Where Did We Come From? Part ONE of TWO

Where Did We Come From?

A Story of Creation Part ONE of TWO

By David G. McAfee 

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                The question of origin is one that will undoubtedly arise in the minds of children, and for those young people whose parents are non-religious- the answer may not come as easily. For Christians, their belief system comes neatly bound in the form of Children’s Bible stories in every bookstore- but science can be more difficult to understand than faith and magic for any child.

                Nobody really knows where we came from, as much as we can know what happens after death… or before life. But it is natural to ask the question of the earth’s origin, and millions of people have come up with different ideas to explain our existence here. Many of the ancient Greeks believed that Zeus, Hera, and a family of gods reigned over humanity and were responsible independently for creation, rain, fire, hunting, and more; today, this belief system is referred to as a myth. Historically, human beings have often attempted to explain the unknown with interesting tales of the supernatural… but today, we can use scientific evidence to determine the earth’s origin, and how humans came to populate it.

Why Can’t the Bible Be the Answer?

               The problem lies within the wording of the Bible, which seemingly indicates that the earth has been around fewer than seven thousand years from its creation until today. Not only does this leave many unanswered questions regarding dinosaurs, other planets, evidence of evolution, etc… but if the Bible is to be considered, as it is taught by the majority of Christian clergymen, as the literal word of God, and all of its statements truthful, then this should mean that scientific evidence would support such claims; in this instance, that is not the case. Using various radiometric dating methods, scientists have discovered parts of earth’s crust to be around 3.8 billion years old, but experts generally agree that the earth is over 4.5 billion years old.[1] Because we know that the earth cannot be less than ten thousand years of age, the only question is whether or not the Bible explicitly makes that claim. Here I will outline the chapters that indicate that indeed it does.

  1. In Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, a description of the earth’s creation by God includes man, woman, fish, beasts, sky, lightness, darkness, earth, and, after God creates humanity, states: “And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”[2] We conclude, then, that the Bible literally represents the earth as being five days older than humanity.
  2. In Luke 3:23-38, Luke gives a detailed ancestry of Jesus, beginning with his father and outlining seventy-two generations between Adam (and the creation of earth) and Jesus Christ. Historians are able to document the approximate time period between Abraham, referenced as fifty-three generations prior, and Jesus; this period is around two thousand years.
  3. Using lifespan averages (most of the chronology is available through Genesis 5:3-27,[3] in which Adam is linked to Noah, including the number of years each father lived), we can calculate that the remaining twenty generations between Abraham and Adam also constitutes approximately two thousand years.

               Therefore, the earth was created and five days later man was built in God’s image. Two thousand years and twenty generations later, Abraham is born and gives birth to a son, Isaac. Fifty-three generations (much shorter than the prior generations, some of whom lived to be over nine hundred years old[4]), and two-thousand years, follow until God gives Mary the gift of immaculate conception and Jesus Christ enters the world. Jesus dies on the cross at around thirty years of age.[5] We know the exact number of years from Jesus’s crucifixion because of the way our years are measured. For example, I am writing in 2010 AD. “AD” means anno Domini[6], literally meaning “in the year of the Lord.” Using rough estimates, we conclude that two thousand plus two thousand plus thirty plus two thousand and ten gives us an approximate age of 6,030 years since the beginning of the earth’s creation according to the Old and New Testaments. Because modern science has taught us that this cannot be true, we can infer that the Bible, and therefore the Christian religion, does not accurately represent the history of events of the earth’s origin.

[1]“Age of the Earth,” U.S. Geological Survey, 1997, http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

[2] Genesis 1:31-2:02: “And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

[3] Genesis 5:5-11: “And all of the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died…And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years…And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.”

[4] Genesis 5:27: “And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.”

[5] Luke 3:23: “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as he was supposed) the son of Joseph.”

[6] The Anno Domini dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus

Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve


13 responses to “Where Did We Come From? Part ONE of TWO

  1. I object to the statement “as it is taught by the majority of Christian clergymen”. I put it to you that the majority of Catholic, Episcopalian(Anglican), Lutheran, the various Orthodox churches, Presbyterian, Methodist and other moderate schisms vastly outnumber the few, mainly fundamentalists, who teach a literal interpretation of the Bible

    Correctly the wording should be “as it is taught by some Christian clergymen”.

  2. I just have an accuracy question… isn’t Anno Domini the birth of Christ? hold on let me Google it…
    Wikipedia says I am right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini however…. Who cares? Jesus probably didn’t even exist right?

  3. Most catholics don’t care too much for the literal truth of Old Testament. Most Bible literalists are Protestants. It comes from the Reformation, when some reformists (I think it was Martin Luther himself) preached that only the Bible (solo Biblia) was the source of faith. By that time, in most of the Conter-Reformation countries, the Bible was forbidden reading for everyone except clergymen.

    As a secularist, you should not be using the chronolgy AD/BC, but the secular one (CE/BCE, os Comon Era and Before Common Era). That’s what I do, even if I have to leava a footnote explaining the meaning.

  4. The majority of Christians here are fundamentalist, no matter what the clergy are!
    Ignostic Morgan’s blog.WordPress.com
    Skeptic Griggsy ditto
    Strato of Ga. ditto
    that website on left

  5. But whatever their denomination or clergy say, the majority of American Christians are fundamentalist.
    Here are some blogs to check out: the one at the left
    IgnosticMorgan’s blog.WordPress.com
    Strato of Ga. WoedPres.com
    Skeptic Griggsy ditto and
    Thales IgnosticMorgan .Blogspot.com

  6. Carneades.aimmoo.com- is the one noted at the left

  7. Well young man “Using various radiometric dating …” I’ll let the good Dr. speak to this: http://www.icr.org/article/myths-regarding-radiocarbon-dating/

    • That article, brought to you by the “Institute for Creation ‘Science'”, isn’t even worth responding to. Sorry

      • LOL… a very reasoned response.

      • Colin Pipkins

        Myths Regarding Radiocarbon Dating
        by Gerald A. Aardsma, Ph.D.

        The field of radiocarbon dating has become a technical one far removed from the naive simplicity which characterized its initial introduction by Libby in the late 1940’s. It is, therefore, not surprising that many misconceptions about what radiocarbon can or cannot do and what it has or has not shown are prevalent among creationists and evolutionists – lay people as well as scientists not directly involved in this field. In the following article, some of the most common misunderstandings regarding radiocarbon dating are addressed, and corrective, up-to-date scientific creationist thought is provided where appropriate.








        This problem, known as the “reservoir effect,” is not of very great practical importance for radiocarbon dating since most of the artifacts which are useful for radiocarbon dating purposes and are of interest to archaeology derive from terrestrial organisms which ultimately obtain their carbon atoms from air, not the water.












        MYTH #6. Creationists are only interested in debunking radiocarbon.




        * Dr. Aardsma is Chairman of the Astro/Geophysics Department in the ICR Graduate School. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto doing research in accelerator mass spectrometry, a new technique now widely used in radiocarbon dating.

  8. Pingback: Christian Explanation of Genesis: A Response « The Secular Writings of David G. McAfee

  9. what if we never question our existence? Would there be any
    belief system or would scientist be concerned about the age of man,
    the earth, and the universe? since religion and evolution defines
    mankind existence, and scientist attempts to discover how we got
    here, more than likely there would no belief system nor science, at
    least how we know it today. Since we asked the question, where do
    you think this though come from? Did God put this though in our
    heart, did we evolve to be curious people, or is it the result of
    crossbreeding with aliens. Morever, why do we look to creation to
    understand how we got here? After Darwin observed the birds he
    concluded that life evolved. But the Bibles says to asked the birds
    and the will instruct you. Job 12:6-9. We asked the birds through
    science. God says that life came from the earth. Forensic science
    have proved it. God put eternity in hearts but says that mankind
    will never discover the beginning of his work, that is creation,
    Ecc 3:11.

  10. When were children we asked our parents the biological
    question, the we asked the geneaolgical question, then we asked
    questions about men’s origin. Our parents them told us the story of
    creation. We asked the heavens the same story. And without words
    the heavens tells us the same story. Ps 19:1-6

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