Creationists: "We don't have to prove anything!"

[Hydra009]

You asked the question "Can your views be verified scientifically?", I answered Yes, and you proceed to call me stupid?

You didn't explicitly say yes, nor did I call you stupid.

You said: "Depending on how you interpret things, creationism is logical, scientific, and reasonable."
I said: "Sure, if up is down, polka dot pants are fashionable, and the entire universe were put on its head, then creationism would be logical, scientific, and reasonable. But it's not."

You're right that I probably went too far in expressing my view, but I definitely didn't call you stupid.

Did you ask us the question so you can mock us?

Surprisingly, no. To be honest, I just want a straight answer to the question. Even something along the lines of "I'm a YEC, yes, moon dust" or "I'm a GAP, no" Anything would be better than this barrage of non-answers. I won't even debate the claim. Honest.

But I'm particularly interested in ID answers to this question, as they seem to be claiming that ID is science when it comes to getting ID in public schools and beyond science when it comes to proving ID scientifically. I'm curious to how they resolve this apparent contradiction.

 

[TarHollow]

Okay, just real quick before i get to bed and offend anyone. I live by faith because the Bible tells me to. I live the life it tells me to and in doing so I am much, much happier than beforeI was saved.
I have no idea how old the world is, i have no idea of which type of theory the worlsd was created under. Instead, I went looking for the truth in a different manner; whether Jesus Christ was who he said He was and if he could really have been raised from the dead. i mean, c'mon, doesn't this sound preposterous to all of us? Well, after studying literature over the past few months, I am more convinced than ever that He is who He said He is: the Son of God. But of course, not everyone will believe it, and some for their own personal reasons. For instance, a prominent Harvard law professor held a mock trial to determine if Jesus was indeed raised from the dead. His findings were that with the evidence he found for both sides of the argument, that Christ did indeed rise from the dead. But he didn't come up with this assumption because he was inclined to believe that; just the opposite. Afterwards he said, "I choose not to believe" (RBC ministries, "How Can I Share My Faith Without an Argument", page 27.)

So whether you choose to believe and the reasons you choose are up to you. My self, i chhose to believe because the evidence is there that Christ rose from the dead. For this to happen, he would have to be everything He claimed to be, including when He said, "In the beginning, I AM!"

That's why I believe. And I have such a strong conviction of it that there's nothing anyone could ever say to convince me otherwise. And I'm sure there's unbelievers reading this right now that feel there's nothing that's going to change their minds either. And so I guess this thread will keep up an argument with neither side budging. Not surprising.

 

[Oncedeceived]

No you haven't. It's a pretty simple yes or no question, too. We've established that you are OEC, but you haven't explicitly established whether or not you believe your OEC views can be verified by science or even shown any supporting evidence for such a position. (The Big Bang is a non-answer as it can also support biological evolution)

See there you go, you hit on the problem that I have been trying to show. You say that Creationism can not site the Big Bang as it can also support biological evolution (which I am sure that you didn't mean biological in the sense of the Big Bang right). But that is not true. You are claiming that anything that TOE claims is exclusively TOE and that is false. The Big Bang provides support for Creationism and most certainly can be sited to show its validity. Just as the fossil record can be, just as any other Scientific data that is established.

Um, I was talking to Jon in that post.

Okay.

Nope, just still waiting for a straight answer.

I gave one. How is mine not a straight answer?

Why are you having such a hard time understanding what creationism is and isn't? Once again, non-specific everything answers are useless.

It was specific, but then you tell me that I can't use it because it is TOE's exclusive data and that is simply false. Knowledge can be used for all theories whether that theory is Creationism (although I don't think of it as a theory) or TOE. My quote is not non-specific at all. I gave you specifics but you would not accept them.

 

[Jet Black]

The Big Bang provides support for Creationism and most certainly can be sited to show its validity. Just as the fossil record can be, just as any other Scientific data that is established.

all well and good, but science isn't about seeing who can stack up the biggest pile of things that agree with our theory. It is about making predictions, testability and falsifiability. Does creationism make predictions about the things we may find in the future and is creationism testable or falsifiable? Could Creationism predict that Kelvin's calculations on the age of the earth were wrong for some reason?

 

[Dragar]

Could Creationism predict that Kelvin's calculations on the age of the earth were wrong for some reason?

Earth?

Whether he predicted the age of the Earth or not, he did calculate the maximum age of the Sun. This conflicted with the theory of evolution, which required a much older Sun.

You can read about it on this thread

 

[Jet Black]

Earth?

Whether he predicted the age of the Earth or not, he did calculate the maximum age of the Sun. This conflicted with the theory of evolution, which required a much older Sun.

You can read about it on this thread

well he also calculated the age of the earth. Given that the temperature of the earth increases by one degree for each 50 ft you dig, he estimated the core to be 7000 degrees, and using Fourier's theorem, that gave an age of the earth at 100 million years. The Sun was a different calculation that returned (interestingly) a totally different answer:

Kelvin, like Helmholtz, was convinced that the sun's luminosity was produced by the conversion of gravitational energy into heat. In an early (1854) version of this idea, Kelvin suggested that the sun's heat might be produced continually by the impact of meteors falling onto its surface. Kelvin was forced by astronomical evidence to modify his hypothesis and he then argued that the primary source of the energy available to the sun was the gravitational energy of the primordial meteors from which it was formed.

Thus, with great authority and eloquence Lord Kelvin declared in 1862:

That some form of the meteoric theory is certainly the true and complete explanation of solar heat can scarcely be doubted, when the following reasons are considered: (1) No other natural explanation, except by chemical action, can be conceived. (2) The chemical theory is quite insufficient, because the most energetic chemical action we know, taking place between substances amounting to the whole sun's mass, would only generate about 3,000 years' heat. (3) There is no difficulty in accounting for 20,000,000 years' heat by the meteoric theory.



Kelvin continued by attacking Darwin's estimate directly, asking rhetorically:

What then are we to think of such geological estimates as [Darwin's] 300,000,000 years for the "denudation of the Weald''?



Believing Darwin was wrong in his estimate of the age of the earth, Kelvin also believed that Darwin was wrong about the time available for natural selection to operate.

Lord Kelvin estimated the lifetime of the sun, and by implication the earth, as follows. He calculated the gravitational energy of an object with a mass equal to the sun's mass and a radius equal to the sun's radius and divided the result by the rate at which the sun radiates away energy. This calculation yielded a lifetime of only 30 million years. The corresponding estimate for the lifetime sustainable by chemical energy was much smaller because chemical processes release very little energy.

http://nobelprize.org/physics/articles/fusion/sun_1.html

 

[Dragar]

well he also calculated the age of the earth. Given that the temperature of the earth increases by one degree for each 50 ft you dig, he estimated the core to be 7000 degrees, and using Fourier's theorem, that gave an age of the earth at 100 million years.

Ah-ha! That's a very clever application of that calculation. We just covered the same thing with different boundary conditions recently.

The Sun was a different calculation that returned (interestingly) a totally different answer:

That's right; he thought the energy released due to gravitational collapse accounted for it. ToE predicted we didn't know all there was to know about stars, and that there must have been an energy source we didn't know about.

ToE was right, and fusion was eventually discovered.

(Not implying you don't know this, Jet, but filling in details for lurkers).

 

[Phred]

John 20:29 Because you have seen you believe. Greatest are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Jesus said this to a "doubting Thomas" when he said he would have to see Jesus face to face to believe he had indeed been raised from the dead. We live in a society where seeing is believing. Yet there is not one place in the Bible that says we have to know all of God's works and how and why he does things the way He does. Actually, it's just the opposite. We live by faith as Christians, not by sight, and certainly not by science.

Good post. I'd like to address just the one quote above.

I always find it puzzling that a Christian can say they live by faith and not science, yet type that thought into a computer for publication on the internet. You use science every minute of every day of your life. From the teflon in your dockers that repels stains to the toothpaste you use each morning. (one hopes ) More pervasive than religion is science and the resultant technologies derived from it. Your car, your home... everything you use and wear and eat and SEE.

Also, quite often here we see the argument from creationists that evolution can't be true because it can't be observed. (which is wrong...) Yet, here you are explaining that faith without observation is quite acceptable to a Christian. The argument would then be that it's faith in God, not in man. Yet, if God created the universe, isn't the Universe God's direct word? Scripture has been interpreted and translated by men, science is the interpretation and translation of the universe... one you can see yourself without revelation.

I just don't think that living by faith excuses ignorance.

.
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[Hydra009]

See there you go, you hit on the problem that I have been trying to show. You say that Creationism can not site the Big Bang as it can also support biological evolution (which I am sure that you didn't mean biological in the sense of the Big Bang right). But that is not true. You are claiming that anything that TOE claims is exclusively TOE and that is false. The Big Bang provides support for Creationism and most certainly can be sited to show its validity. Just as the fossil record can be, just as any other Scientific data that is established.

Obviously, I'm talking about the Big Bang not being evidence of either evolution or OEC. You can't prove a theory by bringing in unrelated theories. Do you have any natural phenomena at all that can only be reasonably explained in a OEC context? Because you are essentially giving me theistic evolution, which obviously doesn't conflict with the ToE and isn't what I'm looking for.

Imagine, if you will, OEC in the form of a scientific theory. Could it follow the scientific method and be verified or falsified? (This is essentially the question I've been asking over and over of any form of creationism) If it can, then it can be proven scientifically. If it can't, then it isn't science.

I gave one. How is mine not a straight answer?

Because it is a simple yes or no question and you have yet to give a yes or no. Maybe this question is geared for people who hold different beliefs, in that case, the blame is mine for not being more specific in the OP. (See above)

It was specific, but then you tell me that I can't use it because it is TOE's exclusive data and that is simply false. Knowledge can be used for all theories whether that theory is Creationism (although I don't think of it as a theory) or TOE. My quote is not non-specific at all. I gave you specifics but you would not accept them.

You gave me the claim that the order of creation uncovered by science (from the Big Bang to life) closely resembles the order of creation in the Bible. That could be considered an argument for the validity of the Bible/Christianity, but it doesn't support any form of creationism exclusively or conflict with the ToE in any way. It is a non-answer to the OP.

 

[Matthew777]

Creationism cannot be proven; it can only be received.

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

 

[Hydra009]

Creationism cannot be proven; it can only be received.

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

You started like 30 threads on how scientific data confirms YEC. Could you simply do me the courtesy of explicitly stating what you've been claiming all along?

 

[Matthew777]

You started like 30 threads on how scientific data confirms YEC. Could you simply do me the courtesy of explicitly stating what you've been claiming all along?

Faith precedes understanding. One must first have faith in the Bible in order to understand the natural world. The scientific data confirms the faith of those who already have it.

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

 

[caravelair]

in other words, you believe what you want to.

 

[raphael_aa]

Faith precedes understanding. One must first have faith in the Bible in order to understand the natural world. The scientific data confirms the faith of those who already have it.

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

1. It's not 'faith in the Bible'. It's faith in a PARTICULAR reading of the Bible, one that interestingly is not shared by a majority of christians.

2. So your view is: One arrives at a conclusion based on authority without regard to evidence and then one seeks evidence that supports the conclusion one reached a priori. You see this is nothing like science, don't you?

Your tactics illuminate falsity of this approach to understanding the cosmos. You quote false quotations, you cite material you haven't actually read, you misinterpret basic science and posit arguements that are either simplistic or outright distortions. As a christian, I find your apparent acceptance of the ends justifying the means very troubling.

As an aside, you have single-handedly convinced me that I could never ascribe to your version of orthodoxy. Congratulations.

 

[corvus_corax]

Faith precedes understanding. One must first have faith in the Bible in order to understand the natural world. The scientific data confirms the faith of those who already have it.

So you're saying that one must have faith (in God Im assuming) before one can understand how rainclouds form? Or before one can understand how oxidation contributes to the formation of rust?
Nonsense.
One does not have to have faith (in God, the Bible, or the partristic interpretation of such) to understand the natural world.
Just nonsense.

 

[Matthew777]

As an aside, you have single-handedly convinced me that I could never ascribe to your version of orthodoxy. Congratulations.

Many of the members of my church are evolutionists, but I am more of a "fundamentalist" when it comes to Orthodox tradition.

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

 

[Electric Sceptic]

Many of the members of my church are evolutionists, but I am more of a "fundamentalist" when it comes to Orthodox tradition.

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

I see that - once again - your statement that you'll no longer post to these forums was false. Isn't honesty something to be praised in your religion?

 

[Imagine_your_dreams]

I'm not a scientist and don't understand those acronyms or anything, but do I know that there has been evidence that backs up the idea of creationism.
I also believe that you do have to have faith in it to believe it is true, but that is true with evolution as well.

 

[caravelair]

I'm not a scientist and don't understand those acronyms or anything, but do I know that there has been evidence that backs up the idea of creationism.

what evidence would that be?

I also believe that you do have to have faith in it to believe it is true, but that is true with evolution as well.

it takes no more faith than it does to believe the earth is a sphere.

 

[Matthew777]

I see that - once again - your statement that you'll no longer post to these forums was false. Isn't honesty something to be praised in your religion?

I never said I would no longer post. I just will no longer try to debate. We can share our thoughts in a civil way without having an argument, right?