcile the creation with modern science by redefining “day” as a geological age, is a misguided adventure (Coogan 2006, 7). Haley’s Bible Handbook suggests that there are numerous different definitions of day. “In Genesis 1:5 it used as a term for light.” (Halley 2007, 85) In contrast he shows that in 1:8 and 1:13 it is a literal twenty-four hour day. In 1:14 and 1:16 it may represent a twelve hour period.
What are the pros and cons of interviewing as a research method? This essay will focus on interviewing as a research method. It will analyse the strengths and the limitations of using qualitative interviews as a research method. It will begin with a brief description of what interviews are and the different types of interviews and how they can be used as a research method. Secondly it will go onto explaining different approaches to interviews which have specific strengths and limitations.
The debate between Creationism, religion, God and science started in eighteen sixty; it was battle between “Thomas Huxley, who supported evolution, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce who opposed it.” By bringing history into her article, Kahn manipulates her argument into the outcome she wants. Then the author assures her readers about correctness of her view by giving more historical example about Darwinism and Creationism. The law that was passes in Tennessee in 1925 “the Butler Act, which prohibited
Charles Darwin helped science to make a new approach in the doctrine of the origin of mankind, therefore his name gained a worldwide acceptance and fame and he received a number of awards for it. His ideas were based on his own experiences because during his life he was an observer. He had always observed the natural processes and started to pay attention to the origin and life of different species and animals. In his writings he gave
Kaitlyn Rozanas Debate about Human Origins Anthropology 1102 16 October 2013 Theistic Evolution For many years there have been debates, wars, and many deaths when discussing the origin of our world, our human species, and whether there is a bearded man in the sky that is in a higher power or if science trumps all. However, in the case of the Theistic evolution, the line that draws these sides as separate entities not only does not exist, it brings these two theories together as a whole, creating a different and more compelled religious stand point. Theistic evolution is the proposition that God is in charge of the biological process called evolution. God directs and guides the unfolding of life forms over millions of years. This type of evolution contends that there is no conflict between science and the Biblical book of Genesis which will cause uproar among the believers of both.