New genetic research allegedly time periods for YEC

Faith & Science Conversation
#43

There is no room for evolution in a religion which wants its members to be wind up mechanical soldiers designed by a great watchmaker to do whatever they are told. Otherwise they might take seriously the Biblical description of God a shepherd and think He created life as a self-organizing process because He wanted a relationship with living things that make their own choices. Now there is a dangerous idea, when the whole point of your religion is power and control. Why let people think that congenital illness is part of the evolutionary process when you would so much rather people to cower in fear of a monster who will torture little children with smallest excuse? After all, is it not so much easier to get sniveling cowards to go out and murder innocent people you have labeled heretics, witches, or heathens?

Incorrect. There is no such word in the Bible.

“Spiritual”? Yes. But “supernatural?” No.

What about the laws of nature? Are they in the Bible? Actually, yes they are. Jesus speaks of them in Matthew 6:19 “Store not your treasures on earth, where moth. and rust doth corrupt.” And Paul speaks of them in 1 Cor 15 when he explains how the physical/natural body made of the stuff of the earth is weak and perishable. In both these cases it is contrasting it to things made of the stuff of a different world/realm (the spiritual) which is by contrast powerful and imperishable.

From this contrast it is reasonable to call the spiritual by the word “supernatural.” And it does say that God who created all things is spirit – so I take it that is what you mean when you say the origin is “supernatural.” But there is nothing in the Bible about the means by which God created all things – therefore your leap to this conclusion that God must create by supernatural means is not from the Bible at all. This desire of yours to worship a necromancer creating and accomplishing things with black magic is your choice and not the teaching of the Bible.

Next you will be telling us that if you wear red socks then you are contradicting the Biblical view. Stop making stuff up. The Bible says nothing whatsoever about either science or the color of socks you wear.

#44

[quote=“mitchellmckain, post:43, topic:45939, full:true”]

There is no room for evolution in a religion which wants its members to be wind up mechanical soldiers designed by a great watchmaker to do whatever they are told.

This begs the question of the nature of your tradition – would be willing to share your denominational affiliation/theological perspective?

#45

In my adulthood, I have belonged to the following denominations/churches:

  • Assemblies of God
  • Vineyard
  • Associate Reformed Presbyterian
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
  • Assemblies of God (again)
  • Independent Evangelical
  • Church of God (Anderson, IN)

Now if I may be permitted to ask:

  • What hermeneutical approach do you use to reconcile meteorology with God’s control of the weather, Einsteinian mechanics with God’s creation of the universe, and quantum mechanics with God’s creation of the universe?

Best,
Chris Falter

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#46

Um, yeah, that response. It was absolutely jam-packed with errors. See here for details. (And the scare quotes in the title are a nice touch.)

#47

Hi Chris, I was actually directing that question to Mitchell, because he made some interesting statements regarding churches turning members into “mechanical soldiers,” so I wanted some insight into where he is coming from.

Certainly, any scientific theory we are able formulate are mere approximations of observable reality and not determiners of reality themselves. And we know that the God of the Bible is a God of order, which is why in recent times Christians have been inspired to attempt these formulations.

#48

Of course. I have done this so frequently I can quote a lot from other threads.

I am Trinitarian, and disagree with universalism and annihilationism, but I am an open theist and I denounce literalism on a number of things like substitutionary atonement. I am not hostile to Catholicism, or major religions including paganism, but am hostile to Gnosticism and reincarnation.

The denomination I most recently attended is Vineyard, and before that Calvary Chapel. But these certainly do not represent my position on most things.

Reasons for belief: here (with further explanations here and here or reasons for Christianity in particular)

I couldn’t believe in Christianity without evolution. For me it is the best argument against the philosophical problem of evil and suffering. It basically establishes that life requires suffering. It simply means we have to shift from the Deist understanding of God as a divine watchmaker (creator of dead things) back to the Bible understanding of God as a shepherd (creator of living thing). Self-organization is the essential nature of life and that means you cannot have life without the possibility of making mistakes. Life is all about growing and learning. But living things do not do this in a vacuum but in an environment with parents, teachers, farmers, and shepherds.

Here I gave my first introduction.

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Convinced of evolution, Skeptical of scripture
#49

When does He want to?

Beyond grounding being in which evolution naturally occurs?

#50

Order is independent, prevenient of God. What has Christianity got to do with formulations of observable reality? Most of which by country miles are not approximate in the slightest.

#51

So I would be interested in your formulations, Van.

Best,
Chris

#52

So how do you reconcile it?

The usual creation origins approach seems to begin with, as you suggest, positing that there is no common ground between science and the Bible. But truth is unified, so what to do? The next step which I have typically seen is to assert that mainstream science has it wrong, but tadaaa! - true science actually supports the literal creationist reading of the Bible.

And then the nonsense, quote mining, misrepresentation, inconsistencies, and arbitrary declarations begin.

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#53

Here’s an excellent podcast I listened to over the weekend:

It had been a long time since I had last considered some of Jesus’ miracles as discussed in this episode. Take the wedding feast at Cana, for instance. Was this fake wine? Simulated wine of some sort? Nope. It was real wine – the text is clear. If it is real wine, it means that this Creator was able to somehow compress the lengthy process of producing wine into an instantaneous “miracle,” producing wine from essentially nothing. Similar observations can be made regarding many of Jesus’ other miracles. What does this tell us about the creative power of God? Surely God is capable – and again, actually demonstrated this to us in Jesus – of creating a mature world ex nihilo. Did Adam begin as an infant? Did Eve? How would that have been possible? I believe that the text is conveying to us that God created a mature world instantly available for habitation.

#54

I would argue that much of the technological advancement that we’ve seen over the past few centuries is based upon a foundation of Christian theology which informed the academy that God is a God of order who has created a universe with qualities involving predictable order which are amenable to careful study.

#55

This is, of course, the classic Omphalos hypothesis.

Take some of the newly created wine to a highly advanced analysis lab. As a control, also test some regular wine known to be old. The samples taste identical, and sure enough, the tests reveal no difference at all in composition. In fact, the tests reveal no difference of any sort; there is no scientific test at all which can discern the slightest distinction. The wedding wine is the same as the old wine, exactly. Old is mature, mature is old.

All of science points to an ancient universe. Do you think there is any crack in nature which tells that nature is mature, but not indeed old? What people miss about Henry Gosses’s hypothesis is that his main point was that if the world was created ex nihilo, it would be expected to evidence age the whole way down. Yes, Adam had a belly button, trees have rings, but that is only the superficial beginning. Nature would display age consistently, and he saw age as synonymous with maturity. While the theological community largely dismissed his idea as God being deceitful, I do not think a really rigorous alternative concept of creation ex nihilo has been advanced.

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#56

I agree with you. It’s also worth mentioning that other religions like Judaism and Islam also believe that God has made the world with order and given humanity the capability of investigating that order.

Let’s investigate the relationship between Scripture more deeply with a case study. Here’s Psalm 104:5 in the ESV:

He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.

Here’s how John Calvin, the great theologian of the Reformation, exegeted that passage:

“Here the prophet celebrates the glory of God, as manifested in the stability of the earth. Since it is suspended in the midst of the air, and is supported only by pillars of water, how does it keep its place so stedfastly that it cannot be moved? This I indeed grant may be explained on natural principles; for the earth, as it occupies the lowest place, being the center of the world, naturally settles down there.”

Calvin thought that the meaning of Psalm 104:5 was completely obvious; he does not equivocate at all. But was he right that the meaning was obvious, @Van_Dreams ?

Best,
Chris

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#57

Yes God could, but it would mean He created a mature world with a false history of events that didn’t actually happen. Events He fully expected us to find. Which to me means God is the author of lies.

There are two types of miracles. The most common leave no evidence except for the written record, such as turning water into wine. The other type, I can only think of two, would leave evidence to future generations. It is the second type that I question.

#58

Obviously, and as Calvin himself would likely admit, he was speculating regarding the “natural principles.” What he is saying is insightful in the sense that he is acknowledging the potential for secondary causes in the steadfastness of the earth, but that steadfastness is nonetheless a wonder of God’s handiwork. And let’s consider the current state of science – we don’t truly understand how it is that the planets follow their predictable pathways around the sun. The latest is that we are questioning the accuracy of the theory of relativity. It continues to be a wonder – and I estimate that it will always be a wonder – that we can be comfortable on this earth, considering:

Consider the movement of the earth’s surface with respect to the planet’s center. The earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09053 seconds, called the sidereal period, and its circumference is roughly 40,075 kilometers. Thus, the surface of the earth at the equator moves at a speed of 460 meters per second–or roughly 1,000 miles per hour.

As schoolchildren, we learn that the earth is moving about our sun in a very nearly circular orbit. It covers this route at a speed of nearly 30 kilometers per second, or 67,000 miles per hour. In addition, our solar system–Earth and all–whirls around the center of our galaxy at some 220 kilometers per second, or 490,000 miles per hour. As we consider increasingly large size scales, the speeds involved become absolutely huge!

– taken from: How fast is the earth moving? - Scientific American.

#59

Why wasn’t the wine a “lie”, based upon your standard? The problem here is not God, but your standard. We need to submit to God’s standards, not to our corrupt standards. There are all sorts of “problems” that arise with ex nihilo creation from our ignorant human perspective. God transcends the limitations and errors of our understanding. As creatures made in His image, we are able to understand certain things, but I believe that there will always be aspects of the creation that are beyond our grasp. God did not intend it to mislead us; rather, it is simply a de facto effect of the way in which creation had to occur if it were to occur at all. God, in order to make a “real” world, was forced to cause it to come into being in a particular moment or else it would not have come into being. This instantaneous moment of creation will invariably defy our ability to conceptualize using any laws we’ve managed to discern regarding the normal regulation of the universe.

#60

It is amazing how much devil worship there is – not only worshipping the biggest of all liars but a power obsessed, glory seeking, rule by fear, jealous, wrathful, cruel, controlling, soul destroying monster who runs a protection racket. When such a thing claims he “loves” you, it is like a mafia godfather or rapist who says such things. If it sounds like the devil and behaves like the devil, then I think it really is the devil and not God at all.

Omnipotence does not mean that God can do whatever we say by whatever means we care to dictate. That is just something from logically incoherent dreams and fantasies. Results are not independent of the means. If you create something by design then the result is a machine. And if you create something instantly from imagination alone without laws and rules then the result is a dream or a story of fantasy. It is certainly not what we see in the world around us.

Yes there are a lot of fantasy novels like that, and we could put the Bible on the shelf next to them. But I disagree with you and don’t think that is what the text is doing at all. Understanding the people to whom a text was written and for what purpose is important. A text written for kindergarten school children is not the same as a text written for college students of physics, geology, and biology.

John2:7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.”

What is the text clear about? Jesus filled the jars which had stored wine with water. And to all these people who had already drunk a great deal of wine, this tasted like better wine. Nowhere does this say that God made a molecular transformation of the water into the molecular composition of wine. Yes the text says it is wine, just as the text and priest/pastor says the contents of the goblet in a communion ceremony is the blood of Christ. Sorry, but such words do not mean the content of the goblet has the molecular composition of blood. It is demonstrable that it does not.

Because the text is not a chemistry textbook and perception is more important than molecular composition in a wedding celebration. And Jesus wasn’t a wine merchant demanding payment.

Indeed, but the question is where are these standards to be found? In the natural world which God created or in the claims of religionists? Since the former is a connection which doesn’t involve sinful human beings with a history of using religion for power and profit – I choose that one!

#61

The wine was wine. You would get drunk if you drank too much. It has no history that could be detected.

If the world was created in 6 days it should likewise leave no history that could be detected. However there is a history that anyone can see. That is what would make this a lie.

Why? You are placing limits on a limitless being. God is certainly capable of creating in whatever fashion He so desires. The study of creation is natural revelation. What we see in creation speaks of God. So any history we see in creation has to come from God and it has to be true.

Which means God actually created the universe last Thursday but we just don’t know it. What say you?

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#62

It is the superfluous aspects of false history in the observed world which cause people discomfort with this idea. Are fossils of dinosaurs and trilobites necessary to have instantly created lions and horses? What purpose does gas streamed thousands of light years between galactic collisions serve? Could mankind get along fine without supernovae which appear, but never happened? From radioactive decay to magnetic reversals, why all the extraneous detail indicating time but serving no present purpose? Does a “real” world really require all this false history, none of which took place in “real” time?

Back to tree rings. It is sensible that a tree brought into existence in a particular moment would be endowed with rings, to look like a normal tree. But dendrochronologists are not just interested in counting rings for age. Examination of rings reveals seasonal variations - wet years, dry years, early onset of frost, prevailing temperature, wildfires, insect and fungal attack, the lean of the tree, and other details which are normally attached to the life of the tree. An omnipotent being can instantly create such a tree, and have it in every way identical to a tree which grew in actual time.

Taking this further, the entire universe could have been created last Thursday, and it would be to us just as we lived our whole lives complete with memories of 9/11 and our first kiss. But can it then be said that God did not intend to mislead?

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