Apparent Age Theory

Lion of God said:

Plausibility from a Christian perspective would be a viewpoint where the the literal interpretation of the bible is in harmony with the physical evidence.

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Why is literalism the only "plausible" interpretation?

depthdeception said:

Who defines "literal" interpretation, and why is this a necessary part of a naturalistic theory about the age of the universe?

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Strictly speaking, a naturalistic theory does not require the bible at all. This being a Christian area of the forum however and scriptures refer to "in the beginning" it would appear to me at least that the physical evidence should line up with the literal interpretation of it to be a "Light onto the World" in every area of life. If we start looking at the bible as being mythological than perhaps sin, salvation, redemtion and even God is as well.

Can we be effective witnesses for Christ when we ourselves see the bible as being partly fable? On the other hand can the bible be so far out of whack in explaining the physical evidences that we are to be a laughingstock to the rest of the world when we maintain that the scientific evidence is all wrong and the Earth is only 6000 years old?
OEC or Ruin/Reconstruction is alluded to both in the bible and legends for thousands of years, long before the "scientific" field stumbled on the concept of an old Earth.

It seems that you might be overestimating your ability to accurately interpret Scripture, as well as wrongly assuming that the Scriptures are meant to provide the kind of information/data that you are attempting to mine from them. Seems pretty shaky to me...

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Being that I have not listed a single verse or its interpration, I am forced to conclude that you are overestimating your ability to read my mind.

Lion of God said:

Strictly speaking, a naturalistic theory does not require the bible at all. This being a Christian area of the forum however and scriptures refer to "in the beginning" it would appear to me at least that the physical evidence should line up with the literal interpretation of it to be a "Light onto the World" in every area of life.

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I still do not understand why there has to be any "lining up" with a "literal" interepretation of Scripture. And again, I ask, who determines what constitutes a "literal" reading? For example, if the writers of the creation stories do not intend for their stories to be interpreted as a naturalistic explanation of the mechanisms of creation, then an interpretation of the Scriptures that comes away with this is actually the most non-literal interpretation that one could imagine...

If we start looking at the bible as being mythological than perhaps sin, salvation, redemtion and even God is as well.

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If the Scriptures are the only point of departure for knowing about God, sin, salvation, etc., then we are all doomed.

Can we be effective witnesses for Christ when we ourselves see the bible as being partly fable?

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Well, that certainly depends upon what you mean by "fable."

On the other hand can the bible be so far out of whack in explaining the physical evidences that we are to be a laughingstock to the rest of the world when we maintain that the scientific evidence is all wrong and the Earth is only 6000 years old?

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No, this is only necessary if one decides that the Scriptures should function as providing "physical evidence" for the mechanisms of creation. If one suspends this presupposition, however, the incongruity suddenly vanishes.

OEC or Ruin/Reconstruction is alluded to both in the bible and legends for thousands of years, long before the "scientific" field stumbled on the concept of an old Earth.

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Well, your "interpretation" alludes to it. Whether or not it is actually there is an entirely different matter...

Lion of God said:

Plausibility from a Christian perspective would be a viewpoint where the the literal interpretation of the bible is in harmony with the physical evidence.
An old Earth with multiple creations would expect to see Cambrian explosions, mass extinctions, a geological and fossil record showing an old earth, punctuated equilibrium etc. The Ice Age Extinction event with the subsequent 6 day creation event recorded in Genesis fits in quite comfortably with both scientific and scriptural evidence.

What makes Gap Theory even more interesting is that a number of ancient cultures alluded to it in their writings.

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Yet a 'literal' interpretation of Genesis would discount OEC just as well as evolutionary theory. There's nothing plausible about an old earth by your standard if Creation was accomplished in six days.

The fact is the physical evidence is not in harmony with a 'literal' interpretation of Genesis.

Now, the Bible is a revelation of God's truth.

But, Creation is also a revelation of God's truth.

Is God really asking us to choose one of His truths over the other?

Or, are the truths in harmony with one another and its our understanding of their revelations that needs to be corrected?

chaoschristian said:

Yet a 'literal' interpretation of Genesis would discount OEC just as well as evolutionary theory. There's nothing plausible about an old earth by your standard if Creation was accomplished in six days.

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To the contrary, Chaos. OEC for me means that this present creation was literal 6000 years ago accomplished by God in six 24 hour days as per Genesis. Therefore even as a creationist I still have no problem with the geological evidence or the fossil record. I think Gould's Punctuated equilibrium is the physical proof of previous creations.

Lion of God said:

I think Gould's Punctuated equilibrium is the physical proof of previous creations.

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That would require a huge distortion of Gould's thesis.

gluadys said:

That would require a huge distortion of Gould's thesis.

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Yes, a Godzilla-sized distortion.

Lion of God said:

To the contrary, Chaos. OEC for me means that this present creation was literal 6000 years ago accomplished by God in six 24 hour days as per Genesis. Therefore even as a creationist I still have no problem with the geological evidence or the fossil record. I think Gould's Punctuated equilibrium is the physical proof of previous creations.

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I think you are defining OEC outside of its traditional bounds, at least to the extent of my understanding of it.

I though OEC accepted a billions years old Earth (hence the name) but also stipulated special creation in kind for all life.

I always assumed the 6000 year old earth was a defining characteristic of YEC.

Regardless, I do not think that punctuated equilibrium means what you think it means.

Normally I'd say that OECism tends more towards "Day-Age" interpretations while a "Ruin/Reconstruction" interpretation tends more towards a Gap Theory view. But hey, the earth is still old with Gap Theorists, and it's what you're believing, so I'm not going to make a fuss over what you call yourself.

Can we be effective witnesses for Christ when we ourselves see the bible as being partly fable?

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Why not?

chaoschristian said:

I think you are defining OEC outside of its traditional bounds, at least to the extent of my understanding of it.

I though OEC accepted a billions years old Earth (hence the name) but also stipulated special creation in kind for all life.

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Guess it depends on whose definition you are looking at.

I always assumed the 6000 year old earth was a defining characteristic of YEC.

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A 6000 year old Earth, yes. OEC for some means a 6000 year old Creation but an Earth that is much older.

Regardless, I do not think that punctuated equilibrium means what you think it means.

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It is not that difficult of a theory to understand. If you don't think the evidence he used to support his theory can also be used to support multiple creations in past why don't you tell us why that is?

Lion of God,

You go, guy!

Lion of God said:

It is not that difficult of a theory to understand. If you don't think the evidence he used to support his theory can also be used to support multiple creations in past why don't you tell us why that is?

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Well, punctuated equilibrium is a thesis about evolution and no more admits special creations than neo-darwinism does.

It is entirely consistent with the principal mechanisms of evolution, and only makes some hypotheses about population size and rate of evolution---and then only for some populations some of the time.

It does not fit the scenario of multiple creations in a catastrophic pre-history at all.

This is all very fascinating.

No matter what I read, though, I can't understand saying the Apparent Age theory would mean God is lying to us.

How can we in our finite minds hope to comprehend an infinate God? We were born and we will die. He is the Alpha and Omega, no begining and no end. Who are we to shake our fist and say creating a tree with an apparent age is lieing....

My genetic code tells a story too. Just because Adam's genetic code was first, doesn't mean it was lieing....

Pats said:

This is all very fascinating.

No matter what I read, though, I can't understand saying the Apparent Age theory would mean God is lying to us.

How can we in our finite minds hope to comprehend an infinate God? We were born and we will die. He is the Alpha and Omega, no begining and no end. Who are we to shake our fist and say creating a tree with an apparent age is lieing....

My genetic code tells a story too. Just because Adam's genetic code was first, doesn't mean it was lieing....

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take another tack on the issue.
look at the issue of false memories and the prosecution of say the daycare centers.
1-the kids were sure that they had been abused
2-they described the abuse--in graphic detail
it was the detail of the evidence that convicted the jury that they were abused.
otherwise how did they know of such things, at their age?
3-there was no physical evidence

on appeal it was discovered that the kids were putting together the questions from interogations and giving the investigators what they apparently wanted to hear. convictions overturned decades later on appeal.

if it didn't happen, but your memory says it did, that is a false memory. a contradiction between reality and your memory.

now tree rings are physical memories. they record how much or how well/poorly the tree grew in that season. the various widths, the C14 dating of those layers etc consituent data.
if those trees didn't grow but where poofed into existence with the rings indicating growth then they are false memories. reading Gen 1 has a scientific textbook and understanding it to say that the earth is 10K years old is the same thing as these kids false memories, a statement that can be checked against the facts, against real history.

akin to a scar on Adam's knee and the memory of falling out of a tree at 10 following by maternal care. false memories. they really didn't happen.

this is the reason it is the same philosophic problem as "the brains in the vat" or the Alpha Centari brain scientists that are so popular in epistemological books.

no fist shaking. looking to understand what God has written in the Book of Works, our universe. it is interesting how many YECist will propose a literal Gen1 but ignore a literal reading of the real world.

Alpha Centauri brain? I agree wholeheartedly with your post, but I don't recall having seen that one before.

shernren said:

Alpha Centauri brain? I agree wholeheartedly with your post, but I don't recall having seen that one before.

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it is a common epistemological example,
i'm reading Plantinga right now and he uses it often as an example of potential mal-functioning epistemological equipment. i don't know where it comes from but it is in:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brain-vat/

here is how it is commonly used

Likewise, if we allow malevolent neurosurgeons from Alpha Centauri to massage and stoke our brains, I see no reason to deny them the power to produce directly the judgment that one is having reddish phenomenology, while suppressing the reddish phenomenology itself. Is this so patently impossible?[12]

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from: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/Naive060210.htm#_ftn12

like seeing redly, it is just an example that seems to propagate itself.

Pats said:

This is all very fascinating.

No matter what I read, though, I can't understand saying the Apparent Age theory would mean God is lying to us.

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It's actually quite simple. God created a world which looks 4.5 billion years old. Is it?

we in our finite minds hope to comprehend an infinate God? We were born and we will die. He is the Alpha and Omega, no begining and no end. Who are we to shake our fist and say creating a tree with an apparent age is lieing....

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Who are we? We are the people who made a covenant with God through His son Jesus Christ. But if God's creation is deceptive... 6,000 years old but appearing far older... then we would have grave reason to doubt if God will keep up His end of the bargain.

And that is the theological pitfall of YEC... if God's actions (creation) are deceptive, how good are His words?

My genetic code tells a story too. Just because Adam's genetic code was first, doesn't mean it was lieing....

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Depends on the story it tells...

This discussion is going on elsewhere as well. An idea which originated there (pm me for the link) is the idea of an invoice.

here is the idea:
the context is the water into wine miracle at the wedding in Canaan.

the wine was not accompanied by an invoice from Gallo stating it's origin, age and wine type. it was UNLABELLED, uninvoiced.

Creation on the other hand is invoiced, it contains literally millions of little dated invoices that say: this process is historical and can be dated to X. or this tree has been here in this place and growing for 4K years.
or

The isotope ratios at Oklo amount to a sworn certificate that the Earth is at least 1.5 GYears old; yet the specific combination of deposits with a high uranium content and lots of percolating water (which was necessary for the natural reactor to burn) is not a necessary part of a mature Earth.

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note the idea of necessary part.
this is the key element of apparent age, of the omphalos problem.

is a belly button a necessary part or it's presence a sufficient condition to prove a history?
This is the issue of necessary to, or contingent history. Each of us has a particular specific history, a journal of our lives would act as an invoice certificating who we are and what we have undergone in our lives. But that history is not necessary to being a human being, it is specific to and has expressed contingent conditions.

a scar on Adam's knee and memories of falling out of a tree at 10 and being comforted by his mom is a false memory if Adam was created a mature man.

the scar is an invoice, a certification of a history that was not a necessary condition for being a man.

a Gallo invoice specifies the vineyard that the wine came from, it is not generic wine but specific wine with a history, with scars.

this is the key element that the argument revolves around. The Creation is certificated by God to be 14B years old, to have created it in the year 4044BC is deception, false memories, forged invoices, making us "brains in a vat" and subject to Decartes demon. Trouble i am not prepared to deal with epistemologically when the solution is simply to believe the book of works and modify Usshers interpretation of Genesis as not being what God what us to believe.

now the issue is if miracles issue invoices.
if a YECist 6K years ago creation is invoiced by Gen 1.
that is an interesting idea and is answered "of course" by YECists and others who would address specific scientific and historical questions to Genesis, such as "how old is the earth?"

....

rmwilliamsll said:

Creation is certificated by God to be 14B years old, to have created it in the year 4044BC is deception, false memories, forged invoices, making us "brains in a vat" and subject to Decartes demon. Trouble i am not prepared to deal with epistemologically when the solution is simply to believe the book of works and modify Usshers interpretation of Genesis as not being what God what us to believe.
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The Universe may be 14B years old but that doesn't negate Usshers timeline for this present biological creation. The literal interpretation of the bible is still a valid "invoice" of this present creation.

Lion of God said:

The literal interpretation of the bible is still a valid "invoice" of this present creation.

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As 'valid' as a Nigerian scam email.