Based on your recent postings … I find this to be unrealistically optimistic about your own tendencies…
As for Jon, I find that he is thoroughly energized by the practice…
Good points. I would just like to piggyback off of @T_aquaticus that the same physics that underlies DNA, atoms and heliocentrism is underlying measurements of the age of the universe. All of these ‘settled’ sciences if you will work with the same four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force) acting upon two types of particles (bosons and mesons). An example of this would be radioactivity. We can accurately date stars to be even billions of years old, for example the star HE 1523-0901 dated to be 13.2 billion years old. Radioactivity works via the weak nuclear force and to change it or claim it was different (despite no evidence to the contrary) also instantly makes all atoms unstable and fly apart thus destroying all of the elements on the periodic table and all matter instantly also flies apart or collapses in on itself. The point is that all of these are greatly connected and cannot be separated in any sense. Here is a small image of the star itself that was calibrated using 5 different clocks:
The only way that this actually makes God a deceiver is if the universe really is just 6,000 years old but scientifically is 13.8 billion years old. This star for example would have meant that God created the star to appear 13.199994 billion years old such that when we measured it 6,000 years after it created, we would get tricked that it matches up perfectly with 5 different radioactive elements (uranium, thorium, europium, osmium and iridium).
But in all this, God is not a deceiver if we don’t insist the universe is 6,000 years old. All of this trickery goes away if we don’t force the Genesis texts to make the universe very very young despite looking old.
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I don’t quite understand your dilemma, Mike. You say yourself that adopting an Old Earth stance wouldn’t affect your theology or your salvation by a whit!
And yet, despite the fact that acknowledging the 5 billion year age of the Earth would put God in the clear as far as cheap aspersions by those who point to the inevitable dilemma regarding the perception of God’s ways - - you pretty much would rather risk portraying God in less than favorable light - - because of your unwillingness to accept Old Earth evidence.
If you think of the first thing that comes to mind … surely you must be able to isolate the “why” that has put you in this unenviable position!
I suddenly feel a warm kinship with Jon - just as Jean Valjean must have felt when some other poor wretch was thrown into the cell with him by Javert.
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Would you suggest any other possibilities that might resolve this conundrum Mike? Or do you reject the scientific evidence?
When facing what I feel is a false dilemma, I stand my ground and wait for light from above.
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Don’t feel pressed. There are multiple ways to think about this.
Some of the ways would be:
Accept that the earth is old and change my interpretation of Genesis
Accept that the earth is old and change my interpretation of Genesis but exclude evolution.
Accept the earth is young based on the Bible and just ignore the evidence that says it is old
Accept the earth is young based on the Bible and embrace the YEC science that supports this
Accept the earth is young based on the Bible and say the science that says it is not is based on false evidence (this would be where The Omphalos Hypothesis and deceitful would come in) Many people here make the assumption that this is the default YEC position which explains some of the responses that you get.
Accept the earth is young based on the Bible and hope that in the future the evidence will support this
Probably a lot more combinations where these came from, but do any fit with your current state of thinking?
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You have written that either you accept the Earth as being billions of years old, or “… or God is deceitful.”
So, you must feel very very strongly that Geology and Physics are wrong. Otherwise, you would simply accept the Earth as being very old so you don’t have to worry about God being a liar. Right?
Then my suggestion is to learn the basic facts of geology yourself. Learn how radiometric dating works. Learn about astronomy. At worst, you will have learned some new things.
However, the situation I discussed earlier shouldn’t require you to learn all that stuff. If you are saying that the rocks scientists say are millions and billions of years old were created on the day that God created the Earth, then you also have to conclude that God created the Earth with fossils already in them because the fossils are found below those rocks. I would certainly think of that as being deceitful, but perhaps you view it differently.
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Then it is a bit strange that you would be repeating that hypothesis in your opening post. The evidence for an old Earth and an Old Universe is equivalent to God creating Adam with scars from wounds he never suffered, or bone calluses from breaks he never suffered. You are proposing the Omphalos Hypothesis.
Noah’s flood?
The rocks they are dating include things like volcanic ash layers and lava flows. If these events happened in the recent past then they would date young, not old. You are saying that these rocks date old because they were created in place with age already in them. We find fossils below these rocks. This requires God to create the Earth with fossils already in the ground.
Yes. Those who deny evolution must also deny the vast consilience of multiple fields of science.
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You’re inadvertently giving credence to my sense that the “Either Earth is 4BYO or God is deceitful” choice is a false one. I have read enough of the Omphalos Hypothesis to know that I don’t hold to it, and said so above (though you may not have seen this). I do not think God would have given Adam and Eve navels to make it look like they had been born and not created.
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[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:34, topic:36232”]
I am not even a novice in such things, but I do know that the pace of technolgy is increasing, and when you look at how far science has come in the less than 500 years it’s been practiced, and you add in an increasing pace of change, it strikes me a counter-intuitive to say that in the millennia to come we won’t be given new perspectives which causes our current perspectives to be seen in a different light.[/quote]
But you’re arguing that our current perspectives are going to revert to your old, rejected perspective. Can you give a single example of that?
[quote]Maybe I could be convinced…but not by a mere declaration.
[/quote]There’s your false polemic framing of science as hearsay again. It’s not a “mere declaration,” it’s the evidence.
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If you do accept YEC, it also leads to the conclusion that God put in a massive amount of effort to meticulously build genomes for no other purpose than to make them look like they evolved. No human changes DNA sequences so that they produce a strong phylogenetic signal when compared to other species. We just copy a DNA sequence base for base and put it into the other organism. We don’t go through and make sure introns diverge at a faster rate than exons, as another example. This carries over to the level of the organism, where God would again have to put in a lot of effort to make sure there are no violations of a nested hierarchy when it comes to morphological features. Species with a mixture of reptile and mammal features are fine, but why wouldn’t God also produce species with a mixture of mammal and bird features? There is no reason not to, other than to make sure it looked like life evolved.
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No, I’m saying that even though the wine steward is convinced this wine is old, it’s actually the newest in the house.
I don’t say science is hearsay; I say its evidences are interpreted. Science itself has taught me that things are not always as they appear.
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How is it a false dilemma?
I point out that your representation of science is grossly inaccurate. Scientific hypotheses make empirical predictions. The whole point of science is to put all of the interpretation up front in service of predicting what one will actually observe.
Your representation of science is one of cheating, and it’s an MO of every pseudoscientist.
It does so by predicting what you will directly observe before you observe it. It’s not your polemic misrepresentation of retrospective interpretation, which allows all sorts of wishful thinking.
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If I had my druthers, I chose to believe in evolution by interpreting the Bible differently (i.e. have a better understanding of the Bible). To do that, I need a Bible interpretation I don’t have. I tried finding one on my own and couldn’t. I came here seeking one and haven’t found one yet. I’m beginning to think no one here has one. My sense is that most of you conclude, “The scientific evidence is so clear and emphatic that whatever the Bible is saying, it cannot be contradicting the scientific consensus.” I am not trying to tell you that is wrong; I am trying to tell you that it is not an interpretation of the Bible.
Back to my first sentence in the previous paragraph. The primary reason that would be my druthers is that it is, all other things being equal, the path of least resistance for anyone wanting to live for Christ in 21st-century America. It’s the grandchildren thing.