The scientific myth of creationism

[The Lady Kate]

I shan't take the bother of trying to refute the post. See, I wasn't making this thread to defend TEism. TE defenses might have occured as unintended consequences ... but what I was after was really to analyse scientific creationism. And Micaiah's post is perfect fodder.



Perspicuity: plain meaning exists and is superior. (part III)



Correlation between scientificity and legitimacy of myth. (part I)
[There have been TEs here who have openly stated that they would still read Genesis 1 as a myth even without any scientific position on origins.]



Science as artificial and anthropocentric, Scripture as natural and theocentric. Perfect fodder for a post IV.



Correlation between scientificity and legitimacy of myth. (part I)
[As noted, this also motivates atheistic denunciations of Scripture as irrelevant.]



Correlation between scientificity and legitimacy of myth. (part I) - a scientific myth is superior to a paradigmatic myth.
Superiority of scientific messages to paradigmatic messages. (part I)



Interesting PoV I haven't explored: misconstruing a paradigmatic reference to myth as an indicative-historical, and therefore literal-scientific, reference to myth.



Personal projection of truthfulness and reliability (post III)
Word has one "true sense" i.e. plain meaning (post III)
YECism foundational (post II)



Illegitimacy of any kind of truth besides historico-scientific truth (post III).

So the whole of the post can be reduced to a few logical points:

Real truth has to be scientific and historical.
The paradigmatic messages of myths are inferior to their historico-scientific messages.
Scripture has only one right and plain meaning.

And guess how atheists attack Scripture? By using the exact same framework, and they've been doing it long before the days of YECism.

Funny how scientific creationists like brandishing weapons manufactured by the enemy.

[Thanks Micaiah for pointing me in some interesting new avenues for exploring creationist thought. Yes, I am abusing you by denying you your right to have your ideas engaged constructively. You picked a day when I was cranky to show up in the midst of some interesting thought-lines with stuff I've heard before a thousand times. Too bad.

Though there are ways to interpret non-engagement as a privilege.]

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to shernren again."

 

[shernren]

One of the most powerful arguments that TE's could provide to substantiate their argument would be to show that other writers of Scripture who refer to events and people recorded in Genesis clearly understood the text as myth, not to be taken literally.

Well one of the most powerful arguments that YECs could provide is to show where the Bible refers to Genesis 1 as history. Not truth (for we have all agreed on it), history.

Where does Jesus say "verily, verily, the earth is 4,000 years old"? (as it would have been in His time).

Or "dost thou not know that when God created man He left no transitional fossils?"

Or "they wilfully ignore that of old the world was drowned in water, which left a global sedimentary layer across the whole planet"?

Or (though this isn't scientific) "do you not know that no evolutionists shall inherit the kingdom of heaven?" (Ok, I'm kidding around with this one. )

This is not goalpost-shifting, and this is not peripheral. The central issue in the creationist movement is that truth must be scientific. Most creationist proof-texts deal with Jesus or Paul or Peter quoting Genesis 1-11 as true ... they therefore assume this proves that they quoted Genesis 1-11 as indicatively, historically, and scientifically true. Qualifications which may or may not have existed in the minds of the speakers.

Perhaps also this is a consequence of personal projection. Maybe the thought process moves like this:

If I were Jesus,
and I quoted Genesis 1,
it would mean I believed Genesis 1 to be historically true.
Therefore Jesus believed Genesis 1 to be historically true.
Since Jesus cannot be wrong,
therefore Genesis 1 is historically true.

where the logical fallacy happens in moving from line 3 (my certain action implies something about me) to line 4 (Jesus' certain action implies that exact same thing about Jesus). I have certainly seen it been argued like that before though it would require some care to generalize to all such forms of creationist argument.

In any case, the creationist charge that truth must be scientifically and historically true to be true needs to be proven. Remember that the claim is foundational to the scientific myth of creationism. If that statement cannot be supported, neither can scientific creationism, which rests on it. In fact, I do not believe that it can be proven, although it can certainly be assumed - an assumption which to me is the greatest tragedy of modernism.

There is a masterly lack of logic in accusing an Age of Materialism and then invoking a wholly material spirituality - is there not? - A.S. Byatt, Possession.

 

[shernren]

But first, a quick sketch of science to provide background to what I'm calling "science" in this post and the next:

Science is the recognition that in nature there exist orderly relationships between measurable observed variables which seem to be consistent regardless of spatial or temporal location. These relationships are scientific by definition, or naturalistic, whereas events which cannot be explained within the context of these relationships are known as supernatural and must by logic involve some cause outside the studi-ability of science.
Science can also be put as what we observe in nature which everybody can agree on regardless of spirituality.

Schism in Science

At the heart of the attraction of scientific creationism is the great promise and privilege that its inherent relativism holds for the individual. Yes, scientific creationism is nearly entirely relativist, befitting its identity as a scientific myth. And an important (probably the chief) part of its mythos is the idea that the individual does not have to take orders from anyone but his or her self for how he or she interprets science and Scripture. To be fair, the scientific profession often talks down at people from a position of authority without showing them the intricacies of how science is done, although this can be justified by saying the intricacies require an entire career and even multiple lifespans in the scientific profession to elucidate. But justified or not, the fact is that people may well feel insulted by what they sense is a lack of respect for their individual opinion, and creationism has all the allure of any rebellion against authority. After all, parental demands for their children to be taught creationism are always brought forward for consideration during educational tussles over origins in the classroom - as if science and education are decided by democracy!

This cavalier individualism can be seen manifestly in how creationism treats science itself. In the eyes of creationism there is a neat line running down the scientific framework of viewing nature: on one side there is "acceptable science" (rarely called good) and on the other "unacceptable science" or "bad science". "Evolution" is often used as an euphemism for "unacceptable science", an umbrella term for any science that goes against their hallowed interpretations of Scripture. Besides evolution itself, theories of chemical abiogenesis, geology, the nebular hypothesis of solar system formation, dark matter, and the Big Bang have at various times and places been labeled by creationists as "evolutionary", the term intended to give some sort of unsavoury connotation to this disparate complex of theories designed to understand the universe.

How is this division made? It would enhance their credibility if creationists had any real reason or criteria for drawing this line in the sand. There are a number of proposals. Firstly, it may be that the offending theories are theories that go up against Scripture. Of course, this goes hand in hand with the denial that any interpretation of Scripture but their own is valid. But more importantly what this viewpoint ignores is that science cannot be read out of Scripture, but must be read out of reality into Scripture: even by scientific creationists. Besides, there are many well-known demonstrations that a strict application of this criterion would bring many more theories under the "unacceptable evolutionary theories" banner, most notably meteorology and how it "conflicts" with many "divine meteorology" statements in Job. However, it remains the most self-consistent creationist reason for rejecting some science while accepting some other, although the hidden motivation will be revealed to be something else altogether.

The second reason could be that these theories seem to make predictions that lie completely in the past. This is of course the famous "origins science vs. operational science" distinction AiG draws between "acceptable" science which no Christian needs to contest and "unacceptable" science where every armchair theorist may deem his or her self on such superior footing to self-declared "experts" that they may feel free to completely distrust scientific opinion. According to such a view, there is a fundamental difference between science "in the present" and science "in the past" - not because of the evidence-fuzzing effects of the numerous successive slight events all evidence must undergo, but for the "fundamental" reason that we cannot observe the past where we can "observe" the present. Again, this reflects the creationist's lack of confidence in any source of evidence but his or her own sensorium - relativism; I may not observe what you observe and so I have a right to have a different science from yours. But to burst the creationist bubble, all observation happens in the past. When you log on to ChristianForums.com and read this, you are not actually reading what is on the computer screen in the present: you are reading what was on the screen a few nanoseconds ago, because the light had to travel the few centimeters from the screen to your eyes and then spend a few more milliseconds being absorbed by your retina and processed by your optical center. I'm sorry, but if only something observed in the present is real and absolute then nothing is real and absolute because nothing can be observed in the present. Guess where relativism gets us? To maya theory where nothing is real and everything is an illusion of perception, where what I perceive is not necessarily what you perceive. Such an un-Christian conclusion exposes the blatant relativism at the heart of scientific creationism.

The third could be that these theories have uncomfortable ethical implications. The most often heard one is that evolutionism implies racism or that might is right; the runner-up is surely that evolution takes God out of the picture of the origins of life and biodiversity. Again, this shows the creationist tendency to ethicize scientific findings or the scientific method. And here again this is not a valid line to draw down the sand. For if all theories which have been misused to support racism were wrong, then Christianity itself would be in far worse repute than evolutionism, after the scandals of Western colonialism and the abuse of the blacks. Surely it is more appropriate to say that evil men will twist whatever is at hand to support their agenda: if the Gospel then the Gospel, if evolution then evolution, and surely what is twisted is not at fault for being twisted. And if evolution takes God out of the origins of life, then every scientific theory stands condemned, every one whether inside or outside the "evolutionism" banner. As much as evolution "takes God out of" the origins of life, electrostatics "takes God out of" lightning, meteorology "takes God out of" weather, and ChristianForums.com must be atheist because its servers don't require supernatural intervention to function and electronics has "taken God out of" the computer. This again fails to provide a proper motivation for the scientific schism creationism tries to impose, but I think that this is a real (albeit superficial and shallow) reason for many creationists' resistance to "science".

And the fourth, one I have never heard from a creationist his or her self, but which seems to me to describe their behaviour well enough, is simply: whatever creationists misunderstand enough to disbelieve is "evolutionary"; whatever creationists understand enough to realize they can't resist isn't. In favour of this conjecture, I think the various posts on this forum speak for me far more eloquently than anything I can manage myself. Creationists malign evolution and think it involves cats becoming dogs or finches becoming parakeets (actual creationist examples); they say the Big Bang violates the conservation of angular momentum and go on to describe the nebular hypothesis for the formation of the solar system. I don't think it's their fault, though; the blame for their drawing this line must rest partly on the field of scientific education, which seems to me to be behind its time in inculcating the public with the basics of the scientific method and demystifying scientists' methods of arriving at their scientific conclusions.

Whatever the reason, creationists have a line drawn down the sand between the science they deem acceptable and the science they don't. They use very misleading terms too; in matters of interpretation they interpret Scripture by "common sense" (which is really acceptable science, as we shall see soon) while others interpret Scripture by "science, which is introducing external ideas into Scripture" (or unacceptable science). But when talking directly of science they will call acceptable science simply "science" while calling unacceptable science a "myth" or "fallacy" or "quasi-religion you need faith to believe in". As noted, AiG occasionally names acceptable science as "operational" and unacceptable as "origins". I think this partly explains how they do not see any conflict between using the scientific method (which to them produces acceptable science) to criticize science (which in this sense is unacceptable science). The line is drawn at different places for different creationists; to some the Paluxy Tracks and the Ica Stones are acceptable science while to others they are simply "non-science" (and the nature of proof in scientific creationism is a completely different matter).

As we shall see, the picture of two different sciences is fundamental to understanding how creationists interpret Scripture. [trailer!]

 

[chaoschristian]

This is just a little note, shernren, to encourage you in your continued efforts in this thread. Keep on the keeping on.

 

[shernren]

One of scientific creationism's loudest claims is that it takes Scripture "at face value". Whatever that means. As we shall see shortly, all this means is that all the work of interpreting has actually happened, but been swept under the carpet - scientism's footprints are exceedingly light in a culture where it rules. But the reason this increases its appeal greatly is that such an arrangement seems to put the power back into the hands of the reader to interpret Scripture. Creationism isn't just Scripture at face value, it's Scripture at my face value, and if I disagree with another interpretation I can simply say that they are interpreting and adding layers where I am not! I believe this kind of subjective, individualized relativist license in interpreting Scripture is the main source of creationism's appeal.

However, something that is not appreciated is that the meaning of Scripture is underdetermined. I mean that both in a mathematical sense, and something deeper. In the mathematical sense, underdetermination is like my saying:

"3x + 4y = 1985, hence find x and y."

one linear equation for two variables means that there is no way to specifically determine their values, you need another simultaneous equation to solve for x and y. But there is underdetermination at a deeper level as well: how do you know I was asking you a math question? For all you know, this may be an arcane cypher for:

"How many elephants, x, and how many hippopotamuses, y, did the Malaysian National Zoo have in 1985?"

The question I asked does not form a complete information system in and of itself; in fact, it requires a vast amount of background knowledge to process (besides that niggling second equation). You need to know the properties of real numbers, the addition binary operator, concepts of additive identities and inverses, and equality before you can even begin to approach the question. Yet none of it seems to come from outside the question: you don't seem to need external knowledge to know that you are finding two numbers, which when multiplied by 3 and 4 respectively, add up to 1985. And yet the question never told you as much. The only reason the question seems so intuitively to ask for that is because the question is processed within the framework of mathematical questioning which is so deeply ingrained that you don't even realize it, like someone going around thinking everything in the world is a shade of red because it really is when they actually have rose-tinted glasses on.

In the same way, Scripture is not a self-complete information system, and so it is impossible to consistently interpret Scripture by Scripture alone. Here is an obvious example: can someone who knows no English read my English Bible? Obviously not! He's going to need an English dictionary and years of English training before he can even begin to understand my English Bible. And yet I thought Scripture was supposed to be interpreted by Scripture alone; I'm not supposed to need a dictionary and years of English knowledge to read it; if the Bible is really self-sufficient for its own interpretation anybody should be able to read it even if they've never seen an English word in their life, they should just "let Scripture interpret Scripture" instead of letting the external information of the dictionary interpret Scripture.

This is easy to see - that language is always used to interpret Scripture, and the meaning of the Bible can never be independent of the meaning of, say, the Oxford Dictionary. What may be harder to see, especially to people not accustomed to seeing it, is that science is also always used to interpret Scripture in the same way that language always is. For both sides of the debate. Even if the creationists won't admit it. How do creationists get away with the very same thing they try to indict the other side for? By trying to split science down the middle into acceptable science, or "common sense" in the context of this issue, which is apparently self-evident enough to not be called science and thus to be used to interpret Scripture, and unacceptable science, or simply "science" in the context of this issue, which is too technical and wordy and difficult for the average person to understand and therefore shouldn't be used to interpret Scripture. In other words, an arbitrary schism is created in science (as described in the last post) where some science is applicable to Scripture and some is not. Note again the consumeristic nature of creationism's relativist tendencies: if I understand it then Scripture can be interpreted by it; if I can't understand it then it can't be used. The ultimate criterion for truth and orderly interpretation has come to rest in the mind of the reader, when by every logical argument it should rest in the mind of the writer.

Here are a few examples of how science conditions our interpretation of Scripture:

1. Elijah's duel with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. When Elijah requests for his altar to be doused with bucket upon bucket of water, we all "know" that he is making the challenge to God Yahweh much harder and therefore much more impressive. But are we told anywhere in Scripture that water doesn't burn? Not really, are we? So to make the interpretation we have to refer to science. And if we changed the science we change the interpretation. If God had made a world where water burns readily, and we read that Elijah had doused his altar with water, we wouldn't call it a miracle - we would have accused Elijah of cheating!

2. Jesus walks on water. Recently a scientist said that weather conditions on the Lake of Galilee could have caused the formation of a subsurface layer of ice upon which Jesus could have walked to His disciples and appeared to have made a miracle. Some people objected that putting science into the interpretation like that wrecked Scripture's record of a perfectly legit miracle. However, as much as science tells us that a man can walk on ice, isn't it also science which has told Christians for the past 2,000 years that man can't walk on water and therefore that Jesus doing so was a miracle? And if the scientist wants to "demystify" Jesus that isn't science's job or role - it's his own implicit beliefs coming out to the fore, and science is only a tool for him to push his agenda. In any case, if we were to somehow quote this incident to water striders they wouldn't see anything extraordinary - they walk on water all the time!

What about in origins? Well, the most blatant usage of science in interpreting Scripture is in refuting local flood interpretations. AFAIK when most staunch YECs are asked why Scripture doesn't support a local flood, one of the first few objections would be that Genesis 7:20 says that "The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.", and how can a local flood rise 20 feet above all the mountains in the area? Without even addressing the interpretive challenges I think the entrance of science into the interpretation should be extremely obvious. Nowhere in Scripture are we told that water cannot rise 20 feet above mountains and stay there. In fact the exact same type of miracle (of keeping water suspended against gravity, albeit on a smaller scale) seems to have happened three other times in the OT: at the crossing of the Red Sea, the crossing of the Jordan, and the departure of Elijah. So hey, why not here too? It isn't the Bible which tells us water can't behave that way, it is science, and if science is so vilified elsewhere in creationist thought why is it being used as a pivotal proof here?

Here's a central AiG site listing objections to the local flood. Note how many of them are scientific objections:

If the Flood were local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and escaped. Traveling just 20 km per day, Noah and his family could have traveled over 3,000 km in six months. God could have simply warned Noah to flee, as He did for Lot in Sodom.

If the Flood were local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all the different kinds of land vertebrate animals in the world? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, or only domestic animals, the Ark could have been much smaller.

If the Flood were local, why did God send the animals to the Ark to escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce those kinds even if they had all died in the local area. Or He could have sent them to a non-flooded region.

If the Flood were local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range. Birds can fly several hundred kilometers in one day.

If the Flood were local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters) above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It could not rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched.

Noah and company were on the Ark for one year and 10 days (Gen. 7:11, 8:14)—surely an excessive amount of time for any local flood? It was more than seven months before the tops of any mountains became visible. How could they drift around in a local flood for that long without seeing any mountains?

Ironically the article ends on a high note:

A universal worldwide, globe-covering Flood is clearly taught by the Bible. The only reasons for thinking the Flood was otherwise come from outside the Bible. When we use the framework provided by the Bible we find that the physical evidence from the rocks and fossils beautifully fits what the Bible says. (emphasis added)

but hey, half the reasons for thinking the Flood was global also come from outside the Bible.

This can be perplexing to people who don't understand the consumeristic, relativist creationist paradigm. Why is some science ok to use to interpret the Bible, and some science not? The answer is that in a combination of scientism and exaltation of personal understanding, whatever science is easy enough to be understood by a person in modern scientism-flavoured culture becomes nearly axiomatic in truth and therefore its use never even registers as being motivated by science. In the same way that you don't see any problem with instantly interpreting 3x + 4y = 1985 as being answerable to mathematics, since you understand it so well, they don't see any problem with instantly interpreting Scripture as being answerable to science - whatever science they understand well. The science of Newton's laws of force and gravitation (which are necessary for the 15 cubit proof scientifically) seem intuitive and are therefore legit; the science of evolution seems too far removed and too dogmatically preached so it must be wrong to use it to interpret Scripture. But there is no qualitative difference between choosing an interpretation because of Newton and choosing an interpretation because of Darwin, other than the difference inside the interpreter's head - which is paramount to the attractiveness of the scientific myth of creationism.

[yes, I know somebody is bound to ask me about miracles. Working on it, though it won't be an exposition on scientific creationism per se.]

 

[shernren]

[after umpteen "if science disproves creation doesn't it also disprove the resurrection" rejoinders. I'm not saying that anyone has not approached this problem before but this is my preliminary pseudo-formal approach. It would be interesting if chaos mathematics could be used to rigorize some of this.]

How do we know something happened? We know because it leaves traces on the physical universe and psychological memories of men. Let us call these traces "footprints". Take the term intuitively: if you see a line of footprints along the sand, it points you to many clues, like what shoes the person was wearing, where the person was heading, how heavy/light the person is, etc. Footprints may be deceiving (like after using shoes whose soles point in the opposite direction) but they are always left behind. An event which has not left a footprint in the real world may as well not have happened.

There are three kinds of footprints we shall discuss here. The first is the physical footprint. If a person falls from the fifth floor, the physical footprint will be left in his body structure (broken bones), the pavement (blood spattered), the balcony from which he dropped (iron bars slightly bent and the trace of a footprint from where he jumped). Note firstly that the passing of time erases physical footprints. After 5 minutes, the balcony may look exactly the same as every other balcony. Snow and rain (and human action) will eventually wash the pavement clean. And 100 years after the body is buried you may still be able to tell if the bones are broken but you won't be able to tell what broke them. Without human action all physical footprints are eroded by the physical footprints of subsequent events. Also, the scientific method can only assess the current physical footprints of an event: this is the obvious reason why cold cases are difficult, because the physical footprint of the event has been compromised so that the investigator has only psychological and historical footprints to work with.

The second is the psychological footprint. This is the effect of the event on the psyches of the observers. If the person who jumped off was a close friend of mine, I would feel grief and anger at the circumstances which caused him to do so. Note that in contrast to the physical footprint, the psychological footprint of an event may augment with the passing of time instead of diminish. The psychological (socioeconomic) impact of events like the assassination of John F. Kennedy reverberates even now, although physically all the evidence that it actually happened have long since eroded.

The third, the historical footprint, is a special kind of footprint: it is the result of a human observer recording the physical footprint and the psychological footprint at a given time into a human information system. If I write a story of how the person jumped from the building, include photographs, and publish it as a book, that is a historical footprint of the effects of that action at, say, 0-10 days after the incident. Note that physical deterioration of information storage material aside, the passage of time does not directly affect the veracity of a historical footprint. Instead, since it is a human-human communication, a historical footprint is affected by the number of intermediaries, and the closeness of cultural identification, between the historian and the reader.

Having elaborated on footprints, my thesis is: a miracle may be considered plausible, despite its momentary superseding of scientific law, if its psychological and historical footprint give sufficient cause to believe that it happened, and if its current physical footprint either concurs with the former or is negligible. We will assume that miracles which intentionally cover their own traces (in the context of origins, the Omphalos interpretation) have been rejected on prior philosophical grounds. And I shall show what I mean by studying two miracles: the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the collective miracle of recent 6-day creation which YECs assert happened.

We know full well the historical footprint of the resurrection - the records of the four Gospels - as well as its psychological footprint which must surely be the biggest psychological footprint ever in history. These two offer not just sufficient, but overwhelming cause to believe that the resurrection actually occurred. What of its physical footprint? Now, it would obviously be extremely hard for Christians to claim that Christ had risen again if people could display a body and somehow genetically prove that it was Jesus of Nazareth. This is the perfect example of a physical footprint which would disprove the resurrection. However, we can assume that physically speaking there is no difference between the current physical condition of the world given that Jesus is alive, and the current physical condition of the world had Jesus not risen. In this case the physical footprint is ambiguous, and therefore based on historical and psychological footprints a TE has no qualms believing that Jesus arose from the dead.

On the other hand, the recent six-day creation miracle has an ambiguous historical footprint (here I skirt the massive issue of whether Genesis 1-11 is a historical account and whether in the modern sense of historical or not) and little to no psychological footprint which could prove it one way or the other. Hence the most important footprint we have is the current physical footprint of the six-day recent creation. Note that by definition the creation miracle must have involved all matter on earth and in the universe - there is no way to claim that a mere 6,000 years' passing could have obliterated its traces! Furthermore, when scientific creationism claims to find proofs for creation, it clearly intends to claim that it has found a correlation between the current state of the physical universe and the state it would expect to have as part of the physical footprint of creationism. Therefore it cannot be said that the physical footprint is ambiguous with respect to creationism: it must either support or reject it.

I won't make either case here. I will say, however, that when a TE denies the recent six-day creation "on the basis of scientific evidence", often (probably not always) s/he may not be referring to the actual scientific impossibility of a miracle. Instead, what is being referred to is the complete lack of support for, and even case against, the recent six-day creation which the TE finds in the current physical state of the universe. The resurrection is not attack-able along the same line of questioning (contrary to creationist claims) because whatever physical footprint it may have left (besides the current physical absence of Jesus' body) has already been eroded beyond recognition. What is really being protested is not the physical impossibility of six-day creation at the miraculous moment itself, but the philosophical impossibility of a miracle to cover the physical trail of six-day creation combined with the inconsistency between the current state of the universe and the projected state of the universe had it been subject to natural forces for six thousand years of existence after a six-day creation.

 

[shernren]

Was alerted to the similarities between creationism's presuppositionalism and postmodernism's deconstructionism. Is there a connection or am I just grasping at straws? Maybe there is both modernist and postmodernist form/thinking in creationism.

What is more frustrating is the lack of creationist response to this series of posts. The purpose of this thread is not to attack creationism. In my new-found vocabulary I am deconstructing creationism. Which does not actually mean to attack and destroy it. But I am doing so to understand it. I try to put my thoughts in writing and see if I can grasp the general direction of how creationists think.

But then this is totally ignored so that I have no creationist critique with which to improve my work. (Well, after what I did with Micaiah's post I might not be too surprised. But that was just a bad day ... ) And then I get called a fool (with "Biblical" backing!) for calling creationist theology inconsistent and take in insinuations that I don't understand creationism. Well, practically all the understanding I have of scientific creationism is here, and therefore the easiest way for any creationists to show that I have misunderstood creationism is to rebut my presentations in this thread.

So, any takers?

 

[Buho]

Hey Shern. I just gave you some rep with this comment, but since I noticed nobody commented on it, I figured I'd make it public.

Good post! I didn't read any others in the thread. I agree w/ your 3 footprints, but claim the historical footprint of Gen 1-11 is unambiguous, and the psychological footprint is evident in a majority of the significant figures in the Bible. The physical footprint has claims on both sides, not just creationists. But good post!

To elaborate, I really like your definition of three types of footprints.

You are correct in that you are sweeping over the historical vs. figurative debate, and to do so is to gloss over the historical footprint.

I disagree that the psychological footprint is nonexistant. Well, perhaps its ambiguous today, but we have -- get this -- a historical footprint of a psychological footprint of a God-created world (created kinds of animals, Adam created from dust, Noah's flood). David, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul are a few that come to mind.

The physical footprints are indeed ambiguous since not only creationists claim evidence in support of their views, but theistic evolutionists also claim evidence in support of their views.

I wonder if your post will help us in the future, pigeon-holing types of footprints. The YEC-TE debate is on all three fronts, although perhaps the physical footprint front may end up being the least fruitful since its ambiguous.

 

[Buho]

Regarding the lack of YEC comments, I too have noticed this throughout this forum and the C&E forum. Methinks YECs in general don't have anything to prove to themselves and therefore spend the majority of their time on other parts of the website or not on this website at all. I certainly get the feeling that the sworn atheists on C&E are there specifically for self- and community-edification. Don't treat this as a TE jab, but just an observation and speculation on my part. I know I'd rather be establishing friendships with pre-Christians, but I feel the need to help the Body with returning to God's Word so that the Body as a whole can be more effective in the world.

 

[Buho]

Regarding post #45:

Taking scripture "at face value." You claim to not know what that means. I'm not the best debator, but Romans 1:18 comes to mind, as does the psychologial mechanism needed for a belief in nihlism to work. God gave us certain things, wired us in certain ways. We know "good" from "bad." We know, deep down, that God exists. We understand what a conciousness is. We know who "me" is. I am at a loss as to how to defend these things. Likewise, I am at a loss how to defend what "face value" or a "plain reading" of scripture is. But I defy you to claim ignorance of what those phrases mean. Indeed, you exhibit this "face value" knowledge after all when you use "3x + 4y = 1985, hence find x and y," for if this were truly meaningless to you, you wouldn't have used it in that context. So too the writers of the Bible use knowledge common to them to communicate God's intent. (Yes, we should be aware of cultural and historical contexts for proper hermeneutics.) John the baptist used the word "baptize" because it meant something to the people of the day (historically, cucumbers are "baptized" into pickles). In the same way Jesus used the fig tree: his disciples knew (from direct and cultural experience) that the tree at the time was out of season for figs. You are correct in saying that a non-English-reading person will not understand your English translation of the Bible. But you ignore the general revelation on his heart that trancends understanding.

Is the Oxford definition of "baptize" "science?" Is the direct experience of disciples and fig trees "science?" Is understanding that water is wet "science?"

I'll grant that yes, this can be considered science.

Are direct observations of the workings of this world to be used in understanding God's communcation to us? Yes. Is macroevolution directly observed to be working around us? Not yet, no. Should macroevolution be used in understanding God's communication to us? No.

but hey, half the reasons for thinking the Flood was global also come from outside the Bible.

You made a very good case for extrabiblical experiences lending to an understanding of scripture. I think I learned something here. However, you yourself admit that half of the reasons AiG gives for thinking the Flood was global come from within the Bible. It is my a priori belief that exegesis is better than isogesis and that special revelation (the Bible) is to be trusted over general revelation (nature). Again, as you have shown, we need nature to understand the Bible, but when the Bible speaks of itself (when one author affirms a part written by another author), there is no room for nature. This is a point I don't think I've managed to get across to TEs.

Your post #45 still begs the question: when Genesis 7:17-24 speaks of "all the high mountains under the heavens were covered [by water]," what do theistic evolutionists do with this? There's nothing "scientifically" wrong with this, other than we, the modern scientific community, have never directly observed this one-time event (as God specifically stated). This passage does not talk about the ark flying through the air, water floating in the air, or land animals breathing water. Had this passage said "some of the low mountains under the heavens were covered by water" would you interpret this passage differently?

The prime problem YECs have with TE interpretations with Genesis is not a scientific one, but a theological one. If TEs do not believe God's global wrath on sinners actually happened in the past, then there is no reason to believe God's global wrath on sinners will actually happen in the future. If God will not judge sinners in the future, then there is no reason for Christ's redemptive work on the cross. If there is no reason for Christ's redemptive work on the cross, there is no reason for Christianity, God is an unjust and evil god, and the best thing we can hope for is the Big Black Nothing that atheists believe awaits us at death.

And for TEs who like to tie things back to nature, there is cohesive evidence for a global, catastrophic flood as God describes in Genesis. As of now, we haven't uncovered a complete picture purely with natural evidence, but then again, neither have long-age naturalistic secular uniformitarians who are baffled by the evidences creationists use for themselves. Petrified trees spanning several strata dated "millions" of years different, fossilized fish eating fossilized fish suggestive of rapid, catastrophic burial, and a plethora of uniformitarian observations that give a maximum "age" of only a few tens of thousands of years (ocean salt, Lake Eyre's salt, degredation of the magnetosphere, etc.) to name three.

Yes, there are enigmatic evidences that challenge a global flood model, but one cannot ignore the enigmatic evidences that challenge an old earth model plus ignore what the Bible says on the subject.

 

[gluadys]

And for TEs who like to tie things back to nature, there is cohesive evidence for a global, catastrophic flood as God describes in Genesis. As of now, we haven't uncovered a complete picture purely with natural evidence, but then again, neither have long-age naturalistic secular uniformitarians who are baffled by the evidences creationists use for themselves. Petrified trees spanning several strata dated "millions" of years different, fossilized fish eating fossilized fish suggestive of rapid, catastrophic burial, and a plethora of uniformitarian observations that give a maximum "age" of only a few tens of thousands of years (ocean salt, Lake Eyre's salt, degredation of the magnetosphere, etc.) to name three.

What makes you think that any of these are valid objections to an old earth and a uniformitarian understanding?

Who told you that secular uniformitarians are baffled by them? (Whoever did was either ignorant or lying.)

Do you know how scientists deal with them?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The prime problem YECs have with TE interpretations with Genesis is not a scientific one, but a theological one. If TEs do not believe God's global wrath on sinners actually happened in the past, then there is no reason to believe God's global wrath on sinners will actually happen in the future. If God will not judge sinners in the future, then there is no reason for Christ's redemptive work on the cross. If there is no reason for Christ's redemptive work on the cross, there is no reason for Christianity, God is an unjust and evil god, and the best thing we can hope for is the Big Black Nothing that atheists believe awaits us at death.


this is nonsense. when i switched from being OEC to TE my theology didn't change the least little bit. I still understand God as teaching a historical Adam and Eve, i still see the great motif of Creation-Fall-Redemption-Judgement.

i challenge you to find one TE that actually believes as you outline. You have lots of people here that have often pointed out that this kind of wide brush strokes don't include them. Perhaps the very leftmost TE's who are probably very liberal theologically believe as you do, but there are several people here who are members of conservative church's whose theology is indistinguishable from their YECist pew mates.
you do your position no good by misunderstanding the TE theology, there is NO TE theology (except for process theologians), TE's have the same theology as their churches. The TofE has little to no effect on how people interpret Adam, or federal headship, for these are theological arguments not scientific.

 

[chaoschristian]

there is NO TE theology (except for process theologians), TE's have the same theology as their churches

We could sound this off the moutain top, trumpets blazing, and still don't think it would be heard.

 

[gluadys]

.

And for TEs who like to tie things back to nature, there is cohesive evidence for a global, catastrophic flood as God describes in Genesis. As of now, we haven't uncovered a complete picture purely with natural evidence, but then again, neither have long-age naturalistic secular uniformitarians who are baffled by the evidences creationists use for themselves.

Ok. Now that I have had time for a little research (about 20 minutes), let’s take a closer look at these “baffling” evidences.

Petrified trees spanning several strata dated "millions" of years different,

Here is a good article on how such forests form along with a pictorial sequence of events.

http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/forests.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~hayeshe/Web/fossil.image.htm

The fact that such forests are found rooted in place one above each other (implying that each one must have had time to grow) indicates they cannot be the result of a flood which lasted only a single year.

fossilized fish eating fossilized fish suggestive of rapid, catastrophic burial,

There are all sorts of ways for a single individual fish to be buried catastrophically without need for a global catastrophe. A single mudslide into a pond or stream is enough.

and a plethora of uniformitarian observations that give a maximum "age" of only a few tens of thousands of years (ocean salt, Lake Eyre's salt, degredation of the magnetosphere, etc.) to name three.

None of these have anything to do with measuring the age of the earth. Salt and other dissolved minerals also precipitate out of water again, each mineral at a rate typical for the mineral. The numbers given are the average residence times of the mineral in its dissolved form. You can get any date you want by choosing which mineral you will measure. If you measure how much dissolved aluminum is in the ocean, it will give the “age of the earth” as 100 years. Actually, the short time-span reflects the fact that aluminum is very reactive and quickly combines with other elements. So the average residence time of dissolved aluminum in ocean water is 100 years.

I haven’t found any specific creationist claim on how the salt Lake Eyre relates to the age of the earth. It looks like there is repeated salt formation each time the lake fills and dries up again. It is hard to imagine that this process has any implications for the age of the earth.

Finally magnetic “degradation” does not apply since this is a reversible process and has reversed several times in earth’s history (as indicated by the reversal of earth’s magnetic poles from time to time.) The current weakening of the magnetic field is simply one phase of the fluctuation. Using it to measure the age of the earth is like using an ebbing tide for the same purpose.

 

[shernren]

Taking scripture "at face value." You claim to not know what that means. I'm not the best debator, but Romans 1:18 comes to mind, as does the psychologial mechanism needed for a belief in nihlism to work. God gave us certain things, wired us in certain ways. We know "good" from "bad." We know, deep down, that God exists. We understand what a conciousness is. We know who "me" is. I am at a loss as to how to defend these things. Likewise, I am at a loss how to defend what "face value" or a "plain reading" of scripture is. But I defy you to claim ignorance of what those phrases mean.

This happens when I write like this: I am not readily understandable. What I actually said was:

One of scientific creationism's loudest claims is that it takes Scripture "at face value". Whatever that means. As we shall see shortly, all this means is that all the work of interpreting has actually happened, but been swept under the carpet - scientism's footprints are exceedingly light in a culture where it rules.

I am confused as to how the belief that there may be more than one way to read Scripture is so effortlessly conflated with belief in nihilism, disbelief in innate conscience, meaninglessness of the existence of the self, and wickedness in suppressing the truth. Such sweeping generalizations do not strengthen your case, as they are patently untrue, at least as far as can be seen from this forum.

I will make this thesis:

For any communication, a fully "face value" interpretation is only possible if there is only one plausible framework within which it can be read.

I think this is self-apparent. We can go on to prove this in detail if you wish. What is really happening is that you are arguing that there is only one plausible framework from within which the Bible can be read: namely, the historical-indicative framework. Since there is no other framework, there is as good as only one interpretation of the Bible - namely, the "face value" interpretation. If there is only one plausible interpretation then we might as well say that no interpretation is needed - no other interpretation is needed.

Now, I agree that to a certain extent this may be true of part of the Bible. I think it is certainly true of God's core revelation - the Crucifixion and Resurrection within the larger context of Jesus' life, ascension, and promise of return (though I believe that the Gospel is reflected back at us within the overtly Christian matrix of Western culture, so that in encountering the Gospel we are really encountering something very, very familiar). But I don't think this is true of the particulars over which YECism quibbles.

If there were only one possible framework within which we could assess Scripture's claims concerning cosmogony, for example, then true Christians all down the ages would expect to have conserve the same cosmogony from the time of the canonization down to today. There are people who believe exactly that: that the only possible cosmological framework within which to understand the universe is flat-earth geocentrism. Instead, we see a remarkable flexibility in the scientific beliefs of the Christian community throughout the ages. When geocentrism was believed, the orthodoxy believed that the Bible inerrantly preached geocentrism (so that Martin Luther said that in Joshua God commanded the sun, not the earth, to stop); when heliocentrism became intellectually popular, the Bible's unequivocal support for geocentrism strangely dissipated. Some modern YECs interpret the raqia as being outer space; this interpretation would not have existed in the time when it was thought that nature abhorred a vacuum.

What about on the biological front? Fixity of species was formerly a Christian concept; but few YECs would admit believing in it today. Furthermore, in the traditional Christian argument from design, an important corollary was that since God designed the species, He would not have let any of His precious designs become extinct. I'm guessing (albeit without much evidence) that this was behind that era's disavowal of fossils as being false evidence planted by the Devil, more than any appearance of age ascribed to the fossils. "If fossils appear to represent species which are not extant today, let us not assume that God is so callous as to let any species He created go extinct - it is the Devil's deception to make us believe that God is cruel!" Note again that modern YECism has quietly dropped this.

How, then, can it be argued that there is only one possible interpretation of Genesis? Given the variety of beliefs the believers through the ages have held, YECs cannot claim that "we have the truth"without saying that they did not have it. YECs can attempt to prove directly that macroevolution is un-scientific - if it is not even a valid scientific theory it surely cannot be a valid framework within which to understand the Scriptures. Unfortunately, such an approach cannot be said to be Scripturally motivated.

An alternative approach is the method of intenal consistency (for after all, that is what "Scripture interpreting Scripture" must mean). Given two alternative interpretations, how much do they make Scripture internally consistent? Note that to a certain extent this can only be a validator, not a choice-maker. The atheistic interpretation of Scripture as completely useless fabrication is extremely self-consistent, but this self-consistency does not make it the standard paradigm of Christianity: even if it is self-consistent, it is not consistent with our personal experience which is external to the Bible. We have here a precedent of rejecting a relatively self-consistent interpretation of the Bible on the basis of external (to the Bible) evidence.

The question, then, is: are there alternative interpretations of the Bible which are both self-consistent, and consistent with evidence external of the Scriptures? I believe that the TE interpretation is one such interpretation. The fact that this interpretation exists, therefore, disproves the claim that Scripture can be read "at face value": there are multiple possible self-consistent frameworks within which one can read the Bible, and therefore one must choose one of those frameworks before reading the Bible, thus necessitating that much interpretation prior to the text.

Of course, the validity of this argument rests on my claim that the TE interpretation is a self-consistent interpretation of Scripture. I have not bothered to prove this. But if you have any good reason to believe that it is not, do voice your concerns.

 

[shernren]

As much as people insist, I don't think the great threat that people perceive from evolution is really a conflict of different historical accounts. Of course, we hear constantly that the big problem concerning evolution is that the historicity of the Bible is under siege, that new scientific discoveries are undermining the Bible's claim to truth, etc. But I don't believe that is true. As always, AiG makes a revealing statement:

If we cannot trust the Bible when it makes simple claims about when and by whom it was written, can we trust it when it makes much more important spiritual claims?

from God and Evolution: Do They Mix?

Note that the biggest issue here is not historicity for historicity's sake: AiG is concerned that if people do not recognize the Bible's historical claims, they will not respect its spiritual claims. Now, when an argument from authority is undermined, the less important claim jeopardizes the more important, not vice versa. It makes no sense to argue: "If my teenager can't even grow up into a responsible leader of a multinational corporation, how can I expect him to even take out the trash?" The argument is always reversed, so that if someone or something cannot perform even a simple task then how can the more difficult and important task be performed? The question implies that there could be other ways to not trust the Bible on its much more important spiritual claims, and that doubting its historicity is only one of them.

We establish that the importance of historicity is secondary to the importance of meaning. Why is it, then, that many creationists raise hue and cry about historicity? I don't think (forgive my disrespect) they really mean to defend the historicity of the Gospel. When they do so, it is really because they are more interested in defending the meaning of the Gospel.

The importance of recognizing worldviews is, to me, that worldviews somehow provide a kind of function (to use mathematical terms) between the domain of factual history and metaphysical meaning. An event, filtered through each person's unique worldview, yields a set of meanings. I've talked about the creationist worldview, which emphasises objectivity, historicity as truth, and naturalism as an affront to God's work (which seem to contradict each other). How does this worldview map the typical historical facts concerning the origins debate to the mythical meaning in their minds?

The basic form of the mapping is that historicity maps to truth, and fiction maps to falsehood. Anything historical is immediately true and anything fictive is definitely false. Within this, the historicity of recent creation maps to the authenticity of the Bible. As I've noted, creationists think that if the Bible is authentic about history it is authentic about spiritual statements. Meanwhile, the common ancestor model, if it is true, maps to atheism in origins. If naturalistic opinions are sufficient then God is not needed, and therefore Christianity is under threat. The claim that evolution needs death maps to the idea that only a cruel God could use evolution. The specific claim that humans evolved from apes maps to a variety of philosophical concepts, like that humans are only animals, that humans would evolve past sin, and that the death of Jesus is meaningless.

Historically, of course, there is absolutely no conflict whatsoever between the bare fact of evolution and the bare fact of the Resurrection. If man had indeed evolved from monkeys it would in no way disprove that a certain carpenter was not actually crucified circa 30 AD and was resurrected. The existence of Australopithecus fossils, or the opinion that they are a species distinct from and ancestral to humans, doesn't disprove the fact that men were energized and were willing to die for their belief that death didn't hold Jesus. The conflict isn't historical: it's mythical. It's a conflict between the myth atheists have used evolution to spin and the (I don't mince my words) myth Christianity has been given by God revolving around His definitive revelation of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Given all that evolution as history maps to, is it not surprising that creationists oppose it? Of course, it would be much simpler to disprove evolution as history. The whole problem is that one cannot take the reverse of the "worldview function" and use it as a criterion to assess historicity. Historicity is ascertained objectively: the Holocaust really happened, no matter how much it tells us about the innate and disturbing sin capacity of humanity. The whole problem is that this is the only way out for creationists, because they are either completely unaware of their worldview preferences, or stubbornly stuck in them. So when evolutionists propose that evolution is true, creationists assume that they are proposing not only the historical fact of evolution, but all the philosophical propositions that their creationist worldview has superglued to the historical fact of evolution.

But the more difficult, and yet more rewarding, way, is to carefully disengage the history of evolution from the anti-Christian myths it has produced. Evolution is not the story of nature without God, but nature which God has given the freedom to become organized all on its own. Man's evolving from australopithecus is not a story of how man remains animal behind the technological and cultural trappings, but a story of how God reached down and elevated mere dust into God-knowing creatures made to love Him. By constructing a different worldview, where evolution no longer maps to anti-Christian concepts but instead to universal truths beloved to Christianity, the origins debate can be instantly vaporized and we can, to use the words of Kenneth Miller, "find Darwin's God."

 

[Buho]

....If TEs do not believe God's global wrath on sinners actually happened in the past, then there is no reason to believe God's global wrath on sinners will actually happen in the future....

this is nonsense. when i switched from being OEC to TE my theology didn't change the least little bit.

i challenge you to find one TE that actually believes as you outline. You have lots of people here that have often pointed out that this kind of wide brush strokes don't include them....

Well, OEC to TE is a small shift from a YEC viewpoint. For instance, the shift doesn't effect at all the excerpt of mine above.

Likewise, "the TofE has little to no effect on how people interpret Adam...." this doesn't address the quote you are responding to, which is about Noah's Flood.

You challenge me to find one TE that believes "God's global wrath on mankind (correction from "sinners") did not happen in the past." Okay. *Looks around.* How about you. Do you believe God in the historic past excercised his wrath globally and killed all of mankind save a small family deemed righteous in God's eyes? Yes or no.

I'm either in grave error with TEs, or your answer (and the vast majority of TEs I've talked with) do not affirm Noah's Flood as historic. Given that, answer me: why should you believe God will judge mankind in the future as outlined in Revelations? Exchange "history" with "future." What's the difference? Why not disbelieve Judgement Day as foreordained? "Surely God won't Judge mankind in the future! He's a God of love! Just as in history, God loved His creation too much to destroy it!" Where has my logic lapsed? (I'm reminded of Paul's use of ad hominem logic in 1 Cor 15:12-34.)

TE's have the same theology as their churches

So they claim. Many claim sola gratia so as not to be called a heretic but reject it by neglect. How sound is TE theology when inspected further than the doctrines claimed? I wonder.

We could sound this off the moutain top, trumpets blazing, and still don't think it would be heard.

Actions speak louder than words, and often the loudest one in the group has the most to hide.

Here is a good article on how such forests form along with a pictorial sequence of events.

Do the pretty pictures tell you that the bottom layer the tree is in and the top layer the tree is in are dated "thousands" of years apart? Shouldn't the tree have rotted away after just a few, before it had time to get burried?

Also, check out this article (ICR) which shows the same actions can happen extremely rapidly, producing identical results. Trees above others imply uprooted trees that sank rootball-first, rapid sedimentation, followed by more trees sinking and being covered as well.

There are all sorts of ways for a single individual fish to be buried catastrophically without need for a global catastrophe. A single mudslide into a pond or stream is enough.

Sure, but keep that in mind that you concede catastrophe on a local scale which does not rule out catastrophe on a global scale. What I see is global evidence for a global flood. Maybe not with this evidence, but with others.

Salt and other dissolved minerals also precipitate out of water again, each mineral at a rate typical for the mineral. The numbers given are the average residence times of the mineral in its dissolved form. You can get any date you want by choosing which mineral you will measure. If you measure how much dissolved aluminum is in the ocean, it will give the “age of the earth” as 100 years. Actually, the short time-span reflects the fact that aluminum is very reactive and quickly combines with other elements. So the average residence time of dissolved aluminum in ocean water is 100 years.

I remind readers that the title of this thread is "The Scientific Myth of Creationism." I also highlight that Creationists have science on their side, as evidenced with this response.

Gluadys, the precipitation out of water has been accounted for by ICR. These are the outputs they've identified, plus about a dozen others. They also identified most of the inputs. Salt does not combine with many things. The things salt does combine with have been (over)estimated and added to the outputs. Based on their calculations, which withstand peer review, the outputs are about 25% of the inputs. What this means is more salt is going into the ocean than salt is leaving the ocean -- by a HUGE margin! Using uniformitarian assumptions and minimum inputs and maximum outputs, and assuming the original ocean had zero salt, the maximum age of the ocean is 60 million years. (Reference, scroll to bottom for graph, scroll up for details.)

Aluminum's inputs apparently equal its outputs, thus rendering the dating of the ocean using aluminum useless, since aluminum levels are in stasis, this method can account for an infinite age. This is not a fair comparison with salt.

Finally magnetic “degradation” does not apply since this is a reversible process and has reversed several times in earth’s history (as indicated by the reversal of earth’s magnetic poles from time to time.) The current weakening of the magnetic field is simply one phase of the fluctuation. Using it to measure the age of the earth is like using an ebbing tide for the same purpose.

Are you satisfied with your answers?

The weakening of the magnetic poles is unrelated to the reversals in the past. A magnetic dynamo outputs electromagnetism, a physical, measurable force. This force is independent of whatever direction its north pole is facing, up or down. However, a slower dynamo produces a weaker field. A slower dyamo cannot be sped up without applying external force to it. The Earth's magnetosphere has been slowly weakening, all the while it reversed poles in the past (due to the tectonic actions during the Flood, most likely).

+ + + + +

Shern, as to your last two posts, I look forward to hitting them. Unfortunately, I'm about to slip out of conciousness at 6AM.



Grace and peace.

 

[shernren]

I'm either in grave error with TEs, or your answer (and the vast majority of TEs I've talked with) do not affirm Noah's Flood as historic. Given that, answer me: why should you believe God will judge mankind in the future as outlined in Revelations? Exchange "history" with "future." What's the difference? Why not disbelieve Judgement Day as foreordained? "Surely God won't Judge mankind in the future! He's a God of love! Just as in history, God loved His creation too much to destroy it!" Where has my logic lapsed? (I'm reminded of Paul's use of ad hominem logic in 1 Cor 15:12-34.)

(underlines are added emphasis.)

Firstly, a correct premise may not necessarily yield a correct conclusion. Snakes are reptiles, Satan is a snake, therefore Satan is a reptile. What went wrong here is that an inappropriate premise (Satan is a snake) makes the whole argument wrong. How do you test the argument above? You wouldn't say "since the beginning assumption, 'snakes are reptiles', is correct, therefore the logical conclusion is correct." You would simply test the logical conclusion by asking "Is Satan a snake?", answer obviously not, and reject the whole thing.

What you have done is analogous: begin with an assumption, construct a logical chain, declare your chain watertight, and then challenge anyone to disprove your conclusion by disproving your assumption. On the other hand, if you have a correct assumption that leads to an incorrect conclusion, the chain is quite simply wrong. I believe that is the case. Why not just ask the TEs around here whether they do not believe in the afterlife or God's judgment of mankind in the future? Simply test the conclusion instead of having to bother with a logical chain that is quite possibly faulty.

And I think one fault in your logical chain is the above: assuming that "history" and "future" are interchangeable. Why should they be? The Biblical position on history appears to be linearly progressive - history has a defined beginning, direction, and end. Why should a description of the beginning of history be interchangeable with a description of the end of history? Just because there was no past global judgment of man, how does that prove that there is no future judgment of man? It's a little like saying that since a nuclear holocaust has never happened, it will never happen.

By the way, since one of the key popular creationist arguments is that "evolution requires a cruel God", I think it's rather ironic for you to accuse TEism of sentimentalizing God's love.

The weakening of the magnetic poles is unrelated to the reversals in the past. A magnetic dynamo outputs electromagnetism, a physical, measurable force. This force is independent of whatever direction its north pole is facing, up or down. However, a slower dynamo produces a weaker field. A slower dyamo cannot be sped up without applying external force to it. The Earth's magnetosphere has been slowly weakening, all the while it reversed poles in the past (due to the tectonic actions during the Flood, most likely).

This is why creationism is really more of a scientific myth than science per se at the folk* level: most people don't ever understand the science behind their statements. What you have stated is not actually the creationist argument, which is that "the total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field is constantly decreasing exponentially at a rate too high to be explained by any viable old-earth dynamo model." (If you want to know what the difference is between that and what you described, you can PM me. I don't feel like belaboring everyone else here with the details. ) And if you want to know why it doesn't work, read this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/magfields.html

which nowhere has to assume that the earth is old, only that its present internal structure matches current scientific assumptions. I know it's a little long, but it's a good example of what most creationist papers really look like at the level of normal scientific discussion.

*folk meaning at the typical populist level.

 

[chaoschristian]

We could sound this off the moutain top, trumpets blazing, and still don't think it would be heard.

Actions speak louder than words, and often the loudest one in the group has the most to hide.

So, are you requesting that all TEs submit CVs of works of faith to prove our theology? Would that satisfy you?

My point is that there are those who absolutely reject the Christian orthodoxy of the TE, regardless of the witness, the works or the clear articulation of a theological pov.

 

[Buho]

[Regarding global flood in past is to global wrath in future.]

First off, I correct myself: 1 Cor 15:12-34 isn't an ad hominem argument. It's a reductio ad absurdum argument. An argument like this assumes a claim for the sake of argument, works that out to its logical conclusion, arrives at an absurd conclusion, and then declares the original assumption incorrect.

I grant that perhaps my logical outworking is flawed. You attack my usage of "history" and "future". I am not putting the Flood into the future or putting the Appocolypse into the past; I am not rearranging the Bible. And saying "just because a nuclear holocaust never happened in the past does not mean it will never happen in the future" is a poor analogy. (1) A "nuclear holocaust" in the past was written about as seemingly "historical." (2) A "nuclear holocaust" in the future has been prophesised from God and God has a pretty good track record with being able to predict future events. Based on (2), I'm inclined to believe (1). Or based on (1), I'm inclined to believe (2). Your analogy is poor because you do not address the written account of (1), nor the assured prediction of (2).

My argument stands. I repeat my argument in full:

In the Bible are two written accounts of two instances of God's global wrath on mankind. One appears to be placed in the past and does not appear to be prophetic. One most definately appears to be prophetic and appears to coincide with things that have not yet happened, thus it is in the future. If one discounts the historical one as never happened in a specific point in our past, why should one then treat the future one as assured future prophecy of something that will most definately happen in the future? This is inconsistent logic! One is better to discount both or none! If one discounts both, then that means our souls were never in danger of being Judged. If we will never be Judged, then we have no need for a Propitiator. If we have no need for a Propitiator, what did Christ do on the cross? If Christ did nothing on the cross, "our faith is futile" (1 Cor 15:17) and God is an injust God.

By the way, since one of the key popular creationist arguments is that "evolution requires a cruel God", I think it's rather ironic for you to accuse TEism of sentimentalizing God's love.

I don't think it's ironic. I think I'm pointing out what is. I think those two notions are inconsistent within TE theology. You disagree? To which half do you object? Actually, I think TEs are sentimentalizing God's injustice which is paramountly twisted.

[Degrading magnetosphere.]

The Talk.Origins article is a good launching point for further study for myself. Thanks. I haven't studied this argument in depth, so I appologize if I dropped a PRATT -- I did not mean to. I just skimmed the TO article and noticed that the only attack on the data is the lack of +/- for each measurement, and he does not address any recent (precise) data over the past 50 years that may (or may not) suggest a decrease in magnetic moment, nor does he address archaeological magnetic estimates from 1000 years ago which show a higher moment (briefly noticed this on a Google search). The TO article seems to address the calculations only, not the data. *Shrug* Interesting stuff to read in the future.

there is NO TE theology (except for process theologians), TE's have the same theology as their churches

We could sound this off the moutain top, trumpets blazing, and still don't think it would be heard.

Actions speak louder than words, and often the loudest one in the group has the most to hide.

My point is that there are those who absolutely reject the Christian orthodoxy of the TE, regardless of the witness, the works or the clear articulation of a theological pov.

I think I missed Willaim's original point and instead keyed in on your response only.

So, TEs claim TEs have no theology that's different than Reformed Protestant theology. All right. I hear you. But is that true or do you decieve yourselves? See my reductio ad absurdium above.