Absurdities - Fossils and the devil?
Here we will consider that which is believed by a relatively small number who hold to the idea that fossils were created by the devil and put on earth to confuse God’s people into thinking the earth is older than it is.
Below you will find an extract from 'A Short Book of Believer Absurdities' which addresses the question and some book recommendations and links to websites where people are discussing this or similar questions.
Extract from 'A Short Book of Believer Absurdities'
As it is apparent that Old and New Testament accounts portray the devil as an adversary who is able to 'seduce' humans into taking action that is detrimental to their physical, spiritual and emotional well being, it should not surprise us that some believers consider him capable of anything. Interestingly, the idea that he has been somehow proactive in burying bones across the world occurs not because it ‘fits’ with his modus operandi, but rather it enables literalist understandings of scripture to continue. Or rather, when a believer reads the Bible and comes to the conclusion that the earth has been in existence for a few thousand years, there can only be one answer when older evidence presents a challenge to this understanding:
- 'someone or something must have put these things here to cause me to disbelieve and question God.'
Confronted with evidence that challenges a belief that God created the earth in six days, the believer is faced with one of two decisions:
- accept the evidence that the world has existed for millions of years and rethink and revise any literalist understanding to reflect this
- refute any new evidence on the grounds that it is a scurrilous attempt to undermine other more spiritually determined understandings
Of course once the decision has been made to refute evidence, this challenges literalist understandings and the believer still has the difficulty of how to 'explain away' these new discoveries. Clearly, s/he cannot assert that the evidence does not exist because this would be highly irrational and so is forced to challenge the reliability of the evidence that has been presented to them. In an attempt to dismiss such evidence, some believers seek to question the accuracy of the methods that have been used to calculate the half-life of the material. However, where it is impossible to conclude nothing other than the material is as old as scientific testing has proven it to be, the believer (that is still unwilling to revise his understanding) must assume that a more sinister element is at work – an entity that is capable of misleading and deceiving humanity.
Extract from 'A Short Book of Believer Absurdities ' to be released Bob Eckhard