RE: Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)
February 4, 2011 at 8:30 pm
(This post was last modified: February 4, 2011 at 8:48 pm by Statler Waldorf.)
Well it’s all based on averages and estimates. On average our galaxy encounters a supernova every 25 years. These supernova remnants could last for about a million years, reaching stage 3 after about 10,000 years. If the universe were 6,000 years old we’d expect to see about 125-150 stage 2 supernova remnants and zero stage 3 remnants because the galaxy has not been around long enough to produce any. We actually see about 200 stage 2 remnants and zero stage 3 remnants. This would put the estimated age of the Milky Way galaxy at around 7,000 years, which is pretty consistent with the Biblical age of 6000-7000 years. Of course this means the galaxy should not be any older than 10,000 years because we cannot see the stage 3 remnants. So there you go.
Proof? Sounds like personal opinion to me.
First of all, the fact that you had never heard of ASC is irrelevant. Secondly, you obviously have not read Einstein’s work on the subject because he does give it consideration and says he chose what is now called ESC not because ASC was wrong, but because he preferred a velocity-dependant convention rather than a position dependent one. That’s why we call these conventions, the math works with all of them, they just are preferences.
Yes I am sure two galaxies colliding is a pretty amazing event to witness. You have done nothing to demonstrate that they do not serve a purpose just like air molecules colliding do.
Actually if the person being stoned deserved a far worse death (as everyone does) it would make you gracious. Pretty simple. Grace is giving someone better than they deserve. Upon what standard can you say this is not just? Your own arbitrary one?
Well that’s what God says, I’ll take his word over yours.
Well relativity tells us that light does move in a way that makes it seem aware of a person’s velocity, two people at the same point in space but moving at different velocities would witness an event to take place at two different times. ASC uses a similar line of thought, only that light moves as if it is aware of a person’s position, not velocity. They both work with the calculations, so to say one is better than the other violates even what Einstein said, that there is no “true” measurement of time. Hence why these are conventions.
As to the person holding the mirror, they would see the light hit the mirror as soon as it was turned on. As to “when” this happened, this would be impossible to measure because in a relativistic universe it is impossible to synchronize the two clocks used in the experiment (one at observer A, one at observer B). I think you are thinking more in Newtonian or classic terms than relativistic terms.
Basic reading comprehension. You’ll notice I said that Luke says people saw Jesus. Many historians who never saw Nero still claim he existed and I will take their word for it. It is you who changes the height of the bar depending upon which historical figure we are talking about.
Not to mention your amazing inconsistency. Here you don’t believe in what Creationists claim apparently because they a in the minority and the great majority of scientists don’t believe in creation. However, then you turn around and give credence to an argument (Jesus was a myth) that the overwhelming majority of historians disagree with. After all, the idea was started by a man who was not a historian but was a professor of German (Wells). So you need to at least start being consistent. Even DickDawk, who would like nothing more than for Jesus to be a myth, admits in his book the God Delusion that Jesus “probably existed.” If you applied your same silly standards to other ancient historical figures you would have to say that none of them existed either.
What? No names are ever given? The apostles all witnessed miracles and their names are given (James being mentioned by the historian Josephus). Lazarus was raised from the dead and his name is given. Funny how some people who claim to read the bible obviously don’t.
I disagree, if the person truly knows the belief is a forgery (as the disciples would have if it were one) they are almost never willing to die for it.
Actually the mentions of Jesus by Josephus are accepted as valid by the vast majority of historians such as Dr. James Hannam who is a professor of history at Cambridge University. It’s just the cranks in the very small Jesus Myth crowd that do not accept these accounts. Josephus was very much alive during the time that James, brother of Jesus, would have been starting portions of the early church. Your argument is pretty silly, by your same logic you’d have to say that no historian today could say that Henry VIII was ever real because that historian was born after Henry VIII was born.
Well as I pointed out, that manuscript is a copy of the original, so it is safe to say the original could have very well been written within the same decade as Jesus’ death. It’s the “even centuries” part that people love to throw out there even though they are well aware or should at least be well aware that this was disproven a long time ago.
Well just like today, it is very easy actually to tell if something is a copy or the original because the copier indicates this on the manuscript. As for any changes, they would have been easy to spot once this manuscript was cross checked with other manuscripts found in other regions. It’s a good thing scripture was copied and spread around so quickly, so altering of it would have been impossible.
No sources huh? Oh well these historians of the day, were they Roman? If they were then I am sorry, you cannot use those because I cannot use the letters from the apostles since these could be biased sources. As for the artwork, how do you know they were depicting a real person with this artwork and not a legendary hero? I am sorry, you are going to have to do better.
My history professor would have failed you for belonging to the “Jesus Myth” crank club.
Look up the word “Suppress”, and maybe it will clear this up for you a bit.
Where did he say you can own slaves? Using your atheistic worldview, why would slavery in Bible times be morally wrong since you seem to assume this point?
What makes you think a fallen Angel and the Son of God would need one?
What are you talking about? It’s obviously a supernatural event because you can’t see all the kingdoms of the world from a single mountain top. It never says that when Jesus healed the blind that it was a supernatural event, but I know it was because you can’t naturally rub mud on someone’s eyes and have them be healed. Good grief. Let’s look at Jesus’ first miracle (supernatural event), does it say anywhere in the passage that it was supernatural? Nope! Yet we all know it had to be because water does not just turn into wine.
“Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.
8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine.” - John 2
Oh no, I just thought that was a bit of a dead horse. The Little Grand Canyon did not actually cut through ash, but rather sediment that had been laid down a few days earlier (600 feet worth). This is exactly what we believed happened at the Grand Canyon, the receding waters cut through thousands of feet of sediment laid down by the flood. To form a canyon you need either a lot of water in a very short period of time or a little water in a long period of time. Unfortunately for your side of the aisle we have never scientifically observed the latter to take place, though we have observed the former.
Oh no! I have one atheist trying to tell me that Jesus was never real, and now I have another one trying to tell me that he was, but he died and is not coming back. I just wish they’d be a little bit consistent.
Whew! Well it’s a good thing the USNAS is not the final authority on what is and is not science considering that Old Earth Darwinism would fall short of their definition too considering nobody can empirically test (observe) the descent of all life on earth from a common ancestor, or the earth being billions of years old, or the big bang for that matter. Hence, this is why this definition applies to operational sciences, not origins sciences. I assure you, there are plenty of creationists out there doing very good operational sciences.
Oh more Wikipedia I see. Yes creationists have pre-suppositions, just like every other scientist does (secular scientists pre-suppose the Bible is false), so to say this somehow disqualifies them from being Scientific is logically ridiculous. I guess Wiki must therefore think that Kepler, von Braun, and Newton were not scientists, which is a shame because I think they were some of the greatest ever, but it is Wikipedia after all.
Back-peddling I see. I don’t blame you. Well if we are going to play this game “Well prove every single claim you make with sources”, then I guess I can do it with you too. Fair is fair. It’s quite obvious that my claims are completely legitimate since I have been able to prove every single one with sources when we play this game.
I still have no idea why you make this argument. It’s obvious that believing in an old earth and evolution were also irrelevant since these men did not hold to them and still made contributions to science. Maybe believing in Darwinism and an old earth are not scientific because we don’t have to believe in them to do good science! Uh oh!
Of course Bailey supports the Oort Cloud Hypothesis! He is an old earth guy lol. Doesn’t change the fact that there is not observable evidence supporting its existence, but by all means keep believing it with blind faith.
Well I guess believing in an Old Earth and Darwinism are just religious faith positions because Newton did not hold to either and yet was still able to find his way into the history books for his work.
Wrong, the Oort cloud is in the textbooks because it saves the old universe paradigm from the observable evidence that “leads” away from it.
This is getting rather boring. Newton was fueled by pre-suppositions that must be held by someone before they can do any science. These pre-suppositions only have a rational basis in a biblical worldview. Secular scientists today hold these same pre-suppositions despite the fact that they have no rational basis to hold to them, other than they work for science. So Newton was making discoveries because of his worldview, secular scientists only make discoveries in spite of their worldview.
As to your “modern science” did not come from religion canard (which flies in the face of Whitehead’s work on the subject)…
“The philosophy of experimental science … began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation… It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption.’2 ”
- Loren Eiseley, Evolutionary Anthropologist
“Science was not the work of western secularists or even deists; it was entirely the work of devout believers in an active, conscious, creator God.”3
- Rodney Stark, Sociologist
“ Furthermore and contrary to popular belief, the Church never supported the idea that the earth was flat, never banned human dissection, never banned zero and certainly never burnt anyone at the stake for scientific ideas.”
- James Hannam, Scientific Historian, Cambridge University.
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““Strange as it may seem, the Bible played a positive role in the development of science. …
Had it not been for the rise of the literal interpretation of the Bible and the subsequent appropriation of biblical narratives by early modern scientists, modern science may not have arisen at all. In sum, the Bible and its literal interpretation have played a vital role in the development of Western science.”8
- Dr. Peter Harrison, Professor of History and Philosophy, Bond University
““Here is a final paradox. Recent work on early modern science has demonstrated a direct (and positive) relationship between the resurgence of the Hebraic, literal exegesis of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of the empirical method in modern science. I’m not referring to wooden literalism, but the sophisticated literal-historical hermeneutics that Martin Luther and others (including Newton) championed.”9
- Dr. Stephen Snobelen, Professor of History of Science and Technology, University of King’s College
““It was, in part, when this method was transferred to science, when students of nature moved on from studying nature as symbols, allegories and metaphors to observing nature directly in an inductive and empirical way, that modern science was born. In this, Newton also played a pivotal role. As strange as it may sound, science will forever be in the debt of millenarians and biblical literalists.”9
- Dr. Stephen Snobelen
Now I am sure you will conveniently say, “Well I already knew that modern science came out of religion, I was just making you cite your sources Statler.” Lol.
There would be signs that your senses were not reliable? How would you know about these signs without using your senses?
We have machines that can test our senses? How did we build these machines without using our senses in the first place? How do we read the outputs of these machines without using our senses? How do you know you went to the doctor and took a color blindness test? Because you saw the eye doctor? Again, just using your senses to test your senses. How do you know the two people’s senses are just not unreliable in the same fashion? After all, a board will look to bend as it enters water to everyone, even though we do not consider this a reliable observation.
Documents and videos huh? Without using your memory, how could you possibly know these are reliable? It’s a presupposition we all make.
What? I don’t really have to presuppose the future will resemble the past because I have a biblical reason for believing this. However, you have no rational basis to believe the future will resemble the past.
Not a straw man at all. You said naturalism is supported by the evidence, but only naturalistic explanations are allowed in operational sciences, so to say this would be circular.
Again, what are you talking about? You’ll notice I never said the laws of logic came from Christianity, I said they came from creation; the laws of logic are reflections of how God thinks. So the fact they pre-date Christianity is irrelevant.
So you don’t have to presuppose their existence and usage huh? Please tell me why a person should be logical, and why in your worldview there should never be contradictions. But be careful; do not use the laws of logic to tell me these things because that would of course be begging the question!
Yes and one of those objections to creationism is that it is apparently not falsifiable, and yet you said above that you have refuted its claims. So how did you do this if the theory is not falsifiable? Can’t have it both ways.
It’s obvious Newton also did not have to believe in an old earth or evolution to do his science since he didn’t. So I guess believing in an old earth and evolution is not scientific by your odd definition at least.
Oh brother, moving the goal posts again. So von Braun believed God created man, but he also could have believed in abiogensis and evolution? Give me a break. He clearly believed that God created man, not that God created the first life which later turned into man millions of years later. He is always thrown in with the YEC greats, so unless you can provide me with some evidence that he believed in an old earth, I will assume he believed in a young one.
So now he has to make contributions to the Creation community to be a creation scientist? What kind of game are we playing here? Well that’s easy, there are dozens of scientists who have made contributions to both the operational sciences AND the creation community. So I guess your initial claim has been refuted.
Yes they did, and of course Math and Science are only possible if the Biblical worldview is correct.
Nope, the one way speed of light cannot be directly measured because you cannot synchronize the two clocks needed due to relativity. It is calculated by round trip measurements.
This is still done with a round trip, because to do a one way trip would require the clock on voyager to be synchronized with the clock on earth, which cannot be done due to special relativity (motion affects the passage of tme). I am a bit surprised you would even attempt to ‘disprove’ ASC with this method, since clock synchronizations in these experiments are done using the ESC, so of course they show that the speed of light moves the same in all directions. However, if we synchronized the same clocks using ASC, they would show us that light does not move the same in all directions. This was all covered in Lisle’s paper, a paper you claimed to have read, so why you would make this error is beyond me.
I should have phrased my statement better, time is affected by velocity, since velocity has a time component two observers at the same point moving at different speeds would indeed witness an event to take place at different times under ESC, but not ASC.
You are absolutely right, according to clocks that have been synchronized using ESC, light moves the same in all directions, as to why you would use this to argue against another synchrony convention is still beyond me. It’s getting rather boring actually.
Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t care what Einstein though, he chose ESC because he preferred it, not because it was more valid.
As to why you would put “Dr” in quotes is also beyond me, maybe Doctorates in Astrophysics from Universtiy of Colorado are not real doctorates in your warped world, but for the rest of us they are.
Ok, now I know you didn’t read the paper. If you did, you would know that the paper was published in a scientific peer review journal, and nobody has posted any peer reviewed work refuting it.
The Data are all in the paper you claimed to but obviously didn’t read.
Most people realize that once you choose a frame of reference you don’t then move that frame of reference like you have done. If the earth is my frame of reference I have chosen then it does not move. If you start describing your frame of reference’s motion then you must choose a different frame of reference to relate it to. The verse has no issues.
Maybe I am just missing the point, but please show me in any of the articles you posted where it says we can determine how long my grandfather’s telomeres were 160 generations ago. I think you will have some trouble doing that considering the word telomere doesn’t even appear in those articles. Rather, some new research has been done looking at the reduction in human life-spans in scripture and the reduction follows a nice sigmoid curve which is very common in nature. So looks like mans shortening life-spans could have been a very natural occurrence and increases in the last few hundred years are just due to better medicine and nutrition. Either way, many scientists do not see any problem with the long life-spans mentioned in scripture. I would think that if scripture was a fraud the people making it up would not have put in something apparently so incredible in it.
The genome doesn’t tend towards entropy? LOL, somehow it magically violates thermodynamics! Nice! You should read Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Human Genome By J.C. Sanford. Of course he is probably one of those geneticists that you claim do not exist.
Well it’s a good thing scripture doesn’t assume evolution happened then huh? As to why you would use data gathered using evolutionary assumptions to argue against scripture, I have no idea.
Just more fluff. So if I provide you with medical doctors and geneticists who believe in a young earth and the long life-spans in the Bible will this effectively refute your point? Somehow I think it won’t, you’ll just move the goal-posts again.
I figured you couldn’t demonstrate the Bible teaches man has a free will when it comes to salvation.
My analogy stands because Adam chose to sin, and he was mankind’s representative. So we all deserve death and punishment due to original sin. God does grant common grace to all and saving grace to some, since we all deserve way worse than we get. That all seems pretty loving to me.
According to whom is it not just and just plain evil? You? Lol.
Well how about you answer my question first. When parents violate rules that they have designed for their children does this make them hypocrites?
Actually Christ’s death and suffering was in order to preserve God’s justice, if God had granted man grace and those crimes had gone without punishment then this would be injustice. This is contrary to God’s very nature, and so Christ had to atone for the sins of God’s chosen people (Israel and now the new Israel, the Church). This is why Christ had to be blameless and sinless, which he was. So Christ’s death actually was a loving and beautiful act by both God and Christ himself. I would encourage you to read “The Death of Death” by John Owen. It’s a tough read but well worth it. Since you also seem to have issues with the whole free will thing, you should also read “The Freedom of the Will” by Jonathan Edwards (The Puritan Theologian not the silly psychic lol). However, I think someone should make a theology thread (maybe one already exists?) since this doesn’t really pertain to YEC.
I actually think it is you who is being a bit dishonest here. Yes Dahmer did blame a lot of his atrocities on the devil, but I believe this was part of his attempt at being declared insane. Either way, when you say that Dahmer only blamed atheism once he was a Christian, I feel this is completely dishonest on your part. If you watch the video it is pretty clear that these were Dahmer’s words while he was still unremorseful and was talking to his father. I find it funny that you would say Dahmer was not an atheist despite the fact that the video says he lost his religion during the killings and he himself said his beliefs were atheistic. Sounds like you are just trying to twist the facts here.
Could you please tell me how Dahmer was acting inconsistently with his atheistic worldview? I can surely tell you how he was acting inconsistent with a Christian worldview.
It’s easy! Dawkins has said time and time again that he believes we act according to the natural processes in our brains so that criminals should not be punished for their crimes but rather rehabilitated. He makes the point that you wouldn’t punish a car for breaking down, you’d get it fixed. He calls men committing sex acts on little boys an “embarrassing but otherwise harmless” experience for the boys in The God Delusion. Then he turns around and calls for the arrest and punishment of the Pope for covering up sex crimes. Inconsistency at its finest!
He also makes claims in his books that morals are relative to one’s society, but then turns around and says that what the people did in the old testament was morally wrong. Of course if morals were relative to a society, if the the Israelites were doing was morally acceptable to their society then he has no basis to call it wrong. Inconsistency again!
Now let’s look at Hitchens. He says in his book, “God is not Great” that his biggest objection to the God of the Bible is that he is a “Nanny God.” He is always watching over his children and getting in their business and does not let them do what they want to do. Then Hitchens turns around and advocates larger governments such as the US to invade other countries and remove dictators because of crimes committed in these countries. If Hitchens was consistent he’d hate “Nanny Countries” just as much as he hates the “Nanny God”, yet he advocates them.
Let’s look at you! You say that you choose to give human life value, but then you turn around and condemn those who don’t make this choice which applies this is not really something a person determines for themselves. Inconsistency again!
I am not saying that atheists cannot act morally; given common grace they can do it just like anyone else. They just have no logical or rational basis to be moral. Could you please tell me how Stalin was acting in a manner that was inconsistent with his atheistic worldview? I can show you how he was inconsistent with a Christian worldview.
Well there are most likely fewer atheists in prison because many of them are atheists while committing their crimes and then convert once they reach prison (such as Dahmer). Show me a study that atheists actually commit less crimes and maybe we can address the issue more.
As to whether the leader of the Klan is a creationist or not (can you prove he is a young earth creationist since I always have to do that) seems a bit irrelevant considering that Stalin and Hitler both believed in Evolution and an old earth and they murdered millions. I don’t believe this man has murdered anyone. Anyways, why would white supremacy being “wrong” in your worldview? I don’t see any non-biblical basis for saying it is wrong.
However, I can provide a biblical basis for it. We are told that “all descendants of Adam” are God’s creation and made in his own image. The Bible also makes it clear that man is saved regardless of his skin color (the Ethiopian is saved).
You are committing the “Is/Ought Fallacy” here; just because many humans naturally want to help other humans (which is debatable considering many humans apparently choose not to help one another) does not mean this is the way things ought to be. This would be like saying a lion that does not eat meat is acting in a way that is morally wrong because it is in lions’ nature to eat meat. Makes no sense.
Ahh, so which definition if murder is correct? Or is it completely arbitrary? If I create a country and we define murder as “the killing of an innocent straight white male”, could you say this was morally wrong? If so, how?
Probably due to the fact that it is so internally inconsistent that you have difficulty articulating it to others. Mine is easy to explain to others because it is very internally consistent.
Oh you can’t provide me with an example where radiometric dating has accurately dated a rock of observed known age? I didn’t think so. I have no reason to believe the method works on rocks of unknown ages then. That would be like believing a man when he says, “I can turn invisible, but only when nobody is watching.”
I find it equally amusing reading your posts. I mean the overall ignorance towards common literary uses of metaphoric and symbolic language is laughable. Your inability to address issues face on is also quite hysterical. Like posting articles about dinosaurs and bird genetics (which of course giving chicken teeth in no way logically proves chickens are related to dinosaurs) when we are actually talking about human telomere lengths? Classic. Or to not understand the clock synchronization is done with synchrony conventions? Or to just cry “straw-man” whenever a point is brought up that you don’t know how to respond to. To also show a great and astounding ignorance for basic theological issues like soteriology and the bondage of the human will. Although I guess I would expect this since you have no formal education in theology. I am beginning to suspect you don’t even have a formal scientific education past high school huh? Backhanded insults are fun aren’t they?
Now that I got that out of the way, I will say this. I do have more respect for you than most posters on here because you do actually do research and will attempt to back your beliefs up. I do not agree with you on much, but I do respect your efforts.
I am sorry, I just find it funny that you would call other people ignorant when your post reeks of impropper grammar and several spelling errors. Just made me smile.
Well I am off to Vegas for some down time, but I figured I'd post this video since I thought it was hilarious and I'd figure you guys would too. Maybe some common ground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9SS95q2kpg
