Science versus Religion

Instead of running through all this mess of theories, I'm just going to keep my views on Genesis as they are. If it matters to any individual I'm witnessing too, I'll just leave and their blood can be on my hands, it's of no consequence.

 

And mine was a sincere response: I don't understand what you were asking.

Yes, there are serious differences, but there is also an important similarity. To think Christianly about the evidence, one cannot approach it with unsound presuppositions. If you are happy to concede that God may have created light before the created the stars, since the Bible says that he did, then you have already sent most of your teachers into apoplectic fits because you are departing from their presuppositions. Starlight is a problem for YECists, but it is not necessary to consider it an insurmountable problem. What would the stars look like to us if the universe were young?

I have seen people say stupid things about areas in which I am expert. They do it simply because one cannot speak with much depth about a foreign field before he commits such errors. Knowing this, I try not to speak much about things outside my field, and that means that I would not try to argue with a scientist regarding the age of the universe. I just want to encourage sound thinking.

 

I was once ask this question in Siminary, did God create the stars with light or did he create the stars and later give them light??? I had no idea what that had to do with anything but reading your post Pipedude brought that class to remembrance. Maybe he was just way over my head...

 

They wouldn't look like anything at all, most of them. Not enough time for the light to get here. On the other hand, if God created the light on the way, we have the problem of Him faking the evidence of exploding supernovas, millions of light-years away, when they never existed at all.

And if He made the speed of light faster, then Adam would have been fried by radiation, because the weak force that governs decay is tied to the speed of light.

No way out of it.

 

What if the light speed were significantly reduced prior to Adam?

 

Which is another way of saying, theories are many and varied, each with it's proponenents and opponents?

 

You have affirmed that God couldn't suddenly create a big universe in such a way that we could peer up into infinity at heavens which declare the glory of God. If he spoke a big universe into existence, there'd be no way for us to see it unless he waited a long long time.

That affirmation seems untenable to me. I cannot admit the need of God to wait and wait and wait. "Waddya say, Father? Should we evolve man yet? "No, Son, we need a couple a' billion more years so he can see the universe we've made. Just be patient."

What about the false history allegation? I confess that I do not know, but I agree again that false history would be out of character for God. Maybe it has something to do with relativity or the speed of light or the nature of reality itself in relation to the mind of God. After all, matter is mostly empty space with molecules positioned here and there. Molecules are mostly empty space with atoms positioned here and there. Atoms are (etc.) It's a wonder to me that anything is anywhere at all, except that I read that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear, and that all things are upheld by the word of his power.

A scientist told me last year that we don't even know what gravity is. That floored me. (Proof of gravity, by the way.) I'm thinking there are at least half a dozen other things that scientists don't know, and the starlight solution is in there amongst 'em.

Is that fundamentalistic obscurantism? No; actually, the very nature of the case calls for just that kind of reticence.

 

That wasn't what I was saying, but it does tend to follow from what I was saying.

Here's a simple example of presuppositionalism: I was sitting across the banquet table from a girl of questionable mental acumen and a light complexion and, for some reason, I made a quarter disappear. (This was thirty years ago, and such memories dim.) She was aghast, astonished, and unnerved, and she wouldn't stop asking me how I had done that. Now, a magician is under oath not to reveal his secrets, but to palliate her unquenchable thirst, I ventured this much: "Sarah, if you're watching my hand the whole time and I open it and the quarter isn't in there, don't you reckon I must not have ever put it in there?"

Her answer speaks wisdom even to this day: But I SAW you put it in there." And I replied "Okay, then; it's magic."

You and I, (and she, in her more reflective moments) know that quarters cannot vanish and reappear. So when we see a quarter disappear, we set aside the "evidence" and assume that it's a trick. But why are we justified in doing so? Because we already know what is possible or impossible on this subject. It isn't narrow-minded bigotry to stick with what we've always believed, we are simply interpreting the data according to a scheme which has worked so far. There may come a time, with enough new evidence, that we revise our scheme. Meanwhile, quarters do not disappear, end of discussion. That is presuppositionalism.

If a scientist "observes" something that contradicts his scheme, he says "That can't be right" and he goes back over his work to find the error. The history of scientific progress has been a long string of one scientist saying "Eureka!" and the others saying "That can't be right..." Galileo and the Catholic church got along just fine until the Ptolemaists in the university science faculties raised the devil and got him condemned. They had their scheme of thinking, it had worked fine for centuries, and they weren't about to be proven wrong after a lifetime of tenure and prestige.

When Groucho Marx's girfriend caught him in the arms of another woman, he defended himself with "Who are you gonna believe--me, or your own lying eyes?" He appealed to a presupposition that he hoped would be in his girlfriend's scheme: that he was reliable. It would have been a bad presupposition, but if she had held it, she would have been strongly tempted to revise her interpretation of the data.

Bottom line: an interpretation of a datum has to make sense according to what is already known. If you can't make sense of it, it is not permissible to adopt an interpretation that doesn't make sense. Instead, the scientist has to withold judgment pending new evidence or insights, or perhaps a whole new scheme.

Science is not a pile of data, it is data arranged and interpreted so that it makes sense. Those arragements and intepretations have changed over time, they are debated currently, and they will change again. Two debating scientists are not disputing over the data, usually; they are offering different interpretations of the same data, each arguing that his interpretation makes more sense than his opponent's.

 

Then all the radioactive elements would be depleted, and nearby rocks would have been melted and metamorphized by the heat, even in very shallow positions.

But that's not what we see. If God is truthful, He's not planting fake evidence, so there's no way to make it work.

 

No, I"m pretty sure He could have done it, if He had so chosen. The point is that He wouldn't have planted a lot of false evidence indicating otherwise. Since time means nothing to God, I don't see Him getting impatient. I don't know why He does what He does, in all cases, but I can only believe that it's the best way.

You're right about gravity. Evolution is actually more secure than gravity. We can describe in detail how gravity works, but we don't know why it works. We can describe how evolution works in great detail, and we know why it works.

 

Except that when Christians view the details of evolution against the Bibles revelations, we understand it doesn't work. And it is an unprovable theory, as is the Creation theory.
So in the security struggle above, I vote for gravity.

 

Barbarian observes:
No, I"m pretty sure He could have done it, if He had so chosen. The point is that He wouldn't have planted a lot of false evidence indicating otherwise. Since time means nothing to God, I don't see Him getting impatient. I don't know why He does what He does, in all cases, but I can only believe that it's the best way.

You're right about gravity. Evolution is actually more secure than gravity. We can describe in detail how gravity works, but we don't know why it works. We can describe how evolution works in great detail, and we know why it works.

No, that's wrong. Christians accept that the Bible is entirely consistent with evolution. In fact, Genesis directly refutes the "life ex nihilo" assertion of YE creationism.

All scientific theories are unprovable, since science is inductive, and works by accumulating evidence. However, even honest creationists admit that the scientific evidence points to an old Earth and evolution. Most creationists with enough education to understand the evidence take this stand. Kurt Wise, for example, says that the evidence contradicts his understanding of Scripture, but he places Scripture above the evidence. Harold Coffin, who testified for creationism at the Arkansas creationism trial admitted that if it were not for his religious beliefs, the evidence would lead him to believe the world is very old. Even Phillip Johnson admits that transitionals like Archaeopteryx is evidence for evolution, although he doesn't think it's convincing evidence.

There is no "creation theory." Creationism is an unorthodox religious belief.

Well, it's almost as settled as evolution. But as I said, because we understand why evolution works, and we don't understand why gravity works, there's still a bit of research to do before gravity is as certain as evolution.

 

Agreed

This is simply a non sequitur. Or at best: the consequences of not knowing HOW gravity works pale in comparison to accepting the premise that evolution does.

Man I've read this over and over looking for something I'm missing and it's not there. This is just plain wrong. In the beginning God created. Not changed or evolved from lower order, but CREATED, out of NOTHING, the heavens and the earth. Heb11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

This is selectively picking scientific minds that concur with your premise. There are growing numbers of scientists coming to grips with the impossibility of a complex cosmos without an intelligent designer. Coffin, Wise, Johnson, et al, haven't seen the light yet.

I find nothing significant here.

reprinted from above: the consequences of not knowing HOW gravity works pale in comparison to accepting the premise that evolution does.

 

Barbarian observes:
You're right about gravity. Evolution is actually more secure than gravity. We can describe in detail how gravity works, but we don't know why it works. We can describe how evolution works in great detail, and we know why it works.

Since we directly observe it happening, that's not an issue for anyone who understands it.


Barbarian observes:
No, that's wrong. Christians accept that the Bible is entirely consistent with evolution. In fact, Genesis directly refutes the "life ex nihilo" assertion of YE creationism.

It's the "ex nihilo" creation of life that's refuted in Genesis. God says that the Earth and waters brought forth living things. Life was, as He tells us, created by natural means. He does most things that way, in this world.


Barbarian observes:
All scientific theories are unprovable, since science is inductive, and works by accumulating evidence. However, even honest creationists admit that the scientific evidence points to an old Earth and evolution. Most creationists with enough education to understand the evidence take this stand. Kurt Wise, for example, says that the evidence contradicts his understanding of Scripture, but he places Scripture above the evidence. Harold Coffin, who testified for creationism at the Arkansas creationism trial admitted that if it were not for his religious beliefs, the evidence would lead him to believe the world is very old. Even Phillip Johnson admits that transitionals like Archaeopteryx is evidence for evolution, although he doesn't think it's convincing evidence.

More importanly, these are well-educated people, two of whom actually have advanced degrees of relevance to the question. It's no coincidence that such people admit evidence for evolution, even if they have religious objections to it.

Shrinking. Behe and Michael Denton now refer to themselves as evolutionists. A lot of scientists (myself included) were once interested in the philisophical ideas of ID. But once it became clear that it was only a religion, interested in advancing the doctrines of the Unification Church and a few other unorthodox theists, they began to fall away. ID is fast becoming the phrenology of the 21st century.

They are all committed Christians. That would seem to me, to qualify. The fact that they admit what is obvous to every scientist, isn't remarkable.


Barbarian observes:
There is no "creation theory." Creationism is an unorthodox religious belief.

Neither do Christians who are scientists.


Barbarian on gravity:
Well, it's almost as settled as evolution. But as I said, because we understand why evolution works, and we don't understand why gravity works, there's still a bit of research to do before gravity is as certain as evolution.

Even the Institute for Creation Research has acknowledged that evolution produced new species, genera, and families. If they back up just a bit more, we won't have anything left to argue about.

 

Wise likes to say outlandish things, for some reason. Shock value, I suspect. He doesn't believe that the evidence "contradicts" his understanding of Scripture, he just admits that there are good scientific reasons for disagreeing with him. He also affirms that there are good scientific reasons for agreeing with him.

 

I'm not so sure about that. God can create a fully grown human. But he doesn't have to create that fully grown human with a belly button, scars on his skin, healed fractures in his bones, accumulations of toxins in his body from environmental sources, etc. An absence of these artifacts could indicate that the created looks newer than something that has actually been around longer.

The same is with the universe and the earth. He could speak the world into existence without artifacts that make it appear old.

I would agree that science would not be able to determine if something was newly spoken into existence should it be created in way to make it appear old.

 

Here is the problem with substituting religion for science:

* Religion has a predetermined outcome or answer, and tries to fit the observations to match

* Science makes observations to test hypothesis and develop theories that fit the observations. These are then refined as more data is available.

 

3-page warning: This thread will be closed no sooner than 4:00 a.m. ET.

Lady Eagle

 

Yes, there's no argument against your point. On the other hand, if God prepared Eden for Adam, and it had a river, then one might be inclined to say that X amount of time was required for that river to be formed by natural causes. So I add this point to my first one: (1) anything God speaks into existence will look like it was here before, and (2) some things, by the nature of the case, will have the appearance not merely of prexistence, but of age itself.

That brings up, again, the question of false evidence. I would not expect God to "make it appear old" in some capricious way, such as burying phony dinosaur fossils in order to test the faith of Christians. But, by the nature of the case, everything is going to have some appearance of age.

So when investigations go all the way back to origins themselves, theistic scientists are skating on thin ice. The scientific method is ill suited to examine a world where supernatural intervention is taking place.

The atheistic scientist, proceeding on incorrect presuppositions, will err completely.

 

I'm not sure whom you have in mind, but I wonder about your choice of words. Since we are Christians, would you be willing to say "This is the trouble with substituting God's word for science" or "Here's the trouble with substituting the words of Jesus for science"?

God hasn't told us how many teeth a horse has or how spiders taught themselves to build webs through trial and error. He has told us that he spoke the world into existence, contrary to the cosmogonies of all of Israel's neighbors and every other religion known to man at that time, and he has told us this repeatedly in the Bible. Should all of these statements be reinterpreted? We cannot simply disbelieve them and consider them errors, for that would be apostasy from apostolic Christianity.

How to interpret these many statements of Scripture may be an open question; but the words are there on the page and, as such, they constitute data which must be accounted for, just as surely as we must account for starlight and spider webs.