The impossibilities of YEC

You are continuing to evade my point. Accepted rules and practices exist within any field of study. The "philosophy" of modern secular science precludes the pursuit of theories that reject the "common knowledge" that the world is billions of years old. Even folks who are not atheistic evolutionists are governed by rules of interpretation and analysis that acquiesce to evolution.

In other words, "If you want to believe in God or theistic evolution or something of the kind- fine. Just don't try to explain things in terms that contradict the assumptions necessary to support evolution."

... and for the nth time, I am not hoping against the data. I am arguing against secular/evolutionary (or evolution respecting) interpretations of that data.

Several years ago, I was taught evolution as assumed fact. The mention of God in the subject was mocked. I struggled to reconcile the Bible to "science." With old earth ideas and limited acceptance of an allegorical rather than literal meaning, I achieved an acceptable tension.

Later, I read the works of several creationists. Whether you accepted their explainations, and some I don't, or not, they do exist within the legitimate realm of options.

You might not think it reasonable, that is your prerogative. However, when science regularly changes its interpretations of natural history while of course maintaining its bias against a young earth and creationists (often with degrees of disagreement between themselves) can post legitimate theories (OE or YE), I am called to ask... Why?

The logical thing to do at that point is to take the next step back from analyses and conclusions and look at methods/assumptions. Secular science, like creationism, makes many assumptions. The further away from actual observation we get, the more assumptions provide the degree of improbability. At the core, evolution is philosophical in nature and not scientific.

The third rail of scientific academia is that you cannot introduce an idea or concept that does not fit in some way into the evolutionary model. Why? Because there must be a naturalistic/materialistic explaination for everything to preserve the philosophical underpinnings of evolution.

As noted above, it does.

I gave some possible starting points to include the idea that God simply chose to make the world that way and scientists are completely misinterpretting what they see because it looks like something else. I think you in the abstract accept God as a Creator, right? If so, and you accept the biblical attributes of God, then the above is just as realistic as any manmade explaination one might conjure up.

... and assuming a uniformitarian model and assuming we really know what we think we know about the earth in the past and Jupiter in the present and assuming the extrapolations and assumptions all hold true...

Not on Earth and not as they supposedly occurred on Earth. Therefore, your interpretations are completely dependent on the naturalistic bias and uniformitarian natural history. These are assumptions, not facts.

The biblical evidence is in Genesis and virtually every other book of the Bible. The scientific evidence is just a biased interpretation of relevant data and facts.

Neither does special creation unless you assume a bias toward the naturalistic.

Ah... so now we aren't as discerning and as intelligent as you? Why? Because I choose to give preference to the Word of God the Creator rather than the changing, biased interpretations of men. God's account is first person. Yours is not.

The first step to explaining meteors is to drop the assumptions of secular science and naturalism/modernism.

The Bible never claims to record every natural or historical event. This is not a legitimate argument against creationism.

My paradigm is limited by the Bible... but not ignorantly. I made an evaluation (that I am still testing) and chose to believe the Bible and the account of natural history that in my opinion agrees best with the Bible.

I don't automatically discount OEC. I disbelieve it when I consider the creative power of God. It is no more difficult for me to believe that God created everything in six days than if the first day was 4.3 billion years long.

Declared? Not proven. Declared!

In fact, I doubt these scientists would ever declare it "proven" as long as this other explaination exists as a possibility. Operating within the naturalistic paradigm, secular scientists are often very honest with their uncertainty.

 

There really isn't any need for this kind of response. I accept the evidence. I reject as "fact" the notion that the only reasonable explainations are governed by naturalistic assumptions.

Apparently from your previous statement, it is not "fine." But it is also untrue as I stated above.

So now not only science but also participation in this debate is subject to your presuppositions about what constitutes legitimate argument?

No. As much as I am sure that you would like to place me into some convenient grouping of the irrational, I don't think it is a conspiracy any more than the accepted truth of a flat earth was. It is a mindset, a paradigm... and it has its dogmas.

Yes and no. I am not unreasonable and I didn't reach my current opinions lightly. Time and observation have certainly caused me to look at least as critically at "science" as I do at the Bible though.

With that in mind, the Bible was directly inspired by God. Scientists are not. The Bible is consistent in its message and contains no irreconcilable contradictions. The explainations of secular scientists frequently do. (It is considered academic freedom/intergrity to allow disagreements within the paradigm). The Bible has not changed. Science is constantly changing, often overturning what it taught as absolute truth in the very recent past.

Yes I do. The scriptures make claims of divine inspiration for themselves. Over 5,000 manuscripts, 12,000+ early church father witnesses, and 12,000+ early translations testify that the Bible we have now is the one God gave.

At least we have gotten this far...

Honesty demands that I acknowledge that your viewpoint exists within the cosmos of legitimate possibilities. However, IMO, accepting the Bible as a book with a single Author that is to be its own primary interpreter by comparing scripture with scripture... you are simply wrong.

That may very well be the most significant possibility.

I do have strict demands of religion. In fact, far more strict than my demands on science. But in the end, both must be biblical for me to accept them.

That would be one of the areas that my expectations for religion are the most strict.

I didn't find any hint that the Genesis account of creation is allegorical in John 1, Rev 4, Romans 5, Romans 8,... These scriptures assume direct creation. Romans 5 makes Adam just as historical as Christ. Romans 8 tells us that all of creation was made subject "to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." This scripture assumes the lack of decay in the pre-fall world. It does not allow for degradation of any kind.

Your right. What makes it educated speculation is that their theories are not, nor can be, proven with 100% certainty even within the naturalistic paradigm. Someone may come out in 5 years or 10 years or 100 years with a new discovery that explains these craters and their timing in a way more acceptable to secular science. New discoveries are made all of the time that disprove past "truths" of science.

Not in the least. Medicine and computers are applied sciences as are some branches of geology. None of these are dependent on the earth being old or young. They are dependent on observed, predictable results in accordance with the laws of physical science.

Interestingly, geology is based on probabilities, not ironclad rules, in its real life applications. It seems strange to me that you would choose to put unrelenting faith in theories regarding pre-historic natural events made by people in a field that cannot predict with certainty what we will find under the surface at any given location. If even applied geology were an exact science, companies wouldn't spend (or lose) millions in their efforts to find natural resources. It would be as simple as finding the right conditions.

Do you have evidence of any of this?</font>[/QUOTE] Yes. You. As illustrated by your next response.

I'm not saying everything has to, only those things that *can* have natural explanations. </font>[/QUOTE]Why?

[ June 23, 2003, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: Scott J ]

 

No. That is not the source of my objections. It is the source of my assertions. God is capable. The Bible says He created in six days. It does not say nor imply that these were anything but six days as we know them.... and I really haven't seen anything approaching concrete proof that shows the evidence demands an old earth much less evolution.

No offense, but you are playing semantics. Nothing in science is "proven", as that is a term for math.</font>[/QUOTE] I don't think I am...

And without trying to rub you the wrong way, this is one thing I have been trying to get your assent to for awhile now. The thread began with the argument that YEC was impossible because these craters catagorically disproved it. One of my major objections was that what you cite as proof are interpretations of data that may or may not be true.

I'm not going to lie to you, at the time, I did want to place you in that sort of irrational group. It's not fair for me to do such things, and I now apologize for them; I wrote them because I can not understand how you are, IMO, ignoring the evidence. </font>[/QUOTE] Thank you. If I offended you, I apologize as well.

I don't believe that I am ignoring evidence as much as I am refusing to undertake consideration of the evidence until agreeable ground rules are established.

Because I hold that not all truth can be discerned by the scientific method. A significant portion can be but the modernistic view that all of it can pervades academic science.

I don't reject it. I reject it as a final or superceding authority. From what I have read, I disagree with the premise that YEC cannot explain the evidence. It has not explained all evidence I agree. But "has not" and "can not" are not the same thing. Secular science "has not" forwarded probable theories for many things but we would not say that it "can not." As has been frequently noted, more scientists with vastly more funding are pursuing the evidence under modernistic assumptions rather than YEC assumptions.

And you have heard the response... the Bible is true on every subject it addresses: scientific, historic, spiritual.

By witness I mean a citation by an early church father that serves as a proof for a section of scripture.

Being God inspired, the originals were without error of any kind. Being providentially preserved, the Bible we have now has no error in the message it communicates.

If you are saying that the author is not God then yes we would disagree. Scripture is God breathed. Men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

I am convinced by the evidence that the text of the Bible has not changed. Much of it is first person with regard to the writer.

I deny this notion because of evidence from other parts of the Bible, notably NT. Once again my argument is that what you denote as "scientific evidence" is not the evidence but the interpretations of that evidence. The dimensions of a crater do not prove nor disprove the biblical account of creation- it is only the interpretations of that data that can be said to support or undermine the Bible. These interpretations as you already acknowledged are subject to change therefore they can never be a proof against a literal Genesis.

Earlier you ascribed to me the act of making God a liar because He allowed natural phenomenon that "proved" an old earth. Yet here, you say that Adam is a metaphor and deny that this passage is literal. I have to ask and I am not trying to be hateful but doesn't what you wrote above make God very dishonest in this respect? According to your proposition for at least 1800 years of Christian history, God let Christians believe a lie, a fabrication. Worse yet, Paul believed that the Spirit was leading him to write about a literal person.

By what means? If certain parts of scripture are not true as written while giving no indication that they should not be taken as literal truth, how do you determine what is reliable? Our hope as Christians is based on a supernatural event- the bodily death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as declared by scripture. It contradicts the common knowledge of naturalistic science. How can you derive hope from a book that might be allegorical in nature without any warning?

But this goes once again to ones presuppositions. I believe that the Bible is a supernaturally created book providentially preserved.

Not at all... and given that their hit rate for finding oil is still very low... I would give them alot of room for discovery.

No big deal. We disagree. I disagree with alot of people on many things. I don't consider it personal.

 

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;You are continuing to evade my point. Accepted rules and practices exist within any field of study. The "philosophy" of modern secular science precludes the pursuit of theories that reject the "common knowledge" that the world is billions of years old.&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

I think you are mistaken here on several points. The view that the earth is very old was accepted only after long and exhaustive studies that considered the question and that considered very carefully the alternative explanation that the earth is only a few thousand years old. The ancient age was not assumed and it is based on far more than a vague idea of "common knowledge". I also think you are wrong in saying that evidence pointing to a young earth would be ignored. The problem with such evidence, as presented by modern day creationists, is that it is quite easy to see that it is not good evidence. It is put forward by those who are incompetent to evaluate such evidence.