I don't understand the point of creationism

[Astrophile]

It occurs to me that a similar question could be posed to the evolutionist. What’s the point of believing in evolutionary history? It’s not really necessary in order to practice science or medicine.

Theodosius Dobzhansky (who was a Christian) wrote a famous paper entitled 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution'; you can find it on the Internet. I have adapted Dobzhansky's title to say that nothing in astronomy or geology makes sense except in the light of deep time.

Perhaps one can practise physics, chemistry or medicine without believing in an old universe, an old Earth, or biological evolution, but one can't practise astronomy or geology without accepting deep time, or biology without accepting evolution.

 

[Astrophile]

Which of the "two great lights" made on day 4 are you referring to??

Gen 1
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years; 15 and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night - the stars also (govern the night). 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

I am referring to the stars. You said,

God creates man on day 6 in Genesis 1. Atheist sees that the man is an adult and so "extrapolates back" with some level of inference based on the circular assumption that god-does-not-exist - and concludes that the man was born 25 years earlier - but the mother of that person has not yet been "discovered" and no other humans exist on planet earth at this point.

Then claims that the inference alone disproves the statement that God created Adam yesterday.

Presumably God created the man looking like a 25-year old, with a neatly shaved beard, and with scars and healed bone fractures from injuries during childhood and adolescence to strengthen the impression that this is a man who has lived for 25 years and not one who was created the previous day. In the same way I suppose that God created the Moon with impact craters and maria, and star clusters and galaxies with different stellar populations, to strengthen the impression that the Moon and the star clusters have long histories and were not created only three days ago.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It occurs to me that a similar question could be posed to the evolutionist. What’s the point of believing in evolutionary history? It’s not really necessary in order to practice science or medicine.

Evolutionary science is extremely important in biology and medicine, so it would be perverse to deny it's history, particularly in the light of the multiple independent lines of overwhelming evidence supporting it.

 

[BobRyan]

Did God also create star clusters on day 4 and give them different populations of main-sequence stars, red giant or supergiant stars, and white dwarfs,

Which of the "two great lights" made on day 4 are you referring to??

Gen 1
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years; 15 and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night - the stars also (govern the night). 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

I am referring to the stars.

stars are not one of the two great lights made on day four.

You said,

BobRyan said: ↑
God creates man on day 6 in Genesis 1. Atheist sees that the man is an adult and so "extrapolates back" with some level of inference based on the circular assumption that god-does-not-exist - and concludes that the man was born 25 years earlier - but the mother of that person has not yet been "discovered" and no other humans exist on planet earth at this point.

Then claims that the inference alone disproves the statement that God created Adam yesterday.

That says nothing about creating stars on day four.

 

[BobRyan]

You said,

BobRyan said: ↑
God creates man on day 6 in Genesis 1. Atheist sees that the man is an adult and so "extrapolates back" with some level of inference based on the circular assumption that god-does-not-exist - and concludes that the man was born 25 years earlier - but the mother of that person has not yet been "discovered" and no other humans exist on planet earth at this point.

Then claims that the inference alone disproves the statement that God created Adam yesterday.

true I did say that the day-6 "evening and morning a sixth day" statement in Genesis 1 has a full formed adult man and woman are created in a single day and that an atheist using circular reasoning to extrapolate back to a birth that would be 25 years ealier by that guess "since there is no god and so then no one day creation of man" is merely a guess presuming the salient point of the atheist POV inserted into the text/observation.

Presumably God created the man looking like a 25-year old,

with a neatly shaved beard, and with scars and healed bone fractures from injuries

An odd "assumption" given that many people today do not have "scars or bone fractures" from childhood. How is that "helping you"?

star clusters and galaxies with different stellar populations,

What part of "two great lights" are "star clusters and galaxies and stellar populations?

I find a certain paucity in logic in your statement at that point.

 

[Ophiolite]

It occurs to me that a similar question could be posed to the evolutionist. What’s the point of believing in evolutionary history? It’s not really necessary in order to practice science or medicine.

I didn't take a geology degree in order to acquire marketable skills. I took the degree because I wanted to know more about the Earth. Science is a proven way of acquiring reliable information about the world. It turned out that the scientific evidence - provided through the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists, many of them Christian - pointed clearly to the detailed evolutionary history you ask about. For me not to accept that evolutionary history, in the light of all that evidence, would be infantile.

 

[BobRyan]

Personally, whether the scripture was meant to be taken allegorically or literally, I think is kind of irrelevant.

In that case - so much for the virgin birth, incarnation of Christ, miracles of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, bodily ascension of Christ, miracles of Christ...

As for "what the text says" and the "meaning conveyed" to the intended contemporary readers (i.e. - exegesis)

Part I.
Atheists often don't mind "admitting" to what the Bible says - they simply reject the idea that what it says is actually true. As in rejecting the virgin birth, the bodily ascension of Christ, the miracles of the bible and in this example they freely admit to what the Bible says - while rejecting it as 'truth'.

Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:

"Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience

(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story

(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know."

my comment: And that poses a problem for Christians who need the bible to "say something else"


================

Part II. Many Christians even today think the Bible is true.

Even if the original authors intended genesis to be taken literally, at the end of the day they lived some 2,000 years ago and really would never be able to comprehend the depth of creation. Be them inspired by God or not. And so there is no reason to treat their works as objective literal truth

In that case - so much for the virgin birth, incarnation of Christ, miracles of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, bodily ascension of Christ, miracles of Christ...

 

[BobRyan]

It occurs to me that a similar question could be posed to the evolutionist. What’s the point of believing in evolutionary history? It’s not really necessary in order to practice science or medicine.

A good point.. Can a world class neurosurgeon like Ben Carson perform surgery as a creationist (which he is) - without first "believing" that a prokaryote will one day over time given enough just-so-stories - turn into a rabbit or a horse? (And then adding that "belief statement" to the perioperative record of the patient)

Can PhD level Chemists observe a chemical reaction and record the results without first adding to their notes that " they believe " that a prokaryote will one day over time evolve along a chain to produce a horse?

 

[pitabread]

A good point.. Can a world class neurosurgeon like Ben Carson perform surgery as a creationist (which he is) - without first imagining that a prokaryote will one day over time given enough just-so-stories - turn into a rabbi or a horse?

Evolution is an applied science (see modern genomics for example). It's not even a point of debate; it's just a fact.

 

[BobRyan]

Evolution is an applied science

Can observers of a prokaryote culture take observations of more than 75,000 generations in that culture over 30 decades and record the mutations found... without first "believing" that one day prokaryotes would turn into a horse given enough millions or billions of years of time and "just so" stories all the way up what Dawkins called "mount improbable"?

 

[Speedwell]

Can observers of a prokaryote culture take observations of more than 75,000 generations in that culture over 30 decades and record the mutations found... without first "believing" that one day prokaryotes would turn into a horse given enough millions or billions of years of time and "just so" stories all the way up what Dawkins called "mount improbable"?

Correct. Because if you didn't accept and understand the theory of evolution, you might have wrongly expected Lenski's experiment to produce eukaryotes.

 

[Speedwell]

In that case - so much for the virgin birth, incarnation of Christ, miracles of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, bodily ascension of Christ, miracles of Christ...

As for "what the text says" and the "meaning conveyed" to the intended contemporary readers (i.e. - exegesis)






In that case - so much for the virgin birth, incarnation of Christ, miracles of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, bodily ascension of Christ, miracles of Christ...

Only for some Protestants, Bob. for the rest of us, Traditional Christians, the literal historicity of the Bible is not why we believe anyway.

 

[pitabread]

Can observers of a prokaryote culture take observations of more than 75,000 generations in that culture over 30 decades and record the mutations found... without first "believing" that one day prokaryotes would turn into a horse given enough millions or billions of years of time and "just so" stories all the way up what Dawkins called "mount improbable"?

We've been over this already. See prior posts on the subject.

 

[BobRyan]

Correct. Because if you didn't accept and understand the theory of evolution, you might have wrongly expected Lenski's experiment to produce eukaryotes.

A hopeful evolutionist recently posted that he/she thought amino acids dropped out of the sky and hit the earth thus getting the prokaryote started and another one argued that prokaryotes plus a few non-existent prokaryote-ish friends teamed up to form eukaryotes.

you knew that ... right?

We've been over this already. See prior posts on the subject.

My point exactly.

 

[BobRyan]

No. What I know is that your sarcastic mischaracterizations of evolution aren't useful and are becoming tiresome.

That is the "did-not did-too" response I have been asking about.

Perfect example for you

"What I know is that your sarcastic mischaracterizations of my statements aren't useful and are becoming tiresome"

How is it that so many evolutionists find that sort of dialogue useful?

[Staff Edit]

 

[pitabread]

"What I know is that your sarcastic mischaracterizations of my statements aren't useful and are becoming tiresome"

How is it that so many evolutionists find that sort of dialogue useful?

[Staff Edit] In fact, many of us have been trying to understand what it is you keep trying to get at, since it's obvious your conceptual understanding of evolution is not shared by anyone else here.

What has become apparent is you view the evolution as a series of predefined stages through which organisms evolve through. Thus, you constantly refer to the Lenski experiment as though we should expect it to recreate those stages of evolution.

However, evolution is *not* a series of predefined stages. Thus such expectations such expectations re: the Lenski experiment are, well, wrong. (Not to mention the conditions of that experiment were never designed to explicitly recreate eukaryote evolution either).

[Staff Edit]

 

[Speedwell]

Which I never do.

Except for the Lenski experiment.

 

[pitabread]

Except for the Lenski experiment.

And I'd add to that his characterization of evolution involving "rocks transforming into horses".

 

[BobRyan]

And I'd add to that his characterization of evolution involving "rocks transforming into horses".

you are always free to show how your belief in a lifeless earth (that eventually comes up with a prokaryote and later a horse - no matter the billions and billions language and stories "all the way up what Dawkins calls mount improbable") does not actually start off with rocks that do not have life on them -- to get to that end-point.

Complaining that "I notice" what atheists are doing is not an argument that my noticing the details should be ignored.

 

[Job 33:6]

In that case - so much for the virgin birth, incarnation of Christ, miracles of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, bodily ascension of Christ, miracles of Christ...

As for "what the text says" and the "meaning conveyed" to the intended contemporary readers (i.e. - exegesis)






In that case - so much for the virgin birth, incarnation of Christ, miracles of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, bodily ascension of Christ, miracles of Christ...

Well, I mean, it is what it is.

I know Christians don't like to hear this, but like I said above, if Christianity is truly dependent upon belief in a literal 6 day creation, Ken hams ark adventure with animals on a boat and a man who lives inside a fish for 3 days...then it's inevitable that Christianity is going to lose out on this one.

And it just is what it is.

The only logical options are to consider non literal interpretations, or to simply abandon Christianity.

Or to simply divide these topics up. Accept one kind of a miracle but not another. And in this case, one thing we can say is that something like the resurrection of Jesus Christ isn't something that we can readily observe today, whereas geology is readily observable today, and so things that contradict geology, contradict what we can readily study today, whereas the resurrection is a bit more mysterious because we don't have jesus's body to investigate. The source of the event (the physical body of Christ) is no longer present with us as the earth is.

So there is a difference in that sense between things like the virgin birth and things like 6-day creation.