Stanley Jaki, Benedictine monk and physicist, once said that Augustine DID shrink back when it came to the idea that there was no such thing as a firmament. When he felt he had to pick between saying the firmament wasn’t literally there and vouching for it because it seemed to be how Genesis ought to be read he went with it.

Can science explain how life started from non life? Can they make life in a lab from non life? NOT!

Science cannot even make a blade of grass!

Parody can be an effective means of making a point, no doubt.

I read Mohler’s speech. Whether one agrees with his conclusions (or their underlying presuppositions, ac Cindy pointed out), he provided an intelligent and articulate presentation of the key issues at hand. What I’d like to see is a response that is just as thoughtful and takes careful consideration of the theological implications he addresses, without summarily dismissing his views as antiquated, unintelligent, or irrelevant.

Dee, sin is our main problem, and science has no cure for it. All of the church problems discussed on this site are the result of sin. Science cannot do a single thing to help us with our sins or false doctrines. Can science help the SBC or SGM? NOT! So what if we live longer? Big fat harry deal?

Science teaches evolution that denies God. People believe science over God’s word. THAT is the problem.

Dee, you are right.

Foundationalism can get tricky if you’re wrong, because like one builds a house, you put everything else on top of that foundation. We know what is is like to have to repair foundation problems in our homes and how far reaching the effects of a bad foundation can be. Sometimes you can’t see the foundation well or what is really wrong. You need help!

Coherentists criticize foundationalism as too theoretical in nature. (“Too heavenly minded for any earthly good.”) And that’s one of the pitfalls. Mohler’s logic may be spot on perfect, but his assumptions may be too far removed from the empirical world.

What makes foundationalism work? A desire to pursue truth and a love for it, and a willingness (or ability) to admit when you’re wrong.

Junkster notes that a good consultant (like a good foundations specialist who knows what they’re doing) can hopefully meet Al Mohler where he is and perhaps get him to consider possible flaws in his argument if certain problems arise. Foundationalism lends itself well to certain professions and such, and the approach is invaluable. And coherentists have other strengths and their own pitfalls, and sometimes foundationalists think that they are too given to experience and tend to sell out to pragmatism at the expense of principle and the intangible things like ethics in favor of function. In the end, the different styles complement one another and balance one another.

NBTT you must be bored because your buddy Jerry is missing so now you’re picking on dee. You’re so rude!

NBTT said:

“Dee, sin is our main problem, and science has no cure for it. All of the church problems discussed on this site are the result of sin. Science cannot do a single thing to help us with our sins or false doctrines. Can science help the SBC or SGM? NOT! So what if we live longer? Big fat harry deal?”

This is for the most part true NBTT. But what you are failing to understand is that the Bible does not address the same subject matter that science does, and when one assumes that one can take comments made in the Bible about nature and scientific statements, one ends up in folly. For the most part EVERY attempt to find absolute scientific meaning in Biblical comments ‘sola scriptura’ has failed, and generally given unbelievers valid reason to mock the Christians attempting to do so. Bibilical statements about nature are generally made within the understanding and culture of the writer and generally are not useful for scientific exploration.

NBTT also said:

“Science teaches evolution that denies God.”

This is also grossly incorrect. Evolution is a theory that attempts to explain the history of life we find preserved in the geology of the planet. It is a false theology that says if we can explain the history of life on Earth via a sequence of natural events that there is necessarily not a God. It is the SAME false theology that thinks that God is only at work in the world when a clear and unmistakable miracle is observed. God is at work both in and and THROUGH the world, through the creation which He long ago established and set in motion.

“People believe science over God’s word. THAT is the problem.”

Again, grossly incorrect. What people believe are other people who claim that science has proven there can be now God. And what you fail to understand is that those atheists who believe science has shown there is no God apply the same false theological principle that you have applied here: that God only is working in creation when a provable violation of natural law (miracle) occurs. This could not be farther from the truth and denies the very spirit of Genesis you claim to believe. What Genesis 1 tells us is that all the pagan deities of the Egyptions and Bablylonians are created THINGS, not gods. That God made all that there is, and He is in control of it all. And it is this view of creation, and ordered, created thing that can be understood that gave rise to the science we take for granted and even many preach is some kind of evil.

Go back to your first paragraph. It is SIN that is the problem. And this applies to how men in their arrogance think that what they have learned about God’s creation somehow proves God Himself does not exist. Don’t buy into that foolishness. But also don’t buy into the foolishness that claims that when God does not somehow override the cultural understanding of nature this somehow invalidates His scripture.

Zeta

dee, what would any creation theory possibly have to do with the atonement? I do not understand.

Richard,

Simple…if you agree that human life is not a special creation, that we evolved from other mammals…then the story of Adam and Eve is just allegorical….if it just allegory, then how did the fall of man occur…if the fall also is allegorical, then why the need for redemption…and so on.

Or is it possible that Jesus died for animals also? I think it is Colossians that talks about all THINGS being reconciled? Would that include the animal kingdom – the lion laying down with the lamb?

I found the verse. Colossians 1:20 in part reads “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself,” So could that possibly include animals? If so, then evolution theory would not necessarily affect atonement theory. But Adam means man. I doubt that God thinks that animals sin. (Except when my dog chews up my shoes!)

You all are a lot more studious than I am but I do know this. We see in part and we know in part. If we knew it all we would be like the German scientist in the most recent Indiana Jones movie and our heads would explode with what we know.

I also know the following comment is correct too.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher (1788 – 1860)

Dee,
Perhaps you should reconsider. NBBT comments can be invaluable in subsantiating the point in the post. They woke zeta up this morning.

NBTT said:

“I have heard of theistic evolution. They also believe that we evolved from a common ancestor that had 48 chromosomes. Ken Miller teaches this and I find his theory totally implausible. He is a Catholic. I was raised Catholic and they do not have a very high regard for God’s word in the first place. They prefer tradition over the bible.”

I am very amused by your comments NBTT. You are why Ken Ham has lots and lots of money. And it is you arrogance that is the problem, not your scientific illiteracy. You see, the only reason you ‘find his theory totally implausible’ is your own ignorance, and your arrogance is that you trust your ‘common sense’ shoot from the hip understanding of what is plausible or not over a careful study of the relevant subject matter.

To see why, look below …

“Ken Miller’s fused chromosome #2 theory is way out there. Each human parent passes on 23 single chromosomes. So both parents would need to have fused the same chromosome to get a matching pair #2. Then that offspring would also need to mate with someone with that same fused chromosome – and on and on. The odds of that are a kazillion to one.”

No NBTT. Do you not understand that in the human population today are folks with 22 or even 24 pairs of chromosomes? And that they mate just fine with folks with the ‘normal’ 23? Do you not also understand that chromosome fusions (and splits) can happen and do happen? Further, that the real ‘odds’ make it essentially impossible that the arrangement of the DNA in the human Chromosome 2 would match so closely the two Chimpanzee counterparts, complete with certain intrisic retro-viral insertions and the ‘telemeres’ in the middle, end points of the two source genes fused end to end at EXACTLY the right spot based on the associated Chimpanzee counterparts?

No, the only real question would be did God decide to reuse the same genetic material He used in a Chimp with some modification and a change in configuration, or did God use/allow mans form to develop naturally over time with this fusion event simply one of thousands of historical remnants from that process.

And again, Ken Ham makes his living preying on the ignorance you display here. And the children of our world are sucked into atheism by that same ignorance. We, the church, only give the new atheist fuel for their own agenda by hiding in ignorance. It is hard to face the realities that contradict our traditional beliefs, but in facing them we find that the ROCK of our salvation is nonetheless solid and more than up to the task. God is not afraid of the truth. He made the world, and He approved the methods He used. They can’t be wrong. It is our comprehension of what God is saying in scripture and in nature that is flawed and producing the apparent conflict. But the solution is not to deny what is known, but to have faith in the one who made and gave both the cosmos and the scripture.

Zeta

To clarify:

“But we do know that chromosomes can stick together. And we know that people who have two chromosomes stuck together usually have no problems.

How do we know this? Because there are lots of people like this running around. Something like 1 in 1000 live births has this kind of chromosome mix up.

So there isn’t really an issue with the chromosomes sticking together. The tricky part of your question is how this changed chromosome could have taken over the population and became what is most common in people. ”

from : http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=229

Which is a discussion of the Ape/Human gene fusion.

Zeta

Zeta, yes we know that chromosomes can stick together. But for all humans to have the same exact fused chromosome (#2) is the problem. Ken Miller points to this specific chromosome to explain why the common ancestor has 48 (and the other great apes) and why we have 46. I find his explanation to be totally preposterous. He admits that without an explanation, common ancestry is wrong. So these evolutionists are forced to come up with an explanation, no matter how absurd and far reaching it is.

There is a very good debate between 4 evolutionists and 4 creationists that took place at Seton Hall University. It is posted on YouTube. The evolutionists all use forced puzzle pieces and square pegs in round holes. The gaps in the fossil record are huge. Evolution (as far as common ancestry with humans and gorillas/monkeys)is pseudoscience. It is not observable, it is not testable, and it is not repeatable.

Zeta, also how did this so called fusion become the 99.9% norm? Chromosome fusion is very rare. So where are all the humans that din not fuse this chromosome? Where are there any humans with 48 chromosomes?

Are humans fusing chromosomes today and that fusion spreading to an entire population? How about chimps or gorillas? Where is the repeat of such a phenomenon?

Again true science can be tested. Let’s test this theory in reality and let’s see if it can be duplicated population wide – not rare exceptions. Are there ant peer reviewed articles to confirm such a thing ever happening anywhere else in humans or chimps? Any chimp populations that have this fused chromosome #2?

Car manufactures often use the same materials to make things. That is not evolution. Because God made us similar to chimps or gorillas, does not mean that we evolved from them.

I should clarify. 4 of them are refuting evolution. I do not know if they are all creationists. I have not watched this debate in years, but I remember it being very good.

Ken Miller believes we humans evolved from a common ancestor. I do not know what his views are about creation.

Richard

Let me ask it this way. Can a person who believes in Genesis 1:1 but also believes in evolution be considered a creationist?

Here is the problem. “Science” comes up with a theory that many buy into, so then those who believe in God and the bible, have to go and change how they look at the Genesis account of creation. So now God’s word takes a back seat to man’s so called “wisdom and knowledge”.

Like I said earlier, telling a lie loud enough, long enough, and often enough, does not make it the truth. Like global warming – is that the truth? It does not really matter because most believe it because they have heard it long enough, loud enough, and often enough.

Did you watch any of the debate I posted?

Richard

So, did the church have to compromise the Bible when the earth was discovered not to be fixed?

As for watching the debate, I have actually sponsored such a debate in church that went on for weeks, using Ken Ham’s DVDs in his debate with Walt Kaiser and Hugh Ross. I have thoroughly read all of Ham’s site as well as the opposing sites of Answers in Creation and Biologos.

If you go to our category section called creationism, you can look and see the extensive material and resources that we have used and recommended. I have read so many books on this subject , including the Three Views on the Creationism. I have presented Wayne Grudem’s material on the subject.

I would venture to guess, that outside of people who spend their lives dealing with this subject or my friend Zeta, I have read, attended and listened to more than most people who do not have a hard science background within the faith.

I have put this you tube video on my short list to listen to but i predict I have heard it all before.

Please take a look at our articles on this subject. It might give you an idea just how much we have covered in this area.

Dr John Lennox did a wonderful series at the Fixed Point Foundation on the God of Genesis. I have been blessed to attend several lectures at Lattimer House in Birmingham. I also listened to Hugh Ross lecture there and did a post on it at TWW.

Here is my main point-I, along with almost all others who are OE/TE believe in authority of Scripture. For Mohler and others to denigrate out commitment to both Scripture and our Lord is ignorant and condescending. Both sides care just as much about the Bible.

On another note… I found this post a little hard to understand. Forgive me.

So Dee–

Are you saying that you are a believer in the YE model and you also believe the earth is fixed and the sun revolves around it?

Thanks

NLR

This was written tongue in cheek. I am OE/TE in my beliefs. If you tae a look at the subject of creationism in our categories, you will see a number of posts on this subject. My favorite one? The Flintstone Doctrine.

In fact, there are a few people out there who are very mad at me because of my stand on this issue.

I am not a YEC. Is that why you ask?

Dee,

On further introspection, it was actually your dear reader Lydia who was thumping me relentless with her interpretations of Bible verses, purporting to show me the presumed error of my ways.

I left with the distinct impression that anyone not ascribing to the traditional (exclusivist, predeterminist) evangelical model of faith would be obligated to spend all their attention debating Lydia and defending their theology, regardless of the subject of that particular day’s blog post.

I spent years of my life living in that system, and don’t intend to give it even a moment’s more of my time and attention. Therefore, I withdrew. And withdraw again.

However I wish only peace and good will to the illustrious blog queens! And thank you for this: my son wants to be doctor, and I now have no fear that anything he learns in college could ever corrupt his faith in God, or refute the existence of a Creator. I found BioLogos via this site. 🙂 If he makes it through all of the studying ahead and gets his M. D. license, I will drive to Raleigh and take you ladies to lunch. (He’s a senior in high school now, so it will be at least eight years in the future. But still…)

“Which begs the question: why would the record of life on the Earth and the state of the DNA in our genes so carefully and closely evidence an evolutionary history if indeed there was no evolutionary history? Does God make fake histories in the rocks and in our genes and even in the heavens to try to trick us into thinking the universe is billions of years old and life evolved, or is God a God of truth and His creation simply carries in it the record of what it was and has become?”

Well said.

DNA evidence is mythology? Starlight and the proven vast distances of space (traveled by the Hubble telescope) is science fiction? Huh?

All humans share a 99.9% DNA similarity. Humans always give birth to humans and chimps always give birth to chimps – no exceptions. That is real science. The latest findings on DNA show about a 96% similarity with chimps and humans, not the 97-98% originally mentioned.

Chimps and gorillas have no capacity for human languages. None whatsoever. Why not? Why are they so different? EVOLUTION! Why are they so similar? EVOLUTION! Why are people so deceived? EVOLUTION!

Anonymous

I believe that God set up the Bible to be authoritative, not a science textbook. Flexibility in the language gives meaning to primitive culture and also freedom for a more scientific based society. The people of 1000 years ago had little ability to parse the meanings of words. The fact that they believed in a literal 6 day creation and I do not makes no difference to the salvific text. The Bible has accomplished its purpose. I am a believer and so are they. And one day we will know far more clearly in heaven. There will be YE and theistic evolutionists in heaven, in spite of AIG.

The problem is not God, but humankind’s assumptions about God and about the Bible.

First, there is the assumption that because God is sovereign, everything that happens is his will, also known as strict Calvinism, predestinarionism, etc. I only present two contras to that here, but there are many: (1) Jesus said we should pray that God’s Will will be done on earth as it is in Heaven; a strange prayer if it always is and always has been. (2) Sovereignty is the capability to do what you chose to do within the power you have; God’s sovereignty is tempered by his love, mercy, justice, etc., the other characteristics we ascribe to God. Strong predestination makes for a god that is unloving, unmerciful and unjust.

Second, many people assume the Bible was dictated by God in the form in which we have it (some even to say the KJV is the “original Bible”!!!). But what we have is truth in the language and understanding of the people of the time, after much oral passing down, rendering into writing beginning in during the Babylonian exile, in early Hebrew, with the NT spoken in Aramaic and written in Greek, then copied repeatedly with opportunity for additions and deletions and copy errors. Then we have translations by people with social and political pressures and biases (e.g., KJV to support divine right of kings, hierarchy, patriarchy, etc.). And we have languages that have different ways of dealing with concepts. For example, when the Greek says the work we translate as “men”, in can mean men and women, since plurals of mixed groups use the male in many languages, including Greek and Latin, but in English we rarely and normally do not do so. (e.g.., a man and woman together — we would not say there were two men, because English speakers would be misled, but Romance language speakers would understand the ambiguity. A sister and brother in Spanish are called dos hermanos, and hermano is the word for brother.)

The Bible has a higher form of truth that literal. It is true in what it teaches us about man’s developing understanding of the nature of God and his love for human beings. That he is the creator (mechanism not really specified). The language is not scientific, nor could modern concepts have been understood by the people of the time, which would have led to rejection of the Bible as fantasy.

To me, the most important things about the creation stories in Genesis are that (1) God created; (2) everything the neighbors of the Israelites worshiped was created by the God of the Israelites; (3) God is actively interested in human affairs. The balance of the OT — (4) the extreme love of God for humans exhibited in the crucifixion was predicted 500 years before the birth of Jesus; (5) the inability of humans to live in accord with the behavioral limitations asked of them by God.

That is a sufficient understanding of the OT for me. To put more into it than that is to trust the human chain of oral transmission, writing in exile, and copying over and over for hundreds of years. So YES, I believe the Bible and I believe the Bible is true, but not that it is an accurate literal history.

I believe that I was created, and I personally accept a young earth theory and not because I was indoctrinated, one way or the other. I think that how we develop a causality about facts depends upon our belief system and our suppositions/presuppositions.

I think that evidence from science affirms the Biblical record, though I do not have all of the answers, nor have I worked out all of those causalities. I do find that it is much easier for me to accept and see the causality (explanations) in terms of creation, and I think that both approaches to origins require faith in something. You do have to trust in evolutionary process in order to accept evolution, just like a person must trust in a creation causality. I see the empirical evidence coming together nicely in most cases through intelligent design, though I am very comfortable with the ambiguity that faith in God requires sometimes. Some things affirm creation for me quite clearly in a beautiful way (like the handedness/chirality of the universe). Other things I cannot explain. But I am not that driven by the discussion at this point in my life, either.

And that isn’t a solicitation for debate to which I do not have time to commit presently.

I do think that reasonable people and scientists can believe in creationism without committing intellectual suicide, and it is a matter of the causality you presuppose by faith either way. One has faith in the appearance of the natural world and one has faith in the causality offered in the Bible. And creation science is not a part of essential doctrine in Christianity. Belief, one way or the other, does not disqualify you as a Believer or as a reasonable or rational person. We all have to remember to affirm that for one another in the Body of Christ.

Not to mention that the infinite became finite in the Incarnation, which is a whole ‘nother topic! (One that will never be exhausted.)

Science cannot make a blade of grass but scientists have created the first artificial cell. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2981138/Scientist-creates-first-man-made-cell.html

Genetic analysis *does* support evolution. At the moment, I am studying the evolution of the Central Nervous System. Originally, people thought that many types of CNS’s evoled but we can all trace the evolution of everything that has a CNS to one prehistoric lifeform, the ubilateri (sp?) The major genes that control the expression of proteins involved in the development of the CNS is very highly conserved across species that possess a centralized nervous system.

There are some things that speak to evolution. We all use either DNA or, rarely RNA to store the information needed to pass our information on to the next generation. This is highly conserved.

Fixing carbon from CO2 and using the energy from sunlight to split a water molecule are highly conserved. The Calvin Cycle is the way to fix Carbon.

Science isn’t fixed, however, and this is the best we know with the information we have. Scientists are eager to be wrong and to learn someting that takes us closer to the truth.

My faith, however, is fixed, it does not depend upon nor does it change with the information I have at my fingertips.

Both of these things can be true at once.

When I learn about something like most polypeptide chains fold into proteins without the need for energy I get blown away and my initial response is to glorify God for His wonderful creation.

Zeta, I already stated that I am not a YEC. I have never argued for such and I will not argue for such. And I am not attacking you as dee suggested. I am attacking the pseudoscience of evolution.

Let’s get back to chromosome #2. Chromosome #2 is a matching pair – one from mom and one from dad. Both parents would have to had fused this same chromosome to pass on a matching pair. Then that offspring needs to do the same with their partner, and so on and so on. Again, each parent passes on single 23 single chromosomes. They need to match to make the resultant 23 pair – 46 chromosomes.

For 99.9% of humanity to wind up with 46 chromosomes via this process is totally absurd. That is why I call it science fiction. No such phenomenon can be produced in any lab with mice, rats, or any other animal.

Richard,

you said…”anonymous – God is not responsible for people nit studying the original languages to find out out all of the possible meanings. People need to study – not just read – God’s word. Reading English only translations is not a serious way to study the bible.”

You miss the point, it’s not a matter of “responsibility for not studying”, it’s a matter of God knowing they would misunderstand his words and believe something which is not true…it is not limited or even primarily about people studying ancient texts either, but about the primary receiver’s of God’s word….just like today, with full contextual understanding, you still can’t get 10 people to view anything identically…let alone thousands!

The point is the if God is Holy and pure…He cannot lie or deceive, while you or I may not be responsible if someone misunderstands our words…God surely IS responsible for someone’s deception if He knows in advance that they will misunderstand and yet uses the same verbiage anyway, that is intentional deception.

Cindy,

Your statement that “I believe that I was created, and I personally accept a young earth theory and not because I was indoctrinated, one way or the other. I think that how we develop a causality about facts depends upon our belief system and our suppositions/presuppositions.”

I need your help .. could you put into simpler language the phrase “develop a causality about facts”…I don’t want to misunderstand what you are saying…thanks

Secondly, I find that paragraph to be a bit self-contradictory. In the first sentence you state that your beliefs are NOT the result of indoctrination…then later in the paragraph you say that how we think about facts is a result of our belief system….isn’t that indoctrination?

When you say that “I think that evidence from science affirms the Biblical record”. What is that based on? Later on you profess belief in special creation and a young earth… neither of which is taught or supported by any recognized scientific organizations or published scientists in those respective fields of study.

anonymous to Richard:
You miss the point, it’s not a matter of “responsibility for not studying”, it’s a matter of God knowing they would misunderstand his words and believe something which is not true…it is not limited or even primarily about people studying ancient texts either, but about the primary receiver’s of God’s word….just like today, with full contextual understanding, you still can’t get 10 people to view anything identically…let alone thousands!

The point is the if God is Holy and pure…He cannot lie or deceive, while you or I may not be responsible if someone misunderstands our words…God surely IS responsible for someone’s deception if He knows in advance that they will misunderstand and yet uses the same verbiage anyway, that is intentional deception.

If you are born of the Spirit and become a new creation in Christ, the Holy Spirit opens up your understanding. Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 2 telling us that we have not received the spirit that is of man but the Spirit of God that we might know those things freely given to us by God. When the man who does not have spiritual understanding (is not regenerate in Christ), spiritual things are foolishness because he doesn’t have spiritual discernment that is imparted by the Spirit.

So when we read the word, it is not just the word or the translation alone, with or without textual criticism. Reading of the Word of God, for the Christian, happens in concert with the illumination of the text by the Holy Spirit. You read those things with the mind of Christ. So the understanding of the text is not entirely dependent on the letter of the law of the text, but the Spirit imparts understanding and shares the mind of Christ with the Christian as they read.

Bible study is important, and people can go as deep as they want or can when it comes to the original languages, and now there are so many free tools that make much of what I learned in Seminary so easy! It kinda ticks me off sometimes! Depending what the application, if you are really scrutinizing the meaning of a text, you want to try to discern deeper things about the original language which is sometimes misleading. I specifically started in seminary because I wanted to know more definitively what the text means. But bamb! Reading the original text, in some cases, actually adds more possibilities to the interpretation as opposed to narrowing down the meaning. I was very angry about this when it finally hit me, because I essentially took on the task in order to find a theophany. And there are no theophanies. Educated people and ministers may let on that the original texts clear up any ambiguity. In many cases, they add in extra problems and possibilities. To read to translate required years of discipline to develop any proficiency as well. I found that the original text made things harder, not easier. I was still dependent on translations in English. Sometimes it helps, but often, it opens up things to broader debate.

Maybe God does that so that we have no other alternative but to trust Him in faith believing that He is guiding us and revealing the truth. As Believers, we have the promise that the Spirit leads and guides us into all truth, and it is a synergy between the Spirit and the Word that brings understanding.

Cindy,

Your primary rebuttal is difficult to believe. Claiming that the Holy Spirit gives “understanding” to the words doesn’t seem very likely, since Christians seem to disagree on the words as much as, if not more, than non-believers do!

Anonymous,

Your statement that “I believe that I was created, and I personally accept a young earth theory and not because I was indoctrinated, one way or the other. I think that how we develop a causality about facts depends upon our belief system and our suppositions/presuppositions.”

I need your help .. could you put into simpler language the phrase “develop a causality about facts”…I don’t want to misunderstand what you are saying…thanks

What we believe and understand to be true flows from how we perceive reality best and what we believe to be true, before we ever get into looking at a matter (this gets at epistemology again and how we validate truth). Al Mohler may want to get out early in the day on July 1st and mow his grass, and I want to do the same thing with my yard (not that I think that he mows his own lawn). 🙂 My neighbor’s houseguest who is from a primitive tribe in Ecuador may have agreed to mow the lawn, too. He loves the lawnmower because he doesn’t have one in the jungle.

Al believes that the universe is revolving around the earth because of a Biblical argument (what he accepts as as self evident collection of truths as he understands them). Though the earth is fixed, he “knows” that the sun will change position in the sky in a predictable way, possibly because he’s read about this in Scripture in addition to observation (another self evident basic idea that doesn’t need support to observe that it always happens), as the universe revolves around him. It’s hot because we have seasons because sovereign God wanted us to have seasons to tell us stories about life, communicating truths about Himself. Al might ponder how God purifies our bodies through hard work, and how the curse is responsible for our human toil. It’s all Eve’s fault, anyway. I have to get done by 9AM because I have 12 really important things to do by 6PM.

I believe that the earth is orbiting around the a star that we call sol and that the earth is rotating, and the closer I get to the direct peak of most direct sunlight based on the earth’s position in rotation, the hotter it gets. It stays hot and may get hotter in the afternoon because I “know” the atmosphere has retained that heat throughout the day. I also know that the earth travels in in elliptical orbit, and I know that the earth is about as close to the sun in that orbit as it gets during the year. Six months from now, I know that it will be summer in the western hemisphere of the earth because the earth tilts on its axis and they will get their turn to get toasty, and I will be shoveling snow instead of mowing. I also consider that when I mow for the last time in the fall in a month and a half, I will need a sweater, so this motivates me by remembering that it will not stay this hot. I thank God how He uses creation to motivate us and to encourage us as I think about how life can sometimes be like the seasons. How wonderful and beautiful! Hey, mowing isn’t so tough when I think about more lofty things. I love Jesus and I love how he reveals himself to me in different ways like mowing in the heat. Distraction is amazing, and this was not as bad as I thought, though I’m glad I finished before 10AM.

My neighbor’s guest believes that the warrior rides over the world daily. When pleased, he rides across the sky far above us and the heat and light that falls on the earth comes from the fire generated by the dragons that carry him on his journey. On days when the warrior is displeased, there are storms in the day. When he is sullen, there are clouds and dampness. Today, he is happy, but this guest “knows” that the happier the warrior gets, the hotter it gets. He is so close to the equator, he doesn’t know anything about the change of seasons. It is always hot. I love this lawn mowing and this mower. I like the heat, and I’d mow in the late afternoon, but the mosquitoes get bad later in the day because the day gets hotter as the sky warrior gets happier. We have nothing like this in the jungle because we have just a little clearing with little grass. The goats and the llamas keep it trimmed. Why don’t these people all get llamas and goats?

We all are doing the same tasks for the same basic reasons (the grass is high), using the same style of lawn mower, and we are motivated to get the job done early because we all believe from experience that as the day progresses, it gets hotter. For Al and I, we know that summer is different, but our summer is like every day for the neighbor’s guest. Same task and same end product by the same means.

We all agree on many things except the explanation of the cause of why and how the day progresses and why it gets hotter and is especially hot in summer. We believe that these things occur and would agree on those facts. We believe them because of observation and experience. Everything’s the same. But we share a different causality because our presuppositions about the nature of the world is different. How we explain them is different, and that causal relationship (the cause and effect that I use to link different ideas together in a meaningful way that helps me to best make sense of the universe) shapes our thoughts in very different ways. It affects how we problem-solve and how we plan our choices.

Who is right? If your purpose is religion, Al will have some choice things to tell the visitor, some of which will be very similar as the things I say, but I suspect that we would say them differently. Al doesn’t want to talk to me because I’m an evil antinomian and a false teacher, most likely. If your purpose an interest involves lawn mowing, does it matter at all? The end product is the same.

Cindy,

I like your example, but our “perceptions” aside, there are real facts to be known in our universe

The reasons why or how something happens are just as much facts that can be known as are the events themselves. A person may believe that at some ultimate level the great peacock drank too much spring water and so it is raining outside, but it’s still nonsense…there is no peacock, not a shred of objective, verifiable, testable evidence that can be shown for its existence.

A person can chose to believe anything they like, but that doesn’t make the facts change or go away. You may choose to believe that the great warrior chipmunk has put his great striped cloak of invulnerability around you for the day, but I dare you to test that belief by stepping in front of a moving train!

A person can chose to believe anything they like, but that doesn’t make the facts change or go away. You may choose to believe that the great warrior chipmunk has put his great striped cloak of invulnerability around you for the day, but I dare you to test that belief by stepping in front of a moving train!

Who says I believe in a great warrior chipmunk? Who says I deny reality or empirical evidence? I don’t. I’m a coherentist. I test and validate truth. That’s why I love statistics. We can take data that we think might mean something after we’ve accumulated information about it in a systematic way. We can throw every mathematical test at it, a beautiful and inspiring discipline that God gave us to evaluate truth, something that works in concert with the objective wisdom we find in the Word of God about ethics and value and philosophy and metatphysics as well as the subjective experience and witness of the Holy Spirit that guides me into all truth and gives me discernment that I might know truth from error. And we can find truth. Truth. That truth might be a banal truth or a natural law or a spiritual truth or a piece of scientific evidence.

Here’s an example. I love Michael Persinger. He’s a PhD at Laretan (sp?) University in Ontario. He invented a thing called the God helmet and has done all kinds of experimentation to alter levels and states of consciousness with magnets that are manipulated around the head. He can reproduce the felt sense of God and religious experience. People with very active temporal lobes who have what he calls a “spiritual personality” (that has some things in common with TLE, actually) will have very predictable behaviors such as speaking in tongues or channeling when the brain is stimulated in a particular way.

Michael Persinger believes he’s proven that God doesn’t exist and that all religious experiences are meaningless and invented, a musing of the brain. He also believes that because of the close proximity of certain brain structures that the reason behind the common elements that people describe as UFO extra terrestrial experiences are really a very slow brainwave pattern that allows the person to have a felt sense, Right brain experience of the homonculus, the neurons in the brain on the motor strip that are devoted to certain parts of the body.

In physiology lectures, they draw a picture of a distorted body on the brain on top of the motor strip. He has induced these experiences in his lab and believes that people have them in response to changed in geomagnetic stress from the earth that causes us to shift out of a resting state of a summation of 7 Htz into a slower one or altered one, triggering these events. There also seems to be increased cult activity at that time (like the Toronto Blessing!).

He believes he’s proven that there is not God. I believe he’s mapped the mechanisms about how God connects with us and how we interact with God and our environment in ways that may seem elusive. In my eyes, because of my causality, I see reasons to glorify God. (I will admit though, that most Christians feel intimidated by his information and may even call it evil.) He’s searching to understand the marvelous and mysterious nature of being, just like all of us. And I am not in the least bit threatened by his different causality. I am at rest in mine.

I even paid over $100 for his book at the time because I loved his lectures and found them fascinating. It’s come down in price since.

http://www.amazon.com/Neuropsychological-Bases-Beliefs-Michael-Persinger/dp/0275926486/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315096178&sr=1-1

He talks about evolution on almost every page as he offers reasons for the facts he presents. And where he sees evolution, I see the Ancient of Days and remarkable meaning and purpose because I was created fearfully and wonderfully.

Dee,

Two thoughts, sure it’s “best selling” but why…is it because it is such a wonderful work of literature that people can’t stop reading it…or is it because organizations buy and print them by the millions to be used in missionary activities, left in hotel rooms, to fill church pews, prisons, etc.?

To my second point, I wasn’t claiming to be able to write a better work of literature, per se, but rather that I could certainly write it in such a way that none of the theological essentials are left out and yet still not imply, or say anything that could be construed as contradicting current science. In fact, I could probably correct some of the early beliefs in the process.

Might be duller reading (is that possible?), but that’s not the point 🙂

Dee,

I think it is an “A” issue, how can you make sense of the rest of scripture (in particular the need for redemption), if you relegate the genesis creation account to allegory?

Also, on what basis do you believe that Genesis account was written more for later generations where we have a more refined sense of understanding and parsing works of literature then the Jews of Abraham’s time? I would think that, if for anyone, those works were written to be taken at face value. Is there any evidence that the early Jews took that story any other way?

Hmmm — “Richard” took up right where “NBTT” left off. Perhaps we should discuss cloning…

Dee,

I am going to take you up on that challenge and try to rewrite a few chapters of Genesis…maybe God will hire me as His ghost writer for the next book.

Arce provides declarative statements about the origins of the Bible, but readers should be aware that there is actually no evidence for what he claims as fact. They are theories held by some theologians, mostly those with a low view of the reliability of Scripture (which Arce himself demonstrates). There are many scholars who affirm, without reservation, that “all Scripture is God-breathed” and “Your word is truth” and “I trust in Your Word”.

Likewise, readers should be aware that both OE and YE views present difficulties and issues that ought to be carefully considered. Certainly, YE claims, particularly those which run counter to generally accepted scientific principles or concensus, ought to be criticized and scrutinized. Likewise, OE, and especially TE, presents serious difficulties that must be considered and addressed as well.

Mohler’s article that inspired this post also deserves careful consideration, and the theological concerns raised there should not be dismissed without attempt to grapple with them in an intelligent and thoughtful fashion.

Some folks are just as rigid and dogmatic in their liberalism or in their evolutionism as are the so-called fundamentalists.

Genesis is a mixture of literal and non literal.

Enough is ENOUGH!

Art and “So What” and I suspect “Nothing but the truth”,

While I haven’t posted in quite a while, I have ben following and I take offense to your posts. I am an atheist, I have posted on the board for quite some time, I rarely agree with Dee or Deb (or numo or Zeta or Cinty or Arce for that matter) but I have NEVER had cause to accuse any of them of hypocrisy or cowardice.

Yes sometimes they do have to stick certain posters in the corner, but it is NEVER for what they say…it is ONLY for the rude, disrespectful, and argumentative what that they say it.

This is one of the best boards it has ever been my pleasure to post on, the discussions are intelligent, open minded, and where an agreement cannot be had, those here are always respectful of the other person’s right to their opinions.

On the other hand, you have been childish, arrogant, intolerant, rude, abusive, shallow and narrow minded…I for one have no problem with them not only blocking your posts but confining you to the nearest fiery pit they can find.

Karl (Atheist and friend of the blog)

Hi Karl!

Well said 🙂

Zeta

Karl – so nice to see you here!!! [:waves from the bleachers:]

On the lighter side:

Grandma to Annie: “You’re my little baby”

Annie: “I am NOT a baby!”

Grandma: “Ok, then you are my sweetie pie.”

Annie: “Iam NOT a pie!”

Grandpa: “Now THAT is a literal interpretation …”

Zeta

Junkster,

Ok – that makes sense. And I do agree. Indeed, even though a good bit of the time YEC’s I talk to see my perspective as only slightly better than that of the Devil Himself, I really do try to listen to their theological concerns and make sure I am not overlooking something legitimate and important in my attempts to deal with these issues. As you say, they are not trivial.

And it does point out a common tendency we all have: to paint those we have major conflicts with as Makivellian. Or worse, even as pure evil. Rarely is that the true state of affairs, and it is a challenge to our goal of humility, love and grace for us to listen to and act on those legitimate complaints and concerns that come to us from those we would tend to dismiss as evil or wrong.

Zeta

So, you’ve examined Copernicus’ and Newton’s mathematics? You’ve studied the data from NASA satellites and know from your own investigations that the earth must, in fact, be moving relative to the sun, and not the other way ’round?

If not, then allow me to point out that yours is as much a faith position as is the position of the biblicists you are lampooning. You don’t know that heliocentricity is true; you’ve taken your teachers’ words for it. You are a True Believer, just like they are.

I’m just now reading Pearcy and Thaxton’s “The Soul of Science,” and learning that Copernicus did not have sound grounds for claiming that the earth rotated around the sun. His primary evidence was merely that the mathematics was marginally simpler; he only had to calculate 30-odd epicycles to explain the motion of the planets instead of the 80-odd that terracentric math required. In fact, Copernicus’ motivation was his faith in neo-Platonism, which held that the Sun was the proper center of the universe because it was more noble than the earth. Until Newton came along and provided gravity to explain the relationship between heavenly bodies, nearly everybody who believed Copernicus was, like him, a neo-Platonist.

Even today, the difference between heliocentric and terracentric models of the solar system is small, and hardly anybody you know has actually examined the math. So perhaps you should take it easy on the derision toward some who hold scripture in higher regard than you (or at least imagine that they do.) You might resemble them more than you know.

Freedom,

That’s pretty much it. You got it.

There really is physical evidence that the earth rotates around the sun. Among other things, you’ve probably seen Foucault’s pendulum knocking over pegs in a circle, proving that the earth is not stationary; it rotates. That doesn’t prove heliocentrism, but it’s a start.

But if you ask most folks what evidence there is that the earth revolves around the sun, you’re most likely to get a vacant stare; most folks don’t really have a clue.

Remember that the next time some fatuous atheist preens at you regarding how evidence-based his life is. Chances are that if you ask him to produce the evidence that the earth revolves around the sun, he’ll punt unless he’s an astronomy student. And if he IS an astronomer, ask him next to prove that Botswana actually exists — and if he can’t, why he believes it’s real.

We all live by faith, whether we know it or not.

pillars is a figure of speech in the bible

as far as pastors are concerned, no one has to go to church, but children are required to go to school

i do not want my kids being brainwashed in school nor in church

maybe that is why some people choose to homeschool

Oh, yes, one more thing, for dee:

(Surreptitiously sweeps the earth’s pillars under the Carpet of Neglect.)

There. Another pat argument made perfect. How dare you ruin a perfectly good jibe?

🙂

Junkster
Could you explain your perspective on the Bible as either authoritative or infallible or literal or any combination thereof? How does one determine if something is a metaphor or literal. For example-will there be a huge pearl on a literal gate in heaven as is stated in Revelation?

I believe the Bible is authoritative, infallible, and inerrant in the original autographs (and that what we have today is a very close approximation of those autographs, with no major doctrine or historical or scientific fact being different in what we have today from those originals.)

The Bible is literal where it is literal, metaphorical where it is metaphorical, poetry where it is poetry, etc. A wide variety of styles and literary forms were used. Sometimes it’s not easy to tell how “literally” something should be taken, but even then there can be other levels of truth beyond the literal that are spiritually discerned. The Bible is never wrong, but our understanding of it often is.

I also believe, like you, that it’s entirely possible that the writers of the Bible may have misunderstood something about the nature of their world and written accordingly, but God so inspired their exact words so that they could have a breadth of meaning that allowed them to be accurate in spite of the misconceptions of the human author. In fact, this is pretty much guaranteed to be the case in even the simplest of the Bible’s statements, as no human fully understands anything as God understands it.

I don’t know if the description of the gate in heaven is literal or not. I tend to think that most of the descriptions of both heaven and hell in the Bible are metaphorical in some sense, as they describe things outside our realm of physical experience.

that was my point exactly

we today even use many expressions like the sun setting – but when the bible uses such expressions – people hop all over it to claim the bible is wrong or unscientific

some people have an obvious agenda when they start picking apart the bible like that – intellectually dishonest

Dee,
I am certain you read Mohler’s statements carefully, and you have probably read much more on this topic than I have, at least within the last 10-12 years.

I am questioning neither your conclusions nor your commitment to any aspect of the essentials of the faith. You have every right to follow your own conscience and reasoning to the conclusions that seem best to you in your interpretation of Genesis (or any other part of Scripture, for that matter). YE, OE, and/or TE is definitely not an “A” issue.

I don’t have a problem with questioning the scientific basis of YE views, and if those most knowledgeable of the science say there are serious concerns with scientific theories put for by YE creationists, then those concerns should be taken seriously and not dismissed outright as merely a capitulation to or compromise with unbelievers.

If someone believes that the most proper understanding of Genesis teaches a YE creation, I think it would be more humble and intellectually honest of them to say they do not know or understand why the evidence put forth by modern science does not match up with their understanding of the Bible, and that perhaps their understanding of the Bible is wrong or perhaps science doesn’t have it all figured out yet.

I fully understand how distasteful and annoying you can find it for YEers like Ham to arrogantly stand against the claims of modern science and put forth alternative theories that they are unwilling to subject to the criticism of the scientific community.

I also understand that it is offensive to you for someone to claim or imply that your view is incompatible with the gospel or approaches a denial of the atonement. That is also hubris on their part, as they have placed their own interpretation of certain passages of Scripture at the level of salvific doctrine. You have every right to take exception to it.

All that said, however, there are genuine potential theological implications to OE views, and particularly to TE. Mohler captured the essence of those concerns in an intelligent and coherent manner. If a person wishes to demonstrate why his concerns can be addressed by putting forth cogent contrary arguments, more power to them. But what I see here, and in most of your responses to YE views, is a minimizing of those concerns, without actually engaging them.

It’s no better to assert that science proves YEers wrong without coming to grips with the theological issues at stake (especially the connection of the fall and redemption) than it is for YEers to assert that their views are scientifically accurate without coming to grips with the conclusions of modern science.

Mark 7:10 cites Moses as saying (not writing, and by the way not God saying, which is what the text in the Pentateuch says!) “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'”

Mark 10:3-5 cites Moses as giving or writing a law, not a book: “‘What did Moses command you?’ he replied. They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’ ‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied.”

Matthew 19:8 does not cite Moses as writing: Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.”

Mark 12:26: This is the only passage that refers to Moses and a book. That was the then common name of the Pentateuch and was how his listeners would have understood to what he referred them; it does not say that Moses wrote it. “Now about the dead rising–have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?”

John 5:46-47: This is the only passage that refers to Moses writing something. “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

I think it is an overreach to say that Jesus’ remarks, later reported second or third hand, prove that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, first of all, and second, prove that, if Moses wrote it, what was extant was not reconstructed during the Babylonian exile from memory of the scribes, because of the previous destruction of the scrolls.

“Even today, the difference between heliocentric and terracentric models of the solar system is small, and hardly anybody you know has actually examined the math.”

The problem comes up when those of us who have looked deeper into these area get attacked by people who are quoting KH talking points to us without any understnding of what they are talking about. And saying we must be wrong because their talking point say so.

As to “difference between heliocentric and terracentric models of the solar system is small”. Well yes but only if you’re talking in respect to our galaxy.

Aircraft carriers and sport bass boats are similar in size. Well I guess they are relative to the size of the Atlantic ocean but certainly not when compared to each other.

Thanks, Arce, for demonstrating that it requres significant mental gymnastics to conclude that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch. And for clarifying your own lack of trust in the reliability of the NT as well.

@ Junkster and Arce: I think you gents are not as far apart on things regarding the ancient texts that we know as Scripture than you might believe…

As someone who is leaning more and more toward Arce’s overall view on this (including the authorship of the Pentateuch via study of word usage and other aspects of actual, extant manuscripts), I am by no means assuming that errors and interpolations (etc.) dilute the content.

But I’ll let you fellas sort that one out. 😉

Does it really matter if Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible or not? I just want to know if it was inspired by the Holy Spirit and if these writings were meant to be Holy Scripture.

Where does the Bible specifically say that Moses wrote the first 5 books?

Dee,
It’s possible that your negative personal experience with ill-mannered YEers as you tried to conduct a class on this topic has left a sour taste in your mouth. Quite understandable. But if you mock someone’s positions with a reductio ad absurdum, as with this post, and ignore the essense of the article which inspired your lampoon, you haevn’t seriously engaged the issues raised in the article. What you’ve written in the past does not negate the importance of addressing the issues raised in the article at hand.

I am no fan of Mohler personally, nor am I defending his positions. But this particular article was well written, logical, coherent, and intelligent. I just feel the arguments therein deserve to be addressed on their own merits, not pushed aside as if irrelevant or ignorant.

If you know of resources that address the theological concerns raised in an irenic, respectful, and non-dismissive manner, it would be good to point your readers to them so they can grapple with them in an intelligent manner and not in a reactionary one.

JM,
True. But when something is attributed to and generally accepted as having been written by a particlar individual, when pulling specific quotes out of it, the tacit assumption is that the author wrote the whole. If I said, “Shakespeare wrote, ‘To be or not to be'”, you can claim with reasonable confidence that I believe Shakespeare wrote all of Hamlet. And if I said, “Shakespeare wrote, ‘All you need is love, love'” you can be reasonably certain I don’t know the difference between Shakespeare and John Lennon, and that my words are not worthy of trust.

And we all really believe that George Washington, as a lad, said “I cannot tell a lie.”

Junkster,

Along those same lines, the first book of Genesis gives a theistic evolution perspective some problems. Please note that I have not read anything by Ken Ham in almost 20 years, and I was not overwhelmingly impressed by him. By the time he came along, I had already gone through these arguments and done my reading on this subject. This is something that dawned on me when I was about ten years old when I was shown that evolution clip from Walt Disney’s Fantasia.

Plants, herbs, and trees were the first organisms created and were said to be functioning, yielding fruit and seed, so they were going through their life cycles. Plant cycles as we know them are dependent upon sunlight to produce energy and function and grow, and some are dependent upon seasons and rain cycles, too, and this is presuming that their cycles have not adapted themselves over time to environmental changes. It seems reasonable to assume that those plants were distributed over the whole earth rather than just in the garden, doesn’t it?

Houston, we have a problem. The cycle of day and night, the sun and moon, the seasons, etc. are said to have been established after God created plant life.

So if plants evolved over millions of billions of years, how would light with no cycles and no planetary movement and perhaps no planet itself sustain life for such a tremendous length of time when plant life as we know it today is highly dependent on all of these influences?

You could say that God just sustained that life over that course of aeons, but if He had the where with all to do it, why could He not just make everything in a single, 24 hour day. If He is omnipotent, and unlimited, this wouldn’t be a big stretch. The single, 24 hour day makes more sense and requires less explaining and searching for a reasonable solution.

So did God get it wrong? It depends what your presuppositions about origins are and why you believe them.

If you believe that a YE Creation is impossible or unscientific, or that God is somehow limited by the nature of the very thing He created, you’re pushed to confront the issue of whether or not Scripture is a God-breathed message to mankind which men wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, something a sovereign God would have seen to do sufficiently.

We are told that Scripture is sufficient for doctrine, etc. If someone got the order mixed up, or if God didn’t watch over His Word to perform it, then God is not really completely sovereign, He can’t perform His Word or didn’t, and the Word isn’t sufficient for doctrine like we are told. If those Scriptures and principles are flawed, then what else is? That means God started lying to us on the first page of the book which means His character is not one of faithfulness, and those Scriptures are brought into question. The book then does become a kind of religious fiction.

The order of creation in Genesis forces the choice, and I tend to think that God put this in there because He wants our faith and is jealous for it. Without faith, the Book of Hebrews tells us that it is impossible to please him, and we cannot be translated into the Kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

If you prefer creation as your presupposition, the Genesis order is not scandalous. Jesus said that he was the scandalon, a part of a trap that is used to catch animals. What if He wrote all of that into the mix through a clever plan to draw us to a deeper place of faith in Him? We are first drawn and wooed to repentance by His kindness, and by the time we get around to thinking more deeply about the nature of origins, he has yet another scandalon ready for us so that we have to put our trust in Him because He is so jealous of our love and trust.

I always go back to Occam’s Razor, and the easiest and most obvious explanation is usually true. That’s why I start with the presuppositions because you cannot escape them. Textual critics that followed after Bultmann and the like can challenge the reliability of the authorship of the Book. But what does that say of God’s character? If Moses and the apostles claimed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, then can we trust anything they wrote? If Jesus claimed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, then what does that say of His knowledge? If Moses didn’t write it, then either Jesus is not an all knowing God, or He is lying about it. It’s the same thing with the order of creation itself. If God got it wrong and couldn’t deliver and watch over the Word to perform it and give us the right message, then He’s a pretty limited God. If He used an evolutionary process to create the earth over aeons, and He is all powerful, He lied to us. In both examples, God’s power and character are weakened.

That doesn’t mean that if you’re still working that out in fear and trembling that you’re not a Believer, and Paul didn’t say “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and in YEC and you will be saved.” I don’t know how to get around all that from an old earth theory and still remain a Christian. If the text is flawed, one way or another, and this is done over a presupposition of evolutionary process, I have no idea of how to reckon that. But I never had to get around it because I never found the argument compelling.

PhilWynk: “So, you’ve examined Copernicus’ and Newton’s mathematics? You’ve studied the data from NASA satellites and know from your own investigations that the earth must, in fact, be moving relative to the sun, and not the other way ’round?”

Why Yes Phil, I have. Not only have I studied it, I have debated several ‘scientific geocentrists’ of the Catholic persuasion off and on for over 4 years now and covered just about every idiotic objection they can come up with. And I can tell you, and will tell you in a rather clear way later in this post, that the claims you make in this post are both ridiculous and hogwash.

PhilWynk: “If not, then allow me to point out that yours is as much a faith position as is the position of the biblicists you are lampooning.”

That is ridiculous. I could fill to the brim this post with reasons why, but let me start with a few that are rather simple to follow:

1) When observing the stars over the course of the year, they move back and forth. The closer ones appear move back and forth against the backdrop of the more distant star, and they all move back and forth and amount proportional to their distance from the Earth. There are two possible explanations for this movement (called parallax). The first is that the Earth orbits the sun,and the oscillation and movement we see is due to that motion as viewed from afar. The second is that the entire universe rotating about the Earth wobbles back and forth exactly in sync with the Earth’s year. Which if these do you think is the more likely?

2) When the moon orbits the Earth, it pulls on the Earth and the Earth/Moon system actually orbits each other around a point about 3000 miles from the center of the Earth called the Barycenter. This wobble of the Earth that is exactly in sync with the lunar orbital period is observable when watching the nearer planets and asteroids, and in the doppler shifts of signals from probes sent to the nearer planets. It also happens to correspond in magnitude with the mass ratio of the Earth/Moon system. Now once again we have two explanations A) the Earth/Moon system is in orbit about each other or (again) B) there is yet another systematic wobble in the entire universe as it rotates about the Earth That just happens to match the Lunar orbital period.

And guess which one of A or B is the more likely?

3) The tides which the moon induces on the Earth actually induce drag on the Earth which change the Earths rotational velocity over the course of the month. This change can and has been modelled AND MEASURED. How you might ask? There are extremely distant objects called Quasars that are so far away (billions of light years) that they any motion of their own is essentially unmeasurable. They are the closest thing to a fixed point in the sky that exists. There is also an ultra-precise why to measure objects positions in the sky called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) using radio telescopes all across the entire Earth. Using VLBI, we can actually measure small changes in the apparent position of there quasars that correspond almost perfectly with the modeled drag induced by the sloshing oceans in the tides.

Now once again we have two explanations. A) the Earth is rotating freely and the moons influence on the tides is doing what know physics expects it to do and transferring momentum from them to the EArth and back inducing changes in rotational velocity or (again) B) There is yet ANOTHER wobble in the entire universe that is causing quasars billions of light years away to accelerate and decelerate over the course of the lunar month. By the way, these accelerations would be so severe that the stars in the galaxy that harbors the quasar would be ripped to shreds. But why bother with such realities – eh?

PhilWynk:” You don’t know that heliocentricity is true; you’ve taken your teachers’ words for it.”

Well, I haven’t. I’ve studied it rather extensively. And frankly, even if I hadn’t a high school knowledge of Physics could generate more that 10 basic reasons why Geocentrism is idiotic! Further I have seen the voyager photo taken of the entire solar system from beyond Neptunes orbit – have you? Probably not. You are talking completely out of ignorance Phil. But you have no excuse now, what I’ve said you don’t understand feel free to ask. But a Heliocentric Solar system is NOT a matter of faith. It is a matter of science.

PhilWynk: “You are a True Believer, just like they are.”

No Phil. One can’t go out and verify every single fact and concept in the universe to be sure. But the issue of whether the sun orbits the Earth or the Earth orbits the sun does not take a rocket scientist to figure out. Not in our day and age.

PhilWynk: “I’m just now reading Pearcy and Thaxton’s “The Soul of Science,”

Oh boy – I’m sure that makes you an expert now. (Shudder)

PhilWynk: ” … and learning that Copernicus did not have sound grounds for claiming that the earth rotated around the sun.”

How about that. You are right. But we don’t credit Copernicus with discovering this fact, merely credit him for exploring and developing the concept. But GALILEO DID have evidence, and some of the religious folk refused to even look at his evidence lest the be ‘deceived by Satan’.

PhilWynk:” His primary evidence was merely that the mathematics was marginally simpler; he only had to calculate 30-odd epicycles to explain the motion of the planets instead of the 80-odd that terracentric math required. In fact, Copernicus’ motivation was his faith in neo-Platonism, which held that the Sun was the proper center of the universe because it was more noble than the earth.”

But he was still right about the fact the Earth and other planets orbit the sun, whether he had evidence to support it or not. And again, it was GALILEO who OBSERVED the phases of the inner planets Mercury and Venus and the moons of Jupiter that is credited with discovering and showing that the Earth orbited the Sun, not Copernicus.

PhilWynk:” Until Newton came along and provided gravity to explain the relationship between heavenly bodies, nearly everybody who believed Copernicus was, like him, a neo-Platonist.”

No Phil, IT WAS GALILEO. And it wasn’t even Newton who showed how gravity could simplify the issues modeling the planetary orbits that induced the ugly epicycles but rather Kepler, realizing that an ellipse solved all the problems. And of course, you had yet more religious clones of yourself ready to slam Kepler because he proposed that God would use the ‘imperfect’ ellipse instead of the ‘perfect’ circle to define the planetary orbits. When oh when will you folks LEARN from history, and LEARN about science enough to at least say something that actually makes sense!!!! ARGH!!!!

PhilWynk: “Even today, the difference between heliocentric and terracentric models of the solar system is small,”

THAT IS BULL. Sorry to be crude, but you are talking about that which you clearly know NOTHING. And in the process deceiving and misleading others. Don’t rant about theological matters using ideas from fields you are completely ignorant of. You do the Devils work!!!

PhilWynk: “and hardly anybody you know has actually examined the math.”

Again you speak out of the orafice best used for eliminating waste!!! She knows all sorts of people that have examined not only the math, the the astronomical observations on which this conclusion is based. I am one of them!!!!

PhilWynk:” So perhaps you should take it easy on the derision toward some who hold scripture in higher regard than you (or at least imagine that they do.) You might resemble them more than you know.”

Hardly. People like Al Mohler are only marginally better than you. HE does take the word of incompetent men like Ken Ham because he doesn’t know any better, and he is condemning souls to Hell as a result! both with his words by labeling folks that are not YEC substandard Christians at best, and by his deeds. But lending support to the trash pseudo-science put out by the likes of AIG and ICR, he sets up every person who bothers to look at what the real evidence is to fall from grace and the faith. THERE IS NO SCIENCE SUPPORTING A 6000 year old Earth. If someone takes that stance – they need to recognize every bit of physical evidence stands against it. Telling young people and ignorant moms and dads that there is science which supports that position is a lie. Plain and simple. It is one thing to take a position of faith that is against the evidence. It is another thing to lie to people and tell them you have some kind of proof of that position when you don’t!

Zeta

Marty i’m not condoning anything, the wars you are trying to create by airing the laundry online is unacceptable, i’m not taking sides, both parties are wrong if you ask me, but you are the antagonist

grow up!

Dan

Dee,

I know of no reputable scientists who say that a literal interpretation of Genesis and our current scientific knowledge is not in conflict. If you know of one, reference please.

Those who claim there is no conflict do so by turning Genesis into allegory or “interpreting” Genesis in a manner that seems to be based less on literary guidelines than it does to intentionally avoid the conflict in the first place.

Of course, there are those who believe there is no conflict because they reject out of hand, what science has to say and assume, a priori, the correctness of scripture.

JM,

Sorry that last post was for you too!

Dee,

But as many theologians would point out, the word day, when used in conjunction with a numeral (1st day, etc) and/or a reference to day/night refers to a 24 hour period, the passages in Genesis come with both. In addition Exodus 20:10 lends credence to a 24 hour days, since it is the justification for the Sabbath.

“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.”

Anon – that is a ‘rule’ invented to provide ‘proof’ 6/6000. It is not some historical rule of Hebrew translation. It is just an attempt to derive a rule based on the limited Hebrew we have in scripture. And even as an observation it is flawed.

Consider this except from http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/sixdays.html

‘”Let’s look at some notable exceptions to this “rule,” just using the first day as an example. The number used for “first day” is the Hebrew word echad,12 which means “one.” The first exception to the “rule” is found in Genesis 29:20, where echad yom refers to a period of seven years that Jacob served Laban to obtain Rachel.13

In the book of 1 Samuel, David says that he “will perish one day [echad yom] by the hand of Saul.”14 Obviously, David was not expecting to die in exactly 24 hours. In fact, David was never killed by Saul, but died of old age many decades later.’

There is no such ‘rule’ Anon. It’s yet another fictional half-truth invented by the YE leaders to prop up a failed interpretive paradigm.

Zeta

Zeta,

That is exactly what I am implying. Yes, it does imply that God is lying (or that God either doesn’t exist or that He had nothing to do with the Bible and this is just the result of man’s story-telling…far more likely)

Here’s a question for you…can God even use literary devices like metaphor or allegory. Aren’t they all, under the covers, still either incorrect facts or exaggerations, used to make a point?

Can a being who is supposedly holy…the epitome of truth use falsehoods to make a point? Do you think Him incapable of making a point directly? Before someone points out that Jesus used metaphor and allegory, remember that then you are assuming a priori that Jesus was God and are trying to derive traits of God from His actions instead of starting with a trait and seeing if He measures up.

I assume by 6/6000 you are referring to the NT reference of a day is as 1000 years…the problem with that reference is that it actually shows that the word day was thought of as 24 hours in that context or the analogy wouldn’t make any sense at all…and if you continue with that verse it says 1000 years is as a day … so it effectively cancels itself out. To use it as substantiating the idea of long days in Genesis is untenable.

What does “Basically in the correct order” mean anyway…God got it ALMOST right? Wrong is wrong…this isn’t new math where you get an “A” for showing your work even though the answer is wrong. 🙂

Lastly, saying that “I BY FAITH choose to simply accept Genesis is correct and leave on the shelf the implications of the physical evidence”

It may be honest, and call it whatever else you like, it is still willfully ignoring or closing your eyes to something simply because you don’t want your beliefs to be challenged. In my world, and I mean no personal offense by this, but that’s just the basis of ignorance. I believe what I want to believe and refuse to examine the facts and their implications because they might upset my apple cart.

JM is a TROLL.

Dee,

I hope this isn’t an abuse of the blog, but I thought it might be fun to engage with someone on a practical level not always on an ethereal, philosophical level! I need help from someone with basic electrical circuit understanding to help me with the fuse box on my car which isn’t functioning properly.

Any takers, plenty of photos, old car, some fun (I hope)!

email me and I’ll give u a phone #

So, this troll is a shape-shifter eh? Who will he be next – Capn’ Kirk, Spock? Does he drive a Klingon Bird of Prey that can fire while cloaked?!? Say it isn’t true!

Where is that neutron trail when you need it …

Zeta

221 (arguments) comments on one post about YE creationism.

221 comments arguing points in the first few chapters of the first book of the Bible, thousands of years before Jesus ever shows up.

Thank you, Ken Ham, for creating yet another idol to be an obstacle in our relationship with Jesus, our relationships with others, our understanding of God, and our witness to the world.

Ok, I have a dumb question from a non scientific type about this topic.

If God created Adam and Eve as fully grown adults who could do adult things like tend the garden, have sex, etc then surely He has the same power to create the world looking older than it is? He also created animals in their mature state and planted a garden to be tended. The trees were mature enough to have fruit on them, etc.

Is it possible?

Possible? Yes. But we then have to work with the universe as if it IS old. So what’s the point.

Zeta,

You stated that young lives hang in the balance because the theory of special creation has driven them away from Christianity because they hate to be lied to about the “facts.”

First, we do not have “facts” that prove evolution to be true or false, we have facts that we fit into the framework with which we approach the topic: our presuppositions. We know facts about things, but because we didn’t observe, reproduce, test those reproduced studies (even on a basic level), scrutinize them with statistical analysis to establish statistical significance/reliability as proof of fact, and from there reproduce trials with measurable results that disprove false theorem, all we can do is return to our faith in the presupposition to lend a causality to the facts we learn about the nature of what is and more about the nature of facts about the material world. Those facts do not establish scientific causality about the who/what/where/when/how of those facts. We read that in because of what we presuppose as a foundational, a priori truth upon which we establish other ideas.

Second, Your own view about the Bible being God’s Word and the Gospel being the power of God unto salvation demonstrates that people can believe both a degree of evolution and have faith in the Person of Jesus Christ. If it works for you, why is it that it does not work for others? You were once a young person, no? You came, at some point, to accept Christianity. It is true that some people believe or reject Christianity based on a particular issue that becomes like their own personal litmus test, but each person has their own. For those that reject the faith, it is more oft an issue that they observed a Christian or a contingent of them being abusive, defending their abusive behavior as though it were their divine right. From my reading of Bertrand Russell, he rejected Christianity because he could not get past issues concerning eschatology.

Kids don’t reject Christianity primarily because of evolution — it is a greater issue for them and it has more to do with political correctness and what Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio called “totalitarian niceness” which comes out of our post-modern culture as modernism falls away. Many more modernists reject Christianity because of special creation alone than do postmodernists.

Postmodernists reject Christianity because of how they understand the nature of truth — an issue of epistemology and presupposition. Ideas are not true because of objective fact but rather by whether a truth is believed and also meets some demands that can be described as politically correct or “be nice to other people.” The Barna group elucidated this along with studies done by people like Tim Clydesdale and others who are looking at the “mosaic” who have followed generation X and perhaps even Y. Truth becomes inextricably bound to the knower in postmodernism because belief makes a thing true.

When truth is established by the individual’s subjective belief rather than some degree of reliable, objective fact in the empirical world as a litmus test for truth, truth becomes inextricably bound to the knower. If I believe in a particular thing, for the sake of argument that smoking tobacco improves health, then my belief that it is healthy becomes on par with the studies that prove empirically that it is unhealthy. For the postmodernist, the person’s strong belief in tobacco smoking as healthy makes it true. If I am a modernist, and I start arguing the data from science only, something interesting happens. By arguing that the person who believes a thing because they want it to be true takes the argument personally because the “fact” comes from them, not objective reality. If I reject your truth, I reject you. Postmodernism says that you can’t reject anyone (they reject the law of non-contradiction). My integrity is hinged on the veracity of my belief, and the younger generations believe that it is wrong to challenge anyone’s integrity.

Clydesdale elucidated that young people prefer a god who is more like a “golden retriever,” a warm, cuddly God who is there to be loving no matter what, even at the expense of truth. What they dislike is the idea of God as the arbiter of truth — any truth, empirical or moral truth or any truth in the Bible. That is what is driving kids away from Christianity, not theories of origins. And because this generation is consumed with what other people think about them (the problems with bullying as one example), moral priorties (accepting all people no matter of their beliefs or practices/”be nice”) supersede any empirical fact or belief about it. They’re rejecting Christianity because of the nature of the standard of truth.

Lynn, one point would be that we do not need to see any contradictions with science and Genesis. Maybe God wanted a mature earth that was well seasoned. We just don’t know. His ways are far above our ways.

Another dumb question: Could the fall have possibly introduced a rapid aging of the earth since death and decay were introduced at that point?

I thought of this because of the flood which would also hasten decay and then because man lived a very long time until God had enough and limited it to 120 years

So, if we look at the creation of a mature earth with brand new ‘adults’ and mature but brand new, fruit bearing trees and the fall with a now decaying earth, flood, etc….could we have old earth as a result?

LIN: “Ok, I have a dumb question from a non scientific type about this topic.”

There aren’t any dumb questions, just dumb answers to them 😉

LIN: “If God created Adam and Eve as fully grown adults who could do adult things like tend the garden, have sex, etc then surely He has the same power to create the world looking older than it is? He also created animals in their mature state and planted a garden to be tended. The trees were mature enough to have fruit on them, etc.

Is it possible?”

Yes, it is possible. God can essentially do anything (lets avoid things like make a rock He can’t move, we don’t need that to pursue this issue).

This is actually a fairly common way of trying to resolve this issue of age in the universe.

But let me ask this question to help you realize on your own what some of the problems are.

Let us suppose God created Adam and Even as 21 year olds and they woke up in the Garden with perfect bodies and God said “Hi there Adam and Eve. I just made you and this is your home, the Garden of Eden”. That’s probably just fine. No issues there.

But suppose God made Adam and Eve and they woke up to find themselves in the Garden of Eden … with a full set of memories of their non-existent childhood, memories of their non-existent parents, their non-existent playmates, their non-existent house. Their stomachs full of the contents of their last non-existent meal, their minds thinking about the pleasant non-existent dreams they just had.

Now they wake up and God says Hi there, I’m God and I just made you, and this is your home, the Garden of Eden.

Any problems with this second scenario?

Zeta

I am confused. Why would someone think that because God may have created a mature earth…that it would be a cosmic joke on us? Which parts of scripture are we to take on faith and which parts are we not to take on faith? That is what I do not understand. I do understand trying to make sure we understand the translation is correct.

Zeta, I admit, I am not smart enough to get your point. Why would they be created with memory of things that did not happen? And why would that matter to my scenerio?

To all: I do not think this is a salvic issue.

However, I get a bit nervous when people try and declare that Genesis is all metaphorical, though. And that is what concerns me about this issue.

When one uses the parables to make this point about metaphors, I do want to point to the fact that Jesus said he used parables so some would NOT understand. :o)

Hi Cindy, thanks for your thoughtful reply:

CINDY: “You stated that young lives hang in the balance because the theory of special creation has driven them away from Christianity because they hate to be lied to about the “facts.””

Well no, that is not at all a fair reflection of what I said. I did not say anything about the theory of special creation driving them away. I said that what drives them away is being lied to about what can be scientifically supported in relation to the specific view of special creation that ascribes an age to the Earth and universe that is less than 10,000 years, typically 6000 years. There is a substantial difference between what I said and what you said above.

CINDY: “First, we do not have “facts” that prove evolution to be true or false, we have facts that we fit into the framework with which we approach the topic: our presuppositions.”

No Cindy. This IS the way AIG characterizes the situation, but it is not what the actual situation is. And that is why so many young people go to college and fall away from their faith when the learn what the actual situation is. What we have is a record of the history of life in the rocks of Earth. This record spans more than 500 million years. So life has been around for a very, very long time on this planet. The facts also are that the kinds of life that have been around have changed over time – A LOT. We don’t find dinosaur fossils in ANY layers younger than 65 million years. Period. And we don’t find any dinosaur fossils in any rocks much older than around 250 million years. We can indeed trace a fairly detailed history of life from as old as 3.5 billion years or so to the present. This is not a matter of presupposition Cindy, this is simply what the evidence shows is true.

Now, HOW and WHY this history exists is what the Theory of Evolution addresses, not IF the history exists.

CINDY: “We know facts about things, but because we didn’t observe, reproduce, test those reproduced studies (even on a basic level), scrutinize them with statistical analysis to establish statistical significance/reliability as proof of fact, and from there reproduce trials with measurable results that disprove false theorem, all we can do is return to our faith in the presupposition to lend a causality to the facts we learn about the nature of what is and more about the nature of facts about the material world. Those facts do not establish scientific causality about the who/what/where/when/how of those facts. We read that in because of what we presuppose as a foundational, a priori truth upon which we establish other ideas.”

Again, you are mistaken. First of all, evolutionary theory does make testable predictions that can be compared against the existing evidence. Indeed, one rabbit skeleton found in rocks that date to the Triassic and Evolution is done. It has NEVER been found.

Now I know there are many twists and turns in this debate. How do we know how old the rocks are etc etc. And Cindy I will be glad to discuss in as much detail as you like like as many of those twists as you would like to go down. However, in the end, as far as being able to leave open the door to a 6000 year old earth full of every kind of life we see in the fossils, there just isn’t one shred of possibility THAT is the real history of our planet – and for many different reasons and lines of evidence. But I do not mind taking the rather large amount of time it would take to back that statement up if you so desire.

CINDY: “Second, Your own view about the Bible being God’s Word and the Gospel being the power of God unto salvation demonstrates that people can believe both a degree of evolution and have faith in the Person of Jesus Christ. If it works for you, why is it that it does not work for others? You were once a young person, no? You came, at some point, to accept Christianity.”

Yes I did. And I also almost lost my faith when I came face to face with the reality that a Young Earth interpretation was untenable. Thank God for His grace and several others who had been down the road before that I survived that trial with my faith intact.

CINDY: “It is true that some people believe or reject Christianity based on a particular issue that becomes like their own personal litmus test, but each person has their own. For those that reject the faith, it is more oft an issue that they observed a Christian or a contingent of them being abusive, defending their abusive behavior as though it were their divine right. From my reading of Bertrand Russell, he rejected Christianity because he could not get past issues concerning eschatology.”

Cindy, honestly you are being far too narrow in your understanding of what makes people Christians and why people reject the faith. You can’t lay all the blame on the individual all the time. Whether or not the Gospel message is TRUE is a critical component of faith. If the disciples had returned to the tomb to find Jesus’ body still wrapped in the burial cloths – would they have been able to believe the ladies report? When the Gospel message is communicated with a connection to the falsity of certain scientific theories, when people are told over and over “If evolution is true, the gospel is false”, then why would you expect there NOT to be a causal relationship between loss of faith and them discovering that the evidence for evolution is not scarce as they’d been taught but instead overwhelming?

CINDY: “Kids don’t reject Christianity primarily because of evolution — it is a greater issue for them and it has more to do with political correctness and what Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio called “totalitarian niceness” which comes out of our post-modern culture as modernism falls away. Many more modernists reject Christianity because of special creation alone than do postmodernists.”

Cindy, you are denying reality. I posted at least two comments where the atheist in question state quite clearly that it was when they discovered the evidence for evolution and coupled it with the ingrained believe that the gospel and evolution were incompatible that they fell away. We see this all over the web, and in many, many, many testimonies of college kids that lose their faith. Indeed, this is why AIG etc want to target kids with their message. They think if they can show them how science supports their position the kids will be able to stand. But the cold hard facts are science doesn’t support a YE position. And all it takes is a kid willing to look objectively at both sets of arguments for that house on the sand to fall down flat.

CINDY: “Postmodernists reject Christianity because of how they understand the nature of truth — an issue of epistemology and presupposition. Ideas are not true because of objective fact but rather by whether a truth is believed and also meets some demands that can be described as politically correct or “be nice to other people.” The Barna group elucidated this along with studies done by people like Tim Clydesdale and others who are looking at the “mosaic” who have followed generation X and perhaps even Y. Truth becomes inextricably bound to the knower in postmodernism because belief makes a thing true.”

Cindy – you can’t put people in little boxes like that. You might be right in terms of general trends, but not the specifics of real individual. And this psychobabble simply does not explain why the popularity of atheism as espoused by the likes of Richard Dawkins et al is on the rise, not does it explain why so many in the sciences come out believing Evolution is strongly supported by the data, even if they do manage to maintain their Christian faith.

CINDY: “When truth is established by the individual’s subjective belief rather than some degree of reliable, objective fact in the empirical world as a litmus test for truth, truth becomes inextricably bound to the knower. If I believe in a particular thing, for the sake of argument that smoking tobacco improves health, then my belief that it is healthy becomes on par with the studies that prove empirically that it is unhealthy. For the postmodernist, the person’s strong belief in tobacco smoking as healthy makes it true. If I am a modernist, and I start arguing the data from science only, something interesting happens. By arguing that the person who believes a thing because they want it to be true takes the argument personally because the “fact” comes from them, not objective reality. If I reject your truth, I reject you. Postmodernism says that you can’t reject anyone (they reject the law of non-contradiction). My integrity is hinged on the veracity of my belief, and the younger generations believe that it is wrong to challenge anyone’s integrity.”

Cindy, it IS the objective truth concerning the state of the universe and the Earth that undoes a YE position. All this talk of postmodernism may apply to some liberal arts major, but it isn’t what is driving the physics, biology, and geology majors away from the Gospel.

CINDY :”Clydesdale elucidated that young people prefer a god who is more like a “golden retriever,” a warm, cuddly God who is there to be loving no matter what, even at the expense of truth. What they dislike is the idea of God as the arbiter of truth — any truth, empirical or moral truth or any truth in the Bible. That is what is driving kids away from Christianity, not theories of origins. And because this generation is consumed with what other people think about them (the problems with bullying as one example), moral priorties (accepting all people no matter of their beliefs or practices/”be nice”) supersede any empirical fact or belief about it. They’re rejecting Christianity because of the nature of the standard of truth.”

Cindy – those that reject the gospel over the issue of YE verses science are a subset that I am specifically targetting here. And all that you go on about above has little to do with them. And it does not address the issue at hand. The physcial evidence strongly, overwhelminly supports an evolutionary history of life on a very, very old Earth. And for those that were raised being taught “If evolution is true, the Bible is false (a large portion of the Evangelical church) this is a MAJOR problem. A problem that is being denied by many of the movers and shakers in the evangelical church (read Al Mohler, Ken Ham, John Piper etc etc etc)

It is a huge problem Cindy. Ken Ham and his disciples are teaching us to base our faith in the reliability of scripture on a set of falsehoods. The younger generations want to know what there parent are teaching them is true. And if we’ve fed them a pack of lies about how strongly we can support a YE point of view with science, they are going to figure it out. It is in our best interests to figure it out for ourselves BEFORE they do.

Zeta

I am the father of a brilliant 20 something who is on the faculty at an Ivy-league University in mathematics. He has left the faith precisely because of the dogmatic YE-ers. He does not want to be a Christian if to be one is to share a label with those who deny the science, those who detest people who are gay, or those who put the life of a fetus over the life of a child born and living already. And both parents have science backgrounds and are OE creationists who believe that evolution is a tool by which the creator created every living thing.

Hi Lin,

LIN: “I am confused. Why would someone think that because God may have created a mature earth…that it would be a cosmic joke on us? Which parts of scripture are we to take on faith and which parts are we not to take on faith? That is what I do not understand. I do understand trying to make sure we understand the translation is correct.”

I feel your pain Lin. I think the answer is we take all scripture on faith, but that we also recognize we might be wrong in our understanding of aspects of it. And when clear evidence comes to light that we have been mistaken, we humble ourselves accept it and move on. I would never expect someone to just instantly change what they believe scripture is saying. Nor would I ask them to. But we have to recognize we can be wrong about some of it and when confronted with a potential problem, take it prayerfully to God study carefully to come to a resolution in time.

LIN: “Zeta, I admit, I am not smart enough to get your point. Why would they be created with memory of things that did not happen? And why would that matter to my scenerio?”

Well, I was not trying to trick you. But why my question is a puzzle to you is why it is such a problem. Would any of us expect God to make Adam and Eve with FALSE memories of a life that never existed? No, none of us would. Creating a mature item by fiat is not the same as creating a mature item with a false history. The rocks in the Earth record a history. A history that is false if the world is <10,000 year old. Likewise the light from the stars in the sky record a history of the universe – a history that again is false if the universe is <10,000 years old. For example, in central America is a scar from a huge asteroid impact on the Earth, and all over the Earth is a layer of iridium enriched soil that was deposited from the ejecta from the event. There is shocked quartz in the crater and all sort of cross correlating evidence that puts this event some 65 million years in the past. All of that is false if the planet is only 6,000 years old. Here is another one. There is a massive supervolcano in Yellowstone. There is evidence all around this caldera that it last erupted some 600,000 years ago. And do you know what lies under the sediment from the mississipi delta that also dates from 600,000 years ago? ASH. huge amounts of volcanic ash that was washed down the mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico when that event happened.

I could go on and on, but all over the Earth there is history from events that span a time from 4.5 billion years ago to the present. And they all cross correlate with each other perfectly where such cross correlation can be expected to exist. And not just the Earth, the this entire universe is the same. Records of collisions and supernovas and neutron stars ejected some thousands, some millions, some billions of years ago. And ALL of this history is FALSE if the world and cosmos is a mere 6,000 years old. Just like memories of a childhood and parents and a house to grow up in would be FALSE in the brain of Adam if He was created 21 years old.

LIN: "To all: I do not think this is a salvic issue."

Amen Lin. Amen. I do not question the salvation of ANYONE over this issue. And I gladly fellowship with all my brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of where they stand on this issue. At least, those that will return me the grace of not questioning MY salvation over this issue 🙂

LIN: "However, I get a bit nervous when people try and declare that Genesis is all metaphorical, though. And that is what concerns me about this issue."

Lin – so do I. This journey I've made has NOT been easy. I do not ask anyone to take me at my word. I merely ask they do not take Ken Ham at his word either. Listen to all sides, prayerfully consider what the truth is. And most of all stay true to your convictions in Christ.

LIN:"When one uses the parables to make this point about metaphors, I do want to point to the fact that Jesus said he used parables so some would NOT understand. 😮 )"

Right. I don't think God was trying to hide truth from us. I think in many ways truth was lost along the way, much the same as how the correct pronunciation of the name of God was lost, and we have to rediscover it if possible. If my hypothesis is correct, that one of the purposes of Genesis 1 was to provide a convenient way to keep Israel aware of the fact the pagan gods are merely created things, then the Israelites of Moses day all knew that is exactly what it was. But over time that key piece of information was likely lost and we have simply had the fortune of being alive when it was rediscovered. As you said, it isn't salvific – except insomuch as those that stumble over our ignorance.

Zeta

Zeta,

“Evolution” – States that heritable changes occur in the gene pool of a population over time. – this is a fact, demonstrable and supported by overwhelming evidence.

Mechanisms of evolution include: – Mutations, genetic drift, natural selection and gene flow. – these are also facts, however most scientists would agree that more study is required to determine what part and how strongly each of these effects the evolutionary process.

The “Theory” of evolution, is on the same level with “germ theory”, the “Theory of gravity”, “atomic theory” and so on.

I’m not one to go pasting quotes into the “reply” field, but I just wanted to say that the following passage from 1 Cor. 13 has helped me a lot, re. feeling conflicted over interpretations (includes metaphorical vs. literal):

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (NIV; I actually prefer “through a glass darkly,” as mirrors in Paul’s time were not silvered glass – they were polished metal surfaces and gave a distorted image.)

I personally have felt for a long time that I will never, ever understand many of the intricacies of how science relates to Genesis chs. 1-2 – and that I don’t have to understand in order to be able to believe in Christ.

Why force a literal reading of poetry? (Gen. ch. 1 is a poem; our translations render it in prose.) Why assume that God would ask anyone to have to believe in things incomprehensible to them (dinosaurs, the fossil record, etc.) in order to write what we know as Gen. chs. 1 and 2?

It would be most unlike God (I think) to force that kind of knowledge on anyone – instead, we’ve got this amazing anthology of books written in all kinds of prose and poetic genres/styles, not a continuous narrative of history from Day 1.

I have largely been outside the YE/OE/TE arguments (also the “new atheist” stuff) and that is by choice. As others have stated, this is not 9again, imo) a salvific issue.

Zeta, FYI – ANON did not leave out natural selection. You need to read his/her post again.

I must thank God, once again, for the professors in our department who are devout Christians as well as outstanding biologists.

On the same vein, my church is filled with people who believe in 6 day creationism as well as those that believe evolution is real.

Anon:

To further Lin’s question, could God have placed some stars millions of light years away and brought their light to the earth instantly? Of course He could! So there are obviously more possibilities. I had never heard that question before.

Thanks Lin!

Not picking on you anon, but again, there is a huge amount of history in that light. History that is a fiction. For example, about 230 million years ago M32, a satellite galaxy of the great Andromeda galaxy (M31) collided with its parent. How do we know? The shock waves that resulted from the collision are still propagating through the galaxy, creating concentric rings visible in the infrared.

And closer to home, but still hundreds of thousands of years in the past, a star exploded in the Magellenic clouds about 168,000 years ago, its light just arriving in 1987. There has been a huge wealth of information gathered from this event, not the least of which is a DIRECT measure of the propagation of light across the intervening medium. Guess what, it’s moving at the same speed there it is here – which implies it took 168,000 years to get here. But even more so, we can watch not only the light from the explosion propagate, but the expanding pressure wave as it compresses gases that had been expelled just before the explosion. And we can observe through stellar spectra the decay of short term radioisotopes – noting that their decay rate 168,000 years ago was EXACTLY the same as it is now here on the Earth. All that history is FICTION, FALSEHOOD, if God made it all 6000 years ago and made the light ‘in transit’. Indeed, he had to put all the images we observed of this explosion about 162,000 light years from the star itself – if indeed it ever really was there.

This is the problem with apparent age arguments. And likely the reason they are rejected by most YEC’s as well as OE’s and TE’s. They are a theological nightmare because for it to be true AND the state of the universe to be as it is, the majority of what we see in the night sky, and the majority of the history we see evidenced in the geology of the Earth and the moon and the other planets in the solar system is all a fiction, a falsehood. It makes God a trickster.

Zeta

Dee,
I have a question. Mohler’ article includes the following:

The BioLogos website has just even in recent days focused its attention on the direct rejection of biblical inerrancy. Understanding that any rendering of the bible as inerrant makes the acceptance of theistic evolution impossible. Certainly implausible. Kenton Sparks writing on that website suggests that, intellectually, evangelicalism has painted itself into a corner—that we have put ourselves into an intellectual cul-de-sac with our understanding of biblical inerrancy. He suggests that the Bible indeed should be recognized as containing historical, theological and moral error. Peter Enns, one of the most frequent contributors to the site, suggests that we have to come to the understanding that, when it comes to many of the scientific claims, historical claims, the writers of scriptures were plainly wrong.

Is this accurate? Is a denial of inerrancy, or an affirmation that the Bible’s writers were “plainly wrong”, a part of the cureent direction of Biologos? If so, how do you feel about that?

Ok, everyone, I think it’s time we turn to the real experts on this topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkBmhM0R2A0

My experience is that when I have the right explanation for the “problem,” that all the data fall into place. Until I have the right explanation, there are always data that don’t fit my explanation. This has proven true in relatively simpler systems than the earth and it appears even easier to apply to earth and the universe.

The YE people will never make the data fit because their explanation is just not right. In the meantime, their insistance that their explanation is the right one is trashing a lot of lives.

I used to look at the rock layers as the interstate highway cut through them in Arkansas. The same layers would be repeated on hill after hill and they were clearly OLD (and laid down flat even though they now were bent). I always wondered how I would feel if I were an 18 year old driver who had been taught YE and then passed through this area. I could not have maintained that belief any longer. Now, how much other stuff do I have to discard to become honest again. YE beliefs are bad as well as stupid.

Dee–

That makes me sad…that people are hurt because of YOUR beliefs. A good friend of mine told me one day that she wasn’t sure that Christ was the Son of God and that there was a trinity because the Bible doesn’t use such terms.

These past six months has been a time of tremendous growth for me. In discovering what you have espoused almost daily is that there are simply A issues and B issues. This OE/YE thing is that for me. I honestly don’t care how old the earth is. I dont believe God has intended for such things to be “proof” of the verity of his word and whether he exists or not. Believing in God, His Word, and Him being the Creator is largely an act of faith on part of the believer and that strength to do so endowed to them through the Holy Spirit.

It seems that Scripture can point to science as much as it points to God, yet, there will always be others who simply won’t believe–and not because we cannot prove the earth is young or old. Yes, there are many like as you have said, who have walked away from the faith because of these issues. But the majority of us believe because of faith. Not because we can really prove much of it.

I do love Strobel’s books because they helped me a lot. I am a scientist at heart and I understood the many theories and scientific arguments presetned in the book. I think they were well defined. I did also believe that a person can be a Christian and also undersatnd and believe science. I dont believe Scripture was meant to answer all of the questions regarding science. And if that is my belief, then that leaves much room for those I know, love and care about to believe differently than me.

At the end of the day, Dear Sister, I know that you believe Christ died for your sins and he rose on the 3rd day. That you have been given salvation through faith and grace in Him alone. If I were you friend and someone who loved you and vice versa, that’s all that really counts. I believe that God is merciful and kind; compassionate and overwhelming in forgiveness. That he delights in us, all of our questions, beliefs and nuances. And I believe his grace overwhelms such that we are not required to have all of this figured out in order to believe and even to be coutned as righteous.

Anyways, I wanted to just offer you a hug and some love here because you are indeed my sister in Christ. Like my friend who is struggling with her beliefs, I believe that the Lord is just so merciful, kind, and gracious to allow us to even ponder such great thoughts. But the one that matters most is the one you have come to understand clearly: That Christ is the only way to the Father. I hope that your friends who love you would choose not to be offended by your beliefs, and that they would put their feelings and assurance in perspective here and see that you really love God and what qualifies you as a Christian isn’t your thoughts on OE/TE/YE but on who Christ is, who you are in relation to God, and what you must believe in order to be reconciled to Him.

I’m sure if they did that, their hearts and minds would have peace that you are their sister forevermore. Bless you! My heart is inclined to pray for you and just ask that the Lord would open our hearts and minds that we would not judge each other on issues that don’t affect our salvation.

Peace and Comfort to you today.
-NLR

Dee,

For me it is no less easy to have folks look at my cross-eyed, or even with hostility over this issue. But I am reminded of what I thought of Christians who accepted evolution when I was YEC. And many times it was not a controllable reaction in the sense that it was so deeply ingrained in me evolution was evil, even Satanic, that my reaction came from somewhere equally deep.

This issue is deeply part of our culture. I was amazed at the ‘miss usa’ answers Junkster pointed us at. Almost everyone with an evangelical background, and many even without, look at this as a belief issue, not a science issue. From the first day Darwin’s book was published this issue of evolution has stabbed at the core or our culture and our faith.

I could speculate on why, but those of us that are trying hard to deal with this issue but are also convinced scientifically evolution has a leg to stand on are fighting an uphill battle to be sure. I suppose we need to have understanding and not underestimate how deeply this thing goes, and how difficult it is for all involved.

I hope your friends can recognize you are deeply committed to Christ and can maintain trust that if this is what you have been convinced is true then there are valid and powerful reasons this is so. But there are no guarantees where a Christian friendship will go over this issue. Many times my solution is simply to not discuss the issue with those for whom it is a stumbling block. They know where I stand, but I don’t press the issue. That’s harder for you since it comes up frequently on this blog.

I hope and pray for you and for these 4 friends that all of you can find a place of peace continued fellowship, even if you all may not agree on this particular issue.

Zeta

I forgot to expand my point about my friend who isn’t sure about Christ’s diety… And it was this… I love my friend. I love Christ more. But I can leave it to Him to do this work in her heart and her mind. It is not my place to reject or chastise my sister for something I believe is concrete and clear in my own understanding and in my own heart. I love her too much for that. The most important thing she needs to believe, she does believe and it is this: That Christ died for her sins. That he rose on the 3rd day. That his blood atonement has reconciled her to God.

The Lord will have to do the rest; He will have to minister to her understanding and open her heart and mind to see if this is true. If it is, God will do it. He has promised to complete the work He has begun in her. The same he will do in me.

So if you are Dee’s friend and you are hurt by her beliefs, by her words… You should understand that (1) God is not offended; neither is he moved. (2) Your sister has not been moved; neither has she been released from His grasp. (3) She has been granted salvaation through Faith in Christ alone; not because of her works or knowledge about the foundations of the world, but that becasue she believes in Him who died for her and rose again–she has been reconciled to God, FOREVER! Is there NOT praise for that!??? What knowledge can compare and what knowledge shall mute the incredible knowledge that your sister has in Christ!

Be glad and rejoice in that, Friends. Satan is tempting you to anger, despair and hurt over issues that don’t matter in the end. Dee is firm in the grasp of the Lord. She shall not be moved. Adn so is my friend. So am I. And not because of these theological arguments here. Please let go of these hurts and embrace what God has given you, through Christ, for each other. It’s just not worth it.

In the end, none of us REALLY know what these truths be and can only know by faith. Let’s believe God to be the mystery that He is, and let us be humble with what he has revealed. We simply cannot know it all.

Dee, again, bless you, Sister.

Holy Cats…an intense set of comments!

Origins always get people riled! 🙂

The Bible does not position itself as a scientific document or set of scientific documents. Scientific truths in Scripture are incidental to the point. Jesus Christ is the point (cf. Luke 24:27).

I prefer the Framework Hypothesis interpretation of Genesis 1 put forward by Meredith Kline. Understands the creation account like more of a poem or song. Seems to reckon more with the genre of text you’re dealing with in Genesis 1. The Hebrew behaves more like poetry than prose there.

Evolution – maybe God used it. That’s fine. *Gasp* – Have I gone to the dark side? 🙂

Matt – grape juice can be produced fresh just by squeezing grapes!

@ Matt: definitely no *chilled* grape juice, either!

It’s interesting to realize that things we take for granted – like refrigerator-freezers – are an unreachable luxury for most of the world’s current population. Ice cubes are for the wealthy…

*

On another note, I wonder if this whole “origins” thing is much of an issue outside the US? We’re good at working ourselves up about things and assuming that what those things are of major importance to the rest of the world. The thing is… do we really know that, are are we (I) making assumptions?

Andrea Barrett, who has written some great historical fiction about science and scientists, tackled the OE/YE thing (plus the then-new theory of evolution) in one of her short stories… will have to dig up the book and post the title, because I think it’s a very, very interesting way of looking at the whole debate.

Ellie–

Wondering about it is all good. It’s good to wonder. But being angry with a friend over how they interpret the creation account or if they believe the earth is young or old isn’t sensible, as Paul would remind us in his letter to Titus. So while we all wonder in amazement at God’s creation and how he must have done so, let us continue to wonder in amazement but not condemn one another, or sever our relationships, or put hurt and discord between us. It’s just not that important. If my friend didn’t believe in God and wasn’t a Christian flat out, now THAT’s something that would make me cry or hurt my feelings, or maybe even cause strife between me and my friend. But NOT that she thought the earth was old or new. Especially if said friend wasn’t linking my beliefs in either to whether I was a Christian or not.

I’ve come to the conclusion that many Christians will go to Heaven and the diversity of them all will naturally provide that they will all believe differently regarding certain things. Personally, I agree with Matt that Hebrew is much like prose, and certain books in Scripture are read certain ways. Friends should understand that we are considering ancient documents here where we were not its audience. It’s as difficult as understanding why we need imaginary numbers to figure stuff out. Unfortunately, the Bible isn’t easy to figure out and there are many things that will never be clear to most of us. I can accept that without it ruining my life, relationships, and anything else for the matter.

Lin–

You said comp was one thing that we could divide on. I laughed out loud. True. True. But you know what, some of my friends are still comps. I’d lean more towards egal almost definitely. But truth is, I dont know absolutely if they are right or if I am right. I have a feeling that none of it will decide on where we spend eternity, etc… But I’ve kinda stopped preaching to them and sharing with them my egalitarian beliefs and about there not being male headship, atuhority and rule in Scripture. At the end of the day, it’s what they believe and what they want. So you know what, they can marry that guy, they can build a life with him. They can encourage his rule and authority over them. They can also do that in their church. But as for me and my house–NO SIR REE!!!

My friend can plead with God for the marriage she wants–and she may just get that. Many women do. But my prayers are different. I want a man who believes what I believe–who sees me as his equal, who will love me, all of my talents, who won’t make my gender and any associated “roles” a matter of my salvation. Who sees me as I am and a gift to him. That’s the man I will love passionately…just as my friend(s) choose the men they want to love passionately. ANd for them, it works. They want someoen to have that much control over them, decide for them, becasuet ehy think they are honoring God, that they are living right, and it’s how it’s supposed to be.

So for me, I’ve had to decide what to discuss with them, what not to discuss. i’ve had to decide to allow them to want what they want, even if I see there are huge errors in their thinking, and even if I see that down the road, there will be serious fallout from it. I already have a friend whose marriage lasted 14 months because of their complimentarian (authoritarian) beliefs. And even though her marriage has fell completely apart, she still believes that men have authority and headship over women, that they should lead in the home. She just believes that “sin” entered the picture and her husband abused it. She doesn’t realize (at least in my opinion) that the belief alone is sinful from its origin and never could be made right with that line of thinking.

Anyways, too many women I know right now still go to my old church and they still believe and want these types of marriages and relationships. I have compassion for them and I feel sorry for them. But they might feel sorry for me that I would marry a man who didn’t “lead” inour home and let me make decisions and didn’t always “take charge” with everything. I’ve heard of women going off to marry men like that in my ex-church and people report back that because of their desperation to be married, they “settled” for someone. Basically, anyone who is not a CHBC guy is settling. And any guy who isn’t a comp is settling. They have no idea the treasure that these women have found in other amazing men who love God. I’m excited for those women adn I am curious to know how beautiful their marriages might be.

I’m still praying for God to provide a wonderful egal husband for me. But I have let go of trying to convince my friends that that isn’t what God designed for us. I just accept them, and their marriages, for waht they are–and just thank God that it’s not me who’s in it. At the end of the day, she’s the one that has to live in that home with that man. not me. Adn not to sound selfish, but I’m just worried about what my life has to be because I can’t really change anyone else’s.

dee

What do you think about the Discovery Institute and Dr Steven C Meyer? Are they better than AIG? I just recently heard about this and I am curious. I am not up on this sort of thing.

Dee,

Peer reviewed research…puuhhhlleeaassee…that’s just so so…secular 🙂

Haha–

My comment has gotten erased 3 times!! I keep hitting strange keys on my keyboard. Damn devil!

Anyways, Dee, it seems to me that as you have stated to Zeta, that we really need to understand the limits to debate. While we debate and think, we should understand what the purpose of debating is.

Essentially, we are all a circle of little kids laying out on the lawn, starring into the heavens and wondering what God is like—wondering how he made this–why the sky is blue–why the grass is green–and if God is bowling when it thunders. Yet, as adults, more educated and less dreamy, we make dreaming and guessing a matter of salvation, or relationship, or classification. I’m okay with you “dreaming” that the earth is old along with me (because I dream that too), but I could be okay with you dreaming that it was brand spanking new AND still know that as we twiddle our toes in the grass together and stare at the sky, that you love God as much as I do.

I think as adults, we are our childlike versions of ourselves. We still wonder but sometimes forget how to do so in amazement. Adn still even stand up afterwards, dust off our clothing and go skipping down the path together.

The Calvanistas tend to theoologically link any and everything in Scripture as a matter of salvation:

If I am a woman and not performing accroding to my gender–then my salvation and the Gospel is at stake (whatever they mean by “the Gospel”)

If I am a man and I am not “leading” my family–then the Gospel is at stake and the salvation of my family, friends and children.

If I believe in a YE/OE–then the Gospel is at stake and the salvation of many.

They seem to know who is saved, who is not. Who are true Christians, who are not. Nothing seems to really be a mystery even though they claim that there are many–it’s just not the things they claim to know. But isn’t that always the case–the things we think we know are no longer a mystery and couldn’t possibly be. I think people think they know all of there is in God’s Word and because it has been revealed to us that there is no mystery in it. But as I read this ancient document, written to a particular people at a particular time, I am confident that no amount of education, study and knowledge on this earth would ever answer all the questions I have and would resolve every dispute there is.

So as far as debate goes–let’s debate, but let us not allow the debate to set the boundaries, but we should come to the table knowing what the boundaries are. If this is not an issue of salvation, we know that from the jump. And we can start there.

Oh and BTW–I have a Christian friend who believes no doubt that there are aliens… I am intrigued by her belief–yet, I think well, if there are, why the heck has it taken them so long to take over the earth. Or maybe they aren’t trying to take over the earth and living peacefully somehwere. She told me before that I was arrogant to think that we are God’s only creation, and that just because Scripture doesn’t say so, that it may be just one mystery that hasn’t been revealed. I have to honestly say that yes, it would be arrogant of me to think that I know for sure that there aren’t aliens…. Truth is, I dont know. I sure hope not–at least if they are dangerous. hahahaha!

******************

On the whole YE thing, I’ve read many of the arguments. What I dont get clearly from the blogs that I’ve read and the YE crowd’s arguments, is how they are saying this is an issue of salvation. How are they linking that?

Dee,

In about three days, fresh squeezed grapes (unless washed with clorox or anti-yeast detergents that are recent developments) in temperatures in the 70 degree range, will become alcoholic. In fact, if picked a little late, the grapes will have alcohol content. This is one of the denials of reality that evangelicals, especially of the Baptist variety, have put forth for years. It was wine at the last supper, which followed the seder, with several rounds of wine, which is why the disciples could not stay awake in the garden later that evening. The alcohol content gradually increases, and if left too long, then begins to decrease as the acetic acid (vinegar) content increases, making it sour wine.

The guests at the Cana wedding had been drinking wine that was a little too ripe, so had some sourness due to vinegar content. The wine Jesus made was without that vinegar content, hence considered better wine by the master of the banquet. Probably 12 to 15 percent alcohol.

In those stays, some wine was stored in wineskins, made from the hide of sheep (leather) or cattle. The statement about not putting new wine in old wineskins was that the new wine, as it quickly fermented, would give off carbon dioxide and burst the stiff old wineskins. In addition, the old wineskins would have a tendency to accelerate the vinegar production, ruining the wine as well as the skins.

I guess I can confess my own sci-fi geekdom now…. and I love the way Lewis frames things in Out of the Silent Planet.

But if you want to know what that is, then you’ll have to read the book – no spoilers from me! : )

NLR, you said:

“Ellie–

Wondering about it is all good. It’s good to wonder. But being angry with a friend over how they interpret the creation account or if they believe the earth is young or old isn’t sensible, as Paul would remind us in his letter to Titus.”

I was just commenting on things that I wonder about – ancient artifacts, things that don’t add up with the world as we’ve always known it – strange things. In fact, this is the first time I have ever commented on something like this anywhere, let alone getting angry with a friend. Are you commenting because of an experience with a friend that you’ve had?
I just really really wish there was somewhere that discussed things like these & the whole PlanetX thing from a grounded Christian perspective.

btw: I once did see a UFO – it was a black triangle. Went right over my house, was absolutely huge, and absolutely silent. But I don’t think there were any aliens in it – I think they are government aircraft, lol. 🙂

Dee–

I believe I would like your church. I think it’s a-comin’ soon that I might be able to step foot in a church again. A scary day that will be. You better go run a Clorox wipe across that counter real quick before your husband stumbles and cheats on you. 😉 (insert tongue in cheek firmly).

Why don’t they ever think about God when they make all those rules… Seriously, God gave us paradise and we STILL showed our tails! So you cant protect your kids from sin and promise them paradise on earth or an easy life, in the same way God chose not to make Adam and Even do it either; and HE gave them EVERYTHING. Blows my mind!

Here is part of an article on the cup of the Passover:

“Wine is not a firstfruit of the grape. It is a byproduct. Wine is produced when yeast, a leavening agent, acts on the sugar molecule of fruit juice to produce ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. Wine, then, is juice that has been chemically changed into something different. It is not the original, pure fruit of the vine, but a secondary byproduct. As a symbol for the pure, uncorrupted, sinless blood of Yahshua, a modified substance like wine would be inadequate. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Messiah?…” (1Cor. 10:16)

More importantly, wine has been leavened in the same way bread is leavened by yeast. The Passover was to be eaten only with unleavened bread, Exodus 12:8. Nothing leavened was to be used at the Passover Memorial.

Unleavened bread represents Yahshua’s body unchanged by the corruption of sin, Mark 14:22. Similarly, the cup represents His pure blood, untainted by outside influences of the sinful world. Would a chemically altered drink like wine best represent His pure, unadulterated blood, or would the virgin juice from the grape?”

http://www.yrm.org/wine_or_grape_juice.htm

Do the YE people believe there were dinosaurs with man and the OE obviously don’t, right?

Dee,
I’ll have to check those books out, thanks!

Dee–

Thanks… On my way over (flip flops flapping)… I wonder if Ham knows if the animals talked or not. I’ve always wondered that! Hahahah

Dee,

Having grown up in North Dakota, I can vouch for the lack of water there. 🙂

Also, be careful, even mentioning Dan Wallace’s name on your blog may bring about a KJVO invasion. 🙂

CitationSquirrel,

After reading all of these comments, we are lost! 🙂

Age of the earth and the revolving of the earth around the sun are scientific facts; that is, they can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt fairly quickly and easily by today’s methods and technology—methods and technology that have been around, are tried and tested and proven consistent again and again. Also, only a small number of people, relatively, and only fairly recently, I think, actively disavow these two scientific facts. In general, they are taken as given, and for good reason. They can be, again, seen and proven quickly and easily. Also, in my mind, and more importantly, I don’t find anything particularly contradictory about old earth views and the earth’s rotational orbit in regards to Biblical accounts of creation. I quickly can grasp the metaphorical nature of fixed earth references (pillars, foundations, etc.). And in regards to the six days in Genesis being literal days as we know a day – well, one thing, in addition to the many other points about this, I notice very quickly that Genesis mentions “day” even before the creation of the sun and moon. Now, I’m not astronomer or astrophysicist, but my understanding is that the sun and moon both affect the earth’s rotation. So how can you have a “traditional” day before either of these two bodies have been created? And even on a more basic level, how do you have a traditional day without a sun? How can you have a traditional evening and morning (as Genesis acknowledges prior to the sun and moon’s creation) before there is a sun to give light to dusk and light to morning? ! So I have no problems when it comes to viewing creation as non-literal.

However, that is not the case for me for macro evolution (ocean going to land dwelling, common ancestor evolution, I mean…I believe in micro evolution within species). There is just no mention or even subtle reference, I think, to this common ancestor in the Bible. I would think that this is a strange omission, given the arguably significant spiritual and physical ramifications of such a life form. It seems odd to me that God’s word would speak so persistently and specifically about the separation of the species as they are being created. Nowhere is there any implied or even hinted commonality, except that God created them and they occupy the same earth. All animals and plants and man are described from start to finish as being quite separate from one another. Note how often in Genesis Chapter 1 the phrase “according to their kind(s)” is used. It shows up constantly, as if to emphasis the separation between things. I simply cannot see how you can square common ancestor macro evolution with the Bible’s view of creation, even taking into account the whole of scripture, and the metaphorical and symbolic nature of it at times. Also there is the question of why God would do it this way; what would be the point of this? Now, God’s day in Genesis is appropriate because the earth is not in its formal course or creation yet; even a day is described prior to the creation of the sun and moon, therefore, you can see how the word day might be used in Genesis, but that it might mean something different. You can see how the metaphorical use of “foundation” and “pillar” would fit in a Psalm…a poem. But I don’t see that with evolution.

Evolution radically alters man’s physical and spiritual relative place in the animal kingdom. Applied secularly, old earth or earth’s orbit around the sun have little practical consequence as to how humans view and related to each other. They have little moral implications. However, applied secularly, evolutionary theory can have (and has historically had) devastating effects on how humans treat and respect each other; everything from genocide to euthanasia to genetic engineering to abortion. Therefore, it must be proven, in my opinion, beyond a reasonable doubt, such as the other two issues, before being accepted as fact implemented.

My concern and opinion is that, though some wonderful Christians believe in evolution, and certainly a belief in this is by no means a limitation to salvation, many people are quick to accept evolution and other theories as fact and rush their practical implementation, in addition to other motives, because they are progressive and seem to challenge so forthrightly the biblical account. I find the unrestrained and seemingly categorical acceptance of this theory, and implemented thus, to be very disturbing.

I offer for example the forced sterilizations of criminals and the mentally challenged back in the early 20th century. Back then it was theorized that this would eliminate unwanted behaviors and social stumbling blocks and therefore rid civilization of many of its ills. This was massively accepted by the scientific community. In fact, there was a time were you could not find a geneticist that disagreed with this theory based on all of the evidence and all of the things they saw that fit the theory so well. The theory was accepted and implemented accordingly based on science’s great wisdom. The thinking on this changed only after the damage of cruel forced sterilizations did nothing to solve anything they were supposed to. Let’s not supposed that we too cannot be so misled by our overwhelming evidence for theories that, implemented to their logical conclusions, which are practically always secular and utterly separate from any religious virtue, can marginalize at best and even destroy our fellow human beings. Theories should be held suspect, constantly and with a dubious eye, until proven beyond rational doubt, especially when they can have such consequences.

Evolution’s merits have been discussed by the scientists on this site. What are its weaknesses? Are there any? If so, how significant are they? Is evolution utterly proven in your eyes? Are only the ignorant and unlearned in disbelief? Are there any rational, objective scientists who disagree?

dee,

Yes, I rejected Sugar. Too feminine sounding.:-)

Deuteronomy 29:6: “Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the Lord your God.”

Dee,

I’m not too big on those “until you believe thusly” types.

The yeast that makes grapes and grape juice into wine does not have to be “added” to the juice. It is naturally occurring on the grapes. Wait long enough, break the skin of the grape, or mash the grape to get the juice out and the yeast is in the juice automatically, w/o any additional effort. Now modern wine makers may choose to use a process to select the specific yeast to make their wine, and add it to the juice, but that was not the process until relatively recently. Mashing grapes means yeast is present and wine forms. It is not the same yeast, btw, that is the leavening in bread. I am not sure whether the bread yeast works in making wine or not. I suppose someone could search for it.

FredBob,

So they did not drink the juice of the grape, or whatever beer was being made from grain, which we know some surrounding cultures made.

Argo,

you said “So how can you have a “traditional” day before either of these two bodies have been created? And even on a more basic level, how do you have a traditional day without a sun?…”

In your follow up you assume that the absence of sun or moon, MUST imply a different meaning to the word day, but that only makes sense if you FIRST assume divine authorship and are looking for a way to reconcile the verse to what we know.

A just as plausible, and in my opinion, far more likely explanation is that this is evidence of anything BUT divine authorship, it reads, just like one would expect, as a typical creation story or myth told by humans to humans…and intended to make a good story, not necessarily to be accurate.

For those science fiction buffs here, it’s sort of like those stories where the main character is a ghost and they can pass through walls, not be able to touch furniture or sit on a chair..yet, inexplicably they don’t seem to fall through floors.

@ Dee: got it, thanks so much!

@ Muff: it’s good to see you back here!

@ Dee again: love that little verse. 😉

@ BR/Karl: that’s kinda like the “twist” in The Sixth Sense, I’m thinking… 😉

Hi Bounded,
Yes, your are correct in interpreting my assumptions in your opening paragraph. I do assume divine authorship; I’m a Christian and believe in God and His creation of the universe and all in it. So, yes, I accept divine authorship as granted (I’m just addressing the form of this authorship, per this thread; I think defending my belief in God in general is a different topic). Also, yes, I do rigorously assume that you cannot have a traditional day without the sun, for a couple of reasons. The sun affects the earth’s rotation, and also, where, in any literature or other reference for that matter do you speak of a day without regards to the sun, as you find in Genesis? For the Bible to speak of “days” BEFORE the sun and moon are created, yes, I think MUST imply a different basic meaning to the term. But that’s me. I’m not a YE guy.

Well, as for the ghosts not falling through the floors; Jesus walked on water, and that’s even better. 🙂 And I don’t think it’s science fiction. I think the very definition of God explicitly indicates not being beholding to the natural laws he created. I would struggle worshiping a God who was bound in the same way I am.

Dee,
Several things:
(1) We all have our natural and preferred ways of communicating — I hope that anyone who feels hurt by anything you’ve said, or how you’ve said it, extends grace to you, and you to them. Everybody kiss and make up now! 🙂
(2) Any deity can create the universe in 6 days — let’s see who can create a Dyson Sphere that fast!
(3) Carolyn would no doubt be mortified at the thought of even putting dirty dishes in the sink, much more at leaving them there. If you can’t have a toaster sitting on the counter, then surely dirty dishes belong in the dishwasher, not the sink. (“Thus saith the Lady…”)
(4) What did you think of the Miss USA interview video I posted?
(5) Fringe returns September 23!

Dee said “Still not sure that I want to go down this path with you.”

This appears to be in response to to my wish for your and whoever you feel at odds with to be in harmony, so I don’t understand what it means, but it sounds sounds like you don’t want to talk to me. If that’s because I disagreed with you or had a different opinion on Mohler’s article on how best to respond to it, well, that just makes me sad. If you feel I’ve mistreated or misjudged you in some way (certainly not my intent), I welcome your rebuke and correction.

I am starting a new movement called the “Middle Age Earth Creationists” (MAEC). 6 – 10,000 yrs is too young and 4.5 billion is too old. I think I will go with 750 million years. So who wants to join my new sect? Just think, you can have EVERYONE upset with you, instead of just some! 🙂

ASACHILD: “So now I would like to defer to Zeta and ask him once again for Lin and the rest of us to review why we must at least consider the value of looking at Genesis from the eyes of the cosmological view of the ancient people to whom Moses wrote.
So yes Citation Squirrel -evangelical Christianity has believed a Lie. Not the lie that the earth is 6-10,0000 years old (or at most 100,000) Nor that the Bible teaches it. The LIE is that science confirms and substantiates that the earth is 6000-10000 years old.
“

hmm, as odd as it may sound, that question is not as easy to answer is it may seem on the surface. You kind of summed it up yourself in that ignoring the culture in which the text is written allows us NOT to see what kind of writing it is. This in turn results in us being mislead into thinking this is literally history, which then drives the tendency to think we can derive a correct scientific understanding from it, or at least use it as some kind of litmus test for the correctness of some subset of scientific theories.

For me the KEY verse in Genesis that tells us this is NOT technical writing, that it is writing that is wrapped up in a culturally derived cosmology, is where it describes God dividing the waters from the waters and placing a firmament between them to maintain that division. An ocean of heavenly waters above, and the earthly oceans below. This firmament later becomes that across the face of which birds fly, and that which within is placed the sun moon and stars.

This IS the cosmology of the ancient world. A flat earth surrounded by waters above and below. If Moses is using the cosmological understanding of the day to ‘paint’ the picture of God creating all that there is, then there is not one credible reason to think we can use it to derive ANY technical aspect of creation from it. And any and all attempts to do so are destined to err and confuse and cause much grief, because they err from first principles.

Let me repeat the very astute observation of our friend Karl:

“I remember as a young teen, someone once showed me a geometry proof on a blackboard, which, step by step, proved that a right angle was equal to an obtuse angle…I struggled with it for quite some time looking for the tiniest flaw in the logic, but to no avail. Finally in desperation I begged the other person to tell me how it could be! Well, turned out the proof was perfect…what was wrong was one of the givens which depended on the drawing being done incorrectly, (but unnoticeable to the naked eye)…start with a faulty assumption and everything else doesn’t matter.”

How right he is.

The assumption Genesis 1 is technical/historical writing is a faulty assumption, and we know this by comparing the text to the cosmology of the day. Any all manner of false conclusions can be derived even with the application of perfect logic when you start with a flawed set of initial assumptions.

Zeta

Zeta,
Very good post. I am truly learning new insights into my faith. Very refreshing after so many years in SGM.

Bounded,
I appreciate your perspective. Obviously, “proving” God’s existence is sort of a different topic, but that’s okay. I would say that in discussing that particular issue, however, you’ve crossed over from science and the bible to philosophy and the bible; that is you’ve introduced a philosophical argument, instead of a scientific one. Again, that’s not a criticism. It’s okay, too.

However, instead of looking at God as the stuff of science fiction, I would challenge you to observe how the universe runs efficiently, by well-defined and consistent physical laws. In the same way, one look at any organ in the human body speaks to some kind of massive intelligence, as opposed to cosmic accident. What in nature naturally evolves to such perfection alone and unguided? My car cannot drive itself to the store, a feat much simpler it seems than the firmament and the spinning of random matter in space coming together and creating an ear. So, the belief that all of this is an accident is “not logical” (keeping with the Star Trek theme…I love Star Trek, though it is dreadfully humanist, that is, man is sooooo good).

Speaking of philosophy, it is interesting to note that most philosophers interested in pursuing the meaning and purpose of life, as it were, generally start with the acceptance of a divine Creator. There are two reasons for this: the first is that, philosophically it is actually easier to prove the existence of God than the existence of yourself, and secondly, without a basic, logic-based presupposition of a divine creator with a truth and understanding meant to be discovered and explained, the whole of philosophy and the study thereof is quite pointless.

I respect the opinion of atheists, but, again, I think the idea that the atheist’s opinion is no more sensible than that of the person of faith, in any logical, scientific, or philosophical way is axiomatic. Actually, a more complicated and interesting debate is with the agnostic or the deist.

Well put Zeta & Bounded. Unless stuff is agreed upon up front, say the axioms of arithmetic, Euclidean propositions, proof that a limit exists, St. Paul’s authority or what have you, any further discussion is futile.

The discussion will quickly devolve into: IS TOO! …. is not! …IS TOO!…..+ the next term + the next term +… and not converge to anything either party can agree upon.

Zeta,

Thanks for the support, you know though, that I’d take it a few steps back…the assumption that anything supernatural, i.e. God, exists, is the first, most likely, flawed assumption.

So within a group of believer’s there is probably some value to the discussions, since they all agree upon the initial proposition. But when you ask non-believers to get involved, this is the primary reason, for the frustration and difficulty in having a dialog. The non-believers look at your initial assumption, find no objective evidence to support it, and so, they feel there is no real point in going further.

I think this more than anything is what stops the dialog. Non-believers feel that Christians are unwilling/unable to look at the evidence for their initial premise and then take rational action based on what they find, they simply move on to “other” discussion points that only exist once you accept the premise.

I understand that Christians live “by faith”, but I would add to what James said…not only is faith without works a dead faith, but faith unsupported by evidence is faith built on sand.

Recently, I had a conversation with an earnest young Independent Fundamental Baptist preacher-in-the-making. Great guy that I genuinely love, and love to torment with opposing theological views. He was absolutely convinced that all “wine” in the Bible was grape juice, completely different than today’s wine. So, I answered, “That may be — it may have been different — but too much of that grape juice still made people drunk. So what difference does it make if it was grape juice and not wine?”

I think I won that one — but didn’t get as far on the KJVO subject! (Oh, I don’t know for sure, but I may be posting from a suspect location, not my usual hangout — but I promise, it’s really me, and can provide a secret code word known only to the blog queens if necessary…)

Bounded Reality:
“Thanks for the support, you know though, that I’d take it a few steps back…the assumption that anything supernatural, i.e. God, exists, is the first, most likely, flawed assumption.

I understand that. Our application of the principle is different, nevertheless the principle itself is sound. As an aside, this very issue was impressed upon me in a very similar way to how it pressed itself upon you. It was a graduate level Topology class after I’d just presented a beautiful proof of one of its theorems. In my case it was even more subtle, because the theorem I was proving was correct, as was the logic of my proof. But in my case I arrived and the right conclusion using perfect logic that was based on a false understanding of the definition of a limit point … and as a result the entire proof was wrong!

“So within a group of believer’s there is probably some value to the discussions, since they all agree upon the initial proposition. But when you ask non-believers to get involved, this is the primary reason, for the frustration and difficulty in having a dialog. The non-believers look at your initial assumption, find no objective evidence to support it, and so, they feel there is no real point in going further.”

Well here I think you are overreaching. “No objective evidence to support it” is not a fair characterization of the situation. There is a good deal of evidence that supports our conclusion that God is real. But it is the kind of evidence that would be used to decide if some historical event was real. It is not the kind of evidence that would be used to derive a scientific theory. In the end, the disciples believed Jesus rose from the dead because of the empty tomb coupled with the testimony of the women there who saw him raised, coupled with the fact the stone was guarded by roman soldiers coupled with the fact they themselves saw and talked with him later. And they communicated their story to others, and people believe the story.

We also have a set of prophecies recorded in the old testament that Christ fulfilled. And so on and so forth.

But this is not the kind of evidence you necessarily find convincing. But it does fit into the kind of evidence we use to convince ourselves that Julius Ceasar was a real historical figure and so forth. And I realize that part of the problem is the claim itself: God became man and lived and died and rose again. The oft used mantra is: incredible claims require incredible evidence. I get that.

But I really do believe there is another level here that is not quantifiable. And that is the level where God calls to us. And I do believe that when He calls to us concerning Christ, it is fundamentally different from what happens when a muslim decides to follow mohammed, or a Morman decides to follow Joseph Smith. That part of course, I can’t prove and don’t really have objective evidence for 😉 Unfortunately, I think that level is the level we are judged on when we stand before God. Something in us knows Jesus is Lord or responds to that message, and how we respond to that is something for which we are held accountable.

“I think this more than anything is what stops the dialog. Non-believers feel that Christians are unwilling/unable to look at the evidence for their initial premise and then take rational action based on what they find, they simply move on to “other” discussion points that only exist once you accept the premise.”

That may be how it appears. But from our perspective, we feel we do have real, but personal, evidence for the reality of God. And it is the kind of evidence I can only tell you about, I can’t make it real to you. It is many times the kind of evidence an intellectual such as yourself will reject as being subjective, unreal, imagined. It is the kind of evidence that possibly has a non-supernatual ‘explanation’, but not to the person to whom it belongs.

There is a line from the movie “Second Hand Lions” that I like in this regard. One of the two older, wilder uncles is giving the young ward part of his ‘what it takes to be a man’ speach and says this:

“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love, true love, never dies… No matter if they’re true or not, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in.”

Now i can’t quite agree with everything in that speach, but the principle I have in bold I really think applies here. The good news of Jesus Christ is one of those things that is worth believing in.

“I understand that Christians live “by faith”, but I would add to what James said…not only is faith without works a dead faith, but faith unsupported by evidence is faith built on sand.

Karl, you missed the part where faith is “the substance of things NOT SEEN”. Faith fully supported by evidence is not faith.

Zeta

Not saying much over here but I really appreciate the discusion.

hi dee,

That is not my conviction whatsoever. I was just giving the “winos” a hard time. 🙂

All of those verses I posted were written to Jews under the law. We are no longer under the law, but under grace.

Hi Zeta,

I was arguing against wine just for the fun of it. But if I had even a small glass, it would be to excess for me. I get drunk just smelling the stuff! I have no tolerance whatsoever to any alcohol.

Fred Bob

“Hi Zeta,

I was arguing against wine just for the fun of it. But if I had even a small glass, it would be to excess for me. I get drunk just smelling the stuff! I have no tolerance whatsoever to any alcohol.
“

No worries. It was quite some time after I had convinced myself that drinking a glass of wine was not a theological feaux pax from scriptural study that my conscience was actually clear to do so.

And indeed, if for you to smell the stuff is to be drunk, well then, I guess for you there is not such thing as not drinking to excess. So there you go 😉

Zeta

Can anybody here help me out? Zeta is probably the best qualified to answer, but anyone’s help would be greatly appreciated!

The biological sciences were never a forte for me. To the best of my understanding, non-theistic evolution (Dawkins, Hawking, et. al.)holds that natural selection (NS) operates in a perfect vacuum all by itself (no God, no great turtle of enormous girth etc.).

In TE (theistic evolution), God has used NS over time much in the same way that Michelangelo used the tools of his trade to create the Pieta. Is this overly simplified? Am I off base?

would

help

“How old are we (OE proponents) believing the earth to be? A billion, 2 billion years old?”

If you believe in something should you not have a basis for that belief?

Personally the evidence I’ve looked at indicates about 4.5 billion. What does the evidence you’ve studied or experts you rely on indicate?

post

NLR – current estimation is 4.54 billion years old.

Lynn–

You assume much, friend, by your “questions”. Just because I believe the earth is several billion years old, doesn’t mean I have an exact figure; and I wanted to know what scientists are saying. It’s why I freaking asked. Don’t try and discredit me or imply ignorance simply because I didn’t have an exact figure. I have a ton of basis for my belief which I care not to even bother to explain. But isn’t it possible I could believe that even if I didn’t know if the earth was 1 or 4 or 5 billion years old. Plainly, I believe the earth is much MUCH older than 6-10,000 years old. That satisfy you? And my experts: A majority of the scientific community up until now. Probably many of the scientists who helped Strobel write his books, and others… You could turn around in the dark, blind folded and land on one who believes the earth is very old. I’m sure I needn’t be specific.

Everyone else—Dee, Zeta, OB… My guess was 3 billion but I wasn’t sure. I haven’t read much literature on the subject lately.

Thanks for answering my question.

MuffPotter: The biological sciences were never a forte for me. To the best of my understanding, non-theistic evolution (Dawkins, Hawking, et. al.)holds that natural selection (NS) operates in a perfect vacuum all by itself (no God, no great turtle of enormous girth etc.).

Well, that is what they’d have you believe. But no-one knows how all the perfectly balanced parameters that are required for a universe like ours that supports life just happened to come to be here in our cosmos. The think the ‘multiverse’ will solve the problem, but infinite sets are finicky, and it is possible to have an infinitely large number of universes out there and still never have one like ours pop up 😉

And there are a good many other ‘problems’ Dawkins et al face, but their belief there is no God helps them trust (read as ‘have faith’) there is a natural answer to them all 😉

“In TE (theistic evolution), God has used NS over time much in the same way that Michelangelo used the tools of his trade to create the Pieta. Is this overly simplified? Am I off base?”

More or less, but there are variants. Some would have God operating more at the beginning, setting things up so they’d end up where they are now. But the quantum physics tends to tell us setting up such an initial condition my well be impossible, which would imply that to get where we are God would have to be involved at the lowest levels making sure things turned out according to plan. Others think that the specific form of mankind is not necessarily planned, but that the way the universe is designed eventually man or the equivalent would eventually form.

One of the key problems with ‘theistic’ evolution as a term is that it is sort of misleading. The ‘theistic’ conveys the wrong message. God is sort of barnacled onto the existing scientific theory. A better term I think is evolutionary creationism (EC), used by Denis Lamoureux, a charismatic Christian and associate professor of science and religion at St. Josephs college in alberta. In this term the fact we as Christians still hold to the fact God created and is intimately involved in the creation, and evolution is the after thought, the idea of secondary importance that clarifies how He created. Dr. Lamoureux has written several books on this issue, and is interesting to listen to. Very different from the Catholic Ken Millar of the same basic persuasion concerning Christian faith and evolution. In his take God is very active in the process from beginning to the current day.

Zeta

OB–

That’s also interesting, the two perspectives that God was involved in the initial aspect of Creation and the other things just a product of that, versus God being involved and very active even to this current day. It’s kinda like the view that God created all that he did and ceased to do anymore (a dead god) (I cannot think of the technical name–too lazy to google). But also, it could fit into the theory that there is no new matter. That all there ever was was created at creation and matter just transforms into different forms, but nothing new exists.

dee on Tue, Sep 06 2011 at 11:46 pm
Junkster
I do not want to do the YE thing with any of the four who are upset with me. No rebuke, no correction. That sounds way too SGM/anointed pastor weird to me. I am not mad at you. I just don’t want you guys to be irritated with me personally because of my opinions on this subject. It’s not worth it to me. I like you all too much.

I take it from thus that, for some reason, I am one of 4 that you say are upset with you. I’m not sure why you’d think that. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I am not and have not been upset with, angry at, annoyed by, or irritated with you in any way.

You know I am fascinated by different opinions. It is the spice of life for me. I would be desperately bored if everyone thought as I did. I even get bored with myself. I love an intense and thoughtful debate.

Like you, I enjoy a good debate and sharing of opinions. I’m not threatened by anyone else’s views, not do I expect them to share mine. But I don’t mind making the case for mine, nor do I mind letting someone else know when I don’t think they have made the case for theirs.

The only thing I can think of that might have you feeling like I’m irritated with you is my expression that I’d prefer a different approach to responding to Mohler’s arguments, and my characterization of your approach. I can see how you might feel I was too harsh on your chosen style for this post. I know it can sting when we feel that others don’t appreciate something we wrote, especially if we are pleased with it. So if that hurt your feelings, I am truly sorry. But I don’t want you to think I’m upset with you over your views or how you express them, because I am not.

But not when people end up being hurt and then have to discuss whether I am going “liberal” or whatever. I don’t even know what I am. Different kind of fits, I think.

Again, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t think that you are “going liberal”, nor do I consider the OE/TE position a “liberal” viewpoint. I guess one could call it “liberal” as opposed to the common traditional viewpoints held by many theological “conservatives”, but not in the sense that a theologically “liberal” position is equated with a denial of the authority or reliability of Scripture. I have no doubt of your commitment to the Bible – you no doubt would not even have this blog if you didn’t believe the Bible was true and ought to be obeyed (since a big reason for the blog is to point out where church leaders aren’t behaving according to biblical standards).

I also have no doubt of your commitment to the essentials of the faith, nor do I think that your views are in “danger of denying the doctrine of the atonement.” When Ham says something like that, or when Mohler makes a statement that ties a literal interpretation of Genesis to the gospel, I understand where they are coming from. But I don’t agree with their premises or their conclusions. Nonetheless, I do think that, in light of their premises, their conclusions are not illogical or unintelligent, and their concerns ought to be given due consideration and dealt with as the serious issues that they are. Zeta does a superb job of grappling with these kinds of issues. I do not mean to say that you do not, or have not, examined the issues, nor that you or others have not done a good job of harmonizing your views of science and the Bible.

If, by stating that I felt this particular post did not directly address the issues Mohler directly raised, I have mistakenly left you, or anyone, with the impression that I think they cannot be addressed or that you cannot address them, I again apologize. I thought in my mind that I was expressing appreciation for what you wrote in meeting your intended purposes. Perhaps I should have left it at that rather than focusing on what wasn’t said.

I just want to avoid this subject with you guys for a bit. I’ll discuss anything else.

Fair enough, and you need not respond any further on this topic. I just wanted to make very plain that I am not and was not unhappy with you, that I do not consider you to have any less of a commitment to Scripture than you should, and that I respect and care about you.

But, for the rest, the game is afoot!

Everyone else — carry on.

We should have hit 400 already, after you have to count Zeta’s posts as at least 4-5 because of their length!

Lynn–

I disagree with you. It would be interesting how you think I misread your question. I simply asked how old are we as OE believers are saying the earth is. You implied by your question (which I think you need to read again) was that if I’m going to say I believe in an OE, shouldn’t I have a basis for that belief. You Impkird that by my lack of knowledge of the age, that I had no basis by which I believe in OE and therefore, am espousing a belief with no real understanding or basis, to use your words, as to how I can support that belief.

I think I read you clearly the first time. Its really a pet peeve of mine when someone writes something that is clear and then they tell the reader that you read what I said wrongly. And you also missed the “spirit” in which my question was asked. There was no “spirit”, it was just a simple question. Sorry, but I hate Christianese and tend to have a revolting response to it. I apologize.

Dee,

Congratulations on your 400+ comments on a single post!

NLR

As I said. I misunderstood your question. Which led to my answer. And my answer was worded based on my interpretation of your comment. But whatever.

But if that makes you mad. Well sorry. As to Christianese, I’m not sure of all the symptoms, but I’m fairly sure I’ve never caught it.

“Closest Human Ancestor May Rewrite Steps in Our Evolution”

http://news.yahoo.com/closest-human-ancestor-may-rewrite-steps-evolution-141606435.html

These evolutionists keep changing their story with each new fossil they find.

Hi Muff Patter,

Revision is always a nice choice of words. How come they just don’t come out and say – “We were wrong” concerning their earlier theories of evolutionary history. They seem rather arrogant in that regard. Truth does not need to be revised. That is my problem with evolution. Where are the facts? Why all the guess work, assumptions, conjectures, speculations, etc?

I do not trust evolution theory one iota.

“But according to the evolutionists it sure does! ”

No. But whatever you believe you believe.

Facts don’t change. New facts emerge (are discovered) and understanding is revised.

And the same science that leads to understanding evolution and OE also gives you all those electronic gadgets. So you trust the science when it suits your beliefs but not when it contradicts them. Same physics and chemistry. But we shouldn’t trust it unless it conforms to our beliefs or at least doesn’t contradict them?

But as you’ve got it all decided keep your beliefs. But continually treating the media as a science journal will definitely lead to some odd beliefs. Or at least some odd conclusions. Ditto the media coverage of religion. Truth isn’t their goal. Eyeballs is. Because their revenue depends on advertising and that depends on eyeballs.

I’ll retire from this now. I’m not going to convince you and honestly am not trying to. I’m really commenting for others who are just reading and might want to give these issues a fresh look.

Lynn, we both agree that facts do not change. But some people go too far in their interpretation of those facts. The discovery of a new fossil is a fact. But then contending that same fossil is some sort of a missing link, is not a fact. I LOVE facts and new discoveries. But I do not like it when some people jump to conclusions about how to interpret those facts.

The Casey Anthony trial was filled with facts. The defense saw those facts one way, and the prosecution saw them another way. Caylee was dead. That was a fact. How did she die? Was she suffocated with duct tape? Too much chloroform? Did she drown in the pool? If so, then why did they dispose of her in a garbage bag?

Lots of questions with no real answers. That is what evolution is. I see a lot of forced puzzle pieces and square pegs going into round holes.

Could be, might be, looks like, similar to, etc etc. is nothing but speculation, assumption, and conjecture. The gaps in the current fossil record are enormous. There is no way to connect the dots to prove anything.

Again, my computer works and gives me benefits. Macro evolution does not work and provides no benefit to me whatsoever. It is not the same science. Macro evolution right now is a broken science that has yet to be fixed. Until it gets fixed(if it can be), it is of no value. Having a bunch of facts(or computer parts) are of little use until they are put together to function in a working order. Or try reading a book with half of the pages missing.

The metaphoric pieces to the puzzle are in flux and how Biologists understand the relatedness of taxonomically is in flux because genetic similarities are replacing morphology as the basis for how close species are to one another.

I am doing a lot of background research that includes the evolution of the central nervous system.

Until a few years ago, the dominant theory was that a centralized nervous system evolved several times giving rise to diverse types of nervous systems but, after comparing genes that control the development of the CNS, the genes are extremely highly conserved across species. Apparently, the central nervious sysstem only evolved once. This is cool because it makes sense to understand the simple versions and that may eventually hold true for more complex systems.

I’ll stop boring you now but misfitting puzzle pieces are expected when the puzzle is old and constantly changing form.

@Fred: At the moment, it is certainly true that our knowledge of human evolution is incomplete and there are a number of different views about some of the more minor details. But we have a much better record of other groups, such as the fascinating (and, in my mind, probably delicious) trilobite. They emerged in layers which are about 500 million years old with a certain basic form. As we go up in the layers we see more and more different kinds of trilobites emerge, diverging further and further from the basic trilobite template until we hit an extinction event, where some of the new forms disappear. We see more development from the surviving forms, and then another extinction event. Rinse, lather and repeat until the end of the Permian, where they (sadly) disappear altogether. Is the fossil record incomplete? Yes, of course it is. But it shows enough for me to see the emergence of a species, diversification into many species and, finally, their extinction. We can see similar trends in other groups like the ammonoids, which developed some truly amazing (and hilarious) forms before they went extinct.
As a geology fan (and, God willing, future geologist) I have seen the evidence for an old earth with my own eyes. Similarly, I’ve seen and read enough about the evidence in the fossil record and the general underpinnings of evolution overall to be convinced it is true. And it’s not that I came at it with the assumption that it was true; I was a young earth creationist for a while, and it was the weight of evidence that led me to change my beliefs. All truth is God’s truth, and I have found great peace in accepting that. It does nothing to lessen my view of God, or my belief that nature reflects His glory and creativity. Indeed, in seeing a hint the beauty, magnitude and scope of His creative process, and how careful and intimate His involvement must have been, I am humbled.

FredBob: “dee, macro evolution itself is an assumption. How can an assumption help anyone? What good would it do to assume there is life on other planets? Should we assume there are space aliens because of all the UFO sightings?

Also, I believe I do understand the CONCEPT of macro evolution. That is why I reject it.
”

You’ve been listening to too many people that don’t know what they are talking about Fred. The millions of years of history found in the Earth is not an assumption. It’s as much a scientific fact as the orbit of the Moon. As an aside – do you realize how hard it is to actually prove the Earth orbits the sun? It’s kind of obvious if you assume that larger masses attract smaller ones, like an apple falling to the ground. But what if the universe is really some massive plank density solid that holds itself together and whirls about the Earth and there are special wobbles here and there than have unknown causes and special properties we don’t know about and …

Well, this is where ‘scientific geocentrism’ builds its case. But I doubt your distrust of science would take you down THAT road 😉

But the truth is, every piece of evidence we have tells us radiometric clocks do not vary much at all in their progression over time (though cosmogenic isotopes like c14 need calibrations to be precise).

And those clocks give us multiple cross correlating dates for the rock layers in the Earth. Keeping in mind that there are other relative indicators of age in the Earth that also point to millions of years of time that are consistent with what the radiometric clocks tell us. Nevertheless, using these ‘clocks’, we know that rocks that date less than 65 million years old don’t have dinosaurs in them. And rocks that date older than around 210 million years in them don’t have dinosaur fossils in them either. Rocks that date much older than 300 million years don’t have ANY land animals in them – only sea creatures. And the kinds of life we find across all these many dates and time flow like water from one form to another. Indeed, There is no known consistent correlation between the kinds of fossils found in the rocks EXCEPT the time frame the rocks formed (which is why the YEC arguments the flood somehow produced this fossil sorting are absolutely absurd)

So life’s history on the Earth is a fact. Just as much a fact as gravity or fusion. And further, that life’s changes follow a pattern over time that arranges itself into a branching tree when mapped to morphological traits and time is also a fact. This implies the history of life has flowed from one form to another, with older forms typically forming a root from which many subsequent variations or branches form over time. This pattern is also a fact, not an assumption. Incidentally, as we study the DNA of existing creatures, similarities in that DNA also closely parallels morphological traits, forming much the same tree as is implied by the fossil morphologies.

Take the time to study what you don’t understand Fred. I’ll not waste your time any further in this post (after all, Bounded Reality is out there counting my words, and I’m sure this post is on his ‘long winded’ list ;), but if you wish, feel free to discuss this further in any fashion you wish (debate, questions, preaching – whatever). I’ll continue to check in on the thread until there is no further activity in it.

Zeta

Here is a short article on ERV’s from Creation Ministries International:

http://creation.com/large-scale-function-for-endogenous-retroviruses

Once again posting late at night left me a tad fuzzy on facts. The timeframe the fossils imply the migration to land for vertabrates occurred is around the time of TikTaalik, a recently discover fossil that fits morphologically between older sea vertabrates and younger quadrapeds. This is around 375 million years. Further, the oldest know footprints from a quadraped date to aruond 397 million years ago. So my boundary for land animals was a little off, its more like 400 million years, not 300 million.

The fact there is a boundary was of course the point, I’m sure the precise time frame for that boundary will shift a bit, even using 400 million years. And again, this is because fossilization is sparse and based on the current frequency of new fossil finds, the likelyhood we’ve yet found the oldest fossil for a land vertabrate is low.

Zeta

Am I being kept in moderation because I do not believe in macro evolution????

Today, in the first hour of Science Friday on NPR, there was a report of an apparent transitional fossil skeleton or major parts thereof.

FredBob: “Just to simplify this. I am not concerned at all with the age of the Earth. Right now, I am concerned with one thing, and one thing only. That is that monkeys, gorillas, and humans all coming from a common ancestor. I have been debating this single topic on YouTube for years. I have heard all of the DNA arguments, retrovirus insertions, etc and listened to numerous debates on the subject.”

Ok – so that we can establish what is and is not an issue, could you answer just a couple of basic questions so we don’t talk past each other.

A) you are not concerned about the age of the Earth issue. So does that mean you would accept that the Earth is billions of years old?

B) does that mean you do not contest that life has an over 600 million years history on the Earth

C) does that mean you accept that different life forms existed at various times on the Earth, with some separated from others by millions of years?

D) do you accept that we can trace a history of life over that time, disregarding the issue of why that history exists or what, if any, historical connections exist between the various life forms we find fossils for.

Thanks,

Zeta

We’ve never taken a poll. And there are a lot more “just readers” than readers who comment.

We get really good aggregate stats on who visits here. Computer type. OS. Time on pages. Etc. Just no details about who exactly they are.

There have been people who have commented in the past who were very much against OE/evolution. I don’t remember the details of their objections as to how they sliced their objections.

You can search for the word evolution and then look through all 68 posts that have a hit to see what everyone says. I’m betting you’ll only need to read about 3000 to 5000 comments. 🙂

As to the term macro evolution. That’s not a term in general use in biology circles. In biology the feeling is you agree with change over time via DNA changes or you don’t.

And even if you believe there is a difference it also gets hard to define what is macro vs. micro. Basically because most definitions involve the word species and that word is also hard to define in a specific manner.

But I need to drop out of this debate and go back behind the curtain.

The program and related links can be found at:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201109092

Hi dee,

Here are some articles I pulled up on transitional fossils:

Transitional fossils—what are they?

“Transitional fossils are the remains of those creatures which should be found ‘in-between’ one kind of creature and another kind. For example, evolutionists have long sought the ‘missing link’ between ape and human—some sort of half human/half ape intermediate form. None has ever been found, though many candidates have come and gone. Amplified, no doubt, by the lure of prestige, fame and fortune, the desire to discover such a fossil has led some even to fabricate evidence, such as with the famous Piltdown Man hoax. In that case, though the perpetrator has never been definitively identified, a human skull was ‘planted’ with an ape’s jaw which was crudely ‘doctored’. The result fooled the world for decades into thinking this was proof of human evolution.”

http://creation.com/that-quoteabout-the-missing-transitional-
fossils

“Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory.” [Ronald R. West (evolutionist), “Paleontology and Uniformitariansim.” Compass, Vol. 45 (May 1968), p. 216.]

http://www.trueorigin.org/isakrbtl.asp#fossils

Keep reading others here:

http://www.rae.org/FAQ01.html

http://creationwiki.org/Transitional_form

http://creation.com/fossils-questions-and-answers

dee,

What is wrong with creation.com? Why is that not real info?

Lynn,

Macro evolution is not real science. It is nothing but pure speculation based on presuppositions. I said that I believed in micro evolution, like bacterial resistance. But the bacteria always remains bacteria. It never changes into anything other than bacteria.

I do not frequent any of those sites. Nor did I say that I agree with their statement of faith or other positions. I simply posted some articles that refute transitional fossils.

Lynn, you said: “No mater how bogus the science appears to 99.999% of the people involved in science.” Truth is not determined by how many people believe it. In 1st century Jerusalem and the surrounding communities, how many people believed that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh? I would say that 99.999% did not.

dee on Fri, Sep 09 2011 at 05:39 pm
FredBob

Yes, there are quite a few. I know because they email me.

Oooo, meeee-ow! Kitty has claws! 🙂

dee said: True Hasidic Lubavitchers. They believe that time was not an issue until God created the sun and the moon. So, they believe in eons prior to the sun and the moon and literal days thereafter.

That’s very interesting. I know a Hebrew professor at a Baptist seminary who believes that. But I thought he was the only one; I’d never heard that others believe it.

But the concept of time dilation for all 6 creation days intrigues me. Could God have created all things, with the full processes and time needed for the universe to actually be (not just appear) ~14 billion years old, and the Earth be 4.5 billion years old, with all of the life forms distibuted in the geologic strata accordingly — and still have done so in the 6 days recorded in Genesis? I don’t know enough science to know if that is possible, but I know enough science fiction to wonder about stuff like that.

Yes, GBTC, I’m sure that’s true. Glad I don’t have your job!

Depends on how you define human. And if you feel Adam was the first human then most Christians don’t believe he was born. Anyway.

Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. (ESV) 🙂

What is meant by image and likeness? 10 fingers, 10 toes, etc… or his soul? I and others I know feel the later. This makes me a heretic in the minds of many. But I don’t care who gave birth to Adam.

What about my question?

“What defines us as human?”

I answered. Our soul.

What about mixed species breeding. Are you saying it cannot occur? We really don’t define species very well? Or something else.

“Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the hands for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other living species on Earth. Other higher-level thought processes of humans, such as self-awareness, rationality, and sapience, are considered to be defining features of what constitutes a “person”.”

Simple answer – a human is a person. So what gave birth to the very first person – a non person? I am asking an honest question and I would like an honest answer.

Muff Potter: “Zeta,

Things appeal to all of us based on internal resonance. Spin is everything. Gerald Schroeder’s spin finds more resonance with me than does Lamoureux & Miller. I have always gravitated toward a Jewish view of things rather than the musings of Augustine, Aquinas and Luther. Maimonides & Nahmanides have exerted a much stronger pull on me than the Christian thinkers. This DOES NOT imply lockstep with everything the Jewish sages said, nor does it imply a rejection of all Christian thought, only that I am a borrower of ideas from all traditions.
“

Hi Muff, I too have been impressed by the wisdom in the great Jewish writings. We can gain a lot by understanding the Jewish traditions, they feed strongly into and can significantly illuminate our understanding of Jesus’ teachings. And they tend to think very deeply about things, and in ways that are sometimes refreshingly different.

And I’m glad you enjoyed Lamoureux & Miller. If you get a chance get Miller’s book “Finding Darwin’s God”. It is an extremely good read and has a lot of information on this topic as well us some rather deep insights into why God would work through a process like evolution in the creation of life.

Zeta

Dee: ”
I like the part in Genesis in which it says that God breathed life into the man. It does not say that God breathed life into the animals. So, was that a special thing? How about the soul?”

I really do think this is telling us God did something unique and special with the creation of man. He formed man from the dust of the Earth seems to me to say our physical form is created in much the same way as the rest of the animals (from the Earth), but that He took special care with us. And then when our form was correct, or finished, He gave us something more, something special. Now clearly ‘breathed’ is a metaphor, like God ‘walking’ in the garden, or ‘walking’ on the firmament. So I don’t wouldn’t think it makes sense to try come derive a ‘mechanism’ for how this worked, but I would still trust this is what God did. He made our physical form, but at some point he ‘woke us’/gave us a soul, something more than the animals – and that is what distinguishes us from the animals.

And given the nature of a breath, balanced with Gods activity in forming us, it would not surprise me if this were not some gentle, gradual process over time of God bringing us to the place were we were ‘mankind’. Keeping in mind that Adam in hebrew means both the man Adam and mankind – all of us. Remember also that the same word that is in the second creation narrative (ch 2) that refers to the single man Adam, is used in the creation of mankind – in the plural i.e. mankind – in Genesis Chapter 1:26. Such double meaning is OFTEN not by mistake in scripture.

Zeta

Zeta, you said: “There are on average in all of us 60 new mutations that are the result of DNA copy errors or cosmogenic damage etc. changes in our DNA that we received from neither of our parents nor any of our ancestors. Each birth produces a new kind of human that is very, very slightly different from any human that came before, not merely a mix of old genetic material but containing entirely NEW material.”

That is micro evolution. I already said that I agree with micro evolution. I disagree with macro evolution.

And I am NOT a YEC. I already told you that I do not know the age of the Earth. So please quit accusing me of things that are not true.

You said:

1: “They have been taught evolution and faith in Christ are incompatable.” Not by me they have not.

2)”They find out the evidence FOR evolution is almost irrefutable.”
Micro evolution – yes. Macro evolution – not even close.

The Bible says that “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

What good is all of this so called science knowledge if it is used to beat up on YEC’s (which I am not).

“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” 1 Cor 13:2

We are taught to shepherd the flock of God, not slaughter them. Nobody cares how much we know if they do not know how much we care. This lack of love and compassion will cause the little ones to sin and go astray much faster that any misinformation about evolution. There was no debate concerning evolution when Jesus was speaking those words, so I doubt seriously that was what He had in mind.

Junkster: “Zeta,
What about my sci-fi scenario of a genuinely 14 billion year old earth created in 6 days? You know, like a person orbiting a black hole close to the event horizon experiencing time at a different rate than someone further away. I know, I’m an ignoramus who’s watched too much Star Trek and Stargate, but is there any merit in the concept?”

There is no doubt that there is some inertial frame from which the 13.7 billion years of the Universe’s history would be perceived as 6 days. It would be a frame that would look a lot to us like it was moving at almost the speed of light. But it is clearly a possibility. The biggest problem I see is that a direct mapping of the 6 days doesn’t really match the known order of creation.

However, as a strong counter to my opinion, there is a Jewish physicist who has worked on this idea. Muff Potter mentioned him Earlier. He wrote a book called Genesis and the Big Bang in 1990. His name is Gerald Schroeder. So you, as a matter of fact, are in some pretty good company.

Zeta

Thanks, Zeta. I can’t claim to be in the company of Gerald Schroeder, as I don’t know enough to advocate for (or against) his or any other scientific theory of origins. I’m just in the company of those who wonder about stuff.

Junkster,

Wonder is what caused the first craftsmen engineers to refine their pressure flaked spear points into objects of functional beauty & balance. Wonder is what enabled them to learn accurate shaft straightening techniques and fletching along with a device which extended the arc of their muscled arms and increased their throwing force. You’re in good company Junkster, never lose that wonder!

Hi dee,

You said to me: “I would ask that you be a bit more careful in how you respond. It can appear insulting and confusing, especially when people, such as Zeta, takes time and effort to answer you in a thoughtful manner.”

In light of the above verbatim quotes made to me and about me by Zeta, I would say that he appears to be insulting. I would also like him to be more careful in how he responds.

dee,

If Zeta had said this directly to you, how would you feel?

“Go learn about these things you don’t want to know anything about so at least you have some clue what you are talking about, or STOP teaching on the subject lest you find yourself deserving a millstone around you neck due to reckless negligence!”

Zeta also said: “You have already said several times that you refuse to learn about or try to understand concepts fundamental to the understanding of evolution, and yet you then turn around and claim to understand what is possible for evolution, or what is evidenced for evolution.”

THAT IS AN ABSOLUTE LIE! I NEVER SAID ANY SUCH THING.

Zeta is obviously some kind of friend of yours that can do no wrong, so I am in a no win situation here. So I will take a step way back and I will no longer be responding to any of Zeta’s posts.

I came here for fellowship, not abuse and false accusations.

Gal 5:22-23 “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

The troll(s) have returned it seems…

Funny how Fred Bob, NTBT, and Dennis all write in the same rude fashion….love how he throws the fruit of the spirit verse out there while being rude, defensive, and accusatory….oh well, I’ll let you guys get back to your discussion….

To all those who have defended me as basically a ‘nice guy’ thank you very much for the support. I am honored you would do so.

But to be fair, I was genuinely annoyed with some of the ways fredbob was approaching the topic, and it probably came out in my posts appearing as something hostile. So in the spirit of Christ and of giving no man an excuse for an accusation against us I’ll accept his sense of being unfaily attacked as legitimate and I’ll take the blame for it. I think if I give it some thought I can avoid giving him that same impression in the future.

Zeta

HowDee YaAll,

It is totally understandable…

What?

Dee & Deb just want their “home” back!

(…after all, it was quite cozy!)

(grin)

Sopy ;~)

___
Donald Duck Chip n Dale Special Edition 1947
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJvx41-g5K4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Chip n Dale
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/14200000/Tic-et-Tac-safe-14267186-1024-768.jpg