Which do you trust, God or science?

In response to Craig's comments in Diane's post; I must agree with her wholeheartedly.

I have worked with many very well educated SCIENTISTS who are probably much more educated than you are Craig (I don't really know your background), but I can say that many are Christians and they accept a literal Genesis 1-11.

Get back to the subject at hand. If you do not allow the variable of an "omnipotent God" into your equations, then your science is either bad or you do not believe that an omnipotent God has anything to do with creation. Period.

 

I am pretty sure Ben was the source of that quote. See page 8.

 

Craig, you obviously put much more credence in Science than you do the Bible. Yet, you claim to be a pastor, how strange.

Are you as arrogant with your congregation as you are here on the BB? Do you ridicule your church members who do not worship education as you seem to do, or is your church limited to only college grads?

Judging by your arrogant attitude here it is evident that you are woefully under-qualified to pastor a church.

 

Terry;
BINGO! Or in Baptist-ese...AMEN!
In HIS service;
Jim

 

AMEN! Terry!

 

If my pastor worshipped education above God, went around calling people ignorant becasue they didn't have a degree in something or becasue they beleived God even if they did have a degree, I'd find a new church. Not only that, from the people I know, I do beleive his church would be empty now.
We tend to worship God and believe Him in my church. Not degrees.
When man's knowledge and 'wisdom' conflict with scripture it isn't scripture thats wrong.
And when you need proof of something it isn't faith. Faith is belieing what you can not see. When you beleive any old thing that someone seems ot have proof of, then theres no faith in God.

 

SHE, Ben? You honestly believe God is a SHE? You don't believe in a flood during Noah's time.

It might be easier if you told us what you DO believe is true in the Bible.

 

When you beleive any old thing that someone seems ot have proof of, then theres no faith in God.

What I think Craig is getting at is that most fundamentalists assume that the literal reading of scripture is the right one. Thus the old earther doesn't lack faith in God, but rather lacks faith in the traditional fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.

I believe God above any human. But to me a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11 is not God's dictum but rather a human one! Regarding the age of the earth I would generally believe a man with a formal education in that area rather than one who does not have such.

 

I think you would have to look at the reasons why they believe what they believe.

BTW, I wouldn't categorize "old earthers" but more specifically "old universers" in the same column as evolutionists (theistic or not).

I believe that there are legitimate ways of looking at the text even in a mostly literal way and concluding that the universe is old... mostly because God didn't care how long the time before the first day was. The main obstacle left over is explaining how the heavens and earth are created on or before Day 1 but the heavenly bodies show up on day 4.

The interpretation that they were revealed on Day 4 is weak but still possible.

I really don't. I see the "age" evidence as inconclusive... so with no definitive answer there, I simply adopt the more normative, literal interpretation of the text.

Or maybe not. I am no expert but I understand the basic arguments from the various sides on this issue... but my conclusion is different from yours. Perhaps these authors are neither ignorant nor dishonest but rather interpret the relevant evidence different than you.

I acknowledge that both OEC and evolution are within the realm of possibility. Having given much consideration to various arguments, I simply think the most solid evidence for creation that we have is the Eyewitness account.

That really isn't my intent.

My intent is to show that there are other ways of looking at the evidence than the one chosen to the exclusion of all others by scientists operating under naturalistic assumptions.

I don't need "science" to prove the biblical account but it does become necessary to show that the evidence is not so clear cut against the biblical narrative as some would like us to accept.

I have said it before but if I believed in evolution, I would not believe the Bible and would not be a Christian. It does too much IMO to erode the biblical definition of man and God. Further if I were an atheist, I would most certainly cling to evolution more tightly than anyone here or that I have seen.

I could by the way accept OEC if there were actually conclusive proofs for it. Some of the proofs appear good... but not conclusive.

 

SHE, Ben? You honestly believe God is a SHE? You don't believe in a flood during Noah's time.

It might be easier if you told us what you DO believe is true in the Bible.

 

Or maybe not. I am no expert but I understand the basic arguments from the various sides on this issue... but my conclusion is different from yours. Perhaps these authors are neither ignorant nor dishonest but rather interpret the relevant evidence different than you.

I'm not intending to say that all YEC authors are such, but some are. And I think they hurt the cause.

 

And that since they do they are either ignorant, stupid, or dishonest. He has been pretty clear about what he thinks of us who disagree with him.

You have remained civil as has UTEOW. Craig has turned to demeaning those of us who see problems with his view and won't just swallow it.

First, some of the original fundamentalists including Scofield were OE.

Second, you don't have to interpret all that much to believe that the text says what it says and actually means it. I have yet to see a textual, contextual, cross-referenced proof for saying that Genesis 1-11 is allegorical.

I believe someone can be OEC BTW without resorting to an interpretation that does such violence to the text that you might as well just deny it.

I know that is comforting and comfortable for you Charles. However, the internal evidence from the scripture is that authoritative figures including Paul, Peter, and Christ considered Genesis a literal account.

Certainly God had reason to clarify the account if it wasn't as the means of man's salvation was revealed in the NT.

I would to if their conclusions were a) based on a substantial amount of evidence and b) were independent of philosophical presuppositions.

The lines of what is evidentially determined and assumed to be true based on presupposition of naturalism/evolution is constantly blurred by academics today. I would be much more hospitable to their explanations if they were simply honest about what was observed versus what is assumed.

Even UT, who I think is an honest person, presented explanations as if they were observed factual evidence. Explanations are fine but you don't get to close the book until you prove your assumptions or else categorically disprove all reasonable alternatives.

Evolution (witness Georgia) wants to close the book waaaay before it is proven... Sadly, naturalism has in modern times been equated to science. Science should be about finding truthful, objective answers. Not about preserving a philosophy and worldview.

 

Agreed. As an interesting addition, one of the interviews in Lee Stroebel's book said that fraudulent fossil finds are a widespread problem. Searchers, motivated by money, use their knowledge of what scientists are "looking for" to "find" it... and one would surmise, to find it in the right geologic layer.

I know that many YEC's are motivated... and blinded by zeal. But the fact is that many on the evolution side are as bad if not worse.

Witness the imaginative ways Sagan tried to overcome his lack of a prime cause. Certainly there is no evidence for a perpetual universe or superuniverse or whatever atheistic plot one might imagine... but that didn't kill his faith that one existed... or from preaching that faith to others.

 

Ouch!

 

Personally, I do not know very many God fearing Christian's who disagree with the 'men of science,' although I am aware of some of them who are very vocal in their opinion, and I have heard that is some parts of this country there are very many them. As for the religious convictions of the vast majority of the 'men of science’ I would be interested in viewing the data upon which you make that claim. During the years that I was an evolutionary biologist, only once did I hear any of my colleagues speak against the Bible or the Christian faith, and on that occasion, the scientist was rudely insulted by a student who was a fundamentalist and he very politely shared with that student the fallacy of her fundamentalist interpretation of the Scriptures that she was using to attack him. Whether that scientist was a Christian or not I do not know, but I got the impression that he was not. However, my mentor was a very well known evolutionary biologist and he was a Christian. The bottom line here is that God has given gifts to men, and whether or not they recognize where their gift came from, the gift is very real. We see this abundantly in music and the other arts, in medicine, and in the sciences. A man does not have to be a believer in God to be an excellent scientist any more than a man has to believe in God to be an excellent pianist.

Diane, I have never known a scientist to take the initiative to attack a fundamentalist, although I suppose that such a thing probably has occurred, but on very many occasions I have personally witnessed fundamentalists taking the initiative to attack scientists, and perhaps you have noticed that I have never started a thread to attack fundamentalists, but that I have on several occasions come to the defense of scientists and fired back at the fundamentalists, especially when they falsely accuse Christians who believe in evolution of not believing in God’s word.

There is a very high degree of correlation between earned doctoral degrees in the sciences and a belief in evolution. There is also a very high degree of correlation between a minimal education and a belief in creationism. Neither of these correlations prove that the evolutionists are right and the creationists are wrong, but they are perfectly valid points to make in the evolution vs. creation debate.

However, no one has yet established any correlation at all between Christians believing in evolution and disbelieving the word of God. It is not the word of God that they disbelieve in, it is the fundamentalist INTERPRETATION of a few isolated parts of it that they disbelieve in, and yet they are routinely accused of not believing God’s word. What is more inappropriate, calling a man who has very little education an ignorant man, or calling a Christian whose interpretation is very learned but different a man who does not believe in God’s word?

Dianne, I am sorry that you were offended by some of the things that I posted. It was not my purpose to offend you or anyone else, but to bring to the surface correlations that I strongly believe we should all seriously consider, and to provide evidence that some supposed correlations do not actually exist.

 

There was a very strong correlation between believing the earth was flat and the dogmatic teachings of the institutions of higher learning back then... There is a very strong correlation between being born into a muslim family in Iran and being a muslim... There was a very strong correlation between being a Hitler youth and being a devote Nazi.... there was a very strong correlation between being educated in a communist country and being an atheist.

I am not equating science, academics, or evolution to these things... only pointing out that strict social orders produce people possessing a rigid paradigm modeled after those who taught them. Science in most of academia has been rigidly naturalistic and evolutionist for the better part of 100 years.

If academia teaches evolution and naturalism as the ONLY scientifically valid approaches then what exactly would you expect? If to successfully satisfy those who grade and evaluate students you must accept without question the "facts" of evolution, how many dissidents would you really expect?

You are mistaking the effect for the cause. Submission to "the View" of science results in being acceptable to academics who award degrees. People don't earn degrees because they first believe in evolution ... they believe in evolution (or hide their true views) because they want to earn degrees and know the requirements.

 

Terry,

Had you carefully read my posts, you would know the following:

• I place as much credence in the Bible as anyone else on this message board.

• I have freely admitted that scientists make mistakes and that I myself to NOT believe that man evolved from another species but was created by God as man.

• I have not pastored a church in more than 25 years.

• A man who knows what he is talking about and knows that he knows what he is talking about is not arrogant, but wise. And when that man faithfully and judiciously avoids posting on subjects outside of his personal area of expertise, perhaps that behavior should be emulated by others.

I read your posts very carefully, please show me the same respect if you are going to reply to them.

 

That says much more about you than those who oppose you.

I have lived in various parts of the country and have found that "God fearing" people are virtually uniform in their acceptance of a literal Genesis and rejection of evolution... in fact, I have never run across one "God fearing" person who espoused evolution even among science teachers.

 

I disagree. You seem intent on explaining Genesis 1-11 away without any textual or contextual reason for doing so. Your only stated, concrete motivation for this is a pre-determined belief in evolution. You are conforming scripture to the "fact" of evolution.

Evolution, not the Bible, is your final authority concerning origins. You have communicated this clearly.

 

The colleges and universities where I earned my secular degrees didn't care at all what I believed—all that they cared about was that I knew and understood evolutionary biology.