Posted on 02/19/2015 7:06:20 AM PST by fishtank
Just seems that on this matter that he was able to make sense 1600 years ago of something that still confuses you today. The Bible isn’t a science textbook, and its truths are spiritual truths given by God to a primitive tribe many thousands of years ago, not scientific treatises.
There is nothing at all confusing about God creating the heavens and the earth without my assistance, and sustaining it by His Word from one day to the next, just as St. Augustine believed and taught.
“Ah... so time’s not a constant, eh?”
You are using the word, constant, in an inapplicable context with the noun, time. Even variables may have “constant” rates of change.
“Might have other implications as well, eh?”
None that you would likely be willing to acknowledge.
No, that does not prove anything. To these types, every scientific measurement you mention was what god created *poof * Presto*. To them, they look at your proof and simply argue the maybe God said “what would the microwave background look like at THIS instant if I had created everything billions of years ago?”
Then he created THAT reality in a finger snap.
This is an insanity that no science can disprove. Ergo, it isn’t science they are about.
“The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) cannot be simulated by an instantaneous creation of the Universe with such properties only ~6,000 years ago.”
Essentially, they are arguing god didn’t have to start at the beginning. To them we simply joined the game or the movie, “in progress”.
Reductio ad absurdum
If you were to write a science book, I suspect it would be very thin. Every answer would be "because God did it that way".
Why should you or I care in the least if someone else believes something we find absurd (unless they happen to yell “Allah Akbar” as they try to kill us).
Personally I believe none of what I’m arguing. I do hope I prefaced every argument with ‘if’.
What if it didn’t have anywhere else to go but up at that point?
As for age of the earth, I want to know what the Appalachians looked like when they were young and wonder if the Promised Land that was flowing with milk and honey was a tropical paradise, not a desert.
That's a relief.
Why should you or I care in the least if someone else believes something we find absurd (unless they happen to yell “Allah Akbar” as they try to kill us)
I care very little what others' beliefs are when it comes to religion, salvation, science, etc. That's their business.
However, I care very much when those same people demand that such ridiculous concepts as Young Earth Creationism be taught in schools.
“I care very much when those same people demand that such ridiculous concepts as Young Earth Creationism be taught in schools.”
That’s the rub isn’t it. At what point does our insistence on teaching what we believe in all schools interfere with their right to teach what a vast majority my believe in their individual school.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/saudi-cleric-the-sun-revolves-around-the-earth/
“Yes, but he was a genius, and you are a fool.”
Regarding part A of your response: Genius people are no less prone to be goofy with scripture. They may be, perhaps, even more able to make a mess. See Emanuel Swedenborg.
Regarding part B: Without dispute. There is the marvel of grace, that it rescues even the least worthy.
touche!
“No way. An all powerful and all knowing creator could just create the cosmic background radiation exactly as you find it.No way. An all powerful and all knowing creator could just create the cosmic background radiation exactly as you find it.”
No, that is wrong. The act of Creation of the electromagnetic radiation even with omnipotence results in a Universe with its current physical properties which has an effect upon the radiation during the period of time after the Creation event. A Creation event only 6,000 years ago results in properties for electromagnetic radiation which is different for electromagnetic radiation resulting from a Creation event some billions of years ago. Yes, an omnipotent Creator can in a conjectural miracle create a simulation of about anything, but once the physical properties have been created the objects of the universe are constrained to conform with the created properties. The properties created in the Universe we experience affect the rates at which radiation frequencies are shifted over time in an expanding space-time continuum as well as spin properties of sub-atomic matter, changes in microscopic and macroscopic force interactions, and so forth.
In other words, once the act of Creation has established physical properties for a Universe, those properties foreclose the ability to freeze the progression of physical properties. In order to maintain the appearance of an older universe would require the continuous recreation of the illusory young universe throughout all frames of reference in the space-time continuum. Such a proposition presupposes the non-existence of cause and effect, and once you have eliminated cause and effect, you have also eliminated the possibility of God-given free-will, sin and redemption, and all other cause and effect relationships in Christianity.
Unfortunately for their argument about the Universe being put into place fully developed as if by an instant of magical will of God at every instant in time and space is that it perforce forecloses the existence of cause and effect, which then in turn eliminates the cause and effect which is the foundation of the Christian tenets for sin and redemption, resurrection, and so forth.
There is an exciting new theory about early Earth. Rather than having a liquid metal core, the Earth has a liquid water-based core. And the Earth was much smaller in diameter back then, with a non-watery crustal surface. As the core heated, the liquid water core released steam which broke through the crustal surface and created rifts which drove the continents apart, and spurting water from below created the oceans. Gravity was lesser than now when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, calculations taking into account a different core than now. The Earth expanded like a balloon over millions of years, and gravity increased to what it is now. These theories came about due to experiments on rotating droplets of water done by astronauts in space. Non-liquid particles move to the outside surface while the water stays in the core, the water heats and hot steam bubbles remain in the core, expanding the droplet.
As you say, we can only speculate. But scientists always get whiplash when new evidence makes them toss out their old theories that were thought to be "facts". They still don't truly know what happened.
Young earth creationism has caused a lot of thoughtful people to reject Christianity. I do my best to explain to them that YEC's are an eccentric branch of the family....
If you believe that nonsense news story at face value, you’ll believe anything. Whoever authored that news story took a few actual events and invented a whole fantasy around them that has practically nothing to do with actual natural history. The comment, “Gravity was lesser than now when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth....”, is particularly laughable. They take the fact that the Earth has accreted almost negligible mass from meteorites, asteroids, and comets impacting the Earth during the last 200 million years and ignore the almost negligible losses of mass to outer space as gas from the upper atmosphere is stripped off by the Solar Wind and propelled to the outer Solar System. The overall gravity of the Earth has undergone no significant sized changes since the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs. In fact, the last significant change in the Earth’s gravity occurred when the Earth was reformed and the Moon was formed by Earth’s collision with another mars sized planet in the very early stages of the Earth’s existence more than 3 billion years ago.
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