Earth: Rock of Ages or Young Planet?

Absolutely.

But if you think that my “definition of sin is malleable” you should tell it to my two leftist sisters, who have ceased talking to me because of my “fascist” opinions on the indissoluability of and exclusively male+female nature of marriage.

...however, if you think “Since AGW is BS so is evolution,” welcome to the world of wilful stupidity. That’s like saying that just because Aryanist theories of geopolitics are evil so is the U.S. Constitution.

... my “fascist” opinions on the indissoluability of and exclusively male+female nature of marriage.

Well, at least there's that. So, you do have a floor of sorts, as far as just how low you're willing to go in seeking to accomodate the fashion of the day. Too bad science has become such a slave to the same.

Cling to your "homophobia" and you'll find yourself in the same shoes as the Biblical literalists that you appear to enjoy mocking, soon enough. Then, you'll see just how well your profession of faith holds up.

It might appear that you're just a little too worried about someone, somewhere, calling you stupid, in my personal opinion. If that is genuinely the case, that makes you vulnerable and, yes, malleable.

My goodness, you’re exhibiting some very unfortunate tropes there, Ghotier.

Christianity does not depend on a rejection of objective reality. And the belief that the world is 6000 years old is entirely a rejection of objective reality. It is, in short, a heresy. And a most damnable one.

And not just the heresy, but those who hold it.

Repent and believe the good news.

Does your version of objective reality include resurrection of the dead 2,000 years ago, or men taken up bodily into the heavens never to return (Enoch, Elijah), or a woman who was a virgin giving birth to a child who was God? Apply the materialism you've accepted elsewhere to these Biblical occurrences. Can they possibly meet a scientific standard of objective reality? I believe that some day they will, but they do not under the current understanding.

You're putting Him in a box, a box made by men demonstrably hostile to religion in general and Christianity in particular. Your telling me to repent for accepting the Word at face value certainly tells the tale; you are in my opinion not only not Christian, you're actually anti-theist. You're here to mock and belittle Biblical literalists for one, but your primary interest is the defense of evolutionary theory.

There have been several FReepers in the past who have sought to cloak themselves with the mantle of Catholicism, under the same mistaken impression that began our exchange, that the Vatican accepts evolutionary theory to the exclusion of any other understanding based on the book of Genesis. I pointed out that you were mistaken about that, then. It appears that you continue to be mistaken, and do so willfully.

So, again, in my opinion, you're here to pontificate upon that which you do not accept, looking for any foothold to further your actual core belief, which is evolutionary theory.

I'd love for you to prove me wrong in this, but only time will tell whether you'll show yourself to actually be a good Christian, or end up zotted and over at Darwin Central regaling all the other zotted former FReepers with tales of your exploits and derring-do among the despised Creationists.

Jumping in (without, or course, meaning to preclude Gautier's own reply, if any)...

Does your version of objective reality include resurrection of the dead 2,000 years ago, or men taken up bodily into the heavens never to return (Enoch, Elijah), or a woman who was a virgin giving birth to a child who was God? Apply the materialism you've accepted elsewhere to these Biblical occurrences. Can they possibly meet a scientific standard of objective reality?

You are conflating science with a philosophy of "materialism". Militant, aggressive atheists enthusiastically agree with you, btw, insisting on the same identification. But most in vast range of perspectives between militant fundamentalism and militant atheism find it gratuitous. (Including non-religious philosophical theists like me.)

You might indeed apply "materialism" (depending on what you mean by the term) critically "to these Biblical occurrences," but I can't imagine how you would apply a "scientific standard" thereto. Science, as science, generally doesn't have any way of addressing unique events that are part of an historical narrative, nor does it have any reason to do so.

You're putting Him in a box

You're putting God in a box yourself. And, again, the same box in which "scientific" atheists would confine Him. Your only disagreement with these atheists is as to whether or not the box exists.

Your disagreement with Christians like Gautier, and non-Christians like me, and many others, excepting literalist creationists and aggressive atheists, is whether God fits in that box. We think He doesn't.

You are conflating science with a philosophy of "materialism".

It's a conflation that is all but impossible to avoid. Name the science that posits the existence of deity in this era, or even allows for the possibility of a deity. It certainly isn't evolutionary theory. All causes must be naturalistic and therefore material. I've actually had FReepers inform me, in all sincerity, that science cannot allow for a deity of any sort.

That is the materialism to which I referred, and I'm sure it's something you've encountered and perhaps even championed yourself.

It's a conflation that is all but impossible to avoid.

And, yet, MOST do. Only literalist creationists and militant atheists seem to find it "all but impossible".

Name the science that posits the existence of deity in this era, or even allows for the possibility of a deity.

There's the box, right there. You, along with "scientific" atheists, leap to the conclusion that because science does not affirmatively allow for a deity, that it thereby disallows (denies the "possibility" of) a deity.

This expands and aggrandizes science far beyond its practical application and intended aims.

I've actually had FReepers inform me, in all sincerity, that science cannot allow for a deity of any sort.

Exactly. Science cannot allow nor disallow. You just insist on hearing only part of the answer.

That is the materialism to which I referred, and I'm sure it's something you've encountered and perhaps even championed yourself.

I am more or less a philosophical naturalist. I do happen to believe that the universe itself is, most likely, a seamless web of natural cause and effect. The aspects of reality that involve God I presume to extend beyond this "web," and to be the ultimate cause of it, but without disturbing its coherency.

But, to the extent I would "champion" philosophical naturalism, I would do that separately from defending or promoting science.

They are not the same things. Not even remotely, in my view, as indistinguishable as they appear to you.

Science does require a few "philosophical" presuppositions, but in the nature of the enterprise they must be the minimal set which allow science to "work."

In fact these presuppositions are in truth "operational," rather than genuinely "philosophical," assumptions; that is they are adopted only for the purpose of doing science.

So when, for instance, science presupposes the universality of natural law, it is not a grand declaration of what MUST be accepted as true of all reality, independent of science itself; but merely as what must be presupposed of phenomena when and where we choose to apply scientific explanation. It only becomes a universal philosophy to the extent you believe science is universally competent, an attitude rejected not only by most in the general public, but by most scientists as well.

BTW, because they are adopted only operationally, these presuppositions are subject to change, when and where that is required by genuinely successful scientific theories. For instance it was once a presupposition of science that force could only be transmitted by the physical impact of material bodies. For this reason Newton's law of universal gravitation was initially derided as an "occult" theory, rather than a scientific one, because it asserted that force could be transmitted by immaterial fields, without physical contact between bodies.

Problem was, for the materialists, that Newton's law of gravity worked, and worked extremely well, as science. Therefore the presuppositions where changed to accommodate the theory, rather than the reverse.

BTW, this is why it is pointless for creationists to whine about the "naturalistic" presuppositions of science which supposedly exclude them. As hopeless as the task may appear to me and other skeptics, it is nevertheless the case that they could, in principle, compel the modification of those presuppositions by construction and successfuly (ah, there's the rub!) constructing and applying a "creationistic" theory that really worked as science.

I’m not putting him in a box, I’m simply declining to climb into an intellectual coffin and being buried alive in bovine scatology.

Your vision shows a Supreme Being with no greater imagination than a Dungeons and Dragons fanatic: any tinpot dictator god can create the world in a flash and a minute. I find a God who takes 13.9 billion years to create the human race and to create ME through a REAL act of ex-nihilo Creation to be *far* more impressive.

The reason why you pathetically hold on to this young earth foolishness is simple: the thought that the universe is not made precisely as stated in the Genesis recipe is intolerable because it reveals biblical literalism to be the stinking BS that it is.

And yes, I DO believe in the Resurrection along with accepting the Big Bang: a God that can cook us out of His primordial soup in 13.9 billion years is of course capable of much else.

But your pathetic clinging to objective falsehood (6000 year old Earth? heh....) against all evidence shows that you are really afraid of having your religious prejudice challenged by reality.

So, go ahead and believe the earth is 6000 years old if you want. (You’ll still go to Heaven anyway, most likely.) But in the meantime the grownups will go on doing what needs to be done.

Sorry Stultis, that was actually meant for Regulator

-I want an explanation for the 90% of brain mass that we dont use.TQC

-I do too!UCS2

It was on mythbusters recently ~ you basically use 10-20% doing most anything. But eventually, depending upon the task, you do use it all. Unless of course your missing part of your brain or there are certain tasks that you don’t do, either by choice or ignorance.