The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

JimiTime

Firstly, in response to Diogenes. If what is being said of JC is true, then this whole thread is biased, in that there is no valid, creationist scientist here. That means I don't get the evidence to the contrary of the evolutionists. Also, I don't want to filter through all the nonsense to look for the meaningful threads.

I would implore JC to come clean if he is not a scientist. I would also ask him to note what has been asked of him. Its not a big request under the circumstances. If you don't have evidence to back up your statements, please say so, as you serve neither us or Christ in decieving. I believe in God, but I wont demean either God or myself by pretending I have all the scientific answers. Please be honest and let us know where you stand. If you are indeed a scientist, please present evidences to back up your claims. I ask you this as a Christian who believes in creation. Maybe we could start again with the rules I gave a couple of posts ago. You up for the task JC??

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote:

I would like to however, see clearly both sides of the debate without it going like it has in the past

The problem is both sides will present the argument in a way that looks convincing. I will tell you the Earth is 4.55 billion years old and point to a website that support this. JC will counter and say that radiometeric dating cannot be trusted, and point to one of the ton of Creation Science websites that say radiometetic daring cannot be trust.

Who do you believe? Do you believe JC because he provides answers that already fit with your assumed necessity for a God to exist and for him to be the creator of life on Earth. Or do you believe in the scientific method and the models that it produces.

Science is actually at a great disadvantage to Creation Science for two reasons

1 - It often says things that people don't want to hear
2 - It is often wrong, and openly admits this fact

Where as Creation Science has the advantage that it is

1 - Will always fit within the Bible, and as such always confirms beliefs that people already have
2 - Can never be wrong when it comes to the religious foundations. Creation Science won't and can never find out the Earth is older than 10,000 years because that contradicts the Bible. Creation Science can never discover that Adam and Eve were not actually the first humans, because that would contradict the Bible.

So instantly you have a position where Creation Science will always present more comforting (and therefore plausable) argument to Christians, since it appears to offer a confirmation of what they believe is correct.

The problem is just because it is comforting doesn't mean it is correct.

As Robin posted, the only real way to learn about science is to actually learn about science, and to be open to what that process. If you set off, as many Creation Scientists do, to prove your belief structure is actually correct, you will end up in a big mess but you won't realise it is a mess. You should hear the Creation Science explinations of how Noah's Ark managed to hold and support all land animals for a year. But to a Creation Scientists these explinations make perfect sense because it must have happened, its in the Bible.

So if you don't come to this debate with an open mind, ready to reject what you want to be true, you are never going to find answers, because you will naturally gravitate towards the answers that confirm your original belief, even if those answers are actually wrong.

One of the most interesting aspects of science is that science has an in build realisation that it might be wrong.

A lot of people unfamilar with things like the scientific method don't really understand this, as it is not very well presented to the public at large. People think scientists come up with something and say that "this is it, we have proved it". Often that is the way it is presented to the public because having to explain every time that we might be wrong would get to complicated.

But in science there is a thing call "falsifiability". This means that it must be possible that any scientific theory can be wrong. It doesn't mean it is wrong, just that it must be possible to show that it is if it is. This one on of the reasons God is never mentioned in science, because how do you show God do not exist? If it is not possible to show that then you must ignore God.

This is one of the fundamental reasons "Creation Science" is not considered proper science, because creation science does not accept the idea that it can be wrong. How can CS show God didn't create life on Earth? How can CS show Noah's Flood didn't happen? If anything comes along that challanges the theory that God made life on Earth then the Creation Scientists simply alter it until it still looks like it shows God made life on Earth.

So to come into science one must be prepared to state that what they originally thought is actually wrong. This is hard for a lot of scientists, and impossible for Creation Scientists. Evolution might be wrong. The Big Bang theory might be wrong. The theory of graviety might be wrong. The date of the Earth might be wrong.

So if everything can be wrong, then what is the point?

The point is not if something can be wrong, it is the likelyhood that it is wrong. Science is all about models, models of how we think the universe works. The validity of a scientific theory is not based on if it is proven correct, since that is impossible (remember it must be possible, at all times, that the theory is wrong, otherwise it isn't scientific), it is based on how well the model it put forward works with both other models and the observable evidence at hand.

Neo-darwin genetic evolutionary theory (we will call it "evolution" for short, but there are other non-darwinina theories) is the accepted theory of how life developed on Earth but not because it has been proven correct. If you are looking for this proof you won't find it here, or anywhere. Evolution is the accepted theory because the model it puts forward appears to work very well with everything else, with all other models. The more something appears to work well the more likelyhood it is actually modeling reality.

Creationists will no doubt say that that isn't true, that the evolutionary model is so full of holes that it doesn't fit anything close to reality. But the important point to remember is that Creation Science are not concerned with models fitting reality, they are not concerned with models that do not fit the Bible. The Bible comes before reality. It has to fit the Bible, because to a CS the Bible is reality. They do not judge a models worth on how well it works with other scientific models, they judge a models worth based on how it fits the Bible.

Evolution doesn't fit the Bible, so of course it must be wrong.

At the end of the day it comes down to what is important to you. Is it important that a scientific model fits in with the literal Bible? Or are you more intersted in how a scientific theory appears to work with the evidence and other models around us.

If it is the former then nothing will convince you otherwise. There is not much point explaining radiometeric dating, because radiometeric dating model cannot work. There is not much point explaining genetic mutation, because evolution cannot work.

JimiTime wrote:

Son Goku, Wicknight, Scofflaw, Robindch. Are you all scientists?

I am not a professional scienist, I work in computers (you could say i am a computer scientists, but that isn't really relievent to this discussion)

But the important point is that I subscribe to the ideas of modern science.

Modern science is about trying to formulate the model of what we think most closely relates to the actual universe around us.

Science was once descibed as trying to learn the rules of chess by simply watching someone play it forever.

By watching someone play chess you can attempt to model what you think the rules of the game are. But you can never be sure your model is perfect because there might always be something that you just have not observed yet, some aspect of the game that does not fit your model. For example, you watch the game being played and you see castles moving left to right. You put it down as a law of your model that castles can only move left to right. Then, suddenly, later on in the game you see a castle move up the board. Your law is now invalid, and you must update your model accordingly. The most famous example of this happening in real life was when it was discovered that the Newtonian laws of physics simply do not work at a quantum level.

You can never know or prove for certain that you have a "rule" of the game, because at any second something might happen that shows your "rule" was not what you thought it was. All you can do is attempt to model as best you can what you think the rules of the game are.

The issue science has with "Creation Science" is that it assumes that it already knows the rules to the game, because they were written 2000 years ago in the Bible. So if you see a knight move sideways but the Bible says a knight can only move forward, Creation Scientists scramble to find explinations as to why the knight actually is only moving forward and we are just getting it wrong. We might be getting it wrong, but that isn't really the point. We might be getting it right, but this possibility is ignored because the Creation Scientists already think they know the rules.

The real world example would be radiometeric dating. To a Creationists radiometeric dating has to be completely wrong, because they already know the Earth is only 10,000 years old (ie they know the knight can only move forward), so if any data suggests the Earth is much older then we are doing something wrong. The point isn't the some radiometeric dating is wrong (it can be) the point is that Creationist assert that it is all wrong, and can never be correct. They assert that everytime we see the knight move sideways we are observing it wrong. The possibility that we aren't actually, that we might be observing it correctly, isn't factored in, because they claim to already know the rules of the game.

You have to be willing to admit that you don't know the rules of the game for sure before you can start to observe the game. Otherwise it is a pointless excercise

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote:

Science was once descibed as trying to learn the rules of chess by simply watching someone play it forever.

By watching someone play chess you can attempt to model what you think the rules of the game are. But you can never be sure your model is perfect because there might always be something that you just have not observed yet, some aspect of the game that does not fit your model. For example, you watch the game being played and you see castles moving left to right. You put it down as a law of your model that castles can only move left to right. Then, suddenly, later on in the game you see a castle move up the board. Your law is now invalid, and you must update your model accordingly. The most famous example of this happening in real life was when it was discovered that the Newtonian laws of physics simply do not work at a quantum level.

You can never know or prove for certain that you have a "rule" of the game, because at any second something might happen that shows your "rule" was not what you thought it was. All you can do is attempt to model as best you can what you think the rules of the game are.

The issue science has with "Creation Science" is that it assumes that it already knows the rules to the game, because they were written 2000 years ago in the Bible. So if you see a knight move sideways but the Bible says a knight can only move forward, Creation Scientists scramble to find explinations as to why the knight actually is only moving forward and we are just getting it wrong. We might be getting it wrong, but that isn't really the point. We might be getting it right, but this possibility is ignored because the Creation Scientists already think they know the rules.

The real world example would be radiometeric dating. To a Creationists radiometeric dating has to be completely wrong, because they already know the Earth is only 10,000 years old (ie they know the knight can only move forward), so if any data suggests the Earth is much older then we are doing something wrong. The point isn't the some radiometeric dating is wrong (it can be) the point is that Creationist assert that it is all wrong, and can never be correct. They assert that everytime we see the knight move sideways we are observing it wrong. The possibility that we aren't actually, that we might be observing it correctly, isn't factored in, because they claim to already know the rules of the game.

You have to be willing to admit that you don't know the rules of the game for sure before you can start to observe the game. Otherwise it is a pointless excercise

Really what this is analogy is saying, is that nobody has the answers. Science could always be basing its 'laws' on things that may be wrong, and creationists have the answer and manipulate the 'evidence' to suit the answer. If this is the case, you can argue the method, but can't argue the accuracy, for the accuracy is based on pre-conceptions. Both sides have pre-conceptions, so its just a matter of who or what you trust. You can say, but sciences pre-conceptions is based on this, this and this. But if there is possibility that this this and this are wrong, then the accuracy is relative to current understanding. I don't argue the fact that if something is 'proven' false that science will disregard it, but it seems that it wouldn't be strong enough to throw away ones faith.

Another point of note is this. I don't think it says in the bible how old the earth and universe actually are. It indicates how old life is, but the world itself before the creation? I'm not sure that it limits the actual earth or universe to a time frame. As far as I can see in Genesis 1: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

So if there was undeniable evidence that the earth was 4billion years old, it wouldn't contradict Genesis, as far as I can see. 'Life' on earth is a different story. Thats where the real clash is for me. The old earth is not of great consequence in my current understanding, but life is.

Son Goku

JimiTime wrote:

Really what this is analogy is saying, is that nobody has the answers. Science could always be basing its 'laws' on things that may be wrong, and creationists have the answer and manipulate the 'evidence' to suit the answer. If this is the case, you can argue the method, but can't argue the accuracy, for the accuracy is based on pre-conceptions. Both sides have pre-conceptions, so its just a matter of who or what you trust. You can say, but sciences pre-conceptions is based on this, this and this. But if there is possibility that this this and this are wrong, then the accuracy is relative to current understanding. I don't argue the fact that if something is 'proven' false that science will disregard it, but it seems that it wouldn't be strong enough to throw away ones faith.

The analogy is saying you have to always be open to be wrong, it doesn't say that any particular part of science is iffy. (In fact most aren't, they're much more strongly proven than almost anything else) It simply says science is realistic, if something is wrong, you abandon it. I still think you might be seeing science too much as an "alternative faith", because you are seeing tentativeness as a weakness rather than a strength.

Creationism is based on the presupposition that the world and life must be 10,000 years old and it doesn't matter what material evidence runs contrary to that fact. Science on the other hand takes several methods which have been verified independantly and then observes that all their answers converge when applied to the world. If we only used one method to check something then the preconceptions arguement would work, however we have several different methods built on completely different, independant assumptions and they all end up giving the same answer.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote:

Really what this is analogy is saying, is that nobody has the answers.

Not exactly.

What it is saying is that you might have the answer but you will not know for sure that it definiately is the answer, so it is foolish to pretend that you do know for sure.

The important bit of falsafiability to remember is that it isn't saying you definately are wrong, just that you must accept that it is possible you are wrong. As Son points out we can be pretty sure of a lot of things such a the theory of gravity or the laws of chemical reactions. Evolution is actually something we are pretty sure of, despite what JC will tell you, there is a huge amount of evidence and theory in support of evolution. That is why it is the currently most accepted model of life on Earth.

If it was obvious that evolution was incorrect, or if another model was much better, evolution wouldn't be used. That is how science works.

Creationists explain this away by saying that there is a grand atheists conspiricy to destroy religion, and that evolution is their weapon of choice. Evolution is wrong, we all know it is wrong, but we are more interested in destroying religion than real science. This conspiricy theory ignores that fact that evolution never mentions God at all, it certainly doesn't suppose that He doesn't exist, and also that a lot of biologiests who believe the evolutionary model is correct are in fact theists.

JimiTime wrote:

Science could always be basing its 'laws' on things that may be wrong

It could, and has in fact done so many many times in the past. The point is that it is important to realise that this is a possibility, and as such you can recongise easier if you are. That is where the concept of falsibility comes into play. In modern science it is important that when forming a theory one also thinks about how the theory can be wrong, and shown to be wrong.

JimiTime wrote:

and creationists have the answer and manipulate the 'evidence' to suit the answer.

Although JC will deny this to his dying breath, yes. It isn't even so much that they manipulate the evidence, it is that they form rather unlikely models around the evidence that still fit within the idea of the Bible.

So you will get claims such as "How do we know for certain that the speed of light is the same outside the solar system? In our model the speed of light is a lot faster, so our model still has the universe as being 10,000 years old. You can't prove our model wrong so it is just as valid as your model." Now without going outside the solar system and measuring the speed of light to determine if it is faster or slower you can't show that this Creationist model is actually wrong. But how likely is it that it is correct. Having the speed of light a lot faster the further out we go (and therefore having the universe a lot young) doesn't work very well as a model. Lots of other models that appear to work well break if you make the speed of light a lot different outside the solar system.

This fact doesn't concern Creation Scienists because the only thing that concerns them is that their models fit within a Biblical time line. This "faster speed of light" model does, it can't be shown to be incorrect, case closed. I can't prove their model is wrong, all I can do is attempt to show that it doesn't work very well within a general frame work of other scientific models and evidence. But they don't care about this, all they want is a model that fits within a Biblical framework, so any objections will fall on deaf ears.

Ultimately, and this was the point of my previous post, it boils down to what you are looking for, and how you view science. I can't prove to you that evolution is for certain the way life developed on Earth. I can attemp to show you that the evolutionary model works very well and explains a lot of things, but that won't convince you if you have already made up your mind that evolution isn't the way life developed on Earth.

Personally I am not interested in fitting scientific models around a holy book written thousands of years ago. I looking at how well the different models work, most importantly how they work with each other, because I believe that the models that appear to work the best are the ones that are closest to the truth of how the universe actually works.

JimiTime wrote:

You can say, but sciences pre-conceptions is based on this, this and this. But if there is possibility that this this and this are wrong, then the accuracy is relative to current understanding.

That is exactly the point. But there is nothing wrong with that. That is in fact the only honest way to attempt to study the universe.

This is why I said science is at a disadvantage to Creation Science, because science does not, and cannot, provide the easy, straight "We are certain of this and it won't ever change" type answers. It simply cannot do that, and it would be dishonest to pretend it can.

Of course in reality neither can Creation Science, but they pretend that they can. This is dishonest, but ultimately a far more attractive proposition to people looking for the quick fixed answer to a question.

JimiTime wrote:

I don't argue the fact that if something is 'proven' false that science will disregard it, but it seems that it wouldn't be strong enough to throw away ones faith.

You don't have to throw away ones faith. Lots of people don't, and science has certainly never demand that anyone do this.

But you should recongise that it is that, "faith", it is not knowledge. The problem comes when the two are confused. You end up with Creation Science, who claim to put forward faith as knowledge.

JimiTime wrote:

So if there was undeniable evidence that the earth was 4billion years old, it wouldn't contradict Genesis, as far as I can see. 'Life' on earth is a different story. Thats where the real clash is for me. The old earth is not of great consequence in my current understanding, but life is.

It doesn't really matter where you decide to clash science and evidence with the Bible, you can pretty much pick any point and you will find a clash. For example the Bible describes the Earth being created before the sky (ie space) and the sun. Every single model we have about how the universe and the solar system says that the Earth was formed as the solar system formed, approx 6 billion years after the formation of the universe, and years after the formation of the sun. The Bible also descibes the sun as orbiting the Earth, which we know it doesn't, though it would appear to if you didn't understand how the planets moved (Creationists argue that what the Bible actually meant was the sun orbits inside the greater galaxy, which it does)

It is up to you to decide how to reconsile the Bible with science. Most Christians I know simply take the Bible as metephor, and not literally. A very very religious fundamentalist American I lived with in college did this, as he said the Genesis account is based on an old Jewish poem, and was never meant to be taken literally in the first place.

BrianCalgary

Son Goku wrote:

Creationism is based on the presupposition that the world and life must be 10,000 years old and it doesn't matter what material evidence runs contrary to that fact. Science on the other hand takes several methods which have been verified independantly and then observes that all their answers converge when applied to the world. If we only used one method to check something then the preconceptions arguement would work, however we have several different methods built on completely different, independant assumptions and they all end up giving the same answer.

Very true Songoku, but science starts off with the presupposition that there is no God, which is the problem that I have with the whole scientific process.

When mentioned the pat response of the scientific community is that God can't be considered because we can't prove Him to exist.

In the last few posts the secular folk have been very honest in stating how science can be wrong and the search goes on through discovery etc. That is fine and I understand that, however when was the last time a model on creation was done in the scientific community, including God?

Also there are many things that science would never be wrong about; such as mathematical truths that are used in calculations.

JimiTime

Son Goku wrote:

The analogy is saying you have to always be open to be wrong, it doesn't say that any particular part of science is iffy. (In fact most aren't, they're much more strongly proven than almost anything else) It simply says science is realistic, if something is wrong, you abandon it. I still think you might be seeing science too much as an "alternative faith", because you are seeing tentativeness as a weakness rather than a strength.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was trying to speak unbiasly about the analogy given and basically the point you make agrees with it. I am saying that the analogy points that no-one is certain, its just that science admits that it is not certain, creation does not. From a scientific point of view one should always be open to something you just haven't discovered yet. So like I said, its the method that you are arguing, not the accuracy. You can choose to trust the scientific method, or you can choose to trust the person who says they are certain without having scientific method to support the claim. In what I have been reading in my scientifically ignorant and Christianity biased way:) I haven't seen anything to convince me I'm wrong. I have seen very interesting points on radiometric dating etc, but from a Christian point of view, before God gave the world form. We don't know what the conditions were. These conditions could have a huge impact on the assumptions science makes in their dating schemes. I will not insult you by trying to enter into scientific debate on it, but if at the founding of the earth, it was a virtually atomic planet, with huge volcanic activity, huge carbon content etc etc etc. Obviously this is not proveable, especially by me, but is there any conditions on the earth that could have such an impact on sciences dating methods?

Creationism is based on the presupposition that the world and life must be 10,000 years old and it doesn't matter what material evidence runs contrary to that fact.

As I said in my previous account, I don't think the bible indicates how long the world was here before God started to form it. Life yes, but the planet itself, I dont think so.

robindch

Both sides have pre-conceptions, so its just a matter of who or what you trust.

That's what it boils down to.

Introducing a useful anology: Say you're sick in hospital and a doctor comes up and says that he knows what's wrong with you and he knows how to cure you because it's written in this book. The book hasn't ever changed, at least in living memory, it doesn't have much about medicine, and nobody really knows who wrote it, but lots of people believe that it's the last word on everything.

Then another doctor comes up a while later and tells you that he's taken tissue samples and had a complete lab analysis done, taken blood + stool samples, conducted bacteriological analysis on both, done x-ray's, CT-scans and ECG's and come to a tentative conclusion as to what's wrong with you, and a possible way of making you better.

Who do you think is more likely to be close to knowing what's wrong with you?

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote:

That is exactly the point. But there is nothing wrong with that. That is in fact the only honest way to attempt to study the universe.

This is why I said science is at a disadvantage to Creation Science, because science does not, and cannot, provide the easy, straight "We are certain of this and it won't ever change" type answers. It simply cannot do that, and it would be dishonest to pretend it can.

Of course in reality neither can Creation Science, but they pretend that they can. This is dishonest, but ultimately a far more attractive proposition to people looking for the quick fixed answer to a question.

So again we are back to the fact that there are no firm answers, just a better method of finding the answers.

But you should recongise that it is that, "faith", it is not knowledge. The problem comes when the two are confused. You end up with Creation Science, who claim to put forward faith as knowledge.

The bit I don't want to confuse is, 'knowledge' and 'accurate knowledge'.

The Bible also descibes the sun as orbiting the Earth, which we know it doesn't, though it would appear to if you didn't understand how the planets moved (Creationists argue that what the Bible actually meant was the sun orbits inside the greater galaxy, which it does)

Where in the bible does it say that? Are you talking of the Jericho account?

A very very religious fundamentalist American I lived with in college did this, as he said the Genesis account is based on an old Jewish poem, and was never meant to be taken literally in the first place.

would you by any chance know where he got this information? I am intrigued.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

Very true Songoku, but science starts off with the presupposition that there is no God, which is the problem that I have with the whole scientific process.

Brian that isn't true, and this has been explained before.

Science does not state there is no God. It does not state there is a God. Science is rather agnostic on the subject.

Science doesn't include God in its models because it is not possible to model a concept like God. I hope we would both agree on that.

An apple falling off a tree looks exactly the same as an apple falling off a tree because God made it, and we can't tell the difference. So how, when you are modelling the apple falling off the tree, do you factor "God" into that model?

BrianCalgary wrote:

When mentioned the pat response of the scientific community is that God can't be considered because we can't prove Him to exist.

Its not that we can't prove He exists, it is that we cannot model Him. If you can explain how you model God I'm all ears.

How do you model God? How do you show that something like evolution was created by God? How do you show that it wasn't created by God? We wouldn't know either way.

How do you show that the speed of light was not set by God? How do you show that it was set by God? How do you tell the difference?

If there is a God the universe would look exactly the same as if there wasn't a god. The only way to show that God did or did not do something is to compare our universe to a universe that God definately didn't have a hand in. That is impossible, and as such God's existance is irrelivent to the scientific models because He is impossible to model.

BrianCalgary wrote:

Also there are many things that science would never be wrong about; such as mathematical truths that are used in calculations.

Maths is seperate to models of the universe. Maths are used in models but they aren't the same thing.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote:

So again we are back to the fact that there are no firm answers, just a better method of finding the answers.

Pretty much.

JimiTime wrote:

The bit I don't want to confuse is, 'knowledge' and 'accurate knowledge'.

Well then you need to learn about science. the more you know, the better you can make that assessment. Or you can just trust that mainstream science will make the assessment for you. One good thing about science that again you don't find in Creation Science, is that you have a whole bunch of scientists falling over themselves to show that a theory is not as accurate as we once thought. This is because that is the only way science moves forward, by disproving. The way to make your name as a scientists is to disprove something. This acts as a self regulation in scientific circles, where you can be pretty sure that no matter what theory you put forward someone will pick holes in it. That is how scientific models improve and get more accurate.

JimiTime wrote:

Where in the bible does it say that? Are you talking of the Jericho account?

In Joshua 10:13 the Bible describes God stopping the Sun from moving. Of course God wouldn't have stopped the Sun, he would have stopped the Earth, since the Sun doesn't move anyway. But the accient Israelits would not have understood this fact, since they didn't know the Earth moved around the Sun. No problem if you don't take the Bible literally, bit problem if you do.

JimiTime wrote:

would you by any chance know where he got this information? I am intrigued.

He told us he learnt about that from "Bible Camp" ... so I suppose you would have to go to Bible Camp, no idea what that is though and after American Pie ("one time, at band camp...") its hard for me to take anything with "Camp" in it seriously

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

Brian that isn't true, and this has been explained before.

Science does not state there is no God. It does not state there is a God. Science is rather agnostic on the subject..

Thanks for clarifying that. It is tough to describe someone elses position.:)

Wicknight wrote:

Science doesn't include God in its models because it is not possible to model a concept like God. I hope we would both agree on that..

It could be. On the age of th eearth, why not suppose that God created rocks that were 4.5 Billion years old, 10,000 yaers ago, and He did this because they were needed to set the foundation of the Earth, and see where that takes you?

Wicknight wrote:

Its not that we can't prove He exists, it is that we cannot model Him. If you can explain how you model God I'm all ears..

I think it is more that the desire within science is not to model Him and include Him. If I could I would, but I am not a scientist and wouldn't know where to start.

Wicknight wrote:

How do you show that the speed of light was not set by God? How do you show that it was set by God? How do you tell the difference?

If God is there He would have set it. But something like a measurable speed, it really doesn't matter.

Wicknight wrote:

If there is a God the universe would look exactly the same as if there wasn't a god. God is irrelivent to the scientific models because He is impossible to model.

Very true.

Wicknight wrote:

How do you model God? How do you show that something like evolution was created by God? How do you show that it wasn't created by God? We wouldn't know either way.

What happens is that the philosophy that comes about as result permeates society. Even if science where to say, 'we believe that God did it this way.....' (as my buddy the OEC states) it would be a lot more acceptable. I have a lot of respect for my friend as a scientist who believes in evolution because he includes God in his thinking. Whereas scientists such as our very own Canadian Dr. David Suzuki, I have no respect for because he has stated that there is no God.

So where does one go? Who should one trust? Do I trust the scientists of the world who exclude God from their thinking? or do I trust the scientists who includes God?

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

In Joshua 10:13 the Bible describes God stopping the Sun from moving. Of course God wouldn't have stopped the Sun, he would have stopped the Earth, since the Sun doesn't move anyway. But the accient Israelits would not have understood this fact, since they didn't know the Earth moved around the Sun. No problem if you don't take the Bible literally, bit problem if you do.

Not a problem in taking the Bible literally. The part you take literally here is that the Sun reamined stationary in the sky. From the perspective of the watcher it did stop moving. Even today somone would describe the event in the same way becasue that is our perspective of the sun. Heck, I watch it move across the sky every day. But I do know if I really wanted to think about it that it is actually I that is moving.

Wicknight wrote:

He told us he learnt about that from "Bible Camp" ... so I suppose you would have to go to Bible Camp, no idea what that is though and after American Pie ("one time, at band camp...") its hard for me to take anything with "Camp" in it seriously

Ahh camp.:D I love it. It would depend on the denomination of the camp. The United Church of Canada would probably teach such a thing at one of their camps. But I certainly wouldn't classify them as a Christian denomination.

robindch

> Whereas scientists such as our very own Canadian Dr. David Suzuki, I have no
> respect for because he has stated that there is no God.

We've been here before too -- can you please:

1. Provide a reference to back up your claim that Suzuki has said that there is definitely no god. I've been unable to find one and I've looked a few times.

2. Suzuki no doubt also accepts the theory of gravity. Do you also disagree with him about the existence of gravity, just because you believe that he says that your deity does not exist?

thanks.

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote:

Son Goku, Wicknight, Scofflaw, Robindch. Are you all scientists?

Bsc Geology 2.1, minor Botany. MSc Environmental Resource Management. Never completed my PhD, though. Mostly doing IT these days, but worked as a geologist & environmental scientist for most of the 90's.

JimiTime wrote:

Firstly, in response to Diogenes. If what is being said of JC is true, then this whole thread is biased, in that there is no valid, creationist scientist here. That means I don't get the evidence to the contrary of the evolutionists. Also, I don't want to filter through all the nonsense to look for the meaningful threads.

The term "Creation Science" suggests one thing, means another.

It suggests a body of work carried out full-time by reasonably impartial trained professionals, leading to a generally accepted body of theory backed with a mass of observation and experiment, judged valid by peers on the basis of methodological review.

The majority of "Creation Science" actually consists of trying to disprove scientific theories, claiming they've disproved scientific theories, and having those claims published on Creationist websites. The rest consists of occasional speculation by anyone who cares to speculate, leading to a variety of conflicting and competing theories backed by nothing but their proponents standing in their church, and judged solely on their adherence to the Biblical account. Insofar as there is a body of active, accredited "researchers", their accreditation consists of signing an agreement that nothing they find will conflict with the Bible.

The question, therefore, of whether JC is a "Creation Scientist" is moot. As far as I know, he is not a member of the Discovery Institute or any other formal "Creation Science" body. On the other hand, since there is no qualification to be a "Creation Scientist" other than an enthusiasm for attacking science and speculating within the limits allowed by an acceptance of the "literal truth" of the Bible, he is as qualified as anyone.

As far as "knowledge" and "accurate knowledge" goes - science is, in effect, tested millions of times a day - planes that fly, cars that drive, telephones that work, solar panels and nuclear power stations, this Internet, etc etc. Creation Science, on the other hand, has produced no new theories, no new technology - it is a "rhetorical science" only.

Hope that helps, partisan though it undoubtedly appears.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BrianCalgary

robindch wrote:

> Whereas scientists such as our very own Canadian Dr. David Suzuki, I have no
> respect for because he has stated that there is no God.

We've been here before too -- can you please:

1. Provide a reference to back up your claim that Suzuki has said that there is definitely no god. I've been unable to find one and I've looked a few times..

I heard him say it on a radio talk show. You are just going to have to trust me on this one.

robindch wrote:

2. Suzuki no doubt also accepts the theory of gravity. Do you also disagree with him about the existence of gravity, just because you believe that he says that your deity does not exist?

thanks.

This is rather a dumb thing to ask, but here goes. I am affected by gravity on a daily basis and any Christian scientist would corroborate the claim of gravity as well. So I would definitely accept gravity as a fact.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

It could be. On the age of th eearth, why not suppose that God created rocks that were 4.5 Billion years old, 10,000 yaers ago, and He did this because they were needed to set the foundation of the Earth, and see where that takes you?

How? How do you model that?

If God created rocks that appear to be 4.5 Billion years old then they will appear to be 4.5 billion years old. How do you model that they aren't actually 4.5 billion years old, they are in fact 10,000 years old? The two look exactly the same, they function exactly the same, so how can you tell it isn't what it appears to be?

How do you even get the 10,000 years old bit? If something looks and behaves as if it is 4.5 billion years old, how do you model that it is in fact 10,000 years old and not 50,000 years old or 200,000 years old? The only person who would know either way would be God Himself.

You can only model what the universe appear to be. If the universe is actually faking it and is really something else then we will never know, because we have no version of a non-faking it universe to compare our universe to to see which bits are fake and which bits aren't fake.

BrianCalgary wrote:

I think it is more that the desire within science is not to model Him and include Him.

It is in so much as no scientist desires to attempt something that is impossible.

BrianCalgary wrote:

If I could I would, but I am not a scientist and wouldn't know where to start.

No one knows where to start, or even how to do it, that is the point.

BrianCalgary wrote:

If God is there He would have set it.

But how do you model that?

You don't have a non-set-by-God-speed-of-light to compare your set-by-God-speed-of-light measurement to, so you can't tell the difference.

BrianCalgary wrote:

Very true.

Then why do you want science to include God in their models of how the universe works? It is impossible to do this.

BrianCalgary wrote:

Even if science where to say, 'we believe that God did it this way.....' (as my buddy the OEC states) it would be a lot more acceptable.

Not to Buddists ....

What you seem to want is science in general to pick your God without any actually reason for doing so. Why? Why pick your God? There is no way of telling if your God is the actual "God", or if there is anything creating the universe it is a god, or even if a god exists in the first place.

So, if we can't model God, we can't determine if He does or does not exist, and we can't tell the difference, then why pick yours?

BrianCalgary wrote:

I have a lot of respect for my friend as a scientist who believes in evolution because he includes God in his thinking. Whereas scientists such as our very own Canadian Dr. David Suzuki, I have no respect for because he has stated that there is no God.

Thats fair enought, but the respect for the scientists is independent to respect for their theories.

BrianCalgary wrote:

Do I trust the scientists of the world who exclude God from their thinking? or do I trust the scientists who includes God?

You don't trust either of them, you judge the worthiness of the theories they put forward.

If any scientists ever puts forward a theory that they claim disproves God, or that they claim can only work if there is no God, you have my personal premission to smack him in the face, because he is talking nonsense.

Lots of scientists will claim that they don't believe in God because they see no reason to, the world works quite well without one, but that is their own personal decision. I am sure you have lots of reasons why you don't believe in Mohummad but does that mean you would not accept a model on global warming from someone who does?

If you are asking what can you trust, you can trust that the scientific community as a whole is so full of eger fresh scientists who are just waiting to tear down any mistakes found in old theories and replace them with better ones. This has been happening to evolution for the last 150 years, it is the reason why the modern theory is called "neo-darwinian" because it has changed a bit since Darwins day.

robindch

> I heard him say it on a radio talk show. You are just going to have to trust
> me on this one.

The only quote that I've been able to trace is one where he says "I don't believe you can prove or disprove the existence of God.". I think you have forgotten the critical verb "believe". Suzuki does not assert positively that goes does not exist (in the same way that you assert positively that god exists). All he says is that he doesn't know. You can find more on this here.

BTW, we've also said this quite a few times on this thread -- most recently today. None of us (even Dawkins) say that god doesn't exist, and none of us discount him. All we're looking for is some evidence. I'm interested also to know why this basic fact about our side of the fence is forgotten so often? Any ideas?

> This is rather a dumb thing to ask,

It may be dumb, but it's necessary too. From what you say, your sole criterion for accepting evidence about the world is whether somebody who says that they believe in the same deity as you do agrees with the evidence. Do you see that this opens you up to having your opinion manipulated?

Son Goku

BrianCalgary wrote:

Very true Songoku, but science starts off with the presupposition that there is no God, which is the problem that I have with the whole scientific process

Okay I'm going to try I different track than usual to explain this.

I have a particle accelerator and it keeps telling me when I collide two electrons, 37.68% of them come out as muons.
The standard scientific framework in which to analyse this situation is quantum field theory. This assumes various facts about our universe (it is symmetric under certain conditions, e.t.c.).

Now I come to solving the problem. I use the QED langrangian, get the Feynman diagrams, take only the first few diagrams, as they give most of the answer and find that the result above can not be matched by the calculations unless I include the weak force.

At which point was my atheism a possible bias?

Although we have already explained this. It is difficult to see where God would be invoked and how to invoke him.

In the last few posts the secular folk have been very honest in stating how science can be wrong and the search goes on through discovery etc. That is fine and I understand that, however when was the last time a model on creation was done in the scientific community, including God?

How would you do it?
It hasn't even been done by those who want to do it.

Also there are many things that science would never be wrong about; such as mathematical truths that are used in calculations.

Mathematics isn't a science, it's outside science.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

This is rather a dumb thing to ask, but here goes. I am affected by gravity on a daily basis and any Christian scientist would corroborate the claim of gravity as well. So I would definitely accept gravity as a fact.

I would point out that what you actually are doing when you say you "accept" gravity is saying that you accept the mainstream scientific theory of gravity that explains why things fall down towards the ground if not supported. It would be quite easy to come up with a completely different theory to explain this natural phenomona, as many have done in the past, but you like most people, accept the mainstream scientific explination know as the "theory of gravity" to explain this.

You are also affected by evolution on a daily basis too. At least you are affected by the natural phenomona that science explains using the theory of evolution. Yet for some reason you don't accept science when it comes to explaining this phenomonon

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

I would point out that what you actually are doing when you say you "accept" gravity is saying that you accept the mainstream scientific theory of gravity that explains why things fall down towards the ground if not supported. It would be quite easy to come up with a completely different theory to explain this natural phenomona, as many have done in the past, but you like most people, accept the mainstream scientific explination know as the "theory of gravity" to explain this.

Agreed.

Wicknight wrote:

You are also affected by evolution on a daily basis too. At least you are affected by the natural phenomona that science explains using the theory of evolution. Yet for some reason you don't accept science when it comes to explaining this phenomonon

Because evolutionary theory fails to answer far too many questions, that I don't think we should belabour. If anyone wishes they can reread all the previous posts.

Evolution didn't happen so it doesn't affect me on a daily basis.

robindch

> Evolution didn't happen so it doesn't affect me on a daily basis.

I don't wish to sound rude in saying this, but in allowing other people to control your opinions in the light of your own apparent inability and apparent lack of interest in understanding the world, most certainly does affect you on a daily basis!

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

The part you take literally here is that the Sun reamined stationary in the sky.

But that is the point, that isn't literal.

The Bible states the Sun stopped moving. It doesn't state that the sun appeared to stop moving, or that the Earth stopped moving causing the Sun to appear to stop moving.

One can claim that that is done because the people on the ground would see it that way, and not understand the science behind it, but it doesn't change the fact that it is not a literal description of what is actually happening.

BrianCalgary wrote:

Even today somone would describe the event in the same way becasue that is our perspective of the sun.

But they aren't being literal.

The Bible literally states that God caused the sun to stop moving. He didn't, because the sun doesn't move, the Earth does.

Saying the sun moves across the sky is either a lack of understanding or it is a metephor for what is actually happening. If one assumes God does actually know this, then the story is being metephorical. If this can be metephorical why can't Genesis be metephorical? Why when God says "a day" in Genesis is that literal, yet when God says "I shall stop the sun" in Josh he is not actually being literal, it is being framed in a way a human on Earth would understand it?

Think about it, a human in 3000 BCE would no more understand 6 billion years, or the process of a sun exploding and creating a planet, as they would understand the concept of the earth rotating causing the sun to appear to move. So why not use metephor in both? The Bible "dumbs it down" for the read in Josh because the reader would not understand the concept of a rotating Earth, so is it not logical that Genesis is also "dumbed down" because a reader in 3000 BCE would not possibly grasp star formation, or something like evolution?

I would point out that I don't believe any of it, so that isn't my argument, that is the argument against a literal Genesis that a lot of Christians, including my friends, would use.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

Because evolutionary theory fails to answer far too many questions

Such as?

BrianCalgary wrote:

Evolution didn't happen so it doesn't affect me on a daily basis.

The phenomona that the "neo-darwinian theory of biological evolution" attempts to model is happening right now, and it most certainly is affecting you. You can watch it happen if you like (assuming you have access to a microscope and a labratory).

If you have a better theory to explain this phenonona I'm all ears.

robindch

> Evolution didn't happen so it doesn't affect me on a daily basis.

And just to expand on Wicknight's point above, evolution affects you every time you take antibiotics. You remember when your doctor tells you to complete the course, even if the symptoms disappear? Well, that's because bactieria evolve resistance to antibiotics very quickly. If you don't complete your course, you will run the risk of being infected more seriously by a more virulent strain of the thing that you took the original antibiotics to kill.

Just a small example of evolution in action in daily life. There are plenty more.

bonkey

BrianCalgary wrote:

On the age of th eearth, why not suppose that God created rocks that were 4.5 Billion years old, 10,000 yaers ago, and He did this because they were needed to set the foundation of the Earth, and see where that takes you?

Sure.

What we now have is a situation where we must accept that conclusions that disagree with the conclusions of the appropriate scientific measurements are no longer valid.

You can no longer use evidence to conclude. Assuming I'm couching the conclusion in the appropriate "assuming our theories are accurate" and so forth, the best you science can conclude is that "these are 4.5 billion year-old rocks, unless they're not because God only made it look that way."

Thats as far as you get with every test, in every field of science.

Now...given that Christian Science is claimed to be a science, it also means that it has to conclude that these are 4.5 billion year old rocks, created by God 10,000 years ago, unless they're not because God only made it look that way.

Christian Science cannot even rely on the truth in the Bible, because if its scientific about it, it can only say "This is the truth, unless its not because God only made it look that way".

Indeed, if we accept that God can play a role in science - ignoring Wicknight's problems about how to model such - we also have to conclude that our picture of God may not be accurate, but simply made to appear that way by God.

Every single conclusion, unless it is non-scientific, must allow that the evidence which points to the conclusion may not be what it appears, but simply created to appear that way by God - and we can no longer rule out the possibility of a capricious God, as outlined in the previous paragraph.

In short...science falls apart. Alternately - as someone put it in a thread recently - every single scientific conclusion has to have the following tacked on at the end : unless God only made it look like that.

Strange as it may seem, this alternate could actually prevent science from falling apart, because it effects all theories equally. No theory gains over another because of this caveat, and thus, what was previously the most likely theory remains the most likely theory.

In short, the earth remains 4.5 billion years old according to science.

So I would definitely accept gravity as a fact.

You mean surely that you can accept gravity is a fact unless it isn't and God only made it look that way

Scofflaw

It appears to me that there is a presumption that what is true must follow in a linear fashion from true assumptions - and that therefore, a question-mark over the assumptions is a question-mark over the whole thing. The assumptions that underlie science are generally taken to be unproven, and thus science itself is therefore taken to be unproven.

This is, of course, nonsense.

First, there is the aspect of practical proof. We use the practical proof of science every day. For those who would like to quibble that this is technology, or engineering, and somehow separate from science, I would remind them that this is not the Victorian era. Theoretical science yields avenues that are explored into technology, not the reverse.

Second, there is the internal consistency of science. Despite there being millions of "interpreted" facts, resting on tens of thousands of theories, and billions of observations, they all hang together. This is despite the fact that the many fields of science originated, in most part, separately - they are not offshoots from a single stock, but the outcome only of the same methods being applied to a very diverse range of phenomena, at different times, by different people. At this stage the statistical likelihood of so many separately originating conclusions being congruent in this way is virtually nil.

Thirdly, there is the external consistency of science. Despite the fact that the millions of scientists come from an immense range of cultural backgrounds and faiths, work for an immense diversity of organisations, and are of every possible combination of age and gender, they can all verify an experiment or observation for themselves - indeed, this is a requirement for data to be acceptable.

So we have a huge mass of repeatable, consistent science, and where this is tested in the real world, it works. It is as if we had a huge jigsaw - the pieces fit each other, and many of them also fit the world.

Evolution is part of this jigsaw - one of a couple of pieces that Creationists dislike. It is no more tentative, or unproven, than the science that produced lasers - it merely has another implication, which is that the account of the beginning of the world contained in Genesis is not literally accurate. That is the long and the short of the case against it - everything else stems from that.

Should we abandon a scientific theory because it clashes with one religious faith? No. Where we would we stop? Should we abandon scientific theories because someone just doesn't like them, or doesn't understand them? What, in that case, would be the point of science?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Son Goku

BrianCalgary wrote:

It could be. On the age of th eearth, why not suppose that God created rocks that were 4.5 Billion years old, 10,000 yaers ago, and He did this because they were needed to set the foundation of the Earth, and see where that takes you?

Why would somebody do that?
Why not pick 12,000,000 or 5 years ago?

Zombrex

I would point out (again) at this stage that science does not say God does not exist

It is only Creation Scientists, who take the Bible as the literal word of God, who claim that if something like the theory of evolution, or the theory of the big bang, is true then God doesn't exist.

I think a lot of theists, particularly Christians, get there backs up when they hear science talk about evolution because they assume, incorrectly, that science is trying to tell them God doesn't exists. It isn't

A literal reading of the Genesis account of the Bible is incorrect. Put simply, it just didn't happen like that. The solution to that is to not take that part of the Bible as being literal. That is actually a quite easy thing to do, Christians have been doing it for 2000 years. Aquinas didn't take the genesis account as literally 7 days, meaning 7 Earth days.

BC we have already touched on a passage in the Bible that clearly isn't meant to be taken literally, that being the "stopping" of the sun in the sky. God didn't stop the sun, because the sun doesn't move. If He stopped anything he stopped the Earth, which made it appear that the sun stopped moving.

As an atheist all this is a bit "not my department" as I like to say in work. It is really up to the theists to come to terms with science and the Bible. But they should always keep in mind that science is not saying your God doesn't exist, because science doesn't know if your God does or does not exist, and science does not like to make claims on things it doesn't know.

Lots of scientists will claim they don't think God exists, which is fair enough. I think a lot of their arguments are very good and convincing. Others will disagree, and lots of other scientists will put forward argumenst as to why they think God does exist. There is not some atheist conspiracy to try and trick the world into thinking science has proven God does not exist. That is nonsense, despite what the Creation Scientists claim

CiDeRmAn

I have to say, I am getting the distinct impression that so called Creationists are little more than a well funded sect.
I am not trying to insult such folk but they are a sub set of the Christian faith, Catholics being the most numerous, then the various Protestant variations, surely the true believers of creationism are rather few and far between, I would love to see some impartial stats on this.
Point being most of my friends are either atheists or Catholics and they all would concur with evolution and the current accepted view of the universe as having an ancient explosive origin, whatever the technical backdrop this is what they hold to be true, rather like the Catholic grouping accept the more technical aspects of the church like the turning of wine and bread into the blood and body of Christ at the eucharist.
I would hazard a guess that most C of I here would be of a similar disposition, however the evangelical schism of christianity would appear to be the most likely participant in the whole creationist business, trying to shoehorn the modern world and its functioning applications of fundamental sciences into a two thousand year old religious text.
Unfortunately the creationists do seem to be very vocal given their relatively small size, I mean were all people, professional scientists, people like me with a long standing interest in science and those who simply hold with current popular scientific principles, if we were to be as vocal, surely we would be quite a bit more evident, but of course we don't.
We have better things to do with our time, either publishing new works to help people understand the nature of the universe around us or buying such works to further our understanding and realising how it all works, surely a primary drive in humans, as essential to our nature as the drive to eat, drink or procreate, that drive being our curiosity, a thing rather frowned on in creationism, one assumes.

Re: Evolution, New Scientist recently published an article about a team who, using evolution as a base, theorised where a new species of creature was to be found, despite never having seen it but knowing that it should have existed, given the various other creatures that either preceeded it or came after, using their tools they modelled just what type of rock, how deep and where it should have been found and when they went, there it was, pretty neat, as our american cousins would say.

As for the bible and its assortment of miracles, can folk see how the bible, especially the old testament evolved from earlier texts from the same geological area, given that the middle east was the place where humanity had its first cities, Ur, and started farming for the first time, many different faiths have arisen, each one taking a lot from the faith that went before it, just as the christian bible has done, the fertility rituals rejigged to be about Cain and Able, blood spilt on soil, that stuff was done in a ritual manner before the Old testament was ever written, and so many of the things that are seen as uniquely christian/jewish are actually nothing of the sort.
Every faith has a creation myth, thing is most don't take it literally.
But I gues thats getting way off the point.

One other thing thats bugging me, if the whole of creation is only 10000 years old, how did light get here from millions of lightyears away, given that it has a fixed top speed? or did god fix them in the heavens exactly 10000 years in the past and say "ready, steady, go!" ?.