“I have some questions…and i will openly admit they are driven from my YEC perspective and are therefore loaded guns”
But until the questions are not merely driven by trying to promote YEC and also reflect careful consideration of theological and scientific evidence, those loaded guns are just shooting you in the foot.
Radioactive decay working the way it does is a part of how atoms work. Making any significant change to decay rates will destroy the structure of the earth - that’s quite fundamental physics. And the only reason to try to change them is because they provide several of the countless lines of evidence that indicate that a young-earth model is wrong. Why would God change radioactive decay rates in a way that matches how they should look if He had created the earth a very long time ago? The claims about changing decay rates are not even close to consistent within young-earth claims. Polonium halos supposedly prove rapid formation of granite, yet identifying them as polonium halos requires the physics of decay to be unchanged. Faster 14C decay gets attributed to the Flood, but validly measurable 14C levels only occur in late ice age deposits, which are commonly claimed to be post-Flood.
Note that Deuteronomy 5:12-15 does not reference creation, but rather the Exodus, when it reiterates the Sabbath command. The Sabbath is not merely commemorating creation but has a much more extensive symbolism. The sabbath year of Leviticus 25 provides a caution against assuming that the commemoration provides an exact calendar equivalent of the original; after all, the celebration of Passover does not include 40 years of wandering.
Jammy i fully understand your point…you must not forget Im a Design and Technology Major in Education, so the scientific method isn’t something I’m not expected to have some familiarisation with and also used in my work.
Irrespective of the above, i do not accept that hypothesis of what the past may have been like is applicable given the bible specifically (and i mean SPECIFICALLY) tells us three things about the past:
The world was created complete by a God and at the end of Creation week everything was fully functioning, the animals were all here and so were Adam and Eve. The bible is absolutely explicit on those things…there is simply no way any Christian can deny that.
AFter the fall of Adam and Eve, sin entered the world and significant change took place. The bible is also very specific on that as well…again, no Christian can deny those passages of scripture are a accurate description of what sin has done to the entire planet and its inhabitants.
Just prior to, particularly during, and its generally agreed that after, the flood of Noah, the tectonic plate movement was catestrophic and mankinds life expectancy went into dramatic decline. You cannot make the scientific claim that the bible statements about men’s ages in the old testament are wrong…you have absolutely zero measurements from those times that prove the bible account there is figurative or wrong (whichever). The reason you have no specific measurements is because there simply are none…no one has passed on anything other than what is written in the bible.
Now here’s the interesting thing about my point 3 above…
let me put this to you…
If 4500 years ago, either of us performed an experiment and we went around the then known world obtaining mathematical data regarding the ages of the people we surveyed, and we recorded that data, and our modern generation offspring pulled out said data and noted it said that we had recorded many individuals names, places where they lived, other relatives, and that their ages were 400m 600, 800 years old…do you honestly think our offspring in the modern age would believe the data you or I had recorded 4500 years ago…even though clearly we wrote it down?
The answer to the above must obviously be a resounding NO! Do you know why its a resounding NO?
We have numerous authors in the bible, who wrote disconnected passages/books in the bible…these individuals such as Moses or the apostles passed on those notes to the modern generations in written format (ie the bible) and yet you, like pretty much everyone else here does not believe any of it is literally true.
Now i have specific mathematical data in recorded historical record that the following ages are true and correct.
Noah= 950 years (600 when flood hit), Shem=600 years, Abraham= 185 years, Apostle John=90 years, Middle age Europ and China = 32 years average
Are you denying the above records written down on “paper” (so to speak) are correct?
I am actually wondering if anyone here is wiling to place a survey on the forums asking for votes on how many respondents here believe that the genealogies in the bible, along with any other individuals whose age at death is recorded in the bible, actually literally believe it?
I have this feeling that perhaps only Burrawong and myself would answer in the affirmative because that is a fundamental YEC belief!
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights…
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits…
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days…
2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat…
13 By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
Specifically, SPECIFICALLY, where is the reference to catastrophic tectonic plate movement, or YEC’s accelerated radioactive decay?
Well Adam, if you know what the rules are then you need to make sure that you’re sticking to them, because when you don’t, knowing the rules is what differentiates ignorance from lying.
Adam, as Ron said, this thread is about accelerated nuclear decay. Can we please stay on topic here? If you want to discuss these other points then you should start up a new thread for them.
Which version of these records are you assuming to be “correct” so to speak? They differ in the various places they are recorded and if memory serves, some of them don’t make sense (individuals whose life span would mean they survived the flood for example).
Even if we accept what might allow humans to survive a small portion of the except irradiation, we have evidence from astronomy that physical constants have remained unchanged for the age of the observable universe. This requires first that A) God intervene to keep the Earth from being turned into an expanding cloud of hot plasma, and B) change what we see from the rest of the universe to make it appear as if nothing happened at all.
Sure an Omnipotent God could do that, but that’s The Omphalos Argument (ie: Last Thursday-ism), rejected by religious scholars of all stripes. And the only purpose served is to assuage the fraction of Christianity that tries to interpret Genesis literally out of fear that science can destroy God? (Something like that.)
There is no necessity to trying to warp the laws of physics to fit a particular Biblical interpretation. If you think the science is wrong, the solution is always to do better science.
My thought is that its important because clearly we exist, this world exists.
I personally dont subscibe to the idea that the bible isnt a textbook about the physical things we see…i make that statement because the bible spends almost its entirety talking about physical things…mostly interractions between people, animals, and the environment.
Some may question my inclusion of “environment” here, however take notice of how often earthquakes, storms, lightning, wind, plagues, sickness, pestillance, and the effects of these are specifically described in the Old Testament…its all through the bible both literally and to provide metaphorical insight.
Its not that im saying the bible reveals atomic knowledge to us, i get that, however, lets consider the following:
If science best explains scientific things and the Bible best explains spiritual things…
What best explains the historical figures in the bible? Wouldnt that be both of the above equally?
I think its equally both.
The trouble is, how can anything be equal when uts not in agreement? Does a relationship/marriage work when the husband forces the wife to be subordinate and not an equal?
Obviously not, so why force the bible to be subordinate to science when it isnt necessary to do that? YEC simply says that the two must align…and since we cant change Gods word, because it is his word/s, then our interpretation of science must give.
I know many/most here dont agree with that, however im openly criticising such habits by saying that taking science over the bible is no different than a husband forcing a wife to be subordinate…and the fact that Christians tried to use the bible to donexactly that in the past (and ultimately failed when errant bible theology was exposed), we should learn from this.
Before i get howled down i must reinforce…
In Matthew 24:37-40 Christ (the divine Son of God) specifically uses the flood literally as an historical event…no one on this forum has ever denied that with any biblical support…so i know im right on this claim.
So what am i to do…as i said above in this post, mesh the two so they do not dissagree…especially when it comes to Jesus words in Matthew 24.
I do accept that what im proposing here could very well lead a lot of science based individuals to loose their faith in God…i accept that criticism and to be honest im not entirely sure i know how to help there other than to use the following illustration…(which ive mentioned before onnthese forums)
When i was a young teenager, my dad started Bachelor of Arts Degree studies in theology and we moved into a rented house out in the country side at the base of the Watagan mountains NSW Australia near Cooranbong NSW.
It was on a largish house block (about 3/4 acre i think) and we didnt have a lawn mower.
A friend gave us one but the darned thing wouldnt run…it was useless.
I vividly recall one day, being out in the yard trying to start this flaming mower. I tried and tried many times to get it to run all to no avail.
In a moment of desperation, i stopped, prayed to God to start this mower…
It started the very next attempt after i prayed that prayer.
The miracle here is not demonstrated in the starting of the mower…the miracle is that it started, ran for a short time, stopped…and i never saw that mower run again.
That is how i know that God exists and that faith is real (sadly, im yet to convince my wife of the significance of my experience there…she is still angry at God for allowing her dad to die tragically in 1995 at the hands of a drunk driver hitting his car)
Kendel when i think about your faith and your love of nature, im reminded that i must try to simplify my belief…i submit that those who put science first must do the same…we must accept that what we see is corrupt and there are significant issues with Old Age theology.
The simple approach is to take Mathew 24 literally…because those are the words Christ spoke…he used simple language, not complex stuff.
It’s all very well saying that, Adam, but we must still stick to the rules of basic honesty, factual accuracy, mathematical and logical consistency, and quality control when doing so.
If you end up doing things such as fudging measurements, ignoring or cherry-picking evidence, quote mining, claiming that science makes assumptions that it does not, claiming that assumptions are not testable when in fact they are, claiming that two different things are equivalent when they are not, or claiming that you have evidence for something when in fact you do not, that is not making science subordinate to the Bible. It is lying.
Because the Bible tells about God’s history with people, of course it deals with physical things. We are physical things. There are other things going on that aren’t physical (or measurable or normally observable by us). The Bible tells us a little about them, but mostly only as those few spiritual things have any connection to us in the physical world. Of course we want more, but in this case we trust that God gives what we need.
By “historical figures” I assume you mean something like “historical events” or “historical events in which figures in the Bible were involved.”
So to your questions:
What best explains…
Wouldn’t it be both [science and the Bible] equally?
No. Their interests and purposes are completely different.
The Bible must be taken on its own terms and allowed to stand in that way. Rather than trying to explain biblical miracles in scientific terms that simply don’t work, why not take the Bible on its own terms, which include “miracle” “judgement of God” “prophecy” “fulfillment” and the like? To attempt to describe in scientific terms a miracle that was intended to demonstrate God’s power outside of normal workings of the physical world is to deny the miraclulous, and the biblical verification of God’s power.
“What if” and “what about” in an attempt to find alternative scientific explanations tortures science as well as the point of the biblical story. Doing this doesn’t honor God.
As you indicate, subordination is not equality.
In the case of the biblical texts and science, they are doing entirely different things. There is almost no overlap in assumption or purpose. So why not let both stand in their own different ways?
For example, I’ve heard about a man who received the gift of a non-functioning lawn mower. He had tried to get it to work. Used all his mechanical skills as well as kicking the tires. In a moment of despiration, he prayed, and the mower, just that one time, started. For the last time.
I don’t know, if he ever got that lawn mowed, though.
As I understand it, for him this event was faith affirming. I don’t believe he has attempted a scientific explanation. The point for him was the miracle. God’s intervention in spite of physics.
Not so. We can’t change the text but we can change how we interpret that text. You already do so when you don’t view the firmament as a solid dome, which the writer of the text did.
1 Like
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
33
Does a marriage work when one person denies reality?
You are asking for people to ignore reality, the evidence that is right in front of them. It is no different than demanding Christians be Geocentrists because the Bible says the Earth doesn’t move.
I make that claim because YECers have never been able to demonstrate that their primary premise, that scripture must agree with science, comes from scripture – but it can be found in scientific materialism.
I have never met such a Christian, and YECers don’t even come close because their root definition of the concept of truth cannot be found in the Bible.
I am claiming the exact opposite, that we cannot find and know God apart from the text.
By paying attention to the Holy Spirit Who in Acts 15 we find reducing the entire Old Testament to just four guidelines (at least for Gentiles).
That claim does not rest on scripture, but on a definition of truth that comes from outside the scripture. It also is bad Christology.
Why do you insist that the Bible is not just a science text, but now a philosophy of science text as well?
No, they are based on the conviction that God does not play pranks on those made as His image.
That’s not in the text.
Again, why is it that you think that the Bible teaches science?
Something very much like that!
The unstated premise is that in order to be true, scripture has to be scientifically and historically accurate . . . or rather in accordance with the present understanding of those. That’s a standard from outside scripture being imposed onto scripture, something done repeatedly through church history but rarely with any good results.
There’s not even a reason to expect the Bible to teach science!
So do the books of John Grisham and James Michener.
The question is why would you think that the Bible is interested in conforming to a modern scientific worldview in the first place? Where in the Bible does it claim to want to teach science?
Ah – but you’re assuming that the Bible is also a scientific authority. Why?
No – YEC says that the Bible has to be scientifically correct, and goes to great efforts to obfuscate, misrepresent, and flat-out lie about science to try to make that work.
But the foundation of YEC isn’t God;s word, it is a particular interpretation that (1) sets up science as a judge over scripture and (2) thus ignores what the text actually is with the result that (3) thousands of young people every year abandon the faith – they don’t abandon it because science says to, they abandon it because that is the premise of YEC, that if there are any scientific mistakes in the Bible then it has to be thrown out (in other words, they have been taught the wrong foundation).
You’ve never argued that with any biblical support, you just assert that it is so. Reading language naturally, the only thing that can be shown from the text is that Jesus knew that His audience understood the story and thus His point.
Only if they subscribe to the false premise that the Bible intends to teach science, along with the false premise that Genesis is th foundation for the faith.
No, because that’s assuming that an uninformed person with a modern scientific worldview can understand a conversation from two millennia ago without having to bother with studying anything at all.
Quite so – just as is claiming that the dating of rocks via physical measurements in the laboratory requires “assumptions” is a dismissal of science.
Other than the assumption that God is not a circus clown playing games with us.\
1 Like
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
37
Worth mentioning again, even in centuries past there were theologians and church leaders who participated in a clash between science and theology. However, they knew the limits.
" But to want to affirm that the Sun, in very truth, is at the centre of the universe and only rotates on its axis without traveling from east to west, and that the Earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves very swiftly around the Sun, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our hold faith by contradicting the Scriptures….
. . .
Third, I say that, if there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true."
–Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615
When theology clashes with observed reality, that is where theology must give. This is the problem that YEC faces.
Exactly! Instead of taking the opening Creation story as a scientifically accurate account, ask what it is (which turns out to be two different literary types with three functions all at the same time) and ask why God did it that way and what that means.
Amen! God is honored by us doing our homework to ask what the text actually is, not what it looks like on a surface reading. Is that hard work? Of course it is – but can you think of a better subject to sink some work into?
After all, the scriptures use lots of language – e.g. parables – that require thinking to get at, so why would we think that God provided an easy route that lets us be lazy?
Or in my case, a lawn mower with a dry tank and an empty gas can, and a prayer of desperation that resulted in being able to finish mowing that lawn – but just that one.
Though reading it and keeping in mind the original worldview cracks open the door to getting a view of how the story read to an ancient Semite.
It strikes me that if God had wanted us to read the opening of Genesis as scientifically true He could have had Moses put own something about the building blocks of the world sliding and crashing together – it would have been poetic imagery to an ancient Semite, but could have made an eighteenth-century geologist figure out plate tectonics a generation earlier.
Can’t figure out how God might have referenced radioactivity, though.
But of course those who don’t want to be convinced will deny that there is any proof, or even that there is evidence.
I first encountered Bellarmine as the author of a Hebrew grammar, then as someone considered unsuitable to be pope due to being insufficiently worldly. This quote shows serious wisdom as well.
Especially since the reality that YEC must face is the text of scripture itself!