Just because you do not know why something is the way that it is, does not mean that subject matter experts, who know much more about the subject than you do, do not know why it is the way that it is either. To claim that people do not know things that they do is to teach falsehood and misinformation.
The RATE project cost $1.25 million. The Ark Encounter cost $100 million. Prosperity preachers with private jets are a thing. I seem to recall reading somewhere that even Answers in Genesis has a private jet.
There are reasons why young earthism only ever comes up with flaky arguments, consisting as they do of tiny samples with huge error bars, but a lack of funding is not one of them.
There are approximately 3billion strands of dna in the human genome. 2% of 3 billion is 60,000. Ok so there are only 20,000 variation but that still equates to 400.
In Dickens Mr Mcawber states
Income 20 shillings expenditure 19/6 result happiness. Income 20 shillings expenditure 20/6 result misery. Ok 2% would be 4d but the basic maxim holds.
IOW 2% of the human genome is not as close as Evolution proponents would have you believe.
As a non-fundamentalist Christian I have a slightly different take. All living things are by nature selfish, and when humans act selfishly while knowing that it may harm others, that is sin (Jesus of course never sinned). This in itself doesnât âguaranteeâ Christâs life, death, and resurrection (though the Gospels guarantee it), but I do believe an incarnation of some kind was inevitable.
Science is a pretty essential aspect of education. To be a young earth creationist you have to disagree with
Evolution
Genetics.
Speed of Light.
Geology.
The Fossil Record.
Chemical half lives.
And so on.
They have to disagree with 99% of all scientists. They have to ignore thousands and thousands of facts.
They then have to ignore the bulk of scholarship. They have to ignore genre. They have to ignore rhetoric. They have to ignore contextual analysis. They havenât do mental gymnastics to connect dots that just obviously donât connect such as all the contradictions in the Bible including things like â god had to come down to earth to see what was happening vs being all knowing and all seeingâ and have to ignore bickcisl seams like genesis 1/2 and 1 Samuel 16/17.
Itâs just so much that has to be ignored. Then they have to buy into conspiracy theories such as all scientists , or close to 8,000,000 of them are either lying or deceived about how to do their job.
Itâs hard to see all of that and think they are sound minded people who can accurately handle logic and data.
This is a gross misrepresentation of Christians who believe what God has said in the Bible to mean what He has said in the Bible.
I donât buy into any conspiracy theories, itâs quite clear to me that the vast majority of people are genuine in their beliefs whether they be scientists or clergy and whether they believe in Creation or Evolution.
As stated previously, the worldview of the person doing the research, or writing the paper, or peer reviewing a paper has everything to do with the conclusions they will reach.
The science being performed is genuine, the instruments are being calibrated properly, the readings from various instruments are highly accurate, conclusions reached in the analysis of samples in geology and paleontology and other disciplines are well performed, the problem is the paradigm or worldview through which the data is interpreted, i.e., evolution and deep time, thus the conclusions reached are similarly in accord with the primary axiom, that has evolution and deep time as accepted facts.
As long as the science is performed within the primary axiom, their is a consistency with all other research performed believing that evolution and deep time are real.
The problem that presents for Bible believing Christians that accept the Bible first and the philosophical surmises of man second is that a very real conflict exists between a plain reading of all the scriptures and belief in the deep time evolution naturalistic philosophy that has hijacked science and in doing so booted God out of eligibility to even be considered as a cause let alone being revered, worshiped and loved as our benevolent Creator.
It is also abundantly clear to me that right at this very moment our Lord and Saviour is holding His Creation in existence. Without His sustaining power, it seems to me the creation would not remain in existence.
It is arrogant for any man or woman to believe manâs philosophical conjecture over our Sovereign Gods revealed word that He gave so that we would not be in the dark about these important matters.
He knew before Creation that the world would go down the evolution/deep time rabbit hole.
He knew before Creation that Bibles would be printed in enormous numbers and translated into many languages, and He knew that powerful people and principalities would push a philosophy that for the vast masses ,dispensed with God so that people could willingly follow the evil in their hearts (that we all suffer from, me included), and rebel against our Creator, by stating that âSCIENCEâ has proved that God does not exist and other untruthful tripe like that.
Science per se is a good thing, and provides many wonderful things in the real world, that make our lives in the present world better, but the forensic sciences that deal with interpreting the past are very different in a lot of ways; but the primary problem here again is the belief that evolution and deep time are real.
Anyway, Iâm not sure that I have much more time to spend on this forum, I have pressing work to do that must be done.
All I can say as Iâm sure you do already, talk to the Lord about this, read the Word and pray.
God Bless you all and thanks to one and all for your honest views about this important subject,
Your brother in our Lord Jesus Christ,
And once again this claim completely disregards the fact that interpretation of scientific evidence is constrained by rules.
Rules that are the same for Christians and atheists alike. Rules that are the same no matter what âparadigmâ or âworldviewâ you interpret the evidence through. Rules that apply to every area of science, both âoperationalâ and âhistorical.â Rules that must be adhered to by anyone who does not want to be accused of lying or scientific fraud. Rules that we should all be able to agree on, no matter how old we believe the earth to be, or who or what we believe did or did not evolve from what.
It is these rules, and not any kind of âprimary axiom, that has evolution and deep time as accepted factsâ that tell us that evolution and deep time are facts. âNaturalistic philosophyâ has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Well when you start off a thread by accusing the entire scientific community, consisting as it does of millions of highly trained professionals, of lying (which is what you are doing when you describe evolution as âa deceitful lie misleading millions from the truth of the scripturesâ), Iâm sorry, but that is a conspiracy theory. Period. End of story.
Even though it can be poorly-vetted and has a lot of errors in it for taxonomic groups that donât have lots and lots of researchers (i.e., not vertebrates).
The Rev. Joseph Townsend published a decent amount of William Smithâs geological work in a book entitled The Character of Moses Established for Veracity as an Historian Recording Events from the Creation to the Deluge. And Smith was rather late in accepting and had to be convinced by the clergy that he worked with (like Townsend) that his results implied an old earth.
Heâs overdrawing that a bitâyes, transitional fossils are rarer than one would expect if all change were at a steady pace (a la Lamarckianism), but theyâre still there, as I have said about five times, Iâve found over a dozen of them myself, and with a bit of hunting, could list a few hundred more.
Ecosystem elevation is a really bad match for depositional orderâCuvier figured that out, and he was strongly opposed to evolution (yes, he had some issues in his views like cyclical history, but he didnât like the âevolutionâ of the day. i.e. Lamarkianism). I can tell that itâs not accurate, and have pictures of sites that prove that that is not a realistic description.
And as to âknowing more about the reality in the fieldâ, just how much paleontological field work have you (or anyone affiliated with your sources) done?
Given how incredibly difficult it is to get any significant funding for research on things that arenât vertebrates and arenât medically relevant, I donât think thereâs much of a disadvantage.
How much funding I or my collaborators have received for research on fossil mollusks: <$50,000 over the course of 50 years of research (of course, I havenât been around for all of that), and basically all of that has gone towards paying for travel expenses, equipment, and printing costs for papers.
My, what a busy post while I slept. But this statement stood out to me reading through the posts. No doubt it is factually true, but i would hold not causally related. Much like the incidence of autism has soared in lock step with the sales of organic food. Correlation without causation, though some of the driving forces are related to each.
That correlation has been grabbed and made the bogey man by the young earth industry, much as how here in American abortion has been made the emotional trigger by the conservative movement to engage the evangelical crowd. That emotional relation seems to have fueled the current state of affairs.
If we look at the real reasons people are leaving the church, it gets very complicated. Polls give some guidance, but are themselves biased in many ways. A lot of times, people have trouble themselves explaining why they left, and it defies easy categorical divisions. However, my opinion is that most can be lumped into that people feel the church is no longer relevant to their lives (and yes, evolution perhaps can be a part of that, though minor). The church no longer is a social glue, it fails to address the issues people face in their daily lives, it became less sensitive to social justice and the teachings of Jesus. Of course, that is a broad generalization, and many churches are striving to becoming the body of Christ in a better way, but that is the general perception.
In that mix of why the church is in decline is bad theology, bad actors in leadership, and so on, i could ramble on, but will stop there.,
Actually before the rise of YEC in the mid 20th century evolution was accepted as fact. So the correlation is as YEC ideas spread huge numbers of people have left the Church. What does that say about YEC?
If your presuppositions are incorrect, it all tends to go to pot. The whole point of obtaining scientific data is to test your hypothesis. If they are wrong, your results will be inconsistent. Science pursues general principles. Exceptions are an indication the tested principle is fundamentally incorrect. So consistency is in itself evidence that you are on the right track, and confirms that the principle reflects some degree of reality.
Eventually, what was at one time subject to scientific dispute becomes so well supported that essentially everyone agrees that the idea is correct. Boltzmannâs statistical mechanics is today the basis of research involving bulk properties of interacting particles, even though he struggled to find acceptance during his life. If scientists did not build on prior work, as Newton said to âstand on the shoulders of giantsâ, nothing would get done because everyone would wasting time reinventing the wheel. Anyways, even if the accepted principle was wrong, it would come to light as the work that builds on it would run into trouble.
So it is not the case that it is possible to interpret data in accordance with worldview. Experimental results are inconsistent with the Greek school of infinitely divisible matter, with a geocentric solar system, with bleeding as a medical treatment. Results are not always malleable and can be hammered to fit. Atoms, gravity, and cells are here to stay, it is the axiom that yields.
Geology and paleontology are no different from other science in that for centuries observation and measurement and an enormous deal of argument has resulted in a coherent and detailed picture. Over that time, proposals that exhibit any inconsistency with evidence have been jumped on by other scientists. It might take time, but ideas that are out of kilter with reality are sidelined.
A more specific word for consistency in science is consilience. When independent lines of evidence such as tree rings, lake varves, archaeological artifacts, ice layers, tephra markers, cave speleothems, and radiocarbon analysis all agree, that consilience is validation. Consistency in not neutral, it favors a side. On the other hand, inconsistencies that cannot be resolved eventually lead to an ideaâs collapse. If evolution and deep time were not real, there is no way consistency would be preserved among the many areas of investigation.
Personally, Iâm not asking you to give up anything. I canât think of any time that Iâve urged anyone to accept the reality of evolution. What I will do (and have been doing here) is explain why scientists accept common descent and push back against misrepresentations of science and scientists.
That, for example, is a misrepresentation of what Gould was actually talking about. He was talking about abrupt appearance of new species that were very similar to existing species. Hence this statement from him: âSince we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do not know-as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.â For a concrete example, take this figure from one of the punctuated equilibrium papers:
It tracks changes in the size of the lower jaw in the fossil record of early primates in the genus Pelycodus; names on the plot represent different species. The matter under dispute in the Punc. Eq. debate was whether the species in the top righthand corner appeared abruptly or gradually. There was no question that the rest of this fossil record shows gradual change, with abundant transitional forms. My point here is that even the supposed abrupt change was a small one, one smaller than other changes that were clearly going on slowly and one that I probably wouldnât even notice if the animals were alive in front of me.
This is what I object to from creationists sites. The claim about Gould I quoted above isnât a matter of interpreting data under different worldviews â itâs about telling the truth about what Gould actually said, and about whatâs actually in the fossil record.
You might also note that what Iâve repeatedly asked you to do was precisely what you say creationists do: interpret the same data under different assumptions. Thatâs why I asked for an explanation that doesnât involve common descent for some genetic data. The reason I push on this is that I have seen â over and over again for decades â creationists saying that the same data can be interpreted in a creationist framework, but never actually supplying the interpretation.
ETA: note that the little numbers next to the lines on the plot above represent the number of samples that go into the measurement for that time slice â in other words, dozens of transitional fossils for this handful of species. Transitional fossils that weâre told donât exist.
I just donât have the time to dive down the rabbit hole that has the data interpreted within the worldview of deep time and with the assumed slow and gradual ascent of evolution.
What I can quickly say is that the stasis visible and the undisputed living fossils that exist provide powerful evidence that God created all basic groups of animals contemporaneously as the Bible clearly informs us all during Creation week.
As there is only One designer (God the Son), and there is only one Earth with a particular set of environmental parameters, things like the mass of the planet, hence the gravitational forces acting upon all matter on the surface of the planet, the distribution and properties of the naturally occurring elements on the periodic table, and the properties of compounds that those elements form, and the ratios of those compounds and elements to each other, such as for example the ratio of available atmospheric O2 molecules to N2 molecules to that of water and N in the soil as NO and NO2 and of course Carbon compounds as well as elemental C etc⌠It becomes very clear that the designer (our Lord) has created many similarities in plants with other plants (with an amazing variety, and definite groups within the Kingdom), AND with animals that for the same reasons have many similarities because within the broader groups, (insects, fish, reptiles, mammals, etc. etcâŚ), each group has the same fundamental construction of Carbon and Hydrogen and Oxygen and a myriad of other elements, but the core organic requirements are similar and thus the appearance of common ancestry can be inferred as it is under the evolution paradigm and it can seem quite compelling, but the similarity can also be interpreted within the Biblical framework and I find that more compelling.
God has designed us to live in His Creation, the fact that there are similarities at all levels of research between different forms of life should be no surprise to anyone who is a Christian.
Honestly, I cannot read and understand Genesis in any other way than historical narrative.
I have looked at the alternative interpretations put forward, yet they do not ring true to me.
It is also compelling that the whole Gospel message of salvation makes little sense when the historical creation and fall narrative in Genesis is not regarded as a factual account of reality.
The theology goes from being straightforward and honest to convoluted and weird, it just doesnât make coherent sense, no matter how many times I have tried to see what the Biologos folk believe, the explanations just donât sit right or make logical sense to me.
Jesus is the Logos, all that He does is logical, thus I can only conclude that believing the Genesis Creation and fall account to be anything other than logically stated historical narrative would be a belief that is in error.
But you misrepresent the reality!
I really do not have the time to get into debates about semantics , but to briefly answer as best I can, your allegations:
I donât believe, âThe earth is flat with a dome over itâ.
I donât believe, âThe moon is a light in its own rightâ but I do believe what the Biblical text states that : Genesis 1:16 âGod made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.â the fact that the moon reflects the suns light and goes through all its phases being just the right size and at just the right distance to do so, as an aid for us to keep track of seasons and other biological phenomena such as prawns running to sea from lakes when there is no moon, (I remember as a child netting prawns running to sea during the dark), is reason enough for me to trust scripture where it is written as history, to believe it as history.
I donât believe, âThere were trees with magical powers:â but I do believe there were trees the Lord had placed in the garden, with one for eternal life and one forbidden one that took away innocence and imbued the knowledge of good and evil.
âGod did not want us to have that knowledge (or eternity)â. This misrepresents the situation. God did not want fallen mankind to have that knowledge in eternity, what a terrible outcome that would result in! Imagine the evil on the Earth if man had that knowledge, it is bad enough anyway and heading towards as it was for Sodom and Gomorrah. Evil is rampant on the Earth right now and deception abounds to lead as many as possible to destruction.
I do believe, âGod deliberately put temptation in Adamâs way instead of securing the trees out of reach.â
I donât believe, âAdam stole our intelligenceâ. Not really sure what you are about here???
âGod inflicted pain and discomfort as a direct consequence of just one act of disobedience.â Here you misunderstand the gravity of sin, and sin that was in effect a rebellion against the One who holds the whole of Creation in existence, even now. There is no middle ground, truth is truth, righteousness is righteousness, justice is justice, God is perfect in all these aspects and I for one am exceedingly relieved that He is.
*I do believe, âThe same God offers forgiveness for any transgression (any and all).â except for transgression against the Holy Spirit.
I do believe, âThe same God destroyed nearly all of mankind in a flood.â
I do believe, that the entry of sin into the Creation is what corrupted it, man was the free agent able to choose, and unfortunately the choice Adam made brought sin into the Creation. âMan could corrupt a perfect creation.â
I really do not have the time to continue the incessant refutations of the Creationist stereo type that many people on this forum site appear to have about Christians like myself.
It would be a never ending debate, you can believe whatever you choose and I am free to believe that God had the brilliance and foresight to write the Bible in a manner that speaks profoundly to peoples of all periods of history in accord with the knowledge of the time; and therein is another proof of the supernaturally inspired authorship of the Bible itself.
According to Genesis God told Adam not to eat the fruit of Knowledge
Adam ate and âknew the difference between good and evilâ (AKA sentience/knowledge)
Adam took-stole. it was not his to eat and he had been told not to.
He stole his knowledge of good and evil.
Simple as that.
God did not give it to Adam. Adam took it. (stole it)
That is Scripture. If you are going to take it literally.
So you spiritualize an explanation why they didnât die within a 24-hr (yom) day. They eventually died, which wasnât what God said in the first place. Got it.
Sorta like we know beforehand that our children may reject us and hate us, but we choose to have them anyway. The same reasoning applies to Godâs decision to bring humanity into existence through evolution. Whether God knew the outcome in advance or took a âriskâ in creating human beings, the outcome is the same.
The wages of human sin. And are the wages of human sin physical death (eventually, not within 24 hrs) or spiritual death (separation from God)? Nowhere does scripture state that the wage of sin is death for plants and animals. Thatâs a conclusion based on faulty human reasoning.
I have news for you. Evolution isnât âmolecules to man.â The theory of evolution isnât concerned with the origins of the universe (thatâs a different branch of science) or the origins of life (several different branches of science). Biological evolution starts with life that already exists and goes from there. I know it doesnât fit the YEC propaganda you were taught, but itâs the truth.
Youâve listened to too much propaganda. The ânew informationâ and âjunk DNAâ arguments are in a shambles.
One of us misunderstands evolution. Have you considered that itâs you?
Nonsense that death predated the appearance of Homo sapiens, or nonsense that non-human creatures (plants, fish, birds, mammals, etc.) are incapable of sin? Sorry, brother, but itâs you who is speaking nonsense here.
I know you wonât change your mind unless the Holy Spirit should open your willfully blinded eyes to the truth, so Iâve said all I have to say.
of course, however, the entire point of my post was in direct contrast to your view (and others who follow TEism) that it is YEC who are telling liesâŚYEC who manipulate the truthâŚYEC are turning people away from God.
The truth is, the claims YEC are dishonest are ignoring the evidence provided showing that secularism is even worse.
Given TEists ignore self revelaing bible theology and doctrine and instead use moral arguments like âGod wouldnt hurt peoplebâ in order to support scientific interpretations of on nonchristian naturalists, i find it a conflict of interests.
Its also deeply worrying to see Christians who follow atheist interpretations make the claim Christians who go searching for evidence that support the bible are liars!
Personally i think that in being YEC i stay true to the the statement of the prophet Samuel to king SaulâŚhe produced a very specific line in the sand
âto obey is better than to sacrificeâ
Saul tried to rationalise why he didnt need to obey God literallyâŚthat ultimately was Sauls own demise!
