Posted on 08/25/2008 7:26:38 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Once again, a NASA space probe is supporting the 6,000-year biblical age of the solar system. On 14 January 2008, the Messenger spacecraft flew by the innermost planet of the solar system, Mercury. It was the first of several close encounters before Messenger finally settles into a steady orbit around Mercury in 2011.1 As it passed, it made quick measurements of Mercury’s magnetic field and transmitted them successfully back to Earth. On 4 July 2008, the Messenger team reported the magnetic results from the first flyby.2
As I mentioned on the CMI website earlier,3,4 I have been eagerly awaiting the results, because in 1984 I made scientific predictions—based on Scripture—about the magnetic fields of a number of planets, including that of Mercury.5 Spacecraft measurements6,7 have validated three of the predictions, highlighted in red in the web version of the 1984 article. The remaining prediction was:
(Excerpt) Read more at creationontheweb.com ...
Your response (and link) Maybe an invisible dragon is the source of all biology is simply a straw man and is in truth a non-sequitur.
The story of the invisible dragon is meant to illustrate the futility of using non-testable, non-falsifiable evidence in science. You can say that God is the source of all biology...but how does that impact the study of biology? Let's try to nail down the argument. Are you saying that:
A) God has guided evolution over the last 4 billion years to produce the current situation? or that
B) God made the heavens and the earth 6,000 years ago, and virtually all of modern biology, astronomy, geology and physics is mistaken? or
C) Something else entirely?
This was perhaps not your claim, but the point has been made on this thread that if one were to accept the idea of a young earth, one would have to conclude that God was tricking us because starlight would have to have been artificially made.
Since all evidence (not just starlight!) points to a universe billions of years old, one would have to wonder what the point of creating a universe with the illusion of such age would be.
Does this include the claim that there is no creator?
Yes, although I know of no claim in scientific literature that God does not exist, the Big Bang and evolution notwithstanding.
Again I'll restate: You (apparently) reject Genesis.
It depends on your definition of "reject" :-)
I'll be more explicit. If you want to claim that a God (or Gods) is the ultimate cause of the universe, fine. There's no scientific evidence for that one way or the other...it's not even addressed. I do reject that the universe was created only 6,000 years ago. The evidence is overwhelming that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. Do I believe in Adam & Eve? No. That's mythology, as is a worldwide flood, Noah and the Ark, etc. All evidence points to the evolution of life on Earth over the last 4 billion years.
Well, I reject blind luck and chance. And again I'll lay claim to the logic of my position, simply because of the truly astronomical odds required that blind luck and chance brought us to this place and time.
Evolution doesn't happen by chance. Natural selection is the opposite of chance. As for "blind luck", I'm not sure what you're speaking of.
Are you aware of an occasion or event where something (matter) came from nothing? If not, your position (imho) is illogical at best and unscientific at worst.
Science doesn't address the state of the universe before the Big Bang. Where did the universe come from? I don't know.
How is that illogical or unscientific?
The fact that you keep asking this question shows that it is impossible to discuss the issue with you. It is the wrong question. GR and coordinate systems is exactly the right answer, as Einstein, Hoyle, Born and Ellis have made clear.
You simply don't understand. I can't fix that.
“Taken in the context they could only mean literal days.”
Nope, nothing in the context forces the meaning to be literal. Just because you are capable of seeing it that way doesn’t mean that is the only way it can legitimately be seen and I’ve already given my specific refutation to your argument. Repeating it doesn’t change anything.
“in Exodus 20:8-11, the scripture reads...”
I’ll agree that in that passage the meaning of day is literal, but it is invalid to project the literalness of that passage on other passages and the use of numbers doesn’t change that either. You can’t transplant context.
“OK. I will concede the point that you were referring to only astronomical events, and not to those on Earth. However, the rest of the chronology does not coincide, e.g. water before dry land, plants before Sun, , earth before stars, etc.”
Again, the sequence of events is not out of line with science. Water would be a very common element in the solar nebula, and the earth would initially be a a big ball of mud with all the various elements mixed up together. Over the course of time, heat and gravity would cause the water to pool in the lower places, and for DRY land to appear. It would also cause heavier elements to sink (like the nickle and iron the make the core of the earth) and lighter elments to rise. Water traped below the surface of the earth would be vented via volcanic eruptions.
I already pointed out that there would be light before the sun was fully visible, so the possibility of plants is not precluded. Genesis has light created on day one, so you can’t say the Bible has plants created before there was light for them to grow. I also pointed out that the it isn’t that the earth was created before the stars, but that the stars were not visible from the earth until after the solar winds from the newly ignited sun blew away the solar nebula (something that would have taken a long time).
Another big problem with YEC is that the measured age of the sun is 5 billion years. If you are going to claim that gravity disrupted time to make the rest of the universe look older than 6000 years, then one heck of gravity field would have had to existed right in this solar system to make the sun seem so old, and a gravity force that strong would likely have ripped the earth apart by tidal forces.
It is just so many complicated hoops to jump through to make it all fit the YEC theory. Why would an all-powerful God go to all the extra trouble? Why was he in such a big hurry to get it all done in 6 24 hour days? It just doens’t make any sense to me, not in terms of what science shows, not in terms of God’s personality and nature either.
Definitely an interesting questions. But then, if He were all powerful, and could inspire and preserve a book for 3500 years, could he not tell us what he did? I prefer to believe that an omnipotent God could, and DID, tell us exactly what happened, and in what time frame. If he is truly omnipotent, he could do it in 6 days, just like he said. Luther struggled with the same thing, except he wondered why God took 6 days, and not do it all instantaneously.
It just doens’t make any sense to me, not in terms of what science shows, not in terms of God’s personality and nature either.
On what basis do you determine God's personality? If it is the Bible, then you are picking and choosing elements of His personality to identify. Genesis and Exodus say 6 days, so I prefer to believe He did it that way.
One interesting thing I learned. God "created" in 6 days, and is now "preserving". I decided, since I believe the scripture is inspired and inerrant, and should be taken literally whenever the context allows, that it would be impossible to understand how He "created" when all we can do is observe whats occurs while he is "preserving".
In summary, we don't know. We try to explain the cosmos around us by what we observe in the present, and induce extrapolation, conjecture, and theory to explain it. Man's theories will always be flawed because we can only observe the presnt from our perspective on earth. To assert something is an certain age past 6000 years is past man's recorded history, and is based on a series of assumptions and conjectures I am not willing to accept. OE vs YE is not provable, one just has to determine which set of assumptions and postulates they are willing to accept.
That said, the real question to be answered is this: Did God raise Jesus from the dead? The answer to that will begin to color the answers the the questions proposed in this thread. To create a universe in 6 days is NOTHING compared to loving the pinacle of your creation so much that you become one of them, live among them, let them kill you, resurrect yourself, and then offer them forgiveness. That is a real miracle, and the basis of all of my other beliefs. If Jesus be not raised, my faith is worthless!!! Science conclusively proves that once the human body has been dead for 3 days, it cannot come back to life.
Why is he willing to accept the scientific evidence from Mercury but unwilling to accept the scientific evidence that the Earth is over 4 billion years old?
As I said, according to Einsterin, Hoyle, Born and Ellis, geocentrism is equivalent to geokineticism within GR and coordinate systems. To argue that there is some physically significant difference is to argue against GR.
"You obviously cannot answer the question because nothing we have any experience with COULD exert force upon the Sun to move it around the Earth while leaving the Earth motionless. It must be magical forces, that idea has a long and storied past, but it isn't Science."
As I said, it is the wrong question. No magical forces are involved and it is the science of GR and coordinate systems according to Einstein, Hoyle, Born and Ellis.
I think that the Ellis quote is especially appropriate for this conversation. Your objections are purely philosophical, not scientific. It's fine to have philosophical objections, as Ellis notes below. It is no benefit to science to pretend that your objections are scientific when they are philosophical, as he also implies.
"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations,” Ellis argues. “For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. “You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”
Ellis, George, in Scientific American, "Thinking Globally, Acting Universally", October 1995
Geez dude. You've really got a confused definition of 'measured' if you think the age of the sun has been 'measured'. There's no way. It's an inference based on extrapolations based on assumptions.
This fact escapes most people when they argue for the age of anything "ancient". One should also consider the opportunity (likelihood) of errors in the measurement systems.
Gravity provides that mechanism provided one allows the tiny Earth to orbit the massive Sun, which is something you have a philosophical objection to.
You cannot provide a mechanism or cite a Biblical passage to support your model. Too embarrassed? No problem. I would be to.
Just to be adversarial, how do you know the sun is massive (e.g. in mass, not volume)? Is it not based on a series of suppositions, including heliocentrism?
So you are unwilling to accept the well-supported assumptions of science in favor of the completely unsupported beliefs of religion?
How do we know how massive the Sun is? Well we know how distant it is by direct measurement. Based upon its apparent size and its distance we can calculate its real size (volume). As far as its mass, it is made up mostly of the two lightest elements known, so any change to that will only make it more massive.
Moreover there is a minimum size for a star, otherwise its gravity will not be sufficient for nuclear fusion.
How small do you need the Sun to be for it to circle the Earth? Care to make a calculation? How would your ‘mini star’ undergo nuclear fusion? Why does it look so big and why is it measured to be so distant?
One needs to discount all Science, reason, and measurement if they wish to make the Sun small enough to circle the Earth.
==Why is he willing to accept the scientific evidence from Mercury but unwilling to accept the scientific evidence that the Earth is over 4 billion years old?
What specific evidence are you referring to?
And to overturn the Enlightenment as well.
(And these folks claim they're not anti-science!)
1. Not religion, rather, Christianity. Religion teaches what man must do to satisfy God's requirements, whereas Christianity teaches man can't, only Jesus could.
That said, why do I believe the Bible?
1. Historical evidence - It has not been proven wrong histroically on items that are verifiable, e.g. existence of Jeirco and it's walls collapsing, destruction of Sodom and Gommorah, ancient peoples once thought to be imaginations of the Biblical writers, e.g Hittites.
2. Prophecy - the prophecies written about Jesus in Psalms, Isaiah and Micah, specifically his birthplace and time, the circumstances of and manner of his death, manner of burial , and his resurrection, are statistically as impossible to fulfill as abiogenesis, yet they are well attested to.
3. The existence of the Jews, return to their homeland (as prophesied), the resurrection of their language and currency, their maintenance of cultural identity through centuries of exile, etc. is unparralled in human history.
4. The preservation of the New Testament. More ancient manuscripts of this (or parts of) document exist than ALL documents written before 1600 AD, copies of which are constantly being unearthed. Potions of Isaiah were found in Qumram amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating 100 BC, virtually identical to what we have today.
5. The nature of the Bible. Written by 40 authors on 3 continents in 3 languages over 1600 years, and no disagreements or contradictions. We here on FR, with the same beliefs (more or less), same language, and same time period can't agree on much of anything, including the definition of socialism, our mutual enemy!
6. A worldview that consistently explains human nature. Are there absolutes? Are some things wrong (sin)? Is there beauty?
7. The changing power of God in the lives of sinners. I am not who I used to be, because of my belief in Jesus, and His recreation of new life in me. I won't expect anyone to believe this, those who have experienced it.
While the last two a philosophical or metaphysical in nature, the first 5 are not. Science, and it's theories are constantly changing to accomdate new informattion, as is it's nature. But arguing on origins based on theories that can fundamentally change next week is not logical, in my opinion. I prefer to believe in something that has not changed in 2000 years, and has a logic behind it, as I have asserted in 1-5 above.
We must ALL agree that no explanation of origins can be "proven", any one must be accepted on faith, based on ones acceptance of the evidence provided. I am an engineer by training and practice, and spend my carreer engaging companies as a consultant to train them how to solve real business problems logically, based on data, not heresay, theory or conjecture. Having worked with PhD scientists at TRW, AB, and Penn State, I don't give them near the credit, or benefit of the doubt, as other do. Illogical leaps are made by people all of the time, a substantial one being that correlation means causation. Another thing I have learned. Just because everyone believes something to be true does not make it so, ergo, consensus is no guarantee of correctness.
I trust herein I have answered why I believe the Bible, more than just asserting "Because it's the Word of God". (which I believe it is). Christianity is logical, is satisfying both intellectually and emotionally, and provides the best basis for a consistent, ethical and stable worldview.
Jesus claimed to be God's unique Son, said he came to die for our sins, was crucified, dead and buried. On the 3rd day, he rose to prove his claims true! How we individually respond to this truth determines the nature of our existence. We each must decide what to do with this Jesus.
Believe what you want, but just don’t call it science.
As far as its mass, it is made up mostly of the two lightest elements known.
How do you verify this a proven concept? Is is not verifiable at all! It is conjecture and assumption absed on observations from here on earth, as well as from spacecraft. You realize, of course, we don't even know what the Earth is made of past 8 miles deep!
gravity will not be sufficient for nuclear fusion.
Hydrogen to helium, eventually to iron, and so forth. Theory, conjecture, and an assumption that the sun has been burning for Billions of years. Circular reasoning. The gravitational collapse model was widely accepted, until Millions of years were required for Darwinism, which prompted an change in theory to Nucler Fusion. However, problems aboud with this model as well, including the shrinking size of the sun, angular momentum of sun & planets, etc.
How small do you need the Sun to be for it to circle the Earth?
About the same size as the moon, I suppose.
Why does it look so big and why is it measured to be so distant?
Don't they look to be the same size in the sky? Don't they both rise & set from our perspective?
I am not asserting geocentrism any more than you are, I am just pointing out assumptions and problems with the heliocentric model, just as you are with the geocentric model. I tend towards Helio, myself. :)
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