New insights on defining "biblical kinds"!

[T_aquaticus]

@Henry_Dalcke

I never said that unbelievers “couldn’t know anything”. No. The argument is, that if God didn’t exist, you couldn’t >philosophically justify< why you should actually be able to know anything at all.

The same would apply if God did exist since God could lie to us and we wouldn’t know it, according to your logic. More to the point, you are using the words of men and claiming they are the words of God. You are also picking just one set of texts out of many other texts claiming to be from deities (e.g. the Koran).

@Henry_Dalcke

And if the Bible is a collection of spirituality inspired texts, and God cannot lie because he’s morally perfect, the genesis account has to be true and evolution therefore false.

The map is not the territory. You don’t reject facts because they don’t fit what a book says. According to your own logic, we can’t know if God is lying because we lack an ability to determine ultimate truths. All we have is your claim that God is perfect, and you aren’t God.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Henry_Dalcke

The argument is, that if God didn’t exist, you couldn’t >philosophically justify< why you should actually be able to know anything at all. Profound difference.

Maybe philosophical justification is profoundly over-rated and pretentious. Anyways, the track record for understanding of nature by means outside of the scientific method is dismal.

@Henry_Dalcke

And if the Bible is a collection of spirituality inspired texts, and God cannot lie because he’s morally perfect, the genesis account has to be true and evolution therefore false.

But you are not defending the Genesis account. You are defending the YEC world-build with accelerated radio-isotope decay, hyper-evolution from heterozygosity, dinosaurs romping with Adam, and a host of other extra-biblical stuff that is neither exegetically justified nor scientifically sound.

[Henry_Dalcke]

@rsewell

Maybe philosophical justification is profoundly over-rated and pretentious

Is it really overrated? I don’t think so. Is the foundation of every worldview. Either it causes external inconsistencies or it makes a worldview watertight. If there’s no god that couldn’t lie, how will you ever know that you couldn’t be a brain in a vat plugged into a computer feeding you with false impressions of reality?

@rsewell

But you are not defending the Genesis account

The genesis account interpreted literally is the foundation of the YEC view. Coming to different conclusions than a YEC worldview always involves adding to the text.

@rsewell

accelerated radio-isotope decay, hyper-evolution from heterozygosity, dinosaurs romping with Adam, and a host of other extra-biblical stuff that is neither exegetically justified nor scientifically sound.

You’re welcome to >believe< that.

[T_aquaticus]

@Henry_Dalcke

The genesis account interpreted literally is the foundation of the YEC view. Coming to different conclusions than a YEC worldview always involves adding to the text.

Coming to a different conclusion involves following the evidence found all around us. It is interesting that facts and evidence are not the foundation of the YEC view.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Henry_Dalcke

The genesis account interpreted literally is the foundation of the YEC view. Coming to different conclusions than a YEC worldview always involves adding to the text.

Where in the text is heterozygosity??? Did Moses inform the Hebrews as to accelerated radiometric decay?? None of this world building exercise is backed by chapter and verse, it is all adding to the text.

If the Earth is 6ky old, who needs a universe with light travelling across 13 billion light years? The Genesis account can get along just fine without geochronology clocks pointing to billions of years of age. The Bible could do without dinosaurs on the ark. Animals would not require nested hierarchies, they could be assembled willy nilly, feathers on bats, fins on porpoises, whatever. Why does a 6ky old Earth need a progressive fossil record? The world as we find it is not predicted from your literal take on Genesis.

@Henry_Dalcke

If there’s no god that couldn’t lie, how will you ever know that you couldn’t be a brain in a vat plugged into a computer feeding you with false impressions of reality?

Speaking of false impressions, why is it you have to make excuses for what you can see with your very own eyes? On a dark night, you can see Andromeda - you have to invent ways for light to travel that distance. You can see the cratering on the moon, craters in craters - so God smashed up the moon and mercury because, well what does that have to do with human evil? You can see flood damage, a jumbled mess that mashes stuff together, not neatly lays down the trilobites, then Permian creatures, then dinosaurs, then modern mammals. You can see cliffs of limestone, you can see widely separated seams of coal that you can follow for miles. Add to that impressions of reality that are revealed by the instruments of technology. See for yourself Hubble pictures that show galactic collisions which display gravitational dislocation which would require interactions over the course of millions of years. Those are “mature galaxies” like the collision debris of a highway accident is a mature car. So it seems that you do not trust your own impressions of reality.

[Gregory]

The genesis account interpreted literally is the foundation of the YEC view.

Yes, biblical literalism appears to be at the root of a major problem here.

[Henry_Dalcke]

@Gregory

Yes, biblical literalism appears to be at the root of a major problem here.

I see no problem there at all, sorry.

[T_aquaticus]

This being BioLogos and all, a word from Dr. Francis Collins:

Professor Darrel Falk has recently pointed out that one should not take the view that young-earth creationism is simply tinkering around the edges of science. If the tenets of young earth creationism were true, basically all of the sciences of geology, cosmology, and biology would utterly collapse. It would be the same as saying 2 plus 2 is actually 5. The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?
–Dr. Francis Collins, “Faith and the Human Genome”
https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF9-03Collins.pdf

[Henry_Dalcke]

Science is based on methodological naturalism. If special creation according to the Genesis Account is true, naturalism would be falsified and pure naturalist evidence with it, of course. The question, if evolution were true or not, would immediately become obsolete.
But does that mean that literally all science would crumble apart? Clearly not. We would still be able to do computer science, rocket science, medical science, cold-case detection, engineering of whatever kind or branch etc…
Why would special creation not influence these sciences? Because they’re not origins matters!

If you think we would immediately fall back to the Stone Ages, you should reflect on what grounds science stands! It’s based on nature’s intelligibility. Why should it be intelligible, if all it is and all we are was just chemicals in motion?
Our whole process of investigating things would be defective, if nature wasn’t intelligible and because it is intelligible, it indicates special creation by a masterful kind.
So, in short: you’re probably already living in a masterly designed 6-day-creation and lack no branch of science. So what are you complaining about?
Specials creation is not the problem. God is not the problem. Your bias pro evolution due to an ideological commitment to Darwinism is the problem.

“I was merely thinking God’s thoughts after him.” - Johannes Kepler

[Henry_Dalcke]

You’re completely missing the point!
The YEC worldview presupposes a young earth special creation and a global flood and >interprets< the world accordingly.
It’s a belief system - and admittedly so!
Many cornerstones of the YEC worldview cannot be scientifically investigated. Nobody can turn back time, right?
Our presuppositions are the starting points from which we reason.
But guess what: the same is true for the evolutionist worldview, as well!
The evolutionist worldview is built upon presuppositions, as well from which evolutionist scientists reason.
Both views are inherently religious in nature. Your denial of that fact has no influence on its truth.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Henry_Dalcke

Why would special creation not influence these sciences? Because they’re not origins matters!

Science is not limited to the investigation of static entities. Scientists are keenly interested in natural processes, and processes are indeed origins matters.

[Henry_Dalcke]

@rsewell

Science is not limited to the investigation of static entities.

Absolutely. But the claim that all of science would fall apart, if biblical creationism were true, is demonstrably false.

@rsewell

Scientists are keenly interested in natural processes, and processes are indeed origins matters.

Scientists are interested in discovering knowledge. And if you exclude all non-natural, but nevertheless possible causes per definition, will you then be able to actually know the true reasons for the existence of certain things, if these are supernatural, for example? No, because you would never allow for explanations exceeding naturalism. And that’s undermining the very basis of scientific research: the longing for finding out about the truth - not just explanations that can’t be falsified.
Processes are governed by natural laws, but processes sustained by natural laws don’t create anything. Mere processes have no generative powers. They clearly lack explanatory power.

[EricMH (Eric Holloway)]

The concern with including supernatural processes is they are not well defined, so what is to exclude invoking magical pixies as an explanation? additionaloy, science likes to know some sort of mechanism or at least constraint that we can experimentally verify, a la physics

once you explain a process with an undefined process that cannot be empirically tested in any way, then that hampers scientific inquiry because we have no means to empirically confirm or falsify the explanation

e.g. if we explain disease with evil spirits, there is no impetus to discover microbiology and hygeine theory

otoh if we assume there is some empirically detectable cause of disease then that gives us some scinetific traction to experimentally narrow down to the root cause

it is like debugging broken software, if i just assume random chance or inscrutible compiler, os, or hw fault causes my problem when really it is my own error, then in most cases i fail to solve a bug due to my own fault

likewise with science, the weight is placed on processes we can empirically examine to avoid giving up on something that realky does have an empirical explanation

now. if we can have an empirically well defined and testable formulation of a supernatural cause, that can be empirically distinguished from alternate causes, then we can include it in science

so far what you have presented per creationism does not meet that requirement, bu I also think evolutionary theory doesn’t meet tgat requirment, so both are equally invalid scientific tgeories

ID and Darwinism are tge only scientific theories that meet tge requirements above, afaik

[Randy]

@Henry_Dalcke

The evolutionist worldview is built upon presuppositions, as well from which evolutionist scientists reason.

Sir, thank you for your discourse. Please explain where the YEC view does not have presuppositions? Thanks.

[Henry_Dalcke]

?
I said that it has! It’s presupposing 6-day-creation “after its kind” and a global flood.

[Randy]

@Henry_Dalcke

I said that it has! It’s presupposing 6-day-creation “after its kind” and a global flood.

I apologize! I see it; thank you. I was working, and just had a brief break at the time. I am a Christian, too. However, would you also say that we presume God’s existence, and that the Bible is true? Thanks.

[Henry_Dalcke]

@Randy

would you also say that we presume God’s existence, and that the Bible is true?

I think God’s existance is a necessity to even be able to evaluate scientific evidence.
If God didn’t exist, materialism / naturalism would be true.
That means that our wishes, dreams, inner visions and emotions would reduce to nothing else but electrical discharges in the tissue of our brain. We were nothing but molecules in motion. Molecules are governed by the natural laws of cause and effect, so, if we were just molecules in motion, we would only be input-reaction-automata. Moist robots - so to speak.
That’ clearly not in accordance with the evidence that we ourselves obviously do >act< - in sheer contrast to just reacting. Therefore naturalism / materialism cannot possibly be true.
So what’s the alternative? Supernaturalism? Immaterialism?
In short: It’s not just a blind presupposition that God exists. I see great evidence for his existence. I think the world around us would clearly look very different, if God didn’t exist.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Henry_Dalcke

If God didn’t exist, materialism / naturalism would be true.
That means that our wishes, dreams, inner visions and emotions would reduce to nothing else but electrical discharges in the tissue of our brain. …That’ clearly not in accordance with the evidence that we ourselves obviously do >act< - in sheer contrast to just reacting. Therefore naturalism / materialism cannot possibly be true.

False dichotomy here, for two reasons.

One, God’s existence is compatible with material naturalism as limited to scientific methodology. Newton did not propose gravity was carried on angel wings.

Two, one cannot just ignore that properties which are emergent may not be reducible to “just molecules in motion”. The whole need not be the sum of the parts.

[Henry_Dalcke]

@rsewell

One, God’s existence is compatible with material naturalism as limited to scientific methodology. Newton did not propose gravity was carried on angel wings.

Well, not only - no. A deistic god may be compatible with material naturalism as he is not supernaturally intevening with his creation anymore after he created it, but not so with Jahwe.
If you speak of the christian God, you have to consider the supernatural as well - or you’re talking of another god…or better to say: idol.

@rsewell

Two, one cannot just ignore that properties which are emergent may not be reducible to “just molecules in motion”. The whole need not be the sum of the parts.

If you have a bunch of bricks, you can build a house which is so much more than its parts.
The space shuttle is more than its parts, too.
A computer is more than its parts, also.
But notice something:
All resulting material compositions do not emit immaterial entities like feelings and will, for instance. These are highly unique and of a totally different quality than just the sum of its parts.
If you think, that without God you could be a personal being, you’re reflecting a >belief<. Not a scientifically reasonable option.

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

@Henry_Dalcke

If you speak of the christian God, you have to consider the supernatural as well

You don’t have to consider the supernatural when you are doing science as a Christian, because the scientific method excludes supernatural explanations. You can consider it all you want in other domains of investigation. Obviously science is a limited explanatory framework.