Pennsylvania: A History Lesson?

Yesterday, I was flipping through a book on the history of Pennsylvania. It is particularly geared toward the innovations that Pennsylvania is responsible for spawning in the United States; it is really quite an interesting book. But do you know what I read on the first page of the first chapter? Can't guess? Well, let's take a peak:

"Long before dinosaurs roamed the earth, about 300 million years ago, the key geographic features of this region formed..."

These kinds of statements always get my blood boiling. How do THEY know what happened 300 million years ago? The truth is, they don't. Were they there? Obviously not (if they were, I'd say that's one OLD person! ;) ). If no one was there to witness the event -- and it's obvious that no one was -- why are they stating it like it's the "gospel truth"? This is SUPPOSED to be the HISTORY of Pennsylvania, not someone's preconceived ideas! It continued:

"Vast tropical swamps covered Western Pennsylvania. As the climate changed over millions of years, that plant life died, decayed, and was buried. Under pressure and over time, those materials transformed into the single most valuable mineral deposit in the world: the Pennsylvania coal seam..."

Notice how they mention the primordial soup. Let's get real; if someone were to be present to witness the event, it would sound something like this: "Then I saw primordial soup covering the earth..." But there are just two problem with that: For one, nobody today claims to have seen it (because they didn't), and that brings us to the next problem: the primordial soup is believed to have happened BEFORE people evolved! So basically what they are saying is, "Long ago and far away, before humans evolved (so nobody was present to witness it), Pennsylvania (and all of earth itself) was soup." That's where, they say, our ancestors really came from! They were soup. Then they became rocks (it rained on the rocks for millions of years, you know). Next came the apes, and then they were finally humans! As ridiculous as it seems, the evolutionists cling to this goop and refuse to let go; they teach it like it is concrete evidence which cannot be shaken. The only problem is, it has been shaken time after time; it does not stand up to scrutiny -- their house of cards has been blown down and they keep building it back up without even bothering to address the issues. One such problem is this:

"By the time the first people arrived 16,000 years ago, the distinctive features we know today already existed."

The book states this as if it is everywhere agreed upon that the earth is OLDER than 16,000 years old. Mind you, there has been some "disagreement" on the age of the earth between the old-earth-creationists who adhere to the millions-of-years-old arguement, and the young-earth-creationists; the YE creationists -- and there are many of them, contrary to what the media would have us believe -- believe that the earth is no older than 10,000 years old. They come up with this age based on the dates and ages of people in the Bible. The terrible thing is, we don't doubt that George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity in 1754 or that Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg address in 1863 , but we can't agree on the dates in the Bible. Sure, it doesn't usually say, "In 30 B.C such and such happened," and this is an excuse for many to discredit the Bible when it refers to ages and dates; however, it is important to remember that they wrote differently back then (i.e. "In the year of Tiberius..."), so we have to fill in the blanks with what we know from history. (If you want to read all about the dates in the Bible, see "The Chronology of the Old Testament.") It is also interesting to note that the oldest surviving historical documents that we have are less than 6,000 years old. But there are other reasons for the belief that the earth can be no older than 10,000years. Many of these demonstrate that if the earth were millions or billions of years old, it would probably be uninhabitable. For example, the moon is receding from the earth by a few inches per year. If the earth were 300 million (or anywhere in the millions or billions range) years old, the moon would have been overlapping the earth, causing larger tidal waves and eroding the continents much more quickly. The sun is shrinking, but if the earth is as old as OE proponents claim, the mass of the sun would have been much larger at that point; if the mass of the sun is changed, it messes up the sun's gravitational balance, a balance which keeps the earth at just the right distance from the sun. The continents are eroding at such a rate that in less than14,000,000 years (and the book is stating 300 million -- 300,000,000 -- so we see that this is impossible), they would have eroded to sea level. The different ratioes for these events can be concluded based on counting backward. In short, life could not survive if the earth were older than 10,000 years old. As mentioned above, the book states:

"Under pressure and over time, those materials transformed into the single most valuable mineral deposit in the world: the Pennsylvania coal seam..."

The book is correct when it mentions that pressure causes coal, but it is wrong when it says "over time." They say that the coal formed over millions of years; yet coal has been known to form quickly as in the case of the Flood in Noah's day. Here is *CSE's explaination for rapidly forming coal:

"The first effect of the worldwide flood would have been the ripping up of vegetation worldwide and erosion on an unimaginable scale. As the water receded from one area, vegetation would have been deposited only to be subsequently buried as the area sank and water brought in more sediment. This, layer upon layer of coal would be formed. Furthermore, it has been shown in the laboratory that vegetation can be turned into coal in as little as 1 hour with sufficient heat and pressure. A recent model of coal formation is provided by a study of the catastrophic explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980. This explosion knocked down millions of trees which ended up floating on Spirit Lake. Underneath this layer of peat consisting of tree bark and organic matter. If that organic matter were buried by a subsequent eruption, the result would be a coal seam covered by sedimentary rock. Repeated cycles would rapidly produce a series of coal seams with sediment on top of each seam. This small scale model shows that it is reasonable to believe that an enormous flood would rapidly create the worldwide coal seams which we find today."

So you see, the millions and billions of years argument does not stand up to scrutiny, and these are just SOME of the points against it. Evolution is a belief, not a science. Science is testable, observable, verifiable, and repeatable, yet evolution is none of these things; for every point when examined thoroughly, does not stand the test -- there are just too many points against it and for creation by God, by design. *Special thanks to Creation Science Evangelism for much of the material presented here!