Saturday, February 1, 2014

In The Beginning, Chapter Seven - Day Five


Genesis 1:20-23 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded (or “teemed”), according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.”

On day five, God continued His work of filling the earth that He had just formed. He began the process of creating living, breathing, moving creatures. He created two categories of animals - swimming and flying. All of the swimming animals - whales, sharks, fish, crustaceans, corals, jellyfish - anything that glides through the water or lives on the ocean floor was created ex nihilo (out of nothing) on day five. Also every creature that flies through the air...every flying bird, every bat, and every flying insect.

There are some birds like ostriches and kiwis that aren’t primarily fliers, spending most of their lives on the ground. The large, flightless ratites and weak-flying game birds were probably created on day 6, not day 5. Other flightless birds, like the flightless parrots of New Zealand, were probably strong fliers when their kind was originally made. Over the years, and through several degenerative mutations, an entire population of this kind of bird lost their ability to fly. Still, they would’ve been created on day 5 with the other fliers. The same is true of many insects which were strong fliers at one time, but are now restricted to the ground - all of which were created on day 5.

Remember, we’re starting with what the Bible says. When you form your worldview based on scripture, you would never get the idea of extinct groups of animals living long before humans existed. The Bible clearly says that all sea and air creatures were created on day five. When this is your only defining worldview, then we can see that even the giant marine reptiles (commonly, but erroneously called dinosaurs) and enormous flying pterosaurs were created on day 5 as well. All of the marine fossils we see around the world must’ve had their beginning on day 5. When we start with what the Bible says (i.e. “God created the different kinds of flying animals on day 5 and the fossilized pterosaurs were flying animals. Therefore that kind must’ve been created on day 5.) we can clearly see that something happened since creation to cause the fossilization and extinction of thousands of kinds of creatures! We’ll look a little more at that in part four!

So on day 5, God created every kind of swimming animal and every kind of flying creature. This point is drastically different than evolutionists believe. Evolutionist put land animals first then flying animals! Yet God had animals filling the skies before he ever had creatures walking around on land.

Actually, it’s the evolutionist that has real problems with flying animals. As we’ve already found out, there have been no fewer than four different types of animals flying through our sky (insects, reptiles, mammals, and birds). According to the current theory of evolution, insects were the first to evolve flight. After them, a group of flying reptiles, known as pterosaurs, evolved. Next, some feathered dinosaurs began to fly from tree to tree - becoming what we know as birds. Then, finally, the mammals took to the air as bats. Flight, they say, evolved independently four different times.

Each of these creatures flies in a drastically different way. Insects have wings attached to their back. Pterosaur wings were attached to an extremely long pinky-finger. Birds have wings that are mostly made of their arms and feathers - with a small part attached to their specially-designed fingers. Four of the bats’ fingers are elongated and covered in skin to make their wings. Still, every time we find these four types of fliers in the fossil record, they have perfectly formed and developed wings! We have never seen a partially formed wing in a fossil - not of birds, bats, bugs or pterosaurs!

But it’s not just the flying animals that the evolutionists have issues with. While the evolutionary view is that all life began in the oceans; they have no choice but to claim that some groups have left the water, evolved on land, and then returned to the sea. Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs, marine crocodiles, and sea turtles are different groups of reptiles that are said to evolved an aquatic lifestyle independently from each other. This is also said to be the case with at least two types of birds (Hesperornis and penguins) and at least three different types of mammals (whales, seals, and sea cows).The evolutionary story of each of these marine families has the same problems as the the flying creatures - namely, the extreme specialization of their body designs and the lack of transitional fossils.

Believing what the Bible says about these creatures leads to a structured, clearly defined system of naming and classifying these animals. The founder of modern taxonomy, Carolus Linnaeus, was a firm believer in God’s Word. This belief led to the most structured and organized classification system the world had ever seen. Why should this be the case? Because it’s clear to us that some creatures are closely related to each other and others are more distant. Creationist believe that there are clear boundaries between different created kinds - and that there are family lines that are never crossed.

But the evolutionary belief system leads to a confused, blurry understanding of which animals are related to which.They now classify animals not by how they appear, but on how they supposedly evolved. Never before in the history of zoology have animals been grouped into families and orders based on nothing more than a story! Look at these examples of confusing relationships that evolution teaches:
  • Birds are considered to be living dinosaurs. As such they are classified as reptiles! Despite the fact that birds are warm-blooded, lightly-built, and feather-covered; evolutionary scientists consider crocodiles to be their closest relatives!
  • Mammals are said to be descended from reptiles as well. As a result, a whole group of fossilized reptiles are called “mammal-like reptiles.” Even though these creatures have obvious reptilian characteristics - their so-called mammal-like features are emphasized...confusing their placement among the other reptiles.
  • Whales are grouped with hoofed animals like deer and cattle because they supposedly evolved from them.
  • Indeed, scientist have unearthed a fossil of a land-living, wolf-like creature with hooves on its feet. When they saw this creature, they named it Pakicetus (“whale from Pakistan)! This animal may never have swam a moment in its life - yet it’s called a whale! Why? Because it’s considered the earliest ancestor of every whale and dolphin in the ocean.
Can you see how basing your science on an imagined story can lead to poor science? Sadly, as the story continues to change, so does the science.

By contrast, we believe that God created the different kinds of animals individually. No kind of animal has ever given rise to another kind! Therefore, we group animals together based on how they are similar to each other. This leads to an easier understanding and a more consistent science.

So, after God created the flying and swimming creatures, He pronounced His first blessing. He blessed these animals and commanded them to fill the oceans and the skies...something they still do today!

No comments:

Post a Comment