Where do cavemen fit in the theory of Creationism?

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Dark Virtue

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When the Bible speaks of the creation of Man, is it referring to US, Homo Sapiens? Was Adam the very first Man created?

How do you, as a Creationist, explain Homo Erectus, Neanderthal Man, et al?
 
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I think there are a lot of different opinions among Creationists on the subject, usually varying on their opinion of the age of the earth and whether they believe in evolution. The ones I have heard most frequently are:

  • They were simply primitive nomadic civilizations of homo sapiens
  • They are hoaxes based on improperly constructed fossils
  • They were pre-Adamite civilizations
I generally ascribe to the third one, but I also don't consider it a topic of high importance to me so I haven't researched it with the assiduity required to make a good case for it. My beliefs are a little unorthodox in this area, in that I believe the earth is the age secular geology tells us (4.6 Ga) but I don't believe in macroevolution. I think that all species evolve, in the sense that over generations, navigating their environment will become more instinctive, but I don't believe in the acquisition of completely new traits (i.e. new DNA chromosomes) based solely on environmental hardship and spontaneous mutation. So the notion of pre-Adamite civilizations that grew extinct certainly makes sense to me. There's no reason I can see why God couldn't have made other beings on Earth before us, and if He did so, there's no reason He would have to tell us about them in the Bible.
 
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Dark Virtue said:
When the Bible speaks of the creation of Man, is it referring to US, Homo Sapiens? Was Adam the very first Man created?
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Yes!

Dark Virtue said:
How do you, as a Creationist, explain Homo Erectus, Neanderthal Man, et al?
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Neanderthal = old man

Arthritis or other diseases could have caused the bent back. The larger brow ridges can be explained by the fact that man used to live for hundreds of years. Brow ridges continue to grow as you get older. The elongated skull can be explained in the same way. Hundreds of years of muscles pulling down on the skull.

Homo Erectus originally called Java Man (pithecanthropus erectus) was recreated from three human teeth, a human thigh bone and the skull cap of an ape. It was discovered later that two human skulls were found in the same area and hidden.

A few others:

Piltdown man was reconstructed from a human skull and an ape jaw bone. This one was in the textbooks for 40 years before they finally removed it.

Lucy (australopithecus) was reconstructed from about 40% of a skeleton that would have been about 3 ft tall when living. The 'pieces' of the skull that were found were crushed beyond recognition. The knee bone used to help reconstruct the skeleton was found one and a half miles away and 200ft deeper in the strata.

Nebraska man-scientists constructed a replica of a man and woman from a single tooth. It was later discovered that it was a pig tooth.
 
See many Christians umm Disagree you could say about the "7" days were they 7 different spances of time or 7 24 hour days?..... On my belief of different nathandreal people is all i want I think.... See i believe this world revoles around survival of the fittest.... Nathandreals have big heads right? and seemingly stocky... People loose 80% of there body heat through there heads so maybe it concealed there heat better... Or....

They were spreaded apart in many different places and breaded there qualities, and inbreeding could play a major part in it....
 
Dark Virtue said:
So you consider them to be a "rough draft" of sorts?
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Ha! That's an interesting way of looking at it. You made me chuckle.

Well, my opinion is not along the lines of a rough draft, or a practice run, or anything like that, but simply another creation, just like He could make another universe after we're gone. This sparks the question of why God would make anything at all, which is not really something any theistic cosmology is prepared to answer in definite terms.

Why did God make us? I don't really know why, or why he would make anything else, but I have to assume that an infinite intellect would probably not have reasons I would understand for choosing to create another consciousness. Certainly I can't claim to have the definite answer to why, but I think He probably made us as art.

If we believe God has an infinite mind, then He is not only infinitely logical but also infinitely creative, and I think His reasons for creating us are probably somewhat analogous to the drive artists have to create things. I compose music sometimes, and though it sometimes seems like the purpose of art is simply to amuse ourselves, in my personal case I often don't enjoy the actual creative process as much as I feel like it relieves a certain compulsive pressure. I've spoken with others about this, and it occurs to me that often times artists don't get any fulfillment out of the actual creative process, but rather do it because they feel compelled to by artistic drive, or "creative tension."

Most of the satisfaction I get from composing comes from listening to the finished product, not really because I enjoy the way it sounds, but because it sounds like what I thought it should sound like in my head when I originally conceived it. I took an idea, and I made it into a physical thing. That's what drives me. And that sort of satisfaction seems analogous to the seventh day in Genesis, when "He saw that it was good." Certainly all of it hasn't been good since, what with all that Old Testament death and destruction, which is why I think that line refers to His creative satisfaction, not to the inital goodness of the system (although the initial state was good indeed).

And $0.02 is your change!
 
Dark Virtue said:
When the Bible speaks of the creation of Man, is it referring to US, Homo Sapiens? Was Adam the very first Man created?

How do you, as a Creationist, explain Homo Erectus, Neanderthal Man, et al?
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As those ignorant zealots over at Answers in Genesis love to point out, it's like waiting for what happened with Ramapithecus, Eoanthropus, Hesperopithecus, Pithecanthropus, Astralopithecus africanus, and Sinanthropus (They also list Neanderthal man).

Let the religious fervor of pro-evolutionists fade and eventually something might be critically examined objectively, instead of attempting to jam it into an evolutionary paradigm.
 
Dark Virtue said:
Don't tell me what OTHER people think, I'm interested in YOUR opinions.
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They have to be post-Fall. If they aren't post-Fall, then the account of Genesis is wrong. If the account of Genesis wrong, then who is to say what else is inaccurate? If there are major issues with the Bible in terms of truth, and God didn't bother to divinely intervene in order to prevent the most influential book ever from containing major fallacies, then how can Christians assume He'll care about their own concerns?

It's entirely possible for them to be post-Fall. Technology can be lost, and cultures (or even tribes) that come after their predecessors can lack the technological innovation of the previous inhabitants.

Who knows where human civilization as a whole would be had the Great Library at Alexandria not been burned repeatedly, or Archimedes not been slain?

Of course, this is based on the idea that radiometric dating and its siblings have serious issues, and that suggested missing links aren't really links.
 
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See, that's the big problem with the bible - it's a house of cards. Prove any one card is too weak to support the weight of the whole and the whole comes crashing down.

That's why a lot of Christians get sidetracked into having ridiculous discussions such as explaining how any of the pre-cursor skeletons could POSSIBLY be a human being or a monkey.
 
Eon said:
See, that's the big problem with the bible - it's a house of cards. Prove any one card is too weak to support the weight of the whole and the whole comes crashing down.

That's why a lot of Christians get sidetracked into having ridiculous discussions such as explaining how any of the pre-cursor skeletons could POSSIBLY be a human being or a monkey.
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What do you mean "POSSIBLY"? I just listed a bunch of examples that were previously thought to have been missing links, but are now accepted by most in the scientific community as clearly being man or ape, not a meld or transitional form.

What's ridiculous is the fact that evolutionists keep trying to mark skeletons as "the missing link", when it's becoming apparent that the link may very well forever be missing...because it never existed in the first place.
 
Eon said:
That's why a lot of Christians get sidetracked into having ridiculous discussions such as explaining how any of the pre-cursor skeletons could POSSIBLY be a human being or a monkey.
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This quote struck me as funny. Your always harping on us about not questioning Christianity or the Bible. Then when we question your precious evolution theory you call it ridiculous discussion.

Macro evolution 'science' is poor science. There are so many holes the boat doesn't float anymore. There is not one example of any species changing to another species. Macro evolution is not science, it is faith based.

Micro evolution is scientific. It can actually be tested and we see it happening around us.
 
I'm not such a fan of the missing link theory myself. I mean, gorrila and chimpanzee skeletons will show many similarities, but proving that there was a pre-cursor that necessarily begat both sub-species is a tall order.

And that's what I REALLY meant, IceBlade. Proving that it ISN'T a missing link doesn't prove it's a modern day man with a vitamin deficiency, or a modern day monkey.
 
Eon said:
Proving that it ISN'T a missing link doesn't prove it's a modern day man with a vitamin deficiency, or a modern day monkey.
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So are you saying they are an extinct monkey (or ape)? I can live with that. Some of them probably were.

That doesn't change anything to do with this thread though...
 
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