Calminian said:
But shouldnt you make a distinction between scientific evidence and other types, like eyewitness? If Im not mistaken, in a court of law, eyewitness evidence takes priority over scientific evidence.
No, as a matter of fact, forensic evidence generally outweighs eye-witness evidence. Eye-witnesses just can't take in a scene all at once, and often miss important details or misinterpret what they see. They often have memory lapses and can even be "coached" to "remember" something they never saw.
You yourself said science first must assume a non miraculous environment.
I said a scientific conclusion is only possible when it is assumed that there has been no miraculous intervention in the process it is investigating. That is not the same thing as assuming a non-miraculous environment. It could assume a miraculous environment and still come to a naturalistic conclusion. But it would still have to say that its naturalistic conclusion only applies if there has been no miraculous intervention in this case.
When it comes to miracles like the virgin birth and resurrection many christian scientists choose to believe in those miracles.
Of course. But not because they have been convinced by scientific evidence. The point about such miracles is that there is no scientific evidence for them and there is no scientific evidence against them. These miracles are neither supported nor contradicted by scientific evidence. So scientists who accept them do so on the same basis as non-scientists---on the basis of faith.
But for some reason many of those same ones choose to reject the miracles of Genesis.
Well, that depends on which miracles of Genesis you are talking about. If you are referring to the age of the earth or a global flood, there is a significant difference between these miracles and those above. In the case of the resurrection there is no evidence pro or con. But in the case of a young earth or a global flood there IS a lot of contradictory evidence. And there is still no supporting evidence.
So if you have a lot of evidence that says NO and no evidence that says YES, then a scientist has to go with the evidence that says NO.
The only choice here is to believe it or not. Its clear from the context what days mean. Theres really nothing unclear about it. If God really wanted to convey the universe was created in six days I dont see how He could have made it more clear.
It doesn't matter how clear the text is. It is still not geological evidence that can be used in science. All it tells us is what an Israelite writer believed was God's reason for commanding the Sabbath.
Its amazing to me how deep your trust in modern scientific investigation is. You dont consider anything else to be evidence. We also dont have scientific evidence for the resurrection. Does that mean there is no evidence for it?
Right. We have no evidence for the resurrection. That is why we believe in it by faith.
Which is why its very unwise to base all your beliefs on it. Its limited and completely ineffective in investigating the supernatural.
I don't base any of my beliefs on science.
What I am wondering now is what your beef with science is.
If you recognize that science is ineffective in investigating the supernatural, what do you want from science? Why do you blame science for not making statements about miracles when you yourself say that it cannot be effective in dealing with miracles?
Do you think it's ineffectiveness in dealing with miracles is a reason to deny its effectiveness in explaining natural processes?
What do you mean? Of course there was "scientific evidence" for the wine being old. It had an alcohol level that was consistent with older wines. And there was no scientific evidence to confirm it was young.
I said there was no evidence against a miracle occurring in this case. What permanent impact would turning a few jars of water into wine have made, say on the jars? What physical trace would the miracle have left once all the wine was consumed?
But a global flood should have left traces. In fact YECists claim it reshaped the face of the globe. If so, there should be evidence everywhere. But there is not. And furthermore, there is evidence which contradicts the possibility of a global flood.
So as against a small, local, temporary event which need not leave any physical trace we set an immense global event which ought to have left permanent global evidence. In the first case it is logical for a scientist to say, "I can't detect any miracle, so I can't confirm one happened, but I can't rule it out either." In the second case with equal logic, the scientist can and must say, "The evidence is contradictory to the possibility of a global flood event."
Nor would science support literal instantaneously created wine.
No, it wouldn't. But unless you claim there is physical evidence of instantaneous creation, it can't rule it out either.
And as I said many self described christians find it helpful to view the resurrection as a figurative story. Why are they wrong for doing so?
Are they wrong? How do you know?
Id be careful here. There is a difference between no explanation and an explanation not yet discovered.
Right here and now today, an explanation which has not been discovered is the same as no evidence. That is one of the reasons science is always tentative. What science claims is based on the best
available evidence. It will change its claims when new evidence provides new explanations.
More precisely, he should say he has no naturalistic explanation for how 2 day old wine can appear to be 5 years old.
Since science only investigates possible naturalistic explanations, that is a given.
I wish youd only give Genesis the same benefit of the doubt.
I have. See above.
It seems many on your side are demanding naturalistic theories be discredited first. To draw an analogy it would be like the scientists in the illustration demanding their theory of the wine being made 5 years ago to be falsified before anyone can believe the miracle. But you gave a whole list of reasons why it cannot be falsifiedlying villagers, etc.
Some people do take that stance. Some don't. And scientists are on both sides of the fence. In your illustration, it comes down to the testimony of the villagers. Even a scientist may consider it highly unlikely they would all be lying and so consider the miracle a plausible way of reconciling the difference between the scientific conclusion (the wine is old) and the villagers testimony. But another scientist on the same team could be unwilling to drop the search for a natural explanation.
In the case of Genesis, the problem is more severe. The contradictory testimony does not come from possibly lying, or possibly gullible, or possibly mistaken humans. It comes from creation itself. That means the contradictory testimony comes from God's own hand. Humans did not lift up mountain ranges from the bottom of the ocean. Humans did not lay down beds of sediment and put fossils in them. God, using natural processes of his own invention, did this. So when it comes to Genesis, we have to ask why God would deliberately put false testimony into creation. Why, in the case of the flood, would he deliberately erase the evidence that it happened and replace it with evidence that says it could not possibly have happened?
Precisely. The problem is with those who believe the alcohol content disproves the miracle. The alcohol content no more disproves the wine was recently miraculously created than radiometric dating disproves the universe was recently miraculously created. It seems some scientists understand this while others do not.
But there is a lot more than radiometric dating that supports an old earth and a local flood. Both of these were, in fact, established scientifically before the invention of radiometric dating.
But again, I am wondering where you are going with this. If the wine was created miraculously, the scientists are not wrong in establishing that its age (if produced naturally) is 5 years. They cannot detect the miracle and I don't think you are asking that. Given testimony that it is not 5 years old, they may or may not choose to believe that a miracle occurred.
The same goes for an old earth. How are scientists in the wrong in saying the evidence points to an old earth if its recent creation is a miracle which they cannot detect? If you want to believe in an undetectable miracle, fine. What are you asking of science? To support your belief? It can't do that. All science can do is point to evidence that contradicts your belief.
Personally, I do not believe that biblical faith calls on us to ignore or deny contradictory evidence, especially when that evidence has been provided by the Creator himself. Faith may call us to reach beyond evidence, but never to deny it.
