Intimidation

[Truth in Faith]

A lot of Christians on this board are intimidated by not being able to answer or even understand some of the evidence presented here in favor of an old earth and/or evolution. I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God. I believe scripture to be the word of God. And I think Hebrew scholars have already clarified what should be taken straightforwardly. Anyone with a THM (knowledge of Hebrew and Greek) will tell you that literal and metaphorical is entirely too simplisitc. The God that I know from the creation is the God of scripture. From the genetic code to the cosmos, there is a rational, mathematical order. It has been my experience that I can see hints of God's personality in the wonders of nature. He created all kinds with pride and love. We are crowned with glory, and should worship and know our Creator through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I'd like to present a particular article I found interesting.
http://www.icr.org/research/as/platetectonics.html

For further essays, check here:
http://www.rae.org/essay_author.html

 

[look]

Gotta agree with you, Bro...

See you at the Marriage Feast...

 

[Truth in Faith]

Here's an interview with John Baumgardner that I really enjoyed:
http://www.rae.org/believe.html

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Today at 01:19 AM Truth in Faith said this in Post #1

I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God.

With the exception of the glory of God part (since one could arguably make the case that that has always been true), science already has done the others. But you were born several hundred years too late, I'm afraid.

 

[Arikay]

They shouldnt be intimidated by not being able to answer questions here. They should possibly, read, and learn. Thats what ive done.

 

[Truth in Faith]

What I meant was:

I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to the truth of intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God.

 

[seebs]

I believe that to be very unlikely, because the evidence we've seen has consistently falsified a young earth and a global flood; for those to be the case, God would have to be a liar. Intelligent design? I don't think we could ever know.

I believe that science will ultimately allow us to better understand God's creation, and that it will remain theologically irrelevant, except that bad theology will often contradict science.

 

[Arikay]

Why then has science rulled out most of these (and science doesnt care about god, so im not sure about the last one)?

 

[Orihalcon]

the word of god doesn't have to be non-fiction.

 

[Cantuar]

A lot of Christians on this board are intimidated by not being able to answer or even understand some of the evidence presented here in favor of an old earth and/or evolution.

There's nothing stopping them learning about it. That's what the rest of us are doing. I presume there isn't anything about being Christian that would stop a person being able to learn or understand science.

I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God.

If it does the last of those, it won't be science any more. Science is a method to explain the universe in terms of natiral causes, whether God created those natural causes or not. As for the others, science has already ruled out the global flood and the young Earth. As far as intelligent design is concerned, if we're talking about God, science doesn't have anything to say on the subject; if we're not talking about God, then so far the scientific method hasn't shown any sign of requiring intelligent agents to explain natural phenomeona. There's a difference between design and order that creationists seem incapable of understanding.

 

[notto]

Today at 12:19 AM Truth in Faith said this in Post #1
I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God.

Most of the "leaders" in the intelligent design movement would disagree with you. They already accept an old earth, no global flood, and 99% of evolution (they just want another "why" for evolution, not a different timeframe or process of creation).

Are you YEC's sure you want intelligent design discussed in classrooms? It would only emphasise further that YEC and the Global Flood have no evidene to back it up.

This is why the "big tent" will eventualy fall apart related to YEC and Intelligent Design.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Today at 06:19 AM Truth in Faith said this in Post #1

A lot of Christians on this board are intimidated by not being able to answer or even understand some of the evidence presented here in favor of an old earth and/or evolution. I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God. I believe scripture to be the word of God. And I think Hebrew scholars have already clarified what should be taken straightforwardly. Anyone with a THM (knowledge of Hebrew and Greek) will tell you that literal and metaphorical is entirely too simplisitc. The God that I know from the creation is the God of scripture. From the genetic code to the cosmos, there is a rational, mathematical order. It has been my experience that I can see hints of God's personality in the wonders of nature. He created all kinds with pride and love. We are crowned with glory, and should worship and know our Creator through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I'd like to present a particular article I found interesting.
http://www.icr.org/research/as/platetectonics.html

For further essays, check here:
http://www.rae.org/essay_author.html

 
The people at AiG and ICR rely on the fact that their followers will not understand the overwhelming evidence against the worldwide flood and against their "models". Baumgardners' model looks very scientific and might even be intimidating to someone trying to refute it, at least on first glance. However, it is easy for anyone to see that the model is totally absurd with some explanation. In the second paragraph under Subuction it states that 10[sup]28[/sup] Joules of energy is released and this is before the entire ocean crust is subducted and replaced with molten material.

While the authors acknowledge a "heat problem" what they don't acknowledge is that the model releases several times the heat required to boil all the water in all the oceans even if they started as solid ice. Boiling even a small fraction of the water in the oceans will sterilize the air. Think about the consequences of boiling all the water in the oceans to life on earth. Obviously there wouldn't be any life on earth if this had happened. 

BTW remember the 1 megation H bomb? Pretty big right? Well 10[sup]28[/sup] J is a lot more energy. 1 million tons of TNT releases 4.15x10[sup]15[/sup] J. So Baumgardner's model releases energy equivalent to about 2,400,000,000,000 1 megaton hydrogen bombs just to get started. Do you really expect anything to survive that?

Here is what the model essentially says when read carefully.

1. We release enough heat to boil all the water in all the oceans several times over to get subduction going.

2. We release a lot more heat by replacing all the ocean crust with molten mantle.

3. This causes a world wide flood

4. After we release a fantastic amount of heat, boil the oceans and cause the flood we get a massive ice age.


Now does that really make sense to anyone?

While this "model" is totally absurd it is the best that YECs "flood geologists" can do when try to fit science to myth of a worldwide flood.


The Frumious Bandersnatch

 

[Ba'Alzamon]

Um... you can't really get valuable pro-evolution information and from the Institution for Creation Research or Revolution Against Evolution. Likewise, you can't get valuable pro-intelligent-design information from institutions devoted to proving evolution. Your best bet is to find the happy medium. A lot of magazines out there are good for that - Scientific American is one...

You have to be careful to choose your sources wisely, and not just ones that agree with you. <ahem>Truth in Faith<cough><ahem>

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 01:19 AM Truth in Faith said this in Post #1

A lot of Christians on this board are intimidated by not being able to answer or even understand some of the evidence presented here in favor of an old earth and/or evolution.

Then keep asking until you do understand.&nbsp; I'll be glad to keep explaining.

I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God.

Science can't testify to ID, global flood, or young earth.&nbsp; All those ideas have been shown to be wrong.&nbsp; Once you show something to be wrong,&nbsp;you can't then show it to be&nbsp;right.

Now, will science eventually show "the&nbsp;glory of God"?&nbsp; Right now, science&nbsp;is&nbsp;agnostic.&nbsp; You can believe that God created thru the processes discovered by science.&nbsp; Or you can&nbsp;believe that the processes work on their own.&nbsp; Insufficient data to&nbsp;tell right now.

&nbsp;I believe scripture to be the word of God. And I think Hebrew scholars have already clarified what should be taken straightforwardly.

All the Jewish scholars I have seen -- for whom Hebrew is a spoken language -- say that Genesis 1 and 2 are metaphorical, not literal.&nbsp; Perhaps you could share some names of these "Hebrew scholars"?

&nbsp;The God that I know from the creation is the God of scripture.

Too bad the creationist god isn't.&nbsp; See the thread "Creationism is not Christian".&nbsp; Creationists separate the god of creation from the God of scripture.

It has been my experience that I can see hints of God's personality in the wonders of nature. He created all kinds with pride and love.

Your experience seems to be limited.&nbsp; By choice or accident I can't tell.&nbsp; What I do know is that, if you insist that God created each species separately and made it directly, you end up with a god that is stupid, sadistic, and suffering from Alzheimer's.&nbsp; There are too many designs in nature that are stupid, or cruel, or that there are better designs for the same task on other creatures.&nbsp; However, if God created by using natural selection to design creatures, then the problem goes away.&nbsp; NS is the immediate designer that gets God off the hook for the bad designs.

We are crowned with glory, and should worship and know our Creator through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And what in science do you think contradicts that?

I'd like to present a particular article I found interesting.
http://www.icr.org/research/as/platetectonics.html

We can talk about the flaws of the article in as much depth as you want. And others have started that.&nbsp; Let me just note this from the Abstract:
"After the Flood, the earth experienced a substantial period of isostatic readjustment, where local to regional catastrophes with intense earthquake and volcanic activity were common. Post-Flood sedimentation continued to be rapid but was dominantly basinal on the continents. Left-over heat in the new oceans produced a significantly warmer climate just after the Flood. In the following centuries, as the earth cooled, floral and faunal changes tracked the changing climate zonation. "

Don't you think people would have noticed this intense earthquake and volcanic activity? Why don't the records of Egypt, China, Babylon, or India mention it?&nbsp; How could anyone build with all the activity going on.

What's worse, with all the movement of such massive amounts of water and sediment, how did post-Flood Moses identify the location of pre-Flood Eden by using post-Flood rivers?&nbsp; All the rivers must have been new as the continents slid, vast amounts of sedimentary rock deposited, and new rivers carved as the Flood waters drained.&nbsp; None of the features of pre-Flood earth survived.

This model of the Flood still contradicts the very Bible you are using to say there was&nbsp;a Flood in the first place.&nbsp; Ironic, isn't it?

One last thing:
"Because of the enormous explanatory and predictive success of the plate tectonics model (reviewed in [122,124]), we feel that at least some portion of plate tectonics theory should be incorporated into the creation model."

IF the creation model was so successful, why didn't it predict plate tectonics?&nbsp; Instead, creationism has to play catch-up, again, and try to explain how a theory that really falsifies the Flood is consistent with it.&nbsp;

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 01:19 AM Truth in Faith said this in Post #1&nbsp;

I, for one, believe that science will ultimately testify to intelligent design, a global flood, a young earth, and the glory of God.&nbsp;

Notto picked&nbsp;up on this where I missed it.&nbsp; Let me reinforce&nbsp;him:&nbsp; the Intelligent Design movement says that there was no global flood and the earth is not young.&nbsp; In fact, many of them, such as Behe,&nbsp;say that organisms evolved.&nbsp; They simply say that some aspects of organisms say they were "designed". By this they mean that an intelligent entity (not necessarily God) manufactured certain biochemical systems.&nbsp;

 

[Zadok001]

lucaspa:

Technically speaking, while the ID *movement* calls for an Old Earth, TiF's statement does not imply he was referring to this movement. After all, YECism also calls for intelligent design, just not Behe's version thereof.

Perhaps a case of bad word choice, rather than contradiction.

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 03:36 PM Zadok001 said this in Post #16

lucaspa:

Technically speaking, while the ID *movement* calls for an Old Earth, TiF's statement does not imply he was referring to this movement. After all, YECism also calls for intelligent design, just not Behe's version thereof.

Perhaps a case of bad word choice, rather than contradiction.

Have you noticed how ICR, AiG, and all YEC sources are so eager to grab Behe's IC and use it?&nbsp; They all refer favorably to Behe as demonstrating ID.&nbsp; Yet Behe states that IC does not refute common ancestry or an old earth.

I'm not so sure of the implication as you are.&nbsp; YECers didn't start using the term "intelligent design" until after the ID movement started. Until then it was just "design".&nbsp; &nbsp;

So I think YECers are trying to have it both ways.&nbsp; Use ID as a refutation of atheism but ignore the contradictions to YEC.&nbsp; I don't think they can have their cake and eat it too.

 

[JohnR7]

Today at 07:08 AM notto said this in Post #11



Most of the "leaders" in the intelligent design movement would disagree with you.

They will not give a testimony for the Glory of God? Then they are sinners and they will perish in their sin.

 

[Arikay]

John, will they still Perish if they accept Jesus?