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Flood legends



Native global flood stories are documented as history or legend in almost every region on Earth. In The Antiquities of the Jews, first-century historian Josephus cites myriad ancient histories recording the flood, including those by Berosus the Chaldean, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Mnaseas, and Nicolaus of Damascus. (Antiquities I:3:93-95.) In addition to these written accounts, scores of oral traditions about the flood exist throughout the world even today, including Native American and Aboriginal societies. Old world missionaries reported their amazement at finding remote tribes already possessing legends with tremendous similarities to the Bible's accounts of the worldwide flood. H.S. Bellamy in Moons, Myths and Men estimates that altogether there are over 500 Flood legends worldwide. Ancient civilizations (such as China, Babylonia, Wales, Russia, India, America, Hawaii, Scandinavia, Sumatra, Peru, and Polynesia) all have their own versions of a giant flood.

These flood tales are frequently linked by common elements that parallel the Biblical account including the warning of the coming flood, the construction of a boat in advance, the storage of animals, the inclusion of family, and the release of birds to determine if the water level had subsided. The overwhelming consistency among flood legends found in distant parts of the globe indicates they were derived from the same origin (the Bible's record), but oral transcription has changed the details through time.

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Intelligent Design



Intelligent design (ID) refers to a theory of origins or a scientific research program. In addition, the term is used to describe the community of philosophers, scholars, and scientists who are seeking evidence of design in nature. The scientific theory of intelligent design holds that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection".[1] ID theorists draw exclusively upon empirical evidence to support the existence of a creative intelligence or designer. ID purports that nature can be detected without any understanding of who the designer is or why the agent acted, or even how the phenomenon in question was actually produced.

ID is a unique scientific position that stands in stark contrast to naturalistic, materialistic philosophy of science which puts forth abiogenesis rather then intelligent agents as the main mechanism that created biological systems for sustaining life. It can also clearly be distinguished from religious creationism in that it stakes no claim regarding the specific identity of the creator, nor does it use references from scripture when forming theories about the history of the world. In fact, many ID theorists support the idea of common descent and billions of years of time. ID simply postulates that certain features within the cosmos present clear evidence of being deliberately and intelligently designed.

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History of Creationism



The History of creationism encompasses several thousand years of thought regarding the origin of the universe, earth, and life with reference to one or more creative agents. In varying forms, it is the dominant view of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, as well as Chinese Taoism, Greek Stoicism, and many animistic belief systems. It was the dominant viewpoint among European scientists until the mid 19th century (see historical creation scientists and the list of present-day creation scientists), but was not subject to a rigorous research program, because the historicity of Genesis was largely taken for granted.

With the rise of secularization in the 19th century, however, creationism came under fire in Europe and America, and began to develop a vigorous research program.

When geologists revised the age of the earth to millions of years, some writers looked to studying geology within the Biblical timeframe detailed in the Ussher-Lightfoot calendar. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the leaders were the scriptural geologists in Britain. About a century later, the Canadian George McCready Price, wrote extensively on the subject. However, the concept only revived during the 1960s following the publication of The Genesis Flood by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb.

Subsequently, creation science has expanded into biology and cosmology. However, efforts to have it legislated to be taught in public (government) schools in the United States were eventually halted by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the first amendment in Edwards v. Aguillard 1987.

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