The Controversy
At the very beginning of the bible the creation story during six days is told. According to chapter one, the complete universe would be less than six thousand years ago
created. Anyone who has never read the creation story Genesis has really missed a fascinating story.
Most astronomers claim that the Universe was about thirteen billion years ago with a super explosion - the big bang - was created out of nowhere.
I feel free not at all to believe that magic trick, for it is in conflict with the law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation of energy.
Archaeologists discover remains of dinosaurs and many other forms of past life. Geological periods of many millions of years, even billions, are always spoken of.
The Bible and science seem to be diametrically opposed. Believing scholars would become schizophrenic. Because many believe science more than the Bible, those people have dropped their religious beliefs. Apparently it is difficult to believe in both at the same time.
Unreliable calendar?
To clear up this contradiction, some religious scholars try to demonstrate, that the chronology of scientists is wrong. The main pillar of the time measurements is based on the fact that the intensity of the radiation from radioactive substances gradually decreases with a strict pattern. After a while, the intensity has halved. Physicists speak of the half-life. Physicists believe that the half-life of a particular substance never changes. This is reasonably well controllable for short-term half-lives. It can never be fully proven, because 'never' takes a very long time. Scientists trust that the half-lives of the radioactive materials are constant, even if those times are longer than a thousand years, even millions of years.
They are the mentioned religious scholars, the creationists, who do not want to believe in the constancy of long half-lives. In this way they can hold on to the idea that the creation was about 6000 years ago allegedly occurred.
Some say the world was created like this that it looks like the past is billions of years old. That can neither be proved nor disproved.
Now a seemingly unnecessary leap is made to a teaching situation in a primary school.
The lesson with the globe
The teacher is standing in front of his students with a globe in his hands.
"See, this is Earth. The brown spots are the mountains and the blue is the ocean."
Karin walks forward and tries to put her finger in the water
but it collides with the plastic globe.
Master, that's not water, is it ?! My finger does not get wet. ”
"That is true", master apologizes. "What I have in my hands here,
is not really the world we live in. This sphere is just a model,
a strong simplification of reality. He only gives you an impression of the earth
as you would see her if you were in outer space outside of the earth.
The earth floats through space and is not in a standard like this globe".
Karin feels the brown mountains again, but everything feels completely smooth.
The teacher removes the sphere from its stand and pulls the two hemispheres apart.
“This globe is empty inside, but the real Earth is full of scorching hot stuff.
For example, a bitterbal is another model of the earth.”
Neither the globe nor the bitterbal are perfect models, but they complement each other beautifully.
Master reassembles the globe and says to Karin:
"You measure the circumference of this globe".
Karin tries that with a measuring tape and she comes to about 40 cm.
In the time of Napoleon, scientists have already established that the perimeter of the real earth,
measured along the equator, is 40,000 km. That is 4,000,000,000 cm.
So every cm on the globe is actually 100 million times bigger.
The Model Theory of Creation
The difference in time of creation in the bible (six days) and science (billions of years)
can also be interpreted completely differently.
Imagine that you come to live in a tribe that is very ignorant compared to you,
but which you cannot call stupid. If you have to explain to the tribe how the world came to be,
wouldn't you give a much simplified explanation of what actually happened?
Consider the model called the globe.
The creation story from the bible is completely credible, but then one must assume,
that the report is a great simplification of what really happened, a kind of excerpt.
The globe and the bitterbal were/are simple models of the earth.
The creation myth is a model of the origin of everything.
In that story a creation day is a symbol or model for a time of roughly two billion years.
The model theory gives a mix of the religious and scientific explanation.
Darwin states that the new animal and vegetable species change gradually, mainly under the influence of chance.
The species that - determined by chance - survive the best adapted to the environment.
Why shouldn't the Creator have 'experimented endlessly'
to bring about His Creation? Maybe He is still playing the game,
that scientists call evolution.
The first people
On the one hand we know finds of prehistoric humanoid beings:
Neanderthal, Cro Magnon and many other finds.
On the other hand, there is the biblical story with Adam and Eve.
We cannot ignore it: the finds of prehistoric people are too numerous to ignore.
How do Adam and Eve fit into this event?
We will see. That model theory can remove these contradictions.
Adam and Eve
On the sixth day, the first man, Adam, was created.
It is a pity to only take note of these Bible fragments.
It's worth reading them in context.
It is, at the very least, a collection of wonderful stories.
Fairytales, all kinds of myths and sagas and the stories of the superheroes
like Batman and Superman are also well consumed.
The Mind
The evolutionary theorists assume a development of 'simple' to increasingly complex life forms. Some assume a gradual development, others have very strong indications, that the evolutionary events took place in stages, thus a sequence of revolutions.
It is to be expected that the thinking process and the associated behavioral pattern of the animals refined over time. There are scholars who define, that a human being is a biological being who, among other things, can have feelings. But that is far too limited. Anyone familiar with cats and dogs alone, know that these animals also exhibit varying moods. The cattle farmer can probably also tell you more about the behavior of pigs, sheep and / or cattle.
Many animals behave completely predictably:
in nature they react like an automaton to their environment.
Treated animals can do much more than their natural behavior.
So animals can learn and just like humans
that probably always involves some kind of thinking pattern.
It is very plausible that humanoid beings already existed in prehistoric times, who were at least as intelligent as modern man, given the bone remains, discovered here and there in the ground and in caves together with burying gifts for the honored and loved dead. They had the same feelings as we have, for example love, hate, sorrow and joy. And they could communicate with body language and first later they were able to express themselves in a spoken and heard language.
Then comes a very remarkable spiritual improvement in the possibilities of the mind: the morality, the ability to make a conscious choice between good and bad. In my opinion these are creatures that deserve the name human. In model theory, Adam and Eve were models in the paradise story for the first people with an awareness of morality.
Note whether Adam and Eve were literally created, as told in the biblical book of Genesis or that they came into being through evolution, guided by the Creator, is not so important to His performance: by whatever method He has performed His work, all appreciation and respect remains with Him.
Support of Model Theory
In Genesis chapter 2, lines 8 and 9 we read:
God also planted a garden in Eden [= paradise], on the east, and there He placed the man that He had formed. God made all kinds of trees to sprout out of the ground, desirable to the sight and good for food, and also the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In no biology book do we come across these types of trees. These must be two concepts with a deeper meaning.
When the devil disguised as a serpent tempts Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit
of the tree of knowledge, then in model theory that is the symbolic moment that 'man'
is given his own conscious will and ability to choose between good and bad,
to be able to consciously choose between yes or no.
In my limited experience, the punishment for that offense was appallingly great:
immortal man in paradise became mortal outside of paradise.
It is comforting to think that there have never been immortal men,
except in some science fiction stories, such as vampires.
Genesis chapter 3 lines 16-19: To the woman he said:
"I will greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in labor pains you will bring forth children, and your craving will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
And to Adam he said: "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have gone to eat from the tree, about which I commanded you, "You must not eat from it", the earth is cursed by your will. With sorrow you will henceforth eat its produce. And thorns and thistles he will bring forth to you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. With the sweat on your face you will eat bread until you return to the face of the earth, because from there you were taken. For you were dust and to dust you will return."
The punishment also seemed to me unreasonably severe, because Adam and Eve had no experience whatsoever in morals, with obedience, with choosing between good and bad. In fact: what was bad then in paradise if all was good? Adam and Eve have had no chance whatsoever of knowing 'good and evil', except just by eating that forbidden fruit.
Children are raised with the aim, among other things, of learning what is good and bad. Only then they can be held fully responsible for their actions. Parents who are free-parenting - read: not educating - create completely irresponsible socially unadjusted people.
If Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, killed his brother Abel, he is expelled from paradise as punishment. Genesis chapter 4 lines 13 to 17. "The penalty for my error is too great to bear. See, You are actually driving me out today from the face of the earth, and I will be hid from Thee, and I must become a wanderer and fugitive on the earth, and it is certain that whoever finds me will kill me."
At this God said to him, "Therefore whoever kills Cain must suffer sevenfold vengeance."
God then instituted a sign for Cain that anyone who found him should be prevented from killing him.
Then Cain went out from the presence of God and settled in the land of the fugitives,
east of Eden.
Afterward, Cain had intercourse with his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.
Who was Cain afraid of and where did his wife come from? Here are clues to the credibility of model theory: apparently there were prehistoric hominids.