Creation started with nothing?

[razzelflabben]

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.

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.

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.

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?

that is not what I am saying and any reasonable person would know by now after being told a million times a million different ways. But you don't want to know or understand and so you won't. Consider this a formal ignoring until such time as you have interest in actual discussion and not just asserting yourself to be right.

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.

so now you are the authority on what I claim? I though that was my domain. That only I would know what I claim and believe unless I shared it with you as well? What I did was show, reference, that the variables still exist because the scientists don't know how it affected life. In addition, on a different topic, I showed how not knowing could produce a variable that would affect the total outcome to more than a 1% variation.

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.

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%).

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.

I have talked to actual scientist who will tell you you are wrong and laptoppop showed an article that would show you wrong.

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.

so if the creationist is petty, you will believe them, but if they accept what is as being what is, you won't believe it. Nice (sarcasm)

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.

Gluady's, look at it this way, I want to create a way to measure the overall growth, not just the hight of my children. So I measure them by weight and I calculate the amount of growth and I declare, that they have grown 7ksnd. But I want to be sure my answer is right and so I take their clothes and determine that indeed they have grown 7ksnd. But that isn't enough, so I look at their shoes size and compare it to their hight and sure enough, with the right calculations I get 7ksnd. But let's go even further, lets measure their imput with the output and detemine that way. yep 7ksnd. Why have they grown 7ksnd's? Because all the test say the same thing. Now, here comes the problem you want to know what 7ksnd really means and so we attribute a word that you will understand to it. All the test results will come back the same but, we don't know if the translation into amounts you would understand are accurate or not. Is a ksnd equal to an inch, pound, cm, ???? I can call it an inch and that gives you some reference but what if that inch was really a cm or a foot? Our measure of age is like this, we have no baseline to determine if the measure is years or months or millions of years. We don't 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.

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.

God is part of creation. He lives in it and works in it and functions in it. Therefore is part of creation. Now that is not to say He isn't also outside of creation, He is eternal, but He definately is part of creation. And evidence for His existance is all around if you just look for it and test for it but it won't happen because you have been convinced that He can't be found.

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.

and the observation is being tested daily and new qualities of the observations are being discovered. Consider the fairly recent discover of a substance lighter than air, it defies the normal observations of gravity on a solid and therefore challenges our observations of what we have interpreted as laws of nature. Thus the only laws of nature are defined by our own intellectual interpretations of the observations and not on the laws themselves, because we don't know what the laws are, we can't know if God operates in the laws of nature or not. My premis is that He does operate within the laws because there is no evidence to the contrary.

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

I am going to ignore all partronizing comments that are based on nothing more than your trying to be difficult.

 

[razzelflabben]

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.

to know that would require assumptions that the light was coming from the star, but science according to you doesn't make assumptions and so therefore, you have nothing.

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.

so your premis also is that only those published and vocal opinions are held by everyone and no free thinker can exist?

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.

Not at all, remember our discussion about the absolutes in GEn. Gen. does not give us an absolute as to the age of the earth. Therefore a literalist would not be a YEC at all but more of a skeptic.

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.

I gave you an alternate theory and you insist on bringing it back to the same old nonsense. How about dealing with the theory I presented?

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

Why? my claim is not that I can argue all the same arguments, but rather that I can argue for a young earth. You want me to argue the same old arguements so you know how to answer them. I instead want to introduce you to new ideas and new thoughts so that you can begin to learn to think for yourself. I'm a teacher, it's what I do.

 

[razzelflabben]

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



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?"

anything whose actual evidence is observed as being old appearance. For example, the earth is cool enough to sustain life. That is actual evidence of the temperature of the earth. So how did it get that way. Well, we have three different possibles to date. 1. natural cooling over long period of time. 2. God created it cool and so cooling was not necessary and 3. God cooled it quickly.

In each case, the illusion of the amount of time necessary would be for the purpose of sustaining life. The evidence is a cool earth, not how long it took to cool. This is what you keep confusing. The evidence only testifies to what it is observing. In the case of light, the evidence only tests light not the conclusion of where that light comes from, we need other observations for that. So when we are talking about the appearance of age, we can only base it on the actual observations of age not the conclusions we come to because of the observations.

Explain. Change the premise how? and why?

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?

who said anything about better or worse? I just said it was different. And from my perspective, neither is superior but that is getting a bit to close to personal opinion so we leave that for more discussion.

And by what criteria do you determine which is true?

Can we know truth? Can we know the truth of our origins? Is truth obtainable?

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.

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

Okay, let me see if I can find any connection between what I said and what you are purposing here................no, no connection......................no, still no connections....................................I am not suggesting science is wrong, I am only suggesting that science doesn't know what some claim it does. Big difference between the two and as close as I can get to finding a connection between what you are saying and what I have said.

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.

What I am suggesting is that whereas all our test say X it doesn't mean that the test are accurate. Whereas all our conclusions say Y it doesn't mean our premis is truth. Whereas there are two sides to every issue, there are more possibles than a 1% margin or error will attest to. In other words we don't know truth, be invent the illusion of truth because we are uncomfortable with either the not knowing or the alternate possibles. True science understands this, mainstream science discards this knowledge in exchange for claiming truth.

 

[razzelflabben]

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.

Everyone has bias, so what we conclude is based on our bias. You have asked me everything from my bias to an unbiased look but have not specified what your purpose is, what bias you are looking for or any of the other questions that would clarify what you want me to say. Until you clarify what bias you are looking for and how that bias relates to the discussion, I simply don't know how else to address the question. I have answered it based on all the bias extremes and you don't like any of those answers. What more do you want?

 

[razzelflabben]

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).

I am not following you, chaos by definition is confusion. If there is nothing, what is confusing? Chaos instead would suggest particles of elements floating around without order not the absence of elements and particles.

But God would have created those elements, those particles it would seem like to me, so He is still creating something from nothing it simply isn't necessarily the heavens and earth that were created from nothing.

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!

I am in the process of learning some amazing things about God's love in general and specificly. Maybe sometime I can share some of them with you. In the meantime, we talk about heavens and earth and creation of them. Where do you get the definition of chaos as being nothing? All the definitions I find are something and in fact, though I don't have time to look it up at the moment, I believe the bible talks about chaos being of satan.

 

[KerrMetric]

In the case of light, the evidence only tests light not the conclusion of where that light comes from, we need other observations for that. So when we are talking about the appearance of age, we can only base it on the actual observations of age not the conclusions we come to because of the observations.

This thread is way to too long and with posts of way too long a length to follow clearly.

But what did you mean by the phrase I quoted?

What is the gist of the disagreement?

Pretty much if something non-technical cannot be put into a sentence or two then it's gone off track.

 

[razzelflabben]

This thread is way to too long and with posts of way too long a length to follow clearly.

But what did you mean by the phrase I quoted?

What is the gist of the disagreement?

Pretty much if something non-technical cannot be put into a sentence or two then it's gone off track.
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When we measure light, the evidence is the measure of light not the conclusions we draw from it such as where the light comes from, how old the light is, etc. The evidence is the measure of the light. Let's say, I want to know how to sew (doing a lot of that at the moment) and so I teach you to make a seam. I don't teach you to make the entire garment until you know how to make a seam. Science is kind of like this, the evidence is not the completed garment, but rather made up of all kinds of individual evidences that when all drawn together make a conclusion. Therefore when we want to talk about evidence, it has to be broken down into smaller parts, this evidence is that there is a force that pulls things down, this evidences that the size and shape of an object affects the pull of the object, etc. the evidence isn't that gravity is holding our world in orbit or whatever else we want to claim, the evidence is much smaller and much more specific.

Unfortunately I find it necessary to take a leave from the forum. At this point, I dont know when, if or how often I will return. I might pop in for a brief post or I might not be back at all. My schedule is extremely tight right now and on top of that, I am beyond sick of people trying to tell me I have no worth just because they don't want to accept their own mistakes. That being said, I have appreciated those of you who have discussed this openly and with the allowance of challenge into your ideas and opinions for this is truely where my heart lies, in challenge to others as well as myself. But some hate challenge I am overworked, underpaid and tired of being told I am worthless and so until we meet agian, explore, study and search out a matter just as God has instructed us to do. Don't be afraid of challenge or the answers that come from that challenge. They cannot hurt you, only make you strong.

 

[gluadys]

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.

I also said:

You have no evidence their expertise in ancient Hebrew is any less than that of the scholars your husband named.

And you don't.

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

That is a different claim than the one you have been making. You claimed that:

The scholars both ancient heb. lang. and others primarily agree that it is indeed both.

post 368


"is" and "were possible" are very different levels of confidence, and the passage you quoted earlier from Klein, clearly supported a figurative reading over a literal sequential reading, even if the latter were possible.

I don't think anyone has denied that the framework could be sequential as well as topical, but they certainly do differ on whether or not it is sequential

 

[gluadys]

anything whose actual evidence is observed as being old appearance.

"anything" doesn't answer the question. If you are dating something specific, you need the criteria specific to that thing.

For example, the earth is cool enough to sustain life.

In the case of light, the evidence only tests light not the conclusion of where that light comes from, we need other observations for that.

Neither of which has anything to do with the Chicxulub crater.

So when we are talking about the appearance of age, we can only base it on the actual observations of age

And those observations would be......?

who said anything about better or worse? I just said it was different.

Science is about finding the most accurate description of the physical universe, so from that perspective, it matters which is better.

I am not suggesting science is wrong, I am only suggesting that science doesn't know what some claim it does.

But you do so on a purely philosophical basis that questions whether we can know truth, not because you have in mind any specific claim you want to dispute or any particular reason for wanting to dispute that claim.

Why do you start off with a focus on evolution or the age of the earth if you have no problems with them in particular?

What I am suggesting is that whereas all our test say X it doesn't mean that the test are accurate. Whereas all our conclusions say Y it doesn't mean our premis is truth.

What you overlook is that tests are checked for accuracy and premises are checked for their reliability in leading to predictable conclusions.

In other words we don't know truth, be invent the illusion of truth because we are uncomfortable with either the not knowing or the alternate possibles.

Again you are simply folding everything into a vague philosophical claim that all apparent truth is an illusion. You should take up Hinduism.

True science understands this, mainstream science discards this knowledge in exchange for claiming truth.

Science is based on reasoning from the observed evidence to conclusion which are then tested against further evidence.

Maybe this whole practice is in some deep metaphysical sense an illusion. I wouldn't know. But it is very practical.

Also I personally believe we can know the truth. I don't think God hides the truth of the physical world from us, or made the world a massive illusion.

 

[gluadys]

Unfortunately I find it necessary to take a leave from the forum. At this point, I dont know when, if or how often I will return.

Bye-bye for now. As it happens, I too will be off line for a while as I am scheduled for surgery next week. And the hospital does not have an internet cafe for patient use.

 

[razzelflabben]

Why do you start off with a focus on evolution or the age of the earth if you have no problems with them in particular?

I started out asking the question. Do we know if the heavens and earth were created from nothing or from something that had already been created?
Where are you even getting any of these assertions is beyond me.

 

[razzelflabben]

Bye-bye for now. As it happens, I too will be off line for a while as I am scheduled for surgery next week. And the hospital does not have an internet cafe for patient use.

We will hope and pray that you return with full recovery

 

[Gottservant]

I am not following you, chaos by definition is confusion.

You didn't follow me; its alright, the words can be confusing when you swap one for the other. Watch closely:

In chaos we have nothing.

If we have nothing in chaos, then chaos is that nothing (otherwise we could not have nothing in it).

Ergo, chaos is nothing.

The trick is not to make an idol of chaos before you understand it in the context of what God brings out of it.

Moving on, I would suggest that you think about what happens when you speak. It is similar to God creating something out of nothing (for we are made in His image). Before you speak, you would not say anything is there; certainly, you could say "look, there is mouth", but remember that it is hollow and what we are looking for is words, not flesh - for after you speak, you do not say "the words are still there" as if you could find them.

 

[razzelflabben]

You didn't follow me; its alright, the words can be confusing when you swap one for the other. Watch closely:

In chaos we have nothing.

If we have nothing in chaos, then chaos is that nothing (otherwise we could not have nothing in it).

Ergo, chaos is nothing.

The trick is not to make an idol of chaos before you understand it in the context of what God brings out of it.

Moving on, I would suggest that you think about what happens when you speak. It is similar to God creating something out of nothing (for we are made in His image). Before you speak, you would not say anything is there; certainly, you could say "look, there is mouth", but remember that it is hollow and what we are looking for is words, not flesh - for after you speak, you do not say "the words are still there" as if you could find them.

What I was asking you is where you get the idea that chaos is nothing. All the information I can find suggests that chaos is something or made up of something. I can't figure out what you are basing your chaos is nothing theory on. If you can elaborate on that maybe I can make sense out of your position.

Now as to something from nothing. Personally, I don't think you analogy of speaking does it justice, I think of God's power of creating something from nothing is even more profound and powerful than taking something that is created to work a certain way and making it work. I think God's creative power is beyond anything we have to compare it with. God creating something from nothing is beyond an analogy because it truely means that there was nothing at all, and God spoke and it was. Plainly spoken, clearly worded, beyond our capabilities. It wasn't, God commanded it, it was. It is this understanding that is at the core of our faith. For it is the authority of God's command that the centurion used to explain a faith so great that it was noted and commented on by Jesus Himself. When we understand the authority of God's words to be so great that His command is enough to create, you truely have the beginnings of faith.
Hebrews 11

1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.



But that doesn't answer either of our questions. 1. where do you get the idea that chaos is nothingness?
and 2. were the heavens and earth in Gen. created from nothing?