Okay, let's think about this, you say that a few thousand years is not enough time for a single pair (or perhaps a couple of pairs, for I really don't know where the 'kind' distinction line would have been drawn) to generate all the various cat species. And your complaint is that there is no evidence that such a thing is possible. But did you not notice the dog 'orchard' in Ken's presentation which cited a scientific paper which proposes such a thing could have occurred (though I think their estimated time frame was more on the order of 10K years, if I remember correctly).
So, you say that 4 thousand years is not enough time for all the species of cat to come from one or two original pairs, but you accept that a few hundred million years is sufficient for a bunch of dead rocks to evolve into every living thing on earth! And on what evidence do you base this belief?
Please realize what the creation argument is saying. After the flood, original pairs of animals, picked by God to be rich with varied genetic material for that kind, disembarked and began to breed, and through different mixtures and separations of this original genetic material, the different species came about (so each species comes about through a loss of information). Realize that this model requires no creation of new genetic information; it is based upon different mixing and segregation of genetic information already existing. Yet the evolution position requires the creation of both information and life from raw elements and chemical compounds.
So a few thousand years is not enough time for already existing information to be segregated, but a few million years is enough time for totally new information to be created from scratch. And by what mechanism is this information created? See, here is the problem, the mechanism by which animals coming off the ark would separate into various species requires no leap of faith. It will happen naturally over time (and much fast if human animal breeders accelerate the process) and does not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but rather is an fitting example of it. But the claim that genetic information is organized by random process from raw elements over millions of years has no basis in science. It violates the 2nd law from the get-go. So which is the more reasonable position?
Right well I can certainly gather that view; that a few species of cat might evolve or develop all of them. But that still doesn't explain endemic species. Nor does it explain the fact that leopards have spots and tigers have stripes. If all cats were to come from a single genus or a single type of cat within the last few thousand years, then all cats would probably have stripes, or spots, or have manes, or not. Cats don't swim oceans. So we wouldn't have native cats in places separated from Israel by ocean on all sides.
I have no issue in believing that chemical compounds could have created life with specific criteria and in certain conditions. I also have no problem with the theory that perhaps an asteroid hit Earth with some form of life already living on it, or that some phenomenon unknown to us was the means for created life. Then again, I've also got no problem with the theory of intelligent design. That the Earth is in fact about 4 billion years old, and life began a few billion years ago. It's not unfeasible.
But your assumptions about the speed of evolution required to create all these new species from the relative few who would fit on the ark, just doesn't add up with the evidence at hand. I have no issue with the hebrew word 'yom' meaning 'age', nor with a God who instated the laws of physics and science for a reason, nor with that same God having created a spark of life and letting his instated laws and scientifically created model do the rest.
No problem with it at all.
I've no problem with Noah's 'world' being the viewable horizon, a cluster or middle Eastern countries, or simply Israel, just as I've no problem with historical China viewing themselves as the centre of the Earth, and beforehand, as the Earth itself. I've no issue with one covenant having been given to the Jews and nor with another being given to other geographics, cultures and the like. I've no issue with God being a transcendent creator who uses parabolic, simple stories and understanding to convey wider moral premises.
I literally, don't have a definitive view, and I'm open to whatever truth is given me.
The question really, that I ask is; does the story even have to be literal? Does it have to mean the Earth is only 6000 years old? Why can't it be parabolic or relevant to the times at hand? If it can't be, then why can't it be?
I see no reason it can't.
Evolution doesn't violate the laws of science. It just accepts the law of probability in the universe. Somewhere, somehow, life would have eventually formed. Whether by God's hand or not, we have no 'scientific' proof, but certainly, theory actually points that way.
