The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

J C

Assyrian
it make much more sense to say the Jesus was talking about the beginning of creation of the human race, after all he was talking about how God made humans, not how he made the world.

Yes indeed Jesus was talking about the fact that God made Humans male and female (Adam and Eve) at the BEGINNING of the World during Creation Week and the verse also simultaneously confirms that Mankind HAD it’s BEGINNING with a man and a woman (AKA Adam and Eve).

This contrasts dramatically with an Evolutionary perspective which postulates that Mankind had it’s BEGINNING in a self-replicating molecule – that wasn’t obviously a male or a female Human!!!!


Originally Posted by J C
Jesus and Peter confirm the REALTY of Noah and the Genesis Flood in Mt 24:37-39a and 1 Pet 3:20b.
Genesis 6:13 confirms that the Flood was WORLDWIDE
“So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth’ (NIV).
Assyrian
So to get a worldwide flood, you have to go back to Genesis, rather than anything Jesus said about the flood. But Genesis doesn't tell us the flood was wordwide either. The word translated 'earth' is more often translated land. The land Noah lived in was filled with violence, it was that land that God destroyed and everyone living in it.

God said ‘I am going to put an end to ALL people’ in Gen 6:13. Equally in Gen 6:7 “So the Lord said ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth” (NIV).

Unless you believe in different species of Mankind – the use and context of the word ‘mankind’ in Gen 6:7 implies ALL Of MANKIND – and therefore the Flood WAS Worldwide.

Equally, the Geological evidence from ALL OVER THE WORLD indicates that a water-based catastrophe and sedimentation event of worldwide proportions occurred in the historic past.


Originally Posted by J C
Yes indeed, the historical debate within mainstream Christianity was whether Creation was instantaneous or took six days – and NOT whether God used evolution.
Assyrian
Obviously when they didn't have any scientific evidence for evolution.

The historical debate within mainstream Christianity was whether Creation was instantaneous or took six days .

Equally, we still DON’T have any scientific evidence for Macro-evolution – only plenty of scientific evidence AGAINST it.


Augustine as quoted by Assyrian
If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Assyrian
Sound familiar?

As a matter of fact it DOES sound familiar.

For some reason the words “Theistic Evolutionist” come to mind!!!


Quote John Calvin
“…albeit the duration of the world, now declining to its ultimate end, has not yet attained six thousand years
Quote Assyrian
Sure, Calvin believed in a six day creation.

………Calvin was open minded about the Copernican system

Calvin seems to have been a six day young earth creationist with an OPEN MIND on the Helio/Geo-centrist question.


Brother Consolmagno as quoted by Assyrian
"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god.

The infallible Word of God in the Bible is indeed a proper defence against superstition.

The God of the Bible CLAIMS to be the CREATOR GOD of the Universe and of all life therein.

Indeed the Nicene Creed of the Roman Catholic Church starts with the words “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible ”

Therefore Creationism – which holds that God WAS the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things therein, isn't ‘a kind of paganism’.


Louis Pasteur as quoted by Assyrian
Virulence appears in a new light which cannot but be alarming to humanity; unless nature, in her evolution down the ages (an evolution which, as we now know, has been going on for millions, nay, hundreds of millions of years), has finally exhausted all the possibilities of producing virulent or contagious diseases -- which does not seem very likely.

Assyrian
So apparently, Pasteur, whom YECs quote as a creationist, believed in evolution and that the earth was hundred of millions of years old

Just like other Creation Scientists, Pasteur believed in Natural Selection, which he called ‘evolution’ in the above quote. As far as I am aware, he DIDN’T believe in an Old Earth, as the bracketed explanatory insert about millions of years seems to imply.


Originally Posted by J C
James Clerk Maxwell was a Creationist Physicist and Mathematician. He WASN’T a Biologist and he therefore didn’t express any scientific views Evolution.
Assyrian
How about: …………………….
http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/Ma...Evolution.html

Thanks for the reference, Assyrian.

It does indeed show that Maxwell did make limited biological references (that I had been unaware of) – but the following quotes from the above article does prove Maxwell’s impeccable Creation Science credentials:-

Maxwell confirmed his belief in the Direct Creation of all matter as follows:-
“They (molecules) continue this day as they were created — perfect in number and measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist.”

He confirmed his belief in Created Kinds (which he called species) as follows:-
“It is well known that living beings may be grouped into a certain number of species, defined with more or less precision, and that it is difficult or impossible to find a series of individuals forming the links of a continuous chain between one species and another.”


Assyrian
Before Linnaeus creationists believed in fixity of species. They believed it was a biblical doctrine, grounded in Genesis, though in fact it came from Aristotle. It was scientific evidence that led Linnaeus to question this supposed biblical doctrine and reject it.

Your quote above provides it’s own answer – fixity of SPECIES is an Aristotlean i.e. Ancient Greek belief – and it ISN’T a Biblical Doctrine.

Breeding within Kinds IS a Biblically based concept.

Linnaeus was a Creation Scientist who based his taxonomic classification system on Creation Science principles (that WEREN’T Aristotlean).

Taxonomy is actually a good example of science ‘rising above’ any paradigms. A Creationist invented it – and both Evolutionists and Creationists currently use it.

Bus77
Are yous not supposed to be having a rest today?

Defending / proclaiming the Word of God on a Sunday doesn’t break the Fourth Commandment to keep the Sabbath Day holy!!!!

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

That is understandable, given your unbelief. But I assure you that God gives certainty to those He savingly calls. They may lose that from time to time, but with the apostle John they can usually say And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20.

And so says the Muslim, and the Hindu, and the Buddhist, and the Jew, and the Zoroastrian, etc etc. Your belief is your belief, and while you have certainty in it, that is in itself meaningless.

The same applies to your notion of absolute morality. You claim that your morality is an absolute morality, because God has set it forth. This is a claim - no more and no less than my claim to be the possessor of an absolute morality that applies to you as well as me. If I do so claim, your whole argument descends into your word against mine - I am convinced that I am right, and so are you. The idea that you have a god backing yours might give yours some weight in some people's eyes, but I'm afraid it utterly fails to impress me.

wolfsbane wrote:

I'm not ignoring the social pressure; I'm just saying that a pragmatic reason (I won't steal, lest I get jailed) is not an absolute standard. If I know I can get away with the theft, then the moral 'reason' society has given disappears.

Neither of us, I am sure, think that secular punishment equates to morality. Theft is wrong because you are treating another person as an object to be manipulated in accordance with your own desires. This is absolutely wrong, although the degree of wrong involved depends on a variety of factors. I have no hesitation in saying so.

wolfsbane wrote:

The point is a thing is either truly moral or not, regardless of what religion or society says. I can say that because God sets the standards. Without that, who can say a thing is morally wrong for all people in all times? There is only what one feels now, and we can give no explanation why anyone should conform to my standards, beyond the pragmatic.

I have given a basis for such a morality (treating any part of the world as an object to be manipulated in accordance with one's own wishes is morally wrong, and all immorality can be deduced from this premise). I regard my morality as absolute, but I do not require a god to back it for me. The argument that this is "only as good as the next person's morality" may confuse an undergraduate, but as one gets older one realises that life is for living, not for talking about.

wolfsbane wrote:

What happens when a society decides to enrich itself by exterminating its neighbours? When the whiteman decided to take the American Indians' land? Was that moral because they had the greater numbers and most people thought it OK?

Clearly not. I'll note in passing that this was carried out by Christians, and generally found at the time to be in accordance with Biblical principles - the result of taking "be fruitful and multiply" to its logical conclusion - the Indians were not as fruitful, or as multiplied, as the white man, and were therefore deficient in following God's will.

wolfsbane wrote:

You have to explain why that is so - why can we kill and eat a plant, but must not do so with a man? They are both living things. Why should an atheist value a new born child above an adult pig? You may well do so - but you cannot give a moral reason for so doing.

Easy - I'm human. I should, strictly, regard an adult pig as the moral equivalent of a newborn human. I don't, because I am human. Hard on the pigs, but they'll cheerfully eat me given the opportunity, so I don't feel as bad about it. Buddhists and Jains have perfectly sensible views on this one, but I'm a meat-eating barbarian.

wolfsbane wrote:

Because He is under no obligation to save everyone. He would have been perfectly just had He saved no one, as we all were born enemies of God. But He set His love on a great number and sent His Son to bear the punishment for their sins.

wolfsbane wrote:

Because we are not in a relationship to God like we are to our daughters. We are born rebels against God. He has to intervene to change our hearts and make us His sons and daughters. He sends His word and His Spirit to guide us through this sinful world, to progressively make us like His Son.

wolfsbane wrote:

Well, all of the elect.

This leads me back to a couple of earlier points. First, if mankind is "born sinful", then all are doomed who are not saved. That the Bible was not brought to, say, Tahiti, for a millenium and a half, means that generations of Tahitians were born and died without hope of redemption. Your God is clearly either useless, careless, or spiteful.

The materialist supposition that the Bible is the work of an Ancient Near-East tribal people, arranged into a single work by a variety of people with an interest in a reformed version of the tribal religion, and spread from there by unassisted human effort, is a pretty simple explanation for this fact. I'm interested, of course, to hear how it can otherwise be explained. Perhaps God just hates Tahitians?

As to the argument that only the elect will be saved...well, as a basic premise, let's take the idea that God is omniscient. Omniscience clearly has to involve knowing everything - the ways and the ends. God therefore, at the moment of Creation, knows who is doomed and who is not. God creates in the foreknowledge of His own condemnation of billions of people. And you worship him? And you presume to lecture anyone on morality?

regards,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Equally, the Geological evidence from ALL OVER THE WORLD indicates that a water-based catastrophe and sedimentation event of worldwide proportions occurred in the historic past.

Which you have utterly failed to demonstrate time and again. The oil industry doesn't believe in the "Flood", nor does the mining industry. Do stop insisting on the completely disproven.

J C wrote:

Equally, we still DON’T have any scientific evidence for Macro-evolution – only plenty of scientific evidence AGAINST it.

Another unproven assertion that you simply parrot repeatedly.

J C wrote:

Indeed the Nicene Creed of the Roman Catholic Church starts with the words “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible ”

Therefore Creationism – which holds that God WAS the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things therein, isn't ‘a kind of paganism’.

Creationism is a very specific interpretation of the claim. You're being disingenuous.

J C wrote:

Louis Pasteur as quoted by Assyrian
Virulence appears in a new light which cannot but be alarming to humanity; unless nature, in her evolution down the ages (an evolution which, as we now know, has been going on for millions, nay, hundreds of millions of years), has finally exhausted all the possibilities of producing virulent or contagious diseases -- which does not seem very likely.

Assyrian
So apparently, Pasteur, whom YECs quote as a creationist, believed in evolution and that the earth was hundred of millions of years old

Just like other Creation Scientists, Pasteur believed in Natural Selection, which he called ‘evolution’ in the above quote. As far as I am aware, he DIDN’T believe in an Old Earth, as the bracketed explanatory insert about millions of years seems to imply.

I see - you can just decide that he didn't mean what he said, then, or claim that someone else must have put that bit in, because it doesn't agree with what you believe to be the case? It's on a par with your other "evidence", I suppose.

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
James Clerk Maxwell was a Creationist Physicist and Mathematician. He WASN’T a Biologist and he therefore didn’t express any scientific views Evolution.

It does indeed show that Maxwell did make limited biological references (that I had been unaware of) – but the following quotes from the above article does prove Maxwell’s impeccable Creation Science credentials:-

Maxwell confirmed his belief in the Direct Creation of all matter as follows:-
“They (molecules) continue this day as they were created — perfect in number and measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist.”

This is not your specific type of Creationism, JC. There are other ways of believing that God is the maker of Heaven and Earth than your silly literalism.

J C wrote:

He confirmed his belief in Created Kinds (which he called species) as follows:-
“It is well known that living beings may be grouped into a certain number of species, defined with more or less precision, and that it is difficult or impossible to find a series of individuals forming the links of a continuous chain between one species and another.”

Groan. He means that species don't merge into each other, but are distinct. It does not imply what you want it to imply about evolution. He is also, of course, wrong - a very good example of sticking to your specialty, if you have one.

J C wrote:

Assyrian
Before Linnaeus creationists believed in fixity of species. They believed it was a biblical doctrine, grounded in Genesis, though in fact it came from Aristotle. It was scientific evidence that led Linnaeus to question this supposed biblical doctrine and reject it.

Your quote above provides it’s own answer – fixity of SPECIES is an Aristotlean i.e. Ancient Greek belief – and it ISN’T a Biblical Doctrine.

Possibly Assyrian is pointing out very gently that Creationists have believed all kinds of guff which they thought was Biblical, but that was anything but, despite their claims of a "plain reading of Scripture".

Really, JC, you can't just claim that someone didn't mean what they are recorded to have said, and claim to have any kind of working relationship with truth or reality.


Scofflaw

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

My point is that the man evolved from molecules can reflect on his existence and inbuilt morality - and rightly conclude there is no real morality, just the conditioning he has received in his genes and by society. Being a free-agent, there is no reason for him to accept these moral standards, beyond self-interest. With the right conditions, it may make sense that he rapes and pillages his way through life. Or that he ends it all in one great overdose of happy powder. What reason can be given him not to?

This is a very accurate point. I can, as an atheist, decide that raping and pillaging is where it's at, and swing along down to Stephen's Green to get on with the glad work! There is certainly no a priori reason why I cannot do so, as far as I am aware.

Unfortunately, you are in no better a position than I, which is my point. If you cannot lead me to God, you cannot prevent me from choosing this path. If I genuinely am an atheist (that is, it is a position that I have come to through reason), you are going to have a very hard time doing so. What will you then do? You will shrug, and be "comforted" (in an existential sense - I don't mean to imply that you would find it emotionally satisfying) by the thought that I will be getting my come-uppance on the Last Day. That's what religion is for, in my book (or at least one of the things) - making the unacceptable acceptable.

That I do not do such a thing, and neither do the vast majority of unbelievers, evolutionists, and atheists, in the same proportion as Christians, you explain with the convenient assignation of this to the workings of a God-given conscience. As I said, this is a matter of faith only - we both believe that most men have one, so I hope not to see this argument again, since it cannot be resolved without us standing in a furnace or the like.

wolfsbane wrote:

Not at all. The rationality of my faith depends on its basic premise: that God exists and we ought to obey Him. Your faith (that men ought to be kind to one another) rests on nothing. Your basic premise is that there is no God, that we evolved from non-life and are just different collections of chemicals and their reactions. That premise demands no moral standard.

No. The step of faith you make is to believe items 1 and 1a - that God exists and we ought to obey him. I reject both of these, separately and together. The step of faith I make in my morality is just such a step - you are not obliged to accept it any more than I accept yours - and neither of us are required to accept the derogation of the other.

wolfsbane wrote:

God has not kept me from anything that god has not kept these people from.
Nice and comforting as it might be to think there is a safety net there, it is simply their actions alone and ours that differ. Personal responsibility.
People are responsible for their sins, true. But that does not mean they are free not to sin. The sinful nature we carry with us means we all sin in various ways. You may think it is your intrinsic goodness that keeps you from murder or paedophilia, but you are greatly mistaken. It is God's mercy and grace restraining you from being the worst person imaginable.

Obviously, God's mercy and grace is limited, or else reception is patchy, since we have thousands of examples of those who led good Christian lives except for one crime. It is largely found to be the case that people do not do evil things because they do not want to think of themselves as the kind of person who does those things.

As a theory of crime and punishment, of course, it is a horrific proposition. God will punish criminals, but we certainly should not. The criminal is born sinful and prone to sin, and only God's grace prevents him sinning. The criminal is therefore not responsible for his acts, which are born out of his sinful nature - perhaps we could go with "diminished responsibility" or "guilty but sinful".

In any case, any concept of Christian "moral responsibility" is made a mockery of by grace - which the individual who has spent his life in acts of evil can obtain by being born again in God. That his conversion may be genuine in no way lessens the misery he has caused, but he himself can enter Heaven, washed clean by the blood of Christ.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Assyrian

wolfsbane wrote:

Assyrian said:

As I said previously, when it touched His redeemed people. Its proper function is to punish sinners.

OK I have to assume that by 'his redeemed people' you mean Christians after Calvary. So God's plan when he created death in Genesis was that it would only operate on the unredeemed, and somehow when Christians kept dying after Calvary, either death had somehow rebelled against God, or he had made it too strong in the first place and it got out of control. Did God intend Calvary to put an end to death and the redeemed would never die? Was death able to withstand Calvary and that is what made it God's enemy? There seem to be big problems with YEC theology here.

Enoch was taken to Heaven, he did not continue to walk the earth. No mortal and immortals living together.

Glad we agree then.

Because Adam's perfection ended when he sinned. Our new perfection will never end - flesh and blood compared to glorified flesh and blood.

Apart from the fact that Adam was only called 'very good' and not perfect, he was so far from perfect his creation was described as 'not good' without Eve. Paul does not describe Adam as perfect either, but as 'dust', and he tells us flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That sounds odd if Paul thought Adam's flesh and blood could have inherited the kingdom. Instead he says 1Cor 15:48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. This was not because of the curse but because God made Adam from the earth. Look at the context of Paul's statement 1Cor 15:47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. Adam was mortal from the beginning. He was perishable 'dust' as we are because he was made from the earth.

That's a contradiction: according to you, Adam would have died regardless of his sinning.

Without God? Sure. What do you think the tree of life was for? What do you think would have happened if Adam had never sinned, but ignored both trees?

The genealogy is straight forward, for it can tell it no other way. Adam's origin was directly of God; Christ's was of God and Mary. All the others in between were soley biological.

It is straightforward to a Mormon perhaps who believes God was Adam's biological father. It should not be straight forward to a Christian, though I find believers often do not realise when they are interpreting texts figuratively. That is not a bad thing, we should be able to read the bible that way, the problem is it is combined with a belief scripture should be interpreted literally.

Questioning the biological descent of Jesus - which is what you did - is not warranted by the fact that Adam was not born in the same manner as Abraham or David.

I never questioned the biological descent of Jesus. This is talking about Joseph and I am the one who says this was only Jesus' 'supposed' genealogy.

If the Jews believed Jesus' descent was from Abraham and David, then they were correct. But they were mistaken in supposing Joseph was His father.

So the genealogy though Mary was correct and inspired scripture, the genealogy through Joseph, Heli and Matthat was wrong and only a supposed genealogy.

To the universities who gave them their PhDs - Harvard, London, Edinburgh were the first ones I caught in dipping in to: http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/bios/default.asp

You mean these universities vet the work their graduates do later?

The plain reading of Scripture teaches us racism is evil. Some things in Scripture are hard to understand, but racism is not one of them. To get a message of hate from the Bible requires a very selective use of texts, a refusal to compare Scripture with Scripture. I do agree that it is the Holy Spirit Who prevents us doing this.

So without the Holy Spirit, unregenerate racists can see racism just as easily in the Bible as in Origin of Species.

Racism is not part of the logic of Scripture. But it fits well with the Origin of Species.

Darwin wasn't a racist and the vast majority of evolutionary biologists today aren't either. The 'racism' in the Origin of Species, seems to be apparent only to people who are already racists, and creationists.

That's hardly Christian theology. The Bible tells us we were born sinners. We sin because of what we are, not the other way around.

Rom 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. It is your own disobedience that makes you a sinner. Don't try to blame someone else.

How does the bible say people become slave to sin? Rom 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

That's the point. Adam is both a figure and a real person. Not a myth. Jesus is the lamb of God; He is also a real person. With your denial of the real person, you prevent the metaphor having any meaning. When Paul spoke of Sarah and Hagar as types of believing and unbelieving Israel, he did not mean they were not real persons.

I am not denying Jesus was a real person, but were 'the Lion of Judah' and 'the Good Shepherd' real or figurative? If they weren't real, does that mean the metaphor has no meaning?

Well, all of the elect.

Ah a Calvinist. Even so you have one dying for many. Does that mean as you suggested: 'that Christ was a number of individuals who suffered to recover for us what the first 'Adam' lost? How many crosses on Golgotha? Or was this a metaphor, the reality being Jesus, Buddha, and other great founders being the 'Christ'?'

No, for Jesus is not of the same value as Adam. If He were only a perfect man, then His substitutionary atonement could only have paid for one person. But He is God also, of infinite worth.

Which is why comparing Jesus with Adam is figurative.

Cheers Assyrian

Assyrian

wolfsbane wrote:

BTW, for a summary of the objections to a local Flood, see:http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/flood.asp

Answers in Genesis wrote:

If the Flood was local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and missed it.

Except he was called to be a prophet, a herald of righteousness. That required staying there to be a witness.

If the Flood was local, why did God send the animals to the Ark so they would escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce that kind if these particular ones had died.

If human civilisation was confined to that area, then all domesticated animals would have been wiped out, also any species or breeds unique to that area.

These arguments seem to be if the flood was local and they were God, they would have done things differently. They seem to be suffering from a bit of megalomania here. Certainly I don't think they are in a position to figure out a better plan than God.

If the Flood was local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all kinds of land vertebrate animals that have ever existed? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, the Ark could have been much smaller.1

They are assuming it held 'all kinds of land vertebrate animals that have ever existed', in other words using global flood presuppositions nd reading them into a local flood interpretation. That is a bad basis for any argument.

Where the local flood happened isn't know. It could have been Mesopotamia, the Black Sea basin or the Med basin. But even a small zoo would need an awful lot of space for animals, food and water for a whole year.

If the Flood was local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range.

It is pretty hard to fly in a torrential downpour, nesting sites would have been destroyed too and the chickens would have to walk.

If the Flood was local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters) above the mountains (Genesis 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It couldn’t rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched.2

Presumably it was in a basin of some sort. Not sure what 'prevailed' means, are you sure that it definitely means 15 cubits deep? Certainly all the high hills Noah could see were covered. I don't know that the story tells us any more than that.

If the Flood was local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not be affected by it. They would have escaped God’s judgment on sin.3 If this happened, what did Christ mean when He likened the coming judgment of all men to the judgment of ‘all’ men (Matthew 24:37–39) in the days of Noah? A partial judgment in Noah’s day means a partial judgment to come.

That is a really silly argument. Jesus' point about Noah was that people were unaware when the flood came, not that his judgement would be as 'global' as the flood. Peter uses both Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of God's judgement, does that mean God will only judge a couple of cities? In Genesis God judged the whole land because the whole land was full of violence. So if now the whole world is full of sin, why shouldn't Christ judge the whole world?

If the Flood was local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a flood again.

When have we seen a whole land submerged and all the people and animals drowned?

Really there is no evidence in scripture or geology to support a global flood. We read Genesis through modern eyes and think 'land' has to mean the whole planet and 'under the whole heaven' means 'inside our planet's atmosphere' instead of under the sky they saw above their heads. This is an ancient story written by people describing an ancient event in their terms. The highest hills under the whole heaven did not mean Everest. They did not even know Everest existed. What we read of is water from horizon to horizon, covering all the hills under the sky above them. It does not make sense to read more into the story than the writer intended, without the support of any other passage in scripture, especially when science tells us that interpretation simply never happened.

Cheers Assyrian

Scofflaw

Assyrian wrote:

So without the Holy Spirit, unregenerate racists can see racism just as easily in the Bible as in Origin of Species.


Darwin wasn't a racist and the vast majority of evolutionary biologists today aren't either. The 'racism' in the Origin of Species, seems to be apparent only to people who are already racists, and creationists.

Given that evolution does not imply the superiority of any organism over any other (there is only better or worse adaptation at a particular time to a particular environment, and that can all change with climate change), and that the concept of "race" is not supported by genetics, the only way evolution can be used to support racism is by a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory.

cordially,
Scofflaw

wolfsbane

wolfsbane wrote:

No problem: God is holy, so He can only do what is just and good. For example, He cannot lie.

So if god says "prostitution and drug abuse are a-ok by me" you think they're good as well, then?
Good to know :?

You have to explain why that is so - why can we kill and eat a plant, but must not do so with a man? They are both living things. Why should an atheist value a new born child above an adult pig? You may well do so - but you cannot give a moral reason for so doing.

Yes, wolfsbane, all living things deserve their life, or at least to be free from suffering. I need to eat plants to live, but I don't go around killing them to make daisy-chains nor do I go around killing flies at will.

Not at all. The rationality of my faith depends on its basic premise: that God exists and we ought to obey Him. Your faith (that men ought to be kind to one another) rests on nothing. Your basic premise is that there is no God, that we evolved from non-life and are just different collections of chemicals and their reactions. That premise demands no moral standard.

Evolution is not a basic premise of mine. As I have said frequently enough in this thread, I don't know and I don't care how life started, and I don't think it matters, as we have more to be concerned with regarding how it currently is and will be. As I've studied some astrophysics I can see how the big bang theory has merit, but I dislike biology and I don't care about evolution beyond seeing what's plainly obvious e.g. virii mutating etc.
There being no god is also not a premise of mine, though I admit I argue as though the gods are irrelevant. I don't know if any of them exist, though I'm happy enough to accept they might. I just don't worship any. It's a fine path for some - there are many ways to enlightenment, I am sure - but not me.

I suppose this is like the meaning of life argument - many theists cannot understand how an atheist/agnostic etc has any reason to go on living. And yet clearly they do. Same as how they have morals.
Whether we are just a collection of chemicals or not, it is plain to see that we have the ability to coexist and work together and so build up societies which develop morals, and to find many reasons for living. For some, it is helping others, for others it is family, and so on. If you do bad things, bad things tend to happen. If you do good things, good things tend to happen. Common sense is enough of a moral system in this case.

People are responsible for their sins, true. But that does not mean they are free not to sin. The sinful nature we carry with us means we all sin in various ways. You may think it is your intrinsic goodness that keeps you from murder or paedophilia, but you are greatly mistaken. It is God's mercy and grace restraining you from being the worst person imaginable.

No, it is knowledge of the consequences, generally speaking, coupled with my dislike of harming things, personally speaking.
I don't know about an "intrinsic goodness" - maybe all people are innately good, maybe not and learn why being good is good.
People ARE free not to sin. All they have to do is choose this. To sit back and actually think in full "what will the results of this action be? Will it bring harm to me, or to others?" It is not something always easily done - people do often act without thinking, I agree, but it is certainly possible once one puts one's mind to it.

Hmmm. Please explain.

I was referring to the belief in rebirth of many buddhists, myself included. Or even reincarnation - I am sure many atheists believe in either. Belief in lack of god does not presuppose the belief of a lack in soul, though rebirth does not include a soul either whereas reincarnation might.
In any case, that was my point.

But even so, it just continues on the actions + consequences things - "if I do this action, its repercussions will affect me either in this life or the next".

I'm extremely tired so apologies if this post doesn't make the most of sense

J C

Wicknight
So it doesn't really matter if you lead a good life, if you are a good person, you just need to be "saved" on your death bed?

Firstly, being a ‘good’ person will not of itself save you. You must repent of your sins and believe on Jesus Christ to be saved.

Secondly, the strategy that you propose is both risky and unwise. It is risky because you might not have a ‘death bed’ upon which to repent and be saved (for example, you might be killed instantly some day). It is unwise because you are denying yourself the benefit of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ 'here and now' rather than in the future. This is one ‘instant gratification’ that you should 'go for' immediately – rather than waiting.


Wicknight
They don't have to be unlucky. There lines of material decent could break by them directly only having sons, or the line could brake at any time from 150,000 years ago to modern time. A line of material decent could last all the way up to say the 15th Century and then break with a daughter having only sons, or even dying before she had any children.

The chances of maternal lines of decent breaking within the first three generations are reasonably plausible – but the chances of them breaking after say seven generations are almost zero.
If the average woman produces 10 children (a normal family size historically) then she will produce an average of 5 daughters – and in only the seventh generation she will have over 78,000 direct female descendants of which she is the common ancestor. Barring a worldwide catastrophe it is a statistical CERTAINTY that her line of descent will not ‘break’.

Wicknight
They didn't all die out. M-Eve is simply the most recent. Hundreds of other material lines of decent exist from women before M-Eve.

If M-Eve is the common ancestor of ALL of Humanity – there cannot be other maternal lines of descent before her. Even if there had been a worldwide catastrophe that wiped out all women except M-Eve (thereby making her the common ancestor of ALL of Humanity) then all maternal lines of descent from the women who were wiped out, would 'die' with them in the catastrophe.

The Mitochondrial DNA has only a relatively small quotient of mutations and this indicates that it was once created perfectly – and this perfect Mitochondrial DNA was possessed by Adam and Eve. This perfect Mitochondrial DNA has become the imperfect Mitochondrial DNA that has been inherited in the maternal line by all of Humanity from Eve (who was also M-Eve).


Wicknight
No, if that were true then all these bugs could eat Nylon. They can't, only the ones with the mutation can.

Different strokes for different bugs!!

Why do you assume that it was a mutation that gave it this ability?

Nylon may be an artificial polymer – but the chemical mechanisms necessary to break it down, especially after prolonged exposure to other ‘breakdown agents’ such a ultraviolet light are quite general in their operation. As I have said this bug obviously survived quite nicely on other substrate before Nylon was invented and indeed it could also survive today if the Nylon substrate was removed.

There is therefore nothing 'special' about the Nylon Bug that proves anything other that the fact that God created it’s kind during Creation Week to perform useful organic matter recycling tasks.


Wicknight
Evolution doesn't care if "information" is lost or gained when adapting a creature to its environment. The better adaptation, the better chances of survival, is all evolution cares about

So Evolution could therefore happily ‘muck about’ in the primordial soup FOREVER swinging like a pendulum between equally low information containing molecules and happily LOSING information in the process!!!

That’s another good reason why Evolution is such an implausible mechanism to account for the astronomical INCREASE in observed information densities at all point between ‘muck and man’.


Originally Posted by J C
There is no simple stepped advantage between a postulated self-replicating molecule and a useful peptide or between a useful Peptide and a useful protein
Wicknight
That would hold if the first complex self replication molecules were modern day proteins. There is no reason to believe this (unless you are desperately assuming things to disprove evolution).

There is no reason to believe that modern day protiens could not have evolved from simpler structures. "Parts" did not just appear suddenly. So therefore the idea that if you suddenly remove a part the protien stops function is completely irrelevant to evolution.

There is actually no reason to believe that modern proteins COULD have evolved from simpler structures. As I have said there is no series of stepped advantage between a postulated self-replicating molecule and a useful primitive peptide or between a useful primitive Peptide and a useful modern protein to accept Evolutionary logic, for the sake of argument.

Useful bio-polymers are highly specific entities that are isolated within the combinatorial space of all possible Amino Acid sequences – and there is no ‘yellow brick road’ of increasing advantage for N S to follow between them. Quite the reverse, in fact – all intermediate sequences are useless and therefore N S cannot identify any increase in utility to select ‘improved’ proteins. You might have every Amino Acid, bar one lined up in a perfect sequence – but this protein would be phenotypically just as useless as another one containing none of the desired sequence.


Originally Posted by J C
The idea that so-called early proteins may have been simpler structures doesn't have any practical benefit
Wicknight
You have no reason to believe that.

…………….Obviously they had benefit because they managed to replicate and we are here aren't we. As I said before, just because you cannot understand something JC doesn't mean it cannot have happened.

Your argument is circular. There are a number of possible explanations of how we got here – including Direct Creation.
If Evolution was the ONLY POSSIBLE mechanism – then you could validly say that we are here therefore proteins must have evolved somehow.

If you cannot understand how something happened, or as in this case, you are wilfully rejecting the most plausible explanation – you cannot then draw any valid conclusions about how it happened.


Wicknight
If they are all wrong, why do they all give the same answer? ... since you like odds so much, please explain that odds that all mistakes in all methods of radiometeric dating would all give roughly the same incorrect answer?

The reason that different radiometric methods of dating ‘agree’ is that they are all calibrated off each other – so the odds that they will agree is a CERTAINTY!!!


Wicknight
By the way there are over 40 different radiometeric methods for dating. While some of these methods may be wrong some of the time, they aren't all wrong all of the time.

If they are wrong about artefacts of known age – then we certainly cannot trust them on items of unknown age.
These methods are based upon unproven assumptions about the radioactive content of the artefact when it was formed, the belief that no radioactivity was added/subtracted externally throughout the period that that artefact has existed and the assumption that the rate of change in the radioactive decay has remained constant. These unproven assumptions prevent any reliable dating conclusions being drawn – and there are many examples of known recent artefacts being dated at millions of years old.


Originally Posted by J C
Indeed the Nicene Creed of the Roman Catholic Church starts with the words “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible ”

Therefore Creationism – which holds that God WAS the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things therein, isn't ‘a kind of paganism’.

Scofflaw
Creationism is a very specific interpretation of the claim. You're being disingenuous

Am I really?

What does the word “Maker” actually mean then?

I believe that God Created Heaven and Earth and all things therein.

Equally, The Apostle’s Creed – which is also held as an article of Faith by the Roman Catholic Church begins “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth……"

Could I point out that the word “Maker” (in the Nicene Creed) and the word “Creator” (in the Apostles Creed) prove beyond all doubt that the Roman Catholic Church is officially a CREATIONIST Church i.e. they accept as an Article of Faith that God made / created the Universe and all life therein.

There is therefore NO PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE between me and the (official position of) the Roman Catholic Church on the question of the DIRECT CREATION by God of the Universe and all life therein.
Ipso facto Creationism ISN’T ‘a kind of paganism’.

J C

Scofflaw
This is not your specific type of Creationism, JC. There are other ways of believing that God is the maker of Heaven and Earth than your silly literalism.

What EXACTLY is my “specific type of Creationism” supposed to be?

HOW exactly did God make / create the Earth if He didn't do it LITERALLY ?

James Clerk Maxwell confirmed his belief in the Direct Creation of all matter as follows:-
“They (molecules) continue this day as they were created — perfect in number and measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist.”

The article at http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/Ma...Evolution.html

confirms that this great Creation Scientist “is a towering figure of nineteenth century physics. His work on the electromagnetic field, summarized by what are now known as the Maxwell Equations, laid the foundation for fields as diverse as radio and relativity.”

........and Evolutionists then claim that Creation Scientists aren't REAL scientists ??

Wicknight
Think of it like climbing Everest. Climbers don't just start at the bottom and walk to the top. That would be impossible, and if someone claimed otherwise you would be correct in calling them out on it.

What climbers actually do is take Everest in stages. They get a bit up, make a camp, and then go back down to base-cap. The next day they get a bit higher, then back to base camp. Eventually they reach the top. But if you just looked at the top, and looked at the bottom you could say "thats impossible", and you would be right.

Yes, that is how INTELLIGENT Human Beings deliberately plan and execute the climbing of Everest.
There is no comparison however, between this intelligently devised process and the postulated UNDIRECTED evolution of life.

Equally, there are no “stages” where changes can be ‘locked in’ on the supposed continuum between short chain peptides and longer chain proteins.
Useful proteins are NOT observed to be the result of small additions of Amino Acids to other useful proteins – they have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SEQUENCES to the other useful proteins. Molecular Biology has therefore PROVEN that the development of more complex life by small gradual improvements is IMPOSSIBLE.

So, we have a fossil record with enormous gaps between kinds, living creatures with enormous gaps between kinds and an array of useful proteins with enormous differences between each other!!!!

This situation DOESN’T indicate gradual evolution – but it is objectively consistent with Direct Creation.

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

What EXACTLY is my “specific type of Creationism” supposed to be?

HOW exactly did God make / create the Earth if He didn't do it LITERALLY ?

Not exhaustively:

1. One may choose to believe that God created the universe through the mechanism of the Big Bang.
2. One may choose to believe that God created the Earth over a time period allegorically described as "six days" but of uncertain duration.
3. One may choose to believe that God is manifest in the Universe in a way not comprehensible to humanity at this stage.
4. One may choose to believe that God created the world in six 24-hour days, according to a "literal" reading of a translation of the Bible.

or

5. One may choose to believe the Creation myths of any religion on Earth.

Your specific type of Creationism is option 4, which Maxwell, as a Presbyterian, may well have shared...although, to somewhat mischievously quote the man:

John Clerk Maxwell wrote:

But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in Genesis ... The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it ought to be buried and forgotten.

Devout and intelligent as he was, it appears he did not attempt to shoehorn science and religion together...

HTH,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

J C wrote:

Firstly, being a ‘good’ person will not of itself save you.
Secondly, the strategy that you propose is both risky and unwise.

But you agree that if you lead a bad life you can repent on your death bed and be saved? That doesn't really seem like such a good system, does it?

J C wrote:

The chances of maternal lines of decent breaking within the first three generations are reasonably plausible – but the chances of them breaking after say seven generations are almost zero.

Who taught you statistics, Nick Leeson?

Over 150,000 years the chances that any unbroken material or paternal lines would still remain are very very low. Which is why you have to go back 150,000 years to get an unbroken line to one woman.

J C wrote:

If M-Eve is the common ancestor of ALL of Humanity – there cannot be other maternal lines of descent before her.

As I've said, she isn't the common ancestor of ALL of humanity. She is the most recent common ancestor of of all women.

Of course either way there is nothing in that that says there cannot be anyone before her, or alive at the same time as her.

You are just making this up JC, despite the fact that it has been explained to you a number of times why you are completely wrong. This isn't advance rocket science JC, its basic Junior Cert maths.

J C wrote:

The Mitochondrial DNA has only a relatively small quotient of mutations and this indicates that it was once created perfectly

No it doesn't. Mitochondrial DNA displays a high mutation rate, which is why it is used in genology since it is easy to tell differences in Mitochondrial DNA even amoung close relatives.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/ingman.html

J C wrote:

Different strokes for different bugs!!

*Groan*

They are the same bateria, just with or without this mutation :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

Why do you assume that it was a mutation that gave it this ability?

Because the mutation has been identified, and tested. And low and behold it is the thing that gives the bug this ability.

See, unlike Creationist Scientists who just like to assume such and such happened based on a 2000 year old book, real scientists actually study things before coming to conclusions.

J C wrote:

As I have said this bug obviously survived quite nicely on other substrate before Nylon was invented and indeed it could also survive today if the Nylon substrate was removed.

The bugs with the mutation need to eat Nylon die off if Nylon was removed from their food chain.

J C wrote:

There is therefore nothing 'special' about the Nylon Bug that proves anything other that the fact that God created it’s kind during Creation Week to perform useful organic matter recycling tasks.

The Nylon bug is a mutated strain of a bateria that, through this mutation, became able to eat Nylon, a process that the other, non-mutated bateria cannot do. Because of natural selection this bug thrived in areas rich with Nylon, surpassing the non-muated bug. This is classic example of natural selection and evolution in action.

The Nylon bug is evolution in front of your eyes.

J C wrote:

So Evolution could therefore happily ‘muck about’ in the primordial soup FOREVER swinging like a pendulum between equally low information containing molecules and happily LOSING information in the process!!!

Evolution probably did "muck about" in the primordial soup of Earth for millions of years swining between the gain and lose of complexity (or "information" as you keep calling it, incorrectly) in the early self-replicating molecules before something managed to take hold.

J C wrote:

That’s another good reason why Evolution is such an implausible mechanism to account for the astronomical INCREASE in observed information densities at all point between ‘muck and man’.

Why? It only takes one successful mutation that creates more complex genetic structures. Over the millions of years it takes for these "astronomical increases" that is not only possible, it is likely.

J C wrote:

As I have said there is no series of stepped advantage between a postulated self-replicating molecule and a useful primitive peptide or between a useful primitive Peptide and a useful modern protein to accept Evolutionary logic, for the sake of argument.

*Groan*

Yes there are.

You are assuming that large chucks or the a modern day protein are just magically "added" by evolution. As I asked before, why? Is it because it is the only way to prove your theory.

You really got to stop doing this JC. You did it with the argument "a protien cannot form by random" which no biologiest in his right mind ever claimed. I noticed you have stopped using that "theory", hopefully for good.

J C wrote:

including Direct Creation.

How? I asked this before, but I suppose I will ask it again. What did God actually do? And where is the evidence for what he did?

Surely Creation Science must have a pretty good idea of exactly what God did, how he did it and when he did it?

J C wrote:

If you cannot understand how something happened, or as in this case, you are wilfully rejecting the most plausible explanation – you cannot then draw any valid conclusions about how it happened.

You can if you know evolution is a process that can and does takes place on Earth. We do know this, even you cannot agrue against this because you can watch evolution under a microscope (Nylon bug anyone).

JC we have a start (abogensis) and we have an end (modern life). We have a huge body of evidence in between.

What does Creation Science have JC?

J C wrote:

The reason that different radiometric methods of dating ‘agree’ is that they are all calibrated off each other – so the odds that they will agree is a CERTAINTY!!!

No they are not. Where did you get that from?

J C wrote:

If they are wrong about artefacts of known age – then we certainly cannot trust them on items of unknown age.

They are wrong 5% of the time with artefacts of know age.

So we cannot trust them with 5% of radiometeric dating. Hell for the sake of argument lets say we cannot trust them with 95% of radiometeric dating.

You still come out with a date of 4.6 billion years because they all say this, and even if 99% are wrong, you only need one correct date in there to prove the theory.

The Earth is at least a billion years old JC, and most likely 4.6 billion. That is simply a fact

Zombrex

J C wrote:

Yes, that is how INTELLIGENT Human Beings deliberately plan and execute the climbing of Everest.
There is no comparison however, between this intelligently devised process and the postulated UNDIRECTED evolution of life.

*Groan*

Evolution is not undirected. It is directed by natural selection. That is like the 10th time I've had to correct you on this :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

Useful proteins are NOT observed to be the result of small additions of Amino Acids to other useful proteins – they have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SEQUENCES to the other useful proteins.

You are assuming the the evolution of protiens works, and can only work, that way. Why?

Protein evolution must likely works by the combining of very simple protiens (or the forerunners of protiens when talking about early life) into more complex proteins.

It is not a case of a non-functioning protein suddenly evolving the last part and it jumps to life. It is a case of two working proteins combining together. Or in the case of early life, two or more complex working self-replicating molecules combining together to form the early forerunners of modern day proteins.

J C wrote:

Molecular Biology has therefore PROVEN that the development of more complex life by small gradual improvements is IMPOSSIBLE.

Luckly for us then it doesn't work like that :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

This situation DOESN’T indicate gradual evolution – but it is objectively consistent with Direct Creation.

Except for the tiny facts that science has proved the earth is 4.6 billions years old, proved that abiogensis is possible, proved that evolution and natural selection work and will create new more complex forms of life, proved that one species develops into another and proved that modern humans evolved some 200,000 years ago

But if you ignore all that, then sure "Direct Creation" is I suppose is the most likely theory ... or as likely as saying life developed on earth because a sea giant got sick

By the way, what exactly took place during "Direct Creation"?

Assyrian

J C wrote:

Yes indeed Jesus was talking about the fact that God made Humans male and female (Adam and Eve) at the BEGINNING of the World during Creation Week and the verse also simultaneously confirms that Mankind HAD it’s BEGINNING with a man and a woman (AKA Adam and Eve).

This contrasts dramatically with an Evolutionary perspective which postulates that Mankind had it’s BEGINNING in a self-replicating molecule – that wasn’t obviously a male or a female Human!!!!

As I said they weren't made at the beginning of the creation week, so Jesus can't have been talking about that can he. But I think all sides agree that the first humans included both male and female. Jesus didn't however say "AKA Adam and Eve", just male and female. And even YECs don't think the dust was male and female, just the people God made.

God said ‘I am going to put an end to ALL people’ in Gen 6:13. Equally in Gen 6:7 “So the Lord said ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth” (NIV).

Unless you believe in different species of Mankind – the use and context of the word ‘mankind’ in Gen 6:7 implies ALL Of MANKIND – and therefore the Flood WAS Worldwide.

So if mankind was all living in one area then there is no problem with the flood being restricted to that area? Or God may have been talking of people in that area. Gen 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the land, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. It all comes down to how you interpret the Hebrew word erets. Traditionally it has been translated 'the earth' for the flood account, but the word more often means 'the land'. The Genesis account only describes a flood in the land Noah lived in.

Equally, the Geological evidence from ALL OVER THE WORLD indicates that a water-based catastrophe and sedimentation event of worldwide proportions occurred in the historic past.

There is geological evidence for floods in different regions at different times, but no evidence of a global flood. Always when we have a flood at one location in the geological record, elsewhere in that stratum it is business as usual, as we have seen when we looked at the Paluxy dinosaurs tracks.

The historical debate within mainstream Christianity was whether Creation was instantaneous or took six days .

If the early church was open to a non literal interpretation of the days in Genesis, and you had men like Augustine declaring the equivalent of 'creation science' a disgrace, I can't see them having a problem with a scientifically demonstrated ancient universe.

Equally, we still DON’T have any scientific evidence for Macro-evolution – only plenty of scientific evidence AGAINST it.

Sharing about 98% of our DNA with chimps is pretty strong evidence. So is human chromosome 2 looking very like a combination of chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q, down as far as having two telomeres inside it, which are supposed to mark the end of chromosome, as well as a second centrosome. So is finding the right transitional fossils in the right strata. Of course YECs claim that's not really a whale with legs, it is just another created kind that just looked a bit like a whale with legs. The thing is, evolution predicted a creature like that would be found. The same with creatures sharing reptile and bird features like feathered dinosaurs, or a whole series of hominids with increasingly human features the later the strata. YECs claim this one is just an ape, another a very ugly human. But evolution predicted just such a range of fossils. YECs did not.

Augustine as quoted by Assyrian
If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Assyrian
Sound familiar?

As a matter of fact it DOES sound familiar.

For some reason the words “Theistic Evolutionist” come to mind!!!

Probably because you ignored the first bit. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. Augustine was talking about the equivalent of YECs in his day, people basing their science on their interpretation of scripture, who end up talking nonsense about the natural world and making Christianity and the scriptures a laughing stock. Augustine did not pull his punches there. Do you really think he would have supported YEC's six day recent creation against science?

Calvin seems to have been a six day young earth creationist with an OPEN MIND on the Helio/Geo-centrist question.

Yes he believed in the geocentric interpretation but was willing to change when scientific evidence began to show it was wrong. Would that YECs showed such wisdom.

Brother Consolmagno as quoted by Assyrian
"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god.

The infallible Word of God in the Bible is indeed a proper defence against superstition.

The God of the Bible CLAIMS to be the CREATOR GOD of the Universe and of all life therein.

Indeed the Nicene Creed of the Roman Catholic Church starts with the words “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible ”

Therefore Creationism – which holds that God WAS the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things therein, isn't ‘a kind of paganism’.

All Christians believe God created heaven and earth and all of the life therein. We believe he made the lightning and formed us in our mothers womb. The modern paganism, the nature god Consolmagno warns against, is the one the believes God holds a bunch of lightening bolts in his hand and throws them down during a storm, instead of using the laws of electromagnetism and meteorology he designed, that he literally knits people together in their mothers womb instead or using biology and genetics, or molded all the different animal out of clay instead of using evolution.

Assyrian

Louis Pasteur as quoted by Assyrian
Virulence appears in a new light which cannot but be alarming to humanity; unless nature, in her evolution down the ages (an evolution which, as we now know, has been going on for millions, nay, hundreds of millions of years), has finally exhausted all the possibilities of producing virulent or contagious diseases -- which does not seem very likely.

Assyrian
So apparently, Pasteur, whom YECs quote as a creationist, believed in evolution and that the earth was hundred of millions of years old

Just like other Creation Scientists, Pasteur believed in Natural Selection, which he called ‘evolution’ in the above quote. As far as I am aware, he DIDN’T believe in an Old Earth, as the bracketed explanatory insert about millions of years seems to imply.

I think Pasteur could use brackets too. If you have evidence he believed in a young earth feel free to present it, otherwise, if you want to be a creation scientist like Pasteur I suggest you accept his 'evolution down through the ages' and 'hundreds of millions of years'.

Some interesting Pasteur quotes from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.
He certainly believed God was the creator of everything.

The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.
While Pasteur believed God was the creator, he also seems to have believed God used natural processes, and life began as a consequence of chirality in molecules like tartaric acid. This certainly contradicts YEC claims the Pasteur disproved abiogenesis.

Thanks for the reference, Assyrian.

It does indeed show that Maxwell did make limited biological references (that I had been unaware of) – but the following quotes from the above article does prove Maxwell’s impeccable Creation Science credentials:-

Maxwell confirmed his belief in the Direct Creation of all matter as follows:-
“They (molecules) continue this day as they were created — perfect in number and measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist.”

You mean Maxwell believed hydrogen molecules haven't changed since they were created in the beginning, and show the same spectra in earth as in distant stars. Nothing to contradict his TE credentials so far.

He confirmed his belief in Created Kinds (which he called species) as follows:-
“It is well known that living beings may be grouped into a certain number of species, defined with more or less precision, and that it is difficult or impossible to find a series of individuals forming the links of a continuous chain between one species and another.”

OK He said living organisms form distinct species rather than a continuum. That is the situation today. He goes on to say, and I quoted this before. In the case of living beings, however, the generation of individuals is always going on, each individual differing more or less from its parent. Each individual during its whole life is undergoing modification, and it either survives and propagates its species, or dies early, accordingly as it is more or less adapted to the circumstances of its environment. Hence, it has been found possible to frame a theory of the distribution of organisms into species by means of generation, variation, and discriminative destruction.

In other words while our present species are separate, a theory that can be framed that explains the present species by gradual changes from parent to offspring where the different variations undergo discriminative destruction or as we like to call it natural selection. That's Darwinian evolution JC.

Your quote above provides it’s own answer – fixity of SPECIES is an Aristotlean i.e. Ancient Greek belief – and it ISN’T a Biblical Doctrine.

Breeding within Kinds IS a Biblically based concept.

It isn't biblical, it is just a variation on the same old Aristotlean philosophy.

Linnaeus was a Creation Scientist who based his taxonomic classification system on Creation Science principles (that WEREN’T Aristotlean).

No he based his taxonomic classification system on observation and dumped any dogma that didn't fit, the way any good scientist should..

This got Linnaeus into trouble with his Lutheran archbishop, for including humans, monkeys and apes as primates (perhaps the archbishop didn't like his use of the word primate?) Linnaeus replied:
It is not pleasing to me that I must place humans among the primates, but man is intimately familiar with himself. Let's not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name is applied. But I desperately seek from you and from the whole world a general difference between men and simians from the principles of Natural History. I certainly know of none. If only someone might tell me one! If I called man a simian or vice versa I would bring together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to, in accordance with the law of Natural History.

It sounds like Linnaeus took common descent further than even Darwin's Origin of Species. It wasn't until Descent of Man 12 years later that Darwin explicitly said that man shared his ancestry with apes.

Taxonomy is actually a good example of science ‘rising above’ any paradigms. A Creationist invented it – and both Evolutionists and Creationists currently use it.

Sorry JC, this is not science 'rising above the paradigms'. It is YEC rising as far as mid 18th century science and accepting a heliocentric solar system and Linnaean taxonomy. Now if they would work their way up to the end of the 18th century or the middle of the 19th, and take on board Hutton's geology and Darwin's Origin of Species, we might make some progress

JC to scofflaw wrote:

HOW exactly did God make / create the Earth if He didn't do it LITERALLY ?

God literally did create the earth. It is the description of this in Genesis that isn't literal. You should not confuse the two.

Blessings Assyrian

Excelsior

Scofflaw wrote:

In any case, any concept of Christian "moral responsibility" is made a mockery of by grace - which the individual who has spent his life in acts of evil can obtain by being born again in God. That his conversion may be genuine in no way lessens the misery he has caused, but he himself can enter Heaven, washed clean by the blood of Christ.

It actually does the very opposite- it frees us to be truly moral for the first time. Outside of Grace, we do good things to earn something- either the approval of others or good karma or whatever. Grace however, frees us to seek goodness solely out of gratitude. It purifies our motivations for morality because we are no longer doing it with self-interest in mind but as an outward expression of something someone else has done for us.

See where I'm coming from at all?

(Sorry for the digression- continue battling over the poor quality write-up in Genesis 1-3 that the most famous of scientists, Prof. God offered up after his greatest experiment. )

Zombrex

Excelsior wrote:

Outside of Grace, we do good things to earn something ... Grace however, frees us to seek goodness solely out of gratitude.

Well you are wrong about the "we do good things to earn something" part, but thats a different discussion (see posts to bluewolf).

But I think I would have more respect for the idea of Grace (even if I didn't believe in it) if you still didn't get into heaven. IE you do moral things even though you know your life is beyond saving for the things you have already done

Think there was an episode in Buffy about this where Spike knows he is going to hell and can never get into heaven but continues to fight for good (once he has his sole).

The whole "you don't get anything for being born again, but you do get into heaven" seems a bit contradictory to me.

Maybe I'm wrong about the details though

Zombrex

Can we end the discussion about the literal reading of Gensis or Young Earth theories.

Even if ignore the radiometeric dating of the Earth (which would be silly) you still can't escape the very obvious flaw in Genesis, those being the stars.

The stars were created after the Earth, according to Gensis. You run into a little problem with the speed of light and the distances of the universe then. Put simply, if the Earth is only 6,000 years old and the stars were created after the Earth you would not be able to see 99.9999999999% of the visiable stars in the sky because the light from them would not have reached us yet.

So if Gensis is correct, and the stars were created after the Earth the Earth is at least 3 billion years old because the furthest visable star is 3 billion light years away.

So you run into the Creationists Nightmare (to borrow a phrase Creationist like to use - see Atheist forum), that if Gensis is correct Young Earth isn't possible, if Young Earth is correct then Gensis is wrong.

Of course this is just one of the long list of contradictions and nonsense put forward by Young Earth Creationists.

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

Can we end the discussion about the literal reading of Gensis or Young Earth theories.
.

No, because God has the ability to create the stars with their light shining in the earth's night sky at the moment of creation. He has no need to wait the 3 billion years in order for it to arrive.

Scofflaw

BrianCalgary wrote:

No, because God has the ability to create the stars with their light shining in the earth's night sky at the moment of creation. He has no need to wait the 3 billion years in order for it to arrive.

Tricky, isn't he? Why make them 3 billion light years away, then? YEC must predict that we will be able to travel much faster than light, or there would be no point...

puzzled,
Scofflaw

bmoferrall

Wicknight wrote:

Can we end the discussion about the literal reading of Gensis or Young Earth theories.

Even if ignore the radiometeric dating of the Earth (which would be silly) you still can't escape the very obvious flaw in Genesis, those being the stars.

The stars were created after the Earth, according to Gensis. You run into a little problem with the speed of light and the distances of the universe then. Put simply, if the Earth is only 6,000 years old and the stars were created after the Earth you would not be able to see 99.9999999999% of the visiable stars in the sky because the light from them would not have reached us yet.

So if Gensis is correct, and the stars were created after the Earth the Earth is at least 3 billion years old because the furthest visable star is 3 billion light years away.

So you run into the Creationists Nightmare (to borrow a phrase Creationist like to use - see Atheist forum), that if Gensis is correct Young Earth isn't possible, if Young Earth is correct then Gensis is wrong.

Of course this is just one of the long list of contradictions and nonsense put forward by Young Earth Creationists.

The penny dropped for me on the age issue during exchanges (>= page 80) about strata and fossil evidence; one doesn't need a scientific background to see through the flood-based arguments presented. The literal 6-day framework collapses like a house of cards after that. I'm happy to trust (the vast majority of) scientists on the other less accessible stuff.

Wicknight

Wicknight wrote:

Well you are wrong about the "we do good things to earn something" part, but thats a different discussion (see posts to bluewolf).

What? Did you make posts to me that I missed?

Excelsior wrote:

either the approval of others or good karma or whatever.

If by any chance you're addressing that to me, there is no "good" or "bad" karma - generally speaking all karma is bad. I only mentioned it to wolfsbane to show that actions do have consequences, if we are in need of a stick. But compassion alone is enough reason in itself.

BrianCalgary

Scofflaw wrote:

Tricky, isn't he? Why make them 3 billion light years away, then? YEC must predict that we will be able to travel much faster than light, or there would be no point...

puzzled,
Scofflaw

Gravitational purposes? For beauty in the heavens. That would be my guess. Don't know why we'd have to travel faster than the speed of light though?

Even more puzzled,
Brian

Assyrian

BrianCalgary wrote:

No, because God has the ability to create the stars with their light shining in the earth's night sky at the moment of creation. He has no need to wait the 3 billion years in order for it to arrive.

So how do supernovas work? A supernova they called SN1987A was seen in 1987, now this particular supernova happened 164,000 light years away (measured by triangulation). For God to create it with its light shining in the earth's sky, he would have to create a star that blew up 160,000 years before it was created. It doesn't work. The heavens declare the glory of God Psalm 19, and according to them the glory has been revealed for a lot longer than creationists realise.

Assyrian

mysteria

bluewolf wrote:

What? Did you make posts to me that I missed?



If by any chance you're addressing that to me, there is no "good" or "bad" karma - generally speaking all karma is bad. I only mentioned it to wolfsbane to show that actions do have consequences, if we are in need of a stick. But compassion alone is enough reason in itself.

Well Bluewolf where on earth did you get the idea that all karma is "bad"? Anyone from an authentic Hindu/Buddhist background would find that amusing. Er, the Beatles perhaps?

BrianCalgary

Here is an interesting article on the age of the Earth. Comments?

http://www.tothesource.org/5_16_2006/5_16_2006.htm

mysteria

mysteria wrote:

Well Bluewolf where on earth did you get the idea that all karma is "bad"? Anyone from an authentic Hindu/Buddhist background would find that amusing. Er, the Beatles perhaps?

Well, maybe you like being kept from enlightenment/ending your rebirth?
It was a light comment.
I was trying to show that it's mostly our labels that we put on it, and it just is.

Scofflaw

bluewolf wrote:

Well, maybe you like being kept from enlightenment/ending your rebirth?
It was a light comment.
I was trying to show that it's mostly our labels that we put on it, and it just is.

Karma, both good and bad, entangles you with the world, and reinforces the ego. All karma therefore stands in the way of Nirvana, and so is "bad". Superficially, you can aim for karmic balance, but actually one should aim for karmic nullity. Leastways, that's my understanding of it, but I'd be happy to be corrected (largely why I've stuck my oar in).

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

BrianCalgary wrote:

Gravitational purposes? For beauty in the heavens. That would be my guess. Don't know why we'd have to travel faster than the speed of light though?

Even more puzzled,
Brian

We can hardly get to those stars 3 billion light years away without being able to travel a lot faster than light. If we can't, we can hardly be stewards over them. If they're just lights, why put them so far away? You could easily achieve beauty in the heavens with a crystalline sphere!

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote:

Karma, both good and bad, entangles you with the world, and reinforces the ego. All karma therefore stands in the way of Nirvana, and so is "bad". Superficially, you can aim for karmic balance, but actually one should aim for karmic nullity. Leastways, that's my understanding of it, but I'd be happy to be corrected (largely why I've stuck my oar in).

cordially,
Scofflaw

Yes that sounds about right to me. The usual description I think is wholesome/unwholesome as opposed to good/bad. And neutral as well of course, when it's not volitional.
I'm not so sure on the balance bit but aiming for a null sounds about right.
There do seem to be various classifications of karma and their weight but I've read here and there of the liberating karma. Have to check up on that one.
It's tricky trying not to confuse aiming for a ceasing in karma with passiveness and sitting around doing nothing though.

I always found this helpful:
http://www.buddhanet.net/fundbud9.htm
Better that I link - I'm bad at explaining things and I have so much to learn in any case :eek: