Getting to know you

You are certainly entitled to that opinion; however, many other Christians (myself included) find ye-creationist's misuse of the bible to promote a political agenda to be blasphemous. I don't expect you to agree, nor am I particularly interested in a detailed response to this post. We've both stated our opinions on the matter.

EF

 

I don't have a political agenda. That's the first point. I am not active politically except to vote, which I feel is the responsibility of every citizen.

However I do have a very strong drive to help Christians understand that they can trust what God says in the Bible to be true. To think that they must depend on man's mind to decipher what the Bible is telling them in terms of creation itself is to undermine the veracity of the entire Bible.

My motive is to honor God and uphold His Word in both theology and science.

Not that He needs my help, but I do want to encourage others to know He can be trusted absolutely to have told the truth in a straightforward and uncomplicated manner.

 

God says:
In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

It is a religious statement, about a miraculous event. Science can't touch that.

And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gather into one place, and let the dry ground appear."

This isn't science, either. Now, if God had gone into some detail about the forces and materials and so on, it would have been. But He seems not to have been interested in telling us those things. Some of us think he gave us intelligence to figure some things out for ourselves.

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years...
Genesis 1:14 is a scientific statement regarding the dating and time-keeping references we are to use (and do).

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are and to dust you will return.
Genesis 3:19 is a scientific statement regarding both the creation of man's body (from the ground, not from an animal) and its eventual return to those same elements via decomposition.

This is poetic, but not scientific. The Earth is not suspended. There is no force or tether that "suspends" it. In fact, it is moving.

Not scientific. Water is not "wrapped" in clouds. Poetic, but not scientific.

Poetic, but hardly scientific. In fact, the source of water for the seas is not from hydrothermal vents (which use water from the sea) but from the land and atmosphere.

The jet stream is high above any rain or thunderstorm, and it does not cut a path for them. Thunderstorms take the path they do, because of the juxtaposition of warm and cold air masses.

Many hunting societies know all these things. But asking questions is not by itself, science.

 

Galatian, that was totally expected of you.

Nevertheless, I stand by everything I said.

 

Eh, what the bananas. Barry looked at your post, too, Galatian, and could not believe the ignorance he was reading (as I also could not). So here are some responses:


1. You said Genesis 1:1 “is a religious statement, about a miraculous event. Science can't touch that.” This is the most bizarre statement! Science tries to deal with creation constantly. What do you think the Big Bang and string theories and the ideas about parallel universes are all about? Never mind what you think -- let me tell you: they are about trying to do away with Genesis 1:1. Because Genesis 1:1 is a directly scientific statement that matter, time, and space itself were created ex nihilo and did not exist forever in the past. This is something science is constantly trying to disprove.

2. You stated that the indication of one supercontinent at the beginning was not a matter of science. It most certainly is! It has taken geologists some time to determine that there was one massive supercontinent at first. They consider the matter to be science! The fact that the Bible indicates exactly the same thing (long before they ever thought of it) is therefore also science.

3. Glad you did not argue with the science of Genesis 1:14.

4. Glad also you did not try to argue with the science found in Genesis 3:19

5. The earth hangs in space. That is the word we use. The fact that it does not hang from ‘something’ is not the question. “Suspended” is a perfectly decent translation of the Hebrew word ‘talah’ – a primary root meaning to hang or to suspend. The fact that there is nothing underneath the earth – turtles or Atlas or anything – was known by the Bible and is a scientific statement.

6. The water most certainly is wrapped in the clouds! If you don’t like the way it is expressed, that is up to you, but the fact that the clouds are water in suspension was a scientific statement.

7. The Bible NEVER says the source of the water for the seas is from the undersea vents. It simply mentions their presence – something unknown to men at the time and also a scientific statement. Don’t put words in God’s mouth the way you do mine, OK?

8. The jet streams do not ‘cut a path’ for the storms? Oh brother! Jet streams play a key role in the weather by steering storms and also helping determine where storms form. from http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wwind0.htm You might be interested in the rest of that page for your own education. Here is a little more to help you learn and understand: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF15/1504.html

http://www.weathernotebook.org/transcripts/1997/04/08.html

9. The questions God asks Job are an indication of God knowing science that Job doesn’t. It’s as simple as that. Biology is science.

10. Star clusters in Orion are disrupting. Their gravitational ‘cords’ have been loosed, despite all the presence of gas and dust. Do you have a scientific explanation for this fact of science mentioned in the Bible? By contrast, the Pleiades is a gravitationally bound cluster. The Caxton Atlas of Astronomy mentions that it will take one billion years for any significant change in the cluster we call the Pleiades. It is almost unique among star clusters in our galaxy. Most clusters are disrupting. How was that known back in the days of Job that the Pleiades was not disrupting? Or that there has been some very high speed disruption within the Orion clusters? This is science and the subject of the science of astronomy.

 

Not if you understand the difference between science and religion.

Oh, stuff after the creation. No, that's about nature, not about how it was created. Science, as you know, can't go back to the very beginning.

Nope. At least not any of the disciplines I'm familiar with. You've been led astray on that one. Most of us are theists. And most of them, Christians. Why would we want to do away with our faith?

But science can't go there. They can talk about what happened right afterward, but not at that moment.

Now that's a bizarre idea. Science is methodologically naturalistic. It can't even talk about such an idea, much less refute it.

I did? Where?

It neither hangs nor is it "suspended", which is not the same thing. It moves.

I know you do. But it's wrong. The Earth is in fact, falling. All objects in orbit are falling. It just so happens that their horizonal vector is sufficient to move them so that they continue to move forward at the same time them fall to make them orbit a larger body.

True. The fact that it isn't suspended at all is the point. It is falling.

 

No, Galatian, I do not see that. I see you using partial quotes and oiling your way around the basic points again. Please go find a stop sign to argue with somewhere. It will give you practice.

Note from Barry: "If I had been replying like Galatian, I would start to wonder about my Christianity and my standing before God."

 

Wow, can't y'all even introduce yourselves without getting into an argument?

To answer your question Gina, I'm a baptist minister living in Atlanta. I see no need to interpret the two creation myths found in Genesis literally (or as one creation account) - so I'm an old-earth evolutionist. I rarely browse here, but occasionally peek in to see what's going on.

Quite frankly, before coming to the BaptistBoard, I wasn't even aware that there were still people arguing about this stuff. The good news is that, with the rise of postmodernism, it will be much easier for Christians to accept the creation story as true without requiring that it be historically accurate.

Joshua

 

Geologists now posit more than one supercontinent. Supercontinents come together and break apart according to modern geology. This is very different than 'Peleg' which some interpretto mean Pangea (and nothing before). Another case of using the bible for something other than its intended purpose.

EF

 

Explain to me then, how you suppose that the Earth is "suspended", when it is moving, and in truth is falling?

(Helen suggests that arguing with a stop sign would be good practice)

Sometimes, Helen, I think that arguing with a brick wall would keep me in shape for arguing with craationists. But many of them are open to reason and evidence. And so it's worth the effort.

Funny how people who most need to consider that, never do...

 

An object in orbit is falling. The only thing that keeps it from falling into the body around which it orbits, is that it has a horizonal velocity that carries it around the curvature of the planet or star.

This site says it much better than I can.

http://www.spacesciencegroup.nsula.edu/sotw/newlessons/defaultie.asp?Theme=mechanics&PageName=orbitisfalling

 

Hey, I'm back in town, I'm a Baptist, I accept the findings of science regarding the age of the universe and the evolution of life.

 

I'm an OEC'er. I view Genesis as a non-literal story to tells up about our relationship with God, not to tell up about how everything literally got here.

 

I believe God created the human race seperately from the animal kingdom, but I have absolutely no problem with the possibility that the earth is billions of years old or that the Genesis creation account might be representative of creative periods rather than literal 24 hour days. My faith is not based on whether or not there was death before Adam, but on Christ's redemptive work on the cross which is only concerned with sin and death as it relates to man. I think this whole debate is unecessarily divisive. It tears churches apart and ruins relationships for absolutely no reason.

 

DingDingDing!!!!

My thoughts exactly.

 

"Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,"

Helen:Job 38 refers to the effect of the jet streams long before they were known by man.
.................................................

Helen, it is not likely that Job 38 refers to the jet stream, since the Jet stream is typical of more northerly latitudes than that of ancient Israel. Also, rain and thunderstorms are only occasionally associated with the jet stream. Most of the time, rain and thunderstorms are not at all connected with the jet stream. Also the jet stream is located above the altitude of most thunderstorms. The only slight bit of truth to your comment is that on rare occasions, the jet stream can influence the storm track of hurricanes. But in general, your comments are more false than true.

In a former career, I was a meterologist.

 

Peter, considering all your posts together, I think I prefer going to the sites posted by the universities and such on this subject, but thank you anyway.

 

Helen,

I am just stating the facts about the Jet stream. You probably got your incorrect information from a creationist source rather than a university. And by the way, you still have not answered my inquiry about the incorrect information on Setterfield's web site about the assumptions of C-14 dating. When will you correct that mistaken information?