Is there a standpoint from which the creation days in Genesis 1 are described as 24 hours per day?

Faith & Science Conversation
341

The young earthist comparison of the distant starlight problem to the horizon problem is, quite frankly, a joke.

The two operate on completely different scales. The horizon problem concerns the laws of physics operating on the scale of the entire universe, right at the limits of what we are able to reason about and calculate, during the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. It is the kind of question that we should expect to be unanswered and mysterious without falsifying the Big Bang, ΛCDM cosmology, or deep time. The distant starlight problem, on the other hand, concerns the laws of physics operating on scales one million times smaller, over a distance a fraction of the size of our own galaxy, well within the range that we are able to measure and reason about directly using relatively simple mathematics and rock solid, reliable measurement techniques. It’s the kind of question whose lack of an answer is so egregious that it is a complete deal breaker for a young earth.

Tu quoque arguments are already bad because they are just a way of diverting attention away from the fact that you haven’t got a leg to stand on. But if you absolutely must make tu quoque arguments anyway, please at least make ones that make sense. Comparing the horizon problem to the distant starlight problem is like comparing Mount Everest to a teaspoonful of dirt. It’s simply patent nonsense.

Actually, black body radiation is a quantitative prediction. The black body spectrum is described by a specific mathematical curve, and it is possible to determine exactly how precisely the observations match that specific mathematical curve. This is something that young earthists do time and time again: they treat precise, quantitative measurements as if they were nothing more than subjective, qualitatitve arguments.

It can do if it is precise, quantitative and tightly constrained, and the alternative explanations all make predictions that differ wildly from it—if, in fact, they make any predictions at all.

Do you know what kind of prediction really does not validate a theory? The kind that is too broad to miss. Like, for example, young earthist predictions about the strength of Uranus’s magnetic field.

3 Likes
342

And if for the Kingdom, why not for the world?

= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =

That’s an odd claim given that the first ever description of a Big Bang was from Hebrew scholars examining the text of Genesis 1; on the basis of the Hebrew they concluded that the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard (idiom for the smallest thing possible) and expanded incomprehensibly rapidly to be like what we observe from Earth. There were no “naturalistic assumptions” involved; that was a philosophical view that hadn’t come about yet clear back when planetary movement prediction still relied on Ptolemy’s system of cycles and epicycles.

The Big Bang concept is not a “faith position” at all unless you mean the faith that God does not change the rules He chose for the running of the universe, it was an observation that almost all galaxies are rushing away from us and that this observation suggested that they all started out in one spot. There are no “unverifiable” assumptions of any kind.

Some very basic facts about the universe were predicted just from that simple model, and predictions that turn out to be accurate are just detective work that show the model the predictions come from is sound.

Um, no – dark energy and dark matter have nothing to do with the Big Bang!

All they have is evidence for their existence! Dark matter is like if you try walking in a totally dark cave and your feet keep getting stuck: you conclude that the floor is covered in something sticky even though you can’t see it. It’s called “dark” for that very reason, and it’s called “matter” because so far as we know only matter exerts gravitational force, and whatever this stuff is it’s doing that.
Dark energy is like if you’re walking on a floor in a totally dark room and you keep going faster and faster even though you keep walking the same consistently; you conclude that the floor itself is moving faster and faster. Again it’s called “dark” because we can’t detect it, and it’s called “energy” because almost invariably when something is making things move faster it’s a form of energy.

No – see above. They are the result of observation, as just explained.

Exactly: something we can’t otherwise detect is exerting gravitational force; since we can’t detect it we call it “dark” and because it exerts gravitational force we call it “matter”, and similarly for energy.

Think of running a lawn mower and suddenly it ‘coughs’ a few times then stops. You automatically conclude that it’s out of gas despite the fact that you haven’t lifted the gas cap to look.

No, it wasn’t – when Penzias and Wilson realized they were detecting microwave radiation that wasn’t from any source they could account for, it had already been predicted from the Big Bang model. In fact when they discovered it there was another team of scientists working to find it because the Big Bang model predicted it!

No, it isn’t. If our galaxy is at the center of a universe with evenly-distributed matter, the gravitational effect from the rest of the universe will be so close to zero as to make no difference. This is something every calculus student learns in second or third term, and astronomy students in calculus-based courses do the calculations and discover the same thing.

This is apparently very difficult for YECers and Flat Earthers to grasp.

1 Like
343

That’s probably the best explanation of dark matter and dark energy that I’ve seen.

You should point out though that the two operate on different scales, so there’s no contradiction between one getting you stuck and the other speeding you up. Although “operating on different scales” is another concept that /(young|flat)/ earthists seem to be either unable or unwilling to grasp.

2 Likes
344

Due to a bad translation and/or a bad Greek text that led to a bad Latin text.

Not the original Protestants, the Lutherans. It was the parts of the reformation that added humanism to their theology that declared it invalid.

Except there is no other model for the existence of the universe that accounts for – or predicts – the CMB.

Lisle is lying. He darned well knows that the “problem” he’s “presenting” doesn’t exist.
Here’s another lie:

The big bang model assumes that the universe is many billions of years old.

And another one:

The big bang requires that opposite regions of the visible universe must have exchanged energy by radiation

Those aren’t mistakes, they’re flat-out lies, and he knows they’re lies.

Lisle infuriates me because he lies and knows it, but he gets recognition and earns bucks so he just keeps lying. He gets away with it because so few Christians know any different and that “PhD” he has makes people trust him.

1 Like
345

It’s not without cause that he’s called “Lying Lisle”.

346

I know that @Burrawang takes offence at seeing young earthists with PhDs being described as liars, but the fact remains that as subject matter experts they can and should be held to a much higher standard than the rest of us. In deciding whether or not something qualifies as a lie, it is only right and proper to take the individual’s level of experience and expertise in the subject into account, and as such it is simply inexcusable for a PhD physicist, geologist or astronomer to make claims that can be falsified with nothing more than a quick Google search or a back-of-the-envelope calculation using GCSE-level maths.

Furthermore, their PhDs, and their positions within the Church as teachers on their areas of expertise, put them in a position of trust. For someone in such a position to be promoting easily falsified claims and blatant logical fallacies, that is a serious breach of trust, especially if, as young earthists do, you declare those falsehoods to be theologically important. This is what James 3:1 is all about, after all.

1 Like
347

I take serious offense at running into supposed Christians with expertise spouting statements that my high school freshman general science students would have recognized as false thirty years ago! And when I do, I call them what they are – liars – and if anyone objects to that then they need to examine their own hearts because they are not being faithful to the truth.

Quite so.

1 Like
348

Thanks for the reply jammy.

That’s the thing which I don’t understand.

Why YEC (it seems to me) discredit science with argument “No, The Bible don’t say X but Y” as if there is a rule which say science must be according to the Bible ?

And things which made me more don’t understand, (to me) it is as if YEC reconstruct science from X into Z in order it fits with Y.

Then the next thing, YEC use science Z to point out that science X is wrong. Where finally “you see, Y is in accordance with Z” or vice-versa “you see, Z is in accordance with Y”.

To my knowledge from the internet, science operates independently of religious beliefs and seeks to understand the natural world through empirical evidence, observation, and experimentation. While scientific theories and explanations may evolve as new evidence is discovered, they are not tied to any particular religious doctrine or interpretation.

Since I don’t know much about science, that’s why in my OP I say that I don’t want to involve evolution. So if there is a YEC’s member respond to my OP, I’m hoping that our groundwork must first be the same : “Ok… we see Genesis 1 as literal, and we only have the knowledge that rotating earth is spherical and day&night happen simultaneously on earth”

1 Like
349

They spell that out explicitly. Their belief that science must fit Scripture is the one thing that they hold non-negotiable and axiomatic. From the Answers in Genesis statement of faith:

No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field of study, including science, history, and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture obtained by historical-grammatical interpretation.

The problem is that what they’re making science fit isn’t Scripture itself but a cartoon caricature of Scripture with a thick layer of science fiction slathered on top of it. If they really were making science fit Scripture, their first and foremost concern would be for accurate and honest measurement.

Young earthists view that as a bug, not a feature.

The problem is that they misunderstand what it means for science to operate independently of religious beliefs, believing it to be a rejection of God or miracles. But it is nothing of the sort. It simply means that science has rules, and those rules are exactly the same whether you are a Christian or an atheist, whether God is involved or not, whether miracles are involved or not.

350

Dear James,
Well of course!

But the very fact you do not mention the rest of that educational quote from NASA is telling indeed:
" Big Bang theory assumes that matter and radiation are uniformly distributed throughout the universe and that general relativity is universally valid." No matter whether it is " a successful theory of cosmology" or not, the truth of the matter is that big bang theory is based upon assumptions that are held as a matter of faith and are not based on empirical evidence.

Of course you don’t agree, I wouldn’t expect anything else!
But instead of disagreeing by stating your opinion, what empirical evidence do you cite or offer to support the claim (quoting you), that the “gravitational well that could produce the million-fold time dilation that young earthists need would also result in conditions so extreme that they would not be able to support life as we know it in any way, shape or form.”?

You may find it informative that atheist Stephen Hawking has let the cat out of the bag, admitting there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the cosmological principle, i.e., that the universe is homogenous. The cosmological principle is yet another ‘faith’ position, whether you like it or not that is a fact.
The truth of the matter is that it is equally as likely that the universe has an outer extent and there is a geographic centre.

Furthermore, the cosmological principle is a key belief in big bang cosmology, if there is indeed a centre or an edge to the universe, then this would lead to serious complications for the big bang theory, to add to the other fudge factors employed to prop the theory up, i.e., dark energy and dark matter.

Should it indeed be that the Milky Way galaxy is indeed near the geographic centre of the universe, then time dilation may well explain how enormous lengths of time have elapsed for distant galaxies whilst only 6,000 years on Earth has elapsed.

The Earth is at just the right distance from the sun for water to exist in three states of matter, solid, liquid and gas. We are at just the right distance from the sun for ideal conditions on Earth for life. Similarly, the entire solar system is in a quiet area between the arms of our galaxy, in the habitable zone, where conditions are just right for life, and well away from the extremely harsh radiation sources that abound in many other parts of our galaxy.

Considering God’s loving provision for us all, it is not at all difficult for me to think that as the Earth is in a preferred location within our solar system, and our solar system is within a preferred location within our galaxy, that our galaxy may well be in a preferred location within the universe.

I sincerely suggest that you read:

AND

God Bless,
jon

351

Certainly, that’s what I’ve pointed at! To establish the Kingdom is to consummate the creation. Thus, the creation of the world where we live may be called a preparatory work for the advent of the Kingdom. And what Jesus says about the way of divine action with regard to the forthcoming Kingdom is also applicable to creation and preservation of the world.

1 Like
352

Ok… I understand that, Roymond.
Thanks for your explanation.

Here I accept what YEC teach, which is “Paul is reciting history”.
So, based on YEC’s teaching, I raise a question “why sin has not enter the world yet after Satan sinned or after Eve sinned ?”

Yes… I agree with that.
Yesterday I learnt new thing that “ha-erets” can be in a narrow-sense but also can be in a broader sense. It is something like a sentence: The earth shakes violently because the tremor is so powerful, and all the buildings on it collapse.

so… from the example sentence like above,
to YEC pov: the whole earth shakes, all buildings on the whole earth collapse
to non-YEC pov: of course it is not like that YEC pov :slight_smile:

Just now I ask ChatGpt, what is the altitude for a dove flying along the equator line in order this bird can see until both Poles. ChatGpt answer is something like this: “assumed that dove flies along the equator with the altitude 6 km, it’s still not possible for this bird to see both Poles because of the curvature of the earth. Besides, this kind of bird (dove) fly at max altitude around 1.8 km from the surface of the earth.”

I searched the internet quite deep, but I still don’t find YEC’s article which explain about the dove from Noah’s ark :slight_smile:

1 Like
353

Me too. So then sin already enter the world at that time before the fall.

But even if it refers to human, then why Adam not Eve ?
Sin enter the world through Adam Eve.

1 Like
354

An interesting question which I have never seen addressed. Given the assumption that men are in charge of everything and women are for cooking, cleaning, and having babies, it makes sense to blame Adam and leave Eve out of it. The Hebrew Bible is certainly patriarchal in it’s message. The early church returned to it’s patriarchal roots ignoring the important women in it’s early history.

1 Like
355

I agree with that, Jon.

However, Original Sin doctrine open the possibility to raise a question. From nowhere, it suddenly propose that before the fall: able to sin - able not to sin. While the story itself show that both of them (Adam+Eve) are not able not to sin.

356

Or… maybe it’s just Paul’s theology ?
Paul can’t use Eve, because Paul want to make a comparison with Jesus. One man vs One man.
Maybe ?

But then it open the possibility to raise a question:
so, if Adam not eat the fruit but Eve, then sin has not enter the world yet ?

1 Like
357
  • There is a rule: in order “to see” the rule, it may be helpful to read what Henry Morris said. Young Earth creationism
    • “Christians who flirt with less-than-literal readings of biblical texts are also flirting with theological disaster.” According to Morris, Christians must “either … believe God’s Word all the way, or not at all.”
  • Unfortunately, YECs believe that it is absolutely necessary to believe that the whole Bible is the word of God and absolutely true. That kind of reasoning leads to this:
    • “If Genesis is not true, then Jesus’ resurrection and ascension is not true.” That kind of thinking “puts the cart in front of the horse”.
    • The truth is, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:
      • 12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied."
1 Like
358

Paul probably shared the common Jewish understanding that Adam was both the first man and all humanity. Genesis blurs these two ideas together (see 5:1–3 especially), and even the name Adam is simply a standard Hebrew word for humanity.

Paul commonly took things that are many and singularized them to show how they stand together. It’s the flip side of the majestic plural – the emphatic singular. All our baptisms are the “one baptism”; all that Christ offers is our “one hope.” All believers make up Christ’s body or form one temple.

So, in the second half of Romans 5, Paul is likely collapsing the serpent and the first humans into one as Adam. Last time Paul had talked about the first humans falling into sin, he kept them plural and again generalized the story so we can all see ourselves in it (Romans 1:20–25). This time, in order to make a contrast with Jesus, Paul fuses all the rebels into one man. Since that one man is named Humanity, it fits quite well.

And, this isn’t the only time a New Testament writer makes many people into one to pair them with Jesus. Most obviously, all followers of Jesus are presented as the one woman who is Christ’s bride. This way of speaking does take more work to unpack, but it’s not surprising from people following a Messiah who loved to speak truth in parables.

2 Likes
359

That’s because I’ve already dealt with this particular point, Jon.

“Assumptions” are NOT a get-out-of-jail-free card. In order to challenge a scientific theory by questioning its assumptions, you MUST explain how those assumptions could have been violated in a way that would still produce the same raw measurements, together with their correlations and cross-checks, to the same numerical precision. If you can’t do that, you are just spouting magic shibboleths, and you might as well be saying “Fusty musty dusty, pop goes the weasel.”

In any case, even if you were talking about truly untestable assumptions, that would only put it into the category of “incomplete.” It wouldn’t put it into the category of “incorrect.”

It’s simply a matter of understanding how time dilation actually works and doing the maths to work out where, exactly, it could occur.

Million fold time dilation does not simply occur within any old gravitational well. It only occurs to that extent at a very specific distance from a very large mass, given by this equation:

t_0 = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{2GM}{rc^2}} = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{r_{\rm s}}{r}}

The empirical evidence for this equation is that your sat-nav in your car works, and doesn’t show you as being in Dunfermline when you’re actually in Basingstoke.

Plugging the numbers in, we find that you only get that kind of time dilation one trillionth of a Schwarzschild radius above the event horizon of a black hole. For TON 618, one of the largest known black holes in the universe, that distance is about a metre or so. For a black hole the mass of the sun, that distance is about three nanometres—about the width of a strand of human DNA. I think it should be pretty obvious that such places aren’t exactly a holiday cruise ship in the Mediterranean.

So sorry, even if the Earth were near the geographic centre of the universe, the idea that it would be experiencing million fold time dilation relative to anywhere else in the universe is simply mathematically nonsense.

I’m not denying that fine tuning is a thing, Jon. In fact it’s something that I acknowledge should make us stand in awe of God. But there’s one other thing you need to understand here: fine tuning requires the fundamental physical constants to have been the same in the past as they are today. If they ever had been different in the past by only one or two percent, let alone the factor of a million or a billion that young earthists need to squeeze the evidence into six thousand years, then the fine tuning would have been shattered. And no, that’s not just my opinion. It’s a fact; the consequence of basic maths.

4 Likes
360

That’s a question they don’t dare face because the source of the idea that for the Bible to be true it has to be scientifically accurate is not the Bible but something outside the Bible, and that something is scientific materialism under which in order for some writing to be true it has to be 100% scientifically accurate. This is an idea that cannot be found in the Bible, and thus the very foundation of their enterprise rests on a foundation other than the scriptures.

But they don’t even adhere to that! The historical-grammatical method can be summarized thus:

The process for determining the original meaning of the text is through examination of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre as well as theological (canonical) considerations. (Wikipedia)

What they fail to include here is that they do not apply this method to the original, actual text of the scriptures but to one or another English translation, rejecting the possibility that they should actually study the “grammatical and syntactical aspects” of the original language or that there could be any literary genres that they can’t recognize without having to think more than superficially. YEC thus requires ignorance.

Amen!

A point emphasized by one of my atheist university science professors in answer to a question from a student during lecture. The question was to the effect of “Doesn’t that mean there is no God?” and the answer was basically “Not at all – that’s ridiculous”.

That’s just ignorant hand-waving that any high school senior in an AP calculus course could show to be wrong with a half-page of simple math.

Given the observable size of the universe, it would be statistically impossible for there not to be a planet with the characteristics that Earth has. This means there is nothing “preferred” about it.

I see Humphreys plays fast and loose with the text of Genesis as well as the language, redefining רָקִ֖יעַ (rah-QEE-yah) to fit his scheme. The word meant a solid surface, indeed originally a beaten metal surface pounded into a desired shape, it did not mean vast distances of essentially empty space.
He then throws out a cardinal principle of interpretation, namely reading according to context, by taking scientifically scripture passages that are poetry and metaphor and thus not meant literally. He does the same thing with terms used by cosmologists!

Since he demonstrated that he isn’t interested in being honest, I didn’t read any farther.

Why am I not surprised that the very first sentence is either a lie or a matter of ignorance?:

‘Dark matter’ is an essential ingredient to form stars naturally given only standard known physics.

That is not and never has been true – “standard known physics” before anyone had a clue about dark matter explained star formation quite nicely, and it still does. Evidence for this is that there are galaxies that are apparently lacking in dark matter yet they have plenty of stars.
I allow that this may be a matter of ignorance since most cosmologists believe that dark matter was essential for early galaxy formation and thus indirectly for early star formation, but again it is not needed to have galaxies, just to have them early.

1 Like