HOW MUCH TIME?
To determine what happened in ancient times and how long ago things originated, we have to form theories then evaluate the evidence to see if it supports the theories. We can not prove scientifically any theories about ancient times since we can not observe the past happening and can not accurately run experiments without making many assumptions of the past. In the following paragraphs we will study theories then scientific evidences and see which theories they support.
There are two basic theories of our origins and ancient past: the theory of evolution and the theory of creation. The theory of evolution basically states that the origins of all natural things can be explained by natural processes which have occurred over billions of years. Evolutionists believe in "uniformitarianism" - the idea that conditions of nature in the past have always been similar to today's conditions. Therefore since present day rock layer formation is assumed to be about one layer per year, the deep rock layers seen around the world must have taken millions of years to form. This would also indicate that the deepest layers are the oldest by millions of years. Evolutionists believe that "simpler" organisms lived several millon years ago and slowly evolved into more "complex" organisms which live today. Although only fossils of "simpler" organisms should be found in deep layers, many fossils of present day creatures have been found scattered throughout deep and shallower layers of rock. Based on this "simpler" to "complex" organism origins theory, evolutionists have developed a "Geologic Time Scale" to presumably show when organisms first originated on earth (See Fig. 7). Although they can not explain how it could have truely happened, evolutionists believe that first life was a single-cell which somehow spontaneously generated from non-living matter into a living organism. They assume that all organisms are descendants of such a common single-celled ancestor (See Fig. 5). Mutations supposedly caused increases in genetic information in "simpler" organisms to produce plants, insects and animals over millions of years. Eventually man supposedly evolved from ape-like creatures.
The theory of creation states that the origins of all natural things are supranatural. An intelligent creator designed and created all natural things supposedly within six days a few thousand years ago. All natural things including man were to have been created defect-free but began to slowly deteriorate shortly after their creation. Creationists believe that the deep rock layers, sedimentary rock formations and most fossils found all over the world can be explained by the occurance of a year-long, world-wide, entire land-covering, cataclysmic flood. This flood which supposedly covered all land around the world at the same time, would have thoroughly saturated hills and mountains causing massive underwater landslides all over earth. Over several months these landslides, along with massive volcanic ash produced by volcanoes all over the world, supposedly created the deep sedimentary rock layers. This sediment would have quickly trapped and deeply buried a tremendous number of organisms and set up the perfect conditions for fossilization. Creationists believe that this creator made each "kind" of organism to be fully developed and mature (young mature, not old). Each organism would have had the ability, through genetic mutation over time, to develop different species within its own basic kind. Each created kind would have been capable of adapting to different environments by the sorting out of the original created genetic information in each kind through natural selection. Creationists believe that no organisms have evolved from any one basic kind into any other basic kind.
Now, what does the evidence tell us and what should we see with each theory if they are to be true? As demonstrated by the Grand Canyon and many roadside mountain cutaways, rock formations around the world show level, multi-layered, striated, sedimentary rock layers with no signs of erosion or plant and animal activity. Figure 1 shows how erosion would cause unconformity or disconformity of rock layers if much time elapsed between sedimentation events. Both of these examples would indicate a fairly long time lapse between two periods of quick sedimentation events as floods and / or volcanoes. Paraconformity demonstrates a very short time lapse between two periods of quick sedimentation events. If each layer were to represent about one year, as evolutionists believe, then why don't we see occasional erosion areas through several layers or even signs of roots or animal holes or burrows through the layers (See Fig. 3). For that matter bugs and worms and roots alone should destroy any and all deviding lines so that no lines or layers should even exist in most places.
If dirt, sand, rock, ash, and debri were churned up under a massive flood, as creationists believe, as it all settled it would lay down many layers of sediment in a very short time. The layers should be level and deep enough to avoid erosion and plant and animal activity. In 1980 the relatively small Mt. Saint Helens volcanic eruption created 600 feet of layered sedimentation in only a few months. Just imagine what thousands of volcanoes could have caused during a world-wide, year-long flood supposedly about 4500 years ago.
Throughout the world we see many fossilized animals and plants, even trees, traversing several hundred to several thousand layers of sedimentary rock (See Fig. 2). If it took about one year for each layer to form, any dead organisms should have decayed long before they had a chance to be buried and fossilize. The fossilization process requires that the organism be buried quickly and deep enough to prevent decay. Therefore slow sedimentation, as taught by evolutionists, would allow organisms to decay and would not allow fossilization. Creationists believe that sedimentation of several feet of debri within a very short time during the year-long, world-wide flood would have buried billions of organisms completely and deeply within hours to days. Many fossils we find today, even of organisms which decay quickly as jelly-fish, are found to be very detailed without any signs of decay. The presence of a fossil only tells us where it died, not when it lived as the "Geologic Time Scale" tries to indicate. This is why we often find fossils of so called "complex" organisms deeper than so called "simpler" ones.
The 1980 Mt. Saint Helens blast left several thousand trees floating in Spirit Lake. Over time their rubbing against each other caused the loss of much of their bark. Eventually the waterlogged trees and lost bark sank to the floor of the lake. One by one these trees sank, heavier root-end down, and stuck vertically into the mud, bark, ash and debri on the bottom. Over more time, continued volcanic ash, loose bark and debri quickly accumulated about 300 feet thick on the lake bottom and eventually completely buried the trees (See Fig. 2). This could easily explain such formations as the Petrified Forest in Arizona and the numerous polystriate trees in coal beds around the world.
Whenever two or more fossils are found positioned above each other but sharing any layers of rock, it is obvious that they had to be buried at virtually the same time to have fossilized without decay. So if several fossils are found in a vertical column of striated sedimentary rock and each fossil shares layers above and below with other fossils, this indicates that the entire vertical column of rock was formed quickly instead of over many years (See Fig. 4).
If all organisms mutated and slowly evolved from one basic organism kind into another basic organism kind, we should have many in-between transitional organisms 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 in-between the two kinds. We should find reptiles with forearms which are part leg and part wing and fish with part fin and part leg as evolutionists believe must have happened. It would have taken thousands of years to complete the transformation from one kind to another. If "natural selection" weeds out the weak, mutated organisms which can not fend for themselves near as well as their non-mutated ancestors, how could such defective, transitional organisms have survived to pass on their new genetic information. To date there have been no such true transitional organisms identified as a definite inbetween organism. What we find in the fossil record and living today is numerous organism "kinds" which only have the ability to reproduce after their own "kind" and have the genetic ability, through mutations, to adapt into different species of their own "kind". For example: although we have many kinds of dogs, they are all dogs and can only reproduce with other dog kinds - none are nor have ever shown any evidence of being only part dog kind and part other organism. Figure 6 shows the contrast between the evolutionary "tree" - for which evidence is lacking to support it - and the creationist "orchard" - which overwhelmingly fits the evidence.
So, the evidence we see in nature strongly supports what we would expect to see according to the theory of creation, but strongly contradict the theories of evolution. What we actually see is: millions of fossilized dead things, buried deeply in sedimentary rock layers which appear to have been laid down by a cataclysmic water event all over the world. This is exactly what a world-wide flood would have caused. So how much time do you think it really took to form most of our present day fossils and their rock layers?
