Or did he say instead: No one comes to me except the Father beckons him. [John 14:6]?
Or did he say both? In the case of Pilate’s judgement of Jesus, he would have been better off depending upon his wife’s intuition and found the Truth that the Jesus was innocent of blasphemy. But I appreciate his conundrum. And did God the Father skew the scales of justice just a wee bit to serve His purpose?
Al Leo
@gbrooks9
Plane Flies in the Face of Glaciology | Answers in Genesis
Found it.
We do not find dinosaurs and whales in the fossil record together…yet. I believe that we have discovered far fewer fossils than are out there.
Anyway, about layers…here’s an article from Answers in Genesis about the Geologic Column:
Something tells me that John 6:44 is not the verse I was quoting there…And, sorry to say, although your comment is indeed interesting, it may be somewhat beside the point of this discussion…
What do you all ,make of this verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Once again, this verse (John 1:1-5) seems to once again assert God “making.” (instead of “directing”)
Why did God then not say that he used a process instead of saying that He “created” man? And why does the Genesis account always say: “according to their kinds about the different organisms???” This seems to fly directly in the face of Evolutionary Creationism?
@jpm
Yes. Absolutely. I actually think that evolution itself — once you strip away all the misconceptions that so many people have about it, and discover how it really works — is a miracle. When I look at the way the laws of physics and chemistry are put together in such a way as to allow creatures to adapt to their environments, I can’t help thinking “Our God is an awesome God.” Have you ever seen the video, “The Inner Life of a Cell”? Those motor proteins that walk just blew my mind.
Of course, there are a couple of things that bear saying. The first is that I don’t believe in deceptive miracles. I don’t believe that God would have used miracles to make the universe look older than it really is, or to plant evidence for events that never happened.
The other thing is that providing a rigorous and systematic proof of miracles is really, really hard, and this is where the Intelligent Design movement goes wrong, because they think they’ve nailed it when they haven’t. But don’t let that worry you — there are other “obvious” things that turn out to be fiendishly difficult to prove rigorously as well. One example that may surprise you is close-packing of spheres. It seems obvious that the maximum density of close-packed spheres is when they’re arranged in a hexagonal lattice, but although this was conjectured by Kepler in the seventeenth century, it wasn’t proven until 1998, and it was only this year that the proof was formally accepted by the Forum of Mathematics Journal.
Have you ever heard of evolutionary algorithms? Engineers use them all the time to design — and make — things. There really isn’t a conflict there.
For the same reason as He didn’t say that He created man with a pancreas, a spleen and a liver. It’s just that the Bible doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about how God created, that’s all.
In what way does “according to their kinds” imply that “kinds” can’t change over time? It may mean that cats can’t change into dogs overnight, or that the act of mating between a ferret and a giraffe is geometrically impossible, but how does it mean that they couldn’t have had a common ancestor?
What is the difference? Do you think the Hebrew would differentiate? If Michelangelo created a sculpture, do you think he “poofed” it into existence?
And the whole “kinds” thing is a made up definition of a made up division of animals. Of course elephants give birth to elephants. Evolution actually is more emphatic about it than Ham, as he seems to say that dog like creatures give birth to wolves and foxes and dingos.
As to the links, they tend to present incomplete information and do not address the real issues, ignoring the evidence that opposes their view. Take a look at some other viewpoints like the book reviewed here:
Now, errors is not the only hypothesis for the discrepancy. Are you familiar with the account of Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego (hope I spelled those right)?
@gbrooks9
(Note: this is not a digression, but it is the first step in explaining what I mean. Thus, I wish to know that we are on the same page here)
The Genesis account says that God created them according to their kinds. This seems to overrule a common ancestor to me…?
This cannot be the same reason. One involves a simple to include detail of the creation, to include the other would seem beside the point. There really doesn’t seem to be any room in the Genesis account for evolution, and I would encourage you to read it (Genesis 1-3) and tell me your impressions).
The difference seems to be this: you apparently imply that God used a long process to create man, a process so long that it would be misleading to make it seem in any way that God simply “poofed man into existence.” Your Michelangelo analogy seems deeply flawed to me, as Michelangelo was a human being, like you and I, certainly not the Almighty God! He couldn’t “poof” a sculpture (let alone a living human) into existence even if he tried. I do find the thought of him trying to do that amusing, though, so thanks for that!
What Ken Ham seems to be expressing there is an agreement with the theory of “microevolution,” which dictates that variation is possible between organisms within the same kind. Before I go farther, would you mind explaining what you mean when you say:
Sad sad sad sad sad. This is not what evolution means, and you don’t even need a historical Adam and Eve for the Gospel to still work. Original sin is on its way out anyways and it doesn’t even matter. Clearly mankind does have a problem with this thing the Bible calls sin and regardless of how it got here, the cross of Christ is still the solution. There are loads of articles on the BioLogos site and many folks here affirm both evolution, the fall, and Adam and Eve. Perhaps you’d like to read Evolution and the Fall (https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Fall-William-T-Cavanaugh/dp/0802873790).
Sorry for assuming. It could be 7,000 years old you’re saying? Still a long ways to go to 13,800,000,000.
Sad sad sad. Completely untestable. Even YEC blogger Todd Wood admits that it isn’t science (Lisle responds to questions). Changing the speed of light changes everything. While its allowable in special relativity, there is a reason Einstein went with the standard convention (i.e. that the speed of light is isotropic everywhere). It means that you would also have to change the permeability and permitivity of free space, as light is made up of electromagnetic waves. It also would create measurable gravitational waves (which don’t exist). Anyways, one summary of the model can be found here: Quantum Non-Linearity: Answers in Genesis Screws It up Again
The worst part of all YEC cosmology models is that the universe appears like it has a history. Like God is just tricking us that it looks like things have followed the laws of Physics for billions of years but really haven’t. I listed many of them here:
A neat article on stellar streams was done on the BioLogos site fairly recently: Galactic Archaeology: Uncovering the History Written in the Stars - BioLogos
Nevertheless, the Ice Core dating system seems to me to have some serious issues…
What do you think of the “expanding universe” idea with the Earth being the center of the expansion point…thus allowing the light rays to get here in less time?
@pevaquark
As far as I can see, the two gaps in the Bible’s record of time (from Creation to Christ) are:
Still probably couldn’t be more that 1,000 years though. But think about it: a TON has happened since Christ, and that was only about 2,000 years ago!
So you said, but how does it overrule a common ancestor?
I don’t follow your logic here. Just because something’s “simple to include” doesn’t mean that we should expect it to be included, and it doesn’t mean it’s false just because it isn’t.
I have read it, many a time. My impression is that it leaves a lot of things wide open to interpretation about both the timescale and the mechanism of creation. For example, have you ever noticed that it speaks about God separating the light from the darkness on both Day One and Day Four? Also, what exactly did God create on Day Two? A solid dome? A vapour canopy? Or just the sky? And what are the waters above the sky? YECs like to talk about a “plain reading” of Genesis 1, but the one thing I get out of a “plain reading” of Genesis 1 is that a “plain reading” isn’t even possible — you’re going to have to do a lot of interpretation whichever way you look at it.
You’ll need to be more specific about what these issues are supposed to be.
Ice core layers are determined to be annual by three independent methods. They are also cross-checked against historical records of known volcanic eruptions, tree rings, radiometric dating, lake varves, Milankovitch cycles, and various indications of historical climate change.
There are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of different cross-checks done between different dating methods. That’s how scientists establish their reliability.
@pevaquark
If the universe is really as large as you say, chances are there is some way for distant light to get here that we haven’t discovered yet.
To justify this apparent cop-out: I know very, very, little about cosmology, and if you aren’t satisfied with the Answers in Genesis articles that I found, I myself have nothing to offer you on this front. A little challenge, though (assuming you are the sort of individual that gets into that kind of thing): Can you try to find a YEC article that attempts to explain distant starlight that you don’t have serious problems with? I would be very interested to know if you can…
You’re speaking about “not being satisfied” or “having serious problems with” AiG articles as if it were just a matter of taste. It isn’t. These are articles that either (a) don’t get their facts straight, or (b) propose radical new laws of physics that are contradicted by the evidence.
Or is the fact that 1+1=2 a matter of taste as well?
@jammycakes
Oh, no.
As I’ve said, with my lack of cosmological knowledge, it is practically impossible for me to know whether there are actually problems with these articles (which, to be fair, they seem to) or if you all simply marginalize Answers in Genesis and discard what they say (which I’m 95% sure you’re not doing, but, as I’ve said, I really don’t know).
Another thing: the Answers in Genesis article (Does Distant Starlight Prove the Universe Is Old? | Answers in Genesis)
that I had posted mentions a great deal of assumptions that lead us to believe that starlight proves that the universe is billions of years old. What do you think of those assumptions?
In general, when you hear Answers in Genesis making claims about assumptions, take them with a very, very, very large pinch of salt.
AIG claims that “historical science” relies on assumptions that are not testable because nobody was there to check. This is not true. There are ways of testing historical assumptions that don’t require you to have “been there.”
There’s also a tendency in YEC literature to cry “assumptions” as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card whenever they’re confronted with results that they don’t like. I’ve even seen YEC articles dismissing the cross-checks I mentioned as if they were assumptions themselves. This is completely the wrong way round. The whole point is that cross-checks test assumptions. They do not make them.
As a rule, if scientists are making assumptions, they usually are testable and have been tested. And that includes historical assumptions as well.
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