Creation started with nothing?

[gluadys]

you go off on some insane arguement that "my expert is bigger than your expert mentality" all the while belittling the work and education that goes into become an expert in any field.

No, that is what you were doing. I did not question the credentials of a single person you presented as an expert. I did not hold up the people I presented as "bigger" than the people you presented. What I claimed for them was equal respect based on equal work and knowledge and that is what you refused to give.

Gluady's I can't figure out what you are going on about. The experts you presented, primarily agree with the ones I presented.

On what did they agree and on what did they disagree?

to accept that on the issue of framework, you can't eliminate chronology.

No one said "eliminate". What was being said is that the chronology of Genesis 1 may be figurative or topical or logical rather than sequential. IOW just because the creation of sun, moon and stars is not mentioned until after the creation of plants, historically they could have been created long before plants.

The framework does not require that the sequence of naming the various items being created correspond precisely with the temporal sequence in which they were created.

The temporal sequence and the naming sequence can be different, with the order of naming set by logic or topic rather than time.

 

[gluadys]

I am confident that you are intelligent enough to know that if the question is what are the variables, the answer will explain what the variables are rather than to provide a definition for variables.

But the answer did not explain anything. It simply described "variables" as "what we don't know."


Much of science does describe variables. That is what many formulas are used for: to describe variables. The inverse square law of gravity told us that gravity varies according to the mass of the bodies and the distance between them and gave us a formula for calculating the gravitational force between any two bodies no matter what the sizes and no matter what the distance between them. Gravitational force varies; it is a variable. But it is a well-known variable and well-understood. We know how to account for it, even better now than when Newton first formulated the inverse square law.


And that is another point. Newton's law, though good, was not fully accurate. Sometimes, using the formula told you exactly where a planet would be. But sometimes, the planet was not where it was expected to be. It wasn't far away, but it wasn't exactly where the formula said it should be either.

It was clear that something was not quite right with Newton's inverse square formula, but no one knew exactly what for a long time. That is an example of a unknown variable.

Then Einstein figured out the problem, and now we have an even more accurate way of keeping track of gravitational forces.

A key point here is that the unknown variable that Newton didn't and couldn't account for did not make his work either biased or useless. Most of the time, for simplicity, Newton's formula is still used. But when greater accuracy is needed, Einstein's work is used.

So variables are not necessarily what is unknown. Therefore when you say scientists are not accounting for variables, the natural question is "which variables are they not accounting for?"

And we also need to ask, does not knowing some variables really make the current work biased or useless. It is possible to achieve a high level of accuracy even when some factors are unknown.

So if you are claiming that some scientific conclusions are hugely inaccurate, there needs to be a basis presented for that claim. What would make that conclusion hugely inaccurate?

All the while, there is that pesking 1/4 that we didn't know existed and we didn't allow as a variable into our calculations that is staring us in the face, but we ignore it because we have already devised truth.

Actually, scientists have a very simple way to get around this problem. It is "Use more than one way of measuring whatever you are measuring."

So scientist A has a yardstick short by 1/4 inch and doesn't know it. But scientist B has a metre stick. And scientist C is using laser technology. And scientist D is using the odometer on his vehicle. When A's answer does not agree with the answers B, C, and D all get, they decide to check out what is wrong with A's measuring tool, find out it is too short, and correcting for the missing bit, determine that A had the right answer too.

That is the problem science has with variables, it ignores the things that we don't know in exchange for calling it truth.

Be specific. What things in particular do we not know that we need to know before we can get good scientific conclusions. In particular, in respect to the age of the earth or anything dated as too old to be consistent with a young earth.

Who sets the laws of nature?

Presumably God, since the laws of nature are derived from the properties of created matter. And it was God who created it with those properties.

How do we know what the laws of nature are?

Through the study of nature, especially its repetitive features and patterns.

Who defined those laws for us?

Each law is defined by the person who proposes it. In effect, that person is saying, "Every time I see A, I also see B, and as A varies, B varies with it in a predictable pattern." Then usually in a short mathematical equation, they set out the relationship of A to B.

If other scientists confirm that there is no known exception to the observation, it is accepted as a "law". Even more so, if they can find a property of nature that explains why the law must be what it is.

That is what made Einstein's work on gravity superior to Newton's. Newton described a pattern he had seen and as more and more scientists studied gravity, they saw the same basic pattern and agreed he had found a law of nature. But all they could do was describe its effects. They couldn't figure out what caused the effects they saw. Einstein was able to show that the law of gravity was produced by certain properties of the material universe.

So now we have not only a repeated observation with no known exceptions, but also a reason for those observations rooted in creation itself.

 

[KerrMetric]

A lot of typing - but little headway.

When I see phrases like "age of light" I shudder.

 

[gluadys]

Let me once again remind you that every actual scientist knows that what we are measuring here is light, not the stars or the earth.

More precisely, we are measuring the distance the light has travelled. That figure, together with the speed of light, gives us the time the light has been en route, and therefore its minimum age, as well as the minimum age of the star it is coming from.

So the bottom line here is that I have challenged your conclusion that the light being measured is originating from the star and taken you back to the evidence being presented, that of age of light.

The suggestion made was that any light coming from the star but not originating in the star, was light created even before the star was. So that light is even older. If the light coming from the star is 12 million years old by the time it reaches earth, and any other light is still older, that does not help establish a young age for the star or its light, or any other divinely created light. It is all at least 12 million years old and perhaps older.

The age of light therefore has absolutely nothing to do with the age of the earth

And I never said it did. But YECism includes the concept that the heavens as well as the earth were created recently. So the age of the stars is also relevant.

For YEC the apparent age of the stars and the light from the stars is another matter that has to be explained. Why do they look so old when they are not?

Any light still older only adds to the problem for YEC.

 

[gluadys]

I. Therefore the evidence once again shows you to be WRONG.

Again you are claiming evidence without pointing to it. Which evidence says I am wrong about what?

it won't hurt you to repeat yourself or link to a post where the evidence it presented.

I do not take your claims to have presented evidence as anything more than hot air unless you actually show what evidence you are talking about.

I will and have accepted for discussion all appearances of age that were a valid argument given the criteria of what appears old, not what science deems old appearance.

Be specific. In relation to the Chicxulub crater, to a fossil or a rock, what criteria did you use to establish whether they appeared old or young?

I have absolutely no problem with the appearance of age. I do have a problem with some of the scientific conclusions of the age of the earth and a huge portion of this thread has become a discussion of those problems.

Well, it is exactly those problems that I would like to deal with. But I don't know precisely what those problems are. Why do you find the scientific conclusions problematical?

The closest we have come, I think, to pinpointing a problem is to say that something may be wrong with the whole scientific measure of testing for age.

If that is the key, the next thing to establish is why there is a problem.

A conclusion is not evidence of anything but a conclusion

No one comes to a conclusion without reasons for that conclusion. The reasons are the evidence, or they are based on evidence.

Perhaps part of your problem is that you have seen the conclusions science has come to, but not been shown the reasons. Or you don't consider the reasons good ones, or sufficient to establish the conclusion.

Do any of these possibilities apply to the age of the universe, or of the earth, or anything in them?

Perhaps, here is the point you believe there is a variable science is not taking into account. If so, what is the variable that is being overlooked? How would it change the conclusion?

What we want to discuss is the actual evidence. So for example, you talk about the age of the crater. The evidence is the age tests. But the age tests are questionable.

All tests have a margin of error. But that is already published with the estimate of the age, so I think you must be referring to something different, more earthshaking than that. Do you think tests which lead to an estimated age of over 60 million years can be so far off that the actual age is less than 1 million years? What could make that big a difference?

Not because the tests are flawed but because we don't take into account everything we know.

Now, you talked earlier about variables as what we don't know. But here you are speaking of something we do know that is not being accounted for. What is this known factor that is not being accounted for?

Therefore what we first have to talk about is the methods of testing.

Of course we do. If the methods of testing are giving seriously wrong dates, we need to find out why.

But this leads to two questions:

1. How do we know the dates are seriously wrong? What evidence is there that they are wrong at all?

2. If we do know they are wrong, what is a possible reason for them being wrong.

In the case of question 2, we need a very specific answer. Not just "something we haven't accounted for" or "a variable" but exactly what it is that is not being accounted for. Only then can the proposed solution be applied to see if it gives better results.

 

[gluadys]

If you want to reword it to eliminate some of the variables go ahead. Like what diagnosis would a biased dr. give? Or what diagnosis would an unbiased dr. give? or something like that.

I would like an answer that an unbiased doctor genuinely concerned about the health of his patient would give.

He had 19 tests saying blood sugar levels are normal and 1 saying it is much too high. All tests were done on the same blood sample, so it is not a question of the patient having eaten a dozen doughnuts, or being under a new stress or any other extraneous factor which could explain the one high reading. What does he tell his patient?

What I am looking for is whether he would reassure the patient on the basis of the 19 tests, or warn the patient on the basis of one reading out of sync with the 19 others.

And the reason why he would make the choice he does.

 

[Gottservant]

God is not a god of perdition.

It is not necessary for Him to do things in perpetual stages, His word is enough.

 

[razzelflabben]

No, that is what you were doing. I did not question the credentials of a single person you presented as an expert. I did not hold up the people I presented as "bigger" than the people you presented. What I claimed for them was equal respect based on equal work and knowledge and that is what you refused to give.

Whatever gluady's. You insisted that I present ancient heb. lang. scholars. Which I did. But you refused to follow your same credentials and then made an issue of it claiming that they were as qualified to speak of the grammer of the text as the ancient heb. lang scholars were. This is a belittling comment and insulting to anyone who is a scholar. YOu can refuse to accept it all you want, but it is yours to own and trying to make me out to be dismissing them when they primarily are supporting the opinion I presented to you is like the most absurd thing I think I have every run across from someone so biased that they have to be right no matter what. Get over it and let's move on. YOu were wrong, both sides say primarily the same thing, and so you haven't made your case at all and in the meantime, you have insulted a great many scholars. Doesn't look good for you, so drop it at that, you can't save face on this one, you already sunk your ship.

On what did they agree and on what did they disagree?

No one said "eliminate". What was being said is that the chronology of Genesis 1 may be figurative or topical or logical rather than sequential. IOW just because the creation of sun, moon and stars is not mentioned until after the creation of plants, historically they could have been created long before plants.

I said that in the very beginning of this discussion. what then is your point? What are you arguing about?

The framework does not require that the sequence of naming the various items being created correspond precisely with the temporal sequence in which they were created.

The temporal sequence and the naming sequence can be different, with the order of naming set by logic or topic rather than time.

The scholars both ancient heb. lang. and others primarily agree that it is indeed both. The exceptions to that conclusion are all by scholars that do not focus thier studies on ancient heb. lang. and their disagreements are possibles not absolutes. which just for good measure you only presented one of these people as I recall.

 

[razzelflabben]

But the answer did not explain anything. It simply described "variables" as "what we don't know."

YOu asked what the variables are and I answered, the variables are all the things we don't know. Remember our Jo and Mo story, how in order to have an accurate measure, they needed to reduce the unknowns to what is only known and then factor in anything they couldn't eliminate. Those are the variables, the unknowns.

Much of science does describe variables. That is what many formulas are used for: to describe variables. The inverse square law of gravity told us that gravity varies according to the mass of the bodies and the distance between them and gave us a formula for calculating the gravitational force between any two bodies no matter what the sizes and no matter what the distance between them. Gravitational force varies; it is a variable. But it is a well-known variable and well-understood. We know how to account for it, even better now than when Newton first formulated the inverse square law.

there are indeed two kinds of variables. 1. things that are known to change given certain situations. and 2. the things that we can't know will change. The variables I am primarily concerned about here is the unknown, just exactly like I said and said clearly without a lot of words and nonsense and you still can't understand.

And that is another point. Newton's law, though good, was not fully accurate. Sometimes, using the formula told you exactly where a planet would be. But sometimes, the planet was not where it was expected to be. It wasn't far away, but it wasn't exactly where the formula said it should be either.

right, the unknown or 2 above variables.

It was clear that something was not quite right with Newton's inverse square formula, but no one knew exactly what for a long time. That is an example of a unknown variable.

Then Einstein figured out the problem, and now we have an even more accurate way of keeping track of gravitational forces.

A key point here is that the unknown variable that Newton didn't and couldn't account for did not make his work either biased or useless. Most of the time, for simplicity, Newton's formula is still used. But when greater accuracy is needed, Einstein's work is used.

Right, but Newton didn't just sweep the discrepancies under the rug either, he accepted that there were unknown variables that needed to be taken into consideration. Today on the topic of origins, many scientist do like you did with the Jo and Mo analogy and pretend that the variables, you know the unknowns don't exist. That we already have all the knowledge that is necessary to know what happened. The truth of the whole story is however that there as still simply too many variables to know accurately.

So variables are not necessarily what is unknown. Therefore when you say scientists are not accounting for variables, the natural question is "which variables are they not accounting for?"

well if it is unknown then about the best answer that can be given is things like. We don't know what affect it had on life in the area, you know one of the variables I referenced and you tried to make into an argument for bias.

And we also need to ask, does not knowing some variables really make the current work biased or useless. It is possible to achieve a high level of accuracy even when some factors are unknown.

Well, as to a high level of accuracy, it could if the variables were significant enough and I believe it was laptoppop who referenced a site which talks a lot about this.

As to the uselessness, I don't know why you keep bringing this up. I don't recall anyone saying it was useless but you. How useful it is might be a problem, but useless, no, I am a first believer that there is very little in this world that is truely worthless. Including but not limited to the endless dribble that you spout to make a point that your don't even hear yourself making.

So if you are claiming that some scientific conclusions are hugely inaccurate, there needs to be a basis presented for that claim. What would make that conclusion hugely inaccurate?

now think back gluadys, one of the biased claims I made is that evidence collected by creationists and scrutinized under peer review and thus found to be accurate is most usually omitted from the scientific publisized works because it was done by a creationist. This dear one is bias plain and simple. This has been admitted and asking me to further evidence it is like asking someone to prove they didn't say something. In other words, in order to counter the claim it would be necessary for you to show a creationist work that appears in the scientific journals. Not the other way around.

Actually, scientists have a very simple way to get around this problem. It is "Use more than one way of measuring whatever you are measuring."

So scientist A has a yardstick short by 1/4 inch and doesn't know it. But scientist B has a metre stick. And scientist C is using laser technology. And scientist D is using the odometer on his vehicle. When A's answer does not agree with the answers B, C, and D all get, they decide to check out what is wrong with A's measuring tool, find out it is too short, and correcting for the missing bit, determine that A had the right answer too.

this is to assume that we have the tools to determine if we have the right answer or not. As demonstrated to you, many of the variables that you claim don't exist in fact do exist and are usually overlooked in exchange for claiming that we know. This ignoring of the variables is bias.

Be specific. What things in particular do we not know that we need to know before we can get good scientific conclusions. In particular, in respect to the age of the earth or anything dated as too old to be consistent with a young earth.

Presumably God, since the laws of nature are derived from the properties of created matter. And it was God who created it with those properties.

If God created the laws, and works within the laws of nature, then we have two options when it comes to this discussion 1. God is natural and testable and scientific or 2. we don't understand the laws of nature and only attempt to interpret those laws. Which do you choose to work with?

Through the study of nature, especially its repetitive features and patterns.

we interpret what we thing the laws of nature are, but it is not an absolute, but rather our interpretation of such. Look at our discussion of the interpretation of Gen. Interpretations are far from an exact science. In fact, it is speculation, and suggestion, and guessing at best. Now we may have grounds to determine it is solid interpretation, but the best we can do is guess. The only one who actually knows what the laws of nature are is the one who created the laws, is it not?

Each law is defined by the person who proposes it. In effect, that person is saying, "Every time I see A, I also see B, and as A varies, B varies with it in a predictable pattern." Then usually in a short mathematical equation, they set out the relationship of A to B.

ah, so now you are asserting that the natural laws are invented by people???

If other scientists confirm that there is no known exception to the observation, it is accepted as a "law". Even more so, if they can find a property of nature that explains why the law must be what it is.

That is what made Einstein's work on gravity superior to Newton's. Newton described a pattern he had seen and as more and more scientists studied gravity, they saw the same basic pattern and agreed he had found a law of nature. But all they could do was describe its effects. They couldn't figure out what caused the effects they saw. Einstein was able to show that the law of gravity was produced by certain properties of the material universe.

So now we have not only a repeated observation with no known exceptions, but also a reason for those observations rooted in creation itself.

But you still haven't removed the interpretation element from the equasion nor have you removed God. Keep trying.

 

[razzelflabben]

More precisely, we are measuring the distance the light has travelled. That figure, together with the speed of light, gives us the time the light has been en route, and therefore its minimum age, as well as the minimum age of the star it is coming from

The suggestion made was that any light coming from the star but not originating in the star, was light created even before the star was. So that light is even older. If the light coming from the star is 12 million years old by the time it reaches earth, and any other light is still older, that does not help establish a young age for the star or its light, or any other divinely created light. It is all at least 12 million years old and perhaps older.

you are trying to establish the age of the earth as being old not the star.

And I never said it did. But YECism includes the concept that the heavens as well as the earth were created recently. So the age of the stars is also relevant.

where is that written as a yec belief? You use yec, literalist and creationist interchangably, they aren't interchangable at all. What are we talking about exactly? When you say YEC, there are a wide variety of beliefs to take into consideration not just the ones you hold to be YECist.

For YEC the apparent age of the stars and the light from the stars is another matter that has to be explained. Why do they look so old when they are not?

Any light still older only adds to the problem for YEC.

You really do need to show me where it is written that all Yecists believe that the stars make the earth appear old. I haven't found it anywhere. All I can find is a variety of beliefs that somhow get all tied up together and people like you steryotyping anyone who is not an evolutionist as creationist with YEC ideas that you find appauling. This is prejudice and yes, prejudice is a form of bias. HUmmm, didn't I hear something about bias on this thread? sarcasm
To lump everyone into the same belief system is indeed bias. Within the belief of young earth, we have many degrees of varying thoughts as to what the bible really means. To insist that there is only one thought is bias.

 

[razzelflabben]

Again you are claiming evidence without pointing to it. Which evidence says I am wrong about what?

it won't hurt you to repeat yourself or link to a post where the evidence it presented.

I do not take your claims to have presented evidence as anything more than hot air unless you actually show what evidence you are talking about.

refresh my mind what it is you want me to show again, but before you do, go back and see what all I referenced you to, my week is unbelievably full. The only reason I am on right now is I have to wait for the bath.

Be specific. In relation to the Chicxulub crater, to a fossil or a rock, what criteria did you use to establish whether they appeared old or young?

Well, it is exactly those problems that I would like to deal with. But I don't know precisely what those problems are. Why do you find the scientific conclusions problematical?

I don't find them problematic given the premise they hold to. I find them problematic when we change the premise we use to observe the evidence.

The closest we have come, I think, to pinpointing a problem is to say that something may be wrong with the whole scientific measure of testing for age.

If that is the key, the next thing to establish is why there is a problem.

No one comes to a conclusion without reasons for that conclusion. The reasons are the evidence, or they are based on evidence.

Perhaps part of your problem is that you have seen the conclusions science has come to, but not been shown the reasons. Or you don't consider the reasons good ones, or sufficient to establish the conclusion.

Do any of these possibilities apply to the age of the universe, or of the earth, or anything in them?

The problem is and was specifically and clearly stated, that the premis is the problem. If we change the premises we change the conclusions. Therefore, in order to know truth, we need to figure out what premis is true and go from there. That is really the heart of the debate as best I can tell.

Perhaps, here is the point you believe there is a variable science is not taking into account. If so, what is the variable that is being overlooked? How would it change the conclusion?

dealt with in previous post.

All tests have a margin of error. But that is already published with the estimate of the age, so I think you must be referring to something different, more earthshaking than that. Do you think tests which lead to an estimated age of over 60 million years can be so far off that the actual age is less than 1 million years? What could make that big a difference?

Now, you talked earlier about variables as what we don't know. But here you are speaking of something we do know that is not being accounted for. What is this known factor that is not being accounted for?

Of course we do. If the methods of testing are giving seriously wrong dates, we need to find out why.

But this leads to two questions:

1. How do we know the dates are seriously wrong? What evidence is there that they are wrong at all?

percisely the point, without a baseline, we don't know if they are accurate or not.

2. If we do know they are wrong, what is a possible reason for them being wrong.

In the case of question 2, we need a very specific answer. Not just "something we haven't accounted for" or "a variable" but exactly what it is that is not being accounted for. Only then can the proposed solution be applied to see if it gives better results.

That would require us to know that they are wrong and how far off they are. I have never suggested that we do, in fact, I have always maintained that we don't know.

 

[razzelflabben]

I would like an answer that an unbiased doctor genuinely concerned about the health of his patient would give.

He had 19 tests saying blood sugar levels are normal and 1 saying it is much too high. All tests were done on the same blood sample, so it is not a question of the patient having eaten a dozen doughnuts, or being under a new stress or any other extraneous factor which could explain the one high reading. What does he tell his patient?

What I am looking for is whether he would reassure the patient on the basis of the 19 tests, or warn the patient on the basis of one reading out of sync with the 19 others.

And the reason why he would make the choice he does.

and what I told you is that an unbiased dr would do 20 tests at different times, not 20 at the same time to get an understanding of what is going on. To which you told me we can't do that in this analogy. Thus you have created a biased dr. but refuse to accept either his bias or to explain what his bias is.

 

[razzelflabben]

God is not a god of perdition.

It is not necessary for Him to do things in perpetual stages, His word is enough.

Agreed, nor is it out of His character to do things in stages. Therefore, without a divine word as to how it was done, the simple truth remains, we don't know.

Consider the OT scriptures that talk about teaching precept upon precept. Thus we see God working within stages, understanding that it is how creation works.

 

[gluadys]

Whatever gluady's. You insisted that I present ancient heb. lang. scholars. Which I did. But you refused to follow your same credentials and then made an issue of it claiming that they were as qualified to speak of the grammer of the text as the ancient heb. lang scholars were.

No, you assumed without any evidence, that I didn't present scholars with the same level of expertise as those I asked you to present. It is you who denigrated their expertise for no reason.

What are you arguing about?The scholars both ancient heb. lang. and others primarily agree that it is indeed both.

No, they don't. There is a division of opinion on the matter.

The exceptions to that conclusion are all by scholars that do not focus thier studies on ancient heb. lang. and their disagreements are possibles not absolutes. which just for good measure you only presented one of these people as I recall.

Again, this is a groundless assumption you are making. You have no evidence their expertise in ancient Hebrew is any less than that of the scholars your husband named.

Try to find one person who disagrees with them who uses this as a reason for disagreeing with them. You won't find it. You will find that even those who disagree take their arguments seriously as scholar to scholar without belittling them as you have consistently done.

Oh, and while the principal focus has been on Meredith Klein as one of the originators of the framework interpretation, I actually presented five people, not just one.

 

[gluadys]

YOu asked what the variables are and I answered, the variables are all the things we don't know.

What you haven't shown is that they would make a difference in the current level of accuracy based on the variables we do know.

Right, but Newton didn't just sweep the discrepancies under the rug either, he accepted that there were unknown variables that needed to be taken into consideration.

Actually, he didn't accept that premise, because he didn't know the discrepancies existed. They only became apparent when more accurate measurements were available.

That we already have all the knowledge that is necessary to know what happened.

What makes you think any scientist is saying that? It is just not true that scientists make that sort of claim. What they do affirm is that we know things to a certain level of probability, and in some cases that level of probability is very high.

The truth of the whole story is however that there as still simply too many variables to know accurately.

So are you saying that scientists cannot really tell the difference between things we don't confidently know and things we know to a high level of confidence?

Why would you say that?

We don't know what affect it had on life in the area, you know one of the variables I referenced and you tried to make into an argument for bias.

You never provided a reference for that claim. Besides, you were not talking about the effect of the impact itself. You were claiming, without evidence, that life was already faltering and needed the impact to be preserved.

Well, as to a high level of accuracy, it could if the variables were significant enough

The most significant variables are generally found first as their effect is the most notable. That is why unknown variables seldom make the current level of knowledge inaccurate. They can make them more accurate when we notice them and learn to measure them. But they practically never show that the current system is less accurate than claimed.

As to the uselessness, I don't know why you keep bringing this up. I don't recall anyone saying it was useless but you.

I bring it up because, as I showed earlier (post 246) in order to get a young earth from current scientific measurements, those measurements do have to be totally useless. Even a small degree of accuracy (1%) gives an earth that is over 30 million years old. In fact, science has a measurement that is the reverse of that, around 99% accurate (i.e. a margin of error of only 1%).

one of the biased claims I made is that evidence collected by creationists and scrutinized under peer review and thus found to be accurate is most usually omitted from the scientific publisized works because it was done by a creationist.

Except that there are a few factual errors with this claim.
1. Very few creationists have collected evidence.
2. None, as far as I know, have submitted their work to peer-review.
3. As a consequence of 2. none have been published in scientific journals.

Now, it would be very easy to show bias. Submit an article, get back a rejection letter that shows no good reason for rejecting the manuscript, and publish the rejection letter. No creationist appears to have done this. So in spite of many allegations, there is no evidence of this so-called bias.

this is to assume that we have the tools to determine if we have the right answer or not.

We have over 40 different tools that give consistent answers. It is highly improbable they would give consistent answers if the answers were wrong. There are too many different ways to be wrong. It is asking too much of coincidence to assume that not only are all the different measuring tools giving a wrong answer; they are all giving the same wrong answer.

Since there is only one right answer, the most probable explanation for different measuring tools giving the same answer is that it is the right answer.

As demonstrated to you, many of the variables that you claim don't exist in fact do exist and are usually overlooked in exchange for claiming that we know.

I have never claimed variables (known and unknown) don't exist. I have said they don't make the answers we do have less accurate than claimed.

If God created the laws, and works within the laws of nature, then we have two options when it comes to this discussion 1. God is natural and testable and scientific or 2. we don't understand the laws of nature and only attempt to interpret those laws. Which do you choose to work with?

Neither. The first confuses God with God's creation. It is in creation, not in God, that we find the natural laws. So it is creation, not God, that is natural, testable and scientific.

The second overlooks the fact that natural laws are observed. Yes, scientists do try to explain their observations, and interpretation comes into that, but the laws themselves are observed, not interpreted. The interpretation of a given law is called a theory, as in "theory of gravity" as distinguished from "law of gravity". The law is observed and described mathematically. The theory is an attempt to find a cause for the law.

ah, so now you are asserting that the natural laws are invented by people?

No, they are discovered through observation. I trust you understand the difference between discovery and invention.

 

[gluadys]

you are trying to establish the age of the earth as being old not the star.

No, I am trying to establish the age of the star as that is just as relevant to a YEC position as the age of the earth. In a YEC perspective the star cannot be old either.

where is that written as a yec belief?

In most YEC publications. Unlike OEC, gap and the recent innovation of biologically young earth, the YEC position is that all[/b ] of creation took place recently. The sky and the sun, moon and stars, as well as the earth.

And all the varieties of creationism (day-age, gap, biological young earth) which allow for the heavens to be old, also allow for the earth to be old.

You use yec, literalist and creationist interchangably, they aren't interchangable at all. What are we talking about exactly?

I don't use "creationist" and "yec" interchangeably because I am aware of many old-earth perspectives within creationism. I may well use "literalist" and "yec" interchangeably as that position does affirm a literal interpretation of Genesis 1.

You really do need to show me where it is written that all Yecists believe that the stars make the earth appear old.

It is not that the stars make the earth appear old. They make creation appear old, as the stars are part of creation. It is not written, but it is implied whenever an explanation is offered for how the light from distant stars could appear in a young-earth perspective. Such an explanation would not be needed if it were not clear that the stars are distant and light would need a lot of time to travel from them to earth.

As for bias, show me a young-earth reference that does not claim the stars are just as young as the earth.

 

[gluadys]

refresh my mind what it is you want me to show again,

See your post 358 where you claim the evidence has shown me to be wrong. What evidence? Wrong about what?

but before you do, go back and see what all I referenced you to, my week is unbelievably full.

No, I am not going to do your work for you. You claim to have presented evidence. You show me where it is.

Don't pretend I have gone off topic. You claimed (also post 358): I will and have accepted for discussion all appearances of age that were a valid argument given the criteria of what appears old, not what science deems old appearance.

Now I ask "What criteria did you use?"

I don't find them problematic given the premise they hold to. I find them problematic when we change the premise we use to observe the evidence.

Explain. Change the premise how? and why?

The problem is and was specifically and clearly stated, that the premis is the problem. If we change the premises we change the conclusions.

Of course, if the premise is changed, the conclusions will change. But what is wrong with the scientific premise? What makes a different premise better?

Therefore, in order to know truth, we need to figure out what premis is true and go from there.

And by what criteria do you determine which is true?

That is really the heart of the debate as best I can tell. dealt with in previous post. percisely the point, without a baseline, we don't know if they are accurate or not.

But we do have a base-line. We have, for example, the speed of light which gives us the time it takes light to travel from point A to point B.

That would require us to know that they are wrong and how far off they are. I have never suggested that we do, in fact, I have always maintained that we don't know.

So is this what it comes down to? That all you are proposing is a philosophical musing that science may be wrong?

But you are agreeing that we have no evidence that science is wrong, and you have no concrete proposal about what the error might be, much less a suggestion of how to correct it, if there even is one.

That's not much to waste 38 pages on.

 

[gluadys]

and what I told you is that an unbiased dr would do 20 tests at different times, not 20 at the same time to get an understanding of what is going on. To which you told me we can't do that in this analogy. Thus you have created a biased dr. but refuse to accept either his bias or to explain what his bias is.

I don't know why you continue to evade answering a simple question. And I said from the outset it was not a realistic scenario. That is irrelevant to the question. There is no bias involved. Just 20 tests. It is not a matter (since it is only an analogy) of figuring out what is going on, but only of deciding what to conclude from the tests.

 

[Gottservant]

Agreed, nor is it out of His character to do things in stages. Therefore, without a divine word as to how it was done, the simple truth remains, we don't know.

Consider the OT scriptures that talk about teaching precept upon precept. Thus we see God working within stages, understanding that it is how creation works.

You were right to ask this line of questioning, I think. But if you look at Genesis you have your answer: in the beginning there was a deep (Genesis). Alternatively, you can go further back and you have God Almighty, the Word (John).

Now, I don't know if its wordplay or not, but a deep is basically chaos and in chaos we have nothing, therefore a chaos is nothing and God created something from that, therefore God created something from nothing. This is different from saying God created something from peace, which is like the experience of nothing, but that is also true. Essentially, at some point you have to accept that more came about because of God, such that if you had looked for more, you would have found worse than nothing, viz., nothing without the ability to comprehend it (darkness is without comprehension in this way - see John).

We know from John that the light shines in the darkness and we know from Genesis that God spoke. In the spirit of this, I believe it makes sense to say that God moved from Light into darkness and brought comprehension to it thus spreading peace when it was revealed, but this may be saying more than you are ready to take on.

A smart thing to do would be to ask God to break down His understanding of what happened leading up to Creation, then you would have a taste of what the progressive stages would be. Bear in mind that you find these stages later and ultimately you must be able to get beyond them to get to God. This bears out the verse Matthew 5:20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven. "

I must thank you for opening this line of inquiry as I have had to ask myself a lot of interesting questions. Most of what I have written in this post is almost as new to me as it is to the page. Certainly I have never equated chaos with nothing before. Praise God, may He bless you!

 

[razzelflabben]

No, you assumed without any evidence, that I didn't present scholars with the same level of expertise as those I asked you to present. It is you who denigrated their expertise for no reason.

Gluady's I realize it is hard for you to accept when you are wrong, but it wasn't the level of expertise that was in question, but the level of expertise in ancient heb. lang. that was in question. Deal with it.

No, they don't. There is a division of opinion on the matter.

not from the scholars you presented., They all agreed that both were possible.

Again, this is a groundless assumption you are making. You have no evidence their expertise in ancient Hebrew is any less than that of the scholars your husband named.

Try to find one person who disagrees with them who uses this as a reason for disagreeing with them. You won't find it. You will find that even those who disagree take their arguments seriously as scholar to scholar without belittling them as you have consistently done.

Oh, and while the principal focus has been on Meredith Klein as one of the originators of the framework interpretation, I actually presented five people, not just one.

The rest of this is bullheaded nonsense and if seeing officially ignored because it has been sufficiently covered and you have been found to be insulting to any and every scholar out there by not accepting their expertise for what it is.