Why the Gap theory makes sense

[theFijian]

Yes. I would agree with their philosophy to a point. The correctly questioned a great many institutions that deserved it. How about the Church? Some of that was deserved. How about evolution, a la AIG's caution to "flee the temples"? I would apply the argument there. (No evolutionist need concede AIG's point, it is simply an illustration.) Implied in the post-modernist philosophy is the question of whether real knowledge is possible. That is a very good question. The Bible says it is, but on its terms.

So would a guy as smart and educated as you explain how postmodernism and biblical innerancy work well together?

 

[shernren]

My comment was as gratuitous as that by fijian, except that my comment on its face was intended to demonstrate what a gratuitous comment is. If my comment is taken as a real assessment of his intelligence, well maybe that ironically makes the point that was unintended.

Anyone who knows what postmodernism is would also gather that I understand it from the very clear post on that point.

Except that I didn't find TheFijian's comment gratuitous at all. It was a genuine question being posed to someone who seems to be brandishing around a weapon he has hardly looked at, like so many creationists. I also appreciate the thinly-veiled insult: if one accepts your logic, then if I think you do not understand postmodernism, then I must not know what it is, yes? Pot, meet kettle.

As it is, I think this post:

Think about it. If man could do such a great job at defining truth, why would you need a revealed Word of God? The only quibble with post-modernism as it is usually presented is that it presumes to put the creations of man on the same footing with the Word of God. Otherwise, the concept works quite well for those who advocate an inerrant word.

Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

As for whether you know what post-modernism is, never mind the criticism. Lots of us have plenty of experience with that dismissive attitude.

is far less clear than this:

Yes. I would agree with their philosophy to a point. The correctly questioned a great many institutions that deserved it. How about the Church? Some of that was deserved. How about evolution, a la AIG's caution to "flee the temples"? I would apply the argument there. (No evolutionist need concede AIG's point, it is simply an illustration.) Implied in the post-modernist philosophy is the question of whether real knowledge is possible. That is a very good question. The Bible says it is, but on its terms.

and the latter shows even more that you don't seem to "get" postmodernism. The questioning of social authorities is just a byproduct, not a central feature, of postmodernism. And what is central to it? The questioning of text. Derrida's deconstruction, Quine's ontological relativity, Foucault's "language is oppression". Look, for example, at the strong discussion you are having in the Creationist subforum with holdon and Biblewriter about Gap Theory. You believe they are wrong, and they believe you are wrong, and both believe that they believe what they believe based simply on the basis of the text.

To a postmodernist, you people have just deconstructed the Bible. Well done.

I'm comfortable with postmodernism. Are you sure you should be?

 

[livingword26]

Martin Luther once said the following in response to the idea that the earth revolves around the sun:

So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth [Jos. 10:12]

I wonder what he would think of YECs today? Perhaps we would have thought they, too, were taking a "post-modern" view of the Bible; accepting what the Bible has to say about the creation of the earth, but rejecting what it says about geocentrism (or relegating such references to 'metaphor').

Of course, if we tried understanding the Scriptures as their original audience did, we wouldn't be so concerned about pulling science from a book written about spirituality, thereby avoiding a post-Englightenment mindset altogether.

Perhaps if he would have studied what the scripture said, in stead of what the Catholic church had taught him, he would have understood better. If you were to write the verses below with the knowledge you have about the solar system, would you write it differently. Do we not all refer to the moon and the sun as "moving across the sky"? These verses do not say that the sun revolves around the earth.

Jos 10:12-13
(12) Then Joshua spoke to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun! Stand still on Gibeon! And, moon, stand still in the valley of Aijalon!
(13) And the sun stood still, and the moon stood still, until the people had avenged themselves on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? And the sun stood still in the midst of the heavens, and did not hasten to go down about a whole day.

 

[holdon]

Look, for example, at the strong discussion you are having in the Creationist subforum with holdon and Biblewriter about Gap Theory.

To a postmodernist, you people have just deconstructed the Bible. Well done.

We have deconstructed the Bible??? Maybe in your view. But then it is possible too that you might have a different biblical construct or a different Bible. Just because we do take God at His Word(s), we do find it useful to argue about how we understand them. But if those words don't mean a thing, or rather that you can give them any meaning YOU want, of course it may seem futile.

I'm comfortable with postmodernism. Are you sure you should be?

It's pretty clear you are comfortable. But what does that mean? So, is a pig in the mud.

 

[USincognito]

Nice chop job.

Time to recalibrate your meter then. But by what standard would you do that anyway?

Dang, and I'd just hooked up a new irony meter...

Where did I claim this?

You specifically didn't, but if you check back I used "you" in the plural when I wrote "possessors". Now either we can mince about who said what specifically or we can discuss the general claims of Creationists who say reality itself is up to the "interpretation" of the individual and is just as valid.

Based on what you're just alleging hereabove, it is you who displays cognitive (check your sp. by the way) dissonance. And "shaking your head" doesn't help.

I work nights, that was an SDT*. No instead of just suggesting I'm being cognitively dissonant, with what I posted, why don't you show how I'm being so?

*Sleep Deprived Typo.

 

[USincognito]

"A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal."

That's a fantastic definition because it sums up exactly my point about how Creationists assert we all have the same data (aka reality, or mountains in my specific example) and yet individuals can "interpret" that data as they see fit and have their conclusion be just as valid as anybody elses.

Thanks for buttressing my point.

 

[livingword26]

That's a fantastic definition because it sums up exactly my point about how Creationists assert we all have the same data (aka reality, or mountains in my specific example) and yet individuals can "interpret" that data as they see fit and have their conclusion be just as valid as anybody elses.

Thanks for buttressing my point.

However you are not addressing scripture, but science. Do you have a specific verse you are referring to?

 

[shernren]

Perhaps if he would have studied what the scripture said, in stead of what the Catholic church had taught him, he would have understood better.

You do realize that we're talking about Martin Luther? Sola Scriptura, Reformation, nailed his theses to the door Martin Luther?

You may accuse him of any number of things, but saying that he did not know the Scriptures well is a bold and in-credible argument.

 

[busterdog]

Except that I didn't find TheFijian's comment gratuitous at all. It was a genuine question being posed to someone who seems to be brandishing around a weapon he has hardly looked at, like so many creationists. I also appreciate the thinly-veiled insult: if one accepts your logic, then if I think you do not understand postmodernism, then I must not know what it is, yes? Pot, meet kettle.

As it is, I think this post:



is far less clear than this:



and the latter shows even more that you don't seem to "get" postmodernism. The questioning of social authorities is just a byproduct, not a central feature, of postmodernism. And what is central to it? The questioning of text. Derrida's deconstruction, Quine's ontological relativity, Foucault's "language is oppression". Look, for example, at the strong discussion you are having in the Creationist subforum with holdon and Biblewriter about Gap Theory. You believe they are wrong, and they believe you are wrong, and both believe that they believe what they believe based simply on the basis of the text.

To a postmodernist, you people have just deconstructed the Bible. Well done.

I'm comfortable with postmodernism. Are you sure you should be?

Congratulations on sacrificing reason to the overwhelming desire to concede nothing. Again and again and again.

 

[busterdog]

Originally Posted by shernren
It was a genuine question * * *

* * *
To a postmodernist, you people have just deconstructed the Bible. Well done.

So would a guy as smart and educated as you explain how postmodernism and biblical innerancy work well together?

Wittgenstein was probably gay. I like and use Wittgenstein's reason. By your lights, what does that make me?

How about this. God is love. Love is blind. Ray Charles is Blind. Ray Charles is god.

The least credible arguments see no reason in the opponent's view. They stoop lowest and seem least reasonable when they use any association to pretend to presume equivalence to reject an argument. And once again, you are incredible.

 

[livingword26]

You do realize that we're talking about Martin Luther? Sola Scriptura, Reformation, nailed his theses to the door Martin Luther?

You may accuse him of any number of things, but saying that he did not know the Scriptures well is a bold and in-credible argument.

Yes, I know who Martin Luther is and I know what sola scriptura is. I also know what it is like to be in bondage to lies that you learned before you got saved. Martin Luther was a great man, and the reformation he was a part of was lead by God. But he was not perfect. He also shared some of John Calvins beliefs, which were not perfect either, to say the least. All of that aside, do you think that the scripture in question says that the earth revolves around the sun?

 

[theFijian]

Wittgenstein was probably gay. I like and use Wittgenstein's reason. By your lights, what does that make me?

How about this. God is love. Love is blind. Ray Charles is Blind. Ray Charles is god.

The least credible arguments see no reason in the opponent's view. They stoop lowest and seem least reasonable when they use any association to pretend to presume equivalence to reject an argument. And once again, you are incredible.

For someone so well educated, you aren't particularly articulate as I have absolutely no idea what that has to do with my question. You claimed postmodernism and biblical inerrance work well together, can you explain without being a drama queen?

 

[busterdog]

You can all have the last word.

 

[Mallon]

Perhaps if he would have studied what the scripture said, in stead of what the Catholic church had taught him, he would have understood better. If you were to write the verses below with the knowledge you have about the solar system, would you write it differently.

Exactly.
I might write them differently because hindsight is 20:20 and science has given us a better appreciation of the workings of the universe since Luther's day. Luther, not having appreciated the recent work of Copernicus, rejected the science of heliocentrism in favour of a "plain" reading of the Bible (the same way YECs reject evolution today). Our current acceptance of heliocentrism stems not from the Bible, but from the findings of science. Trace Luther's scientific ignorance back a few thousand years to those early, nomadic Hebrews that penned Genesis, and you've made an even stronger case for why the book was never meant to speak of science.

(Edit: I just realized the quote above was a question [lacking punctuation, so I misread it]. Regardless, I still stand by my point that if we expect to get science out of the Bible, then our interpretation of it will change continuously as our scientific knowledge grows. I am advocating that we instead read the Bible as its original audience would have, seeing past whatever scientific ramnifications might be there, given that the first Jews weren't interested in science.)

 

[USincognito]

However you are not addressing scripture, but science. Do you have a specific verse you are referring to?

My original response to you was about neither Scripture nor science. It was about the Creationist concept that we can "interpret" reality itself, since there are no truths, only the observation and biases of the individual how they "interpret" why they observe - exactly what the definition you found sufficient for post-moderism said.

Again, I get back to the "interpretation" of mountain ranges being 4,000 or 400,000,000 years old and both "interpretations" being equally valid (at least in Creationist terms) because the observation is viewed through a biased cultural lens. That is, as I stated several days ago, the ultimate expression of post-modernism.

I will gladly argue the science of the age of mountains in another discussion or a tangent in this one if you (or anyone else) wish, and others are more informed on the post-modernist view of Scripture (good timing on the lecture Shernren), but my point is singular, simple and substantial - to suggest that reality itself is "interpreted" by the individual is post-modernism in it's most obvious form.

 

[shernren]

You can all have the last word.

Then let me say it again: never let it be said that we evolutionists are the uncivil ones.

It's pretty clear you are comfortable. But what does that mean? So, is a pig in the mud.

Congratulations on sacrificing reason to the overwhelming desire to concede nothing. Again and again and again.

Wittgenstein was probably gay. I like and use Wittgenstein's reason. By your lights, what does that make me?

How about this. God is love. Love is blind. Ray Charles is Blind. Ray Charles is god.

The least credible arguments see no reason in the opponent's view. They stoop lowest and seem least reasonable when they use any association to pretend to presume equivalence to reject an argument. And once again, you are incredible.

 

[shernren]

Yes, I know who Martin Luther is and I know what sola scriptura is. I also know what it is like to be in bondage to lies that you learned before you got saved. Martin Luther was a great man, and the reformation he was a part of was lead by God. But he was not perfect. He also shared some of John Calvins beliefs, which were not perfect either, to say the least. All of that aside, do you think that the scripture in question says that the earth revolves around the sun?

I don't think so, and neither do you; but it is clear that at a time in history, before people scientifically knew that the earth orbited the sun, people took Scripture as an authority on par or higher than physical evidence to declare that the sun orbited the earth. Again, it is clear that once people scientifically knew that the earth orbited the sun, the viewpoint that Scripture authoritatively declared the opposite was all but abandoned within half a century.

These are indisputable facts. You may not agree with what they did, but you should agree that it is what they did. And now the question becomes, whether or not you agree with what they did, why did they do it? The timing by itself proves nothing, what with post hoc ergo propter hoc.

But looking at the documentary evidence we have it is clear that they genuinely believed the Scriptures to be a physical authority over the physical workings of the universe; furthermore, they considered any questioning of that authority tantamount to questioning the theological authority of Scripture; furthermore, they considered this authority vested in the literal interpretation of Scripture.

For consider, say, the discussion about Tobit's dog. This was a discussion that Galileo and others had had with the Church a bit before geocentrism and it goes like this. The Book of Tobit is a book in the Apocrypha describing the trials and journeys of a young man named Tobit and the consequences for his family. One verse (IIRC) mentions Tobit's dog. The question then is: if someone denied that Tobit's dog existed, is s/he a heretic? And the answer that the Church gave was that s/he is. Voltaire satirized this thus:

What is a persecutor? He whose wounded pride and furious fanaticism arouse princes and magistrates against innocent men, whose only crime is that of being of a different opinion. "Impudent man! you have worshipped God; you have preached and practiced virtue; you have served man; but I have discovered that you despise me, and have never read my controversial work. You know that I am a rogue; that I have forged G[od]'s signature, that I have stolen. You might tell these things; I must anticipate you. I will, therefore, go to the confessor [spiritual counselor] of the prime minister, or the magistrate; I will show them, with outstretched neck and twisted mouth, that you hold an erroneous opinion in relation to the cells in which the Septuagint was studied; that you have even spoken disrespectfully ten years ago of Tobit's dog, which you asserted to have been a spaniel, while I proved that it was a greyhound. I will denounce you as the enemy of God and man!" Such is the language of the persecutor; and if precisely these words do not issue from his lips, they are engraved on his heart with the pointed steel of fanaticism steeped in the bitterness of envy ...
​

http://teacher.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/mmontgomery/world_history/dem_ideals/voltaire.htm (emphasis added)

The fact that the book of Tobit isn't in the Protestant canon affects this little; one can conjure up any similarly small detail which is in our canon, such as the number of water jars in the courtyard when Jesus turned water into wine at Cana.

This same attitude led the men of that day to believe that the Scriptures tell us that the sun goes around the earth, and that to believe otherwise is a crime against Christianity.

 

[theFijian]

You can all have the last word.

All you need to do is articulate and we can get somewhere. As it is you act like you know what you're talking about but when you're asked to articulate, explain or expand on something you throw a hissy and stomp off in a huff. Is this what being highly educated does to people?