Is it just me, or is anyone else finding Victor’s arguments a bit difficult to follow?
2 Likes
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
_ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:_
_ All mimsy were the borogoves,_
_ And the mome raths outgrabe._
1 Like
No, it is just you.
Kidding, I am trying hard to see the point of view, but having difficulty. I’m afraid I am a little concrete in my thinking.
Victor, if you could elaborate on some of the ideas put forth such as “science and change are opposite worldviews.” Most of us have a good idea what science is, but what is “change as a worldview?”
Would be nice to see some references and foot notes attached to some of these statements??
2 Likes
That is actually measuring time. Dividing up the day into arbitrary parts is exactly what a clock does, whether it’s an ancient clock or a modern clock.
But the marks inside the pots are arbitrary, as you have already acknowledged. That’s why these are called “clocks”, because they are instruments for measuring time.
Evidence please.
This sounds like the stuff of Immanuel Velikovsky. Where is the evidence for these claims?
No, this is a common misconception. The Hebrew Bible itself describes the sky as the color of sapphire.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, since the idea that matter changes has been current since Heraclitus in the 6th century BCE.
You have made a lot of unsubstantiated claims, most of which flatly contradict well established linguistic, historical, and scientific knowledge. Here are just a few.
- Dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans
- Neanderthals had purer genes than we do
- Neanderthals lived for geological ages
- Neanderthals were humans
These claims have no basis in reality. Contrary to what you claim, the current understanding of the universe (the “standard model”), has demonstrated robust resistance to falsification, enormous explanatory power, and significant predictive success. You would be well advised to learn more about science in general before attempting to overturn this consensus view.
4 Likes
Lets talk about elementary assumptions, which the Greeks called arche: first principles. All version of philosophy, including Western science, are built upon historical first principles. Proclus, 412 - 485, wrote of first principles in his commentary on Euclid’s Stoicheia. He claimed no science demonstrates its first principle or presents a reason for them. Even theories of motion depend on a definite first principle, which philosophers hold as self evident. Mixing in the same pot your principles and their consequences disorders one’s thinking completely. Why? A principle and what is contrived with the principle are different from each other.
I went to Western schools and learned to think synthetically (mathematically) like a Greek philosopher. I was not aware that the Bible warns about the elementary ideas of the world and philosophy that can take us captive (Col 2:8). I did not know how to think like the prophets of the Bible, who didn’t even have a concept of a time continuum. [Paul may have been trained in philosophy in Tarsus. However, he says the stoicheia (elementary principles) of the world held him in bondage as a child Gal 4:3.]
I loved science and worked in physics most of my life. However, I struggled with the various theories of Creation, trying to understand the Bible with science. Finally, in desperation, I asked God to help me. I discovered that I was double minded, I tried to interpret the Bible with Western science. I discovered that the authors of the Bible could not think scientifically. In fact, a Western scientific mindset did not finally gel until a few centuries ago.
The Bible predicts the elementary principle (arche ktisis) first law of the last days. Peter also predicted two things modern scientists do because they hold the principle that all things remain the same. Scientists reject the evidence that the plural heavens came out long ago (ouranoi ek palai) because they believe that matter is NOT changing as it ages. Even their definitions, methods and laws depend on this medieval assumption.
You will not understand the evidence I point to unless you are willing to first examine the fundamental principle upon which Western science was built. This idea came from the writings of the Dominican Friar Thomas. The stories scientists tell about the history of the universe are incredible myths. The myths, like redshift, were contrived with the idea the Bible predicted for the last days.
Understanding the world with the ancient concept of change is diametrically different from science. The two are not compatible. They are two different ways of defining what is evidence and how to understand evidence.
My claim is that, once you reject the assumption upon which Western science was contrived, you are allowed to believe what telescopes reveal.The scientific universe that is 99% undetectable magic because they only know how to think with the philosophical notion that matter is not changing itself (relationally) as it ages.
Victor
Let’s talk about evidence; specifically, the evidence for your claims. Then we can have a rational conversation.
1 Like
Convince me that the magic of the Universe makes the Earth less than 10,000 years old… THEN you’ll have convinced me on everything.
2 Likes
My claim is that it is science that has made telescopes possible. And we already believe what the telescopes reveal, anyway.
1 Like
But you’ve never attended Hogwarts.
Hogwarts is much like the Hebrew sojourn of Egypt… it is a magical idea… but a confusion of times, theology and archaeology …
all of which makes the authentic life of Jesus by far more credible in comparison…
I am not a Hebrew scholar. What I am asking has to do with whether the language at Genesis 1 conveys the sense that God not only sets apart the objects but is also intimately involved with their “beingness” so that the existent (differentiated) is also in God and that there is an undifferentiation. This requires one to reject modern deistic notions of deus ex machina, no doubt. This also puts into question the relative trust one has in the scientific method in that as a method which requires objectivity that there in fact is a limited capacity to recognize objects as they are. Whereas, in fact, there is more reason to make a vigorous critique of this method to set its criteria of validity into a relative place which does not exhaust the capacity to test other worldviews.
I’m not distrusting science here. But the author of this thread (Victor) seems to be saying that the assumptions upon which we trust throw us into believing what the telescope reveals. But I can only opine here and let Victor interpret for himself.
I didn’t say you distrusted science, did I?
My initial statement was not directed but is a general assertion. I apologize for not being clear and perhaps not using the forum reply tool correctly.
Sorry for the obfuscations. I was trying to capture too much in a brief sentence and ended up rendering my thoughts abstractly. To put it as plainly as possible I believe as a Christian that God creates and the object created is never fully without God. In other words there is differentiation because God is the Creator and there is a created object (yet subject also) and yet is not so differentiated that it is outside God. I suppose it would help if I stated my terms as coming from Meister Eckhart and perhaps only dimly reflecting the biblical text itself.
Moses could not write a scientific version of creation. Why not? Empirical science did not get its foundation until 2700 after he died. He did not even have a word for time or verb tenses with which to record creation “in time.” Yet we confirm his grammatical words with telescopes. We see cosmic history by comparing the shape and colors of billions of galaxies at many ranges. This is like looking at the frames of a movie, sorted by dimness, angular size and shape. Billions of galaxies became spreading things (raqiya) as God continues to commands them to do in the Genesis text.
Scientists propose ad hoc stories backed by undetectable things to deny the only history that is visible. A tiny bit of vacuum smaller than an atom exploded and created everything out of nothing. The vacuum of space time alters the frequencies of passing light. Six times as much invisible matter clumps around spiral galaxies,forcing orbits to fit their laws. Galaxy cluster can have from 20 to 100 times as much invisible matter as the natural kind, trying to prevent what is visible. 70% of all processes in the universe involve the acceleration of the spreading vacuum of space time. The story that stars accreted from dust is absurd, since we observe in many primordial galaxies how globs packed with stars emerge and spread out from point like cores. Even locally, we observe hundreds of herbig haro stars shooting out bidirectional jets forming dusty nebulae. This is opposite of scientific stories that stars condensed from dust.
Why do scientists obfuscate cosmic history? They are fulfilling Peter’s prediction for the last days. Peter predicted that they would reject (ouranoi ek palai) that the heavens came out long ago. Why? Becasue they believe that all things remain the same.
According to Hebrews 11:3, God commands the eons to passively form as lights appear from things not seen, exactly as we observe in cosmic history.
Science developed only in the west, where the popes promoted Aquinas metaphysics. Thomas believed God is absolutely changeless. What he created could change in many ways, but its essence, what it intrinsically is (Latin esse), does not change. This is the fundamentalist idea upon which Western empiricism was built.
My claim is that the biblical God will triumph over science. On that day, the pride of man in their science will be abased and the Lord alone will be exalted. Why? Man cannot come to faith through humanist wisdom. only with the God inspired faith of sinner who trusts Christ. The triumph of the Bible over science is not far off. How? Scientists keep building bigger and bigger telescopes (James Webb, ALMA, Square kilometer, SALT, GTC, GMT, TMT (thirty Meter Telescope), E-ELT (extremely Large Telescope). So far, only a handful of astronomers accept what is visible. An exception is Halton C. Arp who died a few years ago. Why? The great structure of Western science depends on a tiny assumption that they never discuss or test: that matter is not continually shifting its properties as it ages.
Change and science are opposite worldviews. The authors of the Bible lived in the era when people understood natural history with change, not time.
Victor
And yet … science is still clear enough on the age of the Earth . It is billions of years old … and on this, geologists have provided plenty of normal science, supported by cosmology - - the Earth cannot be less than 10,000 years old.
Upon this foundation, everything else depends…