You missed his point: the article is saying that people can be genuine Christians while making Jesus irrelevant.
BTW, since you decided to toss in that block of text, please tell us what ancient near eastern literary genre it was written in and the lesson that the account conveys by using that literary genre. Additionally, describe briefly the polemical purpose of the account and how we know that it has a polemical purpose.
Too right they’d be warmer. But do you know just how much warmer?
Let me tell you.
Twenty. Two. Thousand. Four. Hundred. Degrees Centigrade.
Four times hotter than the surface of the sun. Four times hotter than the highest known boiling point of any chemical element.
And that’s just from accelerated nuclear decay alone. Catastrophic plate tectonics, and all the other accelerated processes on top of it, would bump the temperature up even higher.
And no, this wasn’t some kind of “secularist rescuing device.” It wasn’t some sort of attack to “discredit creationism.” It was the young earthists’ own admission.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a link to the place in the RATE project technical report where they do the calculations:
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Radiohalos-in-Granites.pdf#page=83
And here’s a link to the summary, where they admit that they don’t have any explanation of how the heat could have been removed:
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/RATE2-Summary.pdf#page=27
Seriously, with admissions like that, is it any wonder that the world considers young earthism a joke and scientifically educated Christians consider it an embarrassment?
ChristyChristy HemphillModerator
People who accept an evolutionary creation also affirm this.<
Dear Christy, thanks for your post.
Regarding: “People who accept an evolutionary creation also affirm this.”
Yes, I absolutely agree and that is why we are ALL part of the one body of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour,whether we believe in the literal historical narrative as written in Genesis or we believe that evolution is how the diversity of life and we came to be here.
Regarding: “ICR is famous for recycling old material and pretending they are being current. Look at their citations. They are old. They actually have no idea what we believe or what we talk about around here. AIG does the same. They have sub-par journalistic standards.”
I must admit that I don’t know a great deal about ICR or AIG except that from what publications and media I have seen from those organisations I am convinced they’re comprised of honest conscientious Bible believing Christian people who are working hard to bring the lost to our Lord and Saviour with gentleness and respect.
All the very best,
jon
Dear James,
this is in reference to the effect of magma coming into contact with the seabed and ocean water resulting in higher evaporation rates, that as I described in my post is the only mechanism that makes sense regarding a cause for the one ice age directly after the flood, which may have lasted for several hundred years until the oceans eventually cooled down.
I have met Andrew Snelling and corresponded with John Baumgardner and can testify that they are honest dedicated scientists who are seeking to understand the mechanisms God employed in His creation. They do not state anywhere that they have all the answers and there are certainly unresolved questions that still need to be solved. The heat produced from accelerated nuclear decay is certainly a problem yet to be solved.
Regards,
jon
The first part, sure. The gentleness and respect part, no, not so much. They flat out lie and mislead people about BioLogos with no shame.
What on earth are you talking about?? The 22,400°C was their own admission about what accelerated nuclear decay would do.
I think you may want to take a look at this:
Oh come on. The heat problem for accelerated nuclear decay is a deal breaker. It doesn’t take a “secularist” or a “materialist” worldview to see this, and it’s not a case of different worldviews giving different interpretations. Accelerated nuclear decay is a claim that is so bad that I’ve even had young earthists tell me they thought it was some sort of parody to “discredit creationism.”
You might be interested to read some of the threads on this Forum by @gbob Glenn Morton. He passed away in 2020, but he was a geologist who worked with many of these YEC guys at one point in his career and could point out all sorts of places where they have been debunked and know it, which makes you wonder why they keep lying about stuff.
Mount St. Helens aligns just fine with conventional geology, it’s nothing but a YEC squirrel. There are no sequence stratification there indicating alternating sea levels, metamorphosis, identity with formations separated by tectonic movement, or progression of index fossils including microfossils. A big pile of ash is what we expect, and that is what we get - nothing to do with the stratification which demonstrates epochs of geological age. Volcanic eruptions are very useful, however, for dating of sedimentary layers, correlating extinctions, and study of tectonic movement and erosion over hot spots, all of which indicate the passage of deep geological time.
Right where we expect them. A transitional fossil possesses characteristics of both groups, which benefited the animal at the time. Every time a new one comes to light, YEC responds with “that is just a fish, that is just a bird, that is just an ape, that is just a whale, that is just a weird creature.” Every year, more fossils are found, and there really is not much to speak of in terms of yawning gaps.
Others, including thousands of scientists performing these analysis, seem to know enough about radiometric dating to consider it a sound procedure that is solidly based on theoretical and empirical science and outputs reliable results regardless of worldview.
You may know how to run equipment well, but you rather belie yourself with respect to understanding how science works.
Science is like plumbing – there’s no such thing as ‘secular plumbing’ nor is there any such thing as ‘secular science’. The latter is something that doctrinaire YECs pretend and believe exists. Christians as well as unbelievers may conflate philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism, the latter being science, but devoted and honest believers can stand side by side with unbelievers and do the same science.
I wonder if you’ve seen this – it’s a very cool account of Christians and unbelievers doing good science together (at remote distances) [and getting the science wrong]:
Wait a second! It just hit me! What you and Shaun Doyle are saying is that,
LOL! Now that IS different than saying:
Dear Terry, I certainly do not take you for a fool under any circumstances. I actually was not aware that Shaun Doyle is an Australian and I fail to see how that is relevant.
You are correct that we do have irreconcilable differences. I thought that I had explained your query, i.e., in my post 122
If there was no fall, then we (humanity that is) would be in our original state, i.e., sinless, blameless and innocent before God. There would be no need for Jesus to give of Himself unto death to pay the price incurred by His own Holy character. In the sense of the crucifixion and only in the sense of the crucifixion, there would be no need for that to have taken place if we did not fall. But unfortunately, we (right back to Adam) did fall.
Regards,
jon
I had a revelation, and have rewritten the post to which you just responded. In light of my revelation, I must point out, if I am understanding you (and all of YEC-dom) correctly, you have put yourself above the Bible and all of the authors in it. That is unacceptable nonsense.
@Burrawang – Note my edit:
“…doing good science together… and getting the science wrong” may sound like an oxymoron, but if you’ll read the account, it will make sense. It’s also cool how the Christian scientist had to exhibit humility (rarely seen among YECists!).
YEC ‘geology’ is a wonderful place where crystals get bent without breaking in soft sediment layers and depositional layers don’t break – the problem being that in both cases what they claim is impossible.
I can barely make myself read YEC ‘geology’ claims any more since they put forth so many falsehoods that high school freshmen should notice it.
Just what is this six-point YEC creed?
I am disheartened by the bitterness that appears in your posts.
God knows my heart, your claim that I have put myself above the Bible is egregious and just plain wrong.
I respect the Word of our Lord and Saviour and would never do such a thing.
Please look hard at your posts, as you have put yourself in the place of accuser.
Here, again you make an accusation that is false. Why, I certainly don’t know?
I definitely affirm the veracity of Genesis as historical narrative. There is no ‘creed’, that I have ever heard of, that is a word that you have introduced into the discussion.
To clarify, if I understand correctly, the article written by Shaun Doyle, the thrust of it I understood to mean that if the Genesis account of the ‘fall’ of mankind into the knowledge of good and evil, did not actually happen as described, if there was no literal Adam and Eve, no tree, no deceiver, no fall, then Jesus would not have needed to die on the cross for our salvation. Shaun Doyle could probably have expressed it better because Jesus is always relevant and indeed He is holding the creation in existence right now. Without the Son who is Jesus there would be no creation, no you and me.
Please understand that we are all mere people who do not have all the answers, regardless of the differences in origins . All that matters is that each one of us has a relationship with Jesus. If I have offended you, please accept my unreserved apology. I do not wish that anyone be offended.
We look at the world, the creation through different sets of glasses, i.e., through different worldviews.
Regards,
jon
The point you make here, Jon, is I think, revealing and gets toward the heart of something that has been one of the core issues - not just for YECs but for modern Christendom in the west generally (though I would say YECs are right in the heart of it). And that is this: there is an assumption (and not a biblically supported one so far as I’ve seen - though its antithesis has lots of biblical support) that the “original” creation was pristine and complete in every sense of the word (both physically and spiritually). With that, then, goes a view (which you did not explicitly state above, but which often rides along implicitly) that Christ was then a “Plan B” that had to be brought into play after disaster struck. He’s the ‘clean-up’ crew. There is some scriptural truth in some of that - don’t get me wrong. But not all of it. This is where your assumptions come to haunt you and separate you not only from being able to read reality rightly, but separates you from being able to fully imbibe (imbible? 
) the scriptures rightly as a trustworthy workman. Christ was never a ‘plan B’! And nor was creation ever fully ‘realized’ or ‘complete’ or ‘perfect’ even before “the fall”. Christ was there in the beginning, and I for one believe that the incarnation was always in the plan - the Creator coming down and enjoying a Sabbath rest in the temple of the creation - very much including each of us as that temple now. There was always a wild, chaotic world outside that garden that would need ‘taming’ and stewardship, and we were meant to be God’s joyful agents in all that labor. The more I read of Moses and all the prophets and apostles, the more this all seems apparent to me from that narrative and the more it appears that the modern obsession with tying to force-fit biological and geological sciences into a modern-minted (and science-centered) theological theme (which is exactly what you YECs do!) the more I see that I would not only have to throw out science, but I would have to also throw out nearly the whole of scriptures in order to go along with your narrative! In short - the YEC narrative owes more to Plato (and really … Epicurus) than it does any of the scriptural testimonies.
That is why so many of us here choose to pursue the truth of God’s creation and written revelation (both) rather than to depart from both of those things to instead pursue a tradition of men that has, for many, supplanted any proper understanding of scriptures. Seen through the eyes of Christ, how could we choose otherwise? I know you won’t be able to leave behind all the erroneous manmade traditions quickly - it took years and decades for some here to extricate themselves. And when you’ve been immsersed so long into sources that have so misled you, it’s hard for the human mind to leave that deeply engrooved mental rut. But we’re glad you’re here! (Terry’s impatience with you notwithstanding). It’s a step toward taking an interest in ‘rightly explaining the word of Truth’ as Paul exhorts Timothy.
Blessings to you;
-Merv
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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