In my understanding of creationism, one key facet has been the propensity to conflate, or mix up, scientific facts with theological ideas. We can't fool around in the Creationism sub-forum too much, but I pop in there regularly to see what's cooking and was amazed to see this happen:
http://christianforums.com/t6676966-...-beplasma.html Originally Posted by mark kennedy 
I don't have the references handy but the glory of God in the Temple and the Tabernacle is described almost like smoke or vapor. It is called the 'shekhina' (sp?) and it departed in Ezekiel with the removal of the Ark of the Covenant. It was a light that could be so intense that it drove the Levites out at the dedication.
Could this be the light in 1:3? Hard to say for sure but that is the alternative interpretation I entertain from time to time. There is also a section in Leviticus where the inaugural sacrifices are being offered up and a 'fire from before the Lord' bursts out and consumes the oblation. That fire could never be allowed to go out and only that fire could be used for sacrifices and incense. When the sons of Aaron offered up 'strange incense' fire came from 'before the Lord' and killed them both.
Plasma? Sure sounds like an interesting thought but with no more then I know about physics I couldn't tell you what the merits are, BD is the resident cosmology enthusiast on that aspect.
Of course, this didn't go any further than speculation on their part. Even so, this is an important data point for myself in my own thinking about creationism.
One part of creationism that it brings into focus is the creationist obsession with novelty - the scientific version of shock value. Again, this is something to be expected if we view creationism as a distorted science-awareness program. After all, part of what makes scientific discoveries newsworthy is their new-ness - "Nobody knew X before this experiment! If Y is true, it might revolutionize the field! Z caught everyone by surprise!" There is an over-emphasis on the revolutionary nature of new science and not enough on its evolutionary nature. Is it any surprise that creationism and creationists inherit this?
Also, it shows yet more of the conflation of science and theology. Why, after all, should the "glory of God" be a physical process? Do creationists mean to say that we can't touch and feel and see spiritual things? This just adds more evidence to the proposition that creationists have a very physicalist understanding of truth. To mark, Adam being the "son of God" directly results in teaching that he cannot have had biological parentage - messing theological truth with physical ideas into one big jumble and insisting that to pull on any one yarn will make the whole ball fray apart.
It's really the natural outcome of the intersection between a society enthralled by scientism and an evangelical Christianity that will not examine itself and its roots critically.
... in other news, NAS publishes an anti-creationist booklet!
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi...008/104/1?etoc
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And who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars?
- Origen, 215AD [De Principiis 4.1.16]
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