Posted on 09/16/2008 1:11:04 PM PDT by js1138
The 21st century is plagued by wild speculation and fantasies dressed up in graphs and tables and diagrams to look like independently verifiable fact. For example, Muslim lobbyists are currently pouring millions of pounds into producing bogus "atlases of creation", lavishly decorated with photographs and charts "proving" that every living species was created at the same time.
This material is currently being delivered free of charge to schools all over Europe. If it emanated from fundamentalist Christian America, I suspect it would be dumped in the wastepaper basket. But schools are more wary of offending the views of Muslim or Hindu pupils - and then along comes a useful idiot such as Prof Reiss to suggest that it's OK to examine this "worldview" in science classes.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
I think you need to re-read some basic physics here.
There are numerous quantitative theories associated with evolution.
If you start with evolution deniers who also deny the earth is more than 10,000 years old, you have all the mathematics and physics associated with radiometric dating.
On the subject of evolution itself you have various molecular clocks, none of which are perfectly constant, but which offer clues as to rates of change in populations.
There is the whole field of systematics, which allows the determination of the age of specimins (as in how old they were when they died) and where they fit in the nested hierarchy.
Before asserting that there have been interventions, it would be useful to state explicitly what you mean by intervention and how you would distinguish an intervention from a natural phenomenon.
If God created the earth and the universe some few thousand years ago HE went through a lot of trouble to make it look much much older.
Starlight has traveled for hundreds of millions of light years before reaching Earth, some of it denoting stars that have never actually existed within the last six thousand years.
Antarctica was once in temperate latitudes, and one can find temperate archaic species (but no modern ones) buried beneath the ice. How did Antarctica move from temperate to polar latitudes within a few thousand years without ripping the planet apart? Why are only archaic temperate species found (Dinosaurs and such) but no modern temperate species?
Add to this the physics of atomic decay, the evidence of Geology, history, the fossil record, and many other independent lines of evidence and the case for a “young earth” is clearly only supported by haphazard Biblical interpretation and not Science.
“Our faith becomes a matter of ridicule if any Christian, not blessed with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma that which scientific scrutiny has shown to be false” Thomas Aquinas.
If God created the earth and the universe some few thousand years ago HE went through a lot of trouble to make it look much much older.
Starlight has traveled for hundreds of millions of light years before reaching Earth, some of it denoting stars that have never actually existed within the last six thousand years.
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Just as He made Adam and Eve fully mature on day 6, could he not make the universe fully mature?
We are warned in the Bible to be wary of “oppositions of science, falsely so called.”
I call your attention to what were prevailing theories of phlogiston, ether, and currently global warming. There is no consensus on the last, and it took some time for consensus to appear on the former two, that they were wrong.
Your blowing off the scientists at AIG without looking at what they say is argument by assertion. I have every confidence you are a fine scientist, with knowledge far exceeding my own. But they are also experts, and you can’t handwave them away credibly.
I have gone through their material, and my BS meter (goes off a lot when debating liberals on taxation, abortion, and foreign policy) never went off. It’s plausible to me what they say ... and that is also argument by assertion. :)
I invite you to check it out. Don’t check your brains at the door when you do.
As you know, the media holds conservative/Christians to exponentially higher standards than regular secular folk.
If I, as an agnostic, keep my nose clean and stay out of trouble, am I held to a lower standard by Christians even though we find sinners revealed among them?
It would be good to review the scientific controversies of those days. Unfortunately, Galileo, 300 years later, was not saved by these words.
Did God create a frozen Antarctica and then fill it with the same kinds of archaic fossils we find buried on other temperate continents, and then populate it with penguins?
That type of theology is no different than “last Thursday-ism” it is a complete dead end and posits a God who made a universe not just “fully mature” but with a fake history.
In the Soviet Union Lysenko declared that there were no genes or chromosomes. Some of the people working under him set up a microscope display of cells undergoing mitosis where you could clearly see the chromosomes. They told him it was a display for students and to take a look. He blankly refused to look through the microscope.
Similarly the Catholic Church in the days of Galileo was disinclined to actually look through the telescope to see the moons of Jupiter circling Jupiter.
Just as with Evolution, there is nothing Salvational or Biblical in the assumption of the centrality of the Earth, although some biblical passages can be interpreted that way, so there is no reason for objection to scientific data that contradicts an obviously incorrect interpretation.
As I said, I have checked out Answers in Genesis, and I know far too much Biology to take them seriously.
They are not engaged in Science but apologetics to a Biblical interpretation, thus they are not Scientists. Science is antithetical to that approach.
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Thank you for sticking around.
Keep in mind that “Science” usually implies a “scientific method” of forming a hypothesis and testing results such that they are repeatable half a world away. Let’s call this “observation science”.
When talking about the origins of the universe, things are not so measurable. We can only speculate based on the fossils and the environment. Let’s call this “origins science”.
Bottom line on “origins science” is:
1) we didn’t see it
2) because we weren’t there
3) macro-evolution is not happening today
When someone claims to be a scientist, I respect that. But the second we get away from repeatably testable results a.k.a. “observation science”, into the origins of man and animals and the universe a.k.a. “origins science”, all we have is evidence, and theories attempting to interpret the evidence.
I don’t have to be a scientist, to know that people who claim to know what happened when the earth formed, and species came to be, are speculating based on their subjective interpretation of the evidence.
Thank you again for your respectful discourse.
I like that viewpoint. There are denominations like (some) Anglicans, (some) Lutherans, (some) Presbyterians, the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholic that are conservative but don't teach a literal interpretation of everything. Of course, the liberal churches go to the other extreme and spiritualize everything. I think some people are too eager to explain everything, even things in the Bible that are minor points and are not clear. Other people want to explain away all of the Bible because they are secularists. This creats a false tension - one is either a literalist in everything or one is an atheist.
If I, as an agnostic, keep my nose clean and stay out of trouble, am I held to a lower standard by Christians even though we find sinners revealed among them?
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The Bible does not teach that Christians go to heaven for being good.
Christians go to heaven because they believe in Jesus Christ.
If a Christian sins, God does not love them less. But it does open their lives to being ruined by the devil.
Sin is sin, whether done by a Christian or a non-Christian. But the Bible also says that “judgment begins at the house of God” which means the sins of Christians are “outed” more than the sins of non-Christians, at least to my intellect.
Christians are also urged to “love [their] enemies”, and “esteem others better than yourselves”.
So, to answer your question, “no”. Truth is truth, and lies are lies. A Christian demonstrably lying is not to be believed, and a non-Christian demonstrably telling the truth is to be thanked.
Until a definition of “truth” regarding a situation is established, there is much discourse ... especially on the internet, particularly on FreeRepublic.com
I hope I answered your question.
Did God create a frozen Antarctica and then fill it with the same kinds of archaic fossils we find buried on other temperate continents, and then populate it with penguins?
That type of theology is no different than “last Thursday-ism” it is a complete dead end and posits a God who made a universe not just “fully mature” but with a fake history.
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No.
Possible reasons for finding fossils in Antarctica:
1) they were moved there by the flood
2) it was warm down there before the flood
It ain’t outside the realm of possibility to me. I only used ain’t in the previous sentence, so you would suspect I am in Alabama. I am in Los Angeles, surrounded by “entertainment” people. :)
It would never be warm for any land mass at polar latitudes, Antarctica was warm when it was in temperate latitudes. It moved many thousands of miles to end up at the south pole.
That’s a possibility I had not considered. Maybe Antarctica moved south because of the flood.
I don’t know. Like the atheist, I can only ...
1) speculate based on the evidence (Noah’s flood moved stuff, rather than billions of years)
2) according to my world-view (Bible = Word of God, rather than Darwinism)
Its not only atheists who believe in the evidence of an old earth and the evolution of species. It is in fact the mainstream Christian position.
I am a Christian as well as a Biologist who knows understands and has confidence in the theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation; along with many many others.
Very thoughtful and reasonable response, thank you
Its not only atheists who believe in the evidence of an old earth and the evolution of species. It is in fact the mainstream Christian position.
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The problem with believing in an “old earth” with millions of years is that they impose on Genesis 1-3 (which is also the word of God) absurd contradictions like the following:
Bible: God is the creator of all things. (Genesis 1)
Evolution: Natural chance processes can account for the existence of all things.
Bible: World created as is in six literal days. (Genesis 1)
Evolution: World evolved over billions of years.
Bible: Creation is completed. (Genesis 2:3)
Evolution: Creative processes continuing.
Bible: Oceans before land. (Genesis 1:2)
Evolution: Land before oceans.
Bible: First life on land. (Genesis 1:11)
Evolution: Life began in the oceans.
Bible: First life was land plants. (Genesis 1:11)
Evolution: Marine organisms evolved first.
Bible: Earth before sun and stars. (Genesis 1:14-19)
Evolution: Sun and stars before earth.
Bible: Fruit trees before fish. (Genesis 1:11,20,21)
Evolution: Fish before fruit trees.
Bible: All stars made on fourth day. (Genesis 1:16)
Evolution: Stars evolved at various times.
Bible: Birds and fish created on the fifth day. (Genesis 1:20-21)
Evolution: Fish evolved hundreds of millions of years before birds.
Bible: Birds before insects. (Genesis 1:20-31, Leviticus 11)
Evolution: Insects before birds.
Bible: Whales before reptiles. (Genesis 1:20-31)
Evolution: Reptiles before whales.
Bible: Birds before reptiles. (Genesis 1:20-31)
Evolution: Reptiles before birds.
Bible: Light before the sun. (Genesis 1:3-9)
Evolution: Sun before any light.
Bible: Plants before the sun. (Genesis 1:11-19)
Evolution: Sun before any plants.
Bible: Abundance and variety of marine life all at once. (Genesis 1:20)
Evolution: Marine life gradually developed from a primitive organic soup.
Bible: Man’s body from the dust of the earth. (Genesis 2:7)
Evolution: Man and monkey have a common ancestor.
Bible: Man exercised dominion over all organisms. (Genesis 1:28)
Evolution: Many organisms extinct before man evolved.
Bible: Man originally a vegetarian. (Genesis 1:29)
Evolution: Man originally a meat-eater.
Bible: Fixed and distinct kinds of life (Genesis 1:11,12,21,24,25)
Evolution: All life is in a continual state of change.
Bible: Death caused by Eve and Adam eating the forbidden fruit. (Genesis 2:17)
Evolution: Death existed long before the evolution of man.
This is the kind of wisdom I picked up at www.answersingenesis.org. Either the Bible is correct, and man is lying, or man is correct and God’s word (the Bible) is lying.
...let God be true, but every man a liar...
Romans 3:4
Here’s a gem you might not have encountered as a Bible believing Christian. It shows just how literally God’s word can be taken:
http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html
Have a great day FRiend.
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