Seven daze? [moved from general theology]

[Magentic]

To quote the second link verbatim:

This creation was populated with plants and animals and perhaps even with a race of pre-Adamic men who had no souls.

Okey dokey, so just where in the Bible is that again? I must have missed that in the gap between the verse 1 and 2...

I also cannot find any difference in the verses that indicate that day one was any different to day two, three, nth, as "there was evening, and there was morning - the first/second day."

Please be honest and admit that you believe what you do because you want to, but do not distort and twist Scripture to support something that to be blunt just simply isn't there.

Nothing annoys me more than someone saying that "The Bible says..." when it doesn't and is, in fact, in clear contradiction to the thing that the Bible actually says.

The bible does says...

There was a previous flood that made the earth void.
Lucifer's
Earth made waste, empty, no light from heaven
Jer 4:23-26

Noah's not made waste, empty or totally dark.
There was no vegetation in Jeremiah, but the dove brought back an olive branch.
No fowls left, but Noah saved fowls etc
Jeremiah 4:23-26
23 I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form, and void;
And the heavens, they had no light.
24 I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled,
And all the hills moved back and forth.
25 I beheld, and indeed there was no man,
And all the birds of the heavens had fled.
26 I beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were broken down
At the presence of the LORD,
By His fierce anger.
Satan fell before the garden
2 Corinthians 11:3
3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
According to Isa 14:12-14 satan invaded the heavens from earth.
12 “ How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer,[a] son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart:
‘ I will ascend into heaven,...

Ps 104:5-9 is about God sending a flood after it's creation
v 7 ""at your word the waters fled' Noah's flood subsided naturally.
2 Peter 3:
defines "the WORLD" that was and "the WORLD" that now is.

6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

 

[CalmRon]

The bible does says...

There was a previous flood that made the earth void.
Lucifer's
Earth made waste, empty, no light from heaven
Jer 4:23-26

Noah's not made waste, empty or totally dark.
There was no vegetation in Jeremiah, but the dove brought back an olive branch.
No fowls left, but Noah saved fowls etc
Jeremiah 4:23-26
23 I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form, and void;
And the heavens, they had no light.
24 I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled,
And all the hills moved back and forth.
25 I beheld, and indeed there was no man,
And all the birds of the heavens had fled.
26 I beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were broken down
At the presence of the LORD,
By His fierce anger.
Satan fell before the garden
2 Corinthians 11:3
3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
According to Isa 14:12-14 satan invaded the heavens from earth.
12 “ How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer,[a] son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart:
‘ I will ascend into heaven,...

Ps 104:5-9 is about God sending a flood after it's creation
v 7 ""at your word the waters fled' Noah's flood subsided naturally.
2 Peter 3:
defines "the WORLD" that was and "the WORLD" that now is.

6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

that verse in jeremiah never mentioned a flood or creation, true it mirrors the first verses but it has to do with the day of the lord.

 

[Assyrian]

That's simply not true. Geocentrism fit the best understanding of the universe as understood by scientists for more than 1,000 years.

Aristarchus proposed heliocentrism in the third century BC, but it was rejected as 'impious', and also simply because it looks as if the sun goes round the earth. But there was never any attempt made to test geocentrism to see whether it was the best understanding of the universe, instead they tried to make all their observations of the cosmos fit into a geocentric model explaining all the weird retrograde movements with cycles and epicycles.

Discarding geocentrism was not discarding established science.

That's not what I've argued. Discarding any scientific theory does not mean the discarding of science.

I will rephrase it. Discarding geocentrism was not discarding an idea established by science.

And that is the point. The best understanding as according to the science of its day

Which is the best we have got. Better than any proofs that turn out to be invalid.

Where does it say that, as a dogmatic truth?

The bible doesn't say very much dogmatically, it doesn't say the days of Genesis are literal days, you have to interpret it literally to get your six day creationism. It is the same with geocentrism, there are quite a number of passages that describe a geocentic cosmos if you take them literally. You have Joshua commanding the sun to stop, not the earth to stop rotating. The sun was moving across the sky, stood still when Joshua commanded it, and when the battle was finished, the sun hurried along to the place it sets (Joshua 10). Solomon talked of the sun setting and hurrying to the place it rises. Eccles 1:5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. Add to that all the passages which talk of the earth not being moved.

I think you are displaying a very narrow concept of 'church'. You keep referring to 'the church' and even in Copernicus' day there were churches outside the Catholic Church - my own (the Orthodox) being one. You're attempting here to tarnish 'the Bible' (as per its veracity) based on your own notion of
a) 'the church'
and
b) what that church taught as dogmatic truth

It certainly is worse in the west where the Catholic Church tried Galileo in front of the inquisition, and Luther called Copernicus a fool, but throughout church history, east and west, from church fathers to reformers like Luther and Calvin, the geocentric passages were interpreted literally. To their credit the orthodox church did not make an issue of it when Copernicus came along, but it was what their church fathers taught.

Was it taught dogmatically? Not sure how relevant that is, six day creationism wasn't taught dogmatically either. But geocentrism was taught,
and without a single dissenting voice among the church fathers, unlike the literal six days of creation which had both literalists and those who said the days were meant figuratively. The only suggestion geocentrism may be an issue of dogma came from Cardinal Ballarmine writing about Galileo.

“the Council (of Trent) prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. Now consider whether the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators.”
​

His argument about the common agreement of the church fathers would probably apply in the Orthodox church too, though they were wiser than to go down that route.

No I am not attempting to tarnish the bible, I am trying to show our understanding of the word of God is fallible and limited and we have got it wrong in the past. The thing that really tarnished the reputation of the bible is when believers tried to insist science is wrong because of their interpretation of scripture.

If it can't do this then science isn't the ultimate arbiter of truth as you would like it to be.

I never claimed science as an 'ultimate arbiter of truth', it cannot tell us what is right or wrong or say anything about God and the spiritual, it only speaks of the material world. But it is very good at telling us about the material universe.

It was a proposal by Goldschmidt.

I don't want to broaden this into a discussion about the more general problems evolution faces, but evolution has mulitple theories going on all the time.
What must now seem a long time ago (1986), I did a course at university called 'Pre-history'. Our textbook was
Poirier, F E, “In Search of Ourselves: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology”, (see p346ff)

As to the ascent of man (though it says 'descent'; itself a loaded term), there were many different theories then that had currency. Each followed scientific method, and each had its fair share of evidences to support it.

My textbook stated that each of the following;
the Unilinear School;
the Polyphyletic School'
the Preneanderthal School; and
the Presapiens School
were all valid possibilities to the pathway our ancestors took. This seemed ludicrous to me (then, and still), that each mutually conflicting theory would be accepted (as long as it doesn't involve God).

Now all these theories have been discared in favour of two other, but mutually exclusive ideas;
the multiregional (or Diregional) Evolutionary Hypothesis
and the
"Out of Africa" Evolutionary Hypothesis

So? What you are showing is that there were different hypotheses to explain the relationship between mankind and the fossil hominids before there was enough information to decide between them. As more information came up mistaken ideas were discarded and the better ideas refined. No one doubted neanderthals were related to sapiens, the only question was whether they were a side branch or the direct ancestors of modern human beings. That was a question that was settled in the beginning of the 20th century, we are still working on our relationship to the different branches of the homo erectus throughout the world. It doesn't throw out human evolution because we do not know all the details yet.

 

[Assyrian]

Prove to me, using science that science is the best way of showing how the world works.

Prove? Though I showed science was about evidence not proof. But if you want to know about the how the universe works, what exactly has philosophy told us about biology physics astronomy geology or mechanics since Aristotlean physics got it wrong about how projectile flew through the air? Philosophy debated about whether atoms existed, science has told us their structure. Science gave us the theory of relativity, and makes our sat navs work, philosophy gave us moral relativism.

During the 1930s and 1940s German scientists experimented on unwilling human 'guinea pigs'. In general scientists reject the chance of using the information gained in those experiments based on the fact that there was unwilling particpation. They use a 'moral' stance to determine what science 'truths' we should use. Do you agree with this? As you are in favour of science over philosophy I'd like you to stick to using science in your determination of whether it's right, or wrong.

Not sure we showed the same scruples about using rocket science, Werner Von Braun built his science on the backs of slave labourers who slaved and died in Peememünde and the underground V2 factories, the Americans still used his skill and expertise to teach them how to build rockets and to head up the NASA space program. But I never claimed science can teach us morailty, not sure philosophy can either when you look at Nietzsche or existentialism.

 

[Assyrian]

It never ceases to amaze me when I see people argue that macro-evolution and stellar evolution is science. It's naturalistic yes - but that isn't equivalent to science. They teach all kids in high school what science is, the scientific method, and so on, and yet it always surprises me that they don't apply the definition to what they believe. It must be selective application I guess.

So, how about we go back to basics here and define what science is? We have to know what science is in order to determine if an idea or ideology is "scientific," right? Consider the following few definitions:

Science is obtained knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially obtained and tested through scientific method; b: such knowledge of such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena.

The scientific method are the principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and fomulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

Natural science is any of the sciences (as physics, chemistry, or biology) that deal with matter, energy, and their interrelations and transformations or with objectively measurable phenomena.

It should be obvious that both the big bang, stellar evolution, and macro-evolution are - if true - history and as such cannot be proven by science. Those naturalistic ideas are not scientific as we cannot observe them nor can we test them. We can't observe or experiment them because all the data exists in the present. The best that can be done is to use observations and experiments in the present to make inferences about the past, but this often involves quite a deal of guesswork and more assumptions are required the farther back in time the event being studied happened.

In summary, to quote Ernst Mayr, "evolution is a historical process that cannot be proven by the same arguments and methods by which purely physical or functional phenomena can be documented."

Hi Khomm, yes you are right a hypothesis needs to be tested before it can be a proper scientific theory. But science has always been based on the tests that can be done, not rejected simply because you can propose other tests that are simply are not possible. Heliocentrism was accepted a sound science long before it was possible to go into space and see if it works. It was validated by tests that could be carried out on earth, Foucault's pendulum or searching for stellar parallax, even though you could make the same criticism that heliocentrism is simply an inference of these results. Atomic theory was accepted as science long before atoms were ever observed, even now images you see of atoms are simply graphic renditions of scan data not actual pictures. Atoms could not be seen, but you could propose tests to confirm all of the claims about the existence of atoms and atomic structure, even if the nature of atoms was simply inferred from the results. Evolution has been tested every way it can be, and all the tests confirm the theory. You simply don't get that with an unsound hypothesis.

 

[Montalban]

Prove? Though I showed science was about evidence not proof. But if you want to know about the how the universe works, what exactly has philosophy told us about biology physics astronomy geology or mechanics since Aristotlean physics got it wrong about how projectile flew through the air? Philosophy debated about whether atoms existed, science has told us their structure. Science gave us the theory of relativity, and makes our sat navs work, philosophy gave us moral relativism.

There are scientific proofs.

I asked you to demonstrate your point and you can't regarding the supremacy of science over philosophy.

Not sure we showed the same scruples about using rocket science, Werner Von Braun built his science on the backs of slave labourers who slaved and died in Peememünde and the underground V2 factories, the Americans still used his skill and expertise to teach them how to build rockets and to head up the NASA space program. But I never claimed science can teach us morailty, not sure philosophy can either when you look at Nietzsche or existentialism.

That's not answering my question either. You in effect said philosphy should get out of the way of science.

 

[Assyrian]

There are scientific proofs.

Not in the mathematical or philosphical sense, can't be, because science is always waiting for an even better explanation, you can do experiments to confirm validity of a theory, or to demonstrate another idea is wrong. But it is always possible for denialist to go ''nah ain't so''. Science can demonstrate its validity beyond reasonable doubt, but never beyond unreasonable doubt. That is why you still have flat earthers moonlanding deniers.

I asked you to demonstrate your point and you can't regarding the supremacy of science over philosophy.

You asked me to provide a philosophical methodology ie proof, that science is the best way of showing how the world works. I used a more scientific approach of simply providing evidence to demonstrate the point, I note you did not actually try to deal with the evidence I showed.

Not sure we showed the same scruples about using rocket science, Werner Von Braun built his science on the backs of slave labourers who slaved and died in Peememünde and the underground V2 factories, the Americans still used his skill and expertise to teach them how to build rockets and to head up the NASA space program. But I never claimed science can teach us morailty, not sure philosophy can either when you look at Nietzsche or existentialism.

That's not answering my question either. You in effect said philosphy should get out of the way of science.

That wasn't the question you asked here.

However deaing with the point you just made.
[/QUOTE]That's not answering my question either. You in effect said philosphy should get out of the way of science.[/quote]Only if it is trying to do what science has shown for the past 500 years it is much better at. Philosophy can can continue to philosphising and science won't say a word. But if philosphy want to tell us how the material universe works, its philosphical musings will have to stand up to solid evidence. This is the difference between science and philosophy, science checks its claims, it tests them against the real world.

Of course philosophy can raise questions about morality, not that philosophy is very good at dealing with morality itself, but at least it can address the issue. And moral questions can be asked about whether we should research certain areas knowing how the information could be used, it can ask questions about the morality of methods of carrying out the research or whether research whose origin is moraly dubious should be continued, what it can't do is say is that the information found this way is wrong, it can say it was unwise to have opened this pandoras box, or we should not have researched it that way, but not that the facts are incorrect.

 

[Timothew]

I used a more scientific approach of simply providing evidence to demonstrate the point, I note you did not actually try to deal with the evidence I showed.

Please Assyrian, I missed the evidence. I can't find it in the thread. If you can provide evidence for the Theory of Evolution, please do. I want to move beyond this question so that I won't be mocked by evolutionists anymore. I don't believe there is sufficent evidence to believe that elephants evolved from amoebas. I do believe there is enough evidence to believe the earth is roughly spherical.

 

[Mallon]

Please Assyrian, I missed the evidence. I can't find it in the thread. If you can provide evidence for the Theory of Evolution, please do. I want to move beyond this question so that I won't be mocked by evolutionists anymore. I don't believe there is sufficent evidence to believe that elephants evolved from amoebas. I do believe there is enough evidence to believe the earth is roughly spherical.

The world's most educated creationists (e.g., Todd Wood, Kurt Wise, Paul Garner, Marcus Ross, etc.) believe there is excellent evidence for evolution, they simply chose not to accept the evidence by faith. If you're genuinely looking for evidence of evolution, try asking Todd Wood. He can tell you.

 

[Timothew]

The world's most educated creationists (e.g., Todd Wood, Kurt Wise, Paul Garner, Marcus Ross, etc.) believe there is excellent evidence for evolution, they simply chose not to accept the evidence by faith. If you're genuinely looking for evidence of evolution, try asking Todd Wood. He can tell you.

Well, I checked the link you provided. Todd Wood does say that there is evidence for evolution. But sadly, like so many others, he doesn't say what that evidence is. I'll go check further.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

There's a lot to support adaptation, such as being potatoe eaters instead of wheat eaters when droughts happen and that sort of thing, but there is no support to the supposition that life begets anything beyond it's own kind, as the bible says.

 

[Mallon]

Well, I checked the link you provided. Todd Wood does say that there is evidence for evolution. But sadly, like so many others, he doesn't say what that evidence is. I'll go check further.

It isn't like the evidence for evolution is hidden or something. It's out there in hundreds of thousands of books, on the internet, etc. It's not hard to find, if you're genuinely seeking it. There's evidence in the form of fossils, DNA, biogeography, development, etc. Maybe start here:
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: the Scientific Case for Common Descent

 

[Mallon]

There's a lot to support adaptation, such as being potatoe eaters instead of wheat eaters when droughts happen and that sort of thing, but there is no support to the supposition that life begets anything beyond it's own kind, as the bible says.

Again, not only do mainstream scientists disagree, but even fringe creation scientists like Todd Wood disagree. If the most educated of creationists agree that there is good evidence for macroevolution and common ancestry, surely there must be something to it, no?

 

[Assyrian]

Please Assyrian, I missed the evidence. I can't find it in the thread. If you can provide evidence for the Theory of Evolution, please do. I want to move beyond this question so that I won't be mocked by evolutionists anymore. I don't believe there is sufficent evidence to believe that elephants evolved from amoebas. I do believe there is enough evidence to believe the earth is roughly spherical.

Actually the evidence I was talking about to Montalban was simply evidence that science is a much better at telling us how the universe works than philosophy, rather than evidence for evolution. There is an awful lot of evidence supporting and confirming evolution, but mallons link is a great overview. I was going to dig out it out myself but mallon got there first. Thanks

Your reference to the earth being spherical is an interesting one though. Of course we really do have a lot of evidence for that now. But it is worth looking back at when it was controversial, most of the church accepted the science but you had individuals who preached against it, Cosmas Indicopleustes argued that biblical cosmology said the earth was flat, and a spherical was a doctrine only pagans could hold consistently, Christians who believed the earth was spherical were supping from the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, Lactantius was a lot more level headed and claimed that it was all unprovable speculation since no one had ever going to the other side of the world to see what life was like in cities there.

But the question we need to look at is how much evidence did science have that the earth was a sphere, ships disappear over the horizon bottom up, but then again in mirages you can sometimes see them floating in the air, the curvature of the earth was calculated by looking at the angle sunlight shines down wells in different parts of the world, but that is assuming you can actually extrapolate the measurements. I am sure modern creationists would find all sort of problems with the calculation, perhaps the earth is a saucer shaped disk, maybe light bends differently in different parts of the world. The only other piece of evidence was that the shadow of the earth on the moon in a eclipse always appears as a circle no matter what angle the moon is at. But hey, doesn't the shadow the earth being a circle show the earth is a disk? Do we even know it is the earth's shadow? Basically when the church accepted the earth was a sphere and rejected flat earth claims it was doing it on the basis of the best science available, but with very little actual evidence, vastly less than we have for evolution.

 

[Assyrian]

There's a lot to support adaptation, such as being potatoe eaters instead of wheat eaters when droughts happen and that sort of thing, but there is no support to the supposition that life begets anything beyond it's own kind, as the bible says.

That's something creationists seem to bring up a lot, but it isn't actually what the bible says.

 

[Timothew]

It isn't like the evidence for evolution is hidden or something. It's out there in hundreds of thousands of books, on the internet, etc. It's not hard to find, if you're genuinely seeking it. There's evidence in the form of fossils, DNA, biogeography, development, etc. Maybe start here:
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: the Scientific Case for Common Descent

Thank you Mallon and Assyrian, there is a lot there to digest. This will take me a while.

 

[Mallon]

Thank you Mallon and Assyrian, there is a lot there to digest. This will take me a while.

It took me four years of undergrad school.

 

[Papias]

T wrote:

This will take me a while.

In addition, you may want to quickly check Chromosome 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FGYzZOZxMw&feature=related), and the genetic evidence here: Amazon.com: Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA eBook: Daniel J. Fairbanks: Kindle Store ("Relics of Eden" by D. Fairbanks)

Both are awfully solid.

Papias