Can we really Believe the Creator's Word?

Once again Paul - you are correct.

In this case "my point exactly".

So in choosing him as my "source" I am showing a degree of objectivity and critical thinking - unknown to the evolutionist argument so far.

Indeed. But the fact that an atheist agrees that humans are living complex beings BUT ALSO says " there is no God" does not mean that it is logical for him to then conclude "I believe both are true - so I must be right".

The circular argument that would insist that "evolutionists are right to hold conflicting views along with good-science - because after all - they do it" is not a compelling argument.

Rather it is "all you have left" when confronted with these facts so devastating to your views.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Indeed - a perfect example of eisegesis. You "make" the text say what you 'need' it to say even though you admit - it does not say it at all. You just "need to think of it that way".

The most glaring example of your error here is brought to view in the Exodus 20:8-11 summary of those SAME 7 literal days in Genesis - as spoken by God Himself on Sinai.

God Himself removes all your facade that you lay around the Genesis 1-2:4 "Account" of the Creator - when HE says "FOR IN six days God ... " and then hard wires that directly to "SIX days YOU shall..."

Same author, same audience, same context same word (exegesis). Impossible to "slip your meaning in between the lines".

And there you have it - you not only need to debunk God's Word in Genesis 1-2:4 but now you find yourself having to skip around all through scripture - doing a cut-and-paste job on the Word.

In Christ,

Bob

 

This is a perfect example of the bad science promoted in evolutionism's doctrines.

When the gasses rush together and solidify as if by magic - and earth cools - and forms water, mountains and seas what further distance DOWN does the planet travel from that lifeless state to "balance" the production of an Einstein?

Answer - no amount of going back to gas will compensate.

When the space shuttle exploded - it did not "balance" out the intelligent design and energy of "making it in the first place". Far more when INTO making it - than was expended by blowing it up.

As is true with all worthwhile projects -- "obviously".

So how could one be lead so far as to even pose the idea you gave above? By embracing evolutionism which is itself attracted to "bad science" like it was a super magnet.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob

So you have absolutely no problem with the fact that your only source that entropy does not allow evolution is on record, later in the same piece you are quoting, as saying that he does not think that entropy is a problem for evolution? Not much of a source to support your position with, is it?

I believe you attributed a quote of Paul's to me above.

"When the gasses rush together and solidify as if by magic - and earth cools - and forms water, mountains and seas what further distance DOWN does the planet travel from that lifeless state to "balance" the production of an Einstein?"

Huh? So gravity is now "magic." BTW, the collapse of a molecular cloud into a solar system increases the entropy of the universe quite a bit. Are you aware that we have examples of star formation at every possible stage from molecular clouds to protostars, to planetary disks, etc. ?

Edit to add: By some strange coincidence, today I realized that my current reading is the third book of Asimov's original Foundation trilogy. The books are a good read.

 

It is a "perfect source".

#1. It shows I have used objective and critical thinking far beyond anything you have been willing to attempt so far - I have admitted the truth in what an Evolutionist has said about science and entropy applied to biological systems.

You have "yet" to step up to that plate - you only complain about my being able to do so.

#2. It shows that EVEN an evolutionist has to admit the "obvious" fact that entropy is exhibited in both living and non-living systems. (which is really - only hard science without evolutionist speculations tossed in).

#3. As already stated - the fact that evolutionists hold self-conflicting contradictory views - is "nothing new". Your argument is "well STILL they hold them so the conflict must be ok" - is... well... "not compelling" in any venue I am aware of, and certainly not the "best example of critical thinking".

Try again.

In Christ,

Bob

 

"BTW - I am glad to see that you as an evolutionist will exhibit the objectivity to read an evolutionist's writing. "

Fiction. I am reading one of his fiction books. I am reading it because it was recommended on the Books forum of this very discussion board. I did not even know about it until then and had never read any Asimov before. FWIW, last week I read Faulkner As I Lay Dying. Odd book, but what a great author.

 

NiC

Part one: How I gave up YEC

Hello again. I am glad to see someone is foolowing this exchange. I do not think you will see either Bob or me changing our minds so it is necessary to think that there is some group of people reading this.

You ask good questions. I do not know that I have all the answers, but I will try and answer as best as I can. I think it may be essential to let you know how I arrived at my curent set of opinions on this issue. I have been through this many times, Bob's comments not withstanding, but I will gladly repeat them for you.

Let me start with a warning. One of the reasons I am so interested in this, as we shall see, is because I think great harm can come from the YEC position. I have not seen enough of your posts to know much about you.If "New in Christ" is simply a reflection of the idea that we are all made new through Christ, then proceed. I just have to recognize that it might be a statement that you are a new CHristian. If so, please realize that this is a very contentious issue and may not be a great place for someone who is not sure in their faith yet.

Let me start with my history. I have always been in a Baptist church. My faith has always been very important to me. We can get into more detail here later if you need. But, the important part about this is that you can understand that growing up in a Southern Baptist church, the only side I was ever exposed to was YEC. Now, there was never made to be a big deal out of it. I do not remember any big show and tells about why we should be YEC. It was just mentioned here and there.

So as I got older, I accepted the young earth. I read the required skepticism and perhaps even hostility towards any kind of old earth/universe or evolutionary ideas. In short, I was like most people that grew up like me. I was YEC, though I did not know why, and and I was very wary of the established science. I mean, how could they be getting it so wrong.

So, let's skip forward to a few years ago. It dawned on me one day that there really was a conflict between what I believed and what was portrayed as good science. So I started investigating. I went straight to the YEC sources. And none of it quite seemed right. I would read it, and immediately I would start seeing problems in my head. I had a chemical engineering degree by this time so I knew some basic physics and a whole lot of chemistry plus whatever else scientific I had been exposed to along the way. But, I would read these things and start picking out the holes in my head. I was discouraged. Then I came across the biggie for me. As it would be, it was entropy. Ironic given the current "discussion" Bob and I are having. I had a good background in thermodynamics. I knew what entropy was. I knew right away that that the people writing these things about entropy were either purposefully lying about entropy (if they were knowledgable to write what they did in the first place) or they did not understand entropy and were lying about their qualifications to give good information on entropy.

I was so mad. There are a few other such things that I came across in the same time frame, but this one example is sufficient.I could not believe that people claiming to be CHristians and claiming to be defending the faith would fell the need and could supply the justification to do such things. Well the result was that I opened my eyes and started looking at other sources of information. My first step in this was to start comparing what old earth creationist and young earth creationists has to say about hte same issues. This made the YECers look even worse. So then I started looking into the main stream science and comparing what they had to say with the YECers. Now I just got even madder.

I found that the YEC literature painted a pretty picture. But the there was no depth. It was written in such a way that to the average lay person, it would sound great. They would come up with these great quotes from scientists that would show what great problems evolution was in. But when you would go look up the quotes themselves, you would always find that the quote was taken completely out of context and meant quite the opposite when the context was added. This dishonest practice is known as quote mining and you will see plenty of examples of it around here. Just look at the Asimov quote that keeps showing up. They know that they are quoting scientists wrongly and do it anyway.

The facts were played fast and loose with. They would show their YEC way of doing things, but when you went to the actual science, you found that they conceniently left out the parts that explain why things are the way they are. And most of it can only be described as out and out lying. No one could innocently make the kinds of mistakes they make. A few examples. There is a guy named Snelling who goes aroun proclaiming that radiometric dating does not work because he found a piece of wood dated to recent times in tens of millions of year old wood. What he doesn't tell you is that the lab he sent the "wood" to called him and told him that the sample was not wood. He said date it anyway. He does not tell you that what he actually dated was iron oxide. If water can get into limestone, it can cause deposits of iro oxide in the rock that have fresh material in them and will of course date young. THis is well known to geologists, but he does not tell you this.

There are many cases of YECers taking a sample of material of known age and dating it using an inappropriate technique and then proclaiming dating does not work. The best example is taking young vocanic rocks and subjecting them to tests that can only be used for items at least a few millions of years old. So of course when the answer comes back as noise below the detection limit of the method, they convert that to an age of several hundred thousand years. Anyone familar with the method would know that the meaning of that was essentially zero, that is too young to be dated with this method. Or they will do the other. There is the famous case of radiocarbon dating a diamond millions of years old. Now, carbon dating cannot give an age older than about 50,000 years because older than that and background radiation will mask the signal. They get an age of 57,000 years old. First, they call this thousands of years old and make ou dig to find that thousands actually means 50,000. Second, they fail to tell you that an age of 57,000 years only means too old to date by this method by certainly older than 50,000 years.

While it always seemed that the YEC leaders were trying to hide something, the mainstream scientists seemed quite open. When you read their material, they seemed willing to admit where data was lacking. Their explanations seemed more complete and more logical. In short, from then to now, every piece of evidence I have examined concerning this issue has made me trust that the earth is old even more.

 

Nic

Part two: How this affect the way I think

I'm sorry to have gone through that long oratory, but it is needed to set the stage to answer your question.

So I go through a period where my paradigm is shifting. I am stressed by what I see from who should be considered Christian leaders. I am confused becuase things that I have always believed as literally true cannot be so. There was probably a period where such did have an effect on my faith. I can now very easily see how this can give others a stronger reaction, leaving the faith. You should not have any trouble finding testimonies of people who have lost their faith over this. Think about it. If you find you have been lied to and misled on this, why not the rest. I think it would have been much more dangerous for me if it had happened when I was younger and/or if I had weaker faith. This is a reason why I consider this an important topic to resolve. The related part is the effect such things can have on unbelievers. How can they think we have the "Truth" if we deny such obvious facts?

So, does this affect my faith in a positive or negative manner? That is really a more complex question than you can imagine. I think that the initial shock of figuring out that what you had always been taught as literal was not literal was probably a bit of a drain on my faith. But once you take a good thorough look at things and realize that all the important parts are still there even in a non-literal reading, it allowed me to sort of reconnect. Maybe that is not even the right way to put it.

Let me try this a different way. Going back and looking at the Bible from the perspective that the Creation narrative is not literal, you see some things differently. Just as you will see on this board occasionally, preachers and teachers would justify the literal interpretation by throwing out whatever scientific facts they could dig out of the Bible. But reading now, especially the Old Testament, you see that there was never much concern given to scientific concerns. Let me explain. If you go back and read a little on what the people believed about the earth back then, you'll see that the people to whom the Bible was written believed in a flat, round earth, surrounded by a great sea, with a dome above that had the stars fixed in it. Now, I never see any attempt by God to correct these beliefs. You see these beliefs reflected by the writers in various places from Genesis on through. I do not think of this as errors, but as a sign that God does not consider such ideas as important enough to put in the Bible. Put another way, the age of the earth does not affect your salvation.

Does this make me doubt God? No. Look around you. Man is different from the rest of creation. We have been given a soul, made in the image of God. This is obvious. My dogs do not have the self awareness, the sense of right and wrong, any of the things that make us human. How did we get to this state? I do not have an answer. I do not think it takes away any of the power of God to think of creation as taking billions of years. Think about the ability to create a universe as grand as ours, with a set of initial conditions that would lead to this little obscure planet around a common star in an average spiral galaxy developing the specific set of life, including us, that had been planned for since the beginning. Is that less amazing than speaking things into being as is? I think it might show even more power.

Does this change my opinion of the Bible? Well, there are really mutiple questions in there. I have touched on one. It does lead me to see the Bible as inspired by God, still the Word of God, but not a dictated word for word sort of thing that many others believe. I do not think that changes what I think of how it should be taken, but others will disagree strongly with that. If you read the Bible, it is largely, in a macro sense, the account of man's experiences with God. And I think the writing shows the effects of those experiences being filtered through the human writers. Now do not read any more than what I am actually saying into this. THe Bible is still the holy Word of God. It is perfect for instruction and doctrine and so on.

Another part of the question is what to take literally and what to not take literally. I have a hard time not taking any part as literal. But, if you think about it, when you read the Bible you often take your outside knowledge, apply it to what you are reading, and decide if it is literal or not. And when you do, you have no trouble getting the correct meaning from the passage and you see nothing wrong with the non-literal interpretation. You usually do not even realize you are making such a choice. But you will admit, if you think about it, that there is much that is not literal in the Bible. That is basically what I am doing here. I know that the earth is billions of years old and that life as we know it is the product of common descent. So I take the creation in a non-literal fashion and try and pull out the truths that God was trying to convey. Do we not do the same thing with, say, Revelation? There are a number of things in there that we take as symbolic or allegorical while still accepting that it is telling us about things that will really happen. God really created the universe and really made all of the things we can see. Does it matter if He told us about it in a non-literal way? He does so about many other topics in many other place. I think I covered the rest of this topic as it relates to Genesis in out previous exchange.

Now as far as taking other things non-literal...Things like the virgin birth and the Ressurrection are central to our beliefs. There is no need nor desire to explain them away. To do so would be to abandon our faith. I am very hesitant to go away from literal readings. But, as i have said, you can see where certain parts of the Bible were not meant to be literal but still give us Truth, sometime even discussing real events in symbolic ways. Paul gave a list a few post ago of a number of things that you automatically substitute non-literal for literal without even thinking about it. The same is true of Creation. We can see by looking at the world around us that it is not a literal story, so we look for the truth that God was trying to tell us. The other thing is this. I believe we can look at the Creation and know its history. God has written the history in the stars and in the ground and in our bodies. I can learn about His Creation from His creation and know that I am justified in not taking the creation narrative literally. There is no way to put the Ressurection to the test. It was a miracle. It was supernatural. It leaves no physical evidence. I either trust and believe or I go my seperate way. And I am stil here, am I not? I do not think that it really is possible to simply explain away "any doctrine or truth in the Word could be explained away in non-literal terms so as to render the doctrine moot."

Well, there is a little more that I could say, but I think I have covered the basics and gone on way too long. If you have more, specific questions let me know. I am late for work now.

 

UTEOTW,

I thank you for your responses. I do appreciate you providing such background and perspective. As for my screen name, yes, it refers to the fact that I (we) are new in Christ. I have been a Christian for many years.

However, I pay particular attention to those, such as yourself and Paul of Eugene, who profess adherence to old earth ideologies, yet have maintained your faith. That does not mean I don't also listen to the points of view from YEC adherents, like BobRyan. It's just that so many have had their faith shipwrecked by this whole subject (YEC vs. Old Earth, etc).

Like Bob, I am always leary of bending the Bible to fit experience (I not implying you and Paul do ;) ). So, I take interest in hearing from those whose understanding of the Bible, at least in one portion, has changed, yet are able to maintain a fundamental doctrinal position.

Thank you, again, for the time you put into your response. Hopefully, others will add theirs.

 

Nothing in your entire post or subsequent post came close to anything like "exegesis".

Rather you explained in detail why you "needed" to read "something else" into the text other than what it says. That is actually quite helpful.

Although you claim some other post - actually answers the question - you spend almost all your time addressing why you "want" to change the meaning of the text and why you "need" to do it.

Again - very instructive for anyone reading. In essence - all your attempts have been classic eisegesis - and your wording above "explains" why you do it.

But no matter how long the post - there is no such thing as "justification for eisegesis". It is a pure hack of the text - to meet "some other agenda" other than a strict and objective rendering of the text.

Your tome fully explains why you feel the need to do it. I think "fear" - summs it up. Fear of what might happen - should evolutionism's myths and speculations ever become science fact.

In Christ,

Bob

 

The point I have made above - is recognized by both Christians and Atheist evolutionists.

Get it - that IS the very thing they are trying to explain. When you marry the Creator to a non-Creationist "story" whose purpose is to explain-away the Creator - you embrace pure contradiction and flawed (non-critical) logic.

Neither Creator-account-trusting Christian nor Atheist Scientist will approve of it.

But alas.. for some the point is not exegesis - nor is it reason or logic... it is fear of what might happen if evolution is ever proven to be true.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob,

You've posted some thought-provoking content. Let me ask you, when confronted with scientific data, such you've posted, what is your reaction? If it challenges the Bible, do you throw it out immediately? Do you examine it to see if there may actually be some harmony of the accounts?

I suppose the question I'm posing to you is the opposite of that which I posed to UTEOTW. Rather than asking how science affects your idea of the Word, I'd like to know how the Word affects your idea of science. I assume you are a doctrinally straight, fundamental believer.

I know I've been asking some esoteric questions, which may have no clear answer. I don't mean to be difficult, nor do I want to be confrontational. I'm really trying to get ideas and understanding.

Thanks. It's good to be asking these questions among believers!

 

NiC

You are welcome. I feel better about you being a Christian for a long time. This is not a debate into which I would thrust those who have have fragile faith.

"It's just that so many have had their faith shipwrecked by this whole subject"

Yes. I find it so unnecessary. I think the debate should be had and completed so that this does not have to happen continuously.

"Like Bob, I am always leary of bending the Bible to fit experience "

I think we have a bit of a paradox here. I think you should always be weary of bending the Bible to fit anything. Lot's of people have / do bend it to fit whatever it is they would like to do. On the other hand, there are certain experiences where you "bend" but do not even realize it and do so without consequence. Take the example of the sun standing still. We insert our own knowledge that the motion of the sun is caused by the rotation of the earth and we are able to deduct that the earth stopped spinning and made the sun appear to stop moving. The "bending" is based on what we already know, from outside Scripture, to be true. We substitute automatically. So, for me, it is the same. As well as I know the earth spins on its axis as it orbits the sun I know that the earth is old. What you cannot do is make unnecessary substitutions or, worse, bend the words to fit your desires rather than God's desires for you. The paradox... A subject that could hardly matter less to salvation has such a power to turn people from God.

And Bob is still using the fallacious argument from authority in his quoting of Dawkins. Dawkins is no more an expert on religious matters than the man on the street.

 

"Your tome fully explains why you feel the need to do it. I think "fear" - summs it up. Fear of what might happen - should evolutionism's myths and speculations ever become science fact."

Bob

IMHO, evolution and geology and astronomy and all the other fields that are related to this discussion have presented their cases for an old earth beyond a reasonable doubt. My "fear" is the effects that denying this has on believers and non-believers alike. If I had a personal "fear about this, doesn't it seem more reasonable that I would fear being wrong than in being right?

 

I don't argue that you fear (that legitimate "hard science" has swallowed many of the myths and guesswork of the false-science called evolutionism) - is without merit. Clearly there is a marriage of good science with false science in that regard.

You also make a good case that should evolutionism ever be able to prove its falsehoods - and stand the Bible on its head - it will be harder for Christians to "compromise" having stood so long in favor of God's Word and opposed to poor-science and opposed to the dogmatism of evolutionisms preachers.

Your solution is to "compromise in advance". To surrender the point BEFORE the other side gets to the point where they might be able to "prove something". A kind of "surrender first" approach.

So be it. Some may choose that method. I do not.

What I am trying to "Address" is that your "need" to take that approach had nothing whatsoever to do with an honest objective exegetical rendering of the text. RATHER - you come to the text with "an agenda" to bend it to your "needs". Or more specifically to "evolutionism's needs".

But as Dawkings points out - the degree of bending that would be needed to fully satisfy evolutionism - is such that the Word of God - and God Himself - is negated. And obviously - many Christian Theologians also see that point clearly.

This is one point on which both Evolutionists and Christians find ready agreement.

The only ones left out of that agreement are the Christian evolutionists.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Fine. Then switch to a mode of actually engaging in "exegesis". Start rendering the text in spite of your evolutionism - and not "because of it".

Embrace objectivity.

Embrace critical thinking.

So far you and Paul have both admitted that the text is not making evolutionist claims - it is making Christian Creator-trusting Claims.

You then "explain" that by saying God had to lie to them - because they were stupid and not as scientifically experienced at creating life from nothing and forming living planets from scratch - as atheist evolutionists are today.

However - in saying that - you confess that the text is NOT in the form of an evolutionist's view of origins - indeed - not at all.

"Maybe". The problem is that the physical laws broken and the planetary collapse cause by a sudden stop to the earth's rotation is not very "plausible either". Which means the infinite God may have done something "beyond your science as well".

However - your explanation is perfect in that it relies (as does all of evolutionism) on pure guesswork. But in that regard it is the same as the rest of evolutionism - so consistent if nothing else.

As has been repeatedly pointed out - evolutionism denies God, the Law of God, the Word of God, the fall of man, the Creator's claims to be our God and our Creator, the goal of the Gospel, the Reason for the Ransom, the perfect state of Paradise FROM WHICH mankind fell, the quotes of both OT and NT religious teachers and docrinal statements... It could hardly "be" more devastating to the Gospel.

Again you do not promote your argument by failing to use critical thinking, failing to apply the right definition of fallacy by appeal to authority and pretending to ignore the fact that BOTH Christians and atheist evolutionists admit to the simple and obvious statement Dawkings makes.

Your critical thinking being impared - you fail to see that my appeal to YOUR side of the fence is again an example of objectivity far exceeding anything you have shown here. I have shown that NOT ONLY would my OWN YEC authorities concur that evolution and Christianity's God do not mix (and should I quote them that WOULD be the fallacy of an appeal to authority) -- BUT ALSO Evolutionists THEMSELVES admit to this.

The case could hardly be more devastating to the argument you have tried to make about evolutionism NOT addressing the point and function of God.

Dawkings points out that this is in fact the VERY POINT.

A fact upon which BOTH Evolutionists and Creationists agree. (All expcept Christian Evolutionists of course).

The contradiction you are so willing to embrace is "apparent" to BOTH evolutionists AND Christians accepting the Creator's account.

How can you ever hope to get that fact tossed out of consideration?

In Christ,

Bob

 

I do the same thing that the faithful devotee to evolutionism's doctrines does when confronted by a problem that I don't have an immediate "Creationist" answer for - I trust that time will solve the problem as more is discovered about the latest "puzzle".

So also does the evolutionist - begin with his/her bias and fully confident that his ability to "guess" will one day explain puzzles so difficult for him/her today. (Entropy for example). In the mean time they trust their own guessing far exceeds the Creator's Word in terms of accuracy in fact.

I start out JUST the same way as the evolutionist, with a bias. I think God's view is far more logical and far better supported by "hard science" than all the myths and quesswork of evolutionism.

Atheist Evolutionists will claim that their own guesses are perfectly suited to "explain away the creator". And they are logically correct on at least one point. IF their guessing is correct - they have explained away everything the Bible has attributed to the spoken Word of the Creator.

I am not as convinced by their "guesswork" as some others. But I do observe that when not overstating their case - they are at the very least "very hopeful".

In Christ,

Bob

[ May 21, 2004, 10:45 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

Bob

You accuse me of doing the same thing you do. You do not want me to bring any outside knowledge in when I read the Bible but it is fine for you. Or do you believe in a flat, disk shaped earth, surrounded by a great sea, with a fixed dome above it containing the stars, a tent for the sun, a sun which travels across the sky because of its own movement, and literal storehouses for the hailstones?

"Again you do not promote your argument by failing to use critical thinking, failing to apply the right definition of fallacy by appeal to authority and pretending to ignore the fact that BOTH Christians and atheist evolutionists admit to the simple and obvious statement Dawkings makes."

I think you are the one laboring under a false definition of an appeal to authority. Here:

"This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true."

You should go read the full section at http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html .

Now, tell me, what qualifications does Dawkins have to speak as an authority on religious issues? None. You want to quote him on strictly his view on the science of evolution, fine. You want to start mixing in his religious views, you cannot.

 

I use Richard Dawkins as a well known, well respected authority on the CLAIMS of EVOLUTIONISM.

(Surely that point is not that hard to see UTEOTW).

I "show" that the CLAIMS made by evolutionism are to "explain the VERY THING" you are trying to drag into his evolutionary world. I show that HE says this about HIS view of evolution and what IT is trying to explain.

Your attempts to bend this around as if Dawkins has claimed to be a theologian - shows a lack of critical thinking.

Though you may not be a creationist you should at least address the point of the argument.

Get it - Dawkins says of HIS view of eovlution that this unneeded God factor IS the very thing they are trying to explain.. The purpose of evolutionism is stated.

You argument that evolutionists should not be listened to when THEY state the PURPOSE of their views - - is not logical.

In Christ,

Bob