Either what we see is what we get or the universe is a movie set.
2 Likes
My Wife and I were at a birthday for Paul Portteus (vintner) and we were the only people not in the wine business. Someone had brought a bottle of very old wine that was supposed to be very good. When it was opened, all the experts said it had gone bad. Me, my favorite wines are Thunderbird and kosher concord grape.
1 Like
Not laughable, not by any means. I’m sorry that you feel that way. The position however is not based upon any evidence despite what the zen-masters at AiG, ICR, CMI insist. It is based solely upon a single interpretation of a 2,500 year old text while ignoring all other data.
Here is a nice summary by a Cosmologist:
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2006/08/21/dark-matter-exists/
Here’s one 2017 measurement of Dark Matter in a galaxy (very precise):
And another mapping out the web of dark matter that we knew existed theoretically:
Another nice summary: Dark Energy FAQ – Sean Carroll
And a summary of the evidences: Dark energy - Wikipedia
These aren’t imaginary things. There is a real physical effect that these two mysterious things have on the universe. There is no physical evidence of a 6,000 year old creation. Huge difference.
You mean of the 6 quarks and 6 leptons? There was not a ‘new particle’ in this sense as the new particle was actually a combination of already known particles (two charm quarks and one up quark). The full paper can be read here: http://press.web.cern.ch/sites/press.web.cern.ch/files/file/press/2017/07/lhcb_paper_2017.07.06.pdf
What do you mean by understand 10% of the known universe? You mean someone who is an expert in all possible fields of knowledge to where he fully understands all that we know exists? Unless you mean of our universe with dark matter, dark energy etc. In a fun word play, anyone who knows all that we currently know about dark energy (or what is ‘known’ about our universe) would automatically know more than 70% of what we know about the universe. Your question is silly though I understand where you are coming from. The YEC plan for all science is a) cast doubt upon it, b) pick at any gaps in understanding, c) claim that YEC is therefore automatically true. I’m sorry you’ve been mislead by the ‘defenders of the truth’ who have spearheaded this movement since 1961.
Yep, even the best wine can go bad, and I presume ancient wine more than any modern wine. Yet ancient wine could last a long time. (Thunderbird? Wow, takes me back to H.S.
While I appreciate your lengthy reply, I cannot get past your opening paragraphs because they completely baffle me. To give you a specific, I cannot tell whether you are stating the following two sentences as what you believe or as what you think I believe.
Maybe if I figure out what you’re saying here, I can understand some of what you say as you go on. Please advise.
To all those who are posting and reading here, I have refined my approach and am now putting all my focus on this question.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the question. The sentence in question is my take on the assumptions underlying your thought process. I could have prefaced that sentence with: “It seems that you think that…”
Yep, my thoughts about your thoughts about God’s thoughts. 
Chris Falter
Okay, thanks for getting me over that hump. That removes one source of bafflement. Now to the next. Recall that you began your extended comment like this:
You chide me for “excluding the middle” yet, though I didn’t use your terms (“a very dualistic way of thinking about things,” “very sharp dichotomy,” “the fallacy of the excluded middle,” “all choices must be binary,” “unnecessary either/or conflicts”), this was the very point I was making to you when explaining my resistance to Walton’s thesis. Recall that I wrote:
I was the one arguing that it should be possible for a reference to be functional, material, or a mixture of both. How then am I the one guilty of “a very dualistic way of thinking about things,” “very sharp dichotomy,” “the fallacy of the excluded middle,” “all choices must be binary,” and “unnecessary either/or conflicts”?
If you can get me over this hump, you’ll be two for two.
You only say so retrospectively.
You repeatedly misrepresent the fundamental basis of science, which is the prediction of evidence we haven’t yet seen.
2 Likes
"Bertrand Russell wrote, in The Analysis of Mind:
“…there is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that ‘remembered’ a wholly unreal past”.
“Human beings”, posited in being five minutes ago with built-in “memory” traces, would not be human beings. The suggestion is logically incoherent."
Yes, I think we can confidently say that some things science has discovered are settled facts. For example, the heart works as a pump to circulate blood. This was not known at one point in history, but it is now known as a fact. We aren’t going to find a new and better explanation of how blood circulates. When people say, “Oh, science changes all the time, so we can’t trust any “fact” will actually last” this is just plain wrong. I think the age of the earth is in the category of “the heart is a pump” and “the earth revolves around the sun.” We know these things.
3 Likes
I feel compelled to make this observation - I find it incomprehensible that a site that seeks to discuss the Christian faith, and insists on gracious dialogue, would tolerate and accept such offensive phrases as:
“The only way that this actually makes God a deceiver …”
The Faith teaches, and un-hesitantly professes that God is the source of all truth. The bible identifies the deceiver and who promotes deceit. Perhaps BioLogos needs to be reminded of this as they so often veer into assessing truth as based on evolution.
I would agree with you except for one thing:
Terms synonymous with, and including, “liar” was introduced into the analysis by @Mike_Gantt.
So perhaps you will have to expand your scruples to include terms like these with a more clinical posture.
Appreciate it, you can flag my posts as well if that’d make it easier for you next time. The title of the thread was asking about the scientific age of the Earth being old but the universe being young in reality and included the word ‘deceitful’. So I cited one scientific way we’ve measured the age of the Earth, a neat one in my opinion which includes 5 radioactive elements in a distant star that gives us a very precise date. Also my assessment of truth has nothing to do with evolution but rather cosmology but that’s perhaps just picking on your words.
Perhaps I should have prefaced my conclusion with ‘In my opinion, the only way to reconcile any apparent deceit is to not force the Scriptures to teach a 6,000 year old worldview.’ I personally would want nothing to do with a god who is deceitful like this.
1 Like
I did not mean to single you out as the phrase has been used a number of times; I think it is inappropriate on a Christian site and we should all refrain from such language. How and why we prefer our opinions is what should be said.
Ok. So in your opinion, if, when we date the universe using all these different branches from science and the they all converge on a very large 13.8 billion years, yet creation is actually just 6,000 meaning God, the Creator, made it to look old what would you call this? Is that not some form of trickery or deception? What word would you use to describe that since ‘deception’ is a bad word to use on a Christian website?
3 Likes
This comment does not make sense - as I pointed out, scripture doe not provide a numerical age for the earth, so the discussion has more to do with how others decide matters amongst themselves. Since you seem to seek trickery and deception, you should look at how others decide to input their own meaning into scripture.
As I have pointed out, Creation is best understood by commencing with the Gospel according to John. Christ stated that scripture is written for our good, and the Law as given in the OT is as a school teacher, bringing us to a better understanding, which is given to us by Christ and the Apostles.
It is not inappropriate to say that if A is true and B is also true, then a valid logical deduction from those premises is that “God is a deceiver.” That is just a common form of argumentation where presenting an unacceptable conclusion is supposed to force people to re-examine the premises.
2 Likes
If you can make an argument such as, "God spoke to me, or there is an explicit statement in scripture that God spoke to His prophet the earth’s age has been clearly given a numerical value, and you find this to be grossly in error, than and only than can you make your odd deduction.
Starting with your opinion, and developing it until you claim a logical deduction you make for another party (ie God) is fallacious at best, and in the worst case scenario, deceitful.
Prophecy is judged in this way - when a prophet makes a specific statement, we are urged to test and examine it, to convince ourselves if it is true or false. But we cannot make up our own version of a prophecy and than judge it as someone else’s, and then concluding it is false because of this someone else. There is no logic in that, only false argument.
Maybe for you, but not for a lot of people including the OP of this thread or anyone who reads agrees with ‘plain sense’ reading of Genesis.
What should we call it then? I’m not seeking these words out, it’s a valid question. Let me write the title of this thread out for you: ‘Is it possible for the earth to appear old to science without it actually being old without it actually being old and God being deceitful?’ In other words, can the Earth appear old to science and it still be young and if so, does this make God deceitful?
Your solution is just to say, eh, forget the question you meanie who looks for deception and trickery (sorry for using the bad words again but this time I am quoting you quoting me and I was quoting the OP so I think it’s ok) in everything.
You’re tricking me! The Bible doesn’t start in John silly. Most people could agree with your statement yet still fully hold to a 6,000 year old creation, so back to the question that you don’t like…
Can the Earth appear old to science and it still be young because a pretty plain reading of Scripture gets you back just 6,000 years and if so, does this make God deceitful?
1 Like