How do creationists explain the existance of Neanderthals?

[Marcus Scaurus]

Last week, me and my parents were in a cave in southern-France where many neanderthal bones as well as cave lion and cave bear bones were found. My parents (christians/creationists) accepted that the neaderthals existed and that they weren't misshaped humans. Later, we had a discussion about it, and they didn't know where to place the neanderthals in their creationism. I asked them questions like 'where Adam and Eve neanderthals or homo erecti or Lucy's?' and 'did God create all these human species at the same time?', questions they (and with them all the other creationists I've met) couldn't answer.

My question is: how do creationist explain the proven existance of the neanderthals and other species like the homo erectus?

[Shaun]

I would also like to know where the dinousars fit in with creationism, and the fish like creatures before the dinousars, they evolved into the dinouusarus. I would also like to know how humans could have been made at the same time when as little as 500 000 years ago the earth was only 50% oxygen and all the cretures inhabited the sea.

[Søren]

I would also like to know where the dinousars fit in with creationism, and the fish like creatures before the dinousars, they evolved into the dinouusarus. I would also like to know how humans could have been made at the same time when as little as 500 000 years ago the earth was only 50% oxygen and all the cretures inhabited the sea.

I believe creationists would say that the earth was created 6,000 years ago.

As for this "fish like creatures before the dinousars, they evolved into the dinouusarus", well obviously creatrionists wouldn't believe in evolution whatsoever.

To the original question: from what I've heard they would dispute the existance of neanderthals.

[Hansa]

I would also like to know where the dinousars fit in with creationism, and the fish like creatures before the dinousars, they evolved into the dinouusarus. I would also like to know how humans could have been made at the same time when as little as 500 000 years ago the earth was only 50% oxygen and all the cretures inhabited the sea.

Discussed the whole dinosaur matter with a recruiter from an American style christian sect who didn't believe in evolution, and believed that the world was 6000 years old. His answer to the dinosaur question was simple, they didn't exist. Dinosaurs were a fake creation of evil atheist scientists who worked against God with all they had. Needless to say, the guy was a nut, but many christians actually believe this or similar.

[Hub'ite]

Needless to say, the guy was a nut, but many christians actually believe this or similar.

I've never met a Christian who denied that dinosaure existed. How can you deny it? Go to a musuem and look at all the bones we've recovered. You have a skewed vision of Christians.

HERES a good read about carbon dating. A bit long though.

[Pnutmaster]

I've never met a Christian who denied that dinosaure existed. How can you deny it? Go to a musuem and look at all the bones we've recovered. You have a skewed vision of Christians.

HERES a good read about carbon dating. A bit long though.

True, Hansa does have a skewed view of Christians, but never underestimate the extent of human denial. The holiest of fanatics can be presented with irrefutable evidence that Dinosaurs existed or that the Earth has been around for millions of years and he can still be capable of ignoring it.

My fundamentalist Protestant friend once argued that carbon dating was an inaccurate and flawed technique. He believed this ensured the credibility of his church's belief that the Earth was indeed 6000 years old, as taught through the literal interpretation of the Bible.

[Shigawire]

I would also like to know where the dinousars fit in with creationism, and the fish like creatures before the dinousars, they evolved into the dinouusarus. I would also like to know how humans could have been made at the same time when as little as 500 000 years ago the earth was only 50% oxygen and all the cretures inhabited the sea.

It was all made by His noodly appendage. Dinosaurs were created to balance the growth of Pirates. Thankfully, He found out that he could get rid of the Pirates using global warming in the 1800s.

[carl-the-conqueror]

the common excuse is that the flood killed them all

[Marcus Scaurus]

That still leaves many question open, like 'Where Adam and Eve neanderthals?'.

[carl-the-conqueror]

no they were two <insert christian's race here> people who lived in the east (depending on who you ask all the other races descended from the neanderthals)

[KingOfTheIsles]

I would also like to know how humans could have been made at the same time when as little as 500 000 years ago the earth was only 50% oxygen and all the cretures inhabited the sea.

Erm, that's not even vaguely true. Surely you meant a far, far higher number than 500,000.

The common christian response is "God did it, now shut up."

[Tom Paine]

Nearer 7,000 now, Soren. And any scientific evidence otherwise is broken, literally; its God paying tricks or whatever.

[Dromikaites]

Well, let's see if I can play creationist here (I'm an Atheist):
Dinosaurs:

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones [are as] strong pieces of brass; his bones [are] like bars of iron.
19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his
sword to approach [unto him].
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow; the willows of the brook
compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth not: he trusteth that he
can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.

As for the Neaderthals and the rest of the humanoid fossils, they were not men and women but diferent species (something to which any Evolutionist would gladly agree since men and women are from the species called Homo Sapiens while the Neanderthal man, for instance, is from the species called Homo Neaderthalensis).

[Tom Paine]

But radiocarbon dating and similar demonstrations prove them to be older than 7,000 years, for a start.

[Dromikaites]

But radiocarbon dating and similar demonstrations prove them to be older than 7,000 years, for a start.

True, and this only tells that people who wrote down the various parts of the Old Testament dealing with the origins of the Universe, life on Earth, etc (Genesis mainly but also the Book of Job) didn't really understand what they were writting about.

Imagine you somehow survive a plane crash in the Amazonian jungle and you're recovered by a tribe who never had any contact with modern civilisation. They might be primitive but still not thinking you're a god (for instance, they might have extracted you badly wounded from the remains of the plane and in their mithology gods are invulnerable).

So they won't exactly worship you but, seeing you know how to do new-for-them useful things, they might start to admire you and to listen to some or all the stories you tell them. They might even start to assume you were send by the gods to teach them the new usefull stuff.

Hundreds of years after you die among them, they will keep telling stories they've heard from you. But since their experience and your experience were so different they'd distort the knowledge about the Universe you passed onto them. Besides, stories about the Universe are not so important for everyday life compared to, say, stories about boiling water before drinking it, in order to avoid diseases. So they might have a very precise code of religious rules for cooking and hygene while in the same their cosmogony might talk about the world being created in 7 days.

Now instead of this modern-day natural incident let's assume the religious version of an angel or God telling people stuff about the Universe and also giving them rules for the every day life. The "down-to-Earth" things are much easier to understand thus they are passed on more accurately than say Quantum Physics and the General Relativity Theory. When the time is right God reveals to men the modern scientific theories and probably has a good laugh seeing we use the newest things He has just revealed to us to debunk the same things He revealed to us a few thousand years ago when we could not really understand what He was talking about.

How about this Creationist approach?

[carl-the-conqueror]

havent they even found cities older than 7,000 years (one in india was 12,000 or somthing)

lol, this is a one sided debate, no-one is arguing.

[Bwaho]

as we all know, our evil scientific methods are incorrect. It's all part of huge conspiracy to turn all mankind to servants of satan... ok I'm done with the sarcasm.

Ok, the bottom line is that the church has always been an power tool to control the masses and keep them down in poverty (the catholic church has been and is still filthy rich). Opium for the masses as marx said (the only thing I agree with marx on).

When we began stripping away the power of the church, mankind progressed more easily and science was able to bring us to where we are today. Before that, the church was always in the way of progress and today all they do is try and make up excuses for their horrible past.

[Dromikaites]

Ok, the bottom line is that the church has always been an power tool to control the masses and keep them down in poverty (the catholic church has been and is still filthy rich). Opium for the masses as marx said (the only thing I agree with marx on).

Actually you might be surprised to find out Livy said kind of the same thing some 1800 years before Marx, when he wrote about the Roman king Numa who organized the religion of that city-state.

When we began stripping away the power of the church, mankind progressed more easily and science was able to bring us to where we are today. Before that, the church was always in the way of progress and today all they do is try and make up excuses for their horrible past.

He, he, the good thing about religion is a smart religious leader is always able to blame whatever contradictions between science and his/her Holy Books on the inability of a non-scientifically-trained mind to understand God's revelations and to explain each and every scientific breaktrough by God finding a receptive mind for His revelations Oh, and just the fact some of the scientists are Atheists won't disturb a smart religious person: after all, "God works in mysterious ways"

[Tom Paine]

So in fact, quite possibly, they misunderstood the origins too? Is that possible, and that the origin was in fact evolution?

[Dromikaites]

So in fact, quite possibly, they misunderstood the origins too? Is that possible, and that the origin was in fact evolution?

Yep, give they wrote down stuff like that about the behmoth and about the flood (which is often interpreted as a flood during the time of Homo Sapiens while it might be a distorted form of one of those mass extinctions triggered by the climate changes, among other things).