Stunning victory of Creation

UTEOTW, you're presuming that YEC's are required to provide evidence for YECism. Like KJVO's they don't they think that all the have to do is argue the other person's evidence, and that somehow proves their claim. They also presume that everyone who is not a YEC literalist is a die hard evolutionist. That's certainly been the finger pointed at me, even though the only thing I've ever asked for is for people to provide physical evidence for YECism.

 

Philip,

2. You give no room, nor do you allow God to be omnipotent. You confine Him and restrict Him to the space, time and physical laws that were simply constructed for the habitation of humans.

I know this was addressed to Ute - but I'll throw in my $0.02.

God created things as he wanted. Science seeks to describe these processes. Jesus made wine at Cana. Wine is fermented grape juice with ethyl alcohol. When Jesus made the wine what happened? Did the fermentation process occur at an ultra rapid rate? Did wine spontaneously appear and the water disappear. Did molecules of alcohol and grape extract appear in the water? It had to happen some way! Seeking to describe it isn't wrong!

Creation happened and God did it. It had to happen some way. Did things appear out of air? Did God literally make them from dust? Did they evolve? Seeking to describe, in material terms, how a miracle happened is not wrong.

And regarding the Gospels - I think we all agree that the gospels intended to give witness specifically to Jesus' resurrection. Old earthers would not agree that Genesis was attempting to give SPECIFIC witness about creation. Apples and oranges.

 

"1. If it does not agree with the Bible, you change the Bible."

Where? Because I disagree with your interpretation?

"2. You give no room, nor do you allow God to be omnipotent. You confine Him and restrict Him to the space, time and physical laws that were simply constructed for the habitation of humans."

Nope. I fully acknowledge His omnipotence. I say that all these various things indicate that God used old earth processes to create. Could He have created recently and made things look as such? Absolutely. But to me it makes no sense. I, personally, find that it is not in God's ways such as we know them to have been so meticulous to make things look as they do if that is not reality.

You and others, on the other hand, seem to try and take a double tracked path. Paths which are contradictory. On the one hand, you say that the earth is young and that the data supports this and not old earth. Then when presented with old earth data, you either dismiss is without a reason or, worse, say that God could have simply made it that way.

Make up your mind. Does the data show that the earth is young or does the data show that the earth is old and you choose to accept that God made a young creation appear this way for His own purposes? One or the other. Please!

"3. Some day, you will find some observation that disagrees with the gospels. Guess where that is going to put your position? You are going to have to make a decision, do I believe what I see or do I have faith in God's Word."

Been face with a similar dilemma.

I was brought up YE. I had to eventually face the facts and accept that YE is incorrect. Many lose their faith over this. (One reason for me to oppose YE.) Yet I ma still here.

"4. You do NOT admit that methods of observation and things we observe today may be skewed..."

They may be. I go on what I have got. Currently the best explanation for what we see comes from old earth explanations. I would willingly accept another explantion if it did a better job. What would it take for you to accept an old earth?

"Just last night the head of the comet mission stated that the reason to crash into a comet is to learn about our origin. The man has ALREADY taken God out of the equation and if you cannot see that, you are blinder than I thought."

What are you talking about? I, for one, acknowledge both! I can accept both God and the origin of the species.

You are committing the logical fallacy of the false dilemma. There is another option. That option is that God used long periods of time and mainly natural processes of His own design to create.

 

Most YEC's routinely change the bible to agree with the science they agree with, particularly in the case of the rotation of the earth as the cause of day and night (compared to the moving of the sun across the sky).

 

And your reasoning is????

Just as the Scripture said that Jesus made the wine from water, so the Scripture says that God created it all in 6 days; in several places, not just Genesis

 

Well I for one happen to know for sure the earth is at least 59 3/4 years old from personal observation.

 

The "mark of being finite..." Well Michael, in that case, please give me the X,Y,Z coordinates of the end of the universe.

An infinite distance implies eternality, no?



HankD </font>[/QUOTE]The creation (universe) appears to be:

- Finite in time – That is it had a beginning. It is not itself eternal. If we entertained the thought that the creation is eternal, then we would have to ask whether the eternal creation needed the eternal Creator or have they eternally co-existed?

- Finite in dimension – The universe appears to be expanding. If it truly is not eternal (ie it had a beginning), then it must also be finite spatially (ie it has an end). If there is no end, then that implies it is eternal. Unfortunately, I’m not sure anyone really knows the exact X,Y,Z coordinates of the end (ends?). We can’t actually "see" the end. We can’t see sub-atomic particles either, but we know they are there.

The evidence for the finite-ness of the universe becomes stronger all the time, seemingly with every new scientific advance. I am talking about “real” science. The few credible scientists left who argue against the Big Bang theory may do so for philosophical or religious reasons, rather than the scientific merits. Pantheists and atheists like the idea of an infinite, eternal universe.

Christianity 101 argues for an infinite eternal Creator who created a finite universe.

 

Just as the Scripture said that Jesus made the wine from water, so the Scripture says that God created it all in 6 days; in several places, not just Genesis

My reason?

Genesis 1-11 shares alot of elements with Baylonian and Canaanite myth. There are alot of Jewish non-Biblical writings with this type of imagery.

I see Genesis 1-11 as being very important, but just not likely intended by Moses to be literal. We have been taught that the Bible was written with 21st century american protestants in mind and that is just not true. The Pentateuch was originally written to a group of middle-easterners whose background was myth and fable. Why wouldn't Moses use that sort of imagery to tell them about creation? It would probably make more sense to them than a literal an scientifically accurate account.

I could certainly be wrong - but I simply want to do justice to God's word. And I don't care if I end up having to go against tradition sometimes to do it.

 

Charles, I see your point, BUT, should not a Christian have more faith in the Word than that "it's comprable to the myths of the era"?

I would believe that the Baylonian and Canaanite myth were taken from the Hebrew writings rather than the other way. If I am wrong, then as Paul said:
"--we are of all men most miserable."

Also, as noted earlier, if this (Gen 1-11) isn't to be taken literally, why the detailed description? It certainly would have been simple enough fo God to have had Moses say:
"In the beginning God created the heavens & the earth!"
Delete the remainder of any other references to the acts of creation. There could have been all manner of legitimate speculation as to the time frame & method then, absent the existing conflicting details!

 

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;Creationism provides a viable scientific alternative to evolutionism.&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

Creationism as a part of religion may be satisfying to some but it does not provide a viable scientific alternative to evolutionism. It fails in many respects. There is good reason why it is rejected by 99 percent or more of the scientific community.

 

JWP,

Charles, I see your point, BUT, should not a Christian have more faith in the Word than that "it's comprable to the myths of the era"?

We should have faith in the Word! But I think that to insist that it be interpreted literally is to only see it in 21st century American terms. Remember the original audience! I'm not questioning whether or not we can BELIEVE the Bible at face value - I believe we can. But I'm not so sure (and again I could be wrong) that in insisting on a literal Genesis 1-11 that we ARE being true to the Word. Rather we are perhaps being true to what WE WANT IT TO SAY. Interpeting the Bible literally in all areas gives us a comfort zone - no extra knowledge required. But I'm not so sure that that's the way God, and in this case Moses, intended it.

 

"I am not going to let you pull me into debating the qualifications of scientists and their papers. You can find papers for almost any theory, both pro and con. Let's stick to the FACTS, you brought up calibration, let us (you and me and other posters) discuss calibration. If you want to quote from a paper, you may do so, but don't go and tell me stuff to read. Or start quoting scientists names. This is not good debating. If you want to bring up a quote from someone's paper and say who wrote it for posterity, then fine, but to just throw out a paper and make a demand that it answers all of the questions being debated. Naaah! Won't work here.

Let's just talk calibration for now. Agreed?"

It is an acceptable practice to refer to experts in the field. You seek to criticize the work of people in the field. How can you do so unless you are familiar with their work? These are the ones who know far more about the subject than we do and who did the work in question. It requires an understanding of their work before you can criticize it. So if you are unfamilar with the type of work cited then you should take the time to get to know it before you proclaim to doubt it.

Now, to your question. Let's look at one method of calibration. Tree rings. By counting rings, you have a basis to which you can compare the carbon dates. By using dead trees, the method can be extended well back into time.

Let's say you have a redwood that lived from 5000 years ago until now. You have another which lived from 9000 years ago until 4000 years ago. The thousand years of overlap let you know for sure how to begin counting further back with the dead tree. You do not have to guess where the rings start in time, you have a control.

By using the overlapped sets of tree rings you can get back to something like 10-12 thousand years ago or so. When comparing the calibrated dates to the uncalibrated dates, you find that they already agree quite closely. The calibration merely let's you fine tune the dates. See the chart about half way down on this page to see a graphical comparison of the corrected and uncorrected dates. This calibration goes back about 14000 years.

http://packrat.aml.arizona.edu/Journal/v40n3/editorial.html

The method is so sensitive that you can even pull out things like slight changes in the intensity of the sun. For example, carbon 14 in trees has been used to study the output of the sun during the Mauder Minimum, a period of colling in 17th century.

Some complain that you don't always know for sure thet every ring represents exactly one year. But, by repeatedly doing this with trees from around the world, you can eliminate those kinds of errors. You can futher do so by using other calibration methods, such at annual layers of lake sediments (one way you know the layers are annual is that each layer will often leave a progression of types of pollen from the different seasons. When you see a full cycle you have seen a full year.) , to check your tree ring calibration. The methods become complementary.

You can also date items from a specific point in time. Say from the remains of Pompeii. We know exactly when that happened. (Actually this event has been used to directly test other dating methods to very high success. I am not sure if the same has been done for C14 but it would not surprise me.)

 

"I KNOW many of these scientists in industry and I can tell you that the numbers are nowhere near 99%. "

Unless they are evolutionary biologists, their opinions do not matter on evolution. Unless they are professional geologists, their opinions on geology do not matter. Unless they are professional astronomers, their opinions on cosmology do not matter. To insist that they do is the logical fallacy of an appeal to authority. To appeal to an authority they must be an expert in that field.

 

I'd still like an answer to the question posed in bold in this post.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/2693/13.html#000184

I need to know which side of the fence you are coming down upon.

"Does the data show that the earth is young or does the data show that the earth is old and you choose to accept that God made a young creation appear this way for His own purposes?"

Not to mention the recent posts addressing such issues as the agreement between stratiography and cladistics and the problem of retroviral inserts shared in the human and other ape genomes.