Answer Straight or Get Me as a Member of Your Church

When I was having my hair and make-up done backstage at a fashion show, I would sneak in a copy of Dostoevsky and read it inside a copy of Elle or Vogue. But it would be pretentious of me to say I was more intelligent than the other supermodels. Carla Bruni link

open-book-1378562978Vki

Open Book

There is a pastor in my area who is a staunch supporter of Young Earth Creationism. I respect him. There is another pastor in my area who is a staunch supporter of Young Earth Creationism. I do not respect him. So what is the difference?  

The first pastor called to tell me about a church he was forming and asked if I might consider attending. I reviewed his thoughtful website and discovered that a literal 24 hour, 6 day creation was a stated doctrine of that church.That means it is important to them. I called him back and explained that I could not attend his church with a view towards membership because of their expressed stand on YEC. He told me that it wouldn't matter. I said that it would become an issue when the subject inevitably came up. I would be forced to express my differences and that would cause conflict. The discussion would be a set up for divisiveness in the church and it is not my intent to attend a church, knowing that my beliefs would likely cause disunity. I told him I respected his honesty and wished him God's blessing in his endeavor.  

Why was I glad his church stated things upfront? Because I had been a member of another church that did just the opposite. This church had nothing in its documents to educate anyone about their single minded focus on YEC. 

Every year for 6 weeks, starting in the elementary grades in the Sunday school, all the way through high school, children were taught an Answers in Genesis type curriculum in which they were told that any other belief was unBiblical. Also, every year there was a multi-month adult class that taught the exact same thing. And were there ever problems!

  • An expert in astrophysics was thrown out of the adult class when he explained that the science they were teaching was false.
  • A high school student was thrown out (yep-thrown out) for saying that the teacher presented disproved science.
  • Our Sunday school class was working through Grudem's Systematic Theology. During the creation segment, I suggested that we have a friendly debate between both sides. It exploded when YE folks invaded our class, angry that any other viewpoint was being discussed.
  • An intelligent professional once approached me and whispered in my ear that he thought the earth might be old. He was afraid to say it out loud. Looks like he got the memo that only YEC was allowed. Somehow I didn't.

My husband and I met with our pastor who confirmed that the church only taught YEC. I asked why this wassn't mentioned when people were considering church membership. He said he didn't want it to prevent people from joining the church! So, it was a stealth approach. Perhaps the pastor was naive and believed if they taught errant old earthers (Old Earthers) the "truth", they would see their error and jump on board. However, all it did was miff me off. My husband and I never would have joined the church in the first place. That would have prevented conflict all around. Now the pastor gets to read me mouthing off on this blog on a regular basis.

Have any of you ever been recruited by Amway folks? I have. Here is the routine. You are approached by someone that you have met in the past. They are so excited to see you and ask you to go to lunch with them where they pull a bait and switch. Suddenly, you are stuck in Panera Bread with a zealot who you thought just wanted to be a friend. Real truth has been traded for a carefully worded fake out. I was used. They wasted their time and mine. 

Recently, I was reading a document on the Founders website called A Quiet Revolution: A Chronicle Of Beginnings Of Reformation in the Southern Baptist Convention written by Ernest C. Reisinger & D. Matthew Allen link. The Founder's Ministry is led by Tom Ascol who is a well respected in Reformed circles.

Here is a brief biography of Ascol in Wikipedia

Ascol serves as the Executive Director of Founders Ministries, an organization committed to the recovery of the Gospel and the reformation of local churches. He edits the Founders Journal, a quarterly theological publication of Founders Ministries, and has written numerous articles and contributed to several books. He regularly preaches and lectures at various conferences throughout the United States and other countries. He also authors the Founders Ministries Blog.

In June 2008, Ascol was successful in spearheading Resolution (No. 6) "On Regenerate Church Membership and Church Member Restoration" and an accompanying amendment that encouraged Southern Baptist Convention churches to repent for failing to maintain biblical standards in the membership of their churches and obey Jesus Christ in the practice of lovingly correcting wayward church members.

(As an aside-I had no idea that the Gospel was lost and plan to begin looking for it immediately after making my lasagna this evening.) 

Please understand that I have no beef with any church and their selection of primary and secondary doctrine. I may disagree with the doctrinal emphasis or even the core theology of a particular church but I would vociferously defend their right to express and celebrate their beliefs. I would also "elect" not to attend a church that subscribed to the set of beliefs that are described in TULIP, etc. I would be unhappy. Also, given my propensity to verbally emote, in excruciating detail, my disagreements and affirmations, it would stand to reason that the church leaders would be dispirited by my presence as well. 

I would expect that most people of good will would understand the distinct upside of leveling with one another. After all, Jesus did say that He was the Truth. That is why I was concerned about one paragraph within this document. In Chapter 4, here, Walking Without Slipping: Instructions for Local Church Reformation:

Clarity. In the pulpit, don't use theological language that is not found in the Bible. Avoid terms such as Calvinism, reformed, doctrines of grace, particular redemption, etc. Most people will not know what you are talking about. Many that do will become inflamed against you. Teach your people the biblical truth of these doctrines without providing distracting labels for them.

I could be wrong but I do believe the writers appear to be implying the following:

  1. Most people are too stupid to understand what theologians and pastors mean by Calvinism.
  2. The few, who know what they are talking about, will become distinctly displeased and ruin the pastor's day.

Their solution seems to be: "Don't tell them but still teach them the truth." Or one could revert to that old game called "20 Questions." (Freak out the next candidate who will not answer your questions. Ask this. "Are you supralapsarian?")

I personally vouch for the truthfulness of the following story.  A pastoral candidate visited a church which was not a Calvinist church. There was a Q&A and people were asked to submit questions. All questions were answered except one, hers. That question was:

Are you a Calvinist?

When asked why her question was not answered, she was told there was not enough time. The rest of the questions centered around a People Magazine approach. "How many kids do you have?" Yes, the pastor was a Neo-Calvinist and changed the direction of the church.

Jason Allen's blog presents a "Tell them the truth. Wait, maybe not." approach. In Are you a Calvinist? Rethinking Theological Labels, linkhe appears to stress the need for truthfulness.

One can be accurate without being forthright, and, the truth is, if one desires to be intentionally ambiguous, it’s not too difficult to be truthful—yet unclear. While this game might assuage the conscience, in the end it will help neither the church nor the minister that seeks to serve it.

Truth in advertising is a standard we expect of the world; let’s expect even more of ourselves. When it comes to a pastor’s rapport with his congregation, trust rides out of town on horseback, but returns on foot. The best way to get off to a good start is by being relentlessly biblical and forthright about one’s beliefs.

Then he says something which could be considered, by some, to be contradictory

WHAT IS MOST WISE

When dialoguing about theological convictions, one owes it to others to be honest and forthright, but one also owes it to himself to be wise. To sign on to a label that has morphed in meaning beyond one’s own comfort zone, or has been hijacked by others altogether, may be unwise and, in its own way, misrepresentative.

To conceal one’s theological convictions is at once disingenuous and cowardly, and no self-respecting minister should be either. Rather, let’s be Bereans, studying the Scriptures and articulating our convictions in ways that are most biblical, most forthright, and most wise. 

But the example at the beginning of the post is confusing

I am so glad you are here to preach for us today. I have looked forward to meeting you. Before you preach, though, I have one question for you. Are you a Calvinist?”

That question is not an uncommon one, but it’s a question that might be more difficult to answer than first thought. To this gentleman, I reflexively replied, “To be honest, sir, I have no idea what you mean by that question.” He smiled and responded, “I have no have idea what I meant by the question either.”

We both chuckled, then I retorted, “I’ll be happy to discuss this as much as you’d like after the service, but know that I believe in preaching the gospel to all people and that anyone who repents of their sins and embraces Christ as Lord and Savior can be saved.” Reassured, he smiled and said “that is all I wanted to hear.”

So, it appears that the member and the pastor can now join hands and skip merrily through life; that is until the member does some reading.

I tried to find an example in which an Arminian tried the same approach. I have no interest in singling out one group which is why I mentioned the creationism debacle at the beginning of the post. In the interest of being fair, if anyone has an Arminian example, please let me know and I will add it to this post or do a separate post. However, during my search, I found the following post Controversy Over Calvinism Brewing in the SBC link written by Roger Olson. 

I, for one, have no problem with Calvinist Baptist churches and Calvinist pastors in Baptist churches.  There have always been some.  The only time it becomes a problem is when Calvinists or Arminians sneak into pulpits hiding their theologies and then “come out of the closet” with them, surprising the congregation by attempting to enforce their distinctive view of God’s sovereignty on an unsuspecting and unprepared congregation. 

This is happening a lot these days.  For the most part it is Calvinists doing it.  I have heard no reports of Arminians sneaking into pulpits hiding their Arminianism and then attempting to enforce it on a largely Calvinist (or “Calminian”) congregation.  So far as I know this never happens.

Here's the bottom line. If anyone believes that God is both omnipotent and sovereign, then said person must believe that God is able to work with those who speak the truth and those who hear the truth. Let's stop playing games and tell each other what we really believe. It is the obfuscation of the truth which leads to unnecessary strife. Never forget that such a tactic means that you could get me as a member and I can be a real pain in the tookus.

Lydia's Corner: Nehemiah 5:14-7:73 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Psalm 33:1-11 Proverbs 21:8-10

Comments

Answer Straight or Get Me as a Member of Your Church — 381 Comments

  1. Have any of you ever been recruited by Amway folks? I have. Here is the routine. You are approached by someone that you have met in the past. They are so excited to see you and ask you to go to lunch with them where they pull a bait and switch.

    Friendship Evangelism.

    Suddenly, you are stuck in Panera Bread with a zealot who you thought just wanted to be a friend.

    “HAVE YOU ACCEPTED AMWAY AS YOUR PERSONAL LOORD AND SAVIOR???????”

  2. “Also, given my propensity to verbally emote, in excruciating detail, my disagreements and affirmations, it would stand to reason that the church leaders would be dispirited by my presence as well. ”

    That is Sooo True — -:)

  3. There is no place in Christendom for this kind of deception. I do hope congregants are wising up to the games these pastors are playing. Shame on them!

  4. @ Seneca:

    The sad, discouraging outcome of these scenarios is that men and women who have poured themselves into a community of believers for years (some as many as 20-30 years) find themselves unable to continue with the ‘new’ leaders. They leave the community of believers because they are only welcome if they submit to teachings they cannot support. It leaves the stomach in knots.

  5. Bridget wrote:

    @ Seneca:
    The sad, discouraging outcome of these scenarios is that men and women who have poured themselves into a community of believers for years (some as many as 20-30 years) find themselves unable to continue with the ‘new’ leaders. They leave the community of believers because they are only welcome if they submit to teachings they cannot support. It leaves the stomach in knots.

    Every new pastor will enter the church with an agenda; some of it he may know, some of it is still hidden even from him. With every pastoral change, old people leave, new ones trickle in. The church members themselves ALSO have an agenda but they may be blind to it at first. Out of those two, often differing agendas, a new one will slowly emerge – until the next pastoral change.

  6. @ Seneca:

    The “agenda” word is a bit more subtle, yet not any more assuring to the congregation that has been taken over by stealth (which is what this post is about). It’s wrong by any word you try to use and by any party that stoops to that level (deception that is).

    What should the ‘agenda’ of a church leader be? Should they be setting out to deceive the congregation? Should they disrespect the congregation so much that they aren’t up front with them? Did Jesus come by stealth? Did he care for his disciples by lying (another word for deception)? BTW – congregations should not act in such ways either. But scripture does seem to hold the one desiring to lead to a higher standard. Many leaders seem to hold their congregation to a higher standard and they give themselves a pass.

  7. “(As an aside-I had no idea that the Gospel was lost and plan to begin looking for it immediately after making my lasagna this evening.) ”

    Ha! That one has been a joke around here for years as we have been amazed the Gospel was lost all that time.

    Found this not long ago thought you might enjoy it…just a snippet on how “scholarly” guys like Al Mohler and RC Sproul think they are when it comes to YEC and then listening to NT Wright on the same subject.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7L3NHVlsQ

  8. I would love to hear some examples of Arminians or Free Will folks sneaking into Calvinist churches to take over. How would they do it? Teach on our responsibility before God? the Holy Priesthood? And that everyone can be saved not just those randomly selected before Adam sinned? The function of the Holy Spirit in a believers life instead of the ST? Grace is unlimited? That you are not totally unable to respond to Christ. God IS Love? Stuff like that?

    :O)

  9. John McArthur’s church fairly extensively lists its distinctives.

    http://www.gracechurch.org/distinctives/

    If they’re like my old church; you didn’t have to agree with all the points to be a member but you would have to hold to the distinctives to be an elder. Members were given considerable leeway but not so the Elders.

  10. Ugh @ the YEC story. I can respect YECers as people but to hold the position (or especially, to hold it after presented with the mountain of evidence that it’s bogus) just displays gullibility and lack of ability to objectively look at reality in the person.

    So while they may be good people and good Christians in other respects, I would never vote them into any office, appoint them to any leadership board, or really trust any theological positions they espouse(Not saying they aren’t saved or anything, but house built on sand etc. Plus there are quite a few theological positions that rely on YEC being true to work).

    They are on the level of 9/11 truthers, vaxxers and other tinfoilers.

    You wouldn’t trust a doctor who denied the existence of germs and bacteria, and I don’t trust the wisdom of someone who denies basic, tried and true proven scientific fact.

  11. Bridget wrote:

    @ Seneca:
    The “agenda” word is a bit more subtle, yet not any more assuring to the congregation that has been taken over by stealth (which is what this post is about). It’s wrong by any word you try to use and by any party that stoops to that level (deception that is).
    What should the ‘agenda’ of a church leader be? Should they be setting out to deceive the congregation? Should they disrespect the congregation so much that they aren’t up front with them? Did Jesus come by stealth? Did he care for his disciples by lying (another word for deception)? BTW – congregations should not act in such ways either. But scripture does seem to hold the one desiring to lead to a higher standard. Many leaders seem to hold their congregation to a higher standard and they give themselves a pass.

    Good question; Did Jesus lay out his “agenda” right off the bat? It doesn’t appear so. Let’s face it; the disciples had NO IDEA what they were getting into. Over the 3 years of his ministry the various pieces fell into place; all of God’s plan of course.

    But back to the church; I think they should be pretty upfront about their distinctives.

  12. Bridget wrote:

    @ Seneca:
    The “agenda” word is a bit more subtle, yet not any more assuring to the congregation that has been taken over by stealth (which is what this post is about). It’s wrong by any word you try to use and by any party that stoops to that level (deception that is).
    What should the ‘agenda’ of a church leader be? Should they be setting out to deceive the congregation? Should they disrespect the congregation so much that they aren’t up front with them? Did Jesus come by stealth? Did he care for his disciples by lying (another word for deception)? BTW – congregations should not act in such ways either. But scripture does seem to hold the one desiring to lead to a higher standard. Many leaders seem to hold their congregation to a higher standard and they give themselves a pass.

    At least where I have attended, PASTORAL SEARCH committees are formed to answer those kind of questions. If you look at what the pastor has taught and how he has led at his previous churches, you should have a pretty good idea of what he’ll do in his new pastorate.
    _
    _

  13. Deb wrote:

    There is no place in Christendom for this kind of deception. I do hope congregants are wising up to the games these pastors are playing. Shame on them!

    There is a new game in town. First of all the YRR are really trying to ditch the word Calvin totally. Also Reformed. The big thing is now claiming to be “evangelistic” which will unite everyone. Until you find out they evangelize for Piper/Calvin/etc. The guru worship is becoming really serious in that movement.

    The best thing folks can ask are things like, who do you read, listen to, etc. (most of them think pulpit committees have never heard of Piper)

    What books do you recommend to people? (including ST)

    Do you believe that God has chosen us for salvation before the foundation of the world? They will say that scripture teaches this. (Because they read Psalms woodenly and literally)

    Of course there are many more and even that movement is wisening up to the questions.

    Once you have taught a generation that deception in the Name of Jesus is glorifying God, there is little one can do to reverse that. Young men are so easily influenced by their professors and mentors. They do not see this as sin but as helping the ignorant pew sitters know truth.

    I personally do not see how this can be reversed. This method has been ingrained in places like SBTS now for about 15 years. It is their normal.

  14. It’s not wrong to have an agenda, but you can have a wrong agenda.

    Although agenda may be too constricting, since it’s basically just a checklist. It would be probably better to use “vision” since the person/people may have a vision of what they want the church to look like but not a specific checklist to go down to get there.

    Did Jesus have a checklist? I don’t know, maybe. But he certainly had a vision.

  15. Bridget wrote:

    The “agenda” word is a bit more subtle, yet not any more assuring to the congregation that has been taken over by stealth (which is what this post is about). It’s wrong by any word you try to use and by any party that stoops to that level (deception that is).

    It’s Stealth Takeover by Salami Tactics.
    Straight out of Comrade Stalin’s playbook.
    Boil that frog very very slow until the endgame Coup from Within.

  16. Anon 1 wrote:

    Once you have taught a generation that deception in the Name of Jesus is glorifying God, there is little one can do to reverse that. Young men are so easily influenced by their professors and mentors. They do not see this as sin but as helping the ignorant pew sitters know truth.

    “Just like Takkiya, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”

  17. Anon 1 wrote:

    Deb wrote:
    There is no place in Christendom for this kind of deception. I do hope congregants are wising up to the games these pastors are playing. Shame on them!
    There is a new game in town. First of all the YRR are really trying to ditch the word Calvin totally. Also Reformed. The big thing is now claiming to be “evangelistic” which will unite everyone. Until you find out they evangelize for Piper/Calvin/etc. The guru worship is becoming really serious in that movement.
    The best thing folks can ask are things like, who do you read, listen to, etc. (most of them think pulpit committees have never heard of Piper)
    What books do you recommend to people? (including ST)
    Do you believe that God has chosen us for salvation before the foundation of the world? They will say that scripture teaches this. (Because they read Psalms woodenly and literally)
    Of course there are many more and even that movement is wisening up to the questions.
    Once you have taught a generation that deception in the Name of Jesus is glorifying God, there is little one can do to reverse that. Young men are so easily influenced by their professors and mentors. They do not see this as sin but as helping the ignorant pew sitters know truth.
    I personally do not see how this can be reversed. This method has been ingrained in places like SBTS now for about 15 years. It is their normal.



    If you call your pastor from SBTS you surely know what you’re getting don’t you?
    Believe me, Pulpit Committees very much have their own agenda for the pastor and for the church. The pastor’s may or may not align closely with theirs.

    One thing we know for sure; your next pastor will be a sinner.
    _
    _

  18. Seneca wrote:

    Good question; Did Jesus lay out his “agenda” right off the bat?

    At the risk of seeming snarky, I am not so sure that the motives of some resemble the motives of Jesus.

  19. @ Anon 1: YOu just gave me an idea. We should do a post on questions to ask when you are trying to figure out a church. i can sniff out a doctrinal game a mile away.

  20. @ Seneca</Seneca wrote:

    One thing we know for sure; your next pastor will be a sinner

    Well he should stop it. Jesus Christ defeated the enemy. Now are you trying to tell me he/she won’t be sinless perfection? Or should I expect, bar hopping, drunken stoopers, wife swopes, opium parties, protecting child molesters?

    Not sure what you mean he/she “will” be a sinner. Should we prepare for the worst? Perhaps he needs a Savior? :o)

  21. Seneca wrote:

    If you call your pastor from SBTS you surely know what you’re getting don’t you?

    Not really. Most pew sitters are not on the blogosphere and while they might have some inkling things are amiss they are not well versed on how bad it is until too late. What has happened is that people from different churches have begun to compare notes and are seeing a pattern. This has just been in the last 5 years or so.

    Most of these precious saints have been supporting the SBC seminaries much of their lives. They are so ready to think the best and extend love and acceptance to the men they have subsidized in education at SBC seminaries. And yes, SBC subsidizes their education.

    It would never have occurred to them that the seminary candidate would be anything but transparent and honest about wanting to change their church so drastically. But many churches are getting wiser as they compare notes on experiences. It is one reason the SBC started to focus almost exclusively on church planting YRR churches. A ready made jobs program for the young men handed a salary and authority on a silver platter.

  22. As an aside-I had no idea that the Gospel was lost and plan to begin looking for it immediately after making my lasagna this evening.

    “Have you found Jesus?”

    “I didn’t know He was missing!”

  23. Anon 1 wrote:

    Seneca wrote:
    If you call your pastor from SBTS you surely know what you’re getting don’t you?
    Not really. Most pew sitters are not on the blogosphere and while they might have some inkling things are amiss they are not well versed on how bad it is until too late. What has happened is that people from different churches have begun to compare notes and are seeing a pattern. This has just been in the last 5 years or so.
    Most of these precious saints have been supporting the SBC seminaries much of their lives. They are so ready to think the best and extend love and acceptance to the men they have subsidized in education at SBC seminaries. And yes, SBC subsidizes their education.
    It would never have occurred to them that the seminary candidate would be anything but transparent and honest about wanting to change their church so drastically. But many churches are getting wiser as they compare notes on experiences. It is one reason the SBC started to focus almost exclusively on church planting YRR churches. A ready made jobs program for the young men handed a salary and authority on a silver platter.

    Anon 1 wrote:

    Seneca wrote:
    If you call your pastor from SBTS you surely know what you’re getting don’t you?
    Not really. Most pew sitters are not on the blogosphere and while they might have some inkling things are amiss they are not well versed on how bad it is until too late. What has happened is that people from different churches have begun to compare notes and are seeing a pattern. This has just been in the last 5 years or so.
    Most of these precious saints have been supporting the SBC seminaries much of their lives. They are so ready to think the best and extend love and acceptance to the men they have subsidized in education at SBC seminaries. And yes, SBC subsidizes their education.
    It would never have occurred to them that the seminary candidate would be anything but transparent and honest about wanting to change their church so drastically. But many churches are getting wiser as they compare notes on experiences. It is one reason the SBC started to focus almost exclusively on church planting YRR churches. A ready made jobs program for the young men handed a salary and authority on a silver platter.


    I know the Masters Seminary SPECIFICALLY instructs their graduates to not go in and try to re-create Grace Community. I know Southeastern also teaches its grads to not step in and attempt a wholesale change. I suspect SBTS also cautions their graduates about not stepping in with a hidden agenda thinking this will somehow work out. It never does; the seminaries know that.

  24. Are you a Calvinist?

    The problem with this question is that until one knows what definition of “Calvinism” is being used, it is impossible to answer without possibly being misleading.

    Consider the following definitions of Calvinism (all of which can be found):
    1. One who believes that God elects individuals to salvation.
    2. One who affirms all five points of TULIP. (If you deny even one, you are not a Calvinist).
    3. One who holds the whole system of Reformed theology, including paedobaptism.
    4. One who will not preach the gospel to all people.
    5. One who denies duty faith.
    6. One who believes that the gospel should be preached to all people without distinction, calling all people to repent and believe in Jesus.

    And I could list more.

    The problem is that answering “yes” would be misleading to people who do not share a definition. And this is exactly the point of the quotes in this post–using terms about which the definition is unclear brings confusion, not clarity. You might end up claiming to believe something you don’t believe.

    So a pastoral candidate should answer the question by saying, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘Calvinist’ so I can’t answer yes or no, but let me tell you what I believe.” The candidate should not hide his beliefs.

    Regarding YEC, the vitriol spilled out towards YEC is unacceptable. Whether one likes it or not (or is willing to admit it), the alternatives are not proven science, and they never will be. They will always be conclusions derived from the interpretation of evidence and extrapolation back in time. The truth is that there are difficult questions on both sides. As a YEC creationist, it is not an article of faith in our church, and one doesn’t have to be a YEC creationist to be a member. It should not be a problem of divisiveness for either side in the church.

  25. ” 2. One who affirms all five points of TULIP. (If you deny even one, you are not a Calvinist).”

    According to whom? A big thing these days are people describing themselves as 4pters or 3pters. I don’t think they got the Gene memo.

    ” 4. One who will not preach the gospel to all people.”

    Whose definition of Gospel? There are many “Gospelly” things these days. Gospel marriages, Gospel kids, Gospel quit smoking groups and so on.

    ” 6. One who believes that the gospel should be preached to all people without distinction, calling all people to repent and believe in Jesus.”

    Again, what is the definition of the Good News? That Jesus died for those chosen before Adam sinned? In my neck of the woods, the Calvinistas are very evangelistic for “church membership” and “Calvin”.

    “Regarding YEC, the vitriol spilled out towards YEC is unacceptable.”

    Seriously? What you read here is “vitriol”? Let me tell you about visiting a museum in Chicago this summer where the YEC were there shouting to folks that the museum taught lies about the age of the earth and the bible taught the truth! What a great witness for Jesus Christ! How can they prove the bible teaches the age of the earth? Such ignorance. And I am neither YEC or OEC. I have no idea and have never considered it a deal breaker for salvation but many do.

    I used it as a great lesson for my kids on how NOT to be a believer. I was embarrassed for them. So why do they do such things? Talk about a turn off.

  26. “Suddenly, you are stuck in Panera Bread with a zealot who you thought just wanted to be a friend.”

    Yeah, had that experience with a Mary Kay rep.

  27. dee wrote:

    @ Anon 1: I think he is hoping it will be CJ Mahaney who is the worst sinner he knows.

    I have heard that if you consistently talk about how wicked your heart is it means you are more humble and more saved. The more wicked you say you are, the more humble you are. However, if you don’t admit your heart is wicked then you might not be saved because you are not admitting you are wicked and therefore are not humble. So, to be saved, you have to be real wicked and humble at the same time.

    Humbly wicked?

    I simply cannot keep up. But working on it.

  28. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    They are on the level of 9/11 truthers, vaxxers and other tinfoilers.

    I am a YEC in so far as I still cling to the Christian faith, and just wow at the animosity and slights across the board at a person for merely being YEC.

  29. Gene wrote:

    So a pastoral candidate should answer the question by saying, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘Calvinist’ so I can’t answer yes or no, but let me tell you what I believe.”

    Problem is, they don’t. They play games. A true pastor would understand the heart behind the question and draw them out.

    As for YEC, the alternatives are proven science and that is the whole problem with this issue. That is a Ken Ham answer which means it is no answer.It goes along with the one “My grandma looks old and she is only 89.” It is usually used by those who feel uncomfortable discussing the difficult science involved.

    It is fine to believe in YEC as a Biblical interpretative device. Once anyone steps over the line and tries to disprove the science, they have left the theologians and have jumped into the science arena. And that is a fatal mistake. If I were to advise YEC about how to argue their position, I would tell them to stick to the Bible. Never, ever enter the science world because there is no YE science that has not been disproven and that includes by Christian scientists, the vast majority of who are OE/TE (EC).

  30. @ Seneca:

    Jesus was up front, no deception, no stealth. Disciples didn’t get it — understandably.

    Leaders aren’t Jesus. There is no ‘new’ Messiah coming onto play. No reason for a prospective leader to not be up front with his beliefs.

    It’s hard for a committee to do their job when the prospective leader keeps his agenda hidden.

  31. dee wrote:

    It is fine to believe in YEC as a Biblical interpretative device. Once anyone steps over the line and tries to disprove the science, they have left the theologians and have jumped into the science arena. And that is a fatal mistake. If I were to advise YEC about how to argue their position, I would tell them to stick to the Bible. Never, ever enter the science world because there is no YE science that has not been disproven and that includes by Christian scientists, the vast majority of who are OE/TE (EC).

    So, you’re basically saying science trumps the Bible, or the Bible, or all life and other issues, should be read thru a scientific lens first and foremost? I don’t think I can share that view.

  32. Gene, I had a YRR grad of SBTS tell me that if a pulpit committee was too ignorant to ask him the “right” questions, it was their own fault. Of course, he had a litmus test for the right questions and it was not “Are you a Calvinist” because they were too ignorant to know what Calvinism is.

    At least he admitted it. He was quite proud of it, too.

    If you have been reading around on YRR pastor blogs you would know this is a problem. NO ONE can get Calvinism right but them at that movement in time you are having the discussion. It is a neat trick. No matter what people say, tell them they do not understand it at all. Even if we quote famous Calvinistas, then we don’t understand the quote. And so on. It never ends. It is like the most mysterious religion in the history of the earth.

    It is like you need a decoder ring or something. Maybe that is why Dever has the keys to the kingdom for people?

  33. Bridget wrote:

    @ Seneca:
    Jesus was up front, no deception, no stealth. Disciples didn’t get it — understandably.
    Leaders aren’t Jesus. There is no ‘new’ Messiah coming onto play. No reason for a prospective leader to not be up front with his beliefs.
    It’s hard for a committee to do their job when the prospective leader keeps his agenda hidden.


    And the pulpit committees also keep their agendas hidden. Again, until you’ve become the pastor of it church, you’re not going to know what battles will be coming your way. Agendas go both ways.

  34. Anon 1 wrote:

    dee wrote:
    @ Anon 1: I think he is hoping it will be CJ Mahaney who is the worst sinner he knows.
    I have heard that if you consistently talk about how wicked your heart is it means you are more humble and more saved. The more wicked you say you are, the more humble you are. However, if you don’t admit your heart is wicked then you might not be saved because you are not admitting you are wicked and therefore are not humble. So, to be saved, you have to be real wicked and humble at the same time.
    Humbly wicked?
    I simply cannot keep up. But working on it.


    Actually, if I had a pastoral “homeboy” it would be Johnny Mac. Not C.J. (who I’ve never heard; never read except what’s said on the blogs.)

  35. Why are so many Calvinists afraid to proclaim their Gospel up front before they’re hired? Don’t recall Jesus being evasive when questioned by Pharisees.

  36. Daisy wrote:

    dee wrote:
    It is fine to believe in YEC as a Biblical interpretative device. Once anyone steps over the line and tries to disprove the science, they have left the theologians and have jumped into the science arena. And that is a fatal mistake. If I were to advise YEC about how to argue their position, I would tell them to stick to the Bible. Never, ever enter the science world because there is no YE science that has not been disproven and that includes by Christian scientists, the vast majority of who are OE/TE (EC).
    So, you’re basically saying science trumps the Bible, or the Bible, or all life and other issues, should be read thru a scientific lens first and foremost? I don’t think I can share that view.

    The bible is not a science textbook. So yes, actual science trumps any imagined “science” you get out of the bible. The lens the bible should be read through is definitely NOT scientific, and that is exactly the lens the YEC attempts to put over it. The bible is philosophy, and that is the lens it should be read through.

    Otherwise, you start believing the earth is flat, 6000 years old and the center of the universe, because these are biblical “scientific fact”.

  37. Daisy wrote:

    I am a YEC in so far as I still cling to the Christian faith,

    Daisy wrote:

    you’re basically saying science trumps the Bible, or the Bible, or all life and other issues, should be read thru a scientific lens first and foremost? I don’t think I can share that view

    How will you leave the faith if you cannot leave YEC?

  38. @ dee: You have read this blog for awhile. I disagree with the YE interpretation of Genesis. The Bible and science are compatible depending on one’s interpretation.

  39. Daisy wrote:

    JustSomeGuy wrote:
    They are on the level of 9/11 truthers, vaxxers and other tinfoilers.
    I am a YEC in so far as I still cling to the Christian faith, and just wow at the animosity and slights across the board at a person for merely being YEC.

    It’s not animosity. It’s merely a statement of fact.

    9/11 truthism claims a massive conspiracy and has no evidence to back itself up.
    Vaxxerism claims a massive conspiracy and has no evidence to back itself up.
    YEC claims a massive conspiracy and has no evidence to back itself up.

    Therefore, YEC is essentially no different from either.

    If a mere statement of fact makes you uncomfortable and is regarded as “animosity”, maybe you should reexamine your hypothesis.

    Anyway, that’s as far as I’m going to take this. I don’t want to get into a creationism method war. For the record I’m a theistic evolutionist, lest you think I’m some atheist out for blood.

  40. Daisy wrote:

    So, you’re basically saying science trumps the Bible, or the Bible, or all life and other issues, should be read thru a scientific lens first and foremost? I don’t think I can share that view.

    I believe science provides the best and a still improving description of the physical world. The YEC mistake is to claim that the Bible is giving scientific information. The Bible describes our relationship to God, or perhaps what our relationship to God should be, and how He chose to deal with our sin. Science, the hard sciences – physics, chemistry biology and the the ones built on this foundation – don’t talk about morality. That is the domain of the Bible and theology. The Bible and science “trumping” each other is a false argument. They aren’t talking about the same things. The Bible was given as a document for all of history. Modern science is barely 100 years old. Forcing Biblical interpretations to nature concepts that were inconceivable at the the time it was written does it a disservice. As I have said before on this blog science is predictive, both in terms of experiments and technology. What descriptions of the technology that supports the internet can be found in the Bible? The same science underlies the age of the earth estimates and the internet.

  41. Bridget wrote:

    @ Seneca:
    The sad, discouraging outcome of these scenarios is that men and women who have poured themselves into a community of believers for years (some as many as 20-30 years) find themselves unable to continue with the ‘new’ leaders. They leave the community of believers because they are only welcome if they submit to teachings they cannot support. It leaves the stomach in knots.

    ……………………………….
    That is exactly what happened to husband and me. Twenty six years down the drain. Still looking for a church.
    It made us sick to our stomachs when we discovered our pastor was less then truthful, deceptive . Turned a church into a house of strife and sorrow…..running off members who could not, would not, agree with his theology.

  42. @ Lin:

    🙁 I’m sorry.

    And many leaders turn around and tell the 26-30 year member that ‘they’ are the ones being divisive when they won’t just ‘submit’ to the new leader.

  43. @ Lin:

    Lin, the question becomes, whose church is it? It becomes the pastors church as he has built a faction to make sure. Not the Body of Christ. All that money, time, effort was for him to come in and take advantage of. This is happening in quite a few places. They take over, through deception, something others built and paid for and then proclaim themselves the authority and scriptural expert. It is cowardly and unmanly.

  44. Anon 1 wrote:

    ” 2. One who affirms all five points of TULIP. (If you deny even one, you are not a Calvinist).”
    According to whom? A big thing these days are people describing themselves as 4pters or 3pters. I don’t think they got the Gene memo.

    According to people who believe that to claim the label “Calvinist” you must adhere to all five points. They would say that the three pointer or a four pointer is not a Calvinist. Back when I was a four pointer, I was accused of not being Calvinist. Not all Calvinists believe this, but some do. It’s not about getting a memo. They say it themselves. It is entirely possible that you are blissfully unaware of some of these distinctions. I am glad for you. There are more important things to discuss. But when someone asks the question, “Are you a Calvinist?” it is helpful, indeed imperative, that you know what they mean so that you do not claim to be something you are not. That would be lying.

    ” 4. One who will not preach the gospel to all people.”
    Whose definition of Gospel? There are many “Gospelly” things these days. Gospel marriages, Gospel kids, Gospel quit smoking groups and so on.

    The biblical definition of the gospel, the good news that God is saving sinners through Jesus. Yes, “gospel” is attached to many things, but that’s not really the point here. There are those who will not preach the gospel to all people because they know that some are not elect. These are typically called “hyper-Calvinists,” though they do not accept that designation. They believe they are the true Calvinists.

    ” 6. One who believes that the gospel should be preached to all people without distinction, calling all people to repent and believe in Jesus.”
    Again, what is the definition of the Good News? That Jesus died for those chosen before Adam sinned? In my neck of the woods, the Calvinistas are very evangelistic for “church membership” and “Calvin”.

    As above, the definition of the gospel is not really the issue. It is whether a general call of salvation should be given to all men.

    “Regarding YEC, the vitriol spilled out towards YEC is unacceptable.”
    Seriously? What you read here is “vitriol”?

    I didn’t say anything about here, did I? I was speaking generally.

    Let me tell you about visiting a museum in Chicago this summer …

    Yes, there are jerks of all persuasions. So??

    How can they prove the bible teaches the age of the earth?

    It’s actually not that hard, but it should be done in an appropriate way. Yelling at others in a museum is certainly not it. I am glad you don’t consider it a deal breaker for salvation. I don’t either, so at least we agree on that.

    So why do they do such things?

    I don’t know. We could ask that about any number of things, and get no satisfactory answers.

  45. emr wrote:

    “Suddenly, you are stuck in Panera Bread with a zealot who you thought just wanted to be a friend.”
    Yeah, had that experience with a Mary Kay rep.

    I had that experience with people pushing the Macrobiotic diet lifestyle. We were invited to dinner, only to be given the pitch/lecture, followed by a table of tracts by the front door for us to take as we walked out. That cured me of any witnessing approaches that I may have had that were remotely similar. What an eye opener.

    When it comes to Amway, I really appreciated when some pastors began to actually preach against it … at least against burning up your circle of people in the church.

  46. @ Seneca:

    Seneca, are you smoking crack? this has been a HUGE problem for the last 6-8 years and they still claim it is not happening anywhere. here is something churches are learning here: Don’t ask the local SBC seminary for a pulpit supply. Some churches are bringing old guys out of retirement to supply…. they can trust.

    Don’t even get me started on the deception used by the Acts 29 church plants here that all of a sudden insist they have NOTHING to do with Driscoll or Mars Hill even though they have hired Mars Hill ministers!

    The amount of deception in that movement has been unbelievable. They are as slick as the corporate takeover guys and can find loopholes in bylaws you would not believe.

  47. dee wrote:

    A true pastor would understand the heart behind the question and draw them out.

    I agree with you. As I said, they should say what they believe. Glad we agree on that.

    As for YEC, the alternatives are proven science and that is the whole problem with this issue.

    Actually, they are not. It is a misrepresentation of “proven” and “science” to claim that. There are a lot of scientists who have nothing to do with Ken Ham who reject it as “proven science.”

    It is fine to believe in YEC as a Biblical interpretative device. Once anyone steps over the line and tries to disprove the science, they have left the theologians and have jumped into the science arena. And that is a fatal mistake. If I were to advise YEC about how to argue their position, I would tell them to stick to the Bible. Never, ever enter the science world because there is no YE science that has not been disproven and that includes by Christian scientists, the vast majority of who are OE/TE (EC).

    Again, that’s simply not true, my friend. There are many scientific problems with the OE theories. There’s a reason why evolutionists and old earthers don’t even agree among themselves. The science world has plenty of people who see the problems. Read people like Michael Behe, Philip Johnson, or William Dembski among others who show many of the “proven” things are actually quite questionable.

    I won’t get into the science here because (1) it is a much bigger discussion than can be had here in this format, and (2) I am not qualified to talk much about the science. However, it is better not to pretend that the science is absolutely proven and unassailable. It isn’t.

  48. Anon 1 wrote:

    I have heard that if you consistently talk about how wicked your heart is it means you are more humble and more saved. The more wicked you say you are, the more humble you are. However, if you don’t admit your heart is wicked then you might not be saved because you are not admitting you are wicked and therefore are not humble. So, to be saved, you have to be real wicked and humble at the same time.

    HUMBLY, of course.
    (chuckle chuckle…)

  49. Anon 1 wrote:

    Gene, I had a YRR grad of SBTS tell me that if a pulpit committee was too ignorant to ask him the “right” questions, it was their own fault. … At least he admitted it. He was quite proud of it, too.

    Yeah, he’s an idiot. Unfit to pastor.

    If you have been reading around on YRR pastor blogs you would know this is a problem.

    I completely agree. I read a fair number of them. I also think that many people don’t understand it. Some of the stuff said on this blog at times illustrates that. I don’t have any desire to correct the world on it so I am fine to let it go.

  50. Gene, I agree with you about the 5pts, btw. I don’t think you can take one away and the others stand well at all. That is one reason I don’t understand Arminianism which seems to be Calvin lite. Perhaps it is like Calvinism and not really understandable for plebes like me? I am 0 pts, pretty much.

    However, in watching the YRR leaders from the seminary in my neck of the woods, especially when they are out speaking…depending on the audience they are Calvinists or non Calvinists. I could never figure this out until I heard them saying they are 4pters, 3pters, etc. Seems loyalty to Mohler’s takeover agenda is more important than all 5 points. And it is more palatable for an SBC entity to be taken over by a 4pter than a 5 pter. :o)

  51. Anon 1 wrote:

    How do you get science out of Hebrew poetry?

    Remember that Genesis 1-2 are not Hebrew poetry. They are historical narrative by genre. So whether or not it is scientific, it isn’t poetry.

  52. Gene wrote:

    I also think that many people don’t understand it. Some of the stuff said on this blog at times illustrates that.

    Here we go…..we just don’t understand it.

    I have come to the conclusion that Calvinists don’t understand Calvinism. I don’t think it was ever meant to be understood and that is what is so compelling about it for so many.

  53. Anon 1 wrote:

    Gene, I agree with you about the 5pts, btw. I don’t think you can take one away and the others stand well at all.

    Just to clarify quickly, I don’t believe all five stand or fall together. Some people do. Those people in asking “Are you Calvinist?” mean “Do you hold all five points?” If you say, “I am a four-pointer,” they say, “You aren’t a Calvinist.” They would probably call you an Amyraldian.

  54. Gene wrote:

    Anon 1 wrote:

    How do you get science out of Hebrew poetry?

    Remember that Genesis 1-2 are not Hebrew poetry. They are historical narrative by genre. So whether or not it is scientific, it isn’t poetry.

    Gene, I am no expert on this but from my research on this a while back, Gen 1-2 employ “parallelism” which is a form of Hebrew poetry. It is not like the poetry we are used to at all.

  55. Seneca wrote:

    John McArthur’s church fairly extensively lists its distinctives … If they’re like my old church; you didn’t have to agree with all the points to be a member but you would have to hold to the distinctives to be an elder. Members were given considerable leeway but not so the Elders.

    How fortunate for members of your old church. Those in Grace Community Church(MacArthur’s church)and those within its network of churches aren’t so fortunate. GCC and its affiliates didn’t start out this way, but while I was a member of an affiliated church (18 years) I experienced firsthand its slow decent into the spiritual elitism/authoritarianism that now characterizes most of these churches.

    When I joined my former church it was sufficient to be baptized and in agreement with the points of the Nicene Creed to become a member. By the time I left there was an extensive and intrusive membership questionnaire and interview process. Interviewers routinely denied membership to people who couldn’t agree with secondary doctrines that the church considers essential to salvation. As far as I know, no one was prevented from attending services if they didn’t pass the membership process – or never applied for membership – but they certainly were denied the opportunity to serve in the church.

    There is a subtle but palpable spiritual caste system at work in these churches. It’s not accidental, either – it’s most definitely intentional. The resulting marginalization of long-time, faithful, fruitful Christians is favorably considered by those in power as a victory for “recovering the true Gospel”.

    Love has left the building, along with the Holy Spirit, and my biggest fear is that the lampstand will not be far behind. Lord, have mercy on us.

  56. Seneca wrote:

    Actually, if I had a pastoral “homeboy” it would be Johnny Mac. …

    John is a very nice and godly man. He’s just wrong on some things. And those who apply his teachings with iron fists are in need of repentance.

  57. Anon 1 wrote:

    dee wrote:
    @ Anon 1: I think he is hoping it will be CJ Mahaney who is the worst sinner he knows.
    I have heard that if you consistently talk about how wicked your heart is it means you are more humble and more saved. The more wicked you say you are, the more humble you are. However, if you don’t admit your heart is wicked then you might not be saved because you are not admitting you are wicked and therefore are not humble. So, to be saved, you have to be real wicked and humble at the same time.
    Humbly wicked?
    I simply cannot keep up. But working on it.

    I think it is wickedly humble.

  58. @ Jenny:

    “There is a subtle but palpable spiritual caste system at work in these churches. It’s not accidental, either – it’s most definitely intentional. The resulting marginalization of long-time, faithful, fruitful Christians is favorably considered by those in power as a victory for “recovering the true Gospel”.

    Love has left the building, along with the Holy Spirit, and my biggest fear is that the lampstand will not be far behind. Lord, have mercy on us.”

    …………………………………………

    Yes, you have hit the nail on the head. A spiritual caste system indeed.

  59. @ Gene:
    Gene, even though there is disagreement about the true age of the earth, none of the scientists except Ham’s minions agree with an earth less than 10,000 years old. The question is how many millions of years old is the earth and how many generations of humans have there been, but more than would fit comfortably in 10,000 years.

  60. Jenny wrote:

    Seneca wrote:
    Actually, if I had a pastoral “homeboy” it would be Johnny Mac. …
    John is a very nice and godly man. He’s just wrong on some things. And those who apply his teachings with iron fists are in need of repentance.


    And he is wrong upon?

  61. That they were willing to subject themselves to that “discipline” suggests that they discovered how wrong they had been to go along with MacDonald and should now be praised as saints for having stood up to the lies and deception.

  62. Jenny wrote:

    Those in Grace Community Church(MacArthur’s church)and those within its network of churches aren’t so fortunate. GCC and its affiliates didn’t start out this way, but while I was a member of an affiliated church (18 years) I experienced firsthand its slow decent into the spiritual elitism/authoritarianism that now characterizes most of these churches.

    Jenny — We had some of those iron fisted JM followers in my church. That’s in part why I left.

  63. Gene wrote:

    Remember that Genesis 1-2 are not Hebrew poetry. They are historical narrative by genre.

    There are many who do not see it as historical narrative.

  64. Arce wrote:

    That they were willing to subject themselves to that “discipline” suggests that they discovered how wrong they had been to go along with MacDonald and should now be praised as saints for having stood up to the lies and deception.

    Arce — I think they are getting a fair amount of support, at least they do online.

  65. Gene wrote:

    It is a misrepresentation of “proven” and “science” to claim that. There are a lot of scientists who have nothing to do with Ken Ham who reject it as “proven science.”

    I have read all of them, along with Ross and stuff from Biologos and much, much more.I have written extensively on this subject as have some folks like Old John J and others. Do a category search.

    I am a bits surprised you mention Behe, Dembski and others. They are not Young Earthers.

    Right now there are readers praying that Dee will not devolve into discussing creationism. One of the advantages of having one’s own blog is that I get to wax eloquent on my favorite issues.

  66. Anon 1 wrote:

    we just don’t understand it.

    Recently, I had a new reader accuse me of caricaturing Calvinism. I asked him to tell me how. He left, never answering me. I think some of these things are talking point potshots.

  67. I can relate. I was in a church that did not tell me that I had to tithe and yet held the view that you could not be in leadership unless you tithe. The same thing when teaching the teens from anything but the KJV. They were flexible with membership but if you were in leadership other things were required.
    As a result, We left it.

  68. @Anon1

    Gene, I am no expert on this but from my research on this a while back, Gen 1-2 employ “parallelism” which is a form of Hebrew poetry. It is not like the poetry we are used to at all.

    There’s no parallelism there, apart from the argument of the days being parallel (1 and 3, 2 and 5, 4 and 6), which is the argument for the framework hypothesis. It is strictly historical narrative in form, which is marked by grammatical features.

    @Arce,

    Gene, even though there is disagreement about the true age of the earth, none of the scientists except Ham’s minions agree with an earth less than 10,000 years old. The question is how many millions of years old is the earth and how many generations of humans have there been, but more than would fit comfortably in 10,000 years.

    There are actual scientists involved with Ham, and calling them “minions” may have an emotional effect, but won’t change the facts. There are apparently good reason to see a relatively young earth, but even that is to miss the point which is that the alternatives to YEC are not proven scientifically, and there is significant debate, even among those who disagree with YEC.

    @Nicholas

    Behe and Dembski aren’t YEC.

    Correct, and they offer good reasons why evolutionary theory is seriously flawed. The point of mentioning them is that they are scientists who do not agree that evolutionary theory is proven scientifically.

    But I don’t want to turn this into a debate on this topic, so I will bow out on that. My point in posting was (1) to say that YEC should not be treated with vitriol, and (2) there are good reasons not to directly answer the question “Are you a Calvinist?”, though there are no good reasons to hide what one believes about the subject.

  69. dee wrote:

    There are many who do not see it as historical narrative.

    Of course there are, but it is, grammatically and generically. There is no debate that the grammar and syntax of Gen 1-2 put it clearly in the category of historical narrative. It’s really elementary Hebrew. It’s among the first things you learn when you actually start translating. It’s a series of preterites with waw consecutives, which is the standard marker for historical narrative. Poetry has a completely different structure, both grammatically and literarily.

    I have been called worse.

    As have I 🙂

    I am a bits surprised you mention Behe, Dembski and others. They are not Young Earthers.

    I didn’t mention them for that, but for the fact that they demonstrate that evolutionary theory is not proven fact scientifically. There are very strong reasons to doubt the prevailing evolutionary theory.

    Again, I don’t want to turn this into a debate about origins so I will bow out on this topic.

  70. Gene wrote:

    here are actual scientists involved with Ham, and calling them “minions” may have an emotional effect, but won’t change the facts

    Look at the list very carefully. I have and so have many others. Except for Wise and a few others, you are not looking at any scientists who are publishing on a national level in this particular area. Frankly, his list is a bit embarrassing, to say the least.

    To say that Ham and his scientists are extremely questionable in their methods and promote unaccepted science is not vitriol. It is the inconvenient truth. i beg you to read sites like Reasons to Believe, Answers in Creation and others. They look at the Ham’s unfortunate material and help readers to see the flaws in the methods. They will help you move beyond the talking points.

  71. Gene wrote:

    they demonstrate that evolutionary theory is not proven fact scientifically.

    Not necessarily. Be careful that you carefully read the opposing viewpoints. I have found that most people will not read contradictory information because they are comfortable with hearing one side. I have read Ken Ham’s stuff extensively and have written about my thoughts on the matter.

  72. Dee wrote in the main body of this thread:

    Now the pastor gets to read me mouth off on this blog on a regular basis.

    I for one love to hear you mouth off Dee. We need more women in Christendom to do just that.

  73. Lin wrote:

    @ Jenny:

    “Love has left the building, along with the Holy Spirit, and my biggest fear is that the lampstand will not be far behind. Lord, have mercy on us.” ~ Jenny

    …………………………………………

    “Toxic Christianity now leaves hundreds of professing Christians unaccounted for.” *

    What?

    “A Faith-Based Bandaid Solution” (TM) : “It is ‘safer’ to stay home?”

    hmmm…

    could b.

    My pastor has several ‘visible’ body guards on Sunday mornings.

    Lit’l jonny: “Lõõk mommy, they got guns!”

    These pastors even tell us from their pulpit, that it is not ‘safe’ to come ta their 501c not-for-profit ‘church’, any more!

    huh? (I kidd you not.)

    Are they trying to tell us something, or what?

    Some pastors now wear protective body armor?

    To protect themselves possibly from their own ‘errant’ members?

    hmmm…

    What a church world, what a church world…

    (sadface)

    “If anyone come ta ‘church’, he/she/they, are indeed suspect.”
    ~ PulpitPounder 3:16

    (Gump…)

    Sopy
    ___
    *file under ‘Church Exit Strategy’, Article R6(f): rigorously righteous religion recently and remotely recorded as FUBAR?

  74. Hester wrote:

    As an aside-I had no idea that the Gospel was lost and plan to begin looking for it immediately after making my lasagna this evening.

    “Have you found Jesus?”

    “I didn’t know He was missing!”

    Well, I found Jesus behind the sofa. Maybe the Gospel is hiding behind the bookcase?

  75. Seneca wrote:

    Jenny wrote:

    Seneca wrote:
    Actually, if I had a pastoral “homeboy” it would be Johnny Mac. …
    John is a very nice and godly man. He’s just wrong on some things. And those who apply his teachings with iron fists are in need of repentance.


    And he is wrong upon?

    I think John is right on many things, although in recent years he’s gone a bit too Calvinist for my taste. I think he’s wrong on the Eternal Subordination of the Son, on the subordination of women, on his teaching regarding spousal abuse/divorce, and on his teaching regarding submission to authority. YMMV. However, I still love him as a brother in the Lord. I was acquainted with John and with his father years ago. Both loving and godly men. Unfortunately, many of their current followers often behave like graceless Pharisees.

  76. Janey wrote:

    Jenny — We had some of those iron fisted JM followers in my church. That’s in part why I left.

    I’m sorry to hear that, Janey. My prayer for the folks at your former church and at mine is that the Holy Spirit helps them become more patient, loving and kind. Jesus shows us that truth and loving-kindness can be applied simultaneously.

  77. dee wrote:

    @ Anon 1: YOu just gave me an idea. We should do a post on questions to ask when you are trying to figure out a church. i can sniff out a doctrinal game a mile away.

    This is a great idea, I would certainly put it to use!

  78. Jenny wrote:

    Seneca wrote:
    Jenny wrote:
    Seneca wrote:

    Actually, if I had a pastoral “homeboy” it would be Johnny Mac. …

    John is a very nice and godly man. He’s just wrong on some things. And those who apply his teachings with iron fists are in need of repentance.

    And he is wrong upon?


    I think John is right on many things, although in recent years he’s gone a bit too Calvinist for my taste. I think he’s wrong on the Eternal Subordination of the Son, on the subordination of women, on his teaching regarding spousal abuse/divorce, and on his teaching regarding submission to authority. YMMV. However, I still love him as a brother in the Lord. I was acquainted with John and with his father years ago. Both loving and godly men. Unfortunately, many of their current followers often behave like graceless Pharisees.


    Perhaps more accurately, you DISAGREE with him about some theological issues. To announce, somewhat out of thin air, that he’s wrong doesn’t actually mean that he is. But everybody is free to air their opinion, it’s a lot harder to make the theological case simply predicated upon Scripture.

  79. Daisy wrote:

    I am a YEC in so far as I still cling to the Christian faith, and just wow at the animosity and slights across the board at a person for merely being YEC.

    You have to understand. The yelling is not being done by people who merely believe in a young earth/universe. It is being done by people who promote junk science and yell at anyone who disagrees with them. Implying they are heretics or worse.

    I’m fine with people who believe they earth/universe is young. If they say it’s a miracle of God and they don’t know how it happened. My problem (and yours really) is that the people with the “mic” at promoting a junk science and calling it “real”.

    Junk Science: Ignoring any facts you don’t like. Claiming those who disagree with you are part of a conspiracy. Etc…

    YEC’s biggest problem with science is they claim about 99% of the facts out there must be wrong. Which leads to the conspiracy theories as it’s hard for many of them to imagine that many people “getting it wrong” without trying to do so.

  80. “Ought we to call that religion, -which seeks to disguises itself under the mask of deception?”
    ~Sopy

  81. Gene wrote:

    There are many scientific problems with the OE theories. There’s a reason why evolutionists and old earthers don’t even agree among themselves. The science world has plenty of people who see the problems.

    We have a planet with over 7 billion people. If you consider those with higher ed you’re looking at around a billion. Or maybe half of that. There’s a lot of room in most fields for people who hold to divergent views, even in the face of the evidence against them. I went to school in engineering. I’ve spend the last 20+ years working closely with architectural firms. Trust me. Most anyone, even those who are smart, can quickly develop a blind spot when the evidence goes against a dearly held position. There were some real whacko’s who got degrees in engineering when I was in school. Graduate degrees included. Many of the engineers I know are broadly knowledgeable. Many know enough to pass the tests in a narrow field and can’t connect dots when there’s only two and they are placed on the table in front of them.

    Look at theology. Especially those that don’t work. Which is the main point of this blog post.

    I bring up engineers and architects because on another blog a proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theories was big on the fact that a number of engineers and architects say the twin towers and building 7 couldn’t fall the way they did without advance planning. Of course a few 100, not all with any expertise in the fields, trumps the analysis of 10,000s.

  82. There is indeed a reason why “evolutionists”, “old earthers”, “young earthers”, “Christians”, “chefs”, “football fans” and most every single other collective noun anyone has ever thought of “don’t agree among themselves”. They don’t agree on the details.

    For instance: The asteroid impact theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs is not universally agreed upon by palaeontologists. There remain some who are sceptical as to whether the KT boundary event happened, and others who do accept that it happened but are simply sceptical as to whether it alone could account for the observed mass extinction (they propose other possible mechanisms in addition).

    But that’s the point: they (scientists) are sceptical. If you prefer your english US, they are skeptical. That means that, equally, they do not rush at the drop of a hat into the arms of minority alternative theories. That is because the standard of scientific proof is high; and therefore sc[k]epticism is a necessary trait for a scientist. Young-earthers often cite this so-called disagreement among secular scientists as evidence for young earth creation, when it is nothing of the sort. There may be secular geologists who concede the possibility that some mechanism (unknown to them) could have formed the earth we observe in a few thousand years. But there are very few of them who actually think that’s a better theory.

  83. Janey wrote:

    iron fisted JM followers

    I tire of those who are just so sure and who are willing to cause division in order to win. Deep down inside, they are terribly insecure. Everyone must believe like them in order for them to feel comfortable with their chosen belief system.

  84. @ Arce: I have written to request permission to do a reprint and recap. I have spoken with some of them in the past. They are good people. (I love to use the word”good” with some people, It drives them nuts.)

  85. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    Plus there are quite a few theological positions that rely on YEC being true to work).

    First notice the vehemence with which some YEC people respond to those who disagree with them. Why such vehemence? For example, why would Mohler care one way or the other how old the earth is? They reach loud and long about the sovereignty of God, so if God is sovereign surely He could and would do whatever and however he chose without any threat to Himself or His sovereignty. Yet some of the these people scream like a stuck hog if anybody questions how they understand the creation accounts in Genesis. Why? Why react so defensively? Why use terms like not-Christian, unbiblical, dissenter, unsaved when people say that there is a ton of evidence to say that the earth, indeed the biosphere, is really old. Mohler even admits that the evidence is there, he just comes up with an alternative explanation to explain the evidence.

    I think that the answer as to why they act this way is that a lot of other stuff they believe and preach depends on a certain way of understanding scripture, and if that way is shown to not be valid in Genesis 1-2 it may also be open to question in the rest of scripture.

    They are willing to define faith, if necessary, as believing something that you know good and well is not true, rather than take a harder look at some of their other favorite issues.

    God is way bigger than we comprehend, and His purposes and methodologies and ideas are far beyond our current understanding. And that statement is biblical. Let us not try to define God as someone small enough for us to understand, someone for whom we need not have godly fear, or someone who does not threaten our ideas in any way. He knows that we do not understand. That does not seem to derail Him in any way.

  86. Nancy wrote:

    Why? Why react so defensively? Why use terms like not-Christian, unbiblical, dissenter, unsaved when people say that there is a ton of evidence to say that the earth, indeed the biosphere, is really old.

    I was the victim of that vitriol, not knowing there was such a controversy.I have come to believe that many who react this way are terribly insecure in their beliefs. Deep down inside, they know the science is not with them so they have to fight.

    If they would stay out of the science and arena and just stick to the Bible, then they could maintain their position which is founded on faith alone. They have no idea how silly their science is regarded by the vast majority of scientists, many of whom are Christians.

    There is an underlying agenda. That agenda feeds the interpretation. Perhaps this quote by Ken Ham is an illustration. In regards to his wife, he says “She is very, very submissive.” They must have their interpretation in order to believe that a “very, very submissive” woman is a net positive. To me, it is just a bit creepy.

  87. These 2 quotes describe exactly our situation of why we have left our home church where we grew up in the faith. When returning from a time away we returned in hopes of renewing old friendships and worshiping together. They wanted me to take a leadership position right away since I had held one in the past before leaving. I said no and just wanted to get familiar with the new pastor before becoming a leader again. we were back for less than 4 months and realized there was trouble in the church. We were/are in a no win situation. If we stay I would cause disunity because I believed differently and would challenge him on it, if we leave we are telling our friends they made a mistake by choosing this pastor of less than 2 years. That is exactly what one dear friend told us. So we left the church and now have been accused of changing/backsliding and have experienced the practice of shunning by friends of many years.
    I appreciate this blog and e-church as we have grown in our walk with Jesus and for that I am thankful. Our walk is all about a closer relationship with Him.

    “Also, given my propensity to verbally emote, in excruciating detail, my disagreements and affirmations, it would stand to reason that the church leaders would be dispirited by my presence as well. ”

    The sad, discouraging outcome of these scenarios is that men and women who have poured themselves into a community of believers for years (some as many as 20-30 years) find themselves unable to continue with the ‘new’ leaders. They leave the community of believers because they are only welcome if they submit to teachings they cannot support. It leaves the stomach in knots.

  88. NC Now wrote:

    Of course a few 100, not all with any expertise in the fields, trumps the analysis of 10,000s.

    Awesome comment!
    I met with a very intelligent Mormon man for almost 1 1/2 years. We would discuss theology and I grew to appreciate him as he was a kind man. He was intelligent, having graduated from the Naval Academy in engineering.

    I discussed a belief by Brigham Young(or was it Joseph Smith) that there were people living in the moon who looked like the Amish which is patently ridiculous. I told him that a professor at BYU said “We haven’t see the whole moon yet.” I asked him how he reconciled this with his faith. He just shrugged his shoulders and continued on.

    Here is a professor who gives a ridiculous answer in order to continue in his belief system. Deep down inside, he knows that it is stupid. But, he cannot say it, even to himself This is called cognitive dissonance.

  89. Sopwith wrote:

    Ought we to call that religion, -which seeks to disguises itself under the mask of deception?”

    It may be religion but it is not part of the Christian faith.

  90. Jenny wrote:

    When I joined my former church it was sufficient to be baptized and in agreement with the points of the Nicene Creed to become a member. By the time I left there was an extensive and intrusive membership questionnaire and interview process. Interviewers routinely denied membership to people who couldn’t agree with secondary doctrines that the church considers essential to salvation.

    I have a new idea. Let’s do a reverse membership questionnaire! We get to give them an extensive list of questions to answer along with a psychological assessment of all the pastors and elders. That would be lots of fun.

  91. Kevin wrote:

    f we stay I would cause disunity because I believed differently and would challenge him on it, if we leave we are telling our friends they made a mistake by choosing this pastor of less than 2 years.

    No wonder your stomach is in knots. So was mine. you are put into a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario.

    I am absolutely convinced that many people in churches are so insecure that they cannot tolerate anyone disagreeing with them about anything. When someone like you leaves, it causes them to question their own paradigm and they do not want to do that. So, they must make you the enemy.

    I left a church over the poor handling of a pedophile situation. Many boys were harmed and the perp is now in jail. The pastors sent a letter to the congregation about us and some others who stood up for the boys. It was a mess. A former friend (attendee at the church) called me a couple of months later and proceeded to ask my help with a mundane task. i had been supportive of her in the past. I asked her why she didn’t address what had happened with me. She pretended like it didn’t exist. Answer? “God has not called me to be concerned about this situation.”

    Nuts, totally nuts.

  92. dee wrote:

    I have a new idea. Let’s do a reverse membership questionnaire! We get to give them an extensive list of questions to answer along with a psychological assessment of all the pastors and elders. That would be lots of fun.

    To become Methodist clergy, we have to have a psychological exam, credit and criminal background checks, and a comprehensive physical. Doesn’t mean some of us aren’t still several french fries short of a Happy Meal, but it does shake out a few candidates. 🙂

  93. Nancy wrote:

    I think that the answer as to why they act this way is that a lot of other stuff they believe and preach depends on a certain way of understanding scripture, and if that way is shown to not be valid in Genesis 1-2 it may also be open to question in the rest of scripture

    Yes. It would bring Patriarchy and ESS into question if not read woodenly.

  94. Darcyjo wrote:

    To become Methodist clergy, we have to have a psychological exam, credit and criminal background checks, and a comprehensive physical. Doesn’t mean some of us aren’t still several french fries short of a Happy Meal, but it does shake out a few candidates.

    You are restoring hope into my soul! There is no question that I have been missing a number of french fries throughout the years.

  95. I have nothing intelligent to add, but I will say that, while I read (and appreciated) this post yesterday, the title left me confused. Now, I get it: it’s a thinly veiled threat. I love it! 😀

  96. @ Josh: It actually refers to the beginning of the post. I was a member of a church which enforced, to the point of overkill, YEC on all levels of the church. Had I know this in the beginning, I would not have joined the church. Now, I get to write about it. Imagine how nice it would have been for my former pastor not to have to deal with me! All he had to do is be straight.

    So yeah, it is a thinly veiled threat. If I get schnookered again, they will be reading about said church on this blog.

  97. Darcyjo wrote:

    Doesn’t mean some of us aren’t still several french fries short of a Happy Meal

    I can send you some of mine. Per my doc I don’t need them. 🙂

  98. Darcyjo wrote:

    Doesn’t mean some of us aren’t still several french fries short of a Happy Meal

    You make it sound as though not being a Happy Meal were some kind of failure! I assure you it’s not.

  99. @ dee:

    Thanks, Dee – I especially appreciate the second exclamation mark (the equivalent of being made a two-star General)!

    I think on reflection I could have phrased it more succinctly.

    “Old earth science is not proven” – OK, if you set an extremely high standard of proof. But if you do that, then YEC must meet the same standard of proof.

    To whatever degree Old Earth is not proven, Young Earth is even less proven.

  100. dee wrote:

    I am absolutely convinced that many people in churches are so insecure that they cannot tolerate anyone disagreeing with them about anything. When someone like you leaves, it causes them to question their own paradigm and they do not want to do that. So, they must make you the enemy.

    Bingo! You hit the nail right on the head. The sermon preached the week after we left we were called tools of satan, because we did not agree with the pastor and he was being attacked trying to bring down his ministry.

    She pretended like it didn’t exist. Answer? “God has not called me to be concerned about this situation.”
    again dead on! when we run into folks from the church they completely ignore the issue.

  101. Kevin wrote:

    The sermon preached the week after we left we were called tools of satan,

    You realize you won. You really rattled their cages.They drag out “Satan” whenever they are really, really worried.

  102. @ Kevin:

    Your comment breaks my heart. Have you ever considered writing about your experience? We’d love to feature it here because we believe it could benefit our readers. You could be as specific or as vague as you wish.

    Thanks for sharing.

  103. @ dee:

    It’s become like breaking out the voodoo doll (sigh).

    It’s much easier to cast someone to satan than work things out on a human level.

  104. @ Bridget:
    No. Not really. It is easier to make a FALSE allegation that someone has chosen the devil over the human accuser’s pet theological nitpick. Only God can actually send one to Satan, and not all Christians even believe that, because we believe that we have to reject God first, before He will do that.

  105. @ Arce:

    Arce –

    I’m totally with you! My “casting to satan’ was tongue and cheek. I don’t believe ‘elder’s’ have any such power or rights to do any such things. But I do believe some elders say and do such things because it allows them to stop the dialogue with those who disagree and protect what they view as their turf.

  106. Totally on board with the ladies re not pulling a bait and switch.

    But we can lay the tactic somewhat at the feet of the old Arminian, Charles Finney. He perfected many of the techniques used today to produce “decisions.”

    I put decisions in quotes because that is all bait and switch can produce, decisions. Not to be confused with conversions.

    To convert one first has to understand the problem–we’ve broken God’s law and yes, there is a hell to pay for it. Then we have to come to real repentance. That isn’t just I don’t want to feel guilty, but rather real sorrow AND desire to turn from that sin. Then we can be given the remedy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Unfortunately, we are far more likely today to be given the line that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” in a way that leaves one thinking God didn’t give us commandments, just suggestions. And whatever you decide for yourself is right is right and whatever you decide is wrong you better be tolerant about.

    No, God give us upfront, in our face, truth telling as they understand pastors and we can then be Bereans and listen or not based on whether or not they preach the Bible accurately rather than tickle our itching ears.

  107. Kevin wrote:

    So we left the church and now have been accused of changing/backsliding and have experienced the practice of shunning by friends of many years.
    I appreciate this blog and e-church as we have grown in our walk with Jesus and for that I am thankful. Our walk is all about a closer relationship with Him.

    You have plenty of fellow travelers Kevin!

  108. linda wrote:

    But we can lay the tactic somewhat at the feet of the old Arminian, Charles Finney. He perfected many of the techniques used today to produce “decisions.”

    I think Finney has become a boogeyman. Most folks have never heard of him and were making decisions about their spiritual lives long before he ever came on the scene. He is certainly not as influential as Calvin’s ST.

    That is like saying “repetence” does not mean a dedicated change of heart. If that is not an every day situation that involves us AND the Holy Spirit as our Help, I do not know what is. Unless one thinks God is forcing you to “turn completely around” and you have no input in working that out.

    We have to make decisions about our beliefs and our behavior. Without that, we can hold NO ONE accountable and quite frankly, that looks to be what things are coming to in Christendom.

  109. TW wrote:

    Kevin wrote:
    So we left the church and now have been accused of changing/backsliding and have experienced the practice of shunning by friends of many years.
    I appreciate this blog and e-church as we have grown in our walk with Jesus and for that I am thankful. Our walk is all about a closer relationship with Him.
    You have plenty of fellow travelers Kevin!

    ………..,…….

    Yes Kevin, you are not alone.

  110. dee wrote:

    Right now there are readers praying that Dee will not devolve into discussing creationism. One of the advantages of having one’s own blog is that I get to wax eloquent on my favorite issues.

    Aw cmon’ Dee, do it, cuz’ then old heretical renegades like Muff Potter could think up ways of staying a step ahead of the horse soldiers (figuratively) like Geronimo used to do.

  111. Gene wrote:

    Regarding YEC, the vitriol spilled out towards YEC is unacceptable. Whether one likes it or not (or is willing to admit it), the alternatives are not proven science, and they never will be.

    Well, actually, there is no “proven” science. Scientific theories can only be disproved, and then scientists work very hard to find a better model, a better theory. You can verify individual facts, you can never verify a model that connects these facts to form an overarching whole.

    Scientific theories work on the basis that they offer a good explanation of observable facts, or at least the very best explanation that we have. In reality, scientists work very hard in order to disprove a theory. If they can’t disprove it, they see it as strong evidence that it is “true”, at least for the time being. Once you can disprove a theory, you have to discard it partly or completely, depending on what has been disproved, and find a new model.

    So, unlike theologians dabbling in science, science as a whole is usually very trustworthy because it has no secret agenda.

    That’s why scientists are always very cautious when presenting their results. A phrase like “the evidence suggests” or even “the evidence strongly suggests” is used where non-scientists would use phrases like words like “proven”.

    In science, words like “theory” are also used completely differently from their everyday meaning. A “theory” is a good and convincing model of explanation of certain observable phenomena.

    What you and I in everyday conversation would call a “theory” (like in “evolution is just a theory”) is called a hypothesis, at best. And even for that, requirements are quite high.

    So, yeah, YE Creationism does not get a lot of respect from me – as opposed to people who believe it – they deserve the same respect as every human being. But that does not mean that – as soon as they venture into scientific debates – they don’t have to stand the same scrutiny and same rigorous examination as anybody else.

  112. dee wrote:

    I am absolutely convinced that many people in churches are so insecure that they cannot tolerate anyone disagreeing with them about anything.

    Insecure people need help, and a pastor can help them come to terms with the fact that we will always have a certain amount of uncertainty in our lives, in how we explain the world.

    The problem starts to get really ugly as soon as you find out that the pastor is one of these insecure people, and that he is immature enough to take it out on people who “dare” disagree with him.

  113. linda wrote:

    To convert one first has to understand the problem–we’ve broken God’s law and yes, there is a hell to pay….real repentance….the remedy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

    ….we are far more likely today to be given the line that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” in a way that leaves one thinking God didn’t give us commandments, just suggestions.

    I did not come to God because I recognized what a sinner I was, how I needed to repent and be saved. I came because I saw/felt God’s love and it was so generous, clean and warm compared to what I’d experienced that I ran into the shelter.

    I think there are more people who are attracted to God by “What love is this?” rather than “Oh, wormy me!” Methods must suit the character/experience/situation of the individual if they are to be effective.

    Either way, it’s the introduction, right? If one goes to God because of a profound sense of personal failure, the next lesson will be about love (or as you wrote roundaboutly: “the remedy of the gospel of Jesus Christ”).

    If one is first attracted by God’s love, the next lesson will be about why/how “right is right”. For me, once deep in the arms of God, I found myself eager to be the way He/She is, through and through.

  114. linda wrote:

    To convert one first has to understand the problem–we’ve broken God’s law and yes, there is a hell to pay for it. T

    But that is not how I converted yet i know it was a true conversion. I was a teen who suddenly realized that the God of the Universe loved me and he sent Jesus to show me that love. I knew little about my sin nature although I knew that I had done some wrong things. Over time, I came to an understanding of all of these things. God loved me into the kingdom.

  115. @ gus:

    Well put, Gus. To say: the [YEC] alternatives are not proven science, and therefore I’m scientifically justified in believing in YEC, is rather like saying, it is not proven that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK, therefore the evidence supports my believing that it was actually Mahatma Gandhi.

    Nobody, to my knowledge, ever collated all the available empirical evidence and said, “gosh, all these dinosaur ‘fossils’ can only have been planted in sediments that lithified extraordinarily fast; etc etc, it is clear to me that the earth is a few thousand years old”. YEC comes entirely from a certain traditional a priori reading of Genesis which the evidence is interpreted (by hook or by crook) to fit.

    Belief in YEC does not warrant “vitriol” towards its adherents (if such is ever forthcoming – it seems common for YEC pastors to spew vitriol at their detractors within their churches, certainly). Personally, I am ever so slightly in awe of their creativity.

  116. @ linda:
    I am not convinced that repentence is the key, unless you mean repenting for making our own way. Many, many people have not been active sinners, just born with a sin nature (aka human nature). I have known some wonderful Christians who studied, came to the conclusion that God loves them and wants them to serve him, by accepting his grace gift in the person of Jesus by believing in his resurrection, committed themselves to following and serving Jesus. After, when ever they discover a wrong they have committed, they do seek forgiveness but were never anything but “passive” sinners before encountering God.

  117. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    To say: the [YEC] alternatives are not proven science, and therefore I’m scientifically justified in believing in YEC, is rather like saying, it is not proven that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK, therefore the evidence supports my believing that it was actually Mahatma Gandhi.

    This is called Conspiracy Theory logic.

    The Dwarfs are for The Dwarfs, and Won’t Be Taken In.

  118. dee wrote:

    There is an underlying agenda. That agenda feeds the interpretation. Perhaps this quote by Ken Ham is an illustration. In regards to his wife, he says “She is very, very submissive.” They must have their interpretation in order to believe that a “very, very submissive” woman is a net positive. To me, it is just a bit creepy.

    Ken Ham is a complementarian/male supremacist?

    Not surprising. For some reason, YEC Uber Alles, Male Supremacy/Woman Submit, Altar Call Salvation, Outbreed-the-Heathen Quiverfull, Homeschooling, and 1/4-inch Plumbing Supply Lines all go together. Where you find one, you usually find the others. Like YEC and Rapture Scare du Jour.

  119. dee wrote:

    I have come to believe that many who react this way are terribly insecure in their beliefs. Deep down inside, they know the science is not with them so they have to fight.

    This was true in my case, and I suspect in many others, especially the more hardcore the defender(I know there are true believers but they are probably not as common as one might think…). Feverishly arguing for YEC was more about convincing myself it was true, even though I knew it wasn’t. (I’ve always been interested in science and how things work)

    The reason for this is quite simple… I was put into a false dilemma. Raised in the YEC/Homeschooling/dominionist crowd, I grew up watching Ham, Hovind etc. Everyone around me was simply a bible thumping echo chamber of “this is the only way, BIBLE SEZ”. Alternatives were never discussed, just simply dismissed as “weak/lukewarm Christianity” at beast, atheism at most. For everything I was taught, YEC was the cornerstone and if it were not true then everything collapsed and there was only atheism or “atheists pretending to be Christians”. This is not explicit, however it is implied so heavily that it practically is.

    Then a few years ago, somehow, I came across this blog. I wasn’t looking for blogs like this, somebody just randomly found it and said “this site looks interesting” and then they moved on and never gave it a second thought. But I didn’t. Through this blog, and ones that it linked too, and ones that linked to them… I finally saw other viewpoints. I saw them with an open mind, without a gatekeeper standing there mocking them as the great satan. You could say the scales fell from my eyes.

    YEC was summarily abandoned, because I no longer needed it as a crutch drug. The universe as God actually made it is so much more amazing than the lies you think you have to tell yourself.

  120. @ JustSomeGuy: Wow! Thank you for saying this. We are all victims of our upbringing and we are most comfortable with what has been fed to us.

    JustSomeGuy wrote:

    Alternatives were never discussed, just simply dismissed as “weak/lukewarm Christianity” at beast, atheism at most. For everything I was taught, YEC was the cornerstone and if it were not true then everything collapsed and there was only atheism or “atheists pretending to be Christians”.

    That is how the logic usually goes. That is why I beg people to read the other point of view. Ham does not encourage that. Why? I bet you can figure that out.
    Regrading Hoving-what a character. He “knew” what the Bible said about Genesis but he must have stopped reading. From Wikipedia

    Since January 2007, Hovind has been serving a ten-year prison sentence after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including 12 tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents, and 45 counts of structuring cash transactions

  121. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    To say: the [YEC] alternatives are not proven science, and therefore I’m scientifically justified in believing in YEC

    Yes, and YEC is not “proven” either, nor is it revealed truth, whatever some people say.

    YEC – like any fundamentalism – is an expression of fear: fear of change, fear that “they” are becoming “uppity” (blacks, women) and that we won’t be able to maintain our undeserved privilege, fear that we’re losing control of an ever changing world and society around us.

    I have long been convinced that YEC and all fundamentalisms are in reality a consequence of lack of faith:

    1. you don’t trust people to do the right things (at least some or even most of the time) – hence legalism.

    2. you don’t trust God so he has to conform to your narrow interpretation of ancient texts you have never fully understood nor read in the original, yet you insist on a literal interpretation of a translation of the original. (Where it becomes outright silly is in KJV-Onlyism, because obviously you don’t even understand much of the translation.) Hence bibliolatry – worship of the book and its letter instead of its author.

    Anon 1 posted a link to NT Wright ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7L3NHVlsQ ) – I liked that a lot. I hadn’t heard of him before, being out of evangelical circles for a while, but I’m beginning to love that man.

  122. gus wrote:

    worship of the book and its letter instead of its author

    Lest people misunderstand me – I don’t believe that the bible is verbally inspired by God – and nowhere does the bible say so (2 Timothy 3:16 notwithstanding). For me it is a book about the amazing journey of certain people with God, and then about the one part of history we will never be able to fully understand (not in this life, anyway) – how God became man in Jesus – and how he radically changed mankind’s fate forever, and us, – as in a song by Jochen Klepper, a German author who left this world together with his Jewish wife and and daughter in Nazi Germany in 1942 (“Die Nacht ist vorgedrungen” – very rough translation of verse 5):

    He who built the world / Won’t abandon the sinner, / and he judges the world / as if to reward us.

    This is talking about Jesus, of course.

    In the same way, Paul’s letters were written to very specific people, in very specific situations, in answer to very specific questions these people asked Paul, often through letters (none of which we possess).

    Since we know none of these particulars it seems utter hubris to me to take one sentence from here, half a phrase from there, and then to go on and build a complete system of, say, the headship of men and the subordination of women, on such a basis.

    Again, fundamentalism is fear – the fear that it’s not ALL literally true, literally in the narrowest meaning of “literally”, word for word, letter for letter, then the whole structure that props me and my privileged position up comes crashing down – see JustSomeGuy above.

    And for those who are ruthless enough, exploiting that fear is very good business.

  123. There’s a West Ham and an East Ham in London. And I believe Alabama has a “Birming Ham”, though the real Birmingham (up in which I grew) is pronounced “birming um”.

  124. Sometimes “Um…” is all you can say after a YEC evangelist makes a “scientific” claim or refutation that is so far beyond the bounds of reason that it leaves you speechless. 😮

  125. And no one in the YEC crowd deals adequately with the fact that Gen 1 and Gen 2 present two different stories of creation, each of which reflects an extant Middle Eastern creation story (aka “myth” which does not necessarily mean fiction, just not evidence-based), among the peoples there. Back when the two rivers did not end in the place where they now end, but further upstream.

    There is a great change between the before Abram and after Abraham writings in Genesis. And keep in mind that if Moses wrote it down (rather questionable) he wrote most of it hundreds to thousands of years after the alleged fact.

    All primitive societies (Greek, Arab, India, SE Asian, Amerind, etc., etc.) have creation stories. There are amazing parallels in many of them them. Most involve a god or gods creating the first people.

    I would also point out the long lives of some people in Genesis, impossible if they were human. So something is a bit questionable there as well.

    But, Genesis contains useful anecdotes (aka parables) that teach about humanity and the interaction of God with humanity for their benefit. And just as the parables Jesus told do not have to be literal to be true, the same holds for the parables in Genesis, including Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

  126. Muff Potter wrote:

    Schmuley Boteach’s essay: The Tyranny of Perfection

    Thanks, Muff. I enjoyed it. Yeah, I can see that many Christians’ focus is perfection. The impossibility of the task requires that they reduce perfection to a set of “almost-yet-never-quite-obtainable” rules.

    I don’t agree with Boteach that Judaism, as a religion, has no perfection standards whereas Christianity is based on it. Perhaps his corner of Judaism is more struggle-based but so is our corner of Christianity, ISTM. He took the example of Martin Luther King—yep, about the struggle and a Christian.

    Lin wrote in earlier comment that when coming to God through love&such, commandments are reduced to mere suggestions. Precisely! I will jump at a suggestion from God because I hang out and enjoy, love and respect Her/Him. I would not hang out with someone who would hand me a bunch of laws to obey in order for the relationship to commence.

    So maybe perfectionist ideology shows itself in Ken Hamm’s marriage, of which he says with pride that his wife is “very very submissive”. (“She is almost perfect for me, woohoo.”) A “command” relationship. And if that is how they experience their intimate relationship, how can they know all that much about God, really? Ach

  127. Somebody brought up the topic of N. T. Wright. He is one of my favorites. The whole new perspective on Paul research has some good stuff in it, along with some pitfalls, of course. I was born and raised in what is now called evangelical christianity, and my whole life I had listened to some stuff from some pulpits, read the scriptures and come away struggling with the apparent inconsistencies between what the scripture appeared to be saying and what the preacher was saying. Add to that some really bad attitudes I had about God based on how he was portrayed from the pulpit, and it was not a really pretty picture.

    Now the new perspective folks have come along and said that was not what Paul meant when he said thus and such. They base their opinions on what was going on in the culture of the day and what Paul would have meant (or did mean) when he said various things. I feel like somebody has told me that I am not crazy after all. Of course, my concerns only touched the tip of the iceberg of what they are saying, but still it is like water on my desert.

    IfI have put some of Wright’s stuff on my e-reader and just yesterday spent a couple of hours soaking up lots of good stuff about the resurrection and what he calls “life after life-after-death” while waiting in the dealership waiting room for my vehicle recall to be solved. He thinks that the bible shows a much bigger purpose than the individual and his “personal relationship” with Christ, and a much better long term future than pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye, while not denying either relationship or pie.

    Of course, he is British, and a little wordy but well worth the effort. I highly recommend both him and the new perspective approach.

  128. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    The universe as God actually made it is so much more amazing than the lies you think you have to tell yourself….Well to be honest, they don’t really know what they’re missing.

    Yes it is, and no they don’t. And I become sad because if they were willing to set aside their fears (is it about losing control, do you think?) and take an open look, I suspect many of them would jump in with delight.

  129. dee wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
    Ken Ham is a complementarian/male supremacist?
    A very, very, very male patriarch.

    And let’s not forget that Ham’s wife is very, very submissive (at least that’s what I think the Wikipedia article used to say about her). Who edited that out???

  130. Arce wrote:

    I would also point out the long lives of some people in Genesis, impossible if they were human. So something is a bit questionable there as well.

    How is it not possible for the Almighty to encode a super-genome for his first humans? One that was impervious to breakdown and coding errors?

  131. It sure disappeared from the genome very rapidly. EVOLUTION OCCURRED!!!!!!! And humans evolved to have a shorter life span over a very short time frame. Seems contradictory to the whole science of genetics and evolution. Shorter life = less time to reproduce.

    Totally tongue in cheek. Of course God could have. Just as he could have created a world and universe that looks to all scientific investigation to be billions of years old. But that would be a BIG LIE, totally incompatible with the nature of God as we know it.

  132. AS I said earlier, Genesis before Abraham appears very mythic. Not to say that myths are not true, just not typically literal but parable-like in explaining things for which the people of the time did not have some other, more plausible explanation. And the myth could have originated with God, just as the parables originated with Jesus.

  133. @ Gene:Gene, you do realize that many if us are more comfortable taking the analysis of men like Collins, than your word for what kind of literature comprises Gen. 1-3? I believe “exalted prose narrative” fits best (and fwiw, I do have several years of seminary Hebrew under my belt). However, who cares if it is historical narrative (btw, historians would all disagree with you, as by definition these events cannot be historical – but that is another issue for another discipline). You seem to have an underlying presupposition – that if the passage is historical narrative, that it must be interpreted scientifically. This gets back to a thorny question of epistemology, but I encourage you to think through your ideas. As an aside, I switched from a general young earther to an old earther originally from the study of this text. I have many friends who are young earthers, and they seem to hold their position out of a sincere desire to believe God and accept his word. I have no problem with that attitude.

  134. Origins and the mechanics of origins are indeed a touchy subject. Guaranteed to arouse passionate and lively exchanges.

  135. @ Patrice:

    Boteach is a progressive Jew. Nothing like the Torah-Talmudic-perfect-interpretation-zealots who spit on and throw feces at women who ride the city buses of Jerusalem.

  136. Muff Potter wrote:

    Arce wrote:
    I would also point out the long lives of some people in Genesis, impossible if they were human. So something is a bit questionable there as well.
    How is it not possible for the Almighty to encode a super-genome for his first humans? One that was impervious to breakdown and coding errors?

    Anything is possible.

    But that would probably create more questions than it answered. There are many external factors to aging, like the massive damage we sustain from the sun.

    However those genealogies may not be ages of specific people anyway, so that all may be beside the point.

  137. Arce wrote:

    And no one in the YEC crowd deals adequately with the fact that Gen 1 and Gen 2 present two different stories of creation, each of which reflects an extant Middle Eastern creation story (aka “myth” which does not necessarily mean fiction, just not evidence-based), among the peoples there.

    Genesis 2 is an expansion of one part of Genesis 1. It is not a different story of creation. It’s this kind of stuff that completely robs a person of credibility with the text. There is absolutely no reason to suggest that there are two different stories here.

  138. Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

    @ Gene:Gene, you do realize that many if us are more comfortable taking the analysis of men like Collins, than your word for what kind of literature comprises Gen. 1-3?

    I am fine with that, but realize that your comfort level is not the issue here. THat is really quite irrelevant.

    You seem to have an underlying presupposition – that if the passage is historical narrative, that it must be interpreted scientifically.

    Not at all.

    I encourage you to think through your ideas.

    Thanks for the encouragement. I have been doing that for a long time.

  139. Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

    I have many friends who are young earthers, and they seem to hold their position out of a sincere desire to believe God and accept his word. I have no problem with that attitude.

    I believe that if they stuck to the theology, they would do fine. One can believe it based on sheer faith. Once the enter the arena of science, however, they must stand on scientific studies. Unfortunately, for their side of the argument, there is precious little to defend their view.

  140. @ Gene: Once again, I have no problem with your theological belief.There is much to be said for taking things on faith. However, one you enter the scientific arena, you must have real science backing you up. Not the stuff on AIG which is easily discarded by scientists, many of whom are Christians.

    I respect your wish to try to be faithful. That is my wish as well. As you know, many great theologians do back up the possibility of both theistic evolution and Old earth creationism. Walt Kaiser, one of the greatest Old Testament scholars of our lifetime believe in an old earth. I bet he knows as much, perhaps even more, than anyone on this blog on how to view Genesis. Kaiser outclassed Ham in a debate that I watched.

    From my perspective, I am grateful for theologians like Kaiser because he gives me great freedom to both accept the science while trusting in a Creator God.I can believe in a 4+billion year old earth and still worship the Ancient of Days.

  141. Dee,
    I have no problem with science as a measuring grid imposed on reality by humans as a way of making sense of reality. I know I can be a pain in the keister about this, but I still remain a skeptic of OE & TE. Even though the measuring grid is seldom if ever wrong, sometimes the conclusions derived from the grid can be dreadfully wrong.

    I am no ally of Ken Ham and I’m sure that he and his tribe would be more than happy (if they could) to have me burnt at the stake for heresy on account of my unorthodox and Jeffersonian views on sin and justification. Nonetheless, I am now going through an introductory course in theistic evolution over at BioLogos in order to satisfy my curiosity about what they believe and why. I’m told it’s a great course designed with lay-people in mind & with a minimum of abstruse jargon. And best of all, there is no intent to change anybody’s mind, just to lay out the facts and let folks make their own decisions.

  142. @ Muff Potter:

    “I for one love to hear you mouth off Dee. We need more women in Christendom to do just that.”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++

    here here. please keep it unvarnished — it’s like the first breath of fresh air after being in a 4 person tent with 7 people all night.

    you’re better than sweet veneers.

  143. Muff Potter wrote:

    I know I can be a pain in the keister about this, but I still remain a skeptic of OE & TE. Even though the measuring grid is seldom if ever wrong, sometimes the conclusions derived from the grid can be dreadfully wrong.

    Just keep in mind that those Maps you carry around in your smart phone are dependent on the same physics that points to old earth. Ditto the displays on your phone and flat screen TV. And the CAT scanner at the hospital. And the fiber optics that deliver phone and internet to your home. And the nuclear power plants that generate electricity we use. And on and on and ….

    Not talking about evolution here. I’m just talking about the physics we use to explain our modern tech.

  144. dee wrote:

    There is much to be said for taking things on faith.

    We must all take things on faith, even the evolutionists. At the end of the day, they believe they are right, but as has been admitted, it cannot be proven. And don’t forget that many of the scientific “facts” used in support of evolution through the years has been found wanting when later evidence was revealed. What is it now that we don’t know that will yet again be proven wrong?

    However, one you enter the scientific arena, you must have real science backing you up.

    Yes, absolutely, even the evolutionists.

    BTW, I don’t know why you think I am a fan of AIG. I am not. I don’t think I have said anything about them here, have I? I am YEC because I think it makes the best sense of the Bible and better sense of the evidence. I have read BioLogos from the beginning, along with many others. I read Hugh Ross from the first publication, and I find their explanations lack integrity as a whole. They don’t make sense of the data for me.

    As you know, many great theologians do back up the possibility of both theistic evolution and Old earth creationism.

    Okay, but how does this help? Both the biblical and the scientific issues must still be answered.

    I can believe in a 4+billion year old earth and still worship the Ancient of Days.

    Of course you can, but again, this isn’t really the point. I know Dr. Kaiser, having had a class with him. I like him. But not even his opinion is not necessarily fact. At the end of the day, science in the matter of origins is still drawing conclusions based on interpretations of evidence. And when those minds are tainted by the fallenness in this world, there is the chance that they will be wrong. Furthermore, when they are in pursuit of a conclusion, there is a chance they will be wrong. Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view.

  145. NC Now wrote:

    Just keep in mind that those Maps you carry around in your smart phone are dependent on the same physics that points to old earth. Ditto the displays on your phone and flat screen TV. And the CAT scanner at the hospital. And the fiber optics that deliver phone and internet to your home. And the nuclear power plants that generate electricity we use. And on and on and ….

    Not talking about evolution here. I’m just talking about the physics we use to explain our modern tech.

    FYI, this is a complete red herring. Those things works perfectly in a YEC model too. Well, as perfectly as they work anytime.

  146. The conversation seems to have derived into a rather heated debate about YEC issues… Not going to comment on that particular point myself. However, I wanted to say that the particular attitude of ‘not showing all we are just yet, in case people would not accept it’ reminds me a lot of my experience in the Seventh Day Adventist church.

    The church would often organise events with the purpose of evangelising others. The themes would be things like ‘prophecy seminars’, ‘stop smoking in 5 days’ or ‘vegetarian cooking’… The question is that, at times, the flyers advertising the events would not disclose that they were organised by the SDA church. In some cases I’ve heard, especially with the ‘prophecy seminars’, the events would be organised in ‘neutral’ locations and then move into a SDA building for the last session after several days of meetings, when it would probably be revealed that they were promoting SDA teachings.

    The reasoning behind all this was that if people knew from the start that the SDA church was organising it all, then they would not want to attend. I think it’s particularly telling when some of the events and tracts would target Christians, at least not officially.

  147. A Religion Traumatized : “The Age Of Church Deception, Perhaps?”

    Going for mellow church transformation?

    hmmm…

    Reverand Charles Joseph Mahaney, is a man of rare talents, and rarer virtue. No age or country has ever produced a man of more fervent piety, or more perfect charity; no church has ever possessed a more apostolic minister…

    (grin)

    hahahahahaha

    Cough!  Cough! 

    Tell me another story…

    -snicker-

    What?

    Where is the challenge to Reverend C.J Mahaney’s  handling of the scriptures?

    Where is the challenge to Reverend C.J. Mahaney’s poor handling of the kind folks in his care?

    Excuse me?

    There was none.

    Accountability, that’s a laugh!

    His 501c not-for -profit professional ‘religious’ fellows calling themselves by Monsieur Jean Calvin’s name, did not mount one, nor did they permit one?

    “The abuse goes on?”

    la le, la le, de…
    la l,e la le, dahhhh!

    (sadface)

    No challenge to this nefarious subscription is to be permitted?

    They will continue in their ‘body of belief’ until they succeed in ‘darkly’ dominating all of Christianity in America?

    Their ‘assumptions’ can bring them no other possible conclusion?

    Lucky us, huh?

    Skreeeeeeeeeeeetch! Bump!

    Crash!

    They would have us trade our ‘liberty in Christ’, for a type of spiritual bondage, for a religious subjection?

    Lõõk at da product of the body of their assumptions!

    What?

     They would have us trade our ‘freedom in Christ’, our responsibility towards the words of Christ, for a flower planted like Satan’s deceptively camouflaged dagger stealthily thrust into the church’s sides?

    Those that would desire religious freedom would do well to challenge the assumptions of those who would bring into to captivity those who’s desire it is to serve the true Christ.

    “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself”, The Master clearly stated.

    huh?

    The ‘elite’ of Neo-Calvinism, would, by their assumptions, followed by their actions, – they would apparently have it otherwise?

    “Actions speak louder than words” ?

    hmmm…

    « On ferait bien de les garder et fortifier soi-même, pour beaucoup un séducteur religieux est apparu dans le monde » 

    Être sur ses gardes ! 

    Adieu.

    Le S“㋡”py

  148. Muff Potter wrote:

    @ Patrice:
    Boteach is a progressive Jew. Nothing like the Torah-Talmudic-perfect-interpretation-zealots who spit on and throw feces at women who ride the city buses of Jerusalem.

    I’d assumed Boteach was on that end. He had a worthwhile point. I only disagree with his comparison: apples to oranges in two different baskets. If he had compared law-emphasizing Judaism and law-emphasizing Christianity (which are about perfection), to love-emphasizing Judaism and love-emphasizing Christianity (which are about struggle), he would’ve had a better framework for his interesting idea, not as between faiths but as strains inside both. The exceptionalism he takes for his faith is not applicable here, I think.

    This morn, I also wonder whether life is fundamentally defined by struggle. I find it more like a lifelong path through a gigantic mountain range. A struggle, a pleasure, painful, glorious, etc, in ratios that vary from person to person. hmmm

  149. @ Martos:
    I remember getting a book in the mail (every mailing address in the county did, I feel bad for our poor mailman!) about end-of-the-world stuff and people desecrating the real sabbath, etc., but couldn’t find any publication information anywhere in the book. It was only when I googled the title that I found out it was SDA material. Martos wrote:

    The reasoning behind all this was that if people knew from the start that the SDA church was organising it all, then they would not want to attend. I think it’s particularly telling when some of the events and tracts would target Christians, at least not officially.

    Yes, if I knew it was SDA material, it would have gone straight from my mailbox to the dumpster! Deceitfulness at its highest.

  150. Somebody enlighten me here. Are some people really saying that they cannot believe in God unless the earth is young? Are they saying that they cannot believe in God unless a certain way of understanding Genesis 1-2 proves to be correct? Not even when Jesus said that there was more to tell but he was not telling it (right then) and when Paul kept talking about seeing through a glass darkly and not knowing until we see Him as He is?

    People say this is a faith issue. They got that right. But the faith must be in God first and foremost, not in some idea about God. There has been (past tense) more than we know, there is (present tense) more than we know, and there will be (future tense) more than we know. We need not come to a screeching halt over the age of the earth, nor over how to understand Genesis 1-2.

  151. Gene wrote:

    FYI, this is a complete red herring. Those things works perfectly in a YEC model too. Well, as perfectly as they work anytime.

    No. The YEC supporters have no coherent, predictive, quantitative theory that shows a 6000 year old Earth and explains physics at the level that enables modern electronics technology. The point is: the same physics that produces the hardware supporting the internet supports the 4.5 billion year old Earth.

    For an example of how AIG deals with the science of radiometric dating see a guest post of mine at: http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/12/10/fraud-in-science-are-some-young-earth-proponents-being-disingenuous/

  152. Muff Potter wrote:

    I am now going through an introductory course in theistic evolution over at BioLogos in order to satisfy my curiosity about what they believe and why. I’m told it’s a great course designed with lay-people in mind & with a minimum of abstruse jargon. And best of all, there is no intent to change anybody’s mind,

    This is why i always love to read your comments. You are willing to consider the alternatives. It is that willingness to question and say “how do you know” that has both enriched my life and gotten me into lots of trouble.

    You are correct. Ham would not be pleased with Muff. Nor would he be pleased with Dee. Ham is only pleased when people agree with him which is a bit difficult when he strays into science. Epic fail comes to mind.

  153. @ TW: Thank you for the suggestion. The other guy who does a good job with OE is Hugh Ross over at Reason to Believe. He has written a boatload of books on the subject. He is also one of the most kind and soft spoken men on the circuit. The only time I ever saw him begin to get rattled is when Ken Ham, during a debate, made a remark which would seem to imply that Ross is a heretic. (Ham is good at this. He says it in such a way so he can deny he said what many believe he meant). Ross whipped his head around and sharply said something along the lines of “Did you just say what I think you said/ Cut it out.

  154. Martos wrote:

    he reasoning behind all this was that if people knew from the start that the SDA church was organising it all, then they would not want to attend. I think it’s particularly telling when some of the events and tracts would target Christians, at least not officially.

    The Amway approach is the same approach that many have used in evangelism. I find it fascinating that SDA use the vegetarian thing to get people in. Many people are looking for ways to improve their diet and going more vegetarian is one way to achieve this.

    I loved your closing line about targeting Christians. So many churches believe that they have the answer and the way and that everybody else are a bunch of idiots to be pitied and evangelized.

  155. @ Gene:
    Since you have carefully studied the peer reviewed science and have rejected it, there is nothing more I can say.

  156. Nancy wrote:

    Are some people really saying that they cannot believe in God unless the earth is young? Are they saying that they cannot believe in God unless a certain way of understanding Genesis 1-2 proves to be corr

    There are some that imply that one cannot be a Christian and believe in an old earth. Ken Ham has a post at AIG which states the agenda loud and clear. “Its Not About the Age of the Earth.”

    In this lovely treatise, along with his other material, he claims that to deny a Young Earth is to be in danger of denying the doctrine of the atonement. Obviously, this means you cannot be a Christian and not believe in the atonement, the core of the faith.

    I have said this before and I will say it again. Such nonsense is despicable. The sad things is that most people feel uncomfortable understanding the science behind the issue so fall for the ravings of men like him.

  157. Gene wrote:

    Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view.

    Bull****.

    You have no idea what you are talking about. Any scientists that could produce an evidence based model strong enough to overcome current theories, would become the Darwin or Einstein of our era.

    The “mainstream view” in science constantly changes, because scientists are always working to change models to make them better. Science isn’t a religion with static decrees that never change. It is the opposite.

    All your posts prove, is that you have no idea what you are even dealing with. All I see are stock standard YEC talking points.

  158. Having A Bad ‘Religious’ Feeling: “Venture A Lonely Highway Instead?”

    hmmm…

    Apparently, The SGM approach is the same approach that many are now apparently using in other churches, today…

    What?

    Since about 1997, SGM has taken what started out as a group of ‘charismatic’ churches, and by stealth and proverbial cunning, moved a whole family of churches into the Neo-Calvinist camp.

    huh?

    Many didn’t even notice?

    (grin)

    hahahahahaha

    Skreeeeeeeeeeeeetch!

    There is a ‘way’ that seems right to a 501c not-for-profit ‘religious’ professional Man, but that way leads to Member ‘abuse’, and a type of spiritual death to one’s faith, perhaps’ ? 

    hmmm…

    could b.

    “A ‘trustworthy’ witness will not lie, but a false witness utters lies.” ?
    ◄ Proverbs 14.5 ►

    Excuse me, but ma ‘spiritual’ bobo needs a bandaid…

    (and an ouie-mouse!)

    (sadface)

    S“㋡”py
    ___
    Comic relief:  America – Ventura Highway (Live in Chicago, 2012)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFeUZxTry_A&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    😉

  159. Gene, are you a scientist? Have you spent any significant time with a research scientist? I suspect you haven’t. My father has a PhD in earth science and a masters degree in biology. He was always doing research and publishing papers. My entire life growing up, vacations weren’t “normal”, they were about exposing me and my brother to as much science as possible. About once a week my dad would have fellow scientist friends over for dinner and afterwards they would do what they do best – talk science. There was such joy in the living room, often so much joy that my mom would have to kick everyone out after midnight. What people don’t realize is that in science, there is a healthy respect for the unknown. My dad’s favorite way to answer a question is “I don’t know.” He is not afraid to buck mainstream science in order to look for new ways to answer a typical question. We believe in an Old Earth for a simple reason. Unless the Earth has stopped aging dramatically in the last hundred years, there is simply no way to explain the geological and meteorological processes that have occurred. Its just not possible for a 14,000 foot mountain to have formed in less than six thousand years unless all of the standards have dramatically changed since humans began writing down their observations. I could go on and on but I won’t.

    One last thing. You would be surprised at how many scientists credit their research for leading them to a faith in God. They are simply amazed by everything they study and learn. Their minds are hardwired differently than non-scientists (and I should know – I am a liberal arts girl). They are all about questions, treating each one as a treasure. They are fully aware of just how much they don’t know and that is a gift.

  160. There are two main types of activities in scientific research. (1) (Most) Research designed to extend the current model; especially to determine the limits of the current model or to find new areas of application for the current model. (2)(Fewer) Research designed to falsify the current model, that is, to disprove a hypothesis clearly derived from the current model, bringing the current model into question. When there are enough falsifications that cannot be accommodated with minor modifications to the model or the model becomes too complex with the number of modifications, then it is ripe for replacement with another model. The former work can be tedious, the latter work is inherently exciting.

    Newtonian physics works remarkably well on planet earth and in macro rather than sub-atomic physics. But when one gets beyond the limitations of earth or into sub-atomics, there are enough inconsistencies that a different model was necessary. As in you can lob missiles using classical Newtonian physics and hit your target, but that leaves a lot to be desired when you are doing nuclear physics or the physics of astronomy.

  161. @ Seneca:

    Seneca,

    Your points are strong in this thread (I am late to the party…sorry, been busy with my own conflicts on my blog, LOL). This is why I separate MAN and MOTIVE from Doctrine (in as much as this I possible…of course it is not literally so). I focus on the idea that the doctrine, not necessarily bad PEOPLE drive the abuse…in other words, good motives don’t make the actions in service to the assumptions good.

    SGM is a perfect example. You have never seen so much human destruction from nicer people. The only conclusion I can draw then is that it is not that they WANT to abuse people, they just must in order to be doctrinally consistent.

    So these pastors might not intend to deceive, and one can argue politics or altruism in their decisions…but deception is the product nevertheless because of what they assume of the laity.

    Ignorant, stiff necked sheep. Not their own fault, of course, God just hasn’t given them “grace to perceive”.

  162. It’s worth noting that there isn’t just one YEC theory; there are several points of disagreement. (The fact that OE or evolutionary scientists “don’t agree among themselves” is one that YEC proponents really should drop, or stop taking out of context, if they wish to be taken seriously.) What this in itself indicates is neither that YEC is a good science nor that it is a bad science, but that it is a developing science.

    If YEC is a genuinely scientific endeavour, one would expect that over time a strong and broad consensus will develop. Internal debate should still happen – because every science should in some sense be a developing science – but the differences will become increasingly confined to minor details as the core theories are refined and become more robust.

    Secondly, one would expect YEC to generate significant testable predictions that are currently unknown or unexpected. These predictions will then lead the gathering of new and repeatable evidence that we do not currently possess, that can be explained if the earth is young but not if it is old.

    And thirdly, Gene is at least half right in his statement that

    Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view.

    Of course they aren’t. Science can only work if the scientific community deliberately makes it hard to disagree with the mainstream view. The whole reason it is mainstream is that it has had to survive harsh and rigorous examination before being accepted: if you will, only the toughest theories survive, and they are trusted because there is good reason to do so. For examples of major scientific models that were roundly rejected in living memory, but which are now mainstream, consider: relativity; quantum mechanics (rejected by no less than Einstein, but also by many others); plate tectonics. Even in the 1960’s, geologists were booed out of lecture theatres for proposing continental drift. So if it is a serious scientific undertaking, at least some YEC proponents will themselves try their utmost to break or refute their theories. The more they do this, and the more their theories survive, the stronger YEC will become, until the young earth hypothesis is accepted even by people who don’t believe the earth was created.

  163. Anon 1 wrote:

    “(As an aside-I had no idea that the Gospel was lost and plan to begin looking for it immediately after making my lasagna this evening.) ”
    Ha! That one has been a joke around here for years as we have been amazed the Gospel was lost all that time.
    Found this not long ago thought you might enjoy it…just a snippet on how “scholarly” guys like Al Mohler and RC Sproul think they are when it comes to YEC and then listening to NT Wright on the same subject.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7L3NHVlsQ

    A little off subject, but your youtube got me thinking…anyone know of a periodical or material that we could get to utilize in homeschooling that would be helpful for providing a perspective that counters the YEC viewpoint? We’ve got one last kid in school that would benefit from something along this line. thanks! ken

  164. It will occur to the alert that I kind of repeated some of what Arce said (about how scientists either refine or challenge current theory). This is because I took so long to compose my last post that Arce posted his in between times… sorry!

  165. ken wrote:

    A little off subject, but your youtube got me thinking…anyone know of a periodical or material that we could get to utilize in homeschooling that would be helpful for providing a perspective that counters the YEC viewpoint? We’ve got one last kid in school that would benefit from something along this line. thanks! ken

    Consider a tutor. If all you want is the age of the planet, that is one thing. If you want to get into issues of how old are life forms, get a biology teacher at some public high school. He/she will be able to access the information of “the other side of the argument” but also will be able to interact with your child’s questions. Likely, this person has already been through it in the classroom ad nauseum and has heard it all from other kids. Besides, they need the money. ( One of my children is a public high school teacher—they are not all heathen.)

  166. @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Nick —

    utterly off-topic, but I was exploring Scotland on Google maps the other day, and went travelling east from Glencoe on A82, then took a side road southwest towards Glen Etive — absolutely stunning. I wanted to be there — some day, I want to backpack and camp along there. Is this considered “an area of outstanding natural beauty” by Scotlandians? Have you been there?

  167. Mandy wrote:

    Gene, are you a scientist? Have you spent any significant time with a research scientist? I suspect you haven’t. My father has a PhD in earth science and a masters degree in biology. He was always doing research and publishing papers. My entire life growing up, vacations weren’t “normal”, they were about exposing me and my brother to as much science as possible. About once a week my dad would have fellow scientist friends over for dinner and afterwards they would do what they do best – talk science. There was such joy in the living room, often so much joy that my mom would have to kick everyone out after midnight. What people don’t realize is that in science, there is a healthy respect for the unknown. My dad’s favorite way to answer a question is “I don’t know.” He is not afraid to buck mainstream science in order to look for new ways to answer a typical question. We believe in an Old Earth for a simple reason. Unless the Earth has stopped aging dramatically in the last hundred years, there is simply no way to explain the geological and meteorological processes that have occurred. Its just not possible for a 14,000 foot mountain to have formed in less than six thousand years unless all of the standards have dramatically changed since humans began writing down their observations. I could go on and on but I won’t.
    One last thing. You would be surprised at how many scientists credit their research for leading them to a faith in God. They are simply amazed by everything they study and learn. Their minds are hardwired differently than non-scientists (and I should know – I am a liberal arts girl). They are all about questions, treating each one as a treasure. They are fully aware of just how much they don’t knUow and that is a gift.

  168. Gene’s position is an exercise in self contradiction anyway.

    In one post he will say, he doesn’t know the science. In another he will say that yes, he’s actually read all of it and found it wanting. He will say you have to take things on faith with no evidence, and then in another post will say that all the evidence points to his view he just “sees the evidence differently”. He will talk about how scientists are not allowed to question a conclusion, and then he will basically say that a true scientist would never question his conclusion because its all right there in the bible.

    This is YEC, in a nutshell. It testifies against itself.

  169. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    In one post he will say, he doesn’t know the science. In another he will say that yes, he’s actually read all of it and found it wanting. He will say you have to take things on faith with no evidence, and then in another post will say that all the evidence points to his view he just “sees the evidence differently”. He will talk about how scientists are not allowed to question a conclusion, and then he will basically say that a true scientist would never question his conclusion because its all right there in the bible.

    doublethink, comrade, doublethink.

    Whatever Advances the Agenda.

  170. Gene wrote:

    Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view.

    Because of The Vast Conspiracy, of course?

    You will find YEC (just like a lot of Christianese) is heavily into Conspiracy Theory.

    P.S. Gene uses the word “evolutionist” several times. “Evolutionist” is specific to the Young Earth Creationist dialect of Christianese. So are the terms “Macro-Evolution” and “Micro-Evolution”; the only time I’ve ever heard these words used, it was by YECs.

  171. dee wrote:

    The Amway approach is the same approach that many have used in evangelism. I find it fascinating that SDA use the vegetarian thing to get people in. Many people are looking for ways to improve their diet and going more vegetarian is one way to achieve this.

    In this, the SDA is returning to their Victorian-era origins. In the 19th Century, Vegetarianism was seen as a Mark of Spiritual Enlightenment/Superiority. I remember a documentary about 19th Century Spiritualism where dramatic readings of period Spiritualist documents advocated Vegetarianism.

    I loved your closing line about targeting Christians. So many churches believe that they have the answer and the way and that everybody else are a bunch of idiots to be pitied and evangelized.

    Sheep Rustling. One True Churches busy stealing each others’ sheep while everybody else just goes on doing whatever they were doing.

  172. elastigirl wrote:

    Glen Etive

    Indeed I have; one of my favourite Scottish glens, and that’s saying something. The mountain ridges on either side are about as spectacularly rewarding as ridges can get while remaining technically easy (i.e. you can walk along them with your hands in your pockets) and the views are stunning in all directions. Plus you’ve a half-decent chance of spotting an eagle.

    Because Scotland is largely rugged and mountainous (though not high by the standards of the world’s major mountain chains), we don’t generally have formally-designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty like England does (it also has many Areas of Outstanding Artificial Ugliness, such as Manchester). But Etive is certainly highly regarded among all of us who love the Scottish outdoors.

    It certainly would be fabulous backpacking territory; just avoid it in July and August (the midge season).

    Oh – and “Scotlandians” would be Scots. 😉

  173. Martos wrote:

    The church would often organise events with the purpose of evangelising others. The themes would be things like ‘prophecy seminars’, ‘stop smoking in 5 days’ or ‘vegetarian cooking’… The question is that, at times, the flyers advertising the events would not disclose that they were organised by the SDA church. In some cases I’ve heard, especially with the ‘prophecy seminars’, the events would be organised in ‘neutral’ locations and then move into a SDA building for the last session after several days of meetings, when it would probably be revealed that they were promoting SDA teachings.

    The reasoning behind all this was that if people knew from the start that the SDA church was organising it all, then they would not want to attend.

    Bait-and-switch Stealth Evangelism.

    I saw the same in Campus Crusade during the Seventies. Scheduling and hyping on-campus events (such as a big-name stage magician) that sounded normal, with nothing to warn the marks that halfway through the performance, they would become a captive audience for the Four Spiritual Laws presentation (usually with a lot of scare tactics) followed by The Altar Call.

    After a while, most students developed a radar for Stealth Christianese.

  174. dee wrote:

    The only time I ever saw him begin to get rattled is when Ken Ham, during a debate, made a remark which would seem to imply that Ross is a heretic. (Ham is good at this. He says it in such a way so he can deny he said what many believe he meant).

    PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY.

    This is a key component of psychological abuse — every word chosen in advance for a completely-innocent, plausibly-deniable fallback meaning. Allowing the abuser to shift blame and gaslight the victim.

    And even when it’s not a weapon for abuse, it’s still pretty dishonest. Look at the reaction when anyone official says “plausible deniability”.

  175. “Earth, Smerf, and Astro Turf?”

    hmmm…

    Fe, Fi, …Ho!, Hum…

    Science, no mater how profound, will not provide you with a entrance “Pass” ta Jesus’ plaze…

    What?

    “In ma Father’s house there many rooms…I go there to prepare a place for you ! ” (Wanna come…) ~Jesus

    Wherz ma color’in book?

    Skreeeeeeeetch!

    (rewind)

    “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved [e]in His heart.  The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.  God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”

    Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. ”

    …but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord?

    ok. (spookey story, right?…)

    (fast forward)

    Dunt, Dunt, Dunt, Dahhhhhhh!

    “…But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. ” ~ Saint Pete

    Big U’tO, huh?

    Just a bit O’ exaggeration, from a vvid imagination, huh? Juz anodder monster under da proverbial bed, perhaps?

    or,

    A ten thousand sun block, perhaps?

    nahhhhhhhhhhhh!

    (more like)

    Ten Times Ten Million to da 23rd.

    -snicker-

    go back ta sleep…

    Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

    “But da scientific men in academia marveled, saying, what manner of man is this (Jesus) , that even the Cosmic Seas & Winds and Light Particles/Waves obey Him!”

    hmmm…

    Wherez ma math formula for light binding in the presence of a strong gravitational field?

    Ah dar it tiz…

    Rij − 1/2 gijR = −8πG/c4 Tij

    (grin)

    hahahahahahaha

    Then I (Apostle John) saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

    He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true!”

    He said to me (The Apostle John): “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children…

    Amen!

    Oh! happy day!

    S“㋡”py
    ___
    Comic relief: “Little Jetson”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcM4sOaXgmI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    😉

  176. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    Gene’s position is an exercise in self contradiction anyway.

    Let’s examine this.

    … he will say that yes, he’s actually read all of it and found it wanting.

    Can you show any post where I claim to have read “all of it” and found it wanting? If not, will you retract this and apologize for mistating my position?

    He will say you have to take things on faith with no evidence

    Can you show where I said we have to take things on faith with no evidence? If not, will you retract this and apologize for mistating my position?

    …and then in another post will say that all the evidence points to his view he just “sees the evidence differently”.

    Can you show where I said that all the evidence points to [my] view? If not, will you retract this and apologize for mistating my position?

    …he will basically say that a true scientist would never question his conclusion because its all right there in the bible.

    Can you show where I said that a true scientist will never question his conclusion because it is found right there in the Bible? If not, will you retract this and apologize for mistating my position?

    Obviously, the answer to all of these is “No,” you can’t show anywhere where I said any such thing.

    Which now leads me to ask, Why say this? You (and everyone else) can read what I said and see that I said nothing like you claim here. What do you hope to gain by misrepresenting my position? Do you think that will help you?

    You might find some YECs who do what you said I did. I am sure some do. But you attributed it to me.

    One of the requirements of civil discourse is to properly represent other people’s arguments. You did not do that. I hope, whether you retract and apologize or not (though I hope you will seriously consider the wrong that you have done), that you will be more careful in the future.

  177. @ Nick Bulbeck:

    what does “midge” mean? over-touristy?

    While “travelling” down the side road through Glen Etive, I passed numerous tents along a river/stream. It must be a popular place for that kind of thing. Virtual travelling… quite a thing.

  178. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:
    I blush to think of the number of times, in my younger days, I got involved in some variation on “A presentation of the gospel using music, dance and drama” – of course, we were just selling a product even though it was mainstream Christianity. The tragedy is that this never advanced my relationship with God; I only knew him as a duty, not as a Father (even in the somewhat infantilised sense in which he is sometimes presented nowadays, e.g. “Daddy God”).

  179. @ elastigirl:
    “Midge”? Ah – you don’t have them over there, then. Or you might, but under a different name.

    No indeed… the Highland Midge, or Culicoides Impunctatus to give it its Sunday name, is a species of small biting insect. They gather in clouds of up to infinity individual insects and can make the outdoors virtually uninhabitable on windless evenings. Even our back garden can be impossible to work in during the “midging hour” before sunset.

    Most theologians, whether YE or OE, are agreed that the midge is a creature of darkness that arose as a consequence of sin. Dementors have nothing on them.

  180. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    doublethink, comrade, doublethink.

    Whatever Advances the Agenda.

    I have already shown that post to be utterly inaccurate.

    Because of The Vast Conspiracy, of course?

    I have never made any such claim.

    P.S. Gene uses the word “evolutionist” several times. “Evolutionist” is specific to the Young Earth Creationist dialect of Christianese. So are the terms “Macro-Evolution” and “Micro-Evolution”; the only time I’ve ever heard these words used, it was by YECs.

    You need to get out more. It shows up in virtually every dictionary, most of which were not written by YECs. Richard Dawkins uses it. No one has ever confused him with a YEC. It is used routinely in others books. It shows up on BioLogos, again, no friends of YEC. So honestly, this just doesn’t make sense, other than from a rhetorical standpoint, as if getting in a blast is equivalent to making an argument.

  181. NC Now wrote:

    Just keep in mind that those Maps you carry around in your smart phone are dependent on the same physics that points to old earth.

    I don’t own a smart phone, never wanted one. Just another glitzy, over-priced contrivance designed to keep the bluegills biting if you get my drift. Maps? I’d much rather pore over old forgotten volumes of cartographer’s lore in the even more forgotten alcoves of my local library.

    In my opinion, science and technology do not have an ‘if and only if’ () bi-conditional operator betwixt them. One is not a sole and sufficient condition for the other to exist. Case in point: When the arrowsmiths of old discovered that tri-fletched (120 degrees apart) shafts had far superior flight characteristics, they had not a clue of the underlying science, only that the method worked with devastating accuracy for the day. The French cavalry found out the hard way at Agincourt.

  182. @ Gene: To be fair, the main (and almost certainly only) reason Dawkins calls himself an evolutionist is that he has made it his business to engage with people who do not believe in evolution. Even if it is not precisely true that only YEC Christians use the word, it remains fair to say that it is used predominantly in that context. For most secular scientists, calling themselves “evolutionists” would probably feel rather like calling themselves “round earthists” or “heliocentricists”.

    There are numerous words that also appear in dictionaries that are not written by Christians, even though they are rarely used outside Christian circles (and if they are, it is usually in reference to them). The same is true of the internal vocabularies of many other linguistic sub-groups. It is in the nature of dictionaries to record rare usage as well as common.

  183. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    There are numerous words that also appear in dictionaries that are not written by Christians, even though they are rarely used outside Christian circles (and if they are, it is usually in reference to them).

    Such as “Fornication”, which today is ONLY used in Christianese.

  184. Muff Potter wrote:

    I don’t own a smart phone, never wanted one. Just another glitzy, over-priced contrivance designed to keep the bluegills biting if you get my drift. Maps?

    Lets generalize to the Global Positioning System, GPS. This very handy system won’t provide useful accuracy unless the geometry is done using General Relativity. Perhaps this is what NC Now was referring to.

  185. Gene wrote:

    have already shown that post to be utterly inaccurate.
    Because of The Vast Conspiracy, of course?
    I have never made any such claim.

    Ah, yes. “I SAID NO SUCH THING!”

    Like two kids on a car ride, one running his finger all over the other half an inch from the other’s skin while saying “I’M *NOT* TOUCHING YOU! I’M *NOT* TOUCHING YOU! I’M *NOT* TOUCHING YOU!”?

    Remember “Plausible Deniability”? Implying something without actually saying it is an old trick with abusers, providing near-perfect Plausible Deniability (“Did I Actually SAY It? Did I? Huh? Huh? Huh?”). My sociopath little brother was a Grand Master of it; helped by two parents who couldn’t recognize voice tones or anything not 1000% literal.

    And YEC as currently preached REQUIRES a Vast Conspiracy of Scientists, Educators, Government, Schools, EVERYONE outside YEC itself. (Orchesrated by Satan himself, just like during The Burning Times and The Satanic Panic.) Because everyone who is NOT a True Believer MUST be Part of The Conspiracy. That’s how Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory works, and you see a LOT of it these days.

  186. dee wrote:

    There are some that imply that one cannot be a Christian and believe in an old earth. Ken Ham has a post at AIG which states the agenda loud and clear. “Its Not About the Age of the Earth.”

    To be fair and balanced, there is also a reviewed essay (written by a Christian with impressive credentials) over at Pete Enns’s site which flatly declares that one cannot be an orthodox Christian without accepting the evolutionary paradigm.
    Here’s the link:

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/07/orthodox-christians-must-accept-evolution-one-persons-opinion/

  187. @ oldJohnJ:

    The answer is simple: there is no actual “age” of the earth or universe since time is, according to GR, relative. In both YE and scientific claims, time is “created”. This means that time itself begins, by definition, at “zero time”…or, better said, time is created at the location of NO time. This makes time itself a direct function of zero. Which means that the age of the universe and and earth cannot really be know since the birthdate of anything which exists is 0/0/0.

    If you were born at zero, how old can you be? Any age as a direct function of zero is zero. Time cannot have any literal value. What is one of nothing? Two? Three? A billion?

    Nothing.

    Both sides are wrong. When we realize that time is nothing more than a way human beings abstractly quantify certain kinds of movement, we don’t have to argue any more. No one goes to hell for believing the wrong thing.

  188. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Ah, yes. “I SAID NO SUCH THING!” … Implying something without actually saying it is an old trick with abusers, providing near-perfect Plausible Deniability

    Really? The best you can do is connect me with abusers in your view? Come on. Dee? One of the other moderators? Is this really acceptable? Interestingly, I commented on the vitriol expressed towards YEC’ers earlier and was questioned on it. At that time, I wasn’t referring to the conversation here. However, the subsequent comments have borne out a lot of vitriol, unfortunately. You guys can talk all down long about how mean-spirited and attacking the YECs are, and it is true in many cases. But recognize what the other side does as well.

    I generally write carefully, choosing to say certain things and not say others. So you are completely incorrect on the substance, and IMO, completely out of bounds implying that I am using plausible deniability like an abuser.

    And YEC as currently preached REQUIRES a Vast Conspiracy of Scientists, Educators, Government, Schools, EVERYONE outside YEC itself.

    No, there are other explanations that don’t require a conspiracy, vast or not. There may be some who believe this vast conspiracy, but I don’t.

  189. To believe in the Platonism of science anc mathematics isn’t any more rational than believing the Platonism of YEC.

  190. Muff Potter wrote:

    To be fair and balanced, there is also a reviewed essay (written by a Christian with impressive credentials) over at Pete Enns’s site which flatly declares that one cannot be an orthodox Christian without accepting the evolutionary paradigm.

    That just means Pete Enns is (1) Deceived by Satan and/or (2) Part of The Conspiracy. Q.E.D.

    Does anyone remember the now-forgotten “God is Not Dead (He Ain’t Even Sick)” (by “The Songwriters, late 70s/early 80s, Country/Western CCM)? One of their verses says that in almost so many words. (From fragmentary memory):
    “SATAN has used you,
    (missing line here)
    When it comes to Decevin’, he’s slick;
    (missing line here)
    “God is not dead! He ain’t even sick!”

    (Can’t find the actual lyrics online; any websearch for title (“God is Not Dead”) and group (“The Songwriters”) returns a minimum of 139 MILLION hits. Cannot find a copy on YouTube for similar reasons; title and group are too generic.)

  191. Seneca wrote:

    Good question; Did Jesus lay out his “agenda” right off the bat? It doesn’t appear so. Let’s face it; the disciples had NO IDEA what they were getting into. Over the 3 years of his ministry the various pieces fell into place; all of God’s plan of course.

    I get so tired of hearing/reading trite little statements like this. This sort of mentality betrays a very ignorant and shallow view of contemporary applications of Jesus’ life and ministry.

    The short version: no Christian (including pastors) should *ever* try to exactly imitate Jesus’ life and ministry, because it is impossible. It is also blasphemous and heretical. Just because Jesus did something in his ministry, doesn’t mean that local pastors can/should also do this.

    Annoyance aside, I do appreciate statements like this in that they give us a very clear window into the mindset of Calvinistas and how they conceptualize pastoral ministry. (Pastor = Jesus. Congregation = disciples).

  192. Patrice wrote:

    This morn, I also wonder whether life is fundamentally defined by struggle. I find it more like a lifelong path through a gigantic mountain range. A struggle, a pleasure, painful, glorious, etc, in ratios that vary from person to person. hmmm

    Amen Patrice! I believe that Plato said pretty much the same thing when he urged us all to be kind to all. Erasmus said that even the heathen writers had good things to say (which must have rankled Luther to no end).

  193. Gene wrote:

    Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view.

    I greatly enjoyed Ben Stein’s movie Expelled. Of course, he saw a reluctance to allow for any sort of intelligent design, not specifically young earth views.
    As for myself, I tend to spiritualize (some might say over-spiritualize) Gen 1- 2:3. My reason is that Paul in II Cor 4 and Hebrews-author in Ch 4 do so. There may be a better term than “spiritualize”. But those NT passages interpret “let there be light” and “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works” as referring to the knowledge of his glory shining into our hearts, and the faithful, soft-hearted entering into God’s rest. Anyone know of any other NT passages which actually quote (with liberties) from the 7 days portion of Genesis? If so, do they look at it more scientifically, historically, or spiritually? (Not saying the authors didn’t believe it to be historically/literally true as well, but– what did they take away from it as essential and important?)

  194. Mr.H wrote:

    he short version: no Christian (including pastors) should *ever* try to exactly imitate Jesus’ life and ministry, because it is impossible.

    Well said. I am waiting for the first guy who raises someone from the dead. Then they will have my attention.

  195. Deb wrote:

    And let’s not forget that Ham’s wife is very, very submissive

    And why do I keep having visions of a puppy rolling over on its back to get a tummy rub? 😀

  196. 1) Could any evidence convince you of the theory of evolution, and if so, what type of evidence is now lacking, that would convince you, if present?
    2) The Supreme Court ruled against the direct teaching of Biblical Young Earth Creationism as science in public schools; however, if that ruling were overturned, which would you support more, teaching of ID, or direct teaching of Bible-based YEC?
    3) Do you think it is important for opponents of the theory of evolution to fully understand the theory of evolution? If so, can you explain it, and if not, can you explain why not?
    4) Who is the designer? How can we test your answer?
    5) What did that designer do? How can we test your answer?
    6) How did the designer do it? How can we test your answer?
    7) When did the designer do it? How can we test your answer?
    8) What is an example of something that was not designed by the designer?
    9) Some parts of the Bible suggest that pi equals exactly three, and that the earth is flat and has four corners. Do you accept these as facts as reality, and if not, why do you deny the theory of evolution on the grounds of Biblical literacy, if it can be symbolic about other scientific issues?

  197. @ Gene: wrote:

    Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view.

    (This is addressed to Gene, not DaveAA) I really, really, really have to disagree with this statement. You have now gotten personal but I bet you don’t know how. By it, you are condemning/accusing a large number of scientists who are Christians. My husband was the Young Investigator of the Year for the American College of Cardiology a number of years ago.(Look it up).

    By this statement, you are implying that my husband is a wuss and would not have spoken out. Look at what he “allows” me to do with this blog. Do you think he is the type of guy to keep his mouth shut? (Actually he has written a couple of posts). Secondly, his income as not dependent on some sort of secret atheist professorial vote. He is a cardiologist and he could make far more money outside of the academic circles. Due to our daughter’s illness, he did enter the private practice arena in order to help pay the bills for her treatment. Also, his bosses were well aware of his evangelical beliefs and were supportive of him even though they disagreed. Why? Because they had open minds and knew that great scientists can also be Christians. Not all scientists despise Christians, you know.

    He didn’t speak out in support of YEC because he knows the science and believes there is evidence for an old earth and for evolution even though he believes in a Creator God. That is the same for the vast majority of Christian scientists. If he believed it was young, he would say so and I would be writing a blog on how he convinced me.

    Also, he says something else. If there was a a lot of evidence for the existence of a young earth, you would have young earth atheists and the guy who discovered it would probably win a Nobel Prize. Once again, this is a typical YE talking point instead of cold scientific data. It is also insulting to a large number of scientists who are Christians, and others who are deists who believe in a God who creates.

    This is the same thing that happened with the Big Bang. Christians were all in a flutter that the Big Bang “proved” an atheist point of view. In fact, there were atheists who were not pleased with this discovery, yet published the data anyway. They were honest in spite of the conclusion that could be drawn from such a start to the universe.

    Why was that conclusion? The Big Bang proved the universe had a beginning. Do you know what that proved? Genesis 1-In the beginning, God spoke and the universe leapt into existence. It took the Christian community decades to understand that this theory helped our cause, not the atheists. I still remember people freaking out about this in churches in the early 90s. Thankfully, they now, in general, see the error of their ways.

    I can see how HUG might think you are a conspiracy theorist on this statement alone. It seems to imply that my husband and some of our best friends are muzzled.Do you really think that they have a gun to their heads? My husband got lots of grants and was a well published researcher back in the day.

    The other thing that you need to understand is this. Most churches are fundamentalists when it comes to this stuff. If one is a Christian and tries to speak out about another way for creation to be understood, many churches shut them down. This blog is one place that everyone can speak their mind, even if it is contrary to my own. I let people call us names and accuse us of heretical ideas. How many YEC blogs, or any other sort of blog, would allow the same?

    In fact, it is that openness to difficult comments that led to an incredible change in the life of one person. Hopefully in a few months, we will be able to tell the story. It will be book worthy.

    Here is a post that I wrote “defending” that the sun rotates around the earth. I had fun writing it.

    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/09/02/the-earth-is-fixed-and-the-sun-moves-real-christians-believe-it/

    In the end, i want us to duke it out. I grew up in a Russian immigrant family. Many of our friends were also immigrants: Italian and Greek and Eastern European. And, oh boy, did we argue, scream, pound the table! And we loved and supported each other. Somehow, we are polite with strangers and our selves with those we love.

    Please know that even though your comment got my nose out of joint (I am that way when anyone accuses my husband of something), I am glad that you are here and I am glad that you are attempting to duke it out!

  198. dee wrote:

    It is also insulting to a large number of scientists who are Christians, and others who are deists who believe in a God who creates.

    I’d go a bit further and say that it comes off as insulting *all* who are both honest and open-minded in their investigation, regardless of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

  199. Seneca

    A comment of yours was not approved. For those of you reading this comment, Seneca and TWW have had a long and fruitless relationship. He has routinely insulted us and had been given lots of space to do so. He has been put on ice before as well. When he returns, he usually starts off nice and then escalates.

    Seneca, we, and everybody else, gets it. You think we are liberal feminists who are out to destroy the church. You, on the other hand, are a reasonable sort who just loves SGM and many other “biblical” groups.

    Cut it out. Argue the post/points. I am getting weary of your constant haranguing. I get it. You don’t like us and you never will. So, lets get back to the discussion.

  200. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Midge”? Ah – you don’t have them over there, then. Or you might, but under a different name.

    I have heard them called “noseeums” here but I do not know the official name. They are quite annoying.

  201. @ numo:

    Well, depends on where “over here” is 😉 The left coast can be fairly free of the little pests. The rest of “over here” not so midge-free.

    @ Nick Bulbeck:

  202. Seneca

    Once again, I am not posting a comment by you. Do you know who Vladimir Lenin was? Do you know the reason my father’s family fled after the Russian Revolution? It was not over a simple political difference. My father, as a young boy, suffered bullying when he came to this country. He was called a Commie, Red, etc.

    Once a conversation descends to using Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc., that conversation is over.

  203. @ Muff Potter: That post was not written by Enns nor endorsed by Enns nor originally published for and on his blog.

    He is using it to fan a debate. I think I know why. Enns has been on the receiving end of a certain YE individual who has a penchant for calling those who disagree with him” guilty of heresy. ”

    This is who wrote the original post.

    “Someone recently passed on to me the an essay from the Huffington Post entitled “Christian Faith Requires Accepting Evolution.” It’s 2 years old, and some of you may recall it, but I missed it when it came out.
    The author, Jonathan Dudley, is the author of Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics, a graduate of Yale Divinity School and, at least at the time when the essay was written, was M.D. student at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.”

  204. dee wrote:

    Seneca, we, and everybody else, gets it. You think we are liberal feminists who are out to destroy the church. You, on the other hand, are a reasonable sort who just loves SGM and many other “biblical” groups.

    Seneca is a Good Little Party Member who can now polish his Biblical halo claiming “PERSECUTION!” at the harridan hands of Liberal Feminists Out To Destroy The Church.

  205. dee wrote:

    This is the same thing that happened with the Big Bang. Christians were all in a flutter that the Big Bang “proved” an atheist point of view. In fact, there were atheists who were not pleased with this discovery, yet published the data anyway. They were honest in spite of the conclusion that could be drawn from such a start to the universe.

    Actually, the guy who first proposed the Big Bang was Catholic and immediately got piled on for “Introducing RELIGION(TM) into Scientific Inquiry.”

    Including astronomer/gadfly Fred Hoyle, who immediately recast Aristotle’s Eternal Cosmos into his Steady-State Theory and invited the entire cosmological community into another game of “Prove Fred Wrong.”

    Don’t know if the Buddhist astronomer who proposed “The Pulsating Universe” theory got any similar pushback.

  206. Gene wrote:

    Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view

    Not true, you can disagree with mainstream science but you better have some good data to back you up. Even then you can expect a lot of pushback, but that’s how science works. Controversial scientific issues can easily reach the level of academic cage matches. Those proposing a change to current scientific thought can expect a long and vigorous debate, but they will be listened to. Just look at the history of the debate over plate tectonics – it was strongly resisted by many leading geologists of the day. The history of science is full of resistance to what turn out to be correct assertions, the key is that mainstream science allows those holding a contrary view to speak and be heard.

    The problem is that YVEs and anti-evolutionists won’t defend their views in mainstream science forums – in fact, they avoid them, because they know they don’t have a scientific leg to stand on. Sorry, but I have no respect for those who make scientific claims but won’t directly engage mainstream science because what they propose is junk or pseudo-science.

  207. Gene wrote:

    Scientists in mainstream science are really not allowed to disagree with the mainstream view.

    This sentence has been commented on may times. Still, I’d like to amplify. The key to fame and fortune in the sciences is not supporting the status quo. It is coming up with novel data or a novel theory that some how changes the course of a branch of science. The claim put forth will be scrutinized in proportion to how novel and sweeping the proposed change is. Science is a very conservative activity. The bigger the change the more evidence that is needed to sustain it.

    The YEC approach to cosmology represents an immense revision of science but has absolutely no scientific support. The adage originally attributed to Augustine “if you speak nonsense about what I know why should I believe what you say about things I don’t know?” suggests why YEC is damaging to our faith and our outreach. (end of rant)

  208. Sopwith wrote:

    “But da scientific men in academia marveled, saying, what manner of man is this (Jesus) , that even the Cosmic Seas & Winds and Light Particles/Waves obey Him!”

    Sopy, one of the bad things (in my opinion) to evolve out of the Enlightenment is a general pooh-poohing of the supernatural. We have become too sophisticated and uber-rational to believe in quaint and literal fashion the supernatural events spoken of in the Bible. Ironically, two of the intellectual titans of the Enlightenment, Kepler & Newton, had no problem with the supernatural power of the Almighty.

  209. @ dee:

    Sorry Dee. I never meant to imply that Enns in any way authored or endorsed the essay. I had hoped I made that clear in the comment and link provided. Honest injun! I hope we can agree no harm no foul?

  210. @ Muff Potter:
    That’s just because they didn’t want to get in trouble with the church “authority”. I’m sure Newton was dying to tell them to shove a lot of their (the church’s) ideas.

    But back then, you did not cross the entity which granted the King the divine right to rule.

  211. Argo wrote:

    But back then, you did not cross the entity which granted the King the divine right to rule.

    Isn’t Divine Right of Kings just the Christianization of the God-King, i.e. the King proclaiming himself a God?

  212. JeffT wrote:

    Just look at the history of the debate over plate tectonics – it was strongly resisted by many leading geologists of the day.

    According to Gould, a major reason for the resistance to continental drift was the lack of a mechanism to push the continents around without leaving obvious scars on the ocean floors. Plate tectonics and subduction provided a plausible mechanism, and study of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge provided the proof.

    And then there’s always:
    “To get your new theory accepted, propose it and wait for all the older scientists to die off.”
    — Isaac Asimov

  213. For another example (in the medical field) look up the acceptance of germs and Joseph Lister. Dee, you might like that one ;p

    —-

    And now, sir Gene.

    I see we have moved to the seemingly inevitable next phase of YEC vs the world debate, wherein you start personally attacking your critics.

    But even so, I’ll humor you with a few points.

    Gene wrote:

    Let’s examine this.

    Let’s.

    Gene wrote:

    Can you show any post where I claim to have read “all of it” and found it wanting? If not, will you retract this and apologize for mistating my position?

    No, no and no. No you did not explicitly state you literally read all of science. No I will not retract this. No I will not apologize for misstating your position, because I did not misstate it. I got it in spirit.

    Because if I mistated it, so did you.

    Gene wrote:

    Can you show where I said we have to take things on faith with no evidence? If not, will you retract this and apologize for misstating my position?

    Can you show where I said that all the evidence points to [my] view? If not, will you retract this and apologize for mistating my position?

    You’re killin’ me Gene.

    I apologize for once again not misstating your position. Sorry about that.

    Gene wrote:

    Can you show where I said that a true scientist will never question his conclusion because it is found right there in the Bible? If not, will you retract this and apologize for mistating my position?

    Yes. Press ctrl + f, type in “Gene” then read all your posts.

    Once again I apologize for not misstating your position.

    By the way, missating has two Ss. Just so you know for next time.

    Gene wrote:

    One of the requirements of civil discourse is to properly represent other people’s arguments. You did not do that. I hope, whether you retract and apologize or not (though I hope you will seriously consider the wrong that you have done), that you will be more careful in the future.

    Big talk from someone who claims to not be qualified to talk much about the science, and then in sweeping fashion insults the intelligence and dismisses the combined work of millions of dedicated scientists over the past 200 years.

    Now back to the actual debate, hopefully you are done with the personal attacks.

    You claim repeatedly there are serious questions about the science. This is your imagination. There are none serious enough to help you. Like someone else in this thread said, just in the age of the earth debate is over how many billions, not how many thousands.

    Someone else put out a question about what would we look for if YEC were true. Well for starters, God is not a deceiver and he has no reason to hide the age of the universe so I doubt this “perfect appearance of old age” bullcrap(Everything could look the same, yet date correctly, remember God made things the way he made them, he could have made different rules…), so you could expect the following:

    -No rock would date over a few thousand years old.
    -No tree or plant would date over a few thousand years old. Did you know that there –is currently a plant, still alive, that is 12,000 years old?
    -No ice cores would date over a few thousand years old. I belive there is one dated at 160,000 years right now.
    – No dating method at all would get you further back than a few thousand years.
    -The earth would be the same age as the universe. I believe the current consensus are as follows: earth ~4.5 billion, universe ~16 billion. That’s quite a gap. Almost 4x
    -There would be evidence of a massive global flood and it would be pretty obvious. No, the strata is not evidence of a global flood. There are many reasons but I don’t want to make this a huge wall of text. Also, remember that still living 12,000 year old plant? It would be dead if there had been a global flood.
    -I would expect herds of dinosuars appearing in tons of ancient texts, since they would be contemporary with humanity. Also other things. Like the bus sized centipedes. Yes you just read “bus sized centipedes”.
    -One or more of these three: night skies would be darker, stars would be closer, the speed of light would be faster than it is.

    I could go on but that’s good for this post. To make a point, there would be a mountain of evidence that YEC were definitely true. Just like in reality there is the same size mountain saying it’s definitely not true.

    And now back to Gene.

    GENE, MY MAN

    You need to realize something about scientific debate. Or maybe you already realize it but you can’t bring yourself to acknowledge it. I don’t know. Once you step into the science arena, you must back yourself up with evidence. If you have no evidence to back yourself up, you must admit you are wrong and accept what model has the most evidence going for it.

    The age of the earth, the theory of evolution, any theories at all: they are all models built to explain the available evidence. YEC is different, for two reasons.

    The first is, it is a model looking for evidence. This is not scientific. This is quite the opposite. You start with evidence and make a model to explain the evidence. You don’t make a model and then go find evidence to make it fit the model. On most YEC sites, you will see some variation of the following: “We KNOW God created the earth 6,000 years ago bible says so blah blah blah… and if we find evidence to the contrary it must automatically be wrong or we must be misinterpreting the evidence” That is not science. Now, it is true that in science anomalous data is usually disregarded. However, that is precisely because it is an anomaly. If the entire model constantly comes up as an anomaly, then the model is discarded, because it is obviously an incorrect explanation. And that takes me to part two:

    Second, YEC is the old discarded model. For millenia the age of the earth and universe has been questioned, but there was really no way to check it, so it was mostly a philosophical debate. But starting a couple hundred years ago, advancements in science made actually checking the age possible. It began small… a few tens of thousands. But as time went on, more accurate methods were devised and more evidence was gathered. This only served to push the age older and older, not younger and younger. Thus YEC was gradually discarded, because no evidence was matching up with it. And to this day, no evidence has ever matched up with it. Every year brings in more evidence that does not fit with YEC.

    When you say “I just see the evidence a different way”, I would just say “What evidence in what way”. It’s true there are multiple ways to see evidence, but none of them let you see YEC. This is a meaningless fluff phrase devised by YEC organizations because they literally have nothing left to contend with but that. They are dying on the vine, and soon will only be the tiny domain of fundamentalist cult churches.

    ——-

    And now a personal message to you, which you won’t acknowledge here but I want to burn it into your brain and have it haunt you:

    It doesn’t have to be this way Gene. You don’t have to live like this. You can be an awesome Christian and accept actual science. In fact you can be more effective without the chains of YEC holding you down, because when someone finds out you support YEC it severely harms your credibility and testimony with most people. God never says he wants blind, irrational faith. Read proverbs… there are tons about being wise and gaining knowledge and not staying “simple”. God never calls you to deny something that’s obviously true. God is truth after all. There’s a saying… all truth is God’s truth. Atheism is not the only alternative to YEC. Even when I finally made the transition out, I couldn’t sleep for weeks. But I am much better now for it. And I’m not an atheist. If you do this, you will see things a radically different way, but that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way. I think it’s a better way. You will really feel the truth of “My burden is easy and my yoke is light” once you come out of YEC and realize how much of a heavy burden and yoke it is.

    ——-

  214. Muff Potter wrote:

    Erasmus said that even the heathen writers had good things to say (which must have rankled Luther to no end).

    Erasmus, the only theologian who has ever made me laugh.

  215. Muff Potter wrote:

    I hope we can agree no harm no foul?

    🙂 You didn’t imply, I misread what you wrote. Actually, it is a fascinating post and I am glad you linked to it. I was hoping that I could find an OE Christian making such a claim. I am always trying to find nuts on both sides of the fence.

    I do think Enns probably had a quiet chuckle out of the whole thing. I do not blame him.

  216. @ JustSomeGuy: you know, this has been a bad year in the South. We did not have a hard freeze last winter and the cockroaches are enormous. I saw some mothers of all cockroaches and called the exterminator. He said that I needed to line up in back of all of my neighbors who were also having hissy fits.

    I cannot imagine what sort of bugs grew back in those wonderfully humid and warm centuries!

  217. Make Believ’in: “Supernatural Power?”

    @ Muff Potter

    too funny…

    Where is the ‘helium warning’ at the end of the Biblical credits?

    -snicker-

    *

    Muff,

    Hey,

    Sure, ditto.

    hmmm…

    Classic soap opera, huh? …as da material world turns?  

    God Almighty: “Just goes ta show ya, if you want something done right , ya got ta do it yourself…”

    (grin)

    hahahahahaha

    Sopy
    ___
    Comic relief: “Always”  – Helium Scene; w/ Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, John Goodman.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyL-qWQ76IM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    *

    P.S. If the “Resurrection” of our Lord was a elaborate fabrication, we who are said to be the un-washed, are to be most pity’d.

    P.P.S. (tong  n’ cheek) Mary,  just made the whole dang ‘Angel Visitation’ thing up…

    -snort-

    She could have call’d Him – Ed, Ned, or Ted, for all the good it would’ve done Jesus…Save whooooo from theyz sins? ( I don’t care how many proverbial summersaults JohnB is said to have made in Elizabeth’s tummy…)

    😉

  218. Addendum @ JustSomeGuy:

    In fact I might seriously consider getting one of these if it weren’t for the fact that it’s pretty much a guarantee of lifelong spinsterhood. 😉

  219. @ JustSomeGuy:

    Justsomeguy, Way up thread I linked to a short video of the supposedly “brilliant” theologians/scholars, RC Sproul and Al Mohler making the case for YEC using what I would call indoctrination using shame. Then you see NT Wright Scholar/Pastor talking about the same issue in a much different way.

    The difference is stark. One has a spiritual flavor to it and the other doesn’t. Can you guess which one?

    Gene is using some of the same tactics I have seen come out of seminary which is basically indoctrination. And I don’t even care abut the age of the earth. But I do care a lot about indoctrination. No matter where it comes from.

  220. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    I see we have moved to the seemingly inevitable next phase of YEC vs the world debate, wherein you start personally attacking your critics.

    I made no personal attacks. I addressed what you said. You lied about what I said and you know it. You have now doubled down on that. It is wrong for you to do so. Regarding science, I have mostly stayed out of the science arena (which you would know if you actually read my posts). I have merely said that I find that YEC makes better sense of the evidence more than the alternatives for me. Maybe I don't know enough. Maybe you don't. But regardless your blatant misrepresentation of my words is simply wrong. You can talk all you want about the tactics of YEC but you are guilty of the same tactics. But I have no interest in engaging with someone who uses the tactics you do.

    [[MOD: It is not allowed to directly call out people as liars here. If you think someone is lying, email us via the Contacting Us link at the top of the page.]] 

  221. Dee, My comments are not about anyone in particular, so I certainly wasn’t going after your husband or anyone else in particular. I stand by what I said based on the evidence, and nothing has been presented here to show that someone can disagree with mainstream science on origins. I would certainly be glad to see it.

  222. Gene wrote:

    It is a misrepresentation of “proven” and “science” to claim that.

    No, I’m afraid it isn’t. I have seen the clear, obvious evidence for the age of the earth with my own eyes. YEC is utterly indefensible from a geological perspective. You do the God of truth no favors by denying it.

  223. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    It doesn’t have to be this way Gene. You don’t have to live like this. You can be an awesome Christian and accept actual science. In fact you can be more effective without the chains of YEC holding you down, because when someone finds out you support YEC it severely harms your credibility and testimony with most people. God never says he wants blind, irrational faith. Read proverbs… there are tons about being wise and gaining knowledge and not staying “simple”. God never calls you to deny something that’s obviously true. God is truth after all. There’s a saying… all truth is God’s truth. Atheism is not the only alternative to YEC. Even when I finally made the transition out, I couldn’t sleep for weeks. But I am much better now for it. And I’m not an atheist. If you do this, you will see things a radically different way, but that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way. I think it’s a better way. You will really feel the truth of “My burden is easy and my yoke is light” once you come out of YEC and realize how much of a heavy burden and yoke it is.

    That doesn’t haunt me in the least, and I am not sure why you think I wouldn’t acknowledge it. I am a lot of thing, but scared is not one of them. Your paragraph (along with a lot of your post) doesn’t really even make sense. If you think YEC loses your credibility, try talking about the resurrection, or the substitution of Christ for us, or anything else. But I rarely talk about YEC. For me, the issue is whether or not God created. If someone asks me, I tell them. But I wouldn’t volunteer it. It is a secondary issue to me.

    But the bulk of your paragraph here doesn’t even make sense. I am not sure what chains you think I am living under or what actual science I am rejecting. I have never said atheism is the only alternative to YEC. It’s not. I would encourage you to be wise and not simple. It’s not that hard.

    I would also encourage you to reconsider your ways. Lying about what I said, and then following up with condescension is not a good way to go.

    By the way, missating has two Ss. Just so you know for next time.

    And if you are going be a jerk, you will find it more effective if you actually correctly spell the words you are trying to criticize others for misspelling. Condescension is more impressive when you don’t make the same mistakes you are correcting others on. Just so you know for next time.

  224. Garland wrote:

    No, I’m afraid it isn’t. I have seen the clear, obvious evidence for the age of the earth with my own eyes. YEC is utterly indefensible from a geological perspective. You do the God of truth no favors by denying it.

    Nothing to be afraid of. What you saw was evidence. But what you concluded from it about the age of the earth was interpretation based on a lot of factors, not all of which are equally clear or trustworthy, including the comments of people. If you were to believe different people, you would arrive at a different conclusion.

    AiG has a lot of problems, IMO. But they are right about this: There are not two sets of evidence. There is only one. The old earthers and the young earthers both have the same evidence. The difference is the presuppositions they bring, and the conclusions they draw.

    Again, I am not completely convinced, but I think what we know about the flood provides a better explanation of the evidence than the old earth theories. But I am not going to die on that hill.

  225. @ Gene:

    Hi, Gene. I’d be interested to hear what we know about the flood. An honest question, no weapons drawn.

  226. Gene wrote:

    If you were to believe different people, you would arrive at a different conclusion.

    This is the sort of mush which YEC teachers like to encourage, but it’s simply not true. Truth is truth, and the evidence only points towards one truth. Nor is what you wish to imply by it true: that really, if you squint and look at the body of evidence one way it looks like the earth is old, and if you look at it another way it looks like it’s young. This is false. If you look at it without bias, there is no question at all that it is old. When examining YEC literature, there is an obvious, consistent and pervasive pattern of misrepresentation of the evidence, much less what that evidence might mean. It’s the sort of garbage which can be thoroughly, irrefutably debunked by someone versed in the field, because it is inconsistent with reality. And it is–but the response from YECs is never “oh, sorry, we were wrong,” or Lord forbid, “maybe we should question our assumptions.” It is, instead, to A) never acknowledge that what they have claimed is not true (with a few exceptions for particularly heinous falsehoods like the “human” footprints alongside dinosaur footprints), and/or B) simply move on to making another false “proof” as if nothing had happened. This is why scientists end up getting so mad. YECs just aren’t willing to play fair and stand behind the specific, testable claims they make.

  227. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    Atheism is not the only alternative to YEC. Even when I finally made the transition out, I couldn’t sleep for weeks. But I am much better now for it. And I’m not an atheist.

    Oh my gosh. That is my point and has always been my point. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  228. @ elastigirl:
    That is the question that always got me in trouble. Someone would say to me “Well, if you question the age of the earth, it becomes a slippery slope and then you start questioning the world wide flood.” Dee would stand there quietly, eyes wide, wondering how I could escape quietly before I was declared a witch and a heretic and burned at the stake! Tough days, indeed.

    I slipped away and found refuge in a more reasonable setting.

  229. These YEC arguments all boil down to inerrancy. The Bible must be inerrant in each detail according to the interpretation of X group. From there, you get accusations of heresy because 1) you don’t accept X group’s interpretation and 2) not accepting such interpretation, you are assumed to believe that the Bible is in error and must, therefore, be a heretic. Its maddening. The “scientific” arguments are just there to prop up a particular interpretation. You can throw out the arguments made by theologians both current and ancient (such as Walton and Augustine just to name two) that disagree with the essential 7 day/24 hour period (or whatever variation) as the proper interpretation of the key portions of Genesis and you are still wrong and still a heretic. A search for truth and understanding through scripture becomes a worship of pet theories.

  230. Gene wrote:

    My comments are not about anyone in particular, so I certainly wasn’t going after your husband or anyone else in particular

    You went after any scientist who you think would not stand up to what you think is academic pressure. It shows a profound lack of respect for those in the field. It reminds me of a certain local pastor who disses professors at the major universities in our area every chance he gets. Little does he know that the department chairs of several of these universities have Christians sitting in them.

    First of all, there is no academic pressure to be an atheist. Secondly, my husband and any Christian scientist, along with scientists of other faiths, as well as decent atheist scientists would never keep their mouths shut in what would have to be a vast conspiracy to keep the age of the earth under wraps. This is kind of like the “we never really landed on the moon” conspiracy theorists.

    Ken Ham and the very few others of his ilk like to pretend that they are the only ones speaking up against those nasty atheists who are hiding the information from everyone else and holding grant guns to the heads of Christians in academia to keep their mouths shut. That is baloney. It is only those on the outside who have no idea what it is like on the inside who make those claims. It makes Christian look very stupid.

    It reminds me of a man who spoke out in a Sunday school class informing us that he had heard from a “credible source” that the Discovery Channel was sitting on absolute proof that earth is young. I kid you not. Dee, in typical fashion, started laughing, thinking it was a joke. It wasn’t. Dee began looking for exits before she was torched.

    Now, Dee sits with her back to the wall, with her eye on the exits, just like Shane.

  231. Argo wrote:

    But back then, you did not cross the entity which granted the King the divine right to rule.

    You’re very right Argo. Newton’s religious views would have caused him severe censure or worse back in those days. He rejected the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity and the immortal soul. At this writing I retain the doctrine of the Trinity but I reject the doctrine of the immortal soul as a fanciful construct of Hellenism.

  232. Hester

     I swear I have seen cockroaches that big this summer…My husband tells me to stop exaggerating…. They are really, really big this summer, I don’t care what he says.

    Oh, let me tell you a true story that happened a month ago. I got my big green watering can and filled it with water at my kitchen sink. It sits out on my screened porch. Well, as I picked it up, green started to slowly ooze out of the spout. Bigger and bigger. I started to scream, convinced that I was living a horror movie. It ended up being one of those funny bright green frogs with suction pads that grip to your windows. Totally freaked me out. Totally….

  233. @ dee:

    “Someone would say to me “Well, if you question the age of the earth, it becomes a slippery slope and then you start questioning the world wide flood.””
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    i’m really just speechless… even as a kid in church I reasoned that to ancient peoples who couldn’t have “lift off”, the “whole world” covered by a catastrophic flood was limited to their horizon.

  234. dee wrote:

    Secondly, my husband and any Christian scientist, along with scientists of other faiths, as well as decent atheist scientists would never keep their mouths shut in what would have to be a vast conspiracy to keep the age of the earth under wraps. This is kind of like the “we never really landed on the moon” conspiracy theorists.

    “If your Conspiracy Theory doesn’t fit the facts, INVENT A BIGGER CONSPIRACY.”
    — Kooks Magazine

    Problem with Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory is in order to keep the theory viable, The Conspiracy has to become Bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER as time goes on, until everyone in the entire universe except for the Lone Conspiracy Theorist are part of The Conspiracy. In the words of the prophet Dylan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AylFqdxRMwE

    Ken Ham and the very few others of his ilk like to pretend that they are the only ones speaking up against those nasty atheists who are hiding the information from everyone else and holding grant guns to the heads of Christians in academia to keep their mouths shut.

    You know what this is, Dee?

    It’s a Live Fantasy Role-Playing Game; probably Star Wars RPG, West End D6 or WotC D20 System. Ham et al are playing at being The Lone Heroes alone against The Vast Conspiracy. Like Luke Skywalker against The Evil Empire. And all the rest of us are the Stormtrooper and Red Shirt NPC mobs.

  235. Juniper wrote:

    These YEC arguments all boil down to inerrancy. The Bible must be inerrant in each detail according to the interpretation of X group.

    And EVERYTHING stands or falls as one, in a complete package deal. Put a crack in anything (no matter how minor or trivial) and the whole edifice falls into rubble. IS GOD REALLY THAT PUNY?

    “Why does God need a starship?” — Mr Spock

  236. Gene wrote:

    I made no personal attacks. I addressed what you said. You lied about what I said and you know it. You have now doubled down on that. It is wrong for you to do so.

    i.e. “WHAT’S *YOUR* PROBLEM? YOU’RE THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM!”

    Slick oh-I’m-so-Offended blame-shift there. And so POLITE!

    Do you put on your Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-In-My-Mouth wide-eyed Innocent expression like my brother did when he’d lie through his teeth? Looking wide-eyed directly into the eyes of the one he was deceiving as he “Swore to God”?

  237. @ Bridget: Exactly. gnats, deer flies, black flies, sand flies and more… new England and points north have black fly season every summer, and it is *horrible.*

  238. Gene wrote:

    You lied about what I said and you know it.

    Gene and anyone else. This is over the line. If you think someone is mis-representing you or mis-understanding you then restate your point and move one. If you really think someone is lying, email us via the Contacting Us link at the top of the page and we will deal with it.

  239. To go right back to the beginning on this (I, among others, have made my position on what is and is not scientific as clear as I can and no more light would be added by continuing along that track).

    The conversation between Dee and the first of the two pastors is instructive. By “the two pastors” I mean the ones referenced at the beginning of Dee’s post who both held a clear position on a certain matter of doctrine – which doctrine is truly irrelevant because it could have been any. It’s one thing to say, what you believe on [Acme Secondary Doctrine] doesn’t matter; I think Dee was right in saying that sooner or later it would matter. When “a church” (that is, something that is either a body of Christ, or the body of a Christ) puts out a doctrinal statement, the reality is that there are no secondary issues in it.

    One of the “membership covenants” either directly referenced or linked to (can’t remember which) here on TWW contained the line “I will not be divisive on secondary issues”. If that means “I will respect the position of others on secondary issues, and love them as I love myself, just as I too will be respected and loved here”, or words to that effect, then fine. But in practice, it may mean “I will toe the part line on secondary issues”, which means that the church leadership has already divided The Church on those same secondary issues: they will not associate with or properly honour other followers of Jesus who think differently. As witness the word “Distinctives” which is often used in the context of a doctrinal statement: i.e., what makes “us” distinct from “them” and sets us apart, usually from other believers. Many doctrinal statements are a declared commitment to establishing division in the Body of Christ.

    I accept the need to establish primary doctrinal issues, like who Jesus is. The church is not an Athenian philosophical coffee-house. But what if a church congregation declared its intent differently? What if it said:

    The following [short] set of doctrines are not up for debate among us…
    But apart from that, we actively welcome discussion on a full range of other issues, including – but not limited to – the age of the earth, infant/believers’ baptism, the role of women, the nature of spiritual warfare, divorce, abortion, and chocolate. This is because what matters to us above all else is LOVE, and we can only truly learn to love if we are faced with loving people who are unlike us in a way that matters to us. Therefore we will actively oversee these debates, not to force you towards any “right” answer, but to ensure that you grow in love towards your fellow-believers no matter what conclusion you reach. Then and only then are we truly manifesting Jesus’ life among us.

    That would be cool. Actually, it might be a far better way of getting “back to scribsher” than would forcing everyone in the church to board the bus behind the giagachurch pastor.

  240. Garland wrote:

    Truth is truth, and the evidence only points towards one truth. Nor is what you wish to imply by it true: that really, if you squint and look at the body of evidence one way it looks like the earth is old, and if you look at it another way it looks like it’s young. This is false. If you look at it without bias, there is no question at all that it is old.

    You are correct in that truth is truth, but evidence can almost always be interpreted different ways, which is why there is different conclusions. This is true in every area of life. There is hardly ever only one interpretation of evidence. Furthermore, no one can look at it without bias. It is impossible. There is no brute fact in the world (to use Van Til’s words). Every fact is interpreted fact.

    When examining YEC literature, there is an obvious, consistent and pervasive pattern of misrepresentation of the evidence, much less what that evidence might mean. It’s the sort of garbage which can be thoroughly, irrefutably debunked by someone versed in the field, because it is inconsistent with reality.

    Remember that historically this has happened over and over again with evolutionary teachings and “facts.”

  241. elastigirl wrote:

    @ Gene:
    Hi, Gene. I’d be interested to hear what we know about the flood. An honest question, no weapons drawn.

    We know it covered the whole world, that water came from both under the earth and over the earth, that it was very destructive.

    i’m really just speechless… even as a kid in church I reasoned that to ancient peoples who couldn’t have “lift off”, the “whole world” covered by a catastrophic flood was limited to their horizon.

    But this reasoning is faulty because it doesn’t have anything to do with their horizons.

  242. You went after any scientist who you think would not stand up to what you think is academic pressure. It shows a profound lack of respect for those in the field.

    Again, Dee, I didn’t go after anyone. I made a comment about the pressure to conform. From what I have seen and read and heard, it is there. You are mistaken if you think my comments are about atheists versus Christians. They aren’t. I am sure that in many fields there are good people, including your husband. But don’t take a general comment and personalize it.

  243. GuyBehindtheCurtain wrote:

    Gene wrote: You lied about what I said and you know it. Gene and anyone else. This is over the line. If you think someone is mis-representing you or mis-understanding you then restate your point and move one. If you really think someone is lying, email us via the Contacting Us link at the top of the page and we will deal with it.

    So what do you call it when someone says something that they know isn't true?

    [[MOD you politely tell them the have quoted you incorrectly or misunderstood.]]

    In my first response, I asked for proof of what I was accused of saying. All he needed to do was use the cut-and-paste feature to quote me or show something similar, and he would have been proven right.

    After I questioned him, and pointed out that I had not said these things, he repeated it, maintaining the accusations. This means that he said something that he knew to be wrong. If that is not a lie, then what is it? And why is that tolerated? Why can he attack me personally, and falsely use my words, accusing me of saying something that I did not say, and I am not allowed to point it out and call it what everyone calls it?

    The nature of TWW is to call out this kind of stuff all over the place.

    With all due respect, shouldn't your moderation in this matter should be directed to him? He is the one who did something he knew was wrong, at the very least after I pointed it out to him.<br>

    I have no problem with disagreements (as you can tell). As you can see from my participation, I don't have a thin skin, and I am not out to attack anyone. I have a serious problem with people saying things that aren't true. If people are going to disagree with me, then disagree with me. Don't make something up that you wish I said or believed and then disagree with that.

    Please consider this my contact of you, asking you to correct the problems.

    [[MOD: NO. This is not your contact to us as requested. Requested was via email via "Contacting Us". This is not it. If you or anyone else are not willing to let us handle this but insist on breaking our rules and doing it your way you will be placed in permanent moderation.

    All further discussion of name calling or calling people liars stops now.]]

  244. What we as human beings need to realize is that BOTH modern day scientists and religious shamans arguing both sides of the Young Earth Creationism debate are fundamentally rooted in Platonism (the idea that “truth”, or “forms”, are determining the course of the observable world/universe) as the source of their “truth”.

    The only problem the YECers have is that they don’t come up with a new consensus as to the definition of terms. They want to use science’s definitions for their own math…but since math is fundamentally an abstraction, you CAN change the math but only if you change the subjective definitions FIRST.

    See, since “day” isn’t really defined as “24 hours”, all they need to do is create a new definition of “day”, and tweak it until the math works out in their favor. The scientists behind “old earth” simply do the same thing. Neither side is honest about what they are actually observing. The “prove” their argument by appealing to relative abstractions.

    In YEC you have all things submitted to the “mysteries” of God, who, by His arbitrary and undefinable (by definition) Will, has somehow given Al Mohler the “grace to perceive”. Your disagreement with him is proof that you are a blind idiot.

    In physics and math you have undefined “constants”, and “uncertainty principles”, and valueless coordinate systems (spacetime), you have “point particles” which cannot be given dimensions and yet the assertion is that yes, in fact they do have dimensions and they are known by the “laws of conservation” (and the math…of course) which conserve things that are still UNDEFINED (read “unknown”)like “energy”. No physicist on any forum I have been on will answer my challenge that time and space are purely placeholder concepts which cannot possibly be literal…further proof that they do not really even understand the very ideas they use to “prove” their science.

    So, again, really, this should be nothing more than a quibbling about definitions of time and space and constants. Then, really, there wouldn’t be a scientist in the world to dispute YEC because the YECers would correctly understand that “young”, even according to the scientists very OWN assumptions is relative. So who are they to say that the earth is old and not young?

    But the YECers do the same thing many Christians do when debating the Calvinist. They concede their definitions and assumptions at the start, and thus hand them the whole darned argument.

    YECers have got to stop doing that.

    I will debate any Old Earther anytime anywhere, no matter how many Nobel prizes or Ph.D.s they have. But they won’t debate because they know what I know. They don’t have the epistemological nor the metaphysical consistency to actually prove what they believe.

  245. dee wrote:

    there is no academic pressure to be an atheist

    dee wrote:

    Ken Ham and the very few others of his ilk like to pretend that they are the only ones speaking up against those nasty atheists who are hiding the information from everyone else and holding grant guns to the heads of Christians in academia to keep their mouths shut. That is baloney.

    I can attest to this. When I taught at art college (the most godless of fields, yes?), I was teased at first but after they realized I was as a student quipped, “one of the good ones” lol, they were fine. Two atheists sometimes came for conversation because they were curious and only one of them was grouchy about it. Moreover, there was another in my department who was a believer, and school-wide, there were at least ten. It is these people who are salt in the world, which we are called to be.

  246. Juniper wrote:

    These YEC arguments all boil down to inerrancy. The Bible must be inerrant in each detail according to the interpretation of X group.

    I agree. And when something is inerrant, it is God. Which makes their position idolatry, and it comes up looking as awry as any idolatry does.

  247. @ elastigirl: You would be surprised to find how many people believe this. It is about the same as the number who believe the earth is young.

    Your interpretation makes perfect sense in light of the evidence.

  248. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    As witness the word “Distinctives” which is often used in the context of a doctrinal statement: i.e., what makes “us” distinct from “them” and sets us apart, usually from other believers. Many doctrinal statements are a declared commitment to establishing division in the Body of Christ.

    I looked at McArthur’s doctrinal page a little more. They altogether avoid words like command, commandment, law, principle, doctrine. But most “distinctive” is that they use the word “teach” 80 times and use “believe” only 3. This places the authority in the teacher (“I know and will tell you”) rather than in the group as a confession/profession/ declaration. That, on its own, would keep me from attending there. But the frequency of these words would clinch it:

    mercy 1, compassion 1, love(ing) 5, trust 2, kind(ness) 1

    serve(ing) 3, service 2, servant 2

    sovereign(ty) 15, authority 10, rule 5, power 7, own 13 (our own, his own, he owns–curious!)

    she/her 0, women/woman 0, man/men 19, human 6. They get around gender somewhat by using “believer” 27, but always attached to his/him/he. Holy Spirit is male.

    http://www.gracechurch.org/distinctives/

  249. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    The following [short] set of doctrines are not up for debate among us… But apart from that, we actively welcome discussion on a full range of other issues, including – but not limited to – the age of the earth, infant/believers’ baptism, the role of women, the nature of spiritual warfare, divorce, abortion, and chocolate. This is because what matters to us above all else is LOVE, and we can only truly learn to love if we are faced with loving people who are unlike us in a way that matters to us. Therefore we will actively oversee these debates, not to force you towards any “right” answer, but to ensure that you grow in love towards your fellow-believers no matter what conclusion you reach. Then and only then are we truly manifesting Jesus’ life among us.

    Awesome. Where did you find that? I would like to find that church.

  250. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    One of the “membership covenants” either directly referenced or linked to (can’t remember which) here on TWW contained the line “I will not be divisive on secondary issues”.

    Big problem if the pastor teaches on “secondary” issues a lot, right? Yep, that line is for the pew sitters to be good and go along. Why oh why do people give up their basic freedom in Christ and sign those things?

  251. Gene wrote:

    I am sure that in many fields there are good people, including your husband. But don’t take a general comment and personalize it.

    But it is personal. That is why this discussion always ends badly. It is one side accusing the other side of something bad, like sitting on evidence. I know you were not specifically going after my husband (that would be paranoid) but by your statement, you condemned a whole group of people. Those people are in the science arena and believe in a Creator God, or respect others who so believe, or who are just interested in the evidence.

    Let me clue you in. That is the majority of those in the science world. I know that you did not mean to do so, but your did personalize it. I have seen this tactic used by Ken Ham. I keep bringing him up because he is one of the few YEC on the scene .For all of his protestations of knowing science, he didn’t bother getting a degree in science beyond the undergraduate.

    In a debate, Ham says something that implies the other is a heretic. The other person gets upset and calls him on it. Ham says that he didn’t say it. Yes, there is an underlying meaning and personalization to statements like:

    “They are hiding evidence”
    “They are afraid for their jobs”

    Those statement attack the integrity of men like my husband, Francis Collins, and many friends who I respect.

    If you want to defend your YE position well, do so without turning your argument into an attack on scientists as a group. They are not monolithic in their approach.

    Instead, you claim to know the evidence. Then argue the evidence. Try to disprove the integrity of radiometric dating. Dispute the astrophysical data. That is being fair and does not impugn the motives of the other side.

    If you cannot do that because the science is too difficult, then argue merely from a Biblical perspective. That one is also difficult but at least it is a fair fight. BTW, that is the one area in which i will disagree but will back off after awhile because it is one of those faith things. Not unlike eschatology, etc. As Lewis said: “No one will go to hell for believing that God has a white beard.”

  252. Patrice wrote:

    I was teased at first but after they realized I was as a student quipped, “one of the good ones” lol, they were fine.

    Great comment. That is why Francis Collins is so important to Christians. I hate it when ignorant Christians attack him.

    He is a star in the scientific world. He led the HUman Genome project which was successful in mapping the human gene. That process will lead to, over time, untold benefits for humanity: curing diseases, eradicating genetic problems, etc. He is on a short list for the Nobel prize. He is a scientist’s scientist. Christopher Hitchens, as he was dying, claimed Collins as one of his dear friends.

    Collins is a Christian. The name of the group that he started is Biologos- the language of God. His excellence is a tribute to those CHristians who actually stay in science and become great scientists and use it as a platform for their beliefs.

    To even suggest that such a great man would sit on evidence of a young earth or is “afraid” is foolishness. That is why he is so important.

    Whatever we are called to do in life, be it science, art,etc., it is incumbent on us to do the best job that we can. If we excel, we will be respected. And with that respect, comes the possibility of a great witness.

  253. Juniper wrote:

    hese YEC arguments all boil down to inerrancy.

    The Christian church has been dogged by this determination that inerrancy means that everything in Scripture should be treated in a wooden literal sense. We all laugh at the church and Galileo and the “sun revolving around the earth” dustup.

    But that same interpretive device used by the church back then is the same others use today for a literal age of the earth. They sagely say how the ancients misunderstood but how we are so sophisticated now and really understand. It would be amusing if it did not lead to kids leaving the faith and others refusing to look at the faith.

    HIstory repeats itself.

  254. Anon 1 wrote:

    Big problem if the pastor teaches on “secondary” issues a lot, right?

    Then you are totally alienated. The pretend they allow for secondary issues. But, try to express the difference and *bam* you are divisive. It is a game and I do not like it one bit.

  255. Gene wrote:

    [[MOD you politely tell them the have quoted you incorrectly or misunderstood.]]

    Just for the record, I did as you say I should have. I will let it go, and hope that it doesn’t happen again.

    dee wrote:

    But it is personal. That is why this discussion always ends badly. It is one side accusing the other side of something bad, like sitting on evidence.

    But by definition, a general statement is not personal. I think the discussion ends badly because people may tend to read the worst possible thing into someone else’s statement, rather than read it graciously, or just outright twist someone else’s words. The old-earthers (whether atheist or Christian) are just as guilty as the young-earthers are. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

    There’s also conflation of views. Notice how, in talking to me, you include Ken Ham as if he and I are alike. We aren’t. I haven’t said they are hiding evidence or afraid for their jobs. I tend to think that the mainstream view is so accepted, it is no longer questioned. When people like Behe, or Johnson, or Dembski question it, they are treated rather brutally. But by and large, people just accept what has been handed down, and move on.

    Personally, I think Ham is way too abrasive in his presentation. Ham makes the kind of statements that make me cringe. That’s why I don’t read his stuff, or listen to him. Someone gave me a few videos. I watched part of them and turned it off. I don’t like to listen to him interviewed or see him debate because of the very same kinds of things you complain about.

    So please, I am asking you, do not confuse me with him.

  256. dee wrote:

    The Christian church has been dogged by this determination that inerrancy means that everything in Scripture should be treated in a wooden literal sense

    Actually, this is not what inerrancy teaches at all. The Bible is not to be treated in a woodenly literal sense. Inerrancy is a whole different discussion.

  257. More personal attacks, more denial, more standard YEC propaganda. Exactly what I expected.

    You’ve got the script down Gene.

    Your position is disingenuous and self contradictory. Your position has no evidence to support it. The more you post, the more you show this. You keep saying this is a secondary issue, yet you keep the argument going. Obviously it’s a bit more than secondary to you.

    You should really open your mind and try being honest with yourself.

  258. Gene, you, Ham, Hovind and the DI keep asserting that you have seen the evidence that supports a young earth. Where is that evidence?

  259. Gene wrote:

    There is no brute fact in the world (to use Van Til’s words). Every fact is interpreted fact.

    That you are referring to Van Til who merely states a truism (most thoughtful people understand this) shows that you have been getting your education from an academic ghetto. It’s not good for you!

  260. dee wrote:

    He is a star in the scientific world. He led the HUman Genome project which was successful in mapping the human gene. That process will lead to, over time, untold benefits for humanity: curing diseases, eradicating genetic problems, etc.

    Is this not what Christians should be doing? Working to eradicate disease, poverty, injustice, etc, etc? Does this not show the love of Christ in real terms to our neighbors?

    I have a ton of respect for Christians in these trenches laboring to be the Kingdom now. And less respect for pastors who want to keep us in some sort of evangelical ghetto listening to them.

  261. nmgirl wrote:

    Gene, you, Ham, Hovind and the DI keep asserting that you have seen the evidence that supports a young earth. Where is that evidence?

    Remember, I haven’t cited Ham, and certainly not Hovind. I don’t know what “the DI” stands for. The evidence is all over. Remember, everyone has the same evidence. The only question is how it will be interpreted. As I understand the evidence from geology, from astronomy, from genetics, etc., YEC makes better sense of it. It doesn’t answer all the questions, but it answers more questions in a more reasonable way, at least as I understand it now. The arguments I have seen from people like Ross, Collins/BioLogos, etc. seem to me to require too many leaps of logic, too much “the Bible doesn’t really mean that,” and too much “just trust me on this one.” I’ll be honest enough to say I don’t have that much faith. If others do, than have at it.

  262. Patrice wrote:

    That you are referring to Van Til who merely states a truism (most thoughtful people understand this) shows that you have been getting your education from an academic ghetto. It’s not good for you!

    Actually, I have been out of formal education/academia for the better part of fifteen years.

    And Van Til is stating a truism, but when you have someone say something looking objectively or without bias, it is proof that they have missed it. Everyone has bias; no one is objective. That was Van Til’s point. All of us come to the evidence with experience behind us. We cannot simply separate ourselves from that. We bring it with us.

  263. @ Gene:

    @ elastigirl:

    Gene wrote:

    elastigirl wrote:

    @ Gene:
    Hi, Gene. I’d be interested to hear what we know about the flood. An honest question, no weapons drawn.

    Gene answered – We know it covered the whole world, that water came from both under the earth and over the earth, that it was very destructive.

    Elastigirl – i’m really just speechless… even as a kid in church I reasoned that to ancient peoples who couldn’t have “lift off”, the “whole world” covered by a catastrophic flood was limited to their horizon.

    Gene answered – But this reasoning is faulty because it doesn’t have anything to do with their horizons.

    Gene –

    I’m still wondering what you/we “know” about the flood. The statement “We know it covered the whole world, that water came from both under the earth and over the earth, that it was very destructive” doesn’t answer how you/we “know” this. You’re making a similar statement as the original one, but not answering the question of “how and what we know.”

  264. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    More personal attacks, more denial, more standard YEC propaganda. Exactly what I expected.

    You’ve got the script down Gene.

    Ever heard of “Ben Bruin”? Talented cartoonist, good storyteller, YECer Uber Alles. Couldn’t change his mind and wouldn’t change the subject. Almost single-handedly killed the old God’s Creatures newsgroup with his never ending “CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH: BEN BRUIN vs CHARLES DARWIN & All Comers!” Everybody else got driven out of the list by the never-ending YEC! YEC! YEC! YEC! YEC! until all that was left was him and his sock puppets preaching YEC! YEC! YEC!

  265. dee wrote:

    The Christian church has been dogged by this determination that inerrancy means that everything in Scripture should be treated in a wooden literal sense.

    I call that “SCRIPTURE(TM) — EES PARTY LINE, COMRADE!”

  266. Argo wrote:

    I will debate any Old Earther anytime anywhere, no matter how many Nobel prizes or Ph.D.s they have. But they won’t debate because they know what I know. They don’t have the epistemological nor the metaphysical consistency to actually prove what they believe.

    Tooting your own horn, are we, Argo?

  267. Gene Gene the YEC Machine wrote:

    So what do you call it when someone says something that they know isn’t true?

    [[MOD you politely tell them the have quoted you incorrectly or misunderstood.]]

    In my first response, I asked for proof of what I was accused of saying. All he needed to do was use the cut-and-paste feature to quote me or show something similar, and he would have been proven right.

    After I questioned him, and pointed out that I had not said these things, he repeated it, maintaining the accusations. This means that he said something that he knew to be wrong. If that is not a lie, then what is it? And why is that tolerated? Why can he attack me personally, and falsely use my words, accusing me of saying something that I did not say, and I am not allowed to point it out and call it what everyone calls it?

    Slick passive-aggressive blame-shift there. With accompanying “Why Do You Persecute Me? I’m So Innocent!” gaslight.

    P.S. On the Gong Show, they had a recurring act called “Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine”. Hence the filk “Gene, Gene, the YEC Machine”.

  268. Anon 1 wrote:

    dee wrote:
    He is a star in the scientific world. He led the HUman Genome project which was successful in mapping the human gene. That process will lead to, over time, untold benefits for humanity: curing diseases, eradicating genetic problems, etc.
    Is this not what Christians should be doing? Working to eradicate disease, poverty, injustice, etc, etc? Does this not show the love of Christ in real terms to our neighbors?
    I have a ton of respect for Christians in these trenches laboring to be the Kingdom now. And less respect for pastors who want to keep us in some sort of evangelical ghetto listening to them.

    Yes, it is.

    Collins pushes us forward. YEC pushes us backwards.

  269. Argo I just want to make sure I understand what you said.

    Are saying the young/old is just a false dichotomy because they are relative terms on a sliding scale?

  270. @ Gene:

    “We know it covered the whole world, that water came from both under the earth and over the earth, that it was very destructive.”
    ++++++++++++++++

    Hi, Gene. I was expecting something more geological. What do we know about the flood geologically?

  271. @ JustSomeGuy:

    Hmm…I suppose something like that. If the scaled factor is the value (amount) of time itself. My point is that since time was “created” according to both schools of thought, then ultimately time itself cannot have an actual value, since there is no “moment” of its beginning. By definition then, all values of time we discuss (like “literal” 24 hour day…there is no such thing) are simply degrees of zero time. Or, nothing. So all we need to do if we are YECers is redefine time according to our own arbitrary values and, viola! Young earth.

  272. @ Gene:

    elastigirl: “i’m really just speechless… even as a kid in church I reasoned that to ancient peoples who couldn’t have “lift off”, the “whole world” covered by a catastrophic flood was limited to their horizon.”

    Gene: “But this reasoning is faulty because it doesn’t have anything to do with their horizons.”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++

    hmmmm… how is my reasoning of the scope of observation of those who experienced a catastrophic flood event in ancient Mesopotamia and lived to tell about it faulty?

  273. Gene wrote:

    Remember that historically this has happened over and over again with evolutionary teachings and “facts.

    The two really aren’t comparable at all. Obviously over time the sciences gather more data, and previous interpretations are shown to be inaccurate. But they were still reasonable interpretations of the available data at the time they were proposed, and when more data became available that challenged those interpretations, they were reexamined and eventually dismissed.
    This is very different from the YEC attitude of selectively snipping data, often misrepresenting it in the process, and interpreting that select set to support the overall thesis, and then ignoring the implications of it being thoroughly disproved. They aren’t making reasonable or realistic interpretations of the body of evidence, they’re trying to proof-text to support their preexisting ideas. That’s not science. That’s not honest, either.

    And before you try to insinuate bias again, I actually was a YEC when I was younger, before I began to examine the evidence with honest eyes. I know an awful lot about the YEC position. I know an awful lot about real science. I have the perspective to be able to hold them side by side and compare.

  274. Argo wrote:

    I will debate any Old Earther anytime anywhere, no matter how many Nobel prizes or Ph.D.s they have. But they won’t debate because they know what I know.

    People won’t “debate” you because you’re talking nonsense.

  275. @ Garland:

    You may find this article on the Beeb website today interesting/informative/entertaining.

    For our readers more generally, it’s an interesting snapshot of science happening in real time. It so happens to involve processes happening over geological time, but that isn’t the point: the point is the way in which the debate between conflicting hypotheses happens. This particular one is yet to be resolved.

  276. Garland wrote:

    Argo wrote:
    I will debate any Old Earther anytime anywhere, no matter how many Nobel prizes or Ph.D.s they have. But they won’t debate because they know what I know.
    People won’t “debate” you because you’re talking nonsense.

    They won’t “debate” you because they DO know the debate is rigged from square one. Your attitude says it all.

  277. @ Garland:

    Of course, Garland! How marvelously unoriginal!

    Because agreeing with you is the plumb line for “truth”. Agreeing with your subjective definitions is my divine grace.

    Hmmm…where have I heard that before?

    Hard science is but weak and feckless epistemology.

    This is why throwing “nonsense” at me is the best Garland can do. If Garland doesn’t understand, then it must be nonsense, of course. More mystic tyranny from the egg heads.

  278. Garland wrote:

    And before you try to insinuate bias again, I actually was a YEC when I was younger, before I began to examine the evidence with honest eyes. I know an awful lot about the YEC position. I know an awful lot about real science. I have the perspective to be able to hold them side by side and compare.

    Don’t matter, Garland.

    You are NOT YEC now, which means you’re one of THEM. The Conspiracy.

    The Dwarfs are for The Dwarfs, and Won’t Be Taken In.

  279. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Garland wrote:
    Argo wrote:
    I will debate any Old Earther anytime anywhere, no matter how many Nobel prizes or Ph.D.s they have. But they won’t debate because they know what I know.
    People won’t “debate” you because you’re talking nonsense.
    They won’t “debate” you because they DO know the debate is rigged from square one. Your attitude says it all.

    Well… I don’t know if you’re talking about Argo or me, but I’ll admit that I didn’t phrase that very nicely. What I meant was “You’re not making sense to me” but it came out a lot more aggressively than I’d intended. So, preemptive apology to Argo for that.

  280. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    HUG,

    Was that to me or Garland?

    For me…oh yes, I have an attitude. I am tired of arguing ideas from what are ultimately Platonist epistemological notions.

    Am I the only one who grows weary of having to concede purely subjective presumptions BEFORE I get to debate people? Each side cries “nonsense” at the other when the entire argument is nothing more than a quibbling over WHO gets to define “truth” for the the human beings in the real (non abstract) world.

    Science has its primary consciousness just like religious people do. They are hypocrites. I’m not a young earther, but I won’t trade one irrational deterministic metaphysic for another one. If you want to debate young or old, then time must not be relative. If it is, which it IS, then the whole debate is just a disguise. The real argument is over who gets to claim the right of “divine enlightenment”. Which is nothing more than mysticism.

    But scientists get all bunged up when you point out their own rational larceny. They KNOW time cannot possibly be given an actual value, and yet they blabber about what idiots the YECera are, as if they are the only ones with a monopoly on “truth”.

    As a Christian, I’m tires of being the one who is always on the hook for “proof”. It’s time the scientific community had a taste of their own demands.

    Prove time.

    How hard can it be, really? It’s just time. Is it not axiomatic?

    At what time did time start?

  281. Plain old, run of the mill Christians-believers in Jesus–are always at the mercy of the “intellectuals”. The historic, scientific, religious (even our own).

    One day I woke up tired of being on the receiving end. I said, Lord, if my faith is reasonable, then I will argue it from reason. And the argument will be there.

    And you know what I realized? WE are not the dumb ones! WE are not on the hook for what we believe! We believe in Christ because MAN is value. Period.

    THEY are on the hook for their epistemological premises. THEY are the ones who speak from nothing, not us.

  282. Sopwith wrote:

    Would an ‘unbelieving’ adult teach the pages of the bible to their adolescent child as ‘divine truth’ ?

    Respectfully Sopy, in my world view Truth is singular. Its “versions” are mistruths. In other words, truth is truth no matter where it comes from, it cannot be compartmentalized. Erasmus had Luther fuming when he dared to say that many of the heathen ancients wrote things that were divinely inspired. But to answer your question, no, an unbelieving adult would would probably not teach the Bible to a child as divine truth.

  283. @ Gene: Bet I can show you when and where inerrancy raises its ugly head and it begins in Genesis and continues to the post on women not being allowed to pray in the pulpit. We all have our favorite “this verse is to be taken literally” deals. BTW-I am not arguing primary issues as stated in the Nicene Creed.

  284. @ Gene: I fear there are very few from whom you can take your POV. There is Ham and AIG, the Discovery Institute, and Hovind who is behind bars. Behe and Dembski are not YE so they do not count in this part of the discussion. Therefore, if you do not adhere to Ham, DI, etc., then you have your own explanation which we could call Gene’s Theory of YEC. It is not based on anything from those groups so it must be your theory.

    You claim to believe in the “evidence.” What evidence? If you are discussing scientific evidence, then you have precious few places from which to draw. Could you please cite a few peer reviewed, scientific studies that “prove” a young earth option is viable?

    If your evidence is the Bible alone, then we are out of gas. Your description of the flood shows that you adhere to a literal translation on issues regarding YEC, global flood, etc but that you do not accept it when it says the sun rises and sets. You can choose which verses to believe on faith and faith is not something that I can disprove.

    Since you know Kaiser and think he is wrong (that is fascinating given his background and experience) then someone like myself will never, ever reach you. Suffice to say, there are awesome theologians who believe that the earth is old and that means the discussion is in limbo. But, go the science route and all bets are off. Now we are talking evidence.

  285. Garland wrote:

    I actually was a YEC when I was younger

    I did not believe in evolution when I was younger as well. The evidence on the large numbers of transitional species convinced me.

  286. @ Argo: Oh no, another conspiracy theory. They won’t debate you because they know what you know? Now that is impressive…

  287. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    @ dee:
    I made it up. It’s a rehash of what’s on my literally world-changing blog, though.

    If people like you were able to to change the world, then things might work out for the better.

  288. Gene wrote:

    The arguments I have seen from people like Ross, Collins/BioLogos, etc. seem to me to require too many leaps of logic,

    Which arguments? The scientific ones or the Biblical ones? Remember, I will let you get away with the “my view of the Bible” proofs, but I will not on the science.

  289. Argo wrote:

    Am I the only one who grows weary of having to concede purely subjective presumptions BEFORE I get to debate people?

    Are you saying that reality is subjective? Or that physical laws are subjective? Or that drawing conclusions from evidence is subjective? That reason itself is subjective? I don’t understand what or which presumptions you think we’re making here. If you want to believe that the world doesn’t actually operate on understandable physical principles, that’s your right, but I don’t think it’s a useful or particularly satisfying philosophy. I mean, sure, you could believe that the entire world is an illusion and nothing is really real or meaningful, if you want to take it that far. And I think we can both agree that it isn’t consistent with belief in a God of truth.
    But if we do make some leaps: IE, the world we observe and live in is real, the others we seem to sense and communicate with are real beings like ourselves, that our senses are giving us accurate information regarding the above, then I don’t really get what you’re trying to argue for.

  290. “And I think we can both agree that it isn’t consistent with belief in a God of truth.” should be “And I think we can both agree that that extreme isn’t consistent with belief in a God of truth.”

  291. dee wrote:

    If people like you were able to to change the world, then things might work out for the better.

    I’m working on it…

    But of course you and Debs are, in most important respects that I can see, people like me, and you too are working on it. A number of commenters here have testified as much, and perhaps many more “lurkers” (and I use the term affectionately) could do likewise.

    It is my strong conviction that people like us (with no great charismatic leadership gift, but who follow Jesus and believe love is the most excellent way of all) can change the world, if only we grasp the magnitude of the Kingdom we represent.

    My own bag is, ultimately, the unemployed; I gave up steady work and went freelance, with varying degrees of success, 7 years ago to try to free up time to do something game-changing for them here in the Forth Valley and perhaps beyond. It’s been slow progress, I have to say. A quote from Harry Potter often comes to mind here: … they were three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead. Not least because there are so few other people who believe the world should be changed, so many vested interests who don’t want it to be, and so few Christians who believe we should try. (“Just let God do it in his timing…” through exactly whom or what is never made clear.)

    That’s one reason I’m drawn here – the poor, the downtrodden and the voiceless are your concern too. Long may you continue!

  292. @ dee:
    I would like to chime in with a related tangent. What the bible says is not “evidence” that anything it says happened did in fact occur. It simply makes a statement.

    If I wrote a book that said in the year 2013 I was president of the united states, that book would not count as evidence that I was the president.

    This ticks me off because YECers use the bible as if it were a piece of evidence just like a fossil or ice core sample.

  293. dee wrote:

    Your description of the flood shows that you adhere to a literal translation on issues regarding YEC, global flood, etc but that you do not accept it when it says the sun rises and sets

    I don’t think that is quite fair to YECs to put it like that.

    YECs don’t have to filter every last reference to things in Scripture that sound science-y on the surface of it to be considered consistent.

    I take the Bible literally, but I recognize there are limits, and there are metaphors in play at times, eg, where Jesus says he “is the vine,” or “I am the door” he does not mean to say he is literally a door or vine.

    That does not mean I have to read the entire rest of the Bible as being allegory.

    I mostly stay out of these types of threads, that don’t just amount to YEC-bashing, but to putting down YECers themselves (not saying Dee here was doing it), but some other commentators above were characterizing YECs as being anti science, science haters, uneducated idiots, conspiracy nuts (I hate conspiracy theories and almost lost a friend over it, as she is a 911 “truther”). This comes up on other blogs and sites, too.

    I also don’t care for the air of intellectual superiority and smugness that is assumed by anti- YECs. Reading posts by a lot of anti-YECs is like reading posts by many die hard pro- Neo-Calvinists who are convinced that they, and they alone are right, understand the Bible correctly, and can know the truth.

    I don’t even care so much about the argument on how old the earth is, but how YECs are treated in these discussions, as though they are morons or bullies, when I really don’t see bullying from YECs, but I do see pressure (bullying) by anti-YECs, that all should conform to old earth, or macro evolution.

    I actually came into this thread again to link to this:

    Does the Bible verse cited by Bill Nye and Bill Maher Really Prove that ‘Religion is the Enemy of Science’

  294. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    This ticks me off because YECers use the bible as if it were a piece of evidence just like a fossil or ice core sample.

    That is just a bizarre statement.

    They place a lot of value on the Bible, so of course they are going to appeal to it, as I would think most Christians would, and not filter the Bible through science first.

  295. @ Garland:

    “I mean, sure, you could believe that the entire world is an illusion and nothing is really real or meaningful, if you want to take it that far.”

    I’m not sure how you get this conclusion from my comments.

    The ironic thing is I am not doing this at all; this kind of relativism is precisely what I deny. My philosophy is that only physical objects exist, and that any “laws” pertaining thereunto are abstractions MAN uses to organize. In order for man to have real truth, man must be the ONE inexorably objective VALUE (my philosophy is utterly devoted to the affirmation of human lives, BTW). We organize our world by inventing systems and models which then serve as references that mankind via consensus agrees to.

    What scientists do is not “discover” physical “laws” which “govern”. Science observes the actions which are DIRECT functions of observable objects and then makes models of these observations. They balance the measurements via mathematics…as a means of verifying that their models are consistent with each other.

    I have no issue with that. The problem is that man invents these models and constructs his theories using abstract placeholders like space and time and constants and then proceeds to declare that his models and constants are CAUSAL. Meaning, they are no longer mere tools of organization coming from that which is REAL truth, humanity (people), but they become the FORCE behind what objects DO. They put the cart before the horse. Thus, instead of man being the singularity of value, from which all meaning and truth is derived (indeed, God is FOR man’s LIFE…truth is FOR man, it does not CAUSE man), man is placed OUTSIDE truth, and becomes nothing more than a function of “laws” and impossible concepts which determine his actions. This is why I believe science is inherently Platonist, like Calvinism. Physical laws are the “forms” and man and everything else is are the “shadows”.

    The mistake scientists make in their hubris is thinking that they are immune to epistemological consistency. They get to conjure up abstract ideas and declare them agents of creation. Sorry…but I’m not playing anymore.

    My question: “What time did time begin” is proof that time cannot really exist. Meaning, all notions of “age” are merely a function of what value man wants to give the the abstraction of “time”.

    If they answer NO time, then all values of time are by definition a direct function of zero. ZERO is the constant (the reference value for all other amounts of time). For example, what is one unit of time if the reference time is zero? What is one unit of zero? Zero. What is ten units of zero? Zero. So…there is no actual value to ANY amount of time. But if they say time started at, say, ONE (unit ONE is the reference for all subsequent amounts of time), then they concede that ONE is CONSTANT (it is “always there”, thus NOT actually moving through time, making the timeline STATIC) then the reference is infinity. Which means that subsequent amounts of time are a function of “infinity”, and as such no “amount” of time can have an actual, non-theoretical, value. For example, what is one unit of infinity? Infinity. What is 50 units of infinity? Infinity.

    The reason there is no answer to this question that works in reality is because time is not an actual THING. Time is a derivative of what is REAL, and that is the OBJECT in question. Things are real. People are real. Physical “laws” are not real (physical). They are ideas. Only existing because man exists.

  296. @ Juniper:
    Yes, but only if “inerrancy” is interpreted through an empirical-rational epistemology. The thing that bothers me the most about the YEC position is the entire lack of introspection regarding the presuppositions brought to the text.

  297. Daisy wrote:

    I mostly stay out of these types of threads, that don’t just amount to YEC-bashing, but to putting down YECers themselves (not saying Dee here was doing it), but some other commentators above were characterizing YECs as being anti science, science haters, uneducated idiots, conspiracy nuts (I hate conspiracy theories and almost lost a friend over it, as she is a 911 “truther”). This comes up on other blogs and sites, too.

    Unfortunately, this is a very fine line to walk for people knowledgable in the sciences. We know it’s wrong. We’ve seen the evidence it’s wrong. We’ve seen the evidence that’s supposed to say it’s right, and it’s so maddeningly unscientific (and unreasonable) that it seems like a deliberate fabrication. And if you’ve never seen bullying by YECs, it’s only because you’ve never been on the other side of it.
    The reason that accusations of conspiracy theories come up is because it would take a huge conspiracy among scientists of a wide variety of disciplines to hide the evidence that the earth is young, and instead promote a consistent stance as to its age. This, too, rubs us science-minded Christians the wrong way–let me reiterate that we aren’t doing that. Do you know how hard it would be to do that? It would be very, very obvious that data were being cherry-picked and misrepresented.
    With those things in mind, it’s not really possible to have a scientific, data-based discussion as we would in the sciences (and these can get very heated as well, but in a different way). Because of this, it’s easy for people who are associated with one side but not part of the problem to get caught in the cross-fire.
    So I want to say flat out that I don’t think you are dumb or dishonest for believing what you’ve been taught about YEC. I’ve been there myself–it’s really hard to judge the merit of someone’s claims about science if you don’t know a fair amount yourself, especially when that person is someone you trust.

  298. Daisy wrote:

    dee wrote:
    Your description of the flood shows that you adhere to a literal translation on issues regarding YEC, global flood, etc but that you do not accept it when it says the sun rises and sets
    I don’t think that is quite fair to YECs to put it like that.
    YECs don’t have to filter every last reference to things in Scripture that sound science-y on the surface of it to be considered consistent.

    It is completely fair. They say the bible says precisely the method and timeframe of how everything came into existence and precisely how old it is. Therefore they have to accept anything it says along the same lines: if it says the earth is flat, it’s flat. If it says the earth is the center of the solar system, it’s the center of the solar system. If pi is 3 it’s 3.

    To say otherwise is once again… disingenuous and self contradictory.

    Daisy wrote:

    I don’t even care so much about the argument on how old the earth is, but how YECs are treated in these discussions, as though they are morons or bullies, when I really don’t see bullying from YECs, but I do see pressure (bullying) by anti-YECs, that all should conform to old earth, or macro evolution.

    Then you see what you want to see. Sweeping dismissal of the life work of millions of scientists and ignoring mountains of evidence presented against them, accusing them all of being either willing or unwilling participants in a massive conspiracy of silence against “the truth” because they want grant money, all while playing a game of double standards to win arguments at any cost? That’s some pretty hardcore bullying/”pressure”.

    Telling people they are weak christians or even not real christians at all because they don’t believe in YEC? Sounds like bullying to me.

    And when we, the opposition, present the facts and show their position for what it is(evidencless and thoroughly discredited on every level) We are the “bullies”?

    Sorry, no. You don’t get to make that claim.

    That’s like a convicted criminal saying the prosecutor at his trial was “bullying” him by showing all the evidence of his guilt.

  299. Gene wrote:

    The evidence is all over.

    What specifically is this evidence? Is it in the fossil record or the geological record. Is it in nuclear physics and the decay of particles? is it in cosmology and astrophysics? Where SPECIFICALLY is this evidence found?

  300. @ JustSomeGuy:

    Bravo. of the many things creationists do, one of the most irritating is misquoting a scientist like Gould who devoted his life to evolutionary science. And to keep doing it over and over again after being corrected. What was that suggestion about ‘not bearing false witness’? No wonder many atheists claim christians think it’s ok to be a “Liar for Jesus”.

  301. da bible sayz dat Jesus went ta heaven.  

    Wooooooooosh!

    huh?

    da bible sayz dat Jesus cares bout youze and me.

    ok. (I likez dat)

    da bible says dat we can live forever wit Jesus.

    What?

    “if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me…” ~Jesus

    hmmm…

    don’t getz no bedda?

    Yehaaaaaaaaaaa!

    ( ….datz fer me. )

    (grin)

    …how bout U ?

    Jesus sayz darz room fer a few more in da van, wanna come? I can move over. we have grape NEHI and cheddar popcorn too…

    Cheeeeeeeeese!     😉

    Sopy

  302. Argo wrote:

    The answer is simple: there is no actual “age” of the earth or universe since time is, according to GR, relative. In both YE and scientific claims, time is “created”. This means that time itself begins, by definition, at “zero time”…or, better said, time is created at the location of NO time. This makes time itself a direct function of zero. Which means that the age of the universe and and earth cannot really be know since the birthdate of anything which exists is 0/0/0.

    Argo, sorry I missed this yesterday.

    I think there is considerable confusion here. Time is not an absolute measure. It is always the difference between two times taken with respect to the same reference: our calendars and clocks. Relativity as in General Relativity defines how perceived times are to be compared over large distances, large gravitational field differences, large speed differences. It’s computations are precise, not relative as in the colloquial sense of the word. Your age is not arbitrary: at the minimum I assume you know it’s date. Official accounting of time here on Earth is done by counting seconds. The second is defined in terms of a reproducible property of the Cesium atom. The inability to establish an absolute time does not in anyway call into question time keeping.

    Many physical properties have been shown to take place extremely regularly. Radioactive decay is one of them. OE proponents count on the long term reproducibility of many different radioactive decay sequences, measured quantities that are falsifiable by direct observations to make their age estimates. All measurements are subject to certain amounts of uncertainty. Statistics was invented to deal with such measurement problems. No statistical uncertainties in the current OE age of Earth estimates are large enough to encompass the YE preferred age.

  303. @ oldJohnJ: thanks for this! I appreciate being able to read explanations in colloquial English rather than in hardcore scientific terms. (Because I don’t have the higher math training, among other things.)

  304. @ oldJohnJ:

    Old John J,

    I am fully aware of how the YE crowd attempts to “prove” its “science” by appealing to the usual scientific assumptions regarding what constitutes a “day”, or an “hour”, or the “math” or whatever. I am being a little facetious when I suggest that YE crowd simply needs to redefine a “second” according to their own consensus. Since time, as you admit, is not absolute, really, it boils down to what we label (how we choose to quantify) the relative movement (relative to us) of whatever object we are tracking as the reference.

    You rightly point out the use of atomic clocks for time keeping. Sure…it’s a great system, as long as we all agree that a motion from A to B (or whatever interaction we choose to measure) constitutes a second (strange…no one asked me). Since time is not absolute, then what if we make the same motion from A to B two hours? Do that enough, get the math to work out, and you have “proven” YE. My point is that time is merely a measurement of what physical objects do…it is not a “law” that governs the motion of those objects. Time is a term. Human beings give it meaning. As with everything then, truth is a function of man, not a function of abstract measurements.

    I understand it may seem like semantics. However, I submit that truth gets clouded when we lose sight of ideas like relative time (not absolute). We begin to subjugate man to “forms” which are beyond him. This can only lead to man’s destruction. In addition, I submit that science would be more evolved if it dropped it’s Platonist facade. Ideas like “numbers don’t lie” must hinder any scientific endeavor, I assume. One has to ask, if we began with the proper assumption, that the SELF is what actually exists and acts (and even more so, that truth is ultimately derived from the conscious observer), might we have advanced our understanding?

  305. And I don’t think my use of the term “relative” was entirely colloquial. A second is slower near sea level than it is on a mountain, according to atomic clocks. Slower on an airplane than it is sitting still on the ground. So, which second is the reference for our definition of “age”? I understand that time differences are minimal and probably insignificant, but the point is that time being relative is a true in whatever sense, colloquial or in terms of GE, no?

  306. @ Argo:
    Time is a well defined concept. There is no absolute time but since all given times are actually the difference between two measurements the lack of an absolute reference is immaterial. Time differences can probably be measured more accurately than any other physical quantity. There is sufficient accuracy to see even the minuscule variations due to General Relativity effects on our planet. There is nothing in the physics of time that can bridge the gap between OE and YE age estimates for the Earth.

  307. Daisy wrote:

    They place a lot of value on the Bible, so of course they are going to appeal to it, as I would think most Christians would, and not filter the Bible through science first.

    Fine. But in the comment you made immediately before this one

    Daisy wrote:

    I take the Bible literally, but I recognize there are limits, and there are metaphors in play at times, eg, where Jesus says he “is the vine,” or “I am the door” he does not mean to say he is literally a door or vine.

    So when the science contradicts a literal interpretation of Gen 1,2 why can’t we recognize a limit there?

  308. Daisy wrote:

    I mostly stay out of these types of threads, that don’t just amount to YEC-bashing, but to putting down YECers themselves (not saying Dee here was doing it), but some other commentators above were characterizing YECs as being anti science, science haters, uneducated idiots, conspiracy nuts (I hate conspiracy theories and almost lost a friend over it, as she is a 911 “truther”). This comes up on other blogs and sites, too.

    I also don’t care for the air of intellectual superiority and smugness that is assumed by anti- YECs.

    I assume you’ve never seen an “assault” by the YEC troops. In an 8 week discussion of YE/OE at a church class, a group that advocated YEC in churches had some people show up. While in front of the class they were usually polite and measured but in one on one discussion they would basically tell you (if you disagreed with the YE position) that you obviously weren’t listening, didn’t get it, didn’t know the science as well as them, or just maybe they would imply you were too stupid to understand the truth. And the best one yet, are you sure you understand the Bible and what it means to be a Christian. Sometimes with 2 to 4 people on 1 with raised voices. Plus private emails stating the above even more forcefully at times.

    And at times their arguments could be found in detail on the AIG web site. Under the topic of “Don’t use these arguments anymore because they have been found out to be wrong.”

    After a while some of us tend to have a short fuse for people who act this way. Especially when we know them personally and know they might have trouble passing an end of 9th grade science exam.

  309. oldJohnJ wrote:

    @ Argo:
    “Time is a well defined concept.”

    Defined by who? Time does not define itself. Man defines time. So if I don’t accept your concept, you have no way to prove me wrong. Time has no reference. Itself has no value.

    “There is no absolute time but since all given times are actually the difference between two measurements the lack of an absolute reference is immaterial.”

    On the contrary. Since there is no actual reference for time (an absolute reference) then time cannot be defined absolutely. All values of time then are both relative and a matter of consensus. You cannot PROVE an age based on a reference which you admit does not exist.

    “Time differences can probably be measured more accurately than any other physical quantity.”

    Differences based on a reference number that is merely theoretical. Change the number, change the measurement.

    “There is sufficient accuracy to see even the minuscule variations due to General Relativity effects on our planet.”

    Variations in what? Time is a concept. Variations in time are variations only insofar as the abstract reference is agreed upon. The only ultimately non- subjective measurement of time is OBJECT (self). Every object is where and when it is. Any other description is theoretical only. A theoretical measurement between the relative movement between two or more objects. Remove objects, remove time.

    “There is nothing in the physics of time that can bridge the gap between OE and YE age estimates for the Earth.”

    Time does not have physics because it is a product of cognition. It, itself, is an absolute idea (infinite ). It can have no measurements apart from objects; thus, it has no physics. Physics itself is theoretical only. If you change the definitions, you change the age of the earth. You claim the earth is old. I might claim it is young. Outside accepted definitions, neither argument is right. Because there is no reference for time ITSELF.

  310. Argo,
    The uncertainty in time is such that even over 4.5 billion years it does not amount to your age. Please select something that matters to discuss.

  311. @ Argo:
    Time is fundamental to all of physics. It is in no way undefined or arbitrary. Time is measured by reproducible periodic astronomic or atomic phenomena. An agreed on reference time and date and choice of measurement units is all that is needed to compare the times of different events. The small gravitational and velocity effects that occur in measuring time are well understood as shown by the functioning of the Global Positioning System.

    There is nothing that allows for the YE 6000 year estimate of the age of the Earth to be taken seriously compared to the accepted OE estimate of 4.5 billion years (4,500,000,000). This the only absolute in dealing with time that I accept.

    Educationally, I am an old experimental physicist. Theologically only Genesis 1:1 appears to be a useful science reference point. The remainder of the first 11 Genesis chapters speak to the relationship God expects from his chosen people: no idols, polytheism and an expected moral righteousness. Genesis should not be interpreted in the light of contemporary science.

    Beyond this I don’t believe I have anything that I contribute to a deeper discussion of time.

  312. @ Bennett Willis:

    Huh?

    Something that matters? The insinuation of an abstract, theoretical construct as the source (cause) of truth doesn’t matter? In the context of a blog meant to deal with abuse, I would say you need to rethink what matters.

    You and I have different notions of what constitutes relevance. I do not agree that you are the arbiter of what is truly relevant.

  313. @ oldJohnJ:

    Old John J,

    I am not trying to be argumentative. But seems to me that physicists have as hard a time letting go of their assumptions about reality as anyone else. They think that because they have models which do a good job of organizing the environment, that they get to claim somehow that these models are causal. (Maybe not you…but the idea that physical laws “govern” I have heard all my life; it is a lie…because that which is purely theoretical cannot govern, because it cannot exist.) So, the real question is WHY do we decide that the way physics models and uses the concept of time is “better” than one who would choose to disregard those models, such as a YEC proponent?

    What is the thing which the models are in service to? If you say “truth”, fine…but what is truth in service to? True in what way? All truth must boil down to the affirmation of what EXITS, which is not physics itself, but the relative relationship between the objects physics describes. Objects are the cause of themselves…the physics is simply a paradigm we use to organize what we observe. And what exists as a function of the VALUE that physics is in service to is MAN. Anytime the model becomes causal (time becomes “objective”), then truth is outside of humanity. And this is the Platonism in science. This will eventually lead to abuse. Physics, like any other idea, must serve the affirmation of MAN, or it cannot be proven as true. We can argue against YEC…but if we argue it by making physics the new primary consciousness, instead of the “biblical inerrancy”, then we are hypocrites.

    And I am right. Age is relative. By definition. If time is a function of “no time”, then any value of time is NOT actual. Your appeal to physical phenomenon as the source of time is concession of this argument. I am forty years old. Relative to the age of the earth. Relative to the age of the universe. Relative to the big bang (or creation) which occurred at NO time. All age stems then from a reference which is zero. Age is relative. The only actual age is ME. I am when I am. You are when you are. Age is merely a brand of relatively quantifying our difference with respect to an agreed upon theoretical reference.

    I asked: At what time did time begin? There is no answer to this question that doesn’t ultimately prove that time does not exist. It has no absolute reference itself, so any value of time is going to relative to whatever objects we are observing. If we put all objects into a physics model, then time certainly can seem “non-arbitrary”. But the fact is as one time, some PERSON had to decide how to define a day. An hour. A minute. The definition itself doesn’t really matter…consensus matters. Why does consensus matter between human beings…what is the value they are trying to perpetuate? Existence of MAN.

    The only truth then is LIFE. Human life. Life(man’s SELF) then is the objective source of truth from which all ideas (even physics) stems. Physics is not causal. It is descriptive. It is man’s attempt to organize his universe in a way that affirms himself.

  314. @ Muff Potter

    Muff,

    Sure. 

    ..we both know it’s more than butter free popcorn, that we all be need’in…

    Deus brings not life,

    He is life❣

    (live long an prosper…)

    (grin)

    A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi  ?

    hmmm…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VbYcj-PF9I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    -snicker-

    – I shall gather my chicks-  웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦웃❦…

    ~ Jesus, -who is who was who is to come…

    *

    ATB

    Sopy