Why are you here? This is a blog of science, for science, and for God. You can’t convince anyone here that science is meaningless… so what are you accomplishing?
I’m sorry, @LT_15, but that is simply not true. The earth is loaded with evidence that simply can not be interpreted any other way than that the earth is billions of years old. The interpretation of the evidence is a matter of measurement, simple mathematics, and rigorous cross-checks of independent dating methods – nothing more, nothing less.
I’m sorry to be blunt here, but the PhDs who claim that it can be interpreted differently by looking at it with different presuppositions are lying. They themselves admit that to squeeze the evidence into six thousand years would have released enough heat to vaporise the earth’s crust many times over. Just read up about the conclusions of the RATE project and you’ll see what I mean.
I’m sorry, but if you want to demonstrate that it is not a magic shibboleth, you must give an accurate and coherent explanation of (a) exactly what the assumptions and presuppositions are, (b) why they are fallacious, and (c) how the evidence can be interpreted differently without cherry-picking data, quote mining, exaggerating the extent or significance of error bars and discordances, or making arithmetic errors.
If you can’t back up what you are saying with a few basic examples and details about your reasoning, then it is nothing more than an unsubstantiated assertion, and as such, it is a magic shibboleth.
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@Bill_II, So there are a lot of people repeating the origins of the universe and life? You know better than that. Evolution is not a repeatable, testable, thing.
Does not the Creator use natural laws to create the rains? Does he not, from time to time, use rains to fulfill his plan?
Yes and yes.
But you ignore the words of Job that speak of God storing snow and hail in warehouses orbiting Earth.
I don’t ignore those at all. I understand genre.
And you ignore the senselessness of referring to four consecutive days, when the only way the Hebrew ever measured days was by counting the circuit of the sun through Earth’s sky… it is how they know when it is the Sabbath. But for four days there was no sun … and by any judgment of our esteemed ancients… there could not have been four days. The four days were in fact one day.
That is just nonsense. Days are measured by hours and time, even if not as precisely as ours. But for those four days, there were no Hebrews to measure time, and with the creation of time there is the need for its passing. It happens to be what God calls days.
When it comes to natural law, the 6 days of creation is a cobblestone of error and contradiction. And that is because it was not intended to mean what you say it must mean.
And yet Bruce Waltke said that’s exactly what it was intended to mean. And that’s all the Hebrew in that passage ever means. The Hebrew is not confusing at all. You presuppose it has errors because of your (apparent) vast knowledge. Yet you have to acknowledge only one being was there to see it (God). And you don’t trust him.
Why are you here? This is a blog of science, for science, and for God. You can’t convince anyone here that science is meaningless… so what are you accomplishing?
I read here to learn. Unlike many I want to know the “other side.” I am not trying to convince anyone here that science is meaningless. Far to the contrary, I am trying to convince us that science matters and we should take it more seriously than we do.
it is absolutely true. The evidence exists. It does not need to be created. In fact, it cannot be created. The earth is, as you say, loaded with evidence. However, there are other interpretations of it that actually make better sense of some of the evidence and data.
And you reveal a basic presupposition: That there are not other explanations. Your side assumes that everything must be interpreted from this old earth perspective. You ignore the data that contradicts that or calls it into question. And your side is willing to accept absolute nonsense in order to preserve the position.
Take as one example, the argument that the distance of the stars indicates millions or billions of years. That is a simple out of hand rejection of the idea that star light could well have been created in place as Genesis 1 says, so that there was no need for it to travel initially. Now you will reject that out of hand most likely. And when you do, you will be demonstrating the very assumptions and presuppositions I say exist.
One of the most interesting things of coming here as an “outsider” so to speak is how many people seem completely unfamiliar with anything other than their own views. I come here to interact with people from time to time to learn. I find some very respectful people and enjoy the exchange. I also find some other people.
But in the end, this is not a good forum for laying out even an introductory argument.
I’m sorry, but light being created in place is the creation of evidence for a history of events that never happened. Especially when the light in question has the appearance of having come from galactic collisions that appear to have taken hundreds of millions of years.
Can you please give some examples of old-earth claims that you believe to be absolute nonsense – and explain what makes them absolute nonsense and why?
As far as ignoring data, I don’t ignore data solely because it calls the old-earth position into question. I only reject interpretations that misrepresent the evidence, perform meaningless calculations, exaggerate the significance or extent of error bars, refuse to submit to meaningful peer review, quote people out of context, or otherwise make claims that are demonstrably false.
To give just one example: the amount of salt in the oceans. YECs claim that this proves the earth can not be more than x years old (the value of x depends on which YEC you ask) but the rate at which salt enters the oceans and the rate at which it gets deposited (e.g. in halite formations such as what you find at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea) are very poorly known, extremely difficult to measure, and change constantly as new, more comprehensive studies are undertaken. The error bars are enormous, and a state of equilibrium lies well within the uncertainties involved.
Every other example of evidence for a young earth that I’ve seen suffers from similar problems. Tiny samples with huge error bars are presented as “overwhelming” evidence for absurd new laws of physics that would have vaporised the earth if they had any basis in reality. Discrepancies of just 20% or so in conventional methods are presented as evidence that all conventional dating methods must be out by a factor of a million. Rejecting claims such as these is nothing whatsoever to do with “presuppositions” or “assumptions”: it’s about respecting the basic rules and principles of how to measure things. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you want the gory details, take a look at my review of Answers in Genesis’s “ten best evidences for a young earth.” There’s a lot of material in there, but you’ll get the picture if you read the introduction and the conclusion. I start by giving some specific criteria that evidence for a young earth needs to meet, and then conclude by summarising how they fail to meet these criteria.
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This shows how little you know of evolution. The Theory of Evolution makes predictions. Each of those predictions are tested. Each are confirmed. Every time a prediction is confirmed is evidence that evolution is repeatable. This is how science works.
The star light that was created in transit reveals events that happened in deep time. Why would a trustworthy God create light which testifies to a false history? He wouldn’t and He didn’t.
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A better analogy would be to compare the creation account with the parables that Jesus told.
At one point in history almost all theologians thought the Sun moved about the Earth due to their interpretation of the Bible. That interpretation has changed because of science. Do you think this is a bad thing? Should the Bible be re-interpreted if we find contradictions between an interpretation and the facts found in the universe around us?
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I would love to see how YEC is scientific. If it were scientific then you could describe what types of possible evidence would falsify YEC. For example, what features would a geologic feature need in order to falsify YEC? What features would a fossil need in order to falsify YEC? What shared genetic markers would falsify YEC? If you can’t describe how YEC can be potentially falsified, then it isn’t science. I could name hundreds of potential falsifications for OEC and evolution, but I have yet to see YEC supporters do the same.
First off, we don’t need to know the origins of the universe in order to measure the age of the Earth. We also don’t need to know how the first life came about in order to determine how life changed over time after it did appear.
Second, that’s not how the scientific method works. The hypothesis is evolution. You don’t observe or repeat the hypothesis. Instead, you TEST the hypothesis using repeatable observations. Those repeatable observations include (but are not limited to) the distribution of physical characteristics in living and fossil species, the distribution of species in the fossil record, the distribution of species across the globe, and the pattern of genetic divergence within and between species. The hypotheses put forward by the theory of evolution have passed all of these tests for the last 150 years which is why it is scientific and why it is nearly universally accepted by biologists from across the world. YEC, on the other hand, can’t even come up with a testable explanation for any of these observations.
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We simply point out that we have yet to see a scientific explanations from YEC supporters that pass testing.
You do understand why this is not a scientific explanation, right?
If you could, can you describe types of observations one would need to make in order to falsify this YEC explanation? How is it testable in a scientific manner?
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And so you think the ancients had any accurate way to measure time in hours? It was easy to divide a day of various seasons into smaller units… but that wasn’t how anyone actually managed their time. Appointments were set for the early, middle or late morning or the early, middle or late afternoon… that was about it.
Technically speaking, a day and night in the Winter is actually different from the length of time a day and night was in the Summer. So which days did God use? The 24 hour day is an average. Most days are longer or shorter than 24 hours.
The Sabbath is determined by sunset… not by hours.
You write:
I think that’s what everyone has been trying to explain to you. What God calls days doesn’t need to match anything that humans would call days … until the Sun is created!
Those first four days could very well be millions of years…
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Hello LT,
Looks like we have a couple of interesting threads going here, so I’ll break this post into 2 parts.
Well, seeing that nobody believed in biological evolution (though it was talked about in academic circles) until Darwin provided evidence, your statement is historically false.
Talking about evidence, question: How can one explain nested hierarchical genetic mutations outside of common descent?
What are these presuppositions and assumptions?
I’m presuming from that statement that when you help someone become a Christian you don’t require them to have a YEC worldview, am I correct?
We all believe that we are divine creations, just as I’m a divine creation though I started as a zygote.
Peter said this in the first gospel message:
'Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' (Acts 2:38)
“Repent and be baptized”…for the forgiveness of sins. So you are completely wrong about baptism being, “added on” right off the bat. Of course, I"m sure you know that Jesus commanded the 12 to make disciples and baptize them.
"Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," (Matthew 28:18-9)
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Hello George.
How then do you explain these 2 quotes from Exodus:
"For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (20:11)
"It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." (31:17)
Isn’t this getting a little circular? @LT_15 pretty much said a day to God is whatever he says it is…
But regardless of the actual hours involved, Genesis clearly labels the periods as “days”. Would you expect Moses to invent some other term?
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100% absolutely!
1 Cor 9:20-22
20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.
We shouldn’t change the important truths of God. But whether creation was 1 days or 6 days or 10 gozillion years is so beyond extremely insignificant to the gospel of Jesus. The central teachings that God created us shouldn’t be changed, or that He is loving, and had a relationship with us or that we rejected Him, or that Jesus reconciles us to Him. Core truths of God should never be changed. But simple statements of processes…are you kidding me? Who cares if the flood and ark was an allegory to teach that God loves us, or it actually happened and God still loves us. God loves us is the common denominator, the rest can be thrown out.
So should we have not “changed” our thoughts that the earth is flat? Or the sun revolves around us? These aren’t truths of God we are changing, we simply learned through the blessings of God, and realized we probably interpreted a few things incorrectly.
I believe the scriptural account. I believe the literal interpretation of the scriptural account isn’t very logical. But if you want to believe that, I really don’t care. I would rather you focus on the important truths of Christ to all. If that means I have to consider the possibility of the almighty me might be wrong in how I interpret something to show the love and truth of God to others, than I am all for it!
Really? Cite one Biblical instance were Jesus debated with anyone on a topic other than a truth of God. He did speak an awe full lot about not being too prideful so as to detract away from the glory of God and His love. He related to others, met them WHERE they are (whether a harlot or a evolutionist) and told them the truth of God and how there is a better way to live. Not a better way to interpret Genesis, but to live. Echelons and amplitudes of importance over an interpretation of a historical event.
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