The scientific method has some specific rules.
If a great scientist starts doing creation "science" they are not following the rules of science.
Here is why: science does not have any final answers. Science has a method for discovering new information: data and theory.
Creation "science" already has a final answer--adherence to the scriptures. Creation "science" will distort scientific data and theory, and the scientific method itself, or flat out lie if necessary, in order to make everything come out supporting the scriptures. That is not science.
Don't believe me? Check out the various creationist websites. See what kind of science they are doing. See what they have to do to support the "global flood." See what they have to do to support the "young earth" belief.
Its not pretty. And its not science. Its apologetics.
That is tagline material -- it'll be pn my profile in a few minutes.
Much of Genesis does not have any conflict with what science has *discovered* about the universe.
There's the *beginning* part which science tried for a long time to deny until Einstein and Hubble proved otherwise.
The earth being formless and void (solar nebula theory) and honestly I can't think of a more succinct way of describing the earth at that stage in fewer words.
Water is separated from land - the elements had to separate out and water from land.
Creation of light - light takes time to travel and the sun and stars would not give light until they ignited.
How could you explain how people who had no conceivable way of knowing any of that stuff could get so much right in so few verses?
The big issue with the evolution/creation debate seems to be the time frame. Put that aside and the Bible has much more credibility than some would like to give it credit for.
There are also odd comments about the natural world scattered throughout the Bible besides the creation account that also display knowledge that was unknowable to them at that time. How can that be explained away? Lucky guesses? That many of them?
I agree that some Christians are real Gomer Pyles when it comes to beliefs they hold. (Disclaimer: I am a Christian.)
1. Global flood: I believe it did occur, although maybe not globally (!). Why? Because the Hebrew words used are "adamah" and "eretz." One is total, the other implies only local (e.g., throughout the land). It might have been a regional catastrophe. E.g., the flooding of the Black Sea basin through the Bosporpus.
2. With regard to YENC (Young Earth Creation): I don't buy it. I'm an old Earth Christian. I don't think that bristlecone pines are 1/3 as old as the planet, nor that the Pyramids are 1/4 as old as the planet. ;)
There are heuristical rules for exegesis of Scripture. Most Christians don't follow any of them, and take things out of context, take passages literally when they are poetic or figuratively written, etc. I just completed a course in hermeneutics...boy, did I get a chance to see some common errors!
Sauron