Evidence for God from Science

Jlay. I've not questioned your motives. I've questioned your tactics and addressed your comments. Granted sometimes that's a fine a line and it stings to be the object of such challenges. You're not shy nor have you been shy in the past to challenge others and that often comes across to others as a challenge to address. With all due respect, if you wish to make direct comments and challenges of the nature that you do, I think it's only fair you be prepared to receive challenges of the same genre. You can either receive them in the context of the comments you yourself make and how you wish to receive them, or you can don the hair-shirt and cry foul. It doesn't matter to me, as that is your choice and beyond my control. But bluntly, if you don't wish these challenges in this manner you may wish to re-evaluate how you address others.

blessings,

bart

You can either receive them in the context of the comments you yourself make and how you wish to receive them, or you can don the hair-shirt and cry foul.

Bart, anyone is free to analyze my critique and respond. And they do. And I am at liberty as well, as I am with yours.
I won't even argue that I am quick to challenge. In fact, I'd say that focusing on the argument and not the person is one of those areas where I lose touch with some here, and why you and others see me as challenging. Perhaps this is my background of how I have studied logic, which focuses on the argument, and not the one presenting the argument. This may come across as insensative, when in fact that opposite is intended. Often times when we attack an argument, it is unavoidable that the person who presented it is going to take the critique personal. I'm guilty of it as well. And thus that brings me to address what you've stated. Am I, as you hint, willing to dish it out, but not take it.

It is perfectly acceptable and necessary to point out where we see fallacious reasoning in an argument or position. In fact, you critiqued me recently on another thread for offering only two choices, (a false dilema) when there were potentially more. It was a good critique and I took it as such.
However, in this instance it seems as if you are going beyond this. Naturally, my first response was to go back, re-read the article and see if I was unfair in how I am reading the word determine. My conclusion was that the very ambiquity of the word is reason enough not to use it in a scientific assesment, which this article most certainly was. At least not without additional support. So, yes, I understand your position as regarding the word determine. However, I don't agree with your assesment of my tactics. And that seems to be the focus of your critique. Now, since you critiqued me for not asking questions, it seems rather hypocritical that you failed to do the same of me. And unlike the author of the article, I am here to respond to such questions. So, maybe you can get a glimpse of how I don't see your critique as even handed, and perhaps even tactically minded as well.

I see quite a few problems with this.

You can either receive them in the context of the comments you yourself make and how you wish to receive them, or you can don the hair-shirt and cry foul.

. I see that as a false delima since, for one, I don't agree with your assessment of what you perceive to be my 'tactics'. What you've done here is set the deck in regards to any response I make that doesn't agree with your conclusions. I either have to accept what you have stated, or I am one who (unmeritorious) cries foul. Tactics? Perhaps.
And as I already stated, your proposition to 'ask more questions' wasn't realistic since the author of the article isn't present to question. So, since I don't agree with your assessment, I also don't agree with your conclusions you state here. Instead of focusing on the content of the article, you have turned the focus on me. And, done it in a way that attempts to paint me as (using your own word) manipulative. So, if I were being overly suspicoius I might also say, you are using a tactic. That being one of discrediting the person presenting the argument in an attempt to discredit the argument itself. And if I were even more suspicious I could conclude that this works for you either way. Even if I am able to demonstrate that I was not being manipulative, this thread is far from on topic, and I am presented as someone who is argumentitive and unwilling to drop anything. But, for those still observing this thread, I hope they will understand my lenghty attempts to address this, and that I will defend my character.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the matter. If you have any further comment on the article and its findings, I'd be happy to discuss.

derrick09 wrote:Oh well, no wonder why young earthers are so afraid of evidence!

I'm not afraid of evidence. I just don't find someone elses' laboratory experiments to be personal enough to me to change my life or thought process, especially when the average Joe such as myself does not have the opportunity, nor is given any compassion or patient direction to examine and question those conclusions for themselves.

There are too many people who act as if they base their lives solely on "evidence" whilst also demonstrating a most unkind, unforgiving, unwise and unsavory existence - not to mention one inconsistent with their sincerely-held naturalistic beliefs. There are also too many of them who don't seem to grasp their own limitations and reign in their belief according to their "vast knowledge" concerning things like:

Natural morality (also known as social convention)
Human free will (people who have a problem with belief in God even if it is just acting out ones' nature)
Intelligent design (having "successfully" vacated the office of creator, they want to jump into the drivers' seat)
The "miracles of science" (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Three Mile-Island, Fen-Phen, etc...)

I also understand that evidence is data, and that it must be processed and interpreted; and is therefore not necessarily self-evident. Circumstantial evidence is what sends people to the chair, and direct evidence merely helps to tie the dots together.

Then of course, if the age of the planet is what "evidence" says it is, that gives us something like a 69,000,000th of evidence sampling through direct observation of current states, conditions, and processes. I wish I could prove myself on many counts on such a shred.

And then of course there are all of the traditional pitfalls of money and power and the demonstrably depraved condition of humankind, climategate, and of course the most evil place on the internet - Richard Dawkins' discussion forum.

- N

BUt none of your points directly impacts Old Earth creationism...nor does OEC impact them. In what way does believing in an old earth mean that we must accept natural morality?

What is the problem with accepting OEC, other than a mistaken idea that scripture demands this interpretation?

zoegirl wrote:BUt none of your points directly impacts Old Earth creationism...nor does OEC impact them. In what way does believing in an old earth mean that we must accept natural morality?

What is the problem with accepting OEC, other than a mistaken idea that scripture demands this interpretation?

I didn't expect that they would, they are just personal feelings in response to a personal assertion that YEC's are afraid of evidence. I am simply communicating a certain wariness of somehow depending on what is an increasing antagonist of the faith to develop a world-view, especially given that "scientific evidence's" most popular proponents are so absolutely wicked to those who do not agree with them.

- Nathan

musician wrote:

zoegirl wrote:BUt none of your points directly impacts Old Earth creationism...nor does OEC impact them. In what way does believing in an old earth mean that we must accept natural morality?

What is the problem with accepting OEC, other than a mistaken idea that scripture demands this interpretation?

I didn't expect that they would, they are just personal feelings in response to a personal assertion that YEC's are afraid of evidence. I am simply communicating a certain wariness of somehow depending on what is an increasing antagonist of the faith to develop a world-view, especially given that "scientific evidence's" most popular proponents are so absolutely wicked to those who do not agree with them.

- Nathan

I am assuming you are referring to Dawkins and the like. Surely, however, we do not throw out scientific evidence because a very few vocal obnoxious atheists use that evidence for their philosophy? Certainly, on both sides, there are rather obnoxious proponents that don't represent the views of the majority.

Has anybody noticed that the most popular threads are the debates between YEC and OEC? Just a suggestion... could we at least try to make intellectual conversations like, say, "evidence that God was the reason why the big bang occurred" or "evidence that God was the reason for creation" the hot topics instead of "evidence that this way God created is the best"? It really doesn't matter whether the universe is old or new; I personally find any evidence supporting God to be more interesting. Instead of debating, why don't we try collaborating on these issues for once?

Gratias Tibi Ago,

-kmr

kmr wrote:Has anybody noticed that the most popular threads are the debates between YEC and OEC? Just a suggestion... could we at least try to make intellectual conversations like, say, "evidence that God was the reason why the big bang occurred" or "evidence that God was the reason for creation" the hot topics instead of "evidence that this way God created is the best"? It really doesn't matter whether the universe is old or new; I personally find any evidence supporting God to be more interesting. Instead of debating, why don't we try collaborating on these issues for once?

Gratias Tibi Ago,

-kmr

YEC and OEC collaborate in many contexts, at least the more reasonable ones. The whole intellegent design movement is evidence of that. The primary driving force behind ID in a socia-political sense has been primarily YEC. The scientfic support behind it has been primarily OEC.

I mean on this board, I was just saying that we tend to argue a lot, and I thought it would be better to try and agree a lot more.

I think we do agree on much more than we disagree. In the context of time of origins though, disagreement is fine. As long as the conversation is focused on the issues and respectful of one another, I'm fine with it.

I will look for some opportunity to agree with something though as much as I can.

Okay, haha~!

Hi All,

How would it be if we established that a day is a thousand years in the sight of God The Creator first before entering our flights of fancy?

How could we do this with reason instead of Scripture? "Well I would do it by saying one day is one thousand linear tick/tock years long first!"

Once we have a day in a linear one thousand years time space I would apply Einstein's theorem which states that time can be warped/folded in that linear space-dimension thus having thousands/millions of linear years in the folds of time-space' folds!

Big bang is no longer needed because Big Bang Theory needs a beginning and an end, but where was the beginning's end? With The Great Creator, The Sovereign Lord God Almighty perhaps!!! ....

In infinite time warp/time-fold within a linear time the mind boggles! OEC is now contained in YEC. and isn't the Lord wonderful He thought of it first!

Yours in Christ,

Colin.

That's a possibility Colin. One that's been posited for quite some time.

Interestingly most of the early Church Fathers took the passage that a day was like a thousand years (that "like" is very important as it shows it to be a metapor or analogy rather than a scientific measurement.

Frankly, I think it's a stretch for YEC and at times OEC to assume scientific parallels to the degree both take them, from a text written in a non-scientific culture and non-scientific language.

I believe in the OEC model. I understood the book of Genesis, the creation, more in depth, when I let the Bible interpret the Bible. So I'll put this out there, to answer a question that I remember seeing some time ago and that is, Why didn't Adam die the 'DAY' he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (KJV)

If that was a 24hour "day" that God is speaking of in that verse, then He lied to Adam. Adam did not die within the 24 hour period following. In fact Adam lived a long time.

Gen 5:5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

If the day God is speaking of is instead a 1000 year human period or a "Lord's day" then God told Adam the truth. And Adam died before that day ended.

Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

2Pet 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Peter is imploring the Christians who read this to know that, one of the Lord's days is a thousand human years and a thousand human years is one day (the Lord's time).

If you read through Genesis 5, you will notice that the antediluvian patriarchs (except Enoch), lived long lives but they all had one thing in common: None of them lived longer than a thousand years. They all died before a "Lord's Day" was completed. Thus God was telling the truth to Adam when God told him that the day he ate from the tree he (and Adam's descendents), would surely die. And they did. And if the same reasoning is applied to the rest of the Genesis "days" of creation, then they are not 24 hour periods at all but periods of a thousand human years.

Katabole, that is a very interesting take on things indeed. However, I believe God was talking about spiritual death, rather than physical death, in that scripture. See here.