Chance or Design?

[Eridor]

Yes, but you're missing a major detail here. If the Bible is the word of God, why would we believe only parts of it? Once you start undermining one part of it, people start to say, "Well, if Genesis is only symbolic then this part (such as Jesus actually being divine, etc.) must be symbolic too." Then, they can pick and choose which parts of the Bible they actually want to believe. If they don't agree with something, or they are uncomfortable with a certain verse, they can just slip around it. Besides, if God has the ability to create anything, why could he not create the world (and everything in it) in six days? This applies especially to the post above about God being outside of time because if time means nothing to God, he could easily have done it all in just six days.

Also, if you put evolution before Genesis, then you put death and destruction before man's fall (hence the fossil record). We know from the Bible that the world was perfect when it was created with no death or disease or anything else of that nature.

I also want to point to the fossil record itself. When you look at it, you never see any "intermediary" forms of animals evolving from one species to another. When an animal dies, it goes through stages of decay, and its remains are generally scattered everywhere and are unrecognizable. There have been cases though, where animals have died and then almost immediately covered by sediment. This seems to preserve whole skeletons and keeps them intact. If you apply this to the Flood, you could say that the flood had the ability to do this very easily. There would most likely be currents flowing through the water, much like the oceans today. This would bury animals right where they stood (or lay or whatever) thereby preserving whole skeletons of, not just one or two animals, but whole groups. Plus, with the currents running to and fro, this would lay down layer upon layer of sediment, creating the different layers of rock we see today and the fossil record.

-Eridor