The Bible Vs Scientism

Faith & Science Conversation
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There are not very many ways to interpret, “You work six days and rest on the seventh because I created for six days and rested on the seventh”.

But please show me how exactly God saying He created heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them during a six day period is not about the age of our world, but rather who He is and His relationship to us.

For example, when God says He created heaven on the second day, why exactly is He NOT saying He created heaven on the second day, but instead saying something about who He is and His relationship to us.

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Biblicism vs science.

The Bible teaches us that God created the heavens, the earth, the sea and everything in them in six days. And Peter teaches us in the Bible that God doesn’t measure time the same way we do. God teaches us in everything He sends us from the Earth and sky that according to our measure of time the creation of the universe took 13.8 billion years. I believe this because God is my ultimate authority and not the way some people choose to twist the Bible into making God a liar.

Science opens our eyes, ears and minds to see, listen, and understand all that God tells us in the Earth and sky. It follows methodological ideals of honesty and objectivity by testing hypotheses rather than only looking for was to convince ourselves and others of what we want to believe, and providing procedures which give the same result no matter what we want or believe.

The Bible is a text from people written long ago according to the language and their understanding from long ago. It is the word of God to sinful people of limited understanding – a mere kindergarten class compared to science classes at the university. Like any kindergarten class it sacrifices precision for what they need to understand according to their ability at the time, so one day they might be able to learn more from what God has to teach them when they are ready.

Biblicism is an idolatry replacing God with made up interpretations of text of the Bible. The cult of Biblicism claims that their god (their interpretation of the Bible) is the authority on all thing even though it clearly cannot do any of the things they rely upon every day. Fix the computer you are typing on? …methods from science. Fix the body you are typing with? …methods from science. Their interpretations of the Bible doesn’t help with either of these.

So which of these is the truth? The made up interpretations of an ancient text to people who don’t even speak their language… or what God Himself is teaching us right now in everything He sends us from the earth and sky?

The one from God Himself, of course.

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You’re kidding, right? Are you seriously suggesting that EVERY scientist in the entire world interprets any particular data the same way, and comes to the same conclusions? If not, I don’t get your point.

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In that case you’re trying to tell me two mutually contradictory things.

Being unable to tell the difference between thousands and billions is not just being a “flawed human being.” It is a level of incompetence so complete that any scientist who fails at it should not be in a lab but should be flipping burgers at McDonald’s. It is like being unable to tell the difference between six thousand years and three days. It is like being unable to tell the difference between the size of your bathroom and the size of the USA. It is like being unable to tell the difference between a cup full of dirt and Mount Everest.

And I don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t just talk about “flawed human beings” making wheels. I talked about “flawed human beings” making self-driving cars, interplanetary probes, real-time video communications platforms operating across continents, artificial intelligence software, computer generated animation and the like.

To claim that “flawed human beings” can make self-driving cars, interplanetary probes, real-time intercontinental video communications platforms and artificial intelligence software, but at the same time cannot tell the difference between thousands and billions, is completely out of touch with reality.

Not ones that could be out by a factor of a million.

There’s something you need to understand here. Assumptions are NOT a get-out-of-jail-free card. You can’t just fob off any and every scientific finding that you don’t like by crying “assumptions” as if it were some sort of magic shibboleth.

In order to challenge a scientific theory by questioning its assumptions, you must do the following:

  1. State what the assumptions are.
  2. Make sure that the theory really does make the assumptions that you are claiming that it makes, and that it hasn’t been superseded by more modern alternatives that do not make those assumptions.
  3. Provide evidence that they could have been violated to a sufficient extent to support your alternative theory while giving the same measurements as an end result.

Take nuclear decay rates for example. To support a young earth, it is not sufficient to just claim that they could have been different in the past. You would have to show that they could have been accelerated by a factor of a billion. That alone would be a non-starter because it would have released enough heat to raise the temperature of the earth’s crust to 22,400°C – and that was the young earth organisations’ own admission. On top of that, you would also have to show that they could have been accelerated by a factor of a billion in complete lock-step with rates of continental drift, sedimentation, and a whole lot of other things on top of that.

At that point, you’re getting deep into the realms of science fiction. What you’d be proposing there would be God making the earth look older than it really is for no reason whatsoever other than to mess with our minds to the extent that we were no longer able to tell what is real and what isn’t. That isn’t the God of the Bible you’re talking about – it’s more akin to Q from Star Trek, or Slartibartfast from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

So sorry, but even if you can establish that scientists make assumptions when determining the ages of things, you’re still nowhere near making a case for a young earth.

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45

Give a single example where disinterested scientists in the same field interpret the same data in many ways. Or get off the pot.

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So what language do you suppose that Jesus said those words in? Certainly not in English; surely, not in Greek; probably in Aramaic, don’t you think?

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Greetings, Mr Boll. Welcome!

I wonder, like @jpm , if it might help us to discuss things better if we give our backgrounds. It’s also really interesting to meet people from different walks of life.

I’m from West Michigan, mainly nondenominational missionary kid who was born and lived in West Africa during the famine years–80s, mainly… I now attend a Baptist church in Fremont, MI, where I work in the primary care medical field. (my church website is HOME | FBC Fremont)

It’s quite a different environment (mixed Christian, from Amish to Roman Catholic) and non religious here, from where I used to live (tiny minority of Christians in a sea of Islam). However, both were wonderful, country people, who try to get to know you without prejudice, generally .I am grateful for my upbringing with godly, Christlike parents.

I look forward to hearing more from you.
thanks.
Randy

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48

No, you just need to recognise that there is a difference between “not literal” and “not true.” And that what you’ve been taught is not the Bible itself but a cartoon caricature of the Bible with a thick layer of science fiction slathered on top of it.

Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

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49

The earth was 3 days old when Adam began to exist.
130 years old when Seth was born.
235 when Enosh was born.
325 when Kenan was born.
395 when Mahalalel was born.
460 when Jared was born.
622 when Enoch was born.
687 when Methuselah was born.
874 when Lamech was born.
1056 when Noah was born.
1556 when Noah’s sons were born.
1656 when the flood came.
1658 when Arphaxad was born.
1693 when Shelah was born.
1723 when Eber was born.
1757 when Peleg was born.
1787 when Reu was born.
1819 when Serug was born.
1849 when Nahor was born.
1878 when Terah was born.
1948 when Abraham was born.
2048 when Isaac was born.
2108 when Jacob was born.
2199 when Joseph was born… which corresponds to around 1709 BC.

So the earth was approximately 3908 years old when Jesus was born of Mary. And that was a little over 2000 years ago. That would make the age of the earth right now about 5930 years old.

After the birth of Joseph, it requires a little more guesswork. But we can know with certainty that, according to the Bible, both the heaven and the earth are somewhere around 6000 years old - and nowhere even close to the 14 billion and 4.5 billion ages attributed to them respectively by the priests of Scientism.

And of course there is no “concern” over the age of our world in the Bible. Everyone accepted that it was how God said it was.

My point was simple…

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The red line above the zero represents what Jesus would have been calling “the BEGINNING of the creation”. Does that make sense to you?

Do you seriously think Jesus was talking about someone else? If so, make your case. If not, this seems to be a diversion.

Laura, could you possibly PROVE that the universe is 14 billion years old? Of course not. Can any of the scientists you put your faith in PROVE it? Nope. Is a 14 billion year old universe the ONLY POSSIBLE way to interpret the data? No again. So you indeed believe in a 14 billion year old universe on faith, not verifiable facts.

Do those measurements rely upon any assumptions, Laura?

The evidence is the same for everyone. Have you considered any of the YEC scientists’ interpretations of that evidence? For example, if there exists pliable soft tissue in fossils said to be millions of (and even over a billion) years old, is it fair to interpret that data as saying those fossils AREN’T actually that old? If not, why not?

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Mark 2:27 Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath“

God did not need 7 days to create the universe. He did not need to rest the seventh. He did not need to sleep between evening and morning. The seven days of creation are at least in part as an example and are beneficial for us to follow. Some of it may also be literary, as a poetic representation, and some symbolic as 7 was a number of completeness. It is not a scientific paper on universe construction.

I know none of that will change your mind, and I really don’t think it important that it change, but hopefully will open your heart to the idea that there are ways to see scripture that are faithful and true other than the literalistic views One book you might find interesting is: https://greggdavidson.net/book/manifold-beauty-of-genesis-one/

Blessings in your journey.

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I’ve already answered that point for her. Not the kind of assumptions that you could hand-wave away in order to squeeze the evidence into six thousand years.

Yes, the evidence is the same for everyone. But so too are the rules about how you can and cannot interpret the evidence. YEC scientists have to have accurate and honest weights and measures and have to pay the same amount of attention to detail as everyone else. But time and time again they completely disregard the rules. In fact they even dismiss the rules as “rescuing devices” as if they should be given some sort of free pass. Any professional scientist who gave into such demands would be derelict in his or her duty.

Because they are not actually soft tissue. They are soft tissue remnants. Stable soft tissue remnants that have reached the end stage of their decay chains. Yet YECs repeatedly misrepresent them, portraying them as containing actual red blood cells, actual haemoglobin, actual DNA, or actual osteocytes, when all they contain are the breakdown products of red blood cells, haemoglobin, DNA or osteocytes.

This is one of the rules of interpretation of scientific evidence that everyone has to stick to. Before you can interpret evidence, you have to get your facts straight about what the evidence actually consists of.

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52

Okay, let me change it up a little…

Dale, according to information we can glean from the Bible, about how long ago were Adam and Eve created?

These are not valid reasons to either believe or not believe something, Dale. Why not just claim that the universe is a billion times bigger than you think it is right now, so God can seem even greater to you? After all, nobody could prove you wrong. And besides, we all know that someday we’re going to see this on our Google feed: “Scientists Now Say Universe 100 Times Larger Than Thought!” :wink:

And then gullible people will just go along with the NEW story and start parroting it (and eagerly correcting the people who haven’t heard the news yet) so they can pretend to be part of the hip and enlightened crowd.

As for your second point about antiquity, I’m not sure how it would matter to humans who’ve only been around for 6000 years how many billions, trillions or octillions of years the universe existed before they were around.

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You still ignore the very real fact that you think your interpretation is infallible, an interpretation that conflicts with the truth of the reality of God’s creation. How about the age Hawaii, and a zillion other things?

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I love this one by a Christian (and note my favorite word providential in it ) – new evidence always supports the antiquity of the earth, and it continues to build:

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The issue isn’t actually the age of the earth itself. The issue is getting your facts straight.

Theologically, the age of the earth isn’t all that important. Neither is it all that important who did or didn’t evolve from what. But preaching falsehood and misinformation about any subject – especially falsehood and misinformation in the name of Christ – is a very serious matter. It is serious because it undermines the credibility of the Church’s witness. It is also serious because it is a breach of trust. Pastors and teachers in the Church are in a position of trust, and if they are making claims that are untrue – especially claims that are easily shown to be untrue – then it can cause serious problems for those under their care because it introduces a lot of uncertainty as to how much of their teaching can be taken seriously. That is why so many young Christians lose their faith over discussions about creation and evolution. It isn’t evolution itself that causes them problems; it’s learning that their church leaders were not being straight with them about it.

Another issue is maintaining adequate standards in how we deal with science professionally. Many of us, whether our job descriptions say “scientist” or not, have to take science seriously in order to do our jobs properly. There are rules that we have to follow and standards that we have to maintain, and if we see things being taught in our churches that flout those rules and standards, it can cause a lot of confusion that could adversely affect our ability to do our jobs.

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56

Yes, he should note #3:

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My interpretation of Gen 1 is a straightforward understanding of what the words actually say.

God is the one who created the very concept of a day (one light/dark cycle on earth), named it “day”, and told us what He did on each day of the creation week.

And although the word “day” is used idiomatically to refer to a general period of time in the Bible (just like we use it today), that is never the case when it is modified by a number or the words evening/morning (just like with us today*). In those cases, it always refers to a literal light/dark cycle on the earth (or the daylight portion thereof).

And finally, although the singular “day” can be used idiomatically, the plural word “days”, always and without exception, refers to literal days.

So when God says He did X on “Day 2” - which included an evening and a morning - there is zero doubt He was talking about a literal light/dark cycle on earth. And when God says He created in six days (plural), there is zero doubt He was talking about six literal days.

*Today, we occasionally use the number one with the idiomatic usage of “day” (One day there will be peace on earth), but only the number one… never other numbers, evening/morning, or the plural “days”. The authors of the Bible did not use this “one day” idiom like we do.

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I don’t even need to read it to know that any ages guessed at in the article rely upon many assumptions… assumptions about things we couldn’t possibly know for sure. What does the Bible say about the age of the Hawaiian island chain, Dale? Because this thread is about the contradictions between the Bible and Scientism. I’m only interested if the Bible says something one way or the other about it. Thanks.

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Your interpretation is that there cannot be any imagery or anything at all metaphorical or poetic in the ancient Hebrew text whose culture you know nothing about. You still presume your understanding is infallible.

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Well if you had actually read it, then you would realise that it does nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it tests assumptions. It tells us that two different methods give the same results as each other despite the fact that their assumptions are independent. That is a test of assumptions, and tests of assumptions are not assumptions themselves. And it doesn’t “guess” anything. On the contrary, it measures things. Measuring and guessing are the direct opposites of each other.

The problem here is that you’re making assumptions of your own. You’re assuming that you can hand-wave away any and every scientific theory that you don’t like just by crying “assumptions” as if it were some sort of magic shibboleth. As I’ve already pointed out to you, you simply can’t do that.

Ah, the good old “yom with a number” argument. I don’t know if you are aware of this, but it is a complete YEC fabrication. It only ever appears in YEC literature and even then only when trying to argue for a young earth. It was first mentioned in the 1970s in YEC literature and has no precedent any time before then. Outside of YEC circles, no Hebrew scholar recognises its validity.

In any case, the way that “yom” is combined with a number in Genesis 1 is unique to Genesis 1.

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