Everyday said:
gluadys,
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. It requires a prior assumption that the narrative is historical. It may also require a prior assumption that TE requires a Day-Age perspective. This is not the case.
I find that ironic. The evolutionist uses the argument that creationists have been using for ages (namely, the data must be interpreted by underlying beliefs or presuppositions) to discredit my position, while at the same time stating that this does not apply to the theistic evolution.
Did you ever pass reading comprehension? That is not what I said at all. I said the argument you are using is an example of circular reasoning. You begin by assuming that what you want to prove is true.
That is not acceptable reasoning for either YECist or TEs or for anyone who claims to be using logic.
I hope that you can see the foolishness in your statement. You can't have it both ways. .
Is it foolish to note circular reasoning as a flaw in an argument?
Either it is true for all readings of Genesis or it is not true for either, in which case you must provide evidence to prove your opinion.
I don't know what "it" here refers to. What must be true for all readings of Genesis?
As a TE, I agree entirely with what you have said about the use of "yom" in the Hebrew narrative. But I do not agree that this requires the narrative to be historical. The author does intend to convey the sense of 6 (actually 7) 24 hour days. But the days can still be a literary device for presenting creation in an ordered fashion and as providing a basis in creation for the Sabbath. They need not be days in history.
If the basis for the Sabbath is false, then what authority is there for the Sabbath?
Here again we are dealing with your presupposition---not mine or that of other TEs. It is
your pre-supposition that if the days of Gen. 1 are narrative days (days in the framework of a story) rather than factual historical days that the basis for the Sabbath is false.
Did I say that? Did I make that claim? Do I believe that?
No, no and no.
I believe the story--as story--IS the authoritative basis for the Sabbath and that we do not need any other basis than the inspired text.
Why do you assume that if the story is not historical it is necessarily false?
God would then be lying because he says specifically in Exodus 20:11 that since I worked for six days, then so to shall you.
On what basis would that be a lie? Only on the basis that Gen. 1 is a lie. But that takes us back to your pre-supposition that if the story is not history it is a lie. If the story is not a lie---and I hold that it is not---then it is not a lie when it is repeated in Exodus either.
In other words, the very fact that God worked for six literal days and rested on the seventh is the whole justification for Him commanding mankind to do the same! If God worked for millions of years and rested for a few million years, then He is lying by saying that He worked for six.
Your conclusion is based solely on your pre-supposition that only actual history is true. And that is the basis of your circular reasoning. Because you pre-suppose that only actual history is true and then pre-suppose that Genesis is true, you have to conclude that Genesis--including the creation account must be historical fact. Otherwise it can't be true.
I don't accept your first pre-supposition. I hold it to be a modernist heresy generated by atheistic scientism. I do not know of anyone other than atheists and YECists who want hamstring the definition of truth in this way.
I grant that historical fact is a subset of truth. I do not grant that everything outside of the bounds of historical fact is not true.
What I believe the author was saying, is when can you trust the Bible if you believe that parts of the Bible is just symbolic stories? How do you when a story is a symbol or metaphorical and when the author is actually trying to convey truth?
That's simple. The author is always actually trying to convey truth--sometimes through a report on historical events, sometimes (more often in fact) through symbolic stories. The denigrating adjective "just" is designed to make you accept that symbolic stories are either not true or not an acceptable way to convey truth. Do you think the author can show that God agrees with his low opinion of symbolic stories?
How do you know what the Bible means if the basic in-context interpretation of Scripture may not be literal and historical? It's just like approaching a stop sign and wondering what it means!
Bad example, since a stop sign is a symbol and its meaning is apparent even without the word "stop" written on it.
One thing you are forgetting is that before the modern equation of truth with "fact and only fact" existed, most people incorporated truth in symbols and knew what the symbols meant. Even today, a Catholic or Orthodox Christian will know the symbology of the saints and can quickly tell a portrait of Peter from Paul, Nicolas from Dominic, or Teresa from Catherine by the symbols associated with them. It is we who have forgotten how to interpret ancient symbolism.
It is actually very logical. The only reason why you do not understand is because your religious faith in evolution has literally blinded you,
Actually I rejected the historico-literal approach to the creation stories more than a decade before I looked at evolution and on grounds that have nothing to do with evolution. Perhaps it was because I had already rejected what I consider an inferior way of reading scripture, that I was not driven to atheism by my discovery of evolution as so many raised in YEC beliefs are. My faith did not depend on the six days of creation being literal historical fact, so was not shaken by how old the earth and humanity are.
And I don't need to have faith in evolution. I reserve that for Jesus Christ. For evolution, the evidence is sufficient.
]Actually, those points brought up by CMI are very reliable and not PRATTS as you falsely assert. If they are, then please give an example of where they are wrong.
Ok. Helium escape. I read both the popular and semi-technical account. Typically, what they do is omit crucial information. IOW, there is nothing wrong with the information in those articles. But the information is incomplete. Here is the short rebuttal from the Index of Creationist Claims.
Thermal escape of helium alone is not enough to account for its scarcity in the atmosphere, but helium in the atmosphere also gets ionized and follows the earth's magnetic field lines. When ion outflow is considered, the escape of helium from the atmosphere balances its production from radioactive elements (Lie-Svendsen and Rees 1996).
Here is the complete reference:
Lie-Svendsen, O. and M. H. Rees, 1996. Helium escape from the terrestrial atmosphere - the ion outflow mechanism. Journal of Geophysical Research 101: 2435-2443.
I would have preferred to find an example in the realm of biological evolution, as that is really what the dispute is about. But while I found a few articles, they were so rhetorical that I found nothing explicit enough to comment on.
We both have the same evidence. Right? That is, we both have the same rocks, the same stars, the same fossils, and so on. We also both use the same science. Would you not concur?
No. Potentially we have the same evidence. But science uses all the evidence. Creationist sites cherry-pick which evidence they will use and do not admit the existence of the rest of the evidence. So in fact, both do not have the same evidence to begin with.
Also, both do not use the same science. Scientists use the complete scientific method which includes testing hypothesis and predictions drawn from these hypotheses. Creationist sites generally stop at formulating speculative hypotheses, many of which cannot be tested. Once they have an ad hoc hypothesis which they think could explain a phenomenon, they stop there. So, in fact, both do not use the same science.
Why do creationists and evolutionists reach totally different conclusions? If we both use the same science and both have the same physical evidence and observations, why do we reach different conclusions? Obviously, since both of the above are the same, there must be a third varrible in this equation. Any ideas on what that is?
See above.
Actually, you really have no idea on the nature of the evidence and of science, do you?
I expect I have a much more complete idea of the evidence and of science than you do.
Firstly, you assert that the evidence "proves" a particular position
Please provide the citation where I made this assertion. I have often reproved creationists for looking to science for proof rather than for evidence.
Evidence, however, can often be explained by only one possible cause. The purpose of scientific investigation of any observation is to eliminate as many natural causes as possible. When only a single cause is not falsified, it is assumed to be true pending additional observation.
Secondly, you also assume that evolutionists do not have any presupposition or underlying beliefs, which is once again false as shown above.
Science is a public activity precisely
because scientists have presuppositions and underlying beliefs. What those presuppositions and beliefs are is irrelevant, because the public nature of science--the pursuit of science by many participants--tests out the results and shows whether or not the results have been biased by pre-suppositions and underlying beliefs or whether they remain valid when tested by others who do not share the presuppositions of the primary researcher.
Thirdly, they are only unconvincing to you [evolutionists] because your underlying belief system tells you that the earth is not young and that anything which challenges your view is "lies." This is not an example of an open-minded person.
So explain why the Christian researchers of the 18th and 19th centuries who did pre-suppose a young earth were converted to the opposite conclusion by their geological research.
Fourthly, you give me a link to an evolutionary website (with a clear subjective bias) who is known to distort the facts to favour their religious belief in evolution, for example, they falsely assert that 3rd stage SNRs (Super Nova Remnants) exist in this galaxy, while observational evidence declares that not one has been observed.
Not my field, but I take it this is the claim (from
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/)
A brief reading of the relevant literature reveals the following Galactic SNRs that are in the radiative phase (and there are others):
G69.0 + 2.7 (Sarfi-Harb & Ogelman 1995).
G166.2 + 2.5 (Routledge et al. 1986).
G180.0 - 1.7 (Furst & Reich 1986).
G189.1 + 3.0 (Oliva et al. 1999).
G279.0 + 1.1 (Duncan et al. 1995).
G290.1 - 0.8 (Rosado et al. 1996)
If you want to find the information in the primary literature that establishes either that these Type III SNRs were not observed or were mis-identified, be my guest.
I'm sorry, but I can't trust any information from Talk Origins, not because I think their interpretation of the evidence is wrong, but because of how they lied in that example- by saying that there were observed third stage SNRs when observation informs us that there is none.
First, you have to establish that they did lie--not just once, but six times--and that the astronomers that they relied on also lied.
Besides that, hardly any of their staff have any Ph.Ds in the fields to which they report about. At least, they didn't the last time I was there. I might as well get information from Wikipedia then...
You don't have to believe talkorigins. But they do cite their references, so you can check out whether what they have posted fairly reflects what the PhDs in the field are saying. If you can show there is a serious and consistent discrepancy between what they are saying and what the primary researchers are saying, you have a case.