I am a Creationist, but...?

Question

There is no THEORY out there that can turn me away from my belief in Divine Creation. I am set firm in that belief. I cannot look at the beautiful perfect world in which we live in and see it as nothing more than one huge fluke.
So yes Adam and Eve created by God.
My question is did Adam and Eve look like us? Did they look like Modern Man? All the old paintings show Adam and Eve as fair skinned, red headed, beautiful people.
(But we know they cant be right, Adam and Eve didnt have bellybuttons!)
But did they look like we do?
Maybe they were, by our standards, ugly?
I am a Creationist, but I do believe in Micro evolution. That is changes in a species over time. They do however stay the same species. Maybe man too has changed slightly?
I've never really ran across this thought, from Christians or any others, and I wonder if anybody has anything worthwhile to say.
Ignorant Bible Bashers need not reply.
I do however greatly welcome educated answers from Non Christians.

Also I am expecting the answer, "God Created Man in his own Image".
Yes I agree with that, but I believe the writer is speaking spiritually. Mind, Body and Soul.

Created Perfect yes, but I still think Spiritually. However it wouldnt suprise me to find out how smart Adam and Eve actually were.

Answer 1

In response to your questions...

Adam and Eve are not likely to have been fair skinned, red headed etc... They very likely looked Semitic...

It is possible that they didnt look Semitic, but looked like Cro-Magnon men (or even like Neanderthals -- but this may not be as likely)...

I agree with you that when the Bible says we are made in the image of God, ir is referring to mind, intelligence, soul etc (not body).

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I agree with you regarding Micro-evolution and Macro-evolution...

There is no evidence that proves Atheistic MacroEvolution (without Intelligent Design)...

I used to believe in Evolution. However, over a period of time I have grown skeptical of the claims of Macro*Evolution... this is largely due to the weakness of the evidence for Macro*Evolution, and the fact that the evidence, rationally interpreted does not support the overarching claims made by Macro*Evolutionists...

For scientific and intellectual critiques of evolution, see http://www.godsci.org/gsi/apol/evo/00.html .

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I agree with you re Divine Creation :)

I used to be an atheist. Over a period of time however, I grew convinced of the existence of the Christian God, and ultimately committed my life to Christ (e.g., see http://www.godsci.org/gs/chri/testimony/seek.html ).

For scientific and intellectual evidence for the existence of God, see http://www.godsci.org/gs/godsci/evidence.htm

Cordially,
John

Answer 2

I don't want you to dismiss this as bible bashing, because I intend to do nothing of the sort. When talking about the creation story of the bible, I think it's important to remember that the bible is a book which guides us on how to love our God and how to live a spiritual and good life. It sometimes, for some reason, gets confused with a scientific guide as well. It was once considered blasphemy to say that the Earth revolved around the Sun, because the bible said that the Sun rose and set around the Earth. People who believed in this new scientific theory were persecuted, called heathens, sometimes murdered in the name of religion.

This seems to be a pattern with religion and science. Science and religion can coincide, but the "science" in the bible should not be taken literally. The bible was written with the knowledge of ancient times. Even if God gave man the visions that man then put into the bible, it was only put in with man's understanding of what God showed him at the time. Now we might have new means of communicating what that great image was.

There is much evidence to the contrary of an Adam and Eve scenario for Creation, and I don't think it should be ignored. The genetic evidence, fossil evidence, and current observations of species undergoing evolution cannot just be dismissed because it doesn't fit what we once thought. Imagine if we had ignored Copernicus's findings about the Earth revolving around the Sun? We need to ease through this transition of accepting the new evidence even though it seems to contradict what is written in the bible and has been written there for centuries.

These scientific findings do not make the bible any less important, but again, it isn't and never should have been considered a scientific book. It is a book about spirituality, faith, and supernatural powers, all of which have NOTHING to do with science, and science has nothing to do with those topics as well.

Answer 3

I agree with you. When you consider how elegantly the universe is constructed and realize that just the slightest change in the history of the universe would have rendered Earth just another ball of rock, I can't help but attribute this creation to something other than chance.

Now, that said, I consider the story of Adam and Eve to be myth. That doesn't mean it is untrue, not at all; in fact, I consider it unimportant whether the story was literally true at all. What is more important to me is what the story meant to the people who told it and to us today who hear it and read it.

For me, the Adam and Eve myth explains why this elegant universe, with everything so perfectly ordered, can nevertheless include all the nasty bits of life: disease, death, broken relationships, sadness, loneliness, hatred. The answer: sin. The perfect creations, Adam and Eve, chose to unleash sin and its consequences upon the world, which upset the order of things and required God to "patch things up" - for him to put his plan of salvation into action.

Back to the question...it's not important to me what Adam and Eve looked like. If they were excessively hairy and apelike, that's fine; if they were fully evolved Homo Sapiens and looked just like you and me (belly buttons or not!), that's fine, too. That's part of the beauty of reading the Creation as myth (remember: NOT falsehood) - that you don't have to get bogged down in the details of the story to gain a deep appreciation for what the story meant for the ancients and what message they are attempting to pass on to us today.

Answer 4

I agree with you to a degree, however I would be careful about using the term evolution. I really do not believe that it is evolution in the common sense that has caused the changes but that God created Adam and Eve as perfect human beings completely capable and fully functioning for the purposes He created them for. Because of sin in the world- there is an onset of decay, a gradual death, degeneration- nothing is as God created it because we are deteriating- our bodies, just as everything else in this world are getting weaker, less effective, more vulnerable to diseaseless and less able to function at the capacity it did at the beginning of creation. I hope I am making sense.
God Bless!

Answer 5

Why do you say "Modern Man" if you believe what you believe? Why would you think we look any different now then we did 6000 years ago? So to answer your question Yes they looked just like we do today. I would even venture to say that they even had belly buttons. If God made trees spring to life a fully matured trees even barring fruit then why could Adam have a belly button even though he was never in a womb. As far as micro and macro evolution goes, why even worry about these things. Changes to our bodies on the micro level is just a lose of information in our genetic code and the changes would be so small and so far between that it wouldn't change our appearance significantly. For instance the lose of use of our appendix. I don't think that we have changed as much as people would like. As you said God made us in his image and you are right about it being spiritually but I think it was meant physically too. How else could we explain the fact that God walk in the Garden not to mention the coming of Christ.

Answer 6

1st, How do you know that Adam and Eve didn't have belly buttons? God created many of the animals full grown and with the look of their proper age. There is nowhere in the Bible that it says they didn't have belly buttons.

2nd, the Bible is very clear that they were basically the racial medium, olive complexion, brown eyes, etc. The racial divides occured after the splitting of the human race at the tower of Babel.

The human genome can easily account for all the racial divisions that we see. Micro evolution is a proven fact. Macro evolution is the unproven unseen hand behind all the athiests delusions.

P.S. All the old paitings that you see are from Renassaince painters who thought they were the culmination of all evolution.

Answer 7

If Adam and Eve looked like us now there would have to have been some changes happen, then reverse.
There is reliable, sound, historical and scientific evidence that we used to look different, middle ages England, we were much shorter then.
So, we have changed in that respect, ugly?, you ask, well if beauty has anything to do with procreation then any current attractive fad will affect the race's appearance.
Certainly the Victorians liked thier women a bit plumper that today

Answer 8

For the creationist in you - First, where did God created Adam and Eve? In Eden, and somebody would yell Middle East. They probably look Jewish because the Bible always talks about the middle eastern people, Jewish, Egyptians, etc.

For the evolutionist in you - picture stout flat-nosed Africans.

Painters paint what they think is beautiful to their eyes (who would paint an African during that time anyway).

I think you should check out the human gnome project. Just for an insight.

Answer 9

There is so much that could be said in reply to this but there is niether time nor space to do it justice here. To keep it short and simple. Your observations of life I would agree with, but look deeper into the teachings of the scriptures. These stories are largely symbolic of divine truths couched in a language that the simple uneducated minds of that time could understand. The author knew that with deeper spiritual insight the hidden meanings would reveal themselves to sincere seekers when they were ready. Consider the possibility for example that Adam and Eve are representitive of the appearance of polarity in the universe expressed in the bible as male and female for simplicities sake and ease of understanding. Enjoy.

Answer 10

You believe in micro-evolution, but what about macro-evolution? There are plenty of inter-species fossils. Just do some quick research and you will discover the evidence. That doesn't mean you can't have Creationism and Evolution together.

To answer your question, Eve looked like us because she was create by us.