Which position do you take?

  • Pure science

  • Mainstream science

  • No science

  • Political science

  • Other - Please explain


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mindlight

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All Christians are Creationists in the sense that they believe that God created the universe.

"We believe in One God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen" as the Nicene Creed declares.

There is a considerable amount of mystery in the biblical accounts as to the how and when of Gods creation and most scientific controversy surrounds these two questions.

The last American election really worried me however as a lot of people who share my own Young Earth Creation outlook are clearly vulnerable to non scientific conspiracy theories and fake news. The ways in which we approach evidence needs to be honest and authentic and there is nothing wrong with the scientific method, as far as it goes.

So I wanted to create a thread outlining the different approaches to Creationism based on how science is regarded. There are a number of scientific approaches that could be taken.

1) PURE SCIENCE ONLY (My position): Only what is demonstrable, by repeatable scientific experiments, properly peer reviewed, can be regarded as scientific evidence. All models and theories beyond this are speculative, with varying degrees of plausible probability. Thus "Big Bang", "Abiogenesis", and "Macro Evolution" are not pure science but rather speculative, as they cannot be demonstrated. I am a creationist because I regard the science to say next to nothing useful about our origins and therefore simply accept the revealed account, interpreted in its own terms, and in line with traditions in the church, most true to the original languages. I would use science in a creation discussion simply to show that a position was actually speculative not proven.

2) MAINSTREAM SCIENCE: Scientific models do not have to be demonstrated, only explain the evidence better than all alternatives, to be the mainstream position. Facts established by the scientific method are integrated into models of evaluation that make more sense and are best consistent with the evidence available. This is the way most Theistic Evolutionists use science but so also the ways that the best Creationist scientists try and counter the dominant model. My critique of this approach is that it reaches beyond what it can actually say from the provable evidence.

3) POLITICAL SCIENCE: I would argue this was the approach that interpreted the evidence according to ideological goals and to required outcomes. So a Creationist scientist might misuse science to assert 6 day creation and a young earth or an atheist evolutionist might use science to try and forward his own anti-Christian agenda. Discussions between political scientists are assertions yelled at each other not proper debates in the main.

4) NO SCIENCE: Scientists today are too compromised and the institutions they work for so thoroughly governed by false ideological commitments and deceitful assumptions that little they say is of any value. A radical distrust of scientists and their credentials.

A lot of the fake news outlets and stories about fraud in the elections take approaches 3) and 4)

Which approach do you take to a study of our origins and why do you think it is the best approach?
 

coffee4u

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As a creationist I am posting other. We are not against real science, science that can be repeated that shows what works now. Now is the key word.
Science only thinks that what it tests show how the past was, the past was not how things are now. Science can only test the present and show us how things work in the present.

A literal creation is needed for a literally perfect man who communed closely with God.
He is needed for a literal fall because that is what brought in sin and death. Death is not a mechanic, not natural, it is the result of sin and only the result of sin. This is why death in the enemy.

Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned--

Without a literal man, who literally fell there is no literal original sin. This is why Jesus came to be the second Adam-the literal second Adam. he didn't come to die figuratively but literally.

1 Corinthians 15:45
So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

When God remakes the heavens and the world it will be made back to what it was -literal perfection. Which we will literally be part of.

The only study of origins is God's word because the creation was a miracle. As such it falls outside of science.
 
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mindlight

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As a creationist I am posting other. We are not against real science, science that can be repeated that shows what works now. Now is the key word.
Science only thinks that what it tests show how the past was, the past was not how things are now. Science can only test the present and show us how things work in the present.

From your answer I would place you as 1) as I cannot see any difference in your answer to my own. I never used the word now or asserted the uniformitarian principle as the basis of pure science
 
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Aussie Pete

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All Christians are Creationists in the sense that they believe that God created the universe.

"We believe in One God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen" as the Nicene Creed declares.

There is a considerable amount of mystery in the biblical accounts as to the how and when of Gods creation and most scientific controversy surrounds these two questions.

The last American election really worried me however as a lot of people who share my own Young Earth Creation outlook are clearly vulnerable to non scientific conspiracy theories and fake news. The ways in which we approach evidence needs to be honest and authentic and there is nothing wrong with the scientific method, as far as it goes.

So I wanted to create a thread outlining the different approaches to Creationism based on how science is regarded. There are a number of scientific approaches that could be taken.

1) PURE SCIENCE ONLY (My position): Only what is demonstrable, by repeatable scientific experiments, properly peer reviewed, can be regarded as scientific evidence. All models and theories beyond this are speculative, with varying degrees of plausible probability. Thus "Big Bang", "Abiogenesis", and "Macro Evolution" are not pure science but rather speculative, as they cannot be demonstrated. I am a creationist because I regard the science to say next to nothing useful about our origins and therefore simply accept the revealed account, interpreted in its own terms, and in line with traditions in the church, most true to the original languages. I would use science in a creation discussion simply to show that a position was actually speculative not proven.

2) MAINSTREAM SCIENCE: Scientific models do not have to be demonstrated, only explain the evidence better than all alternatives, to be the mainstream position. Facts established by the scientific method are integrated into models of evaluation that make more sense and are best consistent with the evidence available. This is the way most Theistic Evolutionists use science but so also the ways that the best Creationist scientists try and counter the dominant model. My critique of this approach is that it reaches beyond what it can actually say from the provable evidence.

3) POLITICAL SCIENCE: I would argue this was the approach that interpreted the evidence according to ideological goals and to required outcomes. So a Creationist scientist might misuse science to assert 6 day creation and a young earth or an atheist evolutionist might use science to try and forward his own anti-Christian agenda. Discussions between political scientists are assertions yelled at each other not proper debates in the main.

4) NO SCIENCE: Scientists today are too compromised and the institutions they work for so thoroughly governed by false ideological commitments and deceitful assumptions that little they say is of any value. A radical distrust of scientists and their credentials.

A lot of the fake news outlets and stories about fraud in the elections take approaches 3) and 4)

Which approach do you take to a study of our origins and why do you think it is the best approach?
The Bible is God's revealed Word and the absolute truth. When God says that He created then evolution is ruled out. I also subscribe to the Pre-Adamic theory. It fits the Genesis account and resolves a lot of the seeming conflicts between geology and the Bible.
 
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Brightmoon

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Creationism is a religious belief that there is no verifiable evidence for. There’s no evidence of any of the commonly held tenets of creationism either: young earth, separate creation of living organisms, flat earth, all humans coming from 2 people, geocentrism, hard or impenetrable dome over the earth, global Flood , animals 2 by 2 etc . Not every fundamentalist believes all of these and science has confirmed none of it .
 
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mindlight

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Creationism is a religious belief that there is no verifiable evidence for. There’s no evidence of any of the commonly held tenets of creationism either: young earth, separate creation of living organisms, flat earth, all humans coming from 2 people, geocentrism, hard or impenetrable dome over the earth, global Flood , animals 2 by 2 etc . Not every fundamentalist believes all of these and science has confirmed none of it .

So you do not believe that God created and cannot say the Nicene creed?

I would suggest that your view of what we can say about origins is based on mainstream science rather than no science, from previous interactions. When you talk about evidence i am assuming you cannot demonstrate conclusions ,but rather subscribe to the broad models
 
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mindlight

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The Bible is God's revealed Word and the absolute truth. When God says that He created then evolution is ruled out. I also subscribe to the Pre-Adamic theory. It fits the Genesis account and resolves a lot of the seeming conflicts between geology and the Bible.

Ok so this would be a no science answer.You base your conclusions on a reading of Gods word.
 
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coffee4u

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From your answer I would place you as 1) as I cannot see any difference in your answer to my own. I never used the word now or asserted the uniformitarian principle as the basis of pure science

I didn't read over the sections on your post too carefully-sorry. So change me to 1 if you like. :)
 
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Aussie Pete

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Ok so this would be a no science answer.You base your conclusions on a reading of Gods word.
It's the Truth answer. Science is fallible human interpretations of observable phenomena. God is observable but indirectly through Creation. My conclusions are based on God's word but confirmed by a body of research that casts great doubt on the supposed evolutionary process. When an ape taps me on the shoulder and asks, "Am I my keeper's brother?" I may change my mind. I'm not holding my breath.
 
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mindlight

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I wouldn't call the theory of evolution speculative. And for that reason, I have voted "Other".

Clearly this is too loaded a discussion. But since you cannot demonstrate a common ancestor to man and ape and cannot provide a full audit history of the paths between the two this is a speculation. You might argue that the adaptation of organisms over time, as observed scientifically demonstrates evolution at work. But it is speculative to generalise back from that and there are no experiments by which you could confirm those pathways so again this is a speculation based on a uniformitarian assumption. It is consistent, based on evidence and properly argued but nonetheless not provable.
 
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mindlight

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It's the Truth answer. Science is fallible human interpretations of observable phenomena. God is observable but indirectly through Creation. My conclusions are based on God's word but confirmed by a body of research that casts great doubt on the supposed evolutionary process. When an ape taps me on the shoulder and asks, "Am I my keeper's brother?" I may change my mind. I'm not holding my breath.

I may agree with you, but this thread is on how creationists use science. Your approach suggests it is not important, God's word is all we need to find the truth. My answer is that science is also important and a useful test of truth claims, but that it says nothing useful about our origins. In that absence of scientific evidence I have no conflicts to worry about with scripture.
 
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Aussie Pete

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I may agree with you, but this thread is on how creationists use science. Your approach suggests it is not important, God's word is all we need to find the truth. My answer is that science is also important and a useful test of truth claims, but that it says nothing useful about our origins. In that absence of scientific evidence I have no conflicts to worry about with scripture.
OK. That's not how I read your post. My misunderstanding.
 
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Job 33:6

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Clearly this is too loaded a discussion. But since you cannot demonstrate a common ancestor to man and ape and cannot provide a full audit history of the paths between the two this is a speculation. You might argue that the adaptation of organisms over time, as observed scientifically demonstrates evolution at work. But it is speculative to generalise back from that and there are no experiments by which you could confirm those pathways so again this is a speculation based on a uniformitarian assumption. It is consistent, based on evidence and properly argued but nonetheless not provable.

I'm simply expressing why I voted "other". I think it is the poll that is loaded.

At the end of the day Creationists still cannot explain just how Neil Shubin and his team found Tiktaalik:


Was it pure chance? No of course not. The discovery of such fossils are a product of an understanding of the fossil succession. A succession which is only explainable as a product of common descent.

In plate tectonics, nobody can rewind time to see continents connected, but we would have to be severely intellectually dishonest to think that this weren't the case nonetheless.
 
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mindlight

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I'm simply expressing why I voted "other". I think it is the poll that is loaded.

At the end of the day Creationists still cannot explain just how Neil Shubin and his team found Tiktaalik:


Was it pure chance? No of course not. The discovery of such fossils are a product of an understanding of the fossil succession. A succession which is only explainable as a product of common descent.

In plate tectonics, nobody can rewind time to see continents connected, but we would have to be severely intellectually dishonest to think that this weren't the case nonetheless.

Well they said the same about the Ptolemaic star plotting system. Just cause you get some hits does not make it an authentic system. A broken watch is right twice a day also.
 
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coffee4u

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I'm simply expressing why I voted "other". I think it is the poll that is loaded.

At the end of the day Creationists still cannot explain just how Neil Shubin and his team found Tiktaalik:


Was it pure chance? No of course not. The discovery of such fossils are a product of an understanding of the fossil succession. A succession which is only explainable as a product of common descent.

In plate tectonics, nobody can rewind time to see continents connected, but we would have to be severely intellectually dishonest to think that this weren't the case nonetheless.

You seriously think we will sit through nearly an hour length video to hear whatever that is about?
 
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Guy Threepwood

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I wouldn't call the theory of evolution speculative. And for that reason, I have voted "Other".

The empirical demonstration of a single celled bacteria like organism- morphing into a human being- through mistakes in DNA replication, has gotten as far as.. some more bacteria which are usually less fit than before

That leaves quite a bit of speculation I would say!
 
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