On February 4th, the Creation Museum will host a sold-out debate that’s generating a lot of buzz in the blogosphere. The debate will feature Bill Nye “The Science Guy” versus Answers in Genesis’ Ken Ham on the old “Creation Vs. Evolution” debate. This debate, and the buzz around it has generated a lot of mixed feelings for me– I am one of those people who believe in both creationism and evolution– believing both the Bible and science while rejecting the notion that the two, when properly understood, are somehow completely incompatible.
I don’t believe they are.
I believe both that “in the beginning God created” and that science reveals the wonders of how God did it, and I hold those two affirmations with relatively little friction between one and the other.
On one hand, I feel as if this is a situation of “I’m not entirely on anyone’s side, because no one is entirely on mine“, because I’m not aware that either presenter in this debate holds to the same position I hold– the position I obviously feel is the most reasonable. However, in the grand scheme of things, Ken Ham has pushed my back against the wall and put me in the position where I must actively oppose him, and pray to the sweet baby Jesus that he not only loses, but loses badly.
The reason why I look forward to Ken Ham getting pummeled by a real scientist is that Ham isn’t a creationist in the way I am a creationist. Instead of affirming “yes God created, and I’m open to a life-long process of exploring the mysteries of his creation”, Ken’s position is that of a “Young Earth Creationist”. When we use the term “creationist” it can mean a host of things– just like the word “Christian” can mean Evangelical, Methodist, Anglican, or about 987 other options. However, Young Earth Creationists are more than simply creationists who affirm God was the active agent in creation– they are the fundamentalist brand of creationists.
And, if we’ve learned anything, fundamentalism in any movement is toxic for those members of the group who have a more reasonable expression of their beliefs.
The fundamentalist mindset of Young Earth Creationism doesn’t simply lead to a rejecting of science, but also leads to a rejection of sound Biblical scholarship, meaning they are doubly bad for the rest of us in the group. In short, the Young Earth Creationists add up the ages in Hebrew genealogies in the Old Testament and from that arrive at the assertion that God created the world on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC. This becomes their starting point and all science is filtered through this (general) date/time-frame (they don’t all agree on an exact date, but arrive in the same general area)– nothing is allowed to contradict the fact that the earth and humanity were basically created yesterday.
Obviously, this is bad science (well, it’s not even science at all). But, it’s also crappy scholarship. What James Ussher failed to realize (he’s the guy who added these ages up in order to arrive at a date of creation- a work from the 17th century), was that Old Testament genealogies were never intended to be comprehensive genealogies that included all descendants of a family line. In the type of genealogy used in the Old Testament, it is completely permissible to use the term “beget” (Hebrew, yalad ילד) to refer to a descendant many generations later.
For example, in the Genealogies of Genesis, were it to say that Thomas ילד (yalad) Benjamin, the Young Earth Creationists would argue that Thomas was the father and Benjamin were the son. By this argument, seemingly you could add the years of one generation to the next and come up with an approximate year or time period of creation. However, biblical genealogies don’t work like that. Instead, it is completely permissible to use the term ילד or other equivalent terms to refer to a later ancestor. Using the biblical model, one could say that Thomas ילד/yalad Benjamin, even if Benjamin were the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of Thomas.
Their argument, simply doesn’t work– in the New Testament we see the principle of skipping generations (see the Gospel of Matthew that completely skips generations that were listed in 1 Chronicles.) We also see this truth played out as Jesus is called “Jesus, son of David”. Certainly, we all know his father was Joseph– but since he was of the line of David, it was permissible to call Jesus David’s son– or to say that David ילד Jesus, skipping all the generations in between.
In short, and to be perfectly blunt, trying to date the earth by adding up the ages and names of some people in the Bible is actually stupid. It doesn’t pass basic science, nor does it pass basic biblical scholarship.
Unfortunately, Ken Ham is neither a scientist or a credible bible scholar, so I actively oppose him and side with the science guy who I believe, will more accurately represent how God created the heavens and earth.
Why?
Because Ken Ham and the Answers in Genesis people are making you and I look like idiots and therefore are harming the cause of Christ. Try viewing this through the eyes of an outsider: were someone to ask “what is a creationist like?” and you were to show that person Ken Ham, that person would understandably assume that creationists are people who reject 4th grade science and who shouldn’t be taken seriously on anything they claim. Sacrificing such credibility, means that we are at a horrible disadvantage to ever point people to the truth that there (a) is a God that (b) God made everything you see in creation, let alone ever arrive at the most important (c) that this God actually loves you and has redeemed you.
Instead of supporting the Answers in Genesis folks, we ought to invest in ways of showing that science and Christianity are not incompatible, but rather can exist together in relative harmony with one another. Furthermore, by accepting science while still holding onto our faith in God, we enable ourselves to use science to point people to the one who orchestrated this beautiful unfolding of events– however it occurred. For me, as a creationist who accepts science, the more I attempt to understand the wonders of the universe (science) the more I stand in awe of the God who created it all.
In short, as a creationist, I don’t want to be lumped together with the likes of Ham just as like as a Christian, I don’t want to be defined by Fred Phelps.
I actively root against Phelps because he is harming the cause of Christ, and on February 4th, I’ll be actively opposing Ken Ham for the exact same reason.
If either participant in this debate would begin the debate with “God is the active agent who caused creation, let’s try to learn how he did it using science” I would be their biggest ally. However, I don’t believe either side will take this position.
So in that regard, this will be like watching an NFL game when the Patriots aren’t playing– I’m not entirely on anyone’s side because neither side is my team, so I’m more inclined to root for a team I want to lose instead of a team I want to win. I usually pick the team I want to lose by guessing which team could potentially cause the most problems for my side in the future– in years past that used to be the Colts, and today it is the Broncos…
Science is no threat to my cause, but Young Earth Creationism is a threat to my cause.
So, in the case of this debate, I’ll be imagining that Ken Ham is Peyton Manning.
And, I’m rooting for him to lose– and lose badly.
(If you liked this post, please take a moment to like James McGrath’s page dedicated to refuting Young Earth Creationism, here)
410 Responses
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Benjamin Corey, recovering from a fundamentalist mindset often leaves us with a frustration that “no one” can see the world so uniquely as I do! “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” Phillipians 3:15, 16 It seems that none of us was there at the time of creation, and while I am fond of a thought-provoking debate, thinking I have all the answers is what lead to fundamentalism/legalism in the first place. Science was initially a practice done by those seeking their Creator’s fingerprints on this world. Lately, science has been a practice cut off from our Creator. So, much like a cut flower, it is separated from the source of power.
A’s for arguing about the specific date of creation, I agree wholeheartedly that this distracts from our job to win over the hearts of those we could call brothers and sisters.
Gerald Schroeder Science of God has shown that the original Hebrew of Genesis can literally match the scientific order of events..now…this is the Hebrew language of genesis one…he has an online article called age of the universe by gerald schroeder
Bible is true…EINSTEIN’S RELATIVITY EQUATION SAYS 13.7 BILLION YEARS AND 6 DAYS ARE BOTH TRUE DEPENDING ON SPACE-TIME COORDINATES; T1=T2/(1- (v^2)/c^2) ½;13,700,000,000 x365 = 5000500000000 days;5000500000000 = 6/sqrt 1-.99999999999999999999999999999999% velocity of photons (farthest photons);5000500000000 = 6/sqrt .000000000000000000000001;5000500000000 = 6/1.19988001199880011998800119988e-12; PLACING YHWH 1/2 a millimeter from the farthest photons YHWH is in all reference frames.
distance of YHWH from farthest photon inthe estimated size of the universe=46500000000 LY radius; 299792458 m / s x60 x 60 x 24 x 365 x 46500000000=439,622,855,430,192,000,000,000,000 meters;439,622,855,430,192,000,000,000,000 meters x .99999999999999999999999999999999= 439,622,855,430,191,999,999,999,999.99956 meters distance;439,622,855,430,192,000,000,000,000 – 439,622,855,430,191,999,999,999,999.99956 = .0005 meters difference, YHWH half a millimeter from farthest photons
space time stretched 1000,000,000,000 times since first matter (something slower than light survived, hence time kicks in), this means time has slowed 1000,000,000,000 times, 5.1 days genesis x 1000,000,000,000/365=13.9 billion years, YHWH looking into the universe would experience 6 days while the universe experiences 13.9 billion years; 6 OF OUR DAYS ARE STRETCHED OUT AND CONTAIN 14 BILLION EARLY YEARS OF THE UNIVERSE
OMG, are you serious? Somebody needs a therapist . . .
try this…write out the formula yourself and plug in the numbers…remember to convert 13.7 billion years to days…also you might check the GPS time dilation sites on youtube…satellites run at different times than earth..sagan said…as crazy as it seems time dilation is a law of nature….hawkings is on youtube saying there are an infinite number of times in the universe….its a fact my friend
I’m not in the Young Earth camp, but I think you may be a bit confused on a few points.
First of all, evolution isn’t science. It is a scientific theory, and a poor one at that. You are confusing a process with one outcome of that process.
Second, Darwinian evolution, as espoused by the majority of scientists, is not compatible with creationism, because it defines evolution as an “unguided process.” If God had a hand in evolution, then it is not evolution.
Third, Bill Nye is not a “real scientist,” he is an engineer. Neither one of these gentleman, in fact, is a “real scientist.” This match-up will quite possibly be one of the most pointless debates of all time.
Aside from those problems, you are correct in your critique of Young Earth creationism. I’m not sure it’s fair to conflate “fundamentalism” with Young Earth creationism, but it is certainly true that YE creationists are a bit confused about both science and the Bible. The very first two verses of the Bible completely demolish the young earth view, because even if you take the days of the following verses as literal 24-hour periods, you must take note of the fact that the existence of the earth is presumed on day 1, implying a previous creative act.
its relativity…Gen 2 says all was made in a day…the waw vav meaning and means it was complete then the 6 days it is made…1 day is as 1000 years and 1000 years as a day..and also a watch in the night is as 1000 years or rather 3 hours as 1000 years…either…its literal or symbolic..if literal its relativity..if symbolic then symbolic…but..look at my numbers above
Young Earth creationism is both hideously mockable science and hideously blasphemous theology.
Hey Ben, very much appreciate your blogs.
FYI, technically you believe in “creation” not “creationism” ie that God is the creator (and sustainer) of the universe. ‘Creationism’, as far as the term is commonly understood, refers to a scientific view about how God did it, namely a literal reading of Genesis.
check out biologos.org for a Christian understanding of evolution 🙂
As an atheist I have to express my support to you. While I don’t believe that Jesus was God and there is one, I do believe that following Jesus’ teachings on love and tolerance will help us co-exist as equals.
So, if a view harms that equality and harmony that tolerant christians create (Because YECs usually hold science and atheists as “evil”), we should join to fight it, and create a more reasonable, tolerant world.
Good article, even with the little parts I don’t agree with.
This is fantastic! Thank you!
I think Ken Ham has already won the prize he was actually hoping for- publicity and the increase in cash donations that come with it.
I’m just hoping the debate will be entertaining and there will be many slides of people riding dinosaurs.
However, whether the persons mentioned by name are actual fathers or simply significant tribal ancestors does not change the chronology either way.
For example: “Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech. Then Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters.” (Gen. 5:25-26; NASB) Whether we say that Methusaleh was the actual father of Lamech, or whether Lamech was some descendant down the line from Methusaleh, or whether “Methusaleh” and “Lamech” represent tribes (with the names representing, presumably, the “founding father”), doesn’t change the number of years stated.
Just stop calling yourself a creationist. Creationism means rejection evolution, because it claims to propose something better than established science. Your brand is in my terminology called theistic evolution. Ken Miller and Francis Collins are like that. I’m not the only one using this terminology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
Atheists like me are smart enough to understand the difference between theistic evolution and creationism, between you at one hand and Ol’ Hambo and the IDiots from Seattle at the other hand.
Root for truth; let the side you pick stem from *that*.
While I believe that science tells us that our universe was created 4.5 billion years or so ago, and we are the product of an undirected evolutionary process, I find the positions of both atheists like Richard Dawkins and young earth creationists like Ken Ham to be logical, while I fail to understand the position of Christians like Benjamin Corey. While I disagree with the conclusion that Ken Ham reaches, I understand his position. If you believe in the bible to be the word of god, if you reject the parts that don’t agree with science, like the order of creation, the existence of a literal Adam and Eve, the introduction of death as a consequence of sin etc, on what grounds do you accept the virgin birth, resurrection etc that also are not scientifically supported. I agree with Ken, that if you reject Genesis, you might as well reject the whole Christian theology. Atheists like Dawkins look at what science tells us about our origins and see clearly that it contradicts what the Bible and the other “holy” books tells us and therefore rejects them. I find the position of the author of this blog very illogical – conveniently ignoring the parts of the theology that are proven to be unscientific while rigorously claiming that other parts that are similarly unscientific to be true.
I always find it interesting to find that so many atheists and fundamentalists agree on a literal reading of the bible. I wonder why that is?
My point is that why take some parts of the bible like resurrection literally (as most Christians do) while saying other parts like genesis are allegorical (as most non fundamental Christians do).
That’s a good question and highlights a contradiction. However your statement was ‘if you reject Genesis, you might as well reject the whole Christian theology’ agreeing with Ken Ham. There is nothing in Christian theology that is dependent on the creation myth in Genesis. Some Christians choose to live with the contradiction, others do not and interpret even the resurrection in different terms.
It’s an issue of different literary genres.
It certainly can be. However, I am among the school of thought that seeks instead to demonstrate that the Genesis account of creation is actually very accurate in light of Big Bang cosmology and some form of evolution. Personally, I am reluctant to accept the idea of natural selection as autonomous based on a purely scientific approach, without influence from religious thought. Rather than theistic evolution, I espouse a view that William Lane Craig calls “progressive creationism.”
Growing up, I–as I would imagine is the same for most people–was led to believe in the false dichotomy of science and religion; i.e., either you believe in the Big Bang and a derivative of Darwinian evolution, or you believe in the Bible. (Side note: It was not from my evangelical parents that I heard this idea, but just from society. It was actually from my father–who, being an evangelical and political conservative, owns no guns and has no desire to, and is a stellar example of love for others, if that helps his/my credibility at all–that I was introduced to the idea that the Big Bang and evolution could very easily fit within the framework set in place by the author of Genesis.)
I will again paste my previous comment regarding this theory:
[The Bible} does not in fact contradict science and evolution. I am an evangelical Christian who believes in a more progressive view of creation (I do not think theistic evolution accurately describes my position; William Lane Craig has used the term “progressive creationism,” which is a slightly more accurate title). The fact of the matter is, the Bible is unclear. It states that there was light, but not that the light was created instantly, etc.
There’s actually a more recent theory attempting to explain the compatibility of science, but particularly of the Big Bang, with Genesis. It points out that the stages of the Big Bang, occurring over about 14 billion years, can be divided into 6 periods of decreasing length, the events of which almost perfectly mirror what the Bible says happened and in the same order. This theory relies on the speed of the expanding universe, which would have started relatively close to the speed of light, and demonstrates that the time dilation which occurs at such speeds could allow an observer external to the system (i.e. God) to witness a 14 billion year process, while a hypothetical observer inside the expanding universe would have experienced the passage of time as having been much closer to 6 standard days. Of course, the earth was not likely created at the start of the Big Bang, nor was the sun around to measure the Earth’s revolution as a standard for time; thus the “hypothetical” above. But, if the theory is credible, it would prove that the Bible actually predicted that which science would not discover for about 3000 more years.
Even evolution of some form or another can be easily reconciled to the scriptures on creation.
I’m going to have to do some reading of Mr. Craig’s work. Very exciting and fun stuff!
It is my belief, that the more science explains, the closer it will come to God.
Sure. I was avoiding trying to solve the contradiction, just accepting that in the framework in question there was one. People will likely address the contradiction in different ways. Personally I think there is a difference between logos and mythos. I agree with Karen Armstrong that one of the things that has regrettably been lost in modern western culture is any understanding, much less respect for, mythos as a way of knowing. Ancients did not have the problem of when to apply logos vs mythos. One provides answers to one set of questions, the other to another.
But when I first replied, I did not see this comment, as it was not then posted. Your initial comment seemed to imply your acceptance of the proposed two events (creation as allegory, resurrection as fact) as a given contradiction, and thus I deemed it to elicit a response such as mine. I apologize for the harsh start to my first reply (I swear, I’m only like that on discussion boards, whether you believe it or not!).
Happens to all of us. I get snarky much more than I like to admit (I wish only on discussion boards!) Thanks for the apology.
In fact, your belief that it is a contradiction highlights a significant lack of understanding of the Bible. The resurrection occurs within books of the Bible which Biblical scholars consider to be of the genre “ancient narrative,” or of some genre similar to that specified. While the majority of Genesis is certainly intended as narrative (not necessarily of the same genre as the Gospels, seeing as they are separated by about 1000-1500 years, but narrative nonetheless) the creation account may not necessarily be the same. Personally, I think the creation account IS intended to be taken literally, BUT NOT AS YOU AND CHARVAKAN UNDERSTAND IT. I will past my previous comment below for clarification. Both of you presume that Genesis does in fact propose a young Earth creationism, when any amount of further analysis reveals that it does no such thing. My previous comment:
[The Bible} does not in fact contradict science as evolution. I am an evangelical Christian who believes in a more progressive view of creation (I do not think theistic evolution accurately describes my position; William Lane Craig has used the term “progressive Creationism,” which is a slightly more accurate title). The fact of the matter is, the Bible is unclear. It states that there was light, but not that the light was created instantly, etc.
There’s actually a more recent theory attempting to explain the compatibility of science, but particularly of the Big Bang, with Genesis. It points out that the stages of the Big Bang, occurring over about 14 billion years, can be divided into 6 periods of decreasing length, the events of which almost perfectly mirror what the Bible says happened and in the same order. This theory relies on the speed of the expanding universe, which would have started relatively close to the speed of light, and demonstrates that the time dilation which occurs at such speeds could allow a observer external to the system (i.e. God) to witness a 14 billion year process, while a hypothetical observer inside the expanding universe would have experienced the passage of time as having been much closer to 6 standard days. Of course, the earth was not likely created at the start of the Big Bang; thus the “hypothetical” above. But, if the theory is credible, it would prove that the Bible actually predicted that which science would not discover for about 3000 more years.
Even evolution of some form can be easily reconciled to the scriptures on creation.
Whatever mental gymnastics you have to do to try and make the bible squeeze into your understanding of cosmology is your business, but you can keep your ‘significant lack of understanding of the bible’ crap to yourself. If you think you actually have the true and complete understanding of the bible you are as deluded as Ken Ham.
No gymnastics done; just math and physical calculations. And the cosmology as I understand it is identical or almost identical to that proposed by secular cosmologists. So . . . I don’t quite get your use of “your understanding of cosmology.”
In fact, nothing in my comment could be used to infer that I claim to possess a full and perfect understanding of the Bible. I’m glad you said “If . . . ” rather than attributing such a statement or implication to me outright. I merely pointed out the following: Your statement that accepting the Resurrection as fact but choosing to consider Genesis allegorical is a contradiction merely demonstrates your like of understanding of biblical literature. As the author of this blog pointed out below, either this portion of Genesis is true under a theory such as that which I profess, or it belongs to a different category of literature than do the Gospels. Even if my theory is true and the creation account can be taken literally, it is likely that the depiction of the Garden and the events within its bounds are allegorical–not because we “choose” to interpret them as such, but because the literary elements of the story much more closely resemble those of a story with a point than an exact narrative.
Please don’t miss the point – the point being that if you just creatively reinterpret the Bible to mean whatever you need it to mean in order to preserve another religious doctrine (in this case, the doctrine of biblical infallibility), then you’re involved in circularity, not to mention relying on subjectivism, since by arbitrary presupposition you are automatically rejecting any process of testing of “what the Bible says” against good real world evidence (evidential testing; which happens to be a core epistemological principle) to have any impact on whether or not “the Bible is true”. This kind of circularity is certainly different from the circularity that young earth creationists are involved in (automatically rejecting any scientific discoveries they feel contradict their religious beliefs), but it is still circular, and thus fallacious.
That seems to be as dishonest as someone pointing to myriad changes that evolution has gone through over the years as evidence that it is false. For many the bible is not a book of science it is a book of symbols that people have used for millennia to find meaning in the world. To assert that it has to be read as a book of science simply because if makes for an easier target is straw-manning plain and simple. You want to take Ken Ham and his ilk to task for their silliness in asserting that their ancient text should hold primacy over science, bravo. But you also want to tell people who don’t read the bible that way that they are somehow reading it incorrectly because they find meaning in something you don’t? What’s the point in that?
Ken Ham doesn’t even represent the Bible as a book of science.
The Bible is not a book of science, it is a book of how God created us and has redeemed us and all that lies between those two things.
BUT, where the Bible touches on science, it can be found trustworthy. And this is certainly true. One can pick apart ANYTHING under the sun using the “right” arguments and theories and the Bible is no exception.
The Bible was and is the Word of God and, as such, is written to believers. Non believers won’t find the same thing, since one doesn’t read the Word like a novel, one reads it with the Holy Ghost, who Jesus told his disciples He was sending to us, His church. One can certainly read the Word however one wishes, and its pretty kewl that archaeology, science, history and other pursuits of this world have lots to say where the Word is concerned and that, for believers, there is no seam between things of this world and of the next. Why is it necessary to be a believer, instead of someone who can objectively review all the evidence and exclaim “By Jove (or whoever), God DOES exist!!”. I don’t know the answer to that. But that’s the way it is. When one reviews the evidence, God is in all the details and its wonderful. But if anyone doesn’t wish to see God, then they won’t. Its as simple as that. He works in and speaks to our heart and soul, that part He breathed into us at creation, and the part that longs for Him and knows Him and recognizes Him.
Since I ran from Him for most of my life, I recognize others doing the same. All I suggest is that one put down the sword and shield of intellectualism and take up the Love of God. It makes all the difference.
BUT, where the Bible touches on science, it can be found trustworthy.
‘Found trustworthy’ based on what? Your say so? Or its own? This is the same argument used in the 17th century against heliocentrism. It was incorrect. We no longer interpret the bible as saying the earth is unmoving and the center of the universe
One can pick apart ANYTHING under the sun using the “right” arguments and theories and the Bible is no exception.
Actually no you can’t. In science you have to actually present evidence, which is then subject to the scrutiny of peer review and further investigation. If at any point now or in the future it is found lacking, the hypothesis is either disproved or revised.
Not my say so. The Word’s say so. And you don’t have to accept it. That’s the beauty of the Word and of God. He doesn’t demand that you follow Him, He invites you. If you don’t wish to accept, then just don’t.
Peer review is awesome for stuff like medicine and science theories and the things for which it is intended. But since peer review is based off the knowledge and opinions of human beings (inherently fallible), then it can be just as fallible. Look back over the relatively brief history of medicine and you will find many medical practices that were lauded by the peer review of its time that have now been abandoned as hurtful and/or unhelpful.
St Augustine of Hippo disagrees with you.
Okay.
You’re right. The Bible is merely vacuous symbols upon which people impose their subjective desires based on primitive superstitions. This makes it a less easy target how, exactly?
In regard to the fact that evolution (like any and all scientific theories) goes through myriad changes over the years is misleading because of the lack of context. Why has it gone through those changes? What produced the changes? What is the motivation for making the changes? You ignore the very scientific process that produces such changes, and that does so quite intentionally, following the fundamental principles of science itself. Revision in the light on continual and ongoing observational and experimental research and analysis is precisely one of the very strengths of science. This is all far different from the Bible as “holy book” of “revealed truth” allegedly “divinely inspired by God” (in some manner). My point is precisely that the Bible is neither truth nor revealed truth and is merely incidentally true (just like any other piece of literature) in what it may reveal about the culture and ideas of the people who wrote it (and edited it, and canonized it) and little more, and has nothing to do with any god in the first place. Far, far more can be learned about reality from any fifth grade textbook on science or history or the like than anything in the Bible.
I have less than zero doubt that people can effectively use selected passages from the Bible like Aesop’s Fables. This is simply beside the point. The fact that people can “derive special meaning” from any literature they like (allegedly divinely inspired or from a Tom Robbins novel) is just beside the point.
Ahh the “because you’re stupid head” argument. Well played orange.
And here we have the new atheism showing its true stripes. Like the fundamentalists you so enjoy ridiculing you want to (a) tell me how I should define my symbols, which startling and conveniently looks just like the fundamentalists’ definitions, and (2) tell me which symbols should have meaning for me.
Please, oh supremely wise and rational one, which music should move me? Or poetry? Or art? There has to be some rational basis for one over the other, right? Ayn Rand certainly thought so, and let us all know exactly what rational people should appreciate to the letter. Isn’t it interesting how the religious right grasped on to her philosophy? She argues for the same warped worldview. That there is only one world, the world of reason, and it should provide the answers to everything, including what we should like. If you liked cubism you were wrong and therefore morally deficient. Cubism was a vacuous symbol.
Isn’t it disturbing how anti-humanist these folks can be? It’s like we’ve shaken off the yoke of religious oppression just to be dehumanized by our empiricist masters. Steve says:
Call me crazy, but isn’t understanding human cultures and ideas an important thing? It’s just proof of the disdain these people have for anything having to do with the humanities (as opposed to those manly, manly empirical disciplines) that they have no time for anything that deals with human perspective, human subjectivity, and human culture.
As anyone who’s read my posts on this thread knows, I happen to be firmly in the evolution camp in the current debate. But I’m concerned that some of my strange Darwinist bedfellows don’t share my humanist belief that, though we’re absolutely the product of a long history of evolution by natural selection, that’s not all we are.
Yeah, critical thinking and epistemological standards regarding evidence are “anti-humanist”. Clearly there is some strange agenda at work in this kind of rhetoric, where obvious misrepresentation is considered to be legitimate. Pretty amusing coming from someone who dares to invoke nuanced understanding.
Oh, quit being such a disingenuous ass, Steve. I’m not complaining about your “standards,” I’m taking you to task for the way you dismiss anything that’s not cold, hard science and play an immature game of make believe where science is the arbiter of all human knowledge. You’re peddling a nostalgic form of hyper-rationalism and pretending that everyone who proposes limits to scientific inquiry is some sort of religious wacko. Racking up message board debating points is obviously more important to you than engaging with the ideas of anyone whose perspective differs from your own.
“Oh, quit being such a disingenuous ass, Steve.”
I do always laugh when people engage in such obvious self-projection.
Well, Steve, when the laughter subsides, how about answering the question I asked? In case you missed it:
I apologize if I’m taking important time away from your fundie-crushing crusade, with which you’ll no doubt lead our society into a Golden Age of rationality and brotherhood. But I wondered if you wanted to actually discuss this matter, or whether you’re content to fling pot-shots at your online foes.
Thank you for openly acknowledging the fact that it is your intent to change the subject. Now go back to the top of the page and read the headline.
It was a sincere question, Steve. It’s one thing to rib each other, but does it always have to be about flamewars? You’re not interested in a civil discussion?
“You’re not interested in a civil discussion?”
Says the guy who routinely throws out misrepresentative ad hominem intended denigrations at the drop of a hat – making remarks such as what I have quoted here, in the face of the context of his own remarks, another sign of troll-like behavior.
Okay, Steve. This makes the third and final time:
Isn’t understanding human cultures and ideas an important thing?
Go back to the top of the page and read the headline again. Your attempt to change the subject, again, is noted again.
Well, Steve the Topic Cop, I’m merely trying to get you to address a point you yourself made:
I’d like to know why you don’t consider human culture and ideas important. And if this point was so irrelevant to the topic at hand, why did you make it?
I already told you why I made the point, in the comments where I made the statement, so keep reading it. Not only that, but if you cannot comprehend the relevance of that point to the topic at hand, then you’re substantially more dense than I gave you credit for.
Your attempt to change the subject, again, is noted again.
Gee, Steve, I wasn’t aware that there was some very important unwritten rule about changing the subject here. By your behavior, I assume there’s no such rule against being a hectoring, accusatory, self-infatuated cyber-bully.
There’s a saying I’ve heard, which goes something like this: “There’s nothing more confusing than the man who refuses to follow his own advice.” Your self-projection is noted.
It seems to be the spirit of the age. Classical liberals are caught in the middle of fundamentalists of all stripes who want to set their battle lines down. I applaud your fortitude and perseverance in always willing to engage. I tire of it rather quickly. I have no interest in engaging in that level of self ignorance. Human beings have always been seekers of meaning. I seriously doubt Chris Hitchens and his devout followers will change that. If the Vienna Circle couldn’t… Mostly I am saddened that the extremists seem to dominate so much of the conversation. There is so much to be learned from each other, yet those on both sides deny it is the case. Each wants to blame the other or every bad things that has ever happened as if without atheism or religion we would all be living in peaceful bliss, a veritable’ garden of eden.’
BTW, not sure if you are familiar with Richard Beck’s blog, Experimental Theology. He is doing a series on William Stringfellow’s ‘An Ethics for Christians & Other Aliens in a Strange Land’ that you might find interesting. Cheers !
I’m sorry. Who was it who wrote, “For many the bible is not a book of science it is a book of symbols that people have used for millennia to find meaning in the world”? I must have forgotten. I thought you wrote that, but apparently I did.
Far be it from anyone to actually take your words seriously. I have no doubt that Mormons have used the Book of Mormon to find meaning in the world. That does not change what I pointed out in the slightest. Did I argue against subjective meaning? Certainly not. Did I argue against music, or poetry, or art? Of course I didn’t. And you think Ayn Rand is a friend of the religious right? Ha, this is a joke, not to mention the fact that the remark is completely beside the point, an obvious red herring.
You ask, rhetorically perhaps, “But you also want to tell people who don’t read the [Book of Mormon] that way that they are somehow reading it incorrectly because they find meaning in something you don’t? What’s the point in that?”
“If you want to find subjective meaning in whatever you choose” is exactly a red herring, since the topic is not even about finding subjective meaning. It’s about reality claims, and you cannot discuss religious claims about reality by discussing subjective meaning that people derive from whatever art they happen to like, or discussing Yaqui shamans changing into wolves in the Mexican desert.
I doubt creation was observed by any of the scientists theorizing on it. It’s theories, not facts.
Did your great-great-grandparents exist? Prove it.
My point exactly.
We’re not even talking about creation. In the context of young earth creationist belief, we are talking, for example, about the simple fact that we know that the earth has been around far longer than any mere 6,000 years or so. We know that the earth was around 100,000 years ago, because we see features on the earth from that time. We know that the earth was around 200,000 years ago, because we see features on the earth from that time. How in detail the earth was created when that occurred some time in the distant past is irrelevant to these facts.
Additionally, I seriously doubt you understand the nature of scientific theory and how scientific theories are developed on top of a body of related facts. It is theories *and* facts. Various theories in geology are built on bodies of related geological facts, for example. The theory of general relativity in physics is built on a body of related facts in physics. This interconnection of facts and theory is precisely how scientific theories are extended, revised, or even thrown out, as the related facts they are developed on are extended by continuing scientific research.
We know that the earth was around 200,000 years ago, because we see features on the earth from that time.
And we know they are from that time how exactly . .
Dating Rocks and Fossils Using Geologic Methods
by Daniel J. Peppe and Alan L. Deino
http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/dating-rocks-and-fossils-using-geologic-methods-107924044
Pretty sure Mr. Peppe and Mr. Deino weren’t there at the beginning of time.
So, how exactly can they be sure that what they base their facts on are accurate? Its a theory. And theories change. And facts change. So they aren’t really facts, just moving targets to base other moving targets on.
From the minds of people who have been shown to be fallible and have agendas.
Heck, you keep telling me I have an agenda, so whats to keep these guys from having an agenda?
I will always put my faith in God and His Word above peeps. Sorry.
“Pretty sure Mr. Peppe and Mr. Deino weren’t there at the beginning of time.”
I have less than zero doubt that young earth creationists ignore the scientific facts whenever they feel like it. Thank you for demonstrating, by example, how creationists use vacuous rhetoric for the very purpose of ignoring the observational facts about reality which are learned about in the process of scientific examination and investigation. There is less than zero doubt that young earth creationists ignore the discoveries made in geological science, precisely because they have no intention of actually dealing with the geological facts in the first place, because they know that they are going to cling to their false religious beliefs no matter what the facts are in the first place. “I will always put my faith in…” Religious faith is ever the excuse of religious believers trying to prop up false beliefs in the face of the fact that their beliefs are known to be scientifically wrong. Thank you for being open and honest about this.
That is your rhetoric. It doesn’t change things.
Love you brother.
You are quite correct that what I articulate is rhetoric based on taking scientific facts into account. It is the religion-based and religion-motivated rhetoric of young earth creationists that is factually in error and that does not change things, much as they would like it to. Young earth creationism is a religious belief based on particular religious doctrines in a particular religious context. Young earth creationism is not science, and because of areas of scientific discoveries such as in geological science in particular, we know that young earth creationism happens to be scientifically false. Nothing you have said changes these facts, and, moreover, by definition it is impossible for beliefs based on religious faith to have any bearing on the subject – because circular reasoning is inherently fallacious.
You write beautifully. Is it something you do for a living?
Still rhetoric. Still doesn’t change things. Science based theories cannot be considered truth as they are continually trying to hit the moving target of the newest, latest and greatest discovery for which, I might add, scientists get paid. Kudos to them for making a living at something as fascinating as science is. And for keeping the ball in the air with theories that need to be tested and what not.
The Word is not theories which need to be tested. It is Truth. Once you wrap your mind around it, you will see how exciting it is.
Thank you. No – professionally I’m a computer programmer.
In regard to science, it certainly is a moving target due to its revisionary nature – and, in fact, its revisionary nature is precisely one of its fundamental characteristics which makes it far superior to belief in religious doctrine. “Truth” is an ideal, and we can ever improve our comprehension of the truth, in improving degrees of accuracy and levels of detail. This does not change the scientific fact that the earth is shaped like a ball and is not flat, or the scientific fact that the earth orbits the sun instead of the other way around, or the scientific fact that Milky Way does not constitute the universe but that in fact there are billions of galaxies in the observable universe. The strength of science is precisely that in seeking the truth no idea is held sacred but is subject to critical scrutiny and must survive the gauntlet of evidentiary testing against reality itself. This is precisely what make scientific ideas far superior to religious doctrine.
Anyone who claims to possess truth yet who refuses to seek the truth and/or who deliberately ignores any and all evidence which is contrary to some personal belief which he holds dear is demonstrating that his claim is false, since in fact his actions show that it is his intent to spurn the truth in favor of his false personal belief. Not only that, but religious dogma is quite boring, precisely because it is fixed by religious tradition and has nothing to do with dealing with reality and following wherever exploration of reality might lead.
Incidentally, I used to be a young earth creationist, so your “Once you wrap your mind around it” could not be more wrong.
Actually, they don’t reject it, they look at it from all sides. And, since none of us were there when it happened, to see for ourselves HOW it happened, then we are truly relying on theories, however one wants to describe them.
It seems to me that many of the people who are actively shouting down Ken Ham, are doing so based on what they “perceive” him to represent, and not what he actually says. There is fascinating research being done on ALL sides of science and it seems foolish to reject the findings that are objectively represented just because one doesn’t like the potential of it pointing to God.
Answers in Genesis is a fascinating website and could give you lots to think about from both sides.
Don’t rely on AiG.com for evolution information.
Don’t rely on AiG for information about evolution or science.
They don’t look at it from all sides, this is the point. They don’t look at it from the side that the Bible just says things that are wrong, just like the Quran or any other alleged holy book says things that are wrong, because they are just collections of things written by humans in some particular religious/cultural tradition relying on those religious premises without due regard to actually being factually correct in the first place, and have nothing to do with any divine inspiration at all.
And you are entitled to your opinion.
Creationists are certainly entitled to their opinions. Freedom of belief obviously implies that you can believe whatever you want, no matter how wrong it is. You can believe that the earth is flat, and that a maximum of 58 angels can dance on the head of pin, and that the entire field of geological science isn’t science at all but is merely a worldwide conspiracy by evolutionists trying to prop up evolution. It’s when it comes down to backing up such opinions with actual evidence, like that last one that young earth creationists spout all the time, where young earth creationists fall flat on their face.
For example, you wrote, “There is fascinating research being done on ALL sides of science and it seems foolish to reject the findings that are objectively represented just because one doesn’t like the potential of it pointing to God.” Ah, yes. There’s that element of conspiracy theory rhetoric again. Of course and in fact there is no “fascinating research being done” in SCIENCE in support of young earth creationism. Your claim there is false, and not just false, but obviously and blatantly false. All of us – including you – know fully well that there is not, for example, a single research article in any professional science journal in the field of geological science with research results supporting young earth creationism. If there was, you’d be referring us to it and citing the scientific research and criticizing us for ignoring it. But what you (and so many other young earth creationists I have encountered) do is completely ignore the actual scientific research published in the professional literature of geological science, conducted by real geologists out doing real geological research, and then refer us to a religious outfit (that even requires its members to sign a statement of religious faith in the Bible and specific traditional Christian religious doctrines), and then try to pretend that’s supposed to be “science” – and moreoever you completely ignore the obvious and blatant religious bias of that religious organization (not to mention the pervasively scientifically debunked nature of the pseudoscience rhetoric they promote) while at the same time trying to pretends it is the entire community of professional geologists across the planet who are engaging in a conspiracy against young earth creationists because they just don’t want to accept the idea of a 6,000 year old planet because it would mean God did it (which silly argument is made, by the way, based on the absurdly false premise that all the hundreds of millions of Christians who reject the doctrine of young earth creationism because it is scientifically wrong don’t even exist).
And you young earth creationists wonder why the absurd nature of the rhetoric you use gets ridiculed so often.
Actually there is research being done in science by Christian scientists. . . but they prob wouldn’t count since they have that “evil” word Christian in the description.
I find your statement of “hundreds of millions of Christians who reject the doctrine of young earth creationism” interesting and wonder where you got that number.
Fascinating.
Your denial of the fact that hundreds of millions of Christians accept the fact that the earth has been around far longer than merely 6,000 years or so is noted. That is indeed a good example of delusional manner in which creationists deny reality that is so prevalent in creationist rhetoric, and I thank you for demonstrating this by example.
Furthermore, you wrote, “there is research being done in science by Christian scientists” – which is a not-so-nice attempt at red herring but utterly beside the point. I have not once ever said that there are not any scientists who are Christians who do work in science. Here is what I wrote: ” in fact there is no ‘fascinating research being done’ in SCIENCE in support of young earth creationism. Your claim there is false, and not just false, but obviously and blatantly false. All of us – including you – know fully well that there is not, for example, a single research article in any professional science journal in the field of geological science with research results supporting young earth creationism. If there was, you’d be referring us to it and citing the scientific research and criticizing us for ignoring it.” Did you cite any such scientific research in the professional science literature of geology or astronomy? No you did not. Indeed, you completely ignored this point and tried to change the subject. This too is precisely how creationists such as yourself demonstrate their intention to promote a false religious agenda.
LOL! I love it that I have such an agenda.
Nope. Just sharing the Truth as I have come to understand it. If you need maps and pictures and diagrams and such, they are out there, but that’s part of your journey, not mine.
Love you brother.
Sharing your personal opinions which are contradicted by reality is not the truth, by definition.
Indeed, the manner in which religious believers such as yourself fabricate falsehoods, even obvious falsehoods, and proclaim them to be “Truth” while being factually untrue is precisely how you demonstrate one of the basic characteristics the nefarious nature of the rhetoric of religious belief. Thank you for providing the example.
More rhetoric, dear.
The sky is blue.
More rhetoric. True rhetoric, but rhetoric, just the same. The difference between reason-based rhetoric and religion-based rhetoric is precisely that reason-based rhetoric relies on good real world evidence and correct reasoning (logic) based on that evidence, whereas religion-based rhetoric relies on making things up without regard to good real world evidence or legitimate reasoning and also often ignores evidentiary and logical considerations willy-nilly whenever religious believers come to realize that science and logic are contrary to their religion-based proclamations. Which is exactly why when religious believers – and young earth creationists especially – proclaim their false beliefs to be “Truth” we just chuckle over this inherently irrational claim and the utterly vacuous nature of the word games they use.
> reject Genesis
I accept Genesis as mythology, and it is actually a poignant narrative of the Neolithic Revolution. Several theologians are discovering this, Ched Myers has the best exegesis I’ve seen, as follows:
Ched Myers (2005) The Fall & Anarcho-Primitivism and the Bible. Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Edited by Bron Taylor. NY: Continuum. chedmyers.org/articles/ecology-faith/%E2%80%9C-fall%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Canarcho-primitivism-and-bible
Then you clearly know nothing about the Bible. It does not in fact contradict science as evolution. I am an evangelical Christian who believes in a more progressive view of creation (I do not think theistic evolution accurately describes my position; William Lane Craig has used the term “progressive Creationism,” which is a lightly more accurate title). The fact of the matter is, the Bible is unclear. It states that there was light, but not that the light was created instantly.
There’s actually a more recent theory attempting to explain the compatibility of science, but particularly of the Big Bang, with Genesis. It points out that the stages of the Big Bang, occurring over about 14 billion years, can be divided into 6 periods of decreasing length, the events of which almost perfectly mirror what the Bible says happened and in the same order. This theory relies on the speed of the expanding universe, which would have started relatively close to the speed of light, and demonstrates that the time dilation which occurs at such speeds could allow a observer external to the system (i.e. God) to witness a 14 billion year process, while a hypothetical observer inside the expanding universe would have experienced the passage of time as having been much closer to 6 standard days. Of course, the earth was not likely created at the start of the Big Bang; thus the “hypothetical” above. But, if the theory is credible, it would prove that the Bible actually predicted that which science would not discover for about 3000 more years.
Even evolution of some form can be easily reconciled to the scriptures on creation.
Was this to me? Because I don’t disagree with you.
Nope! This was to charvakan.
This is not at all convincing. Even if you were to somehow divide the big bang into 6 periods – plant life did not exist in a time period long before the period in which the sun was formed. Like you mention the earth itself would have not been created at the beginning. Face it, you cannot reconcile the big bang theory and evolution though natural selection to the genesis narrative. That is one thing like I said before I give credit to Ken Ham. He sees the silliness in trying to this. The argument that genesis is just a allegory for divine creation that many have posted here is a better explanation than this 🙂
Remember, I never claimed that the theory is correct or even that I believe it! (Actually, I think I did say the latter, but I shouldn’t have.) I’m really just bringing it up to show that there are Christians (and Jews I guess) who think that the Bible and science are not incompatible and are making a scholarly effort to do so (although I do not know how accurate the move is; I find Schroeder a considerably more reliable source).
Personally, I’m fine to accept the understanding of the creation account as allegory if that is the truest view. I just have yet to determine that it is!
btw, it would help to give some citation for this theory that you mention, ideally from a source that is considered mainstream science…
For sure! I was considering doing that before yo uneven
asked, although I don’t know if this is considered “mainstream science.” To the extent of my knowledge, it was first proposed by Orthodox Jewish physicist Gerald Schroeder, who attended and worked at MIT, while and after getting his doctorate there, respectively.
http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Big-Bang-Discovery-Harmony/dp/0553354132
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hidden-Face-God-Ultimate/dp/0743203259
The movie “The Genesis Code,” released a few years ago, also seeks to propagate either this view or something similar.
I don’t know if you are familiar with the late, famous, atheist-turned-deist philosopher Antony Flew, but apparently this argument played a role in his surprising change of mind.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-antony-flew15-2010apr15,0,4059881.story#axzz2qbZ6NFhP
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all&
Then there’s the doctrine of biblical inerrancy or infallibility. This does not state that everything which is in the Bible has come to pass, but rather that all which the Bible teaches is true. There are certainly some portions of the Bible which were written as narrative and intended to be taken literally (although, anyone who knows anything about ancient narrative knows that the writers did NOT intend that every incident be understood as an exact representation of the event, unlike modern biographies). But there are other portions which are obviously allegorical, and some which are less so, but still potentially allegorical.
I have not looked into this issue in much depth, but I do not consider to be out of the question the idea that the Creation account is not intended as narrative. I am no expert in ancient semitic writings, and thus do not seek to make or defend a case, but it is possible in my mind that the author’s message was not in fact an account of what happened when and why, but a reminder that God created the world and an assertion of His sovereignty.
Personally, I prefer the idea presented in my first response to your comment. But even if you can demonstrate that the author of Genesis presented the idea of an instantaneous, young Earth creation, that hardly necessitates that the Bible contradict science.
All of these discussions here on this thread point to a larger question … If the bible is indeed the word of a cosmic intelligence that is the cause of everything, why then did this intelligent agent confuse everyone with a narrative (even if allegorical) that is so far removed from what we now understand to be true? What is the reason why such an intelligence would deliberately cause people to argue and doubt the validity of his message because of this? Even if there was a reason for not giving us the exact scientific truth in this text, any allegory used could have been closer to the what science has proven to be true – what does this narrative gain by describing the creation in the wrong order, imply a much shorter time scale etc? This whole debate between the christian community that we see here could all have been avoided with a better story to describe creation! While believers may come up with excuses for this, this also points to many non believers that this story and the entire bible is the work of mere mortal men, from a more primitive time in our civilization when we had very little understanding of our universe.
First of all, I don’t see how a cosmic intelligence could give the “exact scientific truth” when He is revealing the account through the lens of a man who had little, or more likely no, knowledge of what we consider science. And of course, your question is hardly original, a fact I’m sure of which you are quite aware. Again, we don’t have to know why He would, and I don’t claim to know any good answer. But yet again, you are PRESUMING that the Bible does NOT in fact provide an accurate view of creation. If you can demonstrate to me such, then I will perhaps credit your stance on the issue some degree of rationality and scholarship. I wonder if you even read my post, or at least paid attention as you read it. If this theory is true, then in fact it would demonstrate that the Bible is NOT a work of mere men, but a revelation given us by a cosmic intelligence, as no mere man could have contrived a story that so reality reflects the conclusions of modern cosmologists.
Your argument that the order is off is not even correct, at least according to proponents of this theory, who accept Big Bang cosmology.
I did read your post and have replied to that one. Also I am not “PRESUMING that the Bible does NOT in fact provide an accurate view of creation”. I am claiming that scientific discoveries over the last few hundred years have proven it it not an accurate view of creation.
The universe is somewhere around 15.2 billion years old; it’s the EARTH that is about 4.5 billion years old.
It is impossible to believe the Bible literally, because the very first two stories in it are two mutually incompatible creation stories. Mutually incompatible LITERALLY — but not incompatible THEOLOGICALLY or spiritually. Why would the very first things in the Bible be literally incompatible unless that was the lesson we were supposed to learn from it — that we are not to take this literally?
Religion deals with the metaphysical. Science deals with the physical. If science can measure it and observe it, it’s not metaphysical, and therefore it DEFINITIONALLY isn’t religious.
And vice-versa.
Remember, too, that Biblical literalism is a very recent development in Christianity. At the time of Jesus, Biblical scholarship accepted much of the Bible as allegorical, and that concept of allegory-as-part of the Bible made it through Nicea and beyond; it’s part of the Medieval scholars, and exists throughout all of Christian history.
Biblical literalism, in its current form, shows up out of uneducated circuit preachers in the Western United States in the 19th century. It didn’t exist before, and never took hold among anybody who actually STUDIED theology.
My question was why then are certain parts of the bible (example resurrection) taken literally by most of christianity? Who makes the call as to which parts are literal and which are allegorical? That seems to be the spit that is happening in the christian community today. An argument given here was that we have to go by literary genres. That would be a good explanation if we were talking about a mere human text written across centuries, but the christian position is that this is the inspired product of a divine supreme being and is supposed to be inerrant. That begs the question why such an intelligence could not have come up with something better to avoid this confusion? – and to me personally the answer “god works mysteriously and we cannot question his actions” is not a good one.
I’m with you on that. Odd feeling compelled to root for the atheist, eh?
The irony of this debate for me, personally, is that finally understanding the Genesis mythology through the lens of Paleoanthropology is why I actually dusted off my Bible and started reading it again after 20+ years of being outside of church.
Athiests and Bible-bangers both take the Genesis legend literally; that is wrong. Science supports interpreting the mythology as an “etiological
narrative concerning the rise of civilization in the late
Neolithic period.” Several theologians are now onto this, but the following is the best exegesis:
Ched Myers (2005) The Fall & Anarcho-Primitivism and the Bible. Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Edited by Bron Taylor. NY: Continuum. chedmyers.org/articles/ecology-faith/%E2%80%9C-fall%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Canarcho-primitivism-and-bible
For further thinking along the same lines, see:
Our Religions: Are they the Religions of Humanity Itself?
Daniel Quinn, delivered October 18, 2000, as a Fleming Lecture in Religion, Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas ishmael.org/Education/Writings/southwestern.shtml
” were someone to ask “what is a creationist like?” and you were to show that person Ken Ham, that person would understandably assume that creationists are people who reject 4th grade science and who shouldn’t be taken seriously on anything they claim. “
As well they should. The biologic and geologic record is clear, and young-earth creationism has lost the argument. I’m stronger on geology (by osmosis, my husband is a geologist,) but the evidence supports a billions-of-years old cosmos, a 4.6 billion years old (or so) earth and the evolution of live on earth. Frankly, you’re right. Christians who continue to fly in the face of the evidence to deny this give all of you a bad name.
“If either participant in this debate would begin the debate with “God is the active agent who caused creation, let’s try to learn how he did it using science” I would be their biggest ally.”
I don’t know how you could do that. I see no way to prove scientifically the existence of an outside “active agent.” Do you know of one?
I’m fully in accord with Jefferson’s view of supernatural thinking,[1] that is, it is a form of masked atheism[2] that denies the reality of God as evidenced by the best way to know whatever deity is out there: reason and science. And yes, I still call myself a Christian, albeit only a follower of Jesus’ ethical teachings, as he would have wished,[3] not Paul’s pagan dying rising savior garbage[4] he attributed to the great teacher.
____________
1. “To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820
2. “…I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists [supernaturalists], who call me infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what it’s Author never said nor saw. they have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man…” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Thomson, January 9, 1816
3. “To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, May 21, 1803
4. “Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Corypheus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.” ~Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson’s Works, Vol. ii., p. 217)
I’m sorry, was this intended as an answer to my “proof of an outside agent” question? Because if so, I don’t get it.
I’m agreeing with you that there is no “proof of an outside agent.” The only “agent” is Nature, evolution, physics, etc. The best way we can understand the divine is via science and reason.
My perspective is scientific pantheism-deism, somewhere along those lines, as is emblazoned into the US Declaration of Independence with Jefferson’s referral to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”
Or as St. Carlin and St. Hicks later put it: “It’s only a choice between fear and love…It just is. And so are we. For a little while.”
youtube.com/watch?v=cvz9uSK3zXo
Oh, OK, I went back and re-read your post. I must need more coffee. COFFEE NOW!
I roast my own organic Ethiopian bean in my barn (too smokey for the house) and grind each cup fresh, and press it for maximum caffeine extraction. Come on over! 😉
I’m on the road!!
Jefferson was a great statesman, but he would not be my moral or philosophical go-to person as he was a person of his times and was a slave holder, thus calling into question his moral and ethical beliefs.
We have all sinned and come short of God’s glory, hence the need for our Savior. There was an amazing assortment of men (mostly) who worked to bring our nation together, but again, if I am looking for Truth, I will turn to the Word.
Enjoy your superstitions.
No superstitions here. I just don’t follow the gods of this world anymore.
When I want Truth, I will turn to the Word.
Love you brother.
It’s called Intelligent Design, which is not in fact synonymous with young Earth creationism.
and yet the number of people who believe in Intelligent Design who are not also yound earth creationists can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Interesting. You must have a lot of fingers on each hand then . . . .
To me, (as an atheist and former missionary and evangelical for 46 years) the ONLY fundamental unknown aspect of the history of the universe and life on earth, is the origin of time and matter. And that is basically a philosophical question. The Bible actually provides ZERO facts about the science involved in the creation of the universe, of life and it’s evolution, and of natural law. How one can trust the Bible to govern human behavior (ref. Old Testament and even some of Jesus’ strange behavior and statements) when it can’t get even some basic, simple, science correct, is beyond me.
Still, I’ll give you credit for at least not rooting for Ken Ham!
Of course the Bible provides ‘zero facts about the science involved in the creation of the universe’ BECAUSE NO science was used in the creation of the earth.
The creation of the universe and all that lies within it were created supernaturally by God speaking. The Bible got creation correct, Those who got it wrong are all those people saying origins took place the secular scientific way.
As I see it, science is how we talk about the world we experience around us and when we are using it in that way, then it is a useful tool. When we jump out of the bounds of what science is intended for, which is a descriptive way of quantifying and qualifying what we see around us, then we are relying on theories and people’s interpretation and extrapolation. Interesting, perhaps, but nothing to base Truth on, as it is like hitting a moving target. Theories change, facts change. (Poor, poor Pluto, the outcast non-planet).
A non-Christian put it in an interesting way in the Tao te Ching, when he said “the tao that can be spoken of is not the true tao”.
Philosophers have been seeking to define Truth for ages and even they don’t agree. So, while reading and studying all these thoughts and opinions of men is interesting and can help enlarge the way one comprehends the world around them, when I am looking for Truth, I will always turn to the Word.
The Bible was never intended to be a science textbook. It is more about history, philosophy, poetry and morality. The Creation story was more about the fact that God created, not the exact science behind the creation. Science back then was not even the same creature we know it as today, so it seems a bit unfair to critique it for not exhibiting modern ideals.
To dismiss the Bible because it’s not something it was never intended to be is like dismissing The Constitution of the United States for not providing the science behind how the North American continent was formed.
I’ll give you the philosophy and poetry. But history and morality?? The original authors (whoever they were) fully intended their writing to be historical accounts, not allegory (and THEY thought their science was up to snuff). And the history contained therein is mostly rubbish, according to modern archeology. As far as morality, that is mostly rubbish as well, gauged against modern sensibilities. Execute people for swearing, for picking some grain on the sabbath, for children mocking a bald-headed man, or for stumbling while helping carry the Ark over stony, uneven ground? You can keep your “holy” book and it’s “God”. I gave both up and felt liberated!
Why, thank you, I do plan on keeping my holy book and my God. Although I’ll keep the one that has an overarching message of helping the poor, feeding the hungry, taking care of the sick and loving the downtrodden, the outcast and the other, not the one you seem to be reading, which seems to have a message of God is a d**k. If that works for you, great. I wish you luck on your journey.
For the record, my faith journey makes me feel liberated as well. 🙂
A follow-up post on why Genesis 1 need not be true in order to still be true:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/it-doesnt-have-to-be-true-in-order-to-still-be-true/
I am not scientifically-minded and therefore lack the skills to evaluate the science of Ken Ham…or the science of the evolutionists for that matter. I have, however, read the Blble, and have, as yet, been unable to reconcile evolutionary theory with it.
I appreciate your stated position of believing in both creation and evolution. Please tell me how you reconcile them. Specifically, how do you reconcile evolution with the historicity of Adam and Eve? And how do you reconcile natural selection of random mutation with the mind and hand of a proactive Creator?
I believe that God created *you*, individually and specifically, even though I can tell you the natural processes that got you from spermatozoon and ovum to adult human.
I appreciate the effort but you have not appreciated my question.
There’s nothing incompatible in describing a process and attributing that process to God’s hand. The examples I gave, however, do involve incompatibilities – at least at initial glance. And it’s those ostensible incompatibilities I’m seeking to resolve.
And my point is that solving the “incompatibilities” in my reply goes a long way to solving the apparent incompatibilities you describe. As you say, there’s nothing incompatible about describing a process and attributing that process to God’s hand.
Alas, they don’t.
You can describe every physical step in the process that caused the embryonic me to become the adult me, and all I have to do is say that God was behind it all. End of discussion. However, if you describe evolution to me (billions of years, common ancestor for all living things, random mutations and natural selection), then I’m stuck with a Bible that says Adam was formed separately from all other living things and without parentage, and that Eve was formed from him without parentage – and it’s not clear to me how to mesh the biblical account with the evolutionary account. This is not “end of discussion.” It’s the beginning of one.
Who said anything about “end of discussion”? And what problem do you see with Mr. Corey’s answer to your question?
I appreciated his answer. However, as you saw in my response to him, I think he goes too far in taking sides since, by his own admission, he hasn’t figured out the answer himself yet.
Fair enough. But surely, you recognize the difference between not having a full picture and not knowing anything, right? The evidence is pretty clear that Ken Ham is wrong. Recognizing the validity of the evidence that Ken Ham is wrong, and observing that he is therefore doing much to besmirch the name of Christ, is not the same as “choosing sides” in something that is a matter of opinion or taste, whether or not you have all the details of how it all fits together worked out in your head. (In other words, it’s a lot easier to demonstrate that Ken Ham is wrong than to determine what exactly is right.)
“The evidence is pretty clear that Ken Ham is wrong.”
Please be explicit – and remember that I am not knowledgeable about science. I can understand how a scientist could say Ken Ham is wrong (which wouldn’t necessarily mean the scientist was right, but at least he has a basis for his opinion: science). I cannot understand how a non-scientist is supposed to know Ken Ham is wrong.
Ken Ham simply will not give you the facts. He gets very basic stuff about what evolution even claims, and the world around us, wrong. I found the stuff I listed below in less than fifteen minutes; an in-depth critique of his various points would take much longer.
* He believes that if a two-year-old understands it, it must be cutting-edge science.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/au/so-obvious-child-gets-it
* He believes that evolution is a process of blind chance, which is just a factually incorrect statement about how evolution is supposed to work and not even a matter of faith.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/12/18/year-end-message
* He believes that observation and measurement cannot beat “common sense”, in spite of the fact that science exists *precisely because* “common sense” is frequently an unreliable way to understand the Universe.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/embryos-disprove-evolution
* He believes that “Beowulf” was real, and evidence of human cohabitation with dinosaurs.
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2008/09/30/serbia-and-beowulf/
* He believes that our government is teaching people how to talk to aliens. (You can read a news story about it in the second paragraph here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/1989062/Nasa-sponsors-course-on-how-to-talk-to-aliens.html. For extra goofiness, note that he links to *this very news story* in his article. It’s hard to see why he’s not being deceptive here.)
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2008/08/06/nasa-sponsors-course-on-how-to-talk-to-aliens/
* He insists that no transitional forms have ever been found. (They have.)
* He insists that we have never directly observed a change in “kind”. (We have.)
* He asserts that there is an important epistemological difference between “observational” and “historical” science (“Were you there?”), neglecting that both are ultimately responsible to, and must be capable of being falsified by, the evidence (even evidence as yet undiscovered).
If one believes that he gets to review what will go on his site and what won’t:
* He believes that proof of the Flood can be found in pyramids and Chinese (even though the speaker admits that he doesn’t speak the language).
http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Genesis-Babel-the-Chinese-Language,4752,229.aspx
* He stares *right at* evolution, *describes* evolution, and then declares, “That’s not evolution”.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n3/antibiotic-resistance-of-bacteria
* He believes that unicorns were real, according to a paper written by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell (more proof that having a Ph.D. doesn’t automatically make you qualified to discuss reality). There are many things wrong with the paper (even aside from the fact that it says unicorns are real); for example, it bolsters its case by pointing at other animals that have one horn, including the narwhal. The problem is that the narwhal’s “horn” isn’t a horn; it’s a modified *tooth*.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/unicorns-in-bible
It’s remarkable that anyone considers him scientifically accurate in any sense. Such a position indicates either misunsderstanding of the facts, or deep dishonesty.
If I can hop in here, my grounding is in geology, (pun intended) not as a geologist myself, but as the wife of one. You pick things up. Some of the things that make Mr. Ham’s views so out-of-the-park wrong are:
The earth’s continents were conjoined. We know this. Geologic formations prove it. As the plates of the earth move (plate-tectonics) they shift and change places. We know the speed of that movement. We have both charted it on earth and confirmed it from space using GPS Technologies. It’s about 2″ a year. There is no where near enough time to explain the current placement of the continents in a 6,000 year timeline.
We understand the mechanism of crustal-recycling pretty well. New crust is generated in oceanic ridges and subducted back into the mantle at plate-margins or oceanic trenches. The oldest crust-rock is about 2 billion years old, much older than 6,000 years.
The snake-river plane has evidence of numerous volcanic eruptions of the Yellowstone mantle-plume over millions of years, as the North American plate moves over the plume. The last massive eruption (which left 9 feet of ash in Indiana) was around 640,000 years ago. It’s been well dated. That’s more than 6,000 years.
These are just a few examples. The geologic record in no way supports Mr. Ham. He’s wrong.
To play devil’s advocate, they will counter with “the global flood caused all that and just made it look really old”. We also have the practice of carbon dating- something my father, an archeologist uses– but they simply discount this as “unreliable”.
Yeah, the Global Flood. Don’t mention that to a geologist unless you want to see steam come out their ears. For the record, the current geologic record does not support a global flood. Profound floods, when – for example – an ice-dam bursts on a glacially-locked lake. such as scoured the Grand Coolie in Washington state, have occurred, but there is no record of a global flood once granite developed (apparently it’s a light rock) and bobbed up in the crust above the early global ocean.
I understand carbon-dating dating is pretty darn reliable. Carbon-dating is used in rock-samples as well, as I’m sure you know. It also matches with ice-core samples, magnetic banding and other ways of measuring deep time. When most of the puzzle-pieces fit. you can get a better look at the puzzle, see what it shows. We’re closer than ever on that. I view that as a cause for celebration, not fear.
I haven’t actually taken sides– remember, I said no one is entirely on my side. My point of the piece was that as a theologian, I find YEC to be a theological train wreck, and so that is what I root against. I root for “God created let us humbly wrestle with what that may or may not have looked like”.
So, please don’t misunderstand. I don’t believe all of Darwinism, and neither do I believe in all of some renditions of creationism– especially the YEC version. I’m on the side of creationism that is open to humble inquiry, which pits me against YEC.
I take your point, but please state what it is about YEC that causes you to view it as a “theological train wreck.”
Because it’s completely based on the idea of Hebrew Genealogies, as explained in the piece. Using this to date the earth is theological silliness.
I agree– this is a fun issue to wrestle with. I tend to believe that Adam was a real person, but I don’t pretend to understand how that exactly all works out.
It seems like Adam could have very well been the first recorded leader of his clan, with legends of his rise to power being passed down by word of mouth. This type of thing has happened over and over throughout history. Consider Genghis Khan. His people told of how he was born holding a clot of blood in his hand and as a descendant of a grey wolf straight from heaven. Native american tribes have similiar stories of their ancestors.
I don’t think it can be reconciled perfectly– which is why I’m not an apologist for all aspects of Darwinian evolution. I am not 100% sold on some aspects of macro evolution. I probably should have stated that better in the initial piece. I will be blogging more about this in the coming days. In short, I believe there is a biblical defense for an old earth, and that there would have been infinite time for God to create through an evolutionary process and that nothing would have prevented God from using such a process in creation. We clearly do see scientific evidence of evolutionary processes, and those can’t be dismissed– but I am in tension for how the human race came to be; that part isn’t settled for me, which is why I’m okay with a blend of creation/evolution, however that worked out. I don’t actually believe we need all of the answers in this regard, if we did it seems that God would have made it plain to us in some way. My position is evolving, pun intended.
As far as random mutation, I reconcile this by the fact that to scientist something could appear to be “random” but with a creator behind it, things that appear random to us would have been very purposeful to him.
My main point of contention in the article above was my issue with young earth creationism, something that I don’t believe can be supported using scripture and especially in light of science.
In terms of inability to reconcile evolution with Scripture I am probably where you are with two notable exceptions:
1) As you cannot dismiss the claims of scientists which seem to be firm, I cannot dismiss the numerous Scriptures about Adam and Eve which I can see for myself are firm.
2) I don’t see how I can condemn the YEC folks on the basis of science since I don’t know enough science to say where they are doing it rightly or wrongly. Nor do I see how I can condemn them on the basis of Scripture because they are arguing for its veracity.
1. So you are equating the conclusion of science with regard to the material world, that are subject to continual questions and verification through the scientific method with your plain reading of a religious text that is thousands? That seems to me to be quite a stretch. Does it occur to your that Adam and Eve might be a metaphor? Allegory? The book of Job speaks of storehouses in heaven for hail and snow. Surely you don’t believe in those over the science of meteorology do you?
2. I am not a scientist either, but neither am I an epidemiologist. Yet I trust that diseases are transmitted by viruses and germs rather than as the work of the devil as some people insist. If you must be an expert in a field in order to trust the people who work in that field, I would imagine that limits you quite a bit. How do you fly on an airplane? Or use a microwave? The fact is no reputable scientist anywhere gives credence to ‘creationism’ as a scientific pursuit is a pretty good indicator that there is no scientific merit to it.
1. Since the Bible uses metaphors in addition to relating history, I agree that it’s valid to ask whether Adam and Eve might be figurative rather than actual people. The problem is the number of passages spread across the Bible that refer to them and the way they are discussed in those passages – including their presence in genealogies which obviously did include actual people. In the face of all this, it is not easy to say that Adam and Eve were intended to be understood as metaphorical.
2. I am quite willing to trust people who are experts in fields about which I am ignorant. I do it all the time. Scientists, however, did not observe the origin of the universe, nor can they create something from nothing in a controlled environment. Moreover, there are enough people with science degrees believing in creation that you should feel uncomfortable saying that there “is no reputable scientist anywhere [who] gives credence to ‘creationism’ as a scientific pursuit.”
1. I think you are viewing the bible out of its historical context. Ancient founding texts virtually all begin their genealogies with mythical people. If you want to consider them to have been actual people you can do so as an article of faith, but using the bible to prove the validity of a view of the bible is circular.
2. People with science degrees attend classes and pass tests, they are not scientists. Scientists have to work in the filed of science and have their work exposed to the scrutiny of peer review. It is a collaborative process. You cannot have science when anything that dares to violate something written in a several thousand year old text is immediately discarded. That is religion. Moreover, people have the capacity to hold contradictory beliefs. Johannes Kepler was both an astronomer and a noted and sought after astrologer. These should have been competing views.
There seems to be a misconception that unless something is directly observed we cannot have any knowledge of it. This is patently false. We can studying the effects of things and make theories about their cause. As the process continues, and some parts of the theory are contradicted by new findings, the original theory is refined and retested. This increases the probably validity of the theory. Is absolute certainty possible? Not in the positive sense, although things can ruled out. Only religion can make claims of absolute certainty. But false claims of certainty can only come out of not allowing things to be questioned.
“Ancient founding texts virtually all begin their genealogies with mythical people.”
I have never heard this before. Could you please cite a source or two?
I don’t condemn them on the basis of science– I’m not a scientist. I do however, condemn their young earth theology that is rooted in a bad understanding of scripture, because I actually am a theologian.
I’m still trying to work through it all myself. If I remember right, the philosopher-theologian William Lane Craig, who has done a lot of work with Big Bang cosmology and creation, refers to his personal view as “progressive creationism.” He rejects Darwin’s mechanisms on a scientific basis of gaps in the fossil record and general lack of support. I may be misquoting him on those two reasons for rejecting it, but basically, he said that he sees it as too great an extrapolation give the evidence we have, comparable to Einstein’s failure to create an actual general theory of relativity (the theory which he developed that is named such is actually a theory of gravitation). He adopts the view that some evolution of some sort happened, but that it was not all dependent solely on natural mechanisms; God, to some extent, was present and active in the process. This is more or less a form of theistic evolution, but perhaps with a greater emphasis on God’s involvement, and without such a reliance on natural selection. This would also explain how Adam and Eve could evolve and yet still be made in the image of God, if He, through direct intervention, infused within them aspects of the divine likeness. Of course I’m not proposing that this is exactly how it happened; the purpose of my comment is to continue with yours in upholding the idea that the Bible is in fact in some way compatible with Big Bang cosmology and evolutionary theory, as opposed to the media-propagated view that all Christians must be scientific ignorami. There are world-class physicists and physical chemists and biologists and more who profess Christianity; clearly THEY don’t see any such contradiction.
Perhaps I am once again beating a dead horse by bringing up this point. But like you, Mr, Corey, I find myself in an uncomfortable position – between sympathising with you because you at least try to align yourself with scientific discovery and theory, while on the other hand having more respect for Ham’s position theologically. My defence for the latter being that I don’t have to rely on guesswork to determine which parts of the Bible he takes seriously.
And I agree with you.
Ham’s real position, as I understand it, is that we either take the Word as truth, from Genesis 1, or we don’t. When I was an agnostic, that was what I seriously struggled with for many years. And that is what the members of the religious fundamentalist groups who love to bash others who don’t walk the line they’ve drawn use to back up a lot of their hate-isms.
The Bible, as the inspired word of God, is revealed to His flock through the Holy Spirit as we read it and that is something that just has to be experienced to understand and really can’t be argued pro and con. Well, at least by me, mostly because I just don’t feel the need to do it.
I think I’m most bothered by the fact that people took the time to figure out precisely when the earth was created, down to the date (did “Sunday” or “October” even exist back then??). There are so many better things to do with our time in the name of Jesus.
If you see no incompatibility between evolution and creation, you have understood neither.
If you think “Christian” can mean 987 different things, you are totally unqualified to discuss this issue.
Good point. I suppose as a Christian theologian I am completely unqualified to discuss Christian theology.
“Christian theologian”?!?!?!
I don’t think you know the meaning of either term.
As opposed to the random individual on the Internet, whose entirely excessive use of punctuation has completely convinced me of your accredited qualifications.
On a non-related point, Gijrebl, is your avatar-image a threat?
It’s a Jefferson quote. But I doubt Gijreb realizes the historical context; i.e., Shay’s Rebellion, with Jefferson writing that the tax-protesting rebels were “in ignorance.”
monticello.org/site/jefferson/tree-liberty-quotation
Yes, Brian, I know, “The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots,” or something like that. That’s why it seems like a threat. It the “tree of liberty” is dry, what is Gijreb planning to water it with? Or should I say, who?
The rhetoric in America is getting heated; yet, however you want to judge Gireb, let’s apply the same standard to these fellows:
” It will require a domestic civil war against the gun lobby and against interpretations of the First Amendment that unleash the conglomerate rapists of public discourse, especially FOX, a network devoted to making Americans mistrust, fear, and resent one another. It could be as bloody.”
The Coming Civil War Over Guns
Jim Sleeper, Lecturer in Political Science, Yale University
huffingtonpost.com/jim-sleeper/the-coming-civil-war-over_b_2306139.html
“Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. … Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that ‘prying the guns from their cold, dead hands’ thing works for me.”
Des Moines Register Editorial Calls for Killing Gun Owners
foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/02/liberal-ex-columnist-death-threats-published-in-des-moines-register/
“The NRA…worthy of the firing squad.”
WV Professor Christopher Swindell Calls for War on the NRA
thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/06/robert-farago/wv-professor-christopher-swindell-calls-for-war-on-the-nra/
I don’t support any of those statements. Have I said anything that implies that i do? If so, it was not intended.
I understand you haven’t said anything to support those statements. I’m just pointing out that political rhetoric on the Left (at whom Gireb’s quote is pointed) and Right (Gireb) needs judged by the same standard.
I brought it up to try to give pause to a judgmental reaction that seems to be paralleling the polarizing rhetoric before the Civil War. I’m just being selfish; I want to sit on the front porch and watch my cattle graze in peace the rest of my years. 😉
“Tranquility Base here.”
I totally agree with you on the polarizing rhetoric. There’s nothing selfish about not wanting to re-play the Civil War. Once was enough. For myself, I try to hold everyone to the same standard. Not that I always succeed, but I try.
There seems to me to be more naked aggression and fact-denial on the right than left these days, but that could be my own confirmation-bias. That said, calling anyone out about polarizing war metaphors is always a good idea.
Since the posts you mentioned – with their emphasis on gun-rights – weren’t part of this thread, I didn’t catch the relevance. Again, more coffee, perhaps.
You might want to Google search Old Earth Creationism, Theistic Evolutionism, and Evolutionary Creationism. The whole “evolution vs. creation” thing is a false dichotomy.
Or you might not. Trying to involve a Creator God in evolution by natural selection does no justice to either concept.
Random variation and natural selection have created the species diversity we see today, by increasing the local fitness of organisms. The downside of this is that it happens through a process involving a staggering amount of suffering, waste, predation, death, and extinction. It’s only impressive if you affirm the unguided nature of the process.
Some “apostle” is on the white courtesy phone.
“I have become all things to all people…” ~1 Corinthians 9:19
Stay flexible, man.
The crappy scholarship part is what gets me. I wish I could be at that debate
We think so much alike. I recently lost an old friend who called people like me and you “embittered” (when I disagreed with him about some political opinion…yet, he hasn’t asked how I was “doing” once in years!). Anyway, my two cents; there are various views of creation. I live near the Creation Museum which is in Northern Kentucky. It represents one of of the views in a rather arrogant and belittling fashion. But I’ll say one thing for it; the place has been marketed well.
I find scientists like geologists and physicists to be fair people while biologists and anthropologists tend to be arrogant and jump to conclusions (and human evolution IMHO is still a leap of faith). But on the other hand, I don’t think God would mock us by presenting millions of years of geologic evidence which just “appeared as old” several centuries ago. Something to consider. All the best, Deano in Cincy
Well… If Bill Nye had worked on the Human Genome Project, he would be young earth too like many who participated in that groundbreaking project. Hopefully those findings will be included in the debate!
Right! Like Francis Collins–the leader of the human genome project. He is definitely young earth and doesn’t believe in evolution…
I am personal friends with John Gu, a leader of one of the teams who worked on the project and he is hard core young earth from working on it. Many people on the project believe the same. Of course, because most people who read this article don’t know of anyone other than Collins who worked on the Project, there is a lot of assumption that the genome project some how proves evolution to be true.
And which team was that? Thanks to the internet you can search if an individual had any involvement with the project. John Gu returned zero results.
I’m actually a big fan of Dr. Lander and he’s about the furthest you can get from a young earth creationist. Perhaps the reason why the public has been told that the human genome project had significant applications and explanatory power with evolutionary theory is because it did–and Botstein, Lander, and Collins all affirmed it as such.
I too find it hilarious that Sarah Curtright presents a crass falsehood (that any significant portion of the people who worked on the Human Genome Program) were Young Earth Creationists and then resorts to veiled legal threats and accusations of “un-Christian” behaviour when called on it.
Google search for work John Gu did with the Human Genome Project:
Zero results whatsoever.
Yeh, I wanted to give it a day to see if you would have any response to my question about what team your friend worked on (or if he even exists.) The silence is deafening…
The bible may not be real clear on whether or not evolution was a tool of god, but it’s fairly specific on how god feels about lying. Dumb dumb dumb.
Wow Daniel that is very rude to accuse someone of lying just because they didn’t reply in the time frame you thought appropriate. The Bible is also very clear about slandering your neighbor. I don’t need to lie to make my point. I don’t really care if you have not heard of him. There were hundreds of people working in the project divided into multiple teams. My point is that not everyone believed the same as Collins. John is well known throughout the San Diego biotech world and he meets every Friday with my husband and several other well known San Diegian Christian businessmen. I expect that kind of response from a non Christian…perhaps you are. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.
Sarah, maybe you’re the victim here. Like I said before, you can actually look up if someone was a contributor to the Human Genome Project (especially if they were a team leader) and John Gu is simply not one of them. Perhaps, you’re not the liar and you’ve just been lied to by Mr. Gu. Those are the options though…unless Mr. Gu changed his last name recently. You should have your husband ask him at the next bible study.
Don’t be sad. These type of things typically happen when people try to lie about publically available information. I’m not saying that there isn’t a single young earth creationist that worked on the human genome project–but since you were so helpful as to supply me with a specific name that you also asserted led one of the teams—well that was just too tempting to pass by.
I don’t know why this is so difficult for you. it is listed as Gu Z. he is also the chief science officer at rennascion. if you had even bother clicking on any of the links that came up it would have shown his profile. I did, it worked. it is amazing how you can’t find anything if you don’t really want to. of course that would just make you look foolish for accusing me of lying.
Oh i know. I found him on the Renascions web page but that’s the only place it lists him having to do anything with the human genome project. His linkedIn profile doesn’t say anything about it, nor does the NIH have any record of him being an “extramural fellow” like it says in his company bio. The NIH website does have a full listing of all the contributors and he is…surprise surprise,,,not on it. He is also not acknowledged in any of the research articles published by the project. So, what you have is a bio in a company web page, and said web page consists of nothing more than a three very brief sub pages that lend zero credence to anything you say. I could make a bio and put it on a company web page saying that I worked on the project too and the evidence would be equal for John and I. I don’t think you get it. In a discipline where documentation and acknowledgment is such an important part, your buddy doesn’t exist except by his own disclosure. Science isn’t like black ops you know.
It looks like you have placed some kind of faith in the Project and you can’t fathom the idea the someone could possibly be young earth who worked on the project. You are just simply wrong. Perhaps your job is so unimportant that your employers don’t care if you have lied on your resume. But to accuse someone of falsifying their credentials is ground for a tortious law suit. Be careful what you post, what you are doing is illegal.
Well like I said above, I don’t doubt that a young earth creationist could have worked on it. You just gave me a name that doesn’t exist on anything having to do with what you said it did.
I’ll admit that I’m struggling to type this as I laugh at your ridiculous threat by proxy. Nothing I said would be grounds for a lawsuit. I know that because I’m a lawyer for Huey, Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe. Heard of them? Best in the country! (I took up law after working on the team that followed up after john gu’s team on the HGP)
Look up Z John Gu.
Nope…nothing.
I can’t find him either, Sarah. If you have relevant links, why don’t you post them? If you can’t find anything either, you have to accept the possibility that your information is wrong.
And it certainly isn’t illegal to question unsupported information on the internet. Your information on that is wrong, too.
Why would you all root against God in favor of sinful, blind, deceived men? We do not need science to tellus HOW God created for the Bible already tells us how– God spoke and it was.
We’re not rooting against God. We’re rooting against Ken Ham — a sinful, blind, deceived man.
Yes you are because God said ‘he created…’, he did not say ‘he let evolve…’ Jesus said ‘if it were not so I would have told you’ and though he was referring to heaven that statement but it is understandable Jesus would do the same thing if God did not create as he said in Genesis 1.
Then there is this question you need to answer: Where in the Bible do both God and Jesus give permission to their creation to listen to science over their word?
He *also* did not say that He created us from gametes; but even though I can describe in detail the process that got you from gametes to developed human, I see no contradiction between that and saying that God created you.
Besides that, no one is putting science *over* God’s Word. We’re using methodical inquiry to make sure that our understanding of God’s Word is not the result of our personal or cultural biases. That’s all.
he didn’t create from ‘gametes’ Creating the process of reproduction doesn’t mean God created that way, it means he provided a way for his creation to reproduce itself.
Actually, that’s where you and I would differ; my faith means that I believe God is behind *every* act of creation, even the indirect ones and even the ones where creation itself has a hand in it, too.
So would you deny that God created you, since God provided a way for creation to reproduce itself?
SIgh…. your response makes no sense. Why don’t you lay out clearly what you believe before saying we differ. If you believe anything other than what Genesis 1 says then you are off track.
I believe I *have* laid it out clearly. What don’t you understand?
You’ve argued that God created the process of reproduction, a way for creation to reproduce itself. Are you therefore arguing that He did *not* create the *results* of that process?
Because you are going off into the absurd with no real point in mind. What is your point? To tell me the obvious or that you do not understand creation of Genesis 1?
To find out what you mean when you assert that God “didn’t create from ‘gametes'”. When can we say He created, and when can we say He didn’t?
If you want special creation all the time, don’t dismiss the 6 24 hour day creation week.
I don’t “want” anything in particular. I’m trying to figure out if you have a consistent set of rules for determining when we can attribute creation to God and when you see it as simply setting up the mechanism and letting that mechanism take over.
There was and is no mechanism:
3 Through
faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so
that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Heb. 11)
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.(Gen 1)
There are no ‘scientific rules’ God spoke and it was.
Believe it or not, it’s possible to believe that “God spoke and it was” *and* that there is a mechanism. The Bible doesn’t contain *all possible truth*. If there were no mechanism, no attempt to find a mechanism should yield consistent results.
No. Because the mechanism would make God look weak and non-powerful or capable. Plus you are introducing death before Adam’s sin. To make the mechanism work, you have to re-write the entire Bible.
The Bible is the truth, Jesus is the truth and Jesus did not speak of a mechanism or process. Many people who accept a variety of evolution do so because they want to do ‘science’ but they are not ‘doing science’ they are recreating the past after their own ideas.
People can still do science with a 6 24 hour day creation, it is just focused on what God wants science focused on.
To prove that the evolutionary mechanism is true, scientists would have to start with the original conditions, the original life form, and let it proceed without any touching by or help from human hands.
They can’t do that because they do not have the original conditions, the original life forms and intelligent beings are manipulating all the ‘experiments’.
As it stands, all evolutionists are doing is cheating. They are taking fully developed specimens and combining them with fully developed specimens and wave a magic wand and say presto, evolution is true. They are cheating and not doing anything to prove the mechanism exists or is true.
There’s an old saying that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The mere fact that Jesus did not refer to any mechanism does not mean that there wasn’t one.
And one could argue that *any* created Universe created with *any* mechanism — even “God spoke and it was” — makes God look weaker than He is. Since He’s omnipotent, He’s infinitely stronger than any mechanism you choose *by definition*, even speaking things into existence by magic.
To “do science” assuming a six 24-hour day creation would require *deliberately ignoring* vast swaths of evidence. In the meantime, the “problems” young-Earth creationists have posed to the idea of an old Universe have been refuted for decades — many of them for centuries.
(To clarify, accepting young-Earth creationism doesn’t just contradict biology; it also contradicts geology, astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, physics, paleontology, achaeology, anthropology, thermodynamics, plate tectonics, computer science, vulcanology, stratigraphy, meteorology, materials science, petrology, nuclear physics, mechanics, fluid mechanics, geomorphology, morphology, astrophysics, reaction kinetics, biochemistry, genetics, botany, dendrochronology, pharmacology, zoology, immunology, molecular biology, linguistics, and countless other disciplines. And yet, creationism offers no testable statements of its own to demonstrate its potential validity.)
Ignoring evidence is not a good way to form a scientific theory or “do science”.
In addition, many scientific disciplines *depend* on our concept of evolution being substantially accurate — and all of them contain evidence, independently gathered and analyzed, that creationism is false. (They don’t have to prove it true by replicating it in its entirety any more than forensic scientists need to replicate a murder in order to reconstruct the scene.) Evolution is used to develop better vaccines and better antibiotics, and tells us where to dig to find fossil fuels. Evolution is also used to understand the virulence of parasites; it helps us use natural resources wisely through its predictions concerning biogeography; it unifies biology under a central theory (removing it from being a useless collection of facts, and suggesting productive new areas of research); it provides a basis for bioinformatics, a billion-dollar industry, with its assumption of descent with modification; it is used to manage fisheries for greater yields; it is used to induce beneficial mutations in plant stock; it is used to create better pesticides, removing pests and producing greater yield in our agriculture; it helps us retrieve species from the brink of extinction (e.g., the kakapo bird); it shapes public health policy; it predicts unknown gene function, which aids in pharmaceutical development; it helps us idenitify disease reservoirs; it helps us predict the step-by-step transmission of disease, permitting greater control over its spread and treatment; it allows us to identify micro-organisms that cannot be cultured or recognized except through phylogenetic analysis; it helps us create and enhance antibiotics; it helps us create and enhance flavors; it helps us create and enhance strains of bacteria to break down biohazards; it helps us create and enhance enzymes; it helps us create and enhance biopigments; it helps us discern the function and folding of proteins and enzymes; it aids in creating genetic algorithms, which have applications in architecture, data mining, electrical engineering, finance, geophysics, astrophysics, aerospace engineering, pattern recognition, military strategy, robotics, materials engineering, and systems engineering; it was the basis for the creation of countless statistical analysis techniques, including linear regression analysis and analysis of variance, which are used in innumerable ways to study many other things; its analysis techniques can be applied to determining the history of manuscripts (including Biblical ones!) and languages (including Biblical ones!); and, in a non-trivial sense, it satisfies some kinds of curiosity and inspires others.
If evolution were not substantially correct, *none of these would yield correct predictions*.
Your turn: Name *one* practical application of creationism, other than keeping dishonest teachers gainfully employed.
You’re also colossally ignorant about how scientists find evidence for evolution — firstly, because *all* specimens are going to be fully-developed. Evolution does not posit that animals were wandering around as misbegotten half-formed creatures somewhere, hoping to eventually reach some kind of “fully developed” status. Nor does this constitute the *only* evidence for evolution — not even close. You’re speaking out of complete ignorance about how scientists do their jobs and what the nature of the evidence is, and you expect me to believe you when you claim to know what’s going on?
You really should stop insulting people because that just proves your way does not follow Jesus.
I am going to try to keep this short. 1. misusing Kenneth Kitchen’s terminology doesn’t give you any support for your point. Jesus spoke of CREATION not mechanisms. if creation didn’t happen, then Jesus lied and he is not the savior for all.
2. There is no evidence for evolution. It is all attributed to that non-existent process but not one piece of evidence supports an evolutionary mechanism. Fossils don’t and scientists cannot verify one claim they have made for it.
3.Your list of sciences is wrong and creationists are not ignoring those sciences, we are dismissing the lies that come from them told by those who do not want to believe the truth.
4. So evolution is responsible for all those deadly side effects that come with modern medicine. You need to stop blaming God for the deaths of hundreds of thousands as your modern evolutionary medicine kills more per year than faith healing has in centuries.
Also, evolution is not the foundation for vaccines, etc. It is founded upon the different chemical reactions that take place when two or more fully developed specimens interact with each other.
5. Prediction simply means to prophecy, something evolutionists deride biblical prophets for doing, and also the disciple John. Predictions is part of the pseudo-scientific field which ‘real’ scientists hate. Amazing how ‘real’ scientists go to what they hate to prove their own theory. It is called hypocrisy.
Predictions mean nothing and are not part of God’s criteria. If you claim to be a Christian why are you using sinful unbelieving man’s criteria?
6. Creation leads us to the one and only God who is so powerful that he only has to speak things into existence. That is a better God to believe in than the one you have created.
7. I have no ignorance about evolution. You misrepresent what I said. i did not say half formed creatures, I said you allow death into the world before Adam sinned. Tat is the biggest problem with people like you–you can’t be honest.
I understand evolution quite thoroughly, it is a lie that never took place and has never existed. The only dishonest teachers are the evolution supporters.
You really should stop insulting people because that just proves your way does not follow Jesus.
Physician, heal thyself.
Jesus spoke of CREATION not mechanisms. if creation didn’t happen, then Jesus lied and he is not the savior for all.
Again, I don’t think Jesus lied by not mentioning every detail. Besides, the mechanism is trivial compared to the spiritual importance of what happened — that God created everything, for example.
There is no evidence for evolution. It is all attributed to that non-existent process but not one piece of evidence supports an evolutionary mechanism.
And that’s how I know you have no idea what you’re talking about. Look up “phylogenetic tree”. The very fact that life is sorted in a nested hierarchy supports descent with modification.
Your list of sciences is wrong and creationists are not ignoring those sciences, we are dismissing the lies that come from them told by those who do not want to believe the truth.
Mere assertion. And again, that’s how I know you have no idea what you’re talking about.
So evolution is responsible for all those deadly side effects that come with modern medicine.
Deliberate misattribution. You really are foundering here, aren’t you? If not in over your head.
Also, evolution is not the foundation for vaccines, etc.
Didn’t say that it was. Try reading for comprehension. It helps us find new vaccines.
It is founded upon the different chemical reactions that take place when two or more fully developed specimens interact with each other.
That’s… grossly oversimplified. (Actually, the fact that I didn’t call it exactly what it is shows how restrained I’m being, and how silly it is for you to complain that I’m being insulting.) It doesn’t even try to account for the complexity of the immune system, the role the phylogenetic tree in determining the strains to vaccinate against, or anything like that.
Prediction simply means to prophecy, something evolutionists deride biblical prophets for doing,
The action of “evolutionists” has no bearing on whether or not their theory matches the facts.
Predictions is part of the pseudo-scientific field which ‘real’ scientists hate.
I have no idea where you got such nonsense. The test of every successful theory is whether or not it accurately predicts things germane to its subject matter. Science as a discipline could not exist without predictions.
Creation leads us to the one and only God who is so powerful that he only has to speak things into existence.
I don’t think anyone here is disputing that God is powerful enough to only speak things into existence.
You’re arguing against opponents who don’t exist again.
It’s only by checking our assumptions against reality, though, that we can find out whether or not that was the only thing to happen.
I have no ignorance about evolution.
Then why do you see the need to lie about it to try to refute it?
i did not say half formed creatures,
No, but your accusation was that “evolutionists” compare fully-formed creatures, as if that was their error. I mean to point out that evolution will always compare fully-formed creatures, and always expects to find fully-formed creatures.
Again I will use numbers to save space:
1. You need to tend to your own weaknesses first.
2. You add in mechanisms, you are adding to Jesus’ words. That makes you dishonest.and calling him a liar.
3. The ph tree is made up by secular men who are guessing. It has no truth to it at all. It isn’t evidence because it is a modern construction by wishful thinkers. You would need an ancient example that is verifiable and from objective observers outside of evolutionary thinking to have evidence.
4. No assertion just the truth. Since items in the world did not form accoridng to the secular scientific method, those claims made by those evolutionary thinking people are lies and far from the truth.
5. Not a deliberate mis-attribution it is the truth. You cannot claim the benefits without acknowldeging the failure side of those supposed evolutionary based items. Your failure to see the whole picture renders anything you say moot.
6. Predictions mean nothing. Predictions also do not eliminate other sources for the results. Just because someone made a prediction doesn’t automatically mean that evolution is responsible. Predictions are not hard verifiable physical evidence oh and do you know how many predictions fail each year? Tons more than are successful. If you are going to use predictions as verification then you need to use the whole picture and not cherry pick. Failed predictions mean that evolution is false and you have myriads of those.
7. You do not have reality. You have the myth made up by secular men who do not want to believe God or the Bible.
8. I haven’t lied about evolution. It is a lie and has never existed.
9. Doesn’t matter, no supposed scientific evolutionary experiment has been conducted. Until evolutionists start at the beginning and do not interfere there will never be an evolutionary scientific experiment.
The ph tree is made up by secular men who are guessing.
They’re not guessing. They’re sorting. It’s worth noting that separately-created things are extremely difficult to fit into a nested hierarchy, but organisms do so naturally — even among people who speak different languages and have different cultures long before the theory of evolution was posited.
You cannot claim the benefits without acknowldeging the failure side of those supposed evolutionary based items.
Who’s not acknowledging that there are failures? Failures exist; that’s not necessarily an indictment of the theory, any more than an undiscovered virus proves that germ theory is flawed, or the creation of a new element undermines atomic theory.
Besides, for someone who is repeatedly ignoring that evolution reliably makes good predictions in dozens of scientific applications, accusations of seeing things in a one-sided way ring rather hollow.
Predictions also do not eliminate other sources for the results.
They do if Model A predicts X and Model B predicts Y, and we observe Y.
We may not be able to assert with 100% confidence that Model B is true, but depending on the nature of the evidence, we can assert with confidence that Model A is false.
Creationism, by the way, is false.
As more and more observations are collected and predictions for Model B pan out, we gain increasing confidence that Model B is substantially correct. That’s how science works.
Failed predictions mean that evolution is false and you have myriads of those.
Such as? What failed predictions have undermined the theory of evolution entirely?
I haven’t lied about evolution.
Yes, you have.
You’ve lied about the nature and degree of the evidence. You’ve lied about the degree to which various scientific disciplines rely on understanding of evolution. You’ve lied in insisting that evolution has never been directly observed. You’ve lied in insisting that we’ve never directly observed a change in “kind”.
And even though it’s not about evolution, you’ve lied about my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations.
Doesn’t matter, no supposed scientific evolutionary experiment has been conducted.
Yes, they have. Would you like examples?
Until evolutionists start at the beginning and do not interfere there will never be an evolutionary scientific experiment.
By your rules, until physicists can come up with every possible combination of matter and tested its attraction to every other possible combination of matter, there will never be a gravitational scientific experiment.
Just because the particular unrealistic scientific experiment you want to see done hasn’t been done doesn’t mean that substantial evidence doesn’t exist.
I am going to stop doing this after I clear out my mail box. You clearly state that both God and Jesus lied and you clearly state that unbelievers have the truth over them.
You are wrong You have demoted both God and Jesus to the level of Satan and make them deceivers not holy.
I am not even going to rebut your points because you do not even realize what you are saying. Though I will say this, they are not sorting, they are guessing because they have no verifiable, observable or repeatable evidence that their tree is correct.
I have not lied and to say so is an insult. But that is the mainstay of the evolutionist. They can’t prove their arguments so they attack the person who defeats them.
Evolution is a lie, it has never existed and there is no scientific evidence for it.
I am not even going to rebut your points because you do not even realize what you are saying. […] They can’t prove their arguments so they attack the person who defeats them.
Just thought I’d put these next to each other in the hopes that you’ll recognize the hypocrisy of saying what you’ve said.
Take care, now.
Phylogenetic tree: another THEORY. And adaptation is not the same as evolution.
And evolution is not proven in the fossil record.
If your religion idolises a deity who forbids you to both listen and learn, it is the enemy of truth, not the source.
Not God. He is trying to keep you from false teaching why would you disobey God? God doesn’t stop us from listening and learning, we are to listen to and learn the truth. Darwin and evolution are not the truth nor the source of it.
Reality is the truth, by definition, and the determiner of truth, by definition. Scientific examination of reality, and scientific discoveries about reality, are only true (or “approximately true” to varying degrees of certainty and specificity) as determined by evidential testing against relevant data from reality itself. Any person who chooses, in principle, to just arbitrarily ignore information about reality just because and whenever that information contradicts what he already believes has by definition embraced personal subjectivism over truth.
that is so wrong I am not even going to address it.
“That is so wrong I am not even going to address it.”
I do want to thank you for so effectively and immediately demonstrating exactly what I pointed out. I appreciate it.
Sure. So wrong you can’t even point out what about it is supposed to be wrong. Your remark here is a joke.
No, it would be a waste of time as secular science doesn’t have reality nor can they examine it.
“Secular science does not have reality nor can they examine it.”
I do want to thank you for making that statement, and thus so obviously exposing the blatantly false nature of your remarks.
I say, for example, geologists can and do examine rocks and can and do determine relevant physical characteristics about them. You say they cannot do that. That is indeed the difference between us. I accept reality. Creationists just make things up and say whatever they feel like saying to try to prop up their false religious beliefs regardless of reality. Thank you for demonstrating this point so clearly. I appreciate it.
the problem with that is, origins did not take place as they claim. their examination is a waste of time.
We are not talking about “origins”. For example, the extinction of the mastodon in North America was around 11,000 years ago. That’s the end of the mastodon, not the “origin”.
The fact of the matter is that you don’t know squat about geology or geological science. Yet despite your ignorance of the subject, you think there is nothing wrong with making factually false statements on the subject, as motivated by your personal belief in some particular religious doctrines. We do thank you, again, for your demonstration of this irrational manner of thinking.
you do not know when the mastadon went extinct. nobody knows that except God.
finding a frozen mastadon doesn’t mark the end of the creature.
your false accusations and insults prevent me from going further. discussion does not contain insults and lies about the other person.
“you do not know when the mastadon went extinct. nobody knows that except God.”
I have less than zero doubt about your scientific illiteracy. You only demonstrate it every time you attempt to discuss science.
I also note how you completely ignored what I pointed out in regard to the fact that we are not discussing “origins” but discussing scientific discoveries about features of an already existing earth. Indeed, apparently the point went at least 68 miles over your head.
You are assuming again and erroneously.
No one has said the earth/universe didn’t exist prior to God filling it with life and objects. The first words of the Bible state, in the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth.
These items had to be created before God did the rest of his creative work. The issue is that you refuse to believe God but turn to secular science for your answers.
The question for you is: Why would you reject the words of the most high,God who is holy, infallible, immortal, sinless and all powerful for the words of deceived, fallible, sinful, mortal men who have no power at all?
The question for you is: Why do you reject the facts about the world discovered by actually investigating and studying the world itself in order to follow a religious myth that we know is wrong?
You *assume* that the words are from a god, and then using completely circular reasoning just ignore all the facts which show that the religious doctrine is false. The behavior that creationists engage in to try to prop up their false beliefs is a good demonstration of how deceived and sinful men can be in order to promote their fallible and false beliefs. So, again, you contradict yourself.
Yet again you have completely missed my point about the fact that we are not even talking about “origins”, but about events that we have discovered through science which occurred long after any “origin”. This point is apparently still at least 68 miles over your head. I’ll give another example: There is a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy that exploded approximately 168,000 years ago, which is an example of the fact that the universe has been around far longer than any mere 6,000 years or so. This has nothing to do with “origins”. It doesn’t have anything to do with the origin of the universe. It doesn’t have anything to do with the origin of stars, or even the origin of the specific star that exploded. Your rhetoric about “origins” is completely irrelevant to the fact that young earth creationism is a religious doctrine that is factually wrong.
Finally, I’m noting how you fail to address the specific points of error which are pointed out and explained to you and then try to change the subject with all sorts of red herring designed to distract attention away from what you have failed to address – which is a typical tactic used in creationist rhetoric.
Facts–those are not facts but lies
assume– no I know they are the words of God. I see you cannot produce any ancient manuscript for the Bible supporting your views.
Large Cloud– how do you know they got the story and the date right? Why would you trust sinful fallible unbelieving men over God?
rhetoric– no, you cannot verify those ‘facts’ and how do you know that science is right over the Bible? you are simply taking the word of men who control the results and the experiments producing those results. you have no way to verify if they are telling you the truth.
red herring–no, i am just addressing the main points and pointing out your errors.
Creationists do love to tell the lie that the facts they do not like are lies. This is exactly one of the ways in which creationists demonstrate their dedication to dishonesty, and we thank you for showing this example of using such lies in your rhetoric.
you do not get it . science has no facts for origins because origins did not take place the natural way.
there is no way for one evolutionist to verify one supposed fact they present
You’re not getting it – every time you deny the scientific observations about reality that show that the religious myth you believe in are factually wrong you are proving the false nature of creationist rhetoric.
I guess I can assume that this high-minded admonition doesn’t apply to Steve Greene, because what Steve Greene already believes has been tested against reality so rigorously that if someone presented Steve Greene with information about reality, Steve Greene would already know it. Therefore, anything that contradicts what Steve Greene already believes is contradicting reality.
“I guess I can assume that this high-minded admonition doesn’t apply to Steve Greene, because what Steve Greene already believes has been tested against reality so rigorously that if someone presented Steve Greene with information about reality, Steve Greene would already know it. Therefore, anything that contradicts what Steve Greene already believes is contradicting reality.”
You know, as well as I do (and know that you know), that your remarks here are a misrepresentation – and a quite blatant one – of anything I have stated, obviously false, and obviously nothing I have ever stated or implied. In fact, your representation is in direct contradiction to what what I wrote: “Any person who chooses, in principle, to just arbitrarily ignore information about reality just because and whenever that information contradicts what he already believes has by definition embraced personal subjectivism over truth.”
And rather than actually address the point, you chose to take the time to ignore the point and try to use an obviously misrepresentative red herring. I find that very curious. (But do note that the sentence immediately preceding this one contains a distinct element of sarcasm.)
Thanks for having a sense of humor, Steve. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t so infatuated with your own beliefs that you would presume that reality is only on your side.
Enjoy your day!
Please be a troll. Please be a troll. Please be a troll. Please be a troll. Please be a troll.
Not a troll
Where in the Bible does it mention the fact that the earth orbits the sun? Or that microorganisms can cause diseases? Or explain how you can harness chemical explosions to make internal combustion engines? Or explain the principles of physics involved in producing and using electricity? Or explain how to put a telescope into space to better explore the universe? All scientific facts which you not only accept, because of science, but take completely for granted, and which have nothing whatsoever to do with anything in the Bible, and which ideas and relevant technologies were discovered and developed through an epistemological process completely separate from and independent of the Bible.
The distinct fallacy of your “hermeneutical principle” is showing, not to mention the fact that we all know that you yourself do indeed “listen” to science, every time you use your computer, or, say, store food in your refrigerator.
like i said to someone else, if God mentioned every little detail just to appease those who do not believe or probably never will believe, then the Bible would be so thick and boring no one would ever read it.
Romans 5 talks about a lot of that but it doesn’t get into specifics for if God told you everything, you would have nothing to do in your lives.
And far be it from God to actually demonstrate any genuinely godlike knowledge. Yes, I have certainly heard this rather curious theological argument before.
The lack of evidence of any genuinely godlike knowledge happens to be precisely one of the fundamental atheistic critiques of Bible belief (belief in the Bible as some sort of genuinely holy book).
As a theological argument this is worse than excuse, but is a concession to atheism. Romans 5 is pointless. Saying the sky is blue and beautiful, therefore God exists, is a meaningless argument. I would even claim that it is one of the many manifestations of the god-of-the-gaps fallacy.
Amazing that you think you can stand in judgment of God and determine what he does or doesn’t know. The secular world is the one that is blind not God. Just because science says something doesn’t mean it is right and God is wrong. Science is not a god who rules over the God of the Bible.
Science is nothing not even an authority
You are not god. Thank you for demonstrating how creationists love trying to pretend they are God in their rhetoric.
getting desperate. the choice is yours–believe God (Genesis 1) or believe unbelieving humans (evolution)
Genesis 1 was written by men, not God. I find it amusing how creationists love making utterly vacuous argument based on the obvious fallacy of circular reasoning – and flagrantly denying reality in order to do so. I again thank you for demonstrating how deeply embedded such irrational thinking is in your mindset.
What irrefutable evidence do you have to prove that?
the people denying reality are those who say the Bible was written by men.
i am neither thinking irrationally or illogically but you do have a problem with respecting those who disagree with you,
“What irrefutable evidence do you have to prove that?”
Precisely the fact that in terms of what we know about reality, the Bible shows a perspective about reality based on the primitive cultural notions of the people at the time who wrote it, thousands of years ago.
Duh.
Wrong. You are just parroting words said by some unbelieving archaeologist or supposed expert and do not think for yourself
If that were true, then a God who would do that is not much of a God and not worth believing in. You would like that though for it would mean you are free to believe what you want without any guilt or second thought.
No God wrote the truth in Genesis one and it was not tailored made for any cultural ignorance. It was to shine the truth upon the world so everyone would know which way to go.
“You are just parroting words said by some unbelieving archaeologist or supposed expert and do not think for yourself'”
I always laugh when creationists try to pretend that I’m the one not thinking for myself. That is another great example of the self-contradictory nature of the self-projections creationists use in their rhetoric. Creationists are, of course, the ones who so often in their rhetoric are delusionally trying to pretend that all the scientific research which is contrary to creationism, that is published in the professional peer-reviewed journals of archaeology, geology, astronomy, and so on don’t even exist. I’m the one who takes the scientific facts into account and revises or changes my own ideas as required when dealing with facts that show that my ideas are not correct, while you’re the guys relying on a religious myth that is factually false and arbitrarily ignoring and denying all the facts that contradict your personal beliefs because your religious bias has motivated you to be so inordinately closed-minded, yet you have the audacity to pretend that I’m the guy with the problem of not being able to think for myself, What a joke your rhetoric is.
“If that were true, then a God who would do that is not much of a God and not worth believing in.”
Circular reasoning based on the presupposition that the Bible ever had anything to do with any actual god in the first place. Indeed, this is the point, just as I wrote previously: Genesis 1 was written by men, not God.
“You would like that though for it would mean you are free to believe what you want without any guilt or second thought.”
Yet another common fallacy promoted by creationists. Facts are facts are facts, regardless of how you feel about them. Either you accept the facts, even when they contradict what you happen to believe (in which case you revise or change your ideas to correspond to the facts as appropriate), or you engage in the dishonesty of ignoring any facts you don’t like because you don’t want to believe them because they are different from what you currently believe. Creationists engage in exactly this form of dishonesty, without any guilt or second thought, because they consider believing in their false beliefs to be superior to dealing with the facts that contradict those beliefs. So, again do we see another great example of the self-contradictory nature of the self-projections creationists use in their rhetoric.
“It was to shine the truth upon the world so everyone would know which way to go.”
If it was true, then it would match the facts we have learned about reality when we actually examine and study reality. It does not match the facts. This is the point. This is exactly why we know that it is nothing more than a religious myth. Based on your remarks, I have less than zero doubt that reliance on circular reasoning is deeply embedded in your religious psyche.
laugh–can’t handle the same argument that you use, can you?
contrary– you have heard of true and false teaching haven’t you? What makes you think that sinful, deceived men who do not believe the Bible and hate God are telling you the truth?
superior–the only people acting superior are those who do not believe in creation. They think they are greater than God and know better than he does even though they were not around when origins and other events took place.
match facts–no, because origins did not take place the scientific way. also, why would sinful man want to prove the Bible true and ruin their life’s work?
circular reasoning– the only people doing that are those who do not accept the Bible as true.
With this most recent response of yours, it is clear to me that you are unable to follow the points of discussion logically. Every statement you made is not only irrational, but are errors stated by completely ignoring the points of error about them which I have already explicitly pointed out previously. You are going in circles.
circles– no i am not. you just refuse to listen to the truth and leap to weird conclusions about me.
you put too much faith in the peer review process and think that sinful, secular, unbelieving men will tell the truth over a sinless, infallible and holy God.
Look into the peer review process in medicine.
They peer review it – love it – then throw it out a few years later. And people die based on bad “facts”.
You’re not getting it – every time you deny the scientific facts about reality that show that the religious myth you believe in is false you prove how you put too much faith in the false claims made by sinful religious men who hate the truth because they are more interested in believing in their myths than in accepting what reality is.
if you think you can get a rise out of me by insulting me in every sentence, you would be wrong.
the only person missing out on solid fact is you. all science has is assumption, conjecture, speculation and wishful thinking illustrated by the words, ‘possibly’, ‘could have been’, ‘we believe’, ‘might’ and many other synonyms.
I am fully aware of the fact that snake oil salesman treat the facts that they want people to ignore as “insults”. There is no need for you to state the obvious. What you have demonstrated for us by example is how creationists deliberately ignore relevant scientific facts which show that their religious belief is wrong, and then promote blatant falsehoods about the science being merely “assumption”, “conjecture”, “speculation”, and “wishful thinking” – which is amusingly ironic since that is exactly what their personal beliefs are which are based on their religious mythology, and they are engaging is self-projection.
I guess you do not read what you write.
You haven’t presented any facts but you use the word often enough.
Let me give you an example of that conjecture I spoke about. About 2 years ago, scientists came across a fossil of a fish and declared that it was an example of a walking fish, one that walked on land because it had ‘legs’.
their problem–they only had half a fossil and the half that was missing was the part that was supposed to have legs.
you have no facts.
“You haven’t presented any facts…”
When people use such blatant lies as that in discussion, there really is no point in further discussion.
i would suggest to take a long look at how you treat others.
there are no facts for evolution because life did not develop in that manner. try to get that through your head.
“I would suggest to take a long look at how you treat others.”
I always laugh at the irony of statements made by others which they themselves completely ignore.
“There are no facts for evolution because life did not develop in that manner.”
I also always laugh at how creationists use rhetoric like this which so obviously relies on the fallacy of circular reasoning. Not to mention the delusional pretension that the thousands of articles about relevant discoveries about biological evolution, which are published in the professional peer-reviewed science journals of biology and paleontology, don’t even exist.
didn’t say they didn’t exist. They are wrong but you won’t agree with that either.
peer-review means nothing stop using it as a criteria for credibility.
“there are no facts for evolution”
“didn’t say they didn’t exist. They are wrong” [all of them, every single one, all of the scientific research is wrong, all of it, I know this because I am so much smarter and more knowledgeable about the science than every single one of the scientists who actually do scientific research in these fields of science and that’s how I know they are all wrong]
“peer-review means nothing”
I do want to thank you again, and very much so, for demonstrating the utterly out-of-touch-with-reality nature of creationist rhetoric. The best argument against creationism is merely getting creationists to open their mouths and talk about it, to show how completely irrational it really is.
you really do not know anything do you? you do not even know how corrupt your own systems are
“you really do not know anything do you? you do not even know how corrupt your own systems are”
Creationist rhetoric is permeated with irony, and your remark here is no exception. I do indeed thank you for demonstrating just how corrupt creationist rhetoric really is. I appreciate it.
I really have no idea what you are talking about. You haven’t made a scientific point but continue to talk about scientific facts. The problem for you is there are no scientific facts for a big bang catastrophe or evolution.
You and the evolutionist must first prove that origins actually took place in the natural manner and you all have failed to do so.
“The problem for you is there are no scientific facts for a big bang catastrophe or evolution.”
I always laugh when creationists demonstrate just how out of touch with reality their rhetoric really is, such as when they use the delusional pretension that the thousands of articles about relevant discoveries about biological evolution, which are published in the professional peer-reviewed science journals of biology and paleontology, don’t even exist. (In regard to the topic of the Big Bang model we’re talking about research articles published in astronomy and astrophysics/cosmological physics.)
I have less than zero doubt that young earth creationists, who are the most egregious among the creationists in regard to their horrible level of scientific illiteracy have no idea what I’m talking about. Thank you for openly admitting this.
another person with a distortion, honesty and comprehension problem. not what i said or referred to but leave it up to you to change my words into what you want to hear.
peer review does nothing but rubber stamp someone’s work. it does not prove that origins took place the way you or they say. it is a game to protect the anti-God position and deceive unsuspecting people.
secular science is wrong and has no facts to support its case.
Your false statements demonstrate exactly who has the “distortion, honesty and comprehension problem”. So I thank you for making them, and demonstrating just how determined creationists are to misrepresent everything in sight, precisely because they consider their false personal beliefs to be superior to the truth.
Well, brother, they also have a LOT invested in proving the nonexistance of God. Thank you for standing for God.
Love you.
thank you, if you are talking to me.
Yes, dangjiin1 I was speaking to you. And I have enjoyed reading your posts.
well again, thank you.
Either you accept the facts, even when they contradict what you happen to believe (in which case you revise or change your ideas to correspond to the facts as appropriate), or you engage in the dishonesty of ignoring any facts you don’t like because you don’t want to believe them because they are different from what you currently believe.
Steve, this is kinda cute since you are saying that facts aren’t really facts at all cause us gotta revise em and change em when they change. Doesn’t really make them very factual or reliable now, does it?
Love you brother.
It is quite clear that you do not understand the nature of epistemology, in this case specifically in regard to the concept of fallibility and the point that knowledge exists in degrees of certainty and uncertainty, and thus based on continuing and additional research it may be discovered that what was previously considered as “fact” happens to be in error. Additionally, there is the point that bodies of facts are subsumed in the framework of scientific theories, and a scientific theory can be and is revised on the acquisition of additional relevant facts which show that the existing theory either has details which are not correct or can be extended in areas which were previously not known about – without a change in the facts themselves.
Of course, I have less than zero doubt that believers in religious dogma have great difficulty understanding such sophisticated concepts as these, because completely reject the very idea that their own personal religious beliefs can be fallible, and their embrace of belief in religious dogma demonstrates their rejection of the principle of revising their beliefs when their beliefs are shown to be in error.
My reply stands. And btw, it’s not belief in religious dogma, but belief in the truth of the Word.
If you are going to stoop to name calling, please at least get the “facts” straight. ;).
I admire your ability to eloquently argue your belief system, but just be careful you aren’t obfuscating.
Again, love you brother.
“My reply stands.”
As does mine.
“It’s not belief in religious dogma, but belief in the truth of the Word.”
Belief in “the truth of the Word” is religious dogma. So you contradict yourself.
If it makes you feel better to call it religious dogma, then apparently that is what you are going to call it.
I know the difference between Truth and dogma. So I know it isn’t. Cling to your god of science, which, in itself is dogma. But when you are ready for Truth, open the Word and, more importantly, open your heart to God.
Love you brother.
I know the difference between the truth and religious dogma very well. You don’t. This is precisely why we observe you making claims based on religious dogma and calling it “Truth” while deliberately ignoring all of the science which shows that your belief in the religious dogma of young earth creationism is false. The truth cannot be false, which is what proves the vacuous nature of your claim of “Truth”.
No. Just standing on the Truth of the Word.
If it is false, it cannot be the truth. This is the point. Thank you for, again, demonstrating the vacuous nature of religious rhetoric, for being completely circular.
I think you’re confused: I AM rooting against the sinful, blind, and deceived man: Ken Ham.
I would also like to point out, that Jesus himself referenced Genesis as an authoritative book written by God. it seems like everyone has forgotten that though. the Bible is very clear that we are not evolved but were created in the exact image of God by his own hand. Jesus himself pointed that out.
But Genesis doesn’t say the earth is 7,000 years old, which is the entire point of the article. Neither does Jesus teach us that Genesis is literal by our modern understanding– in fact, the Bible teaches the opposite and says we’re still in day no. 7.
“Modern understanding”??!!
The best that we can know through our own efforts is not good enough to trump the Scriptures.
Man’s propensity for self-deception is limitless.
Without Revelation we could never know truth.
The issue of origins is outside the realm of science.
Science can NEVER “reveal” anything.
Yes, modern understanding of the word “literal”. It actually means “interpreted according to it’s literary genre”, and there’s no evidence that Gen 1 was written as a science text. It’s a poem that points to a God who made everything, not a document that reveals how he made everything.
Which “God” are you talking about?
Sounds like “science” is your God.
Out of curiosity, Gijreb, do you accept that the Earth moves?
Since all motion is relative, your question is meaningless.
You don’t have to take my word for it:-
No one is competent to predicate things about absolute space and absolute motion; they are pure things of thought, pure mental constructs, that cannot be produced in experience.
Ernst Mach; (1838-1916); The Science of Mechanics
I have to retort with a question, Moving with respect to what point?
You’re partly right. Motion is relative; acceleration is not. Since circular motion is acceleration, let me rephrase the question you attempted to dodge: Do you accept that the Earth revolves and rotates?
You are trying to establish absolute motion, an impossible task, because it is meaningless.
There can be no acceleration without motion. Acceleration is the derivative of motion. No absolute motion, no absolute acceleration.
… relative to the earth the stars are in motion. We therefore need to know first of all what is meant by ‘real motion’… it turns out that we cannot quite say what is meant by it… the question whether the earth is really moving but not the stars or the other way around does not make any sense…
Hans Hahn; (1879-1934); Empiricism, Logic and Mathematics; 1933/1980; p48
“There can be no acceleration without motion” is false. I am accelerating towards the ground right now, in an absolute sense, even though I am not moving with respect to it; you would measure that same acceleration in *every* inertial reference frame. You clearly misunderstand what derivatives do and don’t do. Look up “equivalence principle”, which covers this issue (in part), along with some others. Now, would you care to answer the question?
To clarify: velocity is relative, because coordinate axes shift (and measurements change) depending on the inertial reference frame of the observer. Acceleration is the derivative of velocity with respect to *time*. Given that time measurement is *also* relative (for the same reason as before), it does not necessarily follow that simply because acceleration is the derivative of velocity that acceleration is relative.
The equivalence principle shows why it is not.
I will be more than glad to answer your question if you can give me the definition of motion.
Your question is meaningless. You keep assuming that there is absolute motion, a meaningless concept.
“… it is meaningless to talk of absolute motion.
Even the Copernican world-view appears to be shaken by this consideration. It makes no sense accordingly, to speak of a difference in truth between Copernicus and Ptolemy: both conceptions are equally permissible descriptions.
What has been considered as the greatest discovery of western wisdom, as opposed to that of antiquity, is questioned as to its truth-value … the doctrine of relativity does not assert that Ptolemy’s view is correct, it rather contests the absolute meaning of either view.”
Hans Reichenbach; (1891-1953); From Copernicus to Einstein; 1927/1970; p75, 82
The equivalence principle shows that I don’t have to give any such definition, since acceleration is not even dependent upon motion. Relativity asserts that all *inertial* reference frames are equivalent. Accelerating frames are, *by definition*, non-inertial. (I again point you to the example of gravitational acceleration, which still holds even if an object is *motionless* in your inertial reference frame.) No sense of absolute motion is required for the equivalence principle to hold; indeed, that principle was needed to even make general relativity *work*.
It appears that your opinions are based on a misunderstanding of this idea and a desire to dodge uncomfortable questions rather than empirically-tested inquiry. I see no reason to take you seriously.
Let me give you a common-sense explanation for why we know rotational motion cannot be relative.
If rotational motion *were* relative, the Universe should look the same to an observer who assumes that the Earth is rotating (let’s call him A) as it would to an observer who assumes that the Earth does not rotate and the Universe revolves around it (let’s call him B).
B should see a Universe in which planets and the Sun are exhibiting relativistic effects, and where distant stars and galaxies show effects of superluminal velocities. A should not. We do not see these relativistic effects or effects of superlumnial velocities. Therefore, rotational motion is not relative.
More fundamentally, you cannot take one of the underpinning principles of relativity (the equivalence principle), contradict it, and then insist that relativity legitimizes your stance.
So I ask you again: Do you accept that the Earth rotates and revolves, or do you refuse to accept it and rationalize your stance with poorly-applied reasoning?
You keep insisting upon absolute motion. You have admitted that linear motion is always relative to any origin that we choose. But the same is also true for rotation.
You are not asking a basic question- Rotation
If there was only one object in the universe, how would you decide if it was rotating or not?
You are asking me to affirm absolute motion when the fact is that you literally do not know what you are asking for.
You say you do not have to define your term and that proves your point? You must be kidding!
A person sitting upon the surface of the earth is experiencing acceleration even though not moving wrt the surface of the earth. That is due to the change in vector direction. But that change in vector direction assumes the earth is rotating, which is what you must prove, Not assume.
“… it is the job of the astronomer … since he cannot by any line of reasoning reach the true cause of [celestial] movements … to think up or construct whatever hypotheses he pleases … it is not necessary that these hypotheses should be true or even probable, it is enough if they provide a calculus which fits the observations … let no one expect anything in the way of certainty from astronomy, since astronomy can offer us nothing certain…”
Nicolaus Copernicus; On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres; 1543
You keep insisting upon absolute motion. You have admitted that linear motion is always relative to any origin that we choose. But the same is also true for rotation.
You are not asking a basic question- Rotation WITH RESPECT TO WHAT AXIS?
If there was only one object in the universe, how would you decide if it was rotating or not?
You are asking me to affirm absolute motion when the fact is that you literally do not know what you are asking for, ABSOLUTE MOTION.
You say you do not have to define your term and that proves your point? You must be kidding!
A person sitting upon the surface of the earth is experiencing acceleration even though not moving wrt the surface of the earth. That is due to the change in vector direction. But that change in vector direction assumes the earth is rotating, which is what you must prove, Not assume.
“… it is the job of the astronomer … since he cannot by any line of reasoning reach the true cause of [celestial] movements … to think up or construct whatever hypotheses he pleases … it is not necessary that these hypotheses should be true or even probable, it is enough if they provide a calculus which fits the observations … let no one expect anything in the way of certainty from astronomy, since astronomy can offer us nothing certain…”
Nicolaus Copernicus; On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres; 1543
And hence this affirmation: “the earth turns around” has no meaning, since it cannot be verified by experiment; … such an experiment … cannot even be conceived of without contradiction …
Henri Poincaré; (1854-1912); Science and Hypothesis; 1905/1952; p117
The precession of a pendulum (see the Foucault pendulum) is a simple experiment that proves the rotation of the Earth. It was devised in 1851 and requires no astronomical observation whatsoever. Poincaré was wrong.
Eppur si muove ~~Galileo Galilei
Have you ever heard of centripetal force? With respect to the axis defined by the direction of that force. Ditto the Coriolis “force”, which only shows up if your coordinate axes are rotating. These would still be present even if there were only one object in the Universe.
Linear motion is relative to any origin we choose, but rotational motion is not. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I say I don’t have to answer your question because it’s irrelevant. Declaring the axis or the “origin” of a rotating system is not required in order to establish rotation. In that way, it’s like asking for the origin of the word “synergy” with respect to rotational motion; it’s every bit as relevant.
A person experiencing *gravitational* acceleration does not experience that acceleration because he’s changing direction with respect to an axis; he’d experience it even if the Earth stopped rotating.
And Henri Poincare did not imagine the Foucault Pendulum or stellar aberration — two experiments which *do* demonstrate the rotation and revolution of the Earth.
Ah yes, I’m beating myself up for forgetting stellar aberration. Well played.
No need to beat yourself up. I’m sorry I didn’t read ahead and see that you’d already mentioned the Foucault pendulum.
Foucault pendulum- 1851
Poincare- 1854-1912.
First convince Poincare that the earth is rotating, because he says it is a meaningless concept.
“It can even be shown that all theories, including the best, have the same probability, namely zero.”
Karl Popper; (1902-1994);Conjectures & Refutations; 1965; p192
There is no truth in science. Not a chance. Not in a billion years.
Truth can only come from God.
So you believe that something is false because someone you regard as an authority claimed that it’s meaningless? Even if there are things that can be measured and demonstrated?
That… explains a lot, actually.
So what? Poincare either never heard of Focault’s pendulum or he didn’t understand it. Hell, you don’t seem to have heard of it before today, and it’s 2014.
Popper later recanted his earlier misguided remarks, recognizing the value of evolution as an explanatory tool; something creationism utterly lacks.
It’s really funny hearing that from someone on the internet.
Just because you repeat yourself, it doesn’t make your claims any more true.
There can be acceleration without motion; I’m experiencing it now. And your many quotes about linear motion do not touch on the subject at all.
For alluding to Jefferson’s famous quote in your icon, you sure miss his main points.
“Question with boldness even the existence of a god…” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
What god are you talking about? Are you still worshiping some “El” deity obviously plagiarized by Jewish authors from Ugaritic tablets?
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford University Press, 2001)
If Amy Grant only knew the title of her famous song originated in an ancient northern Syria seaport.
Gijreb, you’re the best ever proselytizer for atheism. Really.
“Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, from Monticello, April 11, 1823
You realize you’re arguing this over the internet (science) on a computer (science) powered by electricity (science). We have and know how to use these things through the revelations of science.
Your comment is not relevant to this discussion. Ridicule is not the solution to the problem.
It’s entirely relevant, I think. You said science was not to be trusted as a source of revelation. I pointed out you were only able to make that comment in this forum because of the revelations of science. I see no ridicule here. If you were offended, I apologize.
I accept your apology.
I did not say “science is not a source of revelation.” That is meaningless, as science cannot “reveal” anything.
I said there is no truth in science.
“… there is not a single law of nature which we know to be valid; the laws of nature are hypotheses which we assert tentatively.”
Hans Hahn; (1879-1934)
You need to understand that an idea does not have to be true to be useful.
Science is man’s attempt to understand how the world behaves. It can NEVER trump Revelation which can come only from an all-knowing God.
Revelation will always trump Reason, because we are fallible, ignorant and do not even know what truth is.
This does not mean that we cannot make great tools like computers and rocket ships, but they have nothing to do with truth. Induction is the method that we use to draw conclusions, but…
“All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: “If this is true, that is true: now that is true, therefore this is true.” This argument is, of course, formally fallacious. … If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the arguments upon which all scientific laws are based.”
Bertrand Russell; (1872-1970); The Scientific Outlook; 1931/1962; p74
… empiricism as a theory of knowledge has proved inadequate … all human knowledge is uncertain, inexact & partial. To this doctrine we have not found any limitation whatever.
Bertrand Russell; (1872-1970); Human Knowledge; 1948/1992; p527
Scientific theories are not only equally unprovable, and equally improbable, they are also equally undisprovable.
The recognition that not only the theoretical but all the propositions in science are fallible, means the total collapse of all forms of dogmatic justificationism as theories of scientific rationality.
Imre Lakatos; (1922-1974); Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge; Imre Lakatos; ed.; 1970; p103
The Non-revelationist does not have a leg to stand on.
Actually, the entire point of scientific hypotheses is that they are falsifiable. The same holds true for theories*. To claim they are “undisprovable” is to be profoundly ignorant of the scientific method.
*Yes, I know the difference between a scientific hypothesis and a theory
Fallible does not mean “wrong”. Fallible also does not mean that some ideas are not known to be more correct (even far closer to correctness) than other, and also does not mean we do not know (notice the double negative) that some ideas are just plain wrong. Fallible also does not mean that science seeks to improve ideas to better approximations to truth (improvements in our understanding of reality), and fallible also does not mean that science does not achieve improvement to our knowledge of reality. As already pointed out, we not only know that the idea that the earth is flat is false, we also know that the earth is shaped like a ball and even by the time of the ancient Greeks it was discovered approximately how large the earth is (to an amazingly high degree of accuracy, for the time). Certainly, how large the earth is has been revised to greater and greater accuracy, but the Greeks were close (this has to do with the idea of “approximations to the truth” I mentioned).
Nothing you have quoted changes these points in any way. And do note that your implied claim that science is merely subjective and has not and cannot actually come up with better and better understanding of reality is, quite obviously, rather absurd, as you sit there taking full advantage of the products of science, in a time where scientific achievement has put people on the moon, telescopes in outer space, and instantaneous communication between people on opposite sides of the planet, not to mention heating up your coffee in the microwave oven in a minute at the press of a button.
Are you certain—tell me the truth—as to the location from which Jesus ascended?
Correct, but that does not mean all human knowledge is equally wrong. Some ideas are most definitely more wrong than others. For example, the idea of a flat Earth is quite certainly further from the truth than the idea of a spherical Earth, which is still not quite accurate.
> I said there is no truth in science.
Creationists are wrong. Science is actually concerned with the truth.
blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/07/19/creationists-are-wrong-science-is-actually-concerned-with-the-truth/
The truth of these propositions cannot, I think, be disputed.” ~Charles Darwin (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
What is truth?
“Science is not a system of certain, or well-established statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality. Our science is not knowledge (episteme); it can never claim to have attained truth, or even a substitute for it, such as probability; we do not know, we can only guess.
The old scientific ideal of episteme– of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge– has proven to be an idol.The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever.”
Karl Popper; (1902-1994); Logic of Scientific Discovery; p278, 280
“The real beauty of it all though is that we arrived at all these truths through the vehicle of doubt. No other system of human inquiry goes about discovering truth through the medium of doubt the way science does.” ~Creationists are wrong. Science is actually concerned with the truth. blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/07/19/creationists-are-wrong-science-is-actually-concerned-with-the-truth/
How can science concern itself with truth when it has no idea what is truth!
“… scientific philosophy … does not claim to possess an absolute truth, the existence of which it denies for empirical knowledge.”
Hans Reichenbach; (1891-1953); The Rise of Scientific Philosophy; 1951; p325
“The fact that DNA is a double helix is a truth.” ~Creationists are wrong. Science is actually concerned with the truth. blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/07/19/creationists-are-wrong-science-is-actually-concerned-with-the-truth/
I think we have a different definition of truth. What I consider true is what can be shown, with the majority of the evidence, to be factual. Yes, this means the truth can change, if and when more evidence is found. I regard that as a feature. You seem to regard it as a bug.
We know much more about how the universe works than we did thousands or hundreds of years ago. Heck, our grasp of things has expanded profoundly during my lifetime. My husband was in college when the plate-tectonic revolution rocked geology. We’ve come to understand subduction, the powering mechanism for volcanoes, the process of crustal recycling and the nature of many earthquakes just in the last 50 years or so. The science of geology has been re-invented in the last 50 years. And that’s just one branch of science. Physics, medicine, biology, all these have undergone profound transformation as more evidence has accumulated.
I’m also profoundly suspicious of any idea that claims to be universally true. I won’t say they aren’t any universal truths, but they would be the exception, not the rule. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Frankly, I simply don’t see any extraordinary proof for the existence of any “all-knowing God,” let alone that all-knowing God being the specific God of the Bible.
I guess that comes down to the fact that we’ll have to agree to disagree. You put at the center of your world-view a document that I regard as unproven and mostly unprovable. I put at the center of my world view those things I regard as proven to the best of our current knowledge. You feel society should have fixed, unchanging beliefs. I feel society should change its beliefs as more knowledge is acquired. And, in the end, that’s what makes horses race.
Jefferson would disagree about ridicule.
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816
You can’t argue in favour of any position by claiming that “man’s propensity for self-deception is limitless”. Your own statement highlights the fact that you are equally able to deceive yourself into thinking that ancient scriptures are the word of god.
I’m still waiting for your answer about that which has been “revealed” to you through the Bible. I’ll ask again: From what location did Christ ascend?
it also doesn’t say it is a billion years old either.
So we’re only accepting what’s actually stated in Scripture? We’re not accepting that bacteria exist, or Neptune, or deep-sea vents, or the Americas?
Going to the absurd is an act of desperation. The Bible is very clear how long it took him to create everything. If God had to list every minute detail just to please you who do not believe then the Bible would be thicker than the Empire State building is high.
God said ‘faith is what pleases him’ not following secular science.
“For God so loved the Cosmos…” ~John 3:16
Better watch it.
youtube.com/watch?v=dADUBcoEEHw
so you are taking an unbeliever’s word over God’s? Not smart.
I quoted John 3:16. How is the author of the gospel of John an “unbeliever?”
And yeah, it’s not smart to take words in a “holy” book over what the Universe tells us directly via our senses and our minds. Such claims of special “revelation” is what turns people into atheists.
“Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god…The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, from Monticello, April 11, 1823
you didn’t quote the apostle John. You quoted some translation you favored which did not speak the correct words.
You forget or ignore the fact that there is such a thing as false teaching. Everything you say the ‘Universe tells us directly via our senses…’ is most likely not the truth but part of the false teaching that comes with secular science.
Our senses, see stars, planets, comets, etc., but nothing in the universe talks about origins. All alternatives are pure speculation by those who reject the Bible. Not one of them has seen their alternative in action thus they cannot say the universe is telling them anything.
We see God’s creative act in action via many different results sadly too many unbelievers attribute what they see to the wrong source.
I quoted John 3:16 accurately, using the original word “Cosmos.” Consult your concordance. It says, “For God so loved the κόσμος (Cosmos)” and I’m not sure what your beef is all about, other than pure ignorance of the Bible.
very simple, you are choosing a definition that fits your argument knowing full well that the word has other meanings. if you are not going to be honest then there is no point in further discussion.
Remember Jesus didn’t say follow the HS to the original languages to find the truth.
I know full well you apply other meanings to the word κόσμος (Cosmos) in John 3:16. Christians, at least ones like you, play dishonest games like that all the time.
> no point in further discussion.
Then you’re dismissed.
You have a bad attitude and somehow mistakenly think I am under your authority. I am not. I am not applying the different definitions, that is what you are doing. You just are angry that the correct definition isn’t the one you want it to be.
κόσμος (Cosmos) in John 3:16 means what it means. You’re psychologically projecting your bad attitude and anger about that.
How about just a short excerpt on the κόσμος (Cosmos)?
youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
2889. κόσμος kŏsmŏs, kos´-mos; prob. from the base of 2865; orderly arrangement, i.e. decoration; by impl. the world (in a wide or narrow sense, incl. its inhab., lit. or fig. [mor.]):— adorning, world.
Strong, J. (1996). The New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Looks to me like it includes people as well.
It’s finally dawning on you that “cosmos” is actually in John 3:16. Progress! Yes, all forms of life—including we Earthlings on a Pale Blue Dot—contained within the universe are part of the universe, the natural order, the Cosmos.
κόσμος: A Greek-English Lexicon. (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1940) perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dko%2Fsmos
Why would you assume any animal, including we hairless Great Apes, would be excluded?
Kingdom: Animalia • Phylum: Chordata • Class: Mammalia • Order: Primates • Superfamily: Hominoidea (APES) • Family: Hominidae (GREAT APES) • Tribe: Hominini • Genus: Homo • Species: H. sapiens
you just do not get it and I am not going to tell you. I am done as you are an evolutionist , a person who believes a lie told by those deceived.
Please do not call yourself a Christian for you are calling God a liar, incompetent, and saying that both he and Jesus sinned.
dangjin1, you are the best witness ever for Atheism.
“Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, from Monticello, April 11, 1823
Evolution isn’t a lie, its a fact of Nature.
> you are calling God a liar
No, in fact, you are the one who is calling God a liar.
Ha ha ha ha. If you believe that then I have some ocean front property in Kansas to sell you.
I’m not interested in your laughable scams and unwillingness to face reality.
Good thing Jefferson is not God or infallible. He was wrong and he,like Marcion, edited the Bible to make it appear the way he wanted it to read not the way it read. Tells you a lot about Jefferson.
The greatest enemy of Jesus are those who do not tell the truth and say God lied in the Bible.
No deity wrote the Bible; people did. And there is plenty of error and absolute immorality in it. The greatest enemy of morality are those who swallow all the Pauline bullshit superstitions and ignore the ethical diamonds of Jesus.
“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
My last post unless you stop insulting God’s word Immorality has risen since people stopped following the Bible. The greatest enemy of morality are those people who refuse to follow God’s way and turn and follow satan.
> My last post
Then you’re dismissed. Maybe you can hold your breath too.
> God’s word
Says who? We know for certain men wrote it.
> Immorality has risen since people stopped following the Bible
Wrong. Immorality comes from sadistic Bible-bangers like you. Pew: Church-Goers Like Torture More
>refuse to follow God’s way and turn and follow satan
The Bible can’t even tell the difference between those two. Are they on the same team? Different names of the same god you worship?
● II Sam. 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.
● I Chron. 21:1 And SATAN stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
No wonder Thomas Jefferson wrote the following:
“I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, January, 8, 1789
I am not your school boy, learn some manners and respect.
You just prove that unbelievers cannot understand what the Bible is saying nor can you understand how leaders do not side with satan when they are angry at their own people.
judging people seems to be jeffersons favorite habit and yours.there are many reasons why people act the way they do and you do an injustice to them and christians by making broad generalizations when all people are doing is exercising their free choice or failing to resist temptation.
You have a lot to learn but your anger restricts your ability to learn anything.
“My last post” is always a lie (who’s your daddy?) with your ilk, and I’m glad I called you on it. Got your dander up even more now?
I suspect you have already read CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity but in case you haven’t, I strongly recommend it. He is much more eloquent, and quite a bit smarter than I and his writings helped me wrap my head around some of the same things I see you struggling with. Jesus didn’t leave us any wiggle room for seeing him as a “great teacher” with moralistic “diamonds”. We are to take him as a nut, a devil, or the son of God, since that is how He referred to Himself. The Word does not leave itself open to cherry picking either. As the inspired Word, one can either take it or leave it. You have waded into the middle of it and are trying your best to shape it into a sword to use against the faithful and “heathen” alike, from what I observe. If you believe that the Word is indeed written by men with an ulterior motive, then it doesn’t make sense that you would deem to believe any of what they wrote about what Jesus said, as that would be just as suspect to interpretation as any other book written by men. If you are using your own judgement and learning, to determine what to “use” in the Bible and what to “discard” then you are, once again, using the knowledge of men, which, as above, is suspect and prone to the ignorance and arrogance of man. So, again, either the Word is the inspired Word of God, or it is not. That is one of the first issues we must accept or reject before we can continue on our walk with God.
More correctly, Scripture says that “without faith it is impossible to please Him”. It’s possible to follow science and have faith simultaneously. If I can’t trust you to understand logical Biblical categories correctly, why should I trust what you have to say about anything?
I was pointing out your absurdity in claiming that “the Bible doesn’t say it was a billion years either” is any kind of evidence that it didn’t. (I’d also like to point out that it’s only “clear how long it took” if you read with preconceived notions, like those a 21st-century English-speaking Christian might have.)
It is clear you are looking for excuses to dismiss what I have said and it is clear you look to minutia to do that. You just said the same thing I did but used different words for that verse.
There is such a thing as simplifying in order to help the other person understand. IF you follow unbelievers and their alternative ideas to origins,and other biblical events then you are disobeying God. If you follow people who claim to be Christian yet teach you things that the Bible does not teach then you are disobeying God.
Hebrews 11:1. Here is a question for you to answer: Where in the Bible do both God and Jesus give permission to their followers to take science over their words?
No, you were pointing out your own absurdity not mine. You need to understand that time was not invented until AFTER the universe and earth were created rendering all secular dating systems moot.
No, it’s not the same thing at all. “X is what pleases Him” is not the same as “without X, you can’t please Him”. One claims that X is the singular thing that pleases Him, and that it can somehow stand by itself in that regard. The other claims that X is a necessary *component* of what pleases Him. There’s a critical difference, since not everything is an act of faith. I believe it’s possible to honor God as a TV repairman if faith *accompanies* your work, even if you don’t need faith to know how to repair a TV. It’s the same with science.
As I’ve already explained, no one is advocating taking science *over* the words of God *or* Jesus. We’re using science as a tool to prevent accepting ideas about what they said as a result of cultural or personal preferences or biases, and that’s all. Since no one is making the argument you’re attempting to refute, you’re employing the straw man fallacy.
If time was not invented until after the Universe and Earth were created, why did clocks prior to the creation of the Earth “tick”, and why are their dates consistent? How can you check to see if your idea is an accurate representation of what happened?
So you can’t answer the question then.
I read your stuff and you make absolutely no sense because you pull things out of thin air that have no foundation in the discussion.
As I said, all secular dating systems are wrong and provide the wrong dates.
You are using science to say God lied and didn’t tell the truth in the Bible.
> “because you pull things out of thin air”
Isn’t that the very definition of inspired?
No. I’m using science to point out that you argue poorly, you completely fail to have any rational justification for your stance, and the only way you can fight back is to pretend your opponents are claiming something they’re not.
I know you *said* all secular dating systems are wrong. How do you *know*, in a way that doesn’t make God look like some kind of terrible trickster for making honest investigations of His creation give consistently wrong dates that agree with one another along multiple and independent lines of inquiry.
I may not argue in the ‘scientific way’ BUT God did not write or act in the ‘scientific way’. That is your first mistake. A supernatural act does not fit into a natural model or theory.
And you cannot dismiss a supernatural act because your investigative tool is inadequately designed to handle the supernatural.
The ‘evidence’ you say God used to make himself look like a trickster isn’t divine evidence. It is attributed to be evidence for a natural process which never took place. God isn’t a trickster, those who follow satan are the ones being tricked.
Secular dating systems are not based upon the truth but upon assumption and ideals. There is no way for them to accurately date the past. The only one that comes close is C14 but when it does get close the secularists ‘recalibrate’ it to make sure it says what they want it to say.
You’re missing the point. Romans 1:20 tells us that people are without excuse because they see the attributes of God revealed in creation. According to you, though, they *do* have an excuse, because they can always claim the inadequacy you allude to whenever they attempt to find God by examining His handiwork.
I choose to believe Romans over you.
But you avoided the question. If dating methods cannot be trusted, why do they yield consistent results — why are they even close enough for your accusation of “recalibration” to hold water? There’s a very important difference in timing between pointing out that no watch is perfect and pointing out that time measurements taken with millions of them, all over the world, are consistent enough with one another and precise enough to exact when tested directly that we can trust their results.
No I am not missing the point. You are miss applying Romans 1:20 inorder to justify your disobedience of God. That verse doesn’t over-rule those verses which say do not follow false teachers, sinful men, etc.
You are also using that verse to take secular scientists’ words over God’s and that is a very dangerous thing to do.
LOL. Rejecting Young Earth Creationism isn’t disobedience to God. If folks who don’t believe in a literal Genesis 1 are “false teachers” you just condemned a whole lot of Christians, including some of the fathers of the faith.
Fathers of the faith can be wrong too. Jesus said first, if you do not believe Moses how will you believe me? John 5: 45-7
Jesus placed a very high importance on believing Moses and his writings. He never corrected him or what he wrote. If you accept and believe what secular scientists are saying you are in disobedience to God.
There is a very important reason why I must take your words cautiously.
The Bible clearly indicated to Bob Jones University, right up to 2000, that the Bible clearly teaches that interracial dating and marriage should be prevented. Bob Jones III very eloquently argued that this division was Biblical and intentional. Better to take the Bible’s words over those of social activists, right?
The Bible clearly indicated to many Southern preachers that the right to hold slaves was divinely sanctioned and protected, both by precept and example. Most of the apologists attempting to defend American slavery were Christian ministers who cited chapter and verse to make their case. Better to take the Bible’s words than those abolitionists, right?
Martin Luther and his contemporaries argued that the idea that the Earth rotates and revolves heretical, defending that position with specific prooftexts. Better to trust the Bible’s words than those scientists!
Captain Underhill — and many after him — justified decimating the Pequots and countless other Native American nations with Biblical precedent. Better to trust the Bible’s words than the natives’ cries for mercy!
Many argued against women’s suffrage by appealing to Biblical roles for women. Better to trust the Bible than sinful, fallen men!
Segregation and Jim Crow laws were defended with Scripture. Better to trust the Bible than those political liberals!
If you study the theological history of the church, insistence on a six-calendrical-day period of creation is a relative newcomer. Many ancient Christian and Jewish historians opined that the whole thing was simplified for human understanding and posited that the creation itself took much longer, even before science had a chance to weigh in. So, essentially, you’re asking me to trust *your* understanding of the Bible — and a pretty recent understanding at that, historically speaking — with nothing else whatsoever to check your understanding. I need reassurance that you’re not abusing the Bible to unusual ends. What have you got?
Your argument isn’t new. Anyone can justify their actions using the Bible. That misguided thinking doesn’t make the Bible inerrant, it just means that people will use the Bible for their own purposes and gain.
It also proves that you are just like them–changing the Bible to fit your desires.
The 6 24 hour creation was not a recent idea, it was in the Bible thousands of years ago before those supposed Christian and Jewish historians took note of it.
it also just proves that ‘scholars’ didn’t believe God back then just like today. Like today, they thought they and their secular research fields were smarter and greater than God.
if God was wrong or didn’t write the truth, that is not a very good God to follow or believe in now is it?
God said to use faith not evidence, that is His requirement, so that is what you have to do to obey him. God did not use a mechanism or the Bible would have told us so. Why hide the way of creating and let secular unbelievers get the credit and make himself look bad?
Think about it.
I’m not changing the Bible. I’m making sure I understand the Bible with available evidence. You’re just ignoring the need for any kind of indication that you’re interpreting it correctly.
I can look at my Bible and see *countless* times God told His people to look for evidence. Matthew 22:37-38 includes “mind”. Acts 1:2-3 speaks of “convincing proofs”. Acts 17:2-3 speaks of “giving evidence”, and verses 30-31 speak of God “furnishing proof”; verses 10-11 praise the Bereans for examining things to see if they were true. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 encourages readers to examine *everything carefully*. 1 John 4:1 tells us not to believe, but test. And this doesn’t go into ancient Israelite kings being punished by God because they *didn’t* ask for evidence, or all the times readers were told about the evidence of something happening that remained to the time of the writing, and on and on and on.
(It’s worth noting that “proof” in a lot of these verses is “pistis”, which comes from the Greek “peitho”, which means “to convince by argument”.)
Yes, without faith it is impossible to please Him. But faith that contradicts the available evidence is *your* requirement, not God’s.
I also find it curious that you think the Bible would have told us if there were a mechanism. On what basis do you make this claim? I don’t think the Bible was given to us in order to make sure we have our science straight.
I *have* thought about it, and haven’t trusted people who advise that I believe blindly. That’s why I think it wise to consider what corroboration would “count” for someone’s interpretation of the Bible to be taken seriously. (“Thinking” is not merely agreeing with someone who claims to have authority.)
Why don’t you be honest about what I say and with your self? Your way has God and Jesus sinning, demoting them from being Holy to human status.
Where do those verses give permission to disobey God and to listen to those who are not of God? You are looking at the wrong ‘evidence’ because you want science over faith.
The hybrid experiments prove Genesis 1 true–after their own kind. That is a boundary science cannot cross.
Yet when I convince by argument you deride me by saying I only have words or the Bible to support me. Your switching of the ‘rules’ is obvious. You do not want to believe God or Jesus so why are you talking with me?
Faith helps us see which is the correct evidence and which is false. Faith doe snot over-rule those verses which teach us to not listen to the ungodly, the unbeliever, faith uses those verses to help see the difference and to go with the truth.
The Bible was given so we get ‘the science’ right. It was given to all areas of life so people would know what is of God and what isn’t. This means that even government, business, garbage collecting, etc., are all covered by the Bible and we know how to do all those things correctly.
The Bible is not the constitution where people can limit its application.
Why don’t you read those passages of the Bible that speak on false teaching and false teachers? You are probably too scared to do so because you will discover how wrong you are.
Your way has God and Jesus sinning, demoting them from being Holy to human status.
I don’t think searching out their method demotes them to human. And if you apprehended the depth and the drama and the intricacy of evolution, you’d see that it’s far beyond human.
Where do those verses give permission to disobey God and to listen to those who are not of God?
I also don’t see “listen[ing] to those who are not of God” as disobedience, especially if they have actual evidence on their side.
You are looking at the wrong ‘evidence’ because you want science over faith.
This has nothing to do with desire. It’s about being honest with that which can be directly observed by anyone.
The hybrid experiments prove Genesis 1 true–after their own kind. That is a boundary science cannot cross.
Also false. We have directly observed the crossing of that boundary, regardless of how broadly you want to define “kind”. Directly. Observed. The teachers who have told you that science cannot cross that boundary have lied to you.
Yet when I convince by argument you deride me by saying I only have words or the Bible to support me.
Yes. Because those with only words have done much damage in trying to promote their own interpretation of the Bible and cast everyone who did not agree with them as dangerous, compromised, and/or disbelievers.
You do not want to believe God or Jesus so why are you talking with me?
I believe God and Jesus. I just don’t believe you. I continue to talk to you, however, in the hopes that you will be honest enough to confront the plain evidence in front of you.
Faith helps us see which is the correct evidence and which is false.
Okay. What role does direct observation play?
Why don’t you read those passages of the Bible that speak on false teaching and false teachers? You are probably too scared to do so because you will discover how wrong you are.
I have. This is how I can say with authority that those who promote their own interpretation of Scripture, even to the point of denying plainly-observable evidence, are false teachers (e.g., Ken Ham).
And your presumption to know my fears in ignorance of who I am does you a disservice. If the only way you can support the truth of your claims is to inform other people about what they really think and feel, it doesn’t say much for your stance or your integrity.
I am just going to use numbers to save space.
1. There is no need to search for a mechanism because God already said what he used when he created–he spoke and it was.
2. God said it was wrong so what you think doesn’t matter. What evidence do they have? God never created the scientific way using scientific methods. Evolutionists (of any flavor) have no evidence.
3. Evolution has not been observed nor has it been observed in action . Scientific experiments do not make evolution the sole source of the results. Also,no evolutionary process has been observed following the historical claims made by evolutionists.
4. No you are wrong. No such boundary has been crossed.
5. You are accusing me of what you are doing. Creationists side with the Bible, evolutionists do not. You are not a creationist.
6. You have no evidence and you should reverse your comment as you are the one ignoring the truth.
7. You do not believe God because neither of them said there was a mechanism. They said God created in 6 24 hour days.
8. You have no direct observation of evolution/mechanism. You have not observed the historical process in action you are using faith to believe it took place as other men have claimed.
All you have is what sinful, fallible men claim and you take their word over God’s.
9. You say that God lied, that secular humans found the truth and God is not capable enough to have his own people write about it before that happens and now you have the audacity to say that those who side with God are false teachers? You better repent before it is too late.
10. You are the one doing that. You insult because you have no real answers to refute the truth. I am not ignorant of evolution, it doesn’t work no matter how much secular people tweak it.
There is no need to search for a mechanism because God already said what he used when he created–he spoke and it was.
No one is contesting that. The question is whether or not that’s the entirety of what happened.
If I told someone, “I said to myself, ‘There should be a house here’, and now there is one; I made this house”, would he conclude that I was lying because I left out the details of construction, or would any reasonable person think him a liar if he investigated and could demonstrate what must have been details of the construction of the house?
Do you think God has written every detail of His every interaction with creation in the Bible?
God said it was wrong
No, he didn’t. For someone so concerned about putting words in God’s mouth, you don’t seem to have any problem doing it yourself when it suits you.
What evidence do they have?
Where to begin?
* A nested hierarchy of organisms.
* Vestigial organs (meaning “rudimentary”, not “useless”) that were once formerly functional in ancestors.
* Atavisms.
* Morphological change at a rate consistent with that predicted by the fossil record.
* Functional change at a rate consistent with that predicted by the fossil record.
* Genetic change at a rate consistent with that predicted by the fossil record.
* Speciation events at a rate consistent with that predicted by the fossil record.
* Many degrees of genetic isolation between species.
* Clear evidence in the fossil record of creatures migrating and adapting to new environments.
* Empirical tests confirm evolutionary predictions.
* The phylogenetic tree matches the tree derived from inheritance of junk DNA. Both trees match the tree derived from inherited microbiological characteristics.
* Observed rates of evolution match those predicted from interpretation of evolutionary history.
* Evolutionary predictions tell us where the oil is.
* Evolutionary predictions allow us to make more effective antibiotics and pesticides.
* We find transitional forms in the fossil record at precisely the right time and place for them to occur in proper chronological order. Even the single-celled organisms.
* Ontogeny.
* Ubiquitous genes with no relationship to species’ phenotypes.
* Functional redundancy in proteins.
* Functional redundancy in DNA.
* Endogenous retroviruses.
* Redundant pseudogenes.
* Transposons.
* Present biogeography.
* Past biogeography.
* Parahomology — on the morphological and molecular levels.
* Suboptimization of morphological structures.
* Suboptimization of molecular structures.
Evolutionists (of any flavor) have no evidence.
You keep repeating that, but your ability to shut your eyes and ears doesn’t make it true.
Evolution has not been observed nor has it been observed in action .
Yes, it has. Would you like examples? Fair warning: There’s an amazingly large pile of them.
Scientific experiments do not make evolution the sole source of the results.
I have no idea what you mean by this. What do you think the role of direct observation is? What do you think the role of experiment, observation, and/or discovery that yields results consistent with a particular model is?
Also,no evolutionary process has been observed following the historical claims made by evolutionists.
Again, there, you’re wrong. Would you like examples?
No you are wrong. No such boundary has been crossed.
Would you like examples?
You have no evidence and you should reverse your comment as you are the one ignoring the truth.
Yes, I do. Would you like examples?
You do not believe God because neither of them said there was a mechanism.
And, again, that’s not evidence that there wasn’t one.
They said God created in 6 24 hour days.
That’s a relatively recent interpretation. Scholars with much closer and deeper knowledge of the original text have long disagreed with you about its meaning, even without scientific knowledge to influence their thinking. Why should I believe you?
You have no direct observation of evolution/mechanism.
Yes, I do. Would you like examples?
All you have is what sinful, fallible men claim and you take their word over God’s.
I take it, then, that your words are just as fallible.
We need some kind of arbiter. How about an examination of the way the natural world works, taken with pains to be systematic about it so that we don’t let our biases creep in?
You say that God lied,
I do not. You have accused me of this, repeatedly, but only because you have a strange concept of “lied”.
you have the audacity to say that those who side with God are false teachers?
I have the auadacity to say that those who are lying are false teachers.
Those who say evolution has not been directly observed are lying. Those who claim that we’ve never directly witnessed a change in “kind” are lying. Those who think Christian “evolutionists” accept evolution in order to make God seem smaller are lying. Those who claim to know what another person thinks, feels, and believes without any kind of direct evidence are lying. Those who call their own words and ideas the words of God are lying.
You better repent before it is too late.
Ah, so now you’ve sunk to making threats to demonstrate the correctness of your thinking. Good to know.
You insult because you have no real answers to refute the truth.
Let’s assume for a sentence or two that you’re right. Why, then, do you insult?
I insult out of frustration, because you claim to know things you don’t — like what’s been observed and what hasn’t; what I think, feel, and believe; what evidence exists for evolution, and how much of it there is; what evolutionary concepts science depends on to make accurate predictions; and on and on and on and on and on.
Why does defense of your position involve so much assumption that you know exactly what the other person thinks, feels, and believes?
I am not ignorant of evolution, it doesn’t work no matter how much secular people tweak it.
Then, again, why do you feel the need to lie about it, making false claims about what has and has not been observed and what the theory does and does not posit, to assert the correctness of your position?
Not even going to address this because all it shows is that you do not understand anything about creation and that you will take the sinfully blind man’s words over the most holy God.
and that is wrong. I haven’t lied about evolution. it doesn’t exist, if it did, the world would be far different from what it is now
.
I haven’t made threats, God says he gives people over to their desires, you better check to see if it is too late for you
That list isn’t “blind man’s words”. It’s a list of things. Things you can see. Things in creation.
vestigal organs–no evolutionary scientist has produced any evidence that they were working in our ancestors. You have heard of the fall where sin and corruption entered the world? you cannot omit that from the reasons why those organs may not be working.
There is nothing in history that details their function. Having studied ancient medicine I know there is nothing historically for evolutions to build upon. It is all a giant speculative effort in hopes of duping modern educational officials and judges.
Everything you listed doesn’t omit an alternative to evolution as the source. Also, there is no fossil record depicting transition in process, It is all read into the fossils by the evolutionists who ignore alternative answers o what they see.
A fossil is just a picture of one moment in time and there is no way to claim that a transition is taking place. Having studied fossils, you cannot say a transition is taking place. The evolutionist is taking two fossils and making over-generalized assumptions that have no hope in being verified.
vestigal organs–no evolutionary scientist has produced any evidence that they were working in our ancestors.
Again, try to read for comprehension. “Vestigial” does not mean “non-functional”. It means “rudimentary”. An organ or structure can be completely functional, even vital to the life of the organism, and still be vestigial.
Consider, for example, the ostrich’s wings. Important for balance, courtship, and defense. But based on how wings are used in other birds, rudimentary. They’re vestigial.
Now, proof against evolution would be a vestigial organ, structure, gene, or cellular molecule that was not fully functional — or, better yet, did not even appear — in one of its ancestors. Like nipples on a lizard, say, or a horn on a primate. Evolution — or, to be more specific, common descent — predicts that we will never find things like these. Find one, and you throw common descent into trouble, and evolution with it.
Yet, in all the millions of species we know of, we’ve never found one. Not even after discovering entirely new areas of scientific study where this ought to continue to apply, e.g., genetics and molecular biology. It’s like any of the evidences listed above — all of them contain predictions about what we will observe, or fail to observe, in every new organism we discover, extinct or not, fossilized or extant. Yet, in spite of being pathetically easy to falsify in principle, the theory continues to make accurate predictions.
You have heard of the fall where sin and corruption entered the world? you cannot omit that from the reasons why those organs may not be working.
“Not working” is not part of what we’re talking about here, so it’s not even relevant. Because that’s not what “vestigial” means in biology. I made that clear from the beginning.
Having studied ancient medicine I know there is nothing historically for evolutions to build upon.
Not exactly the kind of credentials you’d need in order to make that determination. But that doesn’t really matter, because you’re wrong. Simply denying the evidence doesn’t mean there’s no evidence there.
Also, there is no fossil record depicting transition in process, It is all read into the fossils by the evolutionists who ignore alternative answers o what they see.
You’re adorable. I’ll just leave this here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
We have fossils showing the transition from invertebrate to vertebrate; land mammal to whale; reptile to mammal; and, well, lots of other transitions.
Yes, we have to make assumptions about how the animals lived based on what we see. But given that they all have similarities to known species, it’s naive to assume that they must all be wrong — especially in instances where we have a demonstrable sequence, which would remain a sequence regardless of the specifics of how they were used (e.g., the transition to whale, or the crocodile). It’s also the case that these transitions are in exactly the right location on Earth and in exactly the right geological layer where we expect these things to show up. A good number of them were even found by predicting ahead of time what kind of transitions should be found where, and then going there. (It’s a whole area of study known as “biogeography”, and explains things without straining that creationism struggles to — e.g., why all the marsupials are in Australia, even though many of them fill the same ecological niches as placental mammals elsewhere).
But hey, if you want to attribute all of this to wild coincidence, go right ahead. Many circulation systems have frozen up in a lot of buildings across the country due to the weather, and the way you’re frantically waving your hands could offer a pretty simple solution to the problem. (Honestly, I’d like to know creationism’s explanation for why these things are arranged to look exactly as we’d expect if evolution is true, and not some trivially simple other arrangement that make evolution very hard to justify.)
It is all read into the fossils by the evolutionists who ignore alternative answers o what they see.
The thing is that they fit exactly what evolution tells us we should see phenomenally well. All of them. Even though evolution tells us what we should expect to see and what we should expect never to see, every time we look.
So, given that, why is an alternative answer necessary? Especially if it’s an alternative answer that offers no useful potential falsifications so that we know whether or not we’re on the right track and not just following our preferences for Biblical interpretation or some other thing (e.g., “God did it magically, with whatever supernatural miracles He needed to use to make it look exactly like evolution”)? Why is it an insult to God to say that He used evolution somehow in His creation process, but not an insult to say that He magically made everything so that evolution, a potentially easily falsifiable theory, would appear to every test to be true?
By all means, keep testing. We don’t know everything, and even though the probability is exceedingly remote, it might just be that we uncover something tomorrow that shows us that we have to seriously re-think everything. (Science knows it doesn’t know everything, you see; that’s why exploration and experimentation continue.) But in the meantime, your complaint is bogus.
I am not going to say much. My use of vestigal organs was restricted to he words you provided. My comprehension is fine. You need to work on your insulting of people.
ALso, for evolution to work it needs to gather information in order to produce all the extras we see in all the members of life on earth.
Dawkins has admitted this so what I am about to say is not new. There has been no scientific experiment where any information gathering has taken place. Evolution does not work no matter how you spin it.
My use of vestigal organs was restricted to he words you provided. My comprehension is fine.
Then why on Earth did you deliberately use “vestigial” as if it were synonymous with “non-functional”, when treating it that way wasn’t even relevant to the point?
Your words (my emphasis):
vestigal organs–no evolutionary scientist has produced any evidence that they were working in our ancestors. You have heard of the fall where sin and corruption entered the world? you cannot omit that from the reasons why those organs may not be working.
If you’re in the habit of pretending that talking about things that aren’t even relevant counts as evidence that what you think is true, I really ought to despair of your being able to follow any kind of evidence-based thinking.
You need to work on your insulting of people.
I know. They really should be more pointed and precise. I’m holding back, though, out of politeness. If you continue to dishonestly represent yourself, though, we may get to Paul’s levels of wishing genital self-mutilation on people making pointless and false ideas doctrine of the faith.
ALso, for evolution to work it needs to gather information in order to produce all the extras we see in all the members of life on earth.
Yes. Natural selection is the means whereby information about the environment is telegraphed to the genome of the species. It’s pretty straightforward, really.
Now, would you like some directly-observed examples of where brand-new structures, or brand-new genetically-regulated abilities, have arisen in organisms as a result of this?
Dawkins has admitted this so what I am about to say is not new.
Yes, and he’s also eloquently elaborated on how this happens; this is also not new.
Evolution does not work no matter how you spin it.
You keep saying that after you show profound misunderstanding of what evolution even posits and how it works. I wonder why you keep thinking it has weight.
read your own words: “Vestigial organs (meaning “rudimentary”, not “useless”) that were once formerly functional in ancestors.”
Notice the words “once formerly” You seem to have that idea that they are useless now.
I have no misunderstanding about evolution, It is a lie, it has never existed and it doesn’t exist. How much clearer can I put it. The theory violates God word and makes God out to be a liar and a deceiver.
Your theory is from the devil not God.
Notice the words “once formerly” You seem to have that idea that they are useless now.
Ah. I see what you mean. My fault, then. Let me clarify: “Vestigial” means “rudimentary”, not “formerly functional”.
It is a lie, it has never existed and it doesn’t exist.
But we’ve observed it. I offered to give you examples. That offer still stands. You’ve also done nothing to address any of the evidence other than simply deny it.
Your theory is from the devil not God.
That sounds an awful lot like the accusations church officials leveled at Galileo. His telescope must have been demonic, you see, to show anything revolving around something other than the Earth, and leading him to conclude that the Earth moved besides — in clear violation of God’s Word.
Consider the words of a far more accomplished Biblical scholar than I:
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. […] Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by these who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.
— Augustine of Hippo, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim (“The Literal Meaning of Genesis”), book 1, chapter 19 (AD 415); emphasis mine
It’s worth pointing out that Augustine didn’t think that a literal interpretation of Genesis would lead one to believe that creation took one calendrical week of time to accomplish. He came to this conclusion after more than two decades of study, and far more familiarity with the original language and context of the passage than either you or I have. It was Augustine who first formulated the understanding of “the fall” and “original sin”, which many modern Christians tend to cling to as lynchpins of the faith. It’s ironic, then, that his understanding of creation, and of how Christians ought to treat the creation account when trying to understand it literally, have been dispensed with in favor of a form of creationism created in the 1960s. How Christians can embrace the ideas of Genesis that they do while discarding the Biblical context that led to their codification is somewhat baffling — but that’s what happens when Christians pick and choose what they want to believe over the words of God, I guess.
You haven’t observed it, that is the whole point. Everything that has taken place in the science laboratory is attributed to evolution AND it is all done outside of the claimed way evolution was supposed to have worked its magic.
So now you are invoking Galileo to justify pursuing a non-existent force?
You need to read this about Augustine’s words:
http://theologyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/augustines-origens-quotes/
You miss quote Augustine and apply your desires to his words.
You haven’t observed it, that is the whole point.
And again, you feel qualified to tell people what they have and have not observed.
it is all done outside of the claimed way evolution was supposed to have worked its magic.
Nope. Try again. Chasing fossil records, evidence left behind by the laws of heredity, and so forth attempt to reconstruct the past — right where “evolution was supposed to have worked its magic” — by examining the evidence in the present.
Would you like examples?
If all the evidence we have points to a round Earth, and points away from a flat Earth, we reject a flat Earth for being inconsistent with the facts. It’s the same way with creationism.
Would you like examples?
So now you are invoking Galileo to justify pursuing a non-existent force?
Nope. I’m invoking Galileo to illustrate the importance of following the evidence in front of us, as well as to illustrate the dangers of believing one’s theology and interpretive scheme over the plainly-observable facts.
You miss quote Augustine and apply your desires to his words.
Your author can’t see the forest for the trees. He misses the larger application of Augustine’s words, advising an attempt to be responsible to things that can be plainly seen, and making Christianity (and Christ, by extension) look foolish by not doing so.
It’s also funny that in one breath, he talks about the “secular teaching of geocentrism” when it was believers in the Bible who stuck to that idea out of an inability to adjust their interpretive scheme of the Bible to the reality that was being discovered. After all, the Bible is plain about this — the Earth does not move and cannot be moved (e.g., 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, or Psalm 104:5). And then he talks about secular alternatives, when the Bible presents absolutely no precedent for the idea that the Earth moves.
In other words, he only makes his points by twisting the position of the Bible itself. It’s really kind of sad that you think he has anything to say worth listening to.
Qualifications: Well I have more scientific degrees than you do, I have written more books than you have and I am older than you so yes I think I am qualified.
Claimed way–you misunderstood what I have said. How evolutionists claim the process developed all things is NOT the way it is done in the laboratory.
flat earth– a theory constructed by secular scientists not biblical writers.
Galileo–the evidence in front of us is not evolution. it is the supernatural creation. we see nothing of evolution at work today or historically.
no one has observed evolution nor have they observed the process itself. they do not know what it is made of. The Bible does not speak of evolution or a process so you have no biblical support for your point of view
Augustine–you do not understand the definition being used by the author of the biblical passage and apply your own literal definition because it works for your argument.
You are being literal when you hate literalism and you are being very inconsistent in your thinking.
The Bible doesn’t have to, it wasn’t supposed to describe orbits or galaxies. It revealed God and his creative action among other lessons including his power since he spoke and it was.
The only person twisting the Bible is you for I am stating what the Bible actually says.
Well I have more scientific degrees than you do,
=shrug= Maybe you do and maybe you don’t; I have no way of knowing one way or the other. But if that’s your argument, for a scientist, you have a remarkable disregard for observable evidence.
I mean, let’s recap. You’ve only tried to assert creationism by trying to poke holes in evolution. These “holes” are horribly misdirected, especially since a lot of things you claim can never happen have, in fact, been directly observed; but even if they had any weight, the best you would have done is dismantle evolution, which gives us no positive reason to believe in creationism.
If you have “more scientific degrees”, please demonstrate some evidence-based thinking.
Because here’s a dirty little secret: Scientists know that scientific degrees don’t create scientific credibility. Ideas that can be corroborated by the evidence do.
You’ve not only shown no evidence — kind of the ultimate scientific faux pas — you’ve demonstrated no curiosity about evidence that seems to contradict your notions. Scientists care about how closely their ideas parallel reality, and you repeatedly ignore invitations to see what we have actually seen and can demonstrate. Curious.
flat earth– a theory constructed by secular scientists not biblical writers.
Geocentrism: the theory that the Earth lies stationary at the center of the Universe. It has nothing to do with a flat Earth. The Bible, taken literally, supports geocentrism and gives absolutely no support for heliocentrism (the theory that the Sun lies at the center of the Solar System).
I made comparison to a flat Earth only to point out your disregard for where evidence points or the nature of evidence in your stance that evolution has not been demonstrated empirically.
If taking things at face value is so important, are you a geocentrist? Why or why not?
Galileo–the evidence in front of us is not evolution. it is the supernatural creation. we see nothing of evolution at work today or historically.
Actually, we do. Would you like examples?
(And I find this an interesting accusation of weakness, given that we certainly don’t see any instances of supernatural creation at work today.)
You are being literal when you hate literalism and you are being very inconsistent in your thinking.
I hate literalism with a blatant disregard for the facts. All you’ve done is assert that no one has seen the evolutionary process at work, without regard to the fact that it’s been observed.
For Augustine, for example, the creation of spiritual light was every bit as literal a creation as physical light. His interpretation is not less literal for analyses like these; he’s just being responsible to the rather vague nature of the text.
The Bible doesn’t have to, it wasn’t supposed to describe orbits or galaxies.
I’d also argue that it wasn’t given to humanity to describe evolution. That doesn’t mean that the lack of its inclusion is an argument that it doesn’t exist.
observable evidence– being trained doesn’t mean one turns a blind eye to the methodology and ignores the weaknesses. that is an action that perpetuates mistaken ideas.
observable evidence is too vulnerable left to itself. You have a lot of blind faith in science, something you criticize those who side with God of doing, why don’t you use some of your critical thinking skills on your beloved scientific methods and see the difference for yourself.
demonstration–being educated doesn’t mean you follow false teaching. I use my education God’s way not secular man’s.
curiosity–why would I show that here when I oppose your arguments? I did that when I was studying and when I found the correct answers I go with those not stay at square one.
geocentric– you will notice that the Bible gives no support to galaxy movement either. this is just a strawman argument from you as you mis-apply what scriptures say in order to dismiss biblical teaching and pursue false teaching.
Examples–don’t need any as you have none. all you have is attributed to evolution.
evolutionary process– uhm, do you think i sit in a bubble and make this stuff up? i have listened to evolutionary lectures, read their papers and so on and guess what—they haven’t observed evolution.
to observe and prove evolution true, the evolutionist would have to go back to the original conditions,use the original life forms, environment and not interfere and document what takes place.
other than that they have not seen evolution at all. of course it helps to know that evolution doesn’t exist so they could not have observed evolution in action
Bible–except the wording and teaching of the Bible excludes evolution and all other alternatives. The wording and teaching of the Bible does NOT exclude a YEC.
I am not an ussher fan nor base my views upon him so do not go there.
being trained doesn’t mean one turns a blind eye to the methodology and ignores the weaknesses.
Of course not. But the objections you have raised thus far don’t hold up under scrutiny; your objections claim that the natural world doesn’t behave a certain way, and those objections run afoul of our direct observations.
We have seen a change in “kind”, for example. Directly. And indirect evidence is all over the place in science — atoms were recognized through indirect evidence long before we came close to generating an image (and even these image isn’t direct observation, strictly speaking). Even so, scientists had strong evidence to accept that atoms exist.
You have a lot of blind faith in science,
If you are really trained in science, you should know how ridiculous this is. One does not have “faith” in science. One accepts, or fails to accept, ideas based on the evidence available. That’s all.
something you criticize those who side with God of doing,
Only if they venerate their own ideas and interpretations and call that “God”.
curiosity–why would I show that here when I oppose your arguments?
Because scientists are curious people. They’re aware that they probably don’t have the final answer on how things work, and are also aware of the value of being open to information relevant to their stance that they might not have considered.
geocentric– you will notice that the Bible gives no support to galaxy movement either. this is just a strawman argument from you as you mis-apply what scriptures say in order to dismiss biblical teaching and pursue false teaching.
On what basis do you claim that this is a misapplication of Scripture? What gives you the confidence to deny it?
Examples–don’t need any as you have none.
Untrue. Would you like examples?
to observe and prove evolution true, the evolutionist would have to go back to the original conditions,use the original life forms, environment and not interfere and document what takes place.
That’s not true, strictly speaking, for much the same reason that scientists knew there were atoms before glimpsing them. The way things operate leave secondary evidence that can be examined in detail.
But even if it were true, we can still find out what evidence exists and whether it is consistent with evolution or whether it is consistent with creation. The evidence available corroborates evolution quite strongly, and also disagrees with specific, spontaneous creation quite strongly.
The wording and teaching of the Bible does NOT exclude a YEC.
Nor does it exclude geocentrism — in fact, the Bible was used to defend it. So why do you, personally, reject it?
direct observations–you have no direct observation for any transition. you have no direct observation of a common ancestor. you have no direct observations of the process of evolution itself– change is too ambiguous of a term to use.
Atoms– no direct observation of atoms, quarks, neutrons, etc.. you cannot be sure that they do what is claimed that they can do.
science–yet you and others appeal to it over and over, you have blind faith in science not faith in God.
curiosity–we are in a discussion on a subject that I have studied and quelled my curiosity. I have the answers about origins. I do not need to be curious anymore. Once someone has the truth, you accept and believe it then the questions go away.
as i said i do science God’s way not secular man’s way.
geocentrism again–the criteria for believing the bible is not evidence but faith. also one follows the HS to the truth, not the evidence. when you repent and get right with God you will see the difference.
examples-don’t call me a liar. i do not need any and you do not have any.
proving evolution– it is true. anything else would be considered cheating and doing an end run around your own criteria of presenting evidence.
you have to start at the beginning or you have nothing.
consistency–we have the original environment for creation still with us. evolution does not.
we know the original ancestor for creation–God made Adam and Eve. evolution does not.
we know and have the original reproduction method for reproducing life. evolution does not, especially for the initial stages.
I can go on but you should get the picture that evolution doesn’t have anything while creation has everything.
defending–so? the Bible is used to support many activities. It doesn’t make the activity right or biblical taught.
Your complaint about YEC is with Ussher not the Bible. No one said he was infallible or got it righ but his misguided efforts does not make OEc or evolution true. Nor does it make YEC false because all the Bible speaks of creation in 6 24 hour days not one word for a process or billions of years.
If Ussher was misguided, you just folded your entire case– because you can’t prove young earth without him/without adding up genealogies that were never intended to be added up the way he does (historical fact). So, you may want to retract and say you are putting your faith and trust in Ussher, because without him, you can’t come up with a 7,000 year date.
Ussher did not invent the chronologies. I can call him misguided all I want without damaging any argument for YEC.
You’ve assumed that my argument was based upon his work and I have never anchored my argument to anything he has said. In fact, I do not use the chronologies at all.
Of course we can prove a YEC without Ussher, he is not infallible and I highly doubt he was of God. I do not need to retract anything as I do not put my faith and trust in Ussher.
You are so misguided and foolish when you assume then apply your assumptions to my words.
I think you’ve demonstrated my point nicely. The only way you can claim to be consistent with the way things behave in the real world is to pretend that evidence contrary to your outlook simply doesn’t exist, and to set unnaturally high bars for evidence you would accept (it’s not necessary to re-create a phenomenon in its entirety in order to have confidence that the phenomenon exists and has occurred) — along with baptizing this deliberate incuriosity as “God’s way”. Until and unless you’re willing to be honest about how the real world behaves and phenomena we’ve directly witnessed and not dismiss contrary evidence categorically (and simply pretend observed phenomena simply can’t exist), we won’t get anywhere.
My complaint is not with Ussher, but with creationism. It produces exactly this type of willing blindness, this unwillingness to try to understand God’s creation on its own terms and attempt to accept God’s complete message to us. As long as you keep your eyes clamped shut like this, you can keep pretending that your ideas and preferences for interpretation are superior to God’s message and “that evolution doesn’t have anything while creation has everything” — but as a former young-Earth creationist myself, I have to admit that such a stance inspires in me something akin to pity.
Pray for me, I guess, if it makes you feel better and allows you to maintain your smug sense that you know what’s going on without looking. But if and when you’re willing to confront observational evidence, let me know. Until then, we’re talking in circles, and I don’t think it’s really benefitting either one of us.
demonstrating– you I am not. You are the one dismissing God and claiming that the deceived unbelieving world has the truth over God. The problem lies with you no tme.
evidence–creation was a supernatural act, not a natural one. there is no evidence for evolution.
we won’t get anywhere because you refuse to let go of the deception that holds you to lies.
creationism–disobeying God is not the complete message. You have no permission from God or Jesus to follow secular teaching, the only one who is blind is you.
the only one with their eyes clamped shut is you.
Pity– why would you pity a person who believes God and obeys him? Seems I am the winner here as I am the one doing what is right.
Observational evidence– you have none, creation has it all
Let me try to explain — which will be difficult, since we come from such different assumptions about checking our impressions against verifiable fact. We mean such different things by even simple terms like “know” and “believe” that I almost despair of finding a common vocabulary with which to communicate.
Since coming to grips with a deeper understanding of the facts and forsaking young-Earth creationism, I’m often confronted by Christians who point out (as if this is somehow proof of their point of view) that I still don’t know everything, and it just might be possible that the facts, when understood even more fully and deeply, end up demonstrating the truth of young-Earth creationism. Quite aside from how revolutionary that would be — a bit like finding out that the Earth is flat after all — I have to admit that I would personally be disappointed if that were discovered to be true. I’ve grown kind of used to thinking of God as a great creator, crushing my ability to imagine His work in its depth and scope of time and space. Returning to picturing Him as a wizard who poofed everything into existence rather recently in the space of a week — and an inept wizard at that, who has to keep returning to His creation often and regularly to tweak it supernaturally because He couldn’t get it to run consistently from the start — would make Him unspeakably smaller; and I have no interest in worshiping such an insignificant and infinitesimal god.
I pity you because you won’t allow yourself to see just how small your god is — beholden to your own interpretation and understanding, and not free to express Himself to you openly. I pity you because you’ve mistaken slack-jawed lack of understanding of supernatural action for wonder. I pity you because you treat the authority of teachers and your own understanding as a valid means to understand truth over open investigation. I pity you because you’ve mistaken deliberate myopia for faithfulness. I pity you because your best demonstrated ability to assess information is denial. I pity you because you insist on reading a love letter like a science textbook or reference manual.
And I pity you for a thousand other reasons… but mostly because you won’t let God show Himself to you outside the tiny box you’ve constructed for Him, even if you’ve consecrated that box with your understanding of Holy Scripture.
Shorter answer: I pity you because you’d rather God be a trickster who fakes evidence than consider the possibility that you might be wrong about what He had to say.
Now, I have plenty of observational evidence. I’m perfectly willing to share it if you want. Or you can go out and look for it yourself, if you like; it’s not as if I *own* it.
P.S.–Augustine wasn’t infallible or inspired. His words are not scripture just another human beings opinion. I is okay to say he was wrong when he was wrong.
God did not rest his word and work upon Augustine nor should anyone else.
Augustine wasn’t infallible or inspired.
I never claimed that he was. My point was that if we are looking to Scripture for truth, we would do well to look at what other people with far more and deeper familiarity with the text had to say about it. Augustine fits this criterion, and his words should not be dismissed too quickly.
how does he have far more and deeper familiarity than I do or any YEC person does?
If his words are wrong, then they should be dismissed even quicker but he is not speaking in the manner you think he is. He is not making a case for science over the Bible.
What it looks like from the outside is what Dangjin is saying is “Trust ME! Believe exactly as I do. Don’t you dare have a different view, interpretation or value. I’M THE AUTHORITY ON GOD!”
That’s self-worship. You appear to worship your own interpretations of God, nothing more.
You have a very active imagination. You really do not know what self-worship is do you?
I am telling you to trust God and his word not the blind secularists and supposed ‘Christians’ who know nothing about origins.
You did not address Sarah’s point about Jesus’ reference to the God’s creation of Adam and Eve from the Genesis creation story, and I think your addressing of her point would be of relevance.
I’ve never said I didn’t believe in Adam and Eve, so I’m not sure what point you’d like me to defend? To me it could go either way since “Adam” is the same word for “man”, but I tend to lean towards believing they were real people. In my book, I have a chapter on community and discuss Adam and Eve with the assumption they were real, historical figures.
It is a little curious how the creation story is supposed to be figurative/metaphorical, because of scientific discoveries that show that the story cannot be correct unless interpreted as religious mythology – except where the religious doctrine gets to be tightly ingrained, in which case the science is disregarded anyway. In regard to the Adam and Eve story, please do note that archaeologically and paleontologically we know that more-or-less modern humans have been around for at least around 200,000 years. (See “160,000-year-old fossilized skulls uncovered in Ethiopia are oldest anatomically modern humans”, by Robert Sanders, Jun. 11, 2003, UC Berkeley Science News, as an example of the kind of research I’m referring to.)
Ken Ham is your God then?
What it actually says is that God asked the land to make plants and the water ‘to teem’ with living creatures. Which could be a metaphor for evolution. What’s your alternate theory? Soundwaves from God’s mouth somehow made the energy organise into animals? Where’s the evidence for that?
As for man being made ‘of dust’, most household dust is actually human skin cells. We lose thousands every day. So maybe God’s dust was cells as well.
That is absurd. God did NOT ask he commanded. Faith is the evidence. God requires faith NOT evidence.
Boo! Patriots!!!
Thank you, Benjamin, for another fantastic commentary. Because Bill Nye will be speaking as a scientist, I don’t expect him to claim “God is the active agent who caused creation…” This claim is a great fit for the humanities and related fields of inquiry such as theology and philosophy. Yet Ken Ham and other U.S. Young Earth Creationists evidence little to no knowledge of these fields.
Heck, I just wish U.S. evangelical fundamentalists would actually study the bible. That would require them to engage in sustained research and reading, patience, contemplation, and learning theories of interpretation, translation, historical context, and general critical thinking skills.
This is great stuff. I’ll be rooting with you against the young creationist guy, for the very reasons you mention. As a professor at a Christian college, the kind of analysis and “scholarship” of young earth creationists drives me nuts, and–as you note–undermines the cause of Christ, as well as (in my context) the cause of Christian higher education.
Excellent comment, melanie. You have an important perspective, and more people need to hear such responses to Young Earth Creationists and to religious fundamentalism in all its forms.
What are your thoughts on Intelligent Design at being one way of seeing God at work within nature? I recently read (and reviewed) Darwin’s Black Box by Behe which refutes YEC but also challenges atheistic Darwinian evolution by pointing out the complexities within the bio-molecular chemical systems inherent to life.
I’ve long wanted to read that book (I think I have it actually)– I’m not sold on all aspects of Darwin, and certainly identify with ID and creationism, just not the young earth aspect. One of the reasons I don’t find science to be a threat is that it is always changing with the acquisition of new knowledge, unlike YEC.
A review is on my blog if you want to peruse it to see if it’s up your alley… I enjoyed it and, while the pushback is good (is ID really science?), ID is how I look at the world around me. I see the potential, even in evolution, for there being a God who says, “This is how I’m going to do thing”… and it even allows for a God who reaches in and tweaks a molecule or two in order for things to go a certain direction… That’s a designer tweaking the design, yes?
Agreed. (no idea why someone down voted this comment)
If you want to look into the geological side of things, may I recommend “Annals of the Former World” by John McPhee. It’s a series of road-trips across the U.S. by the author with geologists. It’s a lyrical, accessible and fascinating look at both North American and world geology.
If I may respond, it seems to me ID is a framework for understanding, infusing meaning into, the world, not science. It is second order. Science is first order. It ascribes no meaning to its own findings, it just seeks to figure out why things are the way they are. Ken Ham, and his ilk, seem to be wanting to ascribe second order judgments to the first order findings of science and attack them, and the scientist look at them like they are lunatics. As a second order framework, ID seems to overlook quite a bit of the tragic messiness of evolution (see Anton’s more eloquent comments above), which may be problematic or may not be depending on your particular bent. Tragic messiness, in my estimation, is fine if you are describing flawed human beings attempting to create a light bulb, but seems to fall flat when ascribing it to an all powerful, all knowing creator. Why would G*d need to tweak his design? Did he not do it right the first time? Is this Time Bandits? (one of the greatest movies ever!)
Hanging your hat on irreducible complexity does intersect science, and therefore, I think, create more difficulties. ‘We don’t know, so G*d’ is a tough argument for me to make. I am not at all qualified to talk about the science of it, although I did read the book, and it could be the case that some things are irreducibly complex. But there have been quite a few things ascribed to G*d over the millennia because science couldn’t explain it, that eventually were explained. Which then made the earlier pronouncements look foolish. My personal view is build your understanding of the material world on the solid foundation of the scientific method, and build your theory of what it all means on Jesus, or Buddha, or Tao, or whatever symbols make sense to you. To do otherwise risks the whole house coming down. Finding something science can’t explain is not an ‘AHA!’ it is a ‘Hmmm’ (pique of intellectual curiosity, not the beginning of a Gregorian chant)
Thanks for the response… well written and well thought out. 🙂
I will say that I think Behe does give that same caution in the book. That it is an important thing to keep in mind that we should not give in to the easy-out of “Well, must be God” and give up. But, likewise, science should not take the reverse stance of “Nope, no God… we just don’t know enough yet.”
I think Behe’s book, as I tried to describe in my review, is a challenge to both of these two men in the debate (to bring things back on topic)… it shows that science and the scientific method that has given us Darwin’s theories is not evil incarnate… nor are the explanations that God has a hand in it simply ignorant superstition. And the challenge, specifically to science, is that if they choose to refute irreducible complexity and ID, that they should, by all means, use science to do so… but do so with an open mind that perhaps, just perhaps, there may be things which man as the limited being we are, cannot ever know.
Bit of Eastern Orthodox theology… if we accept we are created beings, however the means of creation, we have to also accept that we cannot comprehend fully how that creation came to be… to do so would put us on the level of the Creator…which we are not. This does not mean we set aside our intellectual curiousity, our scientific endeavors, etc., but that we need to always be prepared that there may come a day (if it might not already have been reached) where we hit that point… ID, at least, gives a point to say, “Have we hit that point?”… and Behe points out that, if we haven’t, biomolecular chemistry needs to spend some time in serious work to answer that with a definitive “no”… something which has not been done to date.
Thanks for your equally thoughtful reply, I think science has to be honest and say there are things it just doesn’t know just as much as faith has to be honest and say not knowing things doesn’t equal G*d. I think we are saying the same thing, If there are things that are irreducibly complex it has to own up to that and either propose a solution or remain silent. For the most part I find science, although not always it’s most vocal atheistic proponents, is comfortable with uncertainty.
As I said I don’t think ID is science, it is a second order structure to infuse meaning into the world, and therefore could not be directly addressed as science. [I am thinking of a scene in Big Bang Theory between Sheldon Cooper and his religious fundamentalist mother…] I cannot think of any way that science could refute ID (anymore than it could refute the scientific method). It is a framework to answer a certain kind of question. Perhaps, though, I am just not creative enough to think of it. I can talk about brain structure and psychological biases that assume agency in everything as an adaptive trait, but I think ID would just recede back to the next level (Turtles on turtles)
Believe whatever you want, but I can’t relate to a God-concept that reduces the transcendent to a celestial tinkerer “who reaches in and tweaks a molecule or two.” Can I be excused for thinking that if we have to look through a microscope to see the work of an active, intervening God, maybe we’re just seeing what we want to see?
The problems with ID are many, but first and foremost the supposed hallmark of intelligent agency is a property that no one should attribute to intelligence in the first place. I read Darwin’s Black Box when it first came out, and I was puzzled that Behe uses the staggering, redundant complexity that would usually indicate countless iterations of mindless processes to demonstrate purposeful, intelligent design. It’s absolutely wrong-headed.
I thought it was funny that Behe even reprinted a Rube Goldberg cartoon in the book, drawing a parallel between the ridiculously complex contraption and the sort of complexity we see in biochemical processes like the blood clotting cascade. Evidently the irony was lost on Behe (and his readers) that the humor of Rube Goldberg’s insanely complicated inventions is that they’re unlike anything anyone would consciously design.
For me, it’s much like this author’s comments about creationism. I believe that we were intelligently designed, but I don’t subscribe to Intelligent Design as a particular philosophy, and find that its claims have stood in the way of methodical inquiry rather than assist it — e.g., asserting that certain structures are “irreducibly complex”, or claiming that post-hoc calculations of probability indicate something about whether or not it ocurred.
I think evolutionary creationism/theistic evolutionism is far more compelling than Intelligent Design, which I think relies on a “god of the gaps” understanding of the world.
Much of Darwin’s Black Box has already been refuted. Behe himself admitted as much in the trial of Dover v Kitzmiller, when he presented himself as an expert witness. Under cross examination, he admitted:
* That no peer-reviewed scientific journal has published research supportive of intelligent design’s claims.
* That Behe’s own book was not, as he had claimed, peer reviewed.
* That Behe himself criticizes the science presented as supporting intelligent design in instructional material created for that purpose.
* That intelligent design seems plausible and reasonable to inquirers in direct proportion to their belief or non-belief in God.
* That the basic arguments for evidence of purposeful design in nature are essentially the same as those adduced by the Christian apologist Rev. William Paley (1743–1805) in his 1802 Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected From the Appearances of Nature, where he sums up his observations of the complexity of life in the ringing words, “The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is GOD.”
* That the definition of “theory” supplied by the US National Academy of Sciences did not encompass ID, and that his broader definition would allow astrology to be included as a scientific theory.
* That he had claimed in his book that evolution could not explain immunology without even investigating the subject. He was presented with 58 peer reviewed articles, nine books, and several textbook chapters on the subject; he insisted they were “not good enough.”