Pat did it again– he said something that was both reasonable and true all at the same time.
In his final analysis of the Ken Ham debate, Pat now says in reference to Ken Ham’s version of young earth creationism: “There aint no way that’s possible… It’s time we come off of that stuff… let’s be real– let’s not make a joke of ourselves”.
He went on to say that: “just because we have progressive evolution under God’s control- that doesn’t hurt my faith at all”.
Exactly.
I love it when people get old because they say funny stuff. In this case, it seems that Pat’s age is causing him to say some stuff that’s actually quite reasonable.
God is the agent behind everything you see– and however it was created, God did it.
Let the battle be that we point people to the agent behind it all, instead of quibbling about the stuff that doesn’t really matter.
Or, as Pat says, “Let’s not make a joke of ourselves.”
You can watch the whole clip here:
Via Raw Story
125 Responses
Wow, that was a surprise.
Too much bitterness in places. I agree, give Pat credit when credit is due. The worst part of Ken Ham’s view is that he equates it with the Bible, making the Bible a joke. He ought to forget science for awhile and study Genesis. http://textsincontext.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/in-the-beginning/
What does it say about Christianity when an ignorant, bigoted conman like Pat Robertson can rightfully chide other Christians for making Christians look like fools?
Probably something similar to when American con men call out other American con men – how does that reflect upon “Americans?” Some broad terms encompass “just a bunch of humans,” in the end.
I’m not talking about Christians, I’m talking about Christianity. You know, the philosophy that both Ken Ham and Pat Robertson base their respective cons on.
If you actually want to avoid making Christianity look stupid and evil, maybe find someone better than Pat Robertson to hold up as an example of “doing it right.”
Who here is saying they’re “doing it right?” I took this post as Mr. Corey doing a little gawking – “The last person I expected said something interesting, how WEIRD!”
It’s one of those “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day” things. When someone famous does something unusual, good or bad, people make a note of it. Seeing Pat Robertson say something “progressive” is kind of like if the Pope stripped down to speedos and did a sexy dance for a crowd or something. A total WTF that demands commentary.
For Pat Robertson to caution another Far Right televangelist, “Lets not make a joke of ourselves.” is downright comical.
Pat R. – he is a dingleberry. Hahaha! I love to read this stuff – and listen to some religious folks explain that nothing ever ever has evolved and become something different – case in point is that viruses evolve into newer strains all the time. Flu virus change,…. That is to just name a few. Doesn’t anyone read the bible ever? It has numerous translation flaws that require the pastor to “elaborate” to say what “it really means”. I find it bizarre that very few Christians actually know how their collection of writings were actually put together. They seem to not know that the POLITICAL leader of the day demanded that all the different groups get together and hash out a collection of writings that they all could agree that the writings did not offend another’s particular sect/group. It was not some holy magical intervention by God that made up the “Holy Scriptures” it was the guys who ran/headed up each group. – and these issues do not even touch on the creation story. There was nothing,..void of time and space. No perceivable time,…no day light no night time. In fact it was actually a while into creation before light/day dark/night was established,…… Even funnier is that those words “Day” and “Night” were not actually used. Here is how it goes,.. Ken Ham was not there. No one was there. And as things ALWAYS PROGRESS someone has to insert a deity to add control and fear to the people. My goodness – no one even spoke the king’s English back in Nazareth or Bethleham. When religious folks admit to truth,… I will be willing to listen. By the way Goliath wasn’t a giant. Mistranslation used for decades to help push the story of fighting a giant. He was just taller and bigger than most people. People really aught to spend time with people who actually are the ones who are the caretakers of the scrolls and Dead Sea scrolls,…. The scholars who actually know stuff. Who actually can read the language. Oh and jesus never spoke English,…he wasn’t a sparkly white guy with these flowing blond hair images. He walked around in sandles on dirty dusty roads,…no soap,…no AXE body wash,…. No shampoo. Nada. AND he spent all his time with everyone BUT the preachers and religious leaders,….in fact he spent his time around the people that were the lowest of society.
I have finished listening to the debate and will write up my views on it later and post it on my own website. then I will post the link here and give you all the opportunity to post comments there.
I won’t post in this thread as I do not care what Robertson has to say. I will put the link in the Ken Ham backwards thread and just respond to people who respond to me in that thread.
Suffice it to say Ham won the debate because Nye couldn’t produce any answers nor coul dhe provide valid evidence that showed creation to be in error. All he did was just present someone’s contrary opinion to the biblical record.
You do that; go and write up the debate on your blog, and stop bloviating here.
The world will now come to an end
Sure, you chuckle when he says something somewhat sane. But do you call him out when he’s vicious, libellous, and bigoted?
Yes. I publicly called him a jackass when he said that adopted children, like mine, are “strange”. I took a lot of heat for it from my own community. Do I catch everything he says? No, but I’d hope by now you know me well enough to know that I save 90% of my criticism for my own people.
LOL hes an ass for sure 🙂 Pat that is…..
For me, the capper was when he said that God caused the Haitian slip-fault earthquake because in the 1600s the enslaved Africans made a deal with the devil for their freedom, and had been cursed by God every since. That’s awful on so many fronts: God advocating for slavery. The devil freeing slaves. Freeing slaves as somehow evil. God holding multi-generational grudges and punishing the descendants of the slaves he didn’t want freed. Talk about slandering his God. He hit that one out of the park.
Yes. Along with numerous other Christian bloggers, some with substantial readerships.
Pat Robertson has just proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is another false teacher.
Hebrews 11–God spoke and it was. There was no evolutionary process, no natural procession, no outer space catastrophe.
The only people embarrassing themselves are those who claim to be Christian and a follower of god then turn around and say the very God they follow and believe–lied.
LOL. Welcome back, one and only true teacher of the Word. Your days here are numbered.
So that is your answer for those who disagree with you–get rid of them. How droll, unobjective and closed-minded of you.
As you’re a fundy, I’d have thought you appreciate close-mindedness.
“your answer for those who disagree with you–get rid of them.”
That’s a strange comment, since you appear to be quite able to comment here, while as soon as any atheist comments on a theist page, he/she’s usually banned after one comment.
Reminds me of that British phrase about “The pot calling the kettle black”.
I invite you and Corey to post on my website as soon as I get the debate analysis written up.
I will warn you that there are rules there so stick to the rules and you will be fine.
Thank you for the invitation, but I am dubious about your understanding of what ‘evidence’ is.
For example:
“Ham won the debate because Nye couldn’t produce any answers nor coul dhe
provide valid evidence that showed creation to be in error. All he did
was just present someone’s contrary opinion to the biblical record.”
Nye provided plenty of examples of how we can determine the age of snow layers in the poles, of trees older than the ‘creation earth’ and of the Flood, of how we can measure the distance of stars and galaxies.
These examples, and many more, do provide evidence that creation is in error.
What do creationist provide as evidence? A book by superstitious goat herders, badly copied and translated by unknowns so many times we have no idea what the original might have said.
But apparently it’s the word of god, a god that’s reckoned to be omnipotent, but he couldn’t make his book impossible to change or amend and most important of all, a book that must be ‘interpreted’ correctly.
Because omnipotent god could not speak clearly to his minions, nor even come up with an e-mail where what’s stated is not available to ‘interpretation’, but is clear and concise.
I suppose, that’s too much to ask from an omnipotent being.
I have no problems with clear, fair rules, and as you can tell, I don’t needlessly swear nor do I call people that disagree with me ‘morons, imbeciles, etc’, which btw is the standard reply I tend to get, when a theist is confronted by cognitive dissonance.
But if the rules are about ‘offending’ someone’s belief, then I’m afraid just saying ‘I don’t believe your god’ is seen as offensive, sometimes.
well the links are up on the other thread. your choice.
Answers: If you watched the question and answer period all Nye could say was ‘we do not know’. No answers.
evidence: yet he presented something but could not verify the examples as correct.
goat-herders– you are wrong there. there were kings, commanders, prophets, leaders and many other people who wrote the books of the Bible
“If you watched the question and answer period all Nye could say was ‘we do not know'”
Only to questions like “How did the Universe begin / How did life start”.
To those questions, the correct answer is “We do not know”, claiming to know, as you and Ham do, is arrogant, untestable and dishonest. You believe, you do not know.
“yet he presented something but could not verify the examples as correct”
You mean a tree accurately determined to be 9500 years old isn’t verifiable?
That the annual layers of snow/ice amounting to hundreds of thousands of years don’t exist?
I’m sorry, but now you are being dishonest.
“goat-herders– you are wrong there. there were kings, commanders, prophets, leaders and many other people who wrote the books of the Bible”
Mea culpa, let me rephrase it.
Kings? ‘Prophets’? Leaders? No, nobody knows who wrote any of the Bible. Yes, some kings n leaders may have added something here and there, but most of the Bible was oral tradition that eventually made it into paper. But NOBODY knows who wrote it.
But if your kings n leaders believe that there are ‘prophets’, that the earth is flat and saying incantations works, they are educationally at the level of goat herders.
BTW I do not accept ‘prophets’ as being a real proposition, to me, at best, they are people claiming to be prophets, while they probably are con-men (and history is full of them).
I’m afraid I have to decline the offer. My honest judgement of you from these few exchanges is that you cannot distinguish evidence from anecdote.
Good replies, Alessandro…but besides the rallying cry of “You weren’t there!”, which Ken Ham and creationists like to use, they also like to shout: “You have no proof!”, even after offered physical and visual evidence of an old earth or old universe. “God made it that way!” is easier for them than rational thought, I guess.
Thank you Sharon.
Indeed the “You have no proof!” spiel is so irritating, – especially with the overwhelming consensus in so many disciplines, from biology to cosmology via paleontology n geology – that I feel the need to face-palm/desk the Moon and send it into orbit around Jupiter.
Instead I’m gonna have to get a sammich with some tasty baby in it, that’s what atheists do, innit?
sorry I thought this was a christian website? Am I mistaken? I thought Christians were supposed to be known by their love for each other… does’nt seem to be much acceptance of others opinions here it seems. 🙁
How so? I tolerate a diverse group of people and have only banned 2 users, ever.
Sorry, i was probably being disrespectful to you by saying that. It is just my disappointment at times that Christians can’t debate without getting rude or nasty when challenged. Anyone for that matter. I just expect a little more from Christians. Can you please tell me the purpose of your blog perhaps to help me understand what is chatted about here? I take it you are a Christian but you get all walks of life talking about mainly what in particular?
The blog is about the intersection of faith and culture. A lot of topics are covered, but much of it is a critique of fundamentalism. Loving one another doesn’t mean I allow trolls to hang around indefinitely, if they’re only going to antagonize my audience without having honest & open dialogue.
That sounds interesting then. I used to be a fundi, but prob don’t classify myself in the category now…. and culture is interesting so bring it on!
Dangling, honey, I gather you’re a Ham clone and believe in a literal bible…and probably cherry pick like Mr. Ham proclaimed he does in the debate with Mr. Nye. Mr. Ham takes literally what he wants to–like Genesis and a 6,000 year old earth, but takes other parts as “poetic”. Snicker, snicker. Yup, cherry picking.
The “buybull” was written by men, not by god.
since you can’t be respectful I will decline to add further ocmment
Dangling. sweetie, at my great age and long battle with keeping creationism out of our public science classrooms, the most politeness I can muster at downright obtuseness, or is it outright stupidity?, is laughter.
It is amazing that Mr. Nye can offer so many scientific explanations as to the immense age of the universe, e.g., by measuring the speed and rate of retreating galaxies, and age of the earth, e.g., using radiometric dating methods on rocks and minerals; yet young-earth creationists shrill: “You have no proof!”
We can show morphological transformations of bone structures in related fossils through time to demonstrate evolutionary adaptations and change, but young-earth creationists shrill: “You have no proof!”
We can demonstrate the close relation of the modern primates through DNA, e.g., 98.8% of DNA is shared between humans and chimpanzees, yet young-earth creationists shrill: “You have no proof!”
It’s silly.
A similar DNA structure doesn’t prove an evolutionary process or a common ancestor. It proves that all animals needed similar genetical make-up to survive in the same environment.
Dangling, waving “buybull”: “You have no proof!”
Sharon, I have no problem with you questioning the bible, in fact its a good thing that we do. It is arrogance to assume we can read a txt that is thousands of years old, and from a culture we hardly understand, and say straight off the bat, yup, we understand it. But this is a book that is important to Christians. You are being disrespectful to others by calling it ‘buybull”. Would you do the same to the Qur’an? Would you challenge and insult Muslims the way you do Christians? Most people would not. They would not do that to most other religions either. Only the Christians and their silly bible it seems. I respect that you believe in evolution, but I do not. I have looked into it quite considerably, and there is an explanation for most things. Some, I will say, are stretching it a bit for creationists as well. Either way, we were not there so we interpret evidence thru the lens of our world view. Discussion over it great. it should be encouraged.
Re: “we weren’t there”: Ken Ham used this sentence in the “debate”. This seems to be the rallying cry of the creationists, who ignore the scientific methods that take us “there”, via the fossil record, sedimentary layers, radiometric dating, or the red shift to look back in time in the universe. You weren’t “there” at the time of the happenings portrayed in the bible, nor were you “there” when men wrote up the aftermaths and put their own slant on events…or when the pieces were cobbled together, rewritten, and translated.
Tracy, I accord the bible the same level of “truth” that I do all the other religious texts written in this world, from the Qur’an, the Vedas, the Torah, the Book of Mormon, the Guru Granth Sahib, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Bhagavad Gita, the I Ching, etc. etc. etc. I view religion as cultural.
Many of the events and people depicted in the bible are also in the Qur’an, so yup, I give it as much credence, but I also give it and the Hadith much less respect. It’s damn goofy that drawing a picture of a man, i.e., Muhammad, can give ire to a bunch of followers that they riot. Muslims have their own fundamentalists to worry about.
No, dang, sweetie. The close DNA relationship is why medications are tested on animals on the basis that humans evolved from animals. We wouldn’t have our modern life-saving pharmaceutical drugs if it weren’t for those close relationships.
Sharon I am prob one of the few Christians that think that religion should be kept out of the classroom in mainstream schools. Christian schools are different, and people have to accept that if they send their kids there, they will get taught about God. And that is fair and right they do so. However, in fairness to the multi cultural world we now live in, I would not have issues if Christianity was removed from schools, as long as no other religion eg: Sharia Law was introduced. Fair is fair after all. Kids should be getting taught about their faith at home and in their church community. School has enough time fitting in just the basics, without having to deal with religious issues. And most teachers that are BIS teachers, are not trained to teach anyway. So they could be saying anything! I would like to see at highschool perhaps a course on all the different religions and what they believe, in a fair and straight forward manner. And evolution included in that. It is STILL a theory, not a proven fact. NOT one religion scoffing at the other or one being promoted like evolution is as fact. Then people can make up their own mind what they choose to believe. Its funny, I see Christians trying to keep their religion in school, and evolutions trying to remove it – but when we cry remove evolution… we are dumwits and idiots? How is that fair? Truth is, its not. Evolution is still believed by faith. There is No proof in the fossil record of one kind changing into another kind. None at all, and until that happens…. I shall remain on the fence as to what I make of it all. 🙂
Tracy, honey, this has been explained over and over, so I don’t know why the bible-impaired cannot grasp that the word “theory” as used in a scientific context is quite different from the word “theory”, used as “speculative”, in everyday language. Ever hear of the “theory of gravity”…do you think the concept is just a “theory”, so not proven? If we don’t ‘believe’ in the “theory of gravity”, do we go floating off into space? A scientific “theory” is based on a group of hypotheses that have been proved by repeated testing–it’s called the “scientific method”. If there is enough evidence that support the hypotheses, then the explanation of the phenomenon (e.g. evolution) is known as a “THEORY”. It is not conjecture; it is not a concept just pulled out of the air. Evolution is a proven fact, sweetie, why do you think we have to devise a new flu vaccine every year…because viruses evolve to survive.
You have a problem with the fossil record? As a geologist, I sure don’t. We have excellent collections of fossils that show morphological changes from older forms to newer forms–to cite but one–the transition and adaption of large land mammals to sea-going mammals–e.g. whales.
http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2011/06/whales.php
Evolution is not a religion; it’s a basic biological and geological tool. At the Colorado School of Mines, I once held a Creation vs Science seminar because we have many middle east students in the Petroleum department, and exploration for oil, gas, and minerals relies on biostratigraphy—evolution of life forms. The students from Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, all believed that the earth was 4.5 billion years old and that the lower animals evolved, but that Adam and Eve were kicked out of heaven 10,000 years ago and put on earth by god. The students from Turkey were more enlightened and accepted evolution of all species. So, beliefs were shared in a civil manner, and we were all able to work together.
Glad to have another person up on the geologic record in the discussion. I only know my geology by osmosis (my husband is a geologist) but it’s amazing what I have picked up just watching him get all worked up examining a road-cut.
Hi, gimpi1. Yup, I’m a geologist, so I get very annoyed with the creationists, especially over their demands to teach their religion in public school science classes.
Ah, yes, I love to stop at new roadcuts!
Tracy and some others need to get their heads out of the bible, and take a good general science class. One doesn’t need a PhD to understand earth processes or the age of our planet. When I was in middle school we all had to take a basic “earth science” course. What is in the cirriculum these days?
Of course, I’ve seen the home schooling texts from the Bob Jones University press, which is full of creationistic junk…maybe some of these people were home schooled, or in fundamentalist charter schools. Somewhere along the way, basic science and how to evaluate was missed.
It’s not that people need to get their heads out of their Bibles– it’s that both sides need to stop putting forward this false choice of religion or science. You don’t have to pick one or the other, you can have both.
Benjamin, it is the fundamentalists of this world who demand this “false choice of religion or science”. I’m a geologist; I’m always questing after knowledge and answers; I’m a very spiritual person. But as an educated woman, I totally reject patriarchal misogynistic organized religion.
I work with Christians who are scientists. Two are Nazarenes, who told me they grew up in households that spouted the creationistic viewpoint, but when they went off to college and ‘learned’, and saw the geologic record for themselves, they put the young earth, and ‘dinosaurs romped with Adam and Eve’, and other silly stuff behind them. They are still church goers. They have their faith. They are also good scientists, who are making sure our watersheds are not contaminated with lead, arsenic, zinc, copper, chromium, from mining and industrial wastes.
Religion does not belong in our public schools, much less a science class.
I remember a year ago my husband came in all excited about something he’d seen at a school construction-site. It was…Drumroll… An Erratic Basalt Boulder! With Striations! And a Quartz VUG! AND… AND A FOSSILIZED AMMONITE!!! He said the school should just leave it in situ, bring the kids out and teach an earth-sciences class around it.
I admired it properly, then made him take me out for dinner.
Good choice! 😉
Nothing disrespectful was said. What is the point of quoting a book that was written by man? Men you probably know nothing about? It’s odd.
I mean, if I quoted from Dianetics or other Hubbard work, you’d laugh at me and say it was nonsense, right? it’s not a real religion, it was just made up by a guy to start a religion and get rich/powerful. How exactly were the writers of the Bible any different from L. Ron Hubbard?
It’s entirely different. The Bible is 66 books written over the ages so can’t be compared to one guy who invented a new religion.
Talking nonsense respectfully doesn’t magically make it sense.
Respect must be earned, not given.
I have little respect for a book that condones slavery, the beating to death of infants and gives the vicarious redemption of your ‘sins’ by the offer of a scapegoat, a human sacrifice, so that you can wash them away without facing any responsibilities.
The BuyBull is a book by superstitious, ignorant desert goat herders that gave us the Dark Ages, Crusades, burning of dissidents n witches, slavery and has opposed scientific discoveries in favour of ‘revelations’, like the earth being flat and the sky a dome with stars attached to it, separating the earth from ‘the waters’ (?!!).
Thinking that Spiderman is real because it appears in comics, isn’t an opinion that must be respected, and most people here see the Babble as just another book, which makes incredible claims, reported nowhere else, which necessarily should be doubted by a thinking person.
You have a right to believe what you want, but you don’t have a right to demand respect for swallowing the clearly barbaric morals orders of your Babble/BuyBull.
The Ham-Nye debate: Think elephant and two blind men.
I think Mr. Nye has excellent vision and an excellent open mind.
Sharon, Both men failed to address the deeper questions surrounding evolution. Ham is ignorant of the science. He only knows to respond with the YEC talking points. Nye did not distinguish between the aspects of evolution that are absolutely factual with substantial physical and genetic evidence and the aspects that are theoretical still lacking substantial physical evidence. In other words, the public is no more enlightened on mutation, adaptation, common ancestry and natural selection than before the debate.
Too bad Mr. Nye didn’t have a semester in which to stress that evolutionary processes are basic to the study of modern biology. Evolution is a tool to explain genetic variations, how new species arise, or how adaptations occur; it’s a basic principle to explain genetic mutation and genetic drift within a population. We can observe it today–such as in the evolving resistance of weeds and insect pests to our pesticides, or disease-causing bacteria to our antibiotics. We need a new flu vaccine every year because the virus evolves in order to survive.
Evolution has nothing to do with saying whether a god exists or not, so I don’t grasp why the biblical crowd should have a problem with a basic biological concept.
Neither Ken Ham nor Pat Robertson speak for the “biblical crowd”, many of whom are old earth creationists who accept key aspects of evolution. Nye at least recognized that when he confronted Ham with the fact that his Young Earth nonsense is not held by most Jews and Christians.
Pat Robertson has been a joke for a long time. Young Earth Creationists are not a joke, they are far too stupid to be considered a joke.
Have you actually gone to their website Nick and looked at the VERY long list of people who claim to be young earth creationists, that all have PhD’s and qualifications that would probably far exceed yours. These are not stupid people, as you so delicately put it.
Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, and Albert Einstein ALL dropped out of school at varying levels of “education”…Your argument has no merit, Tracy. These men AREN’T stupid, yet have no PhD’s. A piece of paper does not an intelligent person make.
Your argument also has no merit as not everyone can obtain PhDs without some level of intelligence in their field of expertise. But i agree – qualifications can show someone is clever in their field, but others who have no such papers can also be just, if not more clever. What it does show is that these people on the CSF list, are probably more knowledgeable than most people on the subjects around the sciences than the average person.
And you learned al-gebra and use Arabic numbers developed by some brilliant Islamic scientist. Does that make the Koran literally true? /wiki/List_of_Muslim_scientists
How you even connect those two things is quite splendid.
So a list of scientists does not validate a religious viewpoint? Which way are you swingin’?
It seems to with evolution! You take your position by faith too, although you would challenge that i am guessing. What i am trying to say there are valid points on both sides, which is what makes it hard to decide what i think. As for swinging… back and forth it seems! 🙂 On this issue anyway as i haven’t seen much evidence produced 🙂
Actually, I eschew faith, and won’t abdicate my mind to it. I prefer publicly verifiable evidence. I don’t hold up a list of scientists as validating of my position.
I won’t go into the fact you probably do quite a few things’ by faith’. However, like i said we are all on a journey of discovery, and I did not mean by ‘the list’ that I was validating my position – i was merely showing that intelligent people hold to a different one that you do. I will admit, the scientific evidence does lean to a old earth, but where that fits in with evolution and creation, I am undecided. That is why I am looking at ALL the options at the moment. And its hard. BOTH sides have valid points if we are honest. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t change the fact that i am still a Christian, whatever one I choose to go with.
I don’t do anything by faith in supernatural. There’s no reason my position is incompatible with Christianity.
“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
“…I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, 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
If they actually believe in Young Earth Creationism, then yes, Tracy, they are stupid and the should return their PhDs.
Return their PhDs AND receive a full refund because whatever school they went to taught them nothing.
So what you are saying is.. ” If they don’t think like me, then they are stupid”. But you give me no reason to think you are more intelligent than they. TELL me why you think they are, not just say ‘they are stupid’. I am open to hearing what you have to say in regards to an old earth. I am not here to mud sling – I am here for answers to this issue that is confusing me, and i would like to see some evidence of why a young earth cannot be possible please.
Well, given an omnipotent God, a young earth could be possible, but given what we know about God, a young earth is not probable.
One of the beliefs of Christianity, and most Western religions, is that the earth and the universe are physical realities, that have substance and are observable (what we see is what is.) Contrast that with most eastern religions which believe the material world is an illusion, we should not trust what we observe. Given that, it’s no surprise that science developed in the west.
The old earth concept comes out of our observation of a physical reality. The young earth comes from denying that reality and saying that what we observe is an illusion. That God essentially lied to us and created a young earth that somehow appears to be much older. If God would lie to us about the earth, that opens a Pandora’s box of what else he has lied about.
Given the choice between an eastern version of God who created an illusion or a western version, I have to choose the later.
Hi David. Thank you for your thoughtful response. I have been reading and looking into this area of my faith, and its been interesting to see most of the people I admire as this centuries respected theologians, like Greg Boyd, and N T Wright, both believe in evolution. years of being a creationist is hard to let go of, but I have got hold of a book by Phillip Pattemore, who I know personally, called Am I my keepers brother? and i am reading that with interest. I am starting to see all is not what I thought it was. 🙂
1Co 1:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:29 That no flesh should glory in his presence. 30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
(KJV)
Jesus said:
Jn 5:
46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me:for he wrote of me. 47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
(KJV)
Quote some scripture — that magically makes peddling nonsense alright, eh?
It is clear Robertson does not stand on scripture, he does as the serphant did in the garden ‘hath God said’
Ah, yes. The magical go to line when you do not want to do exegesis.
Ah yes, the accusation not grounded in proper explanation and you expect me to accept your point without proper backing? If my quoting is wrong, don’t just say it, explain it. Unless I am not reading you correctly..?
Discounting the process of adding genealogies is NOT the same as what the serpent said in the garden. So yes, you’re using it as a go-to-line to dismiss the claim instead of doing the hard work of exegetical research. Adding genealogies can’t be done since they do not flow from father to son directly, so the entire process of dating the earth this way is beyond silly.
Theistic evolution has way many problems than just counting genealogies. It really does clearly challenge many scriptures contextually. The most obvious one is Exodus 20:11-12 that show clearly that God made the earth in six literal days because the Sabbath in the text is a literal day as the Jews took it and and lived it. Never once would they be able to take it as anything other than a literal day, otherwise they would have suffered death for not obeying the commandment correctly.
Thus when you believe theistic evolution you have to twist many scriptures or not believe them. John 5:47 I mention because Robertson does not believe Moses in his writings of Genesis and Exodus regarding the days.
The first scripture I write because Robertson does not want to look foolish, yet that is the way God works. So clearly Robertson does not like the foolishness or being a fool to unbelievers which clearly comes with being a Christian according to the first few chapters of 1st Corinthians, not just the small bit I quoted.
I tend to agree with you Nigel… theistic evolution doesn’t make sense. In some ways i want to believe it, to make all these issues of young and old earth go away, but the more I look at it, the more i come back to 6 literal days. There are a few of my friends who would disagree with me, and at bible school we are taught that Genesis is both a narrative and poetic… Fords map and the Wesleyan Quadrilateral are very helpful tools to take into reading scripture so we gain a balanced view of what scripture might be saying.
Hi Tracey. It is worth looking at where the idea of millions of years came from. Charles Lyell was a major influence in this respect to Darwin and wanted to ‘rid the world of the law of Moses’
The world has already been rid of the Law of Moses. Do you follow any of this stuff?
Food laws – on what is clean and unclean, on cooking and storing food.
Purity laws – on menstruation, seminal emissions, skin disease and mildew, etc.
Feasts – the Day of Atonement, Passover, Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks etc.
Sacrifices and offerings – the sin offering, burnt offering, whole offering, heave offering, Passover sacrifice, meal offering, wave offering, peace offering, drink offering, thank offering, dough offering, incense offering, red heifer, scapegoat, first fruits, etc.
/wiki/Law_of_Moses
More boring than the begats.
Clearly there is more to the law of Moses than you mention there. The moral law of Moses is still in use as a schoolmaster to Jesus Christ. Assuming you have read the New Testament?
Clearly you are trying to weasel around the fact that you don’t follow the vast majority of the Law of Moses. Have you eaten at Long John Silver’s lately? It’s an abomination!
Clearly, the creation account is a poem. How’s that for context?
If you think it poem, you have ignored the context and many other scriptures that point to it as historical. You have bowed the knee to culture not the God of the Bible
If you deny it is a poem, you have ignored the context. Really.
P.S. I’m an American; I’m not some craven authoritarian submissive who bows knee to Ugaritic skygods plagiarized by the Hebrews, got it? “Question with boldness even the existence of a god…” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
And that is why Adam and Eve are often referred back to genealogies. That makes no sense. Please refer again to what I said above about the Exodus scripture. The Jews hardly saw the Sabbath as anything other than a poetical day. You destroy the truth of many other scriptures if you are going to say Genesis is poetical. See my recent posts
I said the creation account is poetical, not all of Genesis. Do fundies always have to twist things?
Yes. Yes they do.
Funny, because Hebrews teaches the 7 days are poetical and says that God is still in day 7.
How so? i thought the Sabbath rest was to do with Christ and his work on the cross, as Christ our rest?
verses please
I was taught at bible college it was BOTH poetic and a narrative.
Can you explain please what you mean by genealogies not flowing from father to son directly, and where you got that train of thought from?
The term “begat” can be used to refer not just to a son but to a great, great grandson. The Bible itself uses this method, at times condensing them in later books such as Chronicles and the genealogy of Jesus in the NT. this train of though came from studying the OT, biblical languages and theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
wow that is interesting. I did not realize that. So you obviously believe that the earth is older than 6000 years because of that fact?
I believe it’s older because of science. The Bible doesn’t teach anything about when creation began so it is not an answer that can come from scripture.
I have always been a young earth believer, but changing slightly on that also. Trying to keep an open mind on it all. . I like quite a lot of Greg Boyd’s theology, and he is not a young earth creationist either. I love new ideas and thoughts, so look forward to hearing more on here. 🙂
God created male and female in the beginning according to Jesus Himself, God made humans male and female from the beginning, not evolved them from anything else as ‘science’ teaches. So the question is, is Jesus true or science Benjamin? Read Matthew 19: 4-6.
Are you still believing a woman can be made from a man’s ribcage? Are you seriously thinking that humans walked with dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, wooly mammoths all around the same time period? That’s a lot of die off of different species in 6000 years.
Do you believe in the resurrection of Christ?
It is worth noting here that God created male and female in the beginning according to Jesus Himself, God made humans male and female from the beginning, not evolved them from anything else as ‘science’ teaches. So the question is, is Jesus true or science? Read Matthew 19: 4-6.
Science is true. And Jesus’ ethical teachings are excellent.
Jesus’ referral to the Genesis mythology doesn’t make it any more literal than Jesus referring to Zeus’ brother Hades makes Greek mythology literal.
You misunderstand both Jesus and science, a shipload of failure in two ports. It’s time to get things squared away.
Science in the sense of evolution is subjective. Many believed in piltdown and haekels embryo diagram – both forgeries, yet at the time they would be truth. Many ‘truths’ today are believed and then debunked. The Word of God does not change however.
Yeah, the word of god hasn’t changed. It remains some of the best Jewish fiction to this day. Fiction is a great way to convey moral truths (amongst a bunch of crap too,) but fiction it remains.
“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
Brian – the Gospels are different views of 4 men who focus on different aspects of Jesus. We would expect to see conflicting views looking at the same evidence. It doesn’t make it wrong, it makes it right in fact! If you ask any person who looks to solve cases, they will tell you that eyewitnesses always vary in their description of what happened. Every one sees different things. Rather that making it false, if everyone saw and described the same thing, THEN it would be suspect. The Gospels all have something in mind when written. John Gospel has less that 10% of the synoptic gospels, due to the fact he was showing his readers the Deity of who Christ was and its focus in on that. Also the fact the Gospels were written so soon after Christ’s death means that there were people around that could have argued strongly against their authenticity, but didn’t. You can rubbish them all you like, but keep in mind you take the rest of history like Alexander the Great as gospel! And these are more recent. The more recent a txt, the more likely it is that we can verify it.
You got cheated in Bible school. I’ve heard the same talking points over and over again, and they’re well-debunked.
Talking of forgeries, science weeds out forgeries and is happy to admit them.
Now, about the forgeries in the Bible…
Half of New Testament forged, Bible scholar says
religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/13/half-of-new-testament-forged-bible-scholar-says/
…still concerned about forgeries, are we?
I know that Jesus refers back to the Law of Moses when he was teaching and making a point. I also understand that Jesus was a Jew who was at that stage under jewish law and preached law to those who needed to hear law. He showed grace to those who needed it too. He was very astute! I agree that the Law was never meant to be lived by as a means to obtain righteousness with God, and was created to point to the One who could – even on the sermon on the mount – he preached pure law to show we can never reach heaven on our own merits. I sound very confused over the whole young earth old earth thing, because i am! I am trying to find my way thru a barrage of ideas that I ponder and try and resolve with what I already know. I am always ready to be open minded, but have retained some of my ‘fundamentalism’ due to the fact I can’t find any answers that satisfy me. I love Grace and believe totally in God’s grace towards me. i know i am loved unconditionally, and teach grace at my church, where it is not really talked about since its still pretty much works and Christian performance over resting in God. Such an exciting journey this God one… thanks for all your thoughts and keep them coming. i love pondering them.
I prefer not to stand on Bibles, it does them no good.
By the way, it’s “serpent”, not “serphant.”
But you can sit on a Bible, if you need booster, perhaps even for an electric chair. 😉
Oooh, the irony!
No—Pat’s age hasn’t actually made him more reasonable. He still believes a husband’s infidelity is his wife’s fault. This may be a single moment of clarity that occurs in everyone’s life. Well, almost everyone.
Did he say that a husband’s infidelity is a wife’s fault or that both parties are generally to blame when something major like an affair goes wrong in a marriage? I’m seriously asking because I don’t know the quote you’re referring to and those are two completely different statements.
I think it was more sinister than that. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/pat-robertson-cheating-husband-wife-marriage_n_3281416.html
I don’t know if “sinister” is the word I’d use, but that’s definitely pretty repellent.
I use sinister (I’m a writing MFA) here not merely because I think it’s evil but because he does have religious followers (albeit lots of old ladies), so it’s capable of leading others toward evil beliefs. But repellent works for me. 😀
Pat is old school. He is an “Old Earth” proponent, which predates Young Earth whipper snappers like Ham.
I can’t believe I actually agree with something Pat Robertson said!
I know right?
Well, let’s not get giddy here! Pat still gets a lot wrong. He talks about a “bishop in the Middle Ages … 1800 or something like that” (Ussher published his chronlogy in 1650 and 1654) and talks about “dinosaurs laying down all these layers.”
The salient point is that Robertson, purportedly a billionaire, is mainly concerned with oil exploration and the oil business … money trumps the Bible as far as he is concerned.