Let's keep on topic, shall we? Creationism versus evolutionism:
Yes, on topic... but there will be a little wandering here and there. To me, the problem revolves around the law of cause and effect. Everthing that exists (all effects) have a cause and the effect can never be greater than the cause itself. Is need (as in the white/black moth) a cause? Or is chance a cause? How does more order come out of randomness unless the order is the source of the randomness? Which is the subset of which?
The basic assumption that I make - though not really an assumption as much as a conclusion - is that god (without dogma or description yet) is the first cause of this world. It is simply a name given to that first cause. The consistency and harmony that is seen in the world as a whole (with the exception of human society as a whole) I take not as proof, but as an indication that there is consistency, harmony and intelligence in that cause.
You did ask, so...
***How old is the earth?
Last time I checked, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.5 billion years old? About one third as old as the cosmos? When I look at the amazing canvases of the Dutch black oil masters, it doesn't matter to me that they took months to paint while van Gogh, an equally tremendous artist, churned out a masterpiece a day. To me, god is no less amazing for having taken time in the creation of something from nothing.
***How old are the species that inhabit it?
I can accept the timeline of present science, without being a specialist in it. I would say that the finger of god in the creation process was not unlike that lightning bolt in the primordial soup that folded the first amino-protein-life strand. I think we can agree that evolution takes place at a cellular or even a molecular level.
***What do you think of the Carbon dating method?
Amazing how clever man can be to figure that out. On a par with the discovery of coffee. Imagine! - how did the first guy figure out that if you take the coffee fruit, smash it, throw away the fruit and the skin, wash it, dry it, toast it, crush it, grind it, pour boiling water over it and add a splash of cream you could make breakfast a treat?
***What do you think about dinosaurs?
Amazing beasts, they were selected out long before the appearance of the earliest humans. I'd say they were planned as the main ingredient for petroleum, if it weren't for the fact that petroleum use is such a bad idea.
I don't know why they appeared or why they disappeared. Maybe God was doodling as he waited for the house's foundation to settle?
Certainly the type of adaptability found in humans would have kept them around a bit longer. But then, our level of adaptability is pretty amazing, isn't it?
When Rembrant painted a canvas, he did several complete layers of each person's face. Any one of them could have been the last one, but he did them again and again till he was satisfied.
***How can even a flottilla of Ark's save the entire animal livestock of the earth?
OK, here I guess I could be accused of selective belief, but I take the flood as a metaphor connected to an regional event. I have limited actual knowledge of the details, but there is anecdotal evidence of a regional catastrophe in the Near East, supposed hometown of Mr Noah Arquero. The flood story is not contemporaneous. Reportedly, Moses wrote down what was an oral tradition after it had been handed down for several hundred years. When did the oral tradition start? Was it contemporaneous? Probably not since it is told in the third person (no-one around but Noah after the flood
). The salient things about the story are the details that are clearly alegorical - three levels of the Ark, 40 days of rain, the raven that flew to and fro (could have just landed on the ark), the three doves, the olive branch (hell, even the fiction that two to five pairs (not just two) of every kind of animal was included). The whole thing sets the stage for a providential event, a replay of the previous alegory of the Garden. But this is a digression into the theme of a possible other thread.
***Where is the evidence of the huge migration to and from the Ark befor and after the flood?
There isn't one, since even if it was literally historical, it was regional. The time frames used in the Bible are more symbolic than literal. The time between the supposed Eden story and the flood is analagous to the time frame between the flood and the first Bible-guy with contemporary extrabiblical confirmation of his passage on the face of the green earth, Abraham. Both time periods are represented as 10 generations 1,600 years for one and 400 for the other. Again, the time is symbolic, remember that these guys had only just discovered the zero. (Convenient explanation perhaps, but consistent)
***How do you explain that humans are capable through breeding and genetic engineering to alter the god-given species?
Here we enter the realm that is important. First off, since the process of created speciation is not some sort of magic, but a development from the molecular level, why wouldn't anyone with the keys to molecular manipulation be able to change/affect it? BTW, how do you explain that? How come tigers don't do it (other than making sure the toughest tiger gets the best wives)? We, different from any other species, have this ability. How and why? For me it is because of the intelligent design of man. Many different religious traditions have the concept of man as image of god. That concept is usually abused by people who say "we are this image, this chosen one" and neglect that the image is a universal image. I look at it as "you are the image of god." Then we become humble to each other and look for clues and cues in the other, bringing us to need each other more, producing a synergy that is beneficial to the development of society. We have god-like creativity, the ability to dominate (ooh that word) the physical world as if we were God himself. Some contend that I have an anthropomorphic God, I prefer to think that man is godthropomorphic.
There's room in that to discover ourselves and God.
***How do yo uaccount for the double creation in the Genesis
When we create, we first plan, then we do. When we plan we start with the end result in mind. I want to build a nice home for my family, so I have an idea of what I want and where I want it. I hire an architect to work out the details of building the house that will become the home. When the building starts, I call in the backhoe first and then work from the least to the most complex.
Man was conceived in the mind of God as an object for his love and a partner in his joy. He was the first thing thought of yet the last thing built. The "machinery" necessary for the building is the evolutionary malestorm that is genesis, the primordial soup that gave rise to life.
The "double creations" in the Bible, while written by different people at different times with different political motivations still correspond en-macro to these two tracks - one book (Genesis), but two stories; one about the planning and one about the doing.
***and the other humans clearly existing outside the paradise?
Please allow me to beg off this one for right now.
***Man Where is/was the paradise?
Earth. The nursery may have been Oldivai, but the vacation spot was Hawaii - maybe RacerX's hometown for the hardier vacation Xers
***Did god create the entire ecosystem in one act and left it running by itself (possibly including evolution) or is he still creating (possibly including evolution)?
No, not one act, by any means, although I think the basis for the process was set at the beginning and it is evidenced through the evolutionary record. I would maintain the principles of growth and development, both for the physical world and for the internal, moral, spiritual world, were formed and in place and that evolution took place in that context.
