ACLU Vs Creationism

[Brad]

Catholic2003:

Science doesn’t have all the answers. Good scientists don’t claim that it does. That doesn’t mean that the science curriculum should be a free-for-all of whatever fundamentalist Protestants want.

The consensus phylogenetic tree of all life can be found here.

Let’s take a pause here.

Some Catholics agree with some of the theories of the fundamentalist Protestants.

There is some Catholic Biblical scholarship that leave a lot to be desired. Simply calling Genesis a myth does not make it so.

This too was scholarship based on naturalistic presuppositions - they assume that the Divine cannot interact supernaturally with the natural. This is a bad assumption based on all the evidence to the contrary. Further, this world was created somehow by the Divine God - that was the supernatural interacting (creating) the natural - regardless if you believe in portions of evolution or not.

 

[Brad]

Catholic2003:

From a resolution of the AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest scientific organization in the world (emphasis in bold added):

There is simply no “big controversy” regarding evolution in the scientific community.

A lot of jobs are protected by this vigorous defense by “Big Brother” science.

 

[Catholic2003]

Brad:

Teach Intelligent Design as something other than science if you wish - but don’t demand that one can’t learn it.

I agree with this.

Brad:

On that note, a case could be made that evolutionary theory is more philosophy than science as well. Isn’t it scientists that had to (and still have to) presuppose naturalism to accept evolutionary theory? In other words, it is science that requires the elimination of God in order for students to truly accept it’s evolution theories.

No. I believe that God created the entire universe, including time, from nothing. When God created the rules of quantum mechanics that governed the universe, He could see that they led, through the process of evolution, to the creation of all living things. So God created evolution.

As I’ve said, there are some scientists who jump outside of the realm of science to make statements about God; what they are doing is no longer science.

Brad:

Is this any way to conduct learning? I’d say our schools need a revamping in how they educate students. How about you?

I think that understanding the scientific method is a key piece of knowledge that students need to learn. It certainly isn’t the only piece of knowledge.

 

[jlw]

Brad:

A lot of jobs are protected by this vigorous defense by “Big Brother” science.

Nooooooo, say it ain’t soooooooo? Ya don’t say??

 

[jlw]

Brad:

Intelligent design could be falsified if it were proven, for example, that the universe is not ordered or that human life can easily pop up on any planet or other celestial body. In fact, the latter is what today’s scientists have been feverishly trying to prove - I would suspect, in an effort to disprove the concept of Intelligent Design.

Seeing as many of todays scientists are invesigating Intelligent Design, it must be science to them. Mainstream science may mock them but that doesn’t make them wrong.

Brad, you are doing a much better job at articulalting this than I did yesterday.

 

[Catholic2003]

Brad:

Some Catholics agree with some of the theories of the fundamentalist Protestants.

You can be a good Catholic and believe that pi = 3 because the Bible says so. I just don’t want you teaching my daughter’s math class.

You can be a good Catholic and believe that the universe is 6000 years old. I just don’t want you teaching my daughter’s physics and astronomy classes. (Unfortunately, that is exactly what she is learning in school now - but that’s a problem with the local courts and how they handle custody matters.)

Catholicism teaches faith and morals, and leaves science to science. This is one of the reasons I became a Catholic.

 

[Brad]

Catholic2003:

No. The theory of gravity has no competing negative evidence that I’m aware of, and it is a valid part of science. It makes a prediction that if one were to suspend a 10 ton weight over the head of a creationist and remove the support, then the weight would fall and knock some sense into the creationist. If, contrary to this prediction, the 10 ton weight were to levitate, maybe with a beam of light from heaven illuminating the creationist, then the theory of gravity would be disproven. Not that I’m calling for volunteers or anything.

I’m not saying that I agree with all fundamentalist ways of interpreting the Bible. However, I will venture to say that science has never proven a single thing in the Bible false. There are different genres in the books, but each book is true.

Genesis is mostly historical narratives - thus I believe the majority of it to be literal history.

And, with the holes in evolutionary theory (especially as it is taught in schools - humans came from apes), I frankly don’t see how it is any more valid that creationism as an explanation of how human beings got started.

 

[Brad]

jlw:

Brad, you are doing a much better job at articulalting this than I did yesterday.

We have good days and bad days - that’s why we have each other.

 

[Brad]

Catholic2003:

You can be a good Catholic and believe that pi = 3 because the Bible says so. I just don’t want you teaching my daughter’s math class.

You can be a good Catholic and believe that the universe is 6000 years old. I just don’t want you teaching my daughter’s physics and astronomy classes. (Unfortunately, that is exactly what she is learning in school now - but that’s a problem with the local courts and how they handle custody matters.)

Catholicism teaches faith and morals, and leaves science to science. This is one of the reasons I became a Catholic.

Sorry but I’ve yet to see adequate dating methods that prove the age of the universe.

I mean really, how do we know the difference between 1.1 billion years and 500 million years. They say they are finding fossils this old? Sorry - they’d be dust particles scattered in the atmosphere after 500 million years.

Another vast oversight by the scientific community (because mainstream science continues to undermine the existence of God - you may say you believe but you have to check much of this belief at the door and discount chunks of scipture to be a respected scientist today) is that they don’t consider the possiblility that the universe was created aged.

In other words, do you think, when God created trees, he created them all at 1 mili-second old? Certainly he could create rocks that appear to be 300,000 years old using our flawed human dating systems that science knows are flawed.

 

[Brad]

Catholic2003:

You can be a good Catholic and believe that pi = 3 because the Bible says so. I just don’t want you teaching my daughter’s math class.

Where does the Bible say pi=3?

 

[Trelow]

The sea was then cast; it was made with a circular rim, and measured ten cubits across, five in height, and thirty in circumference.
Under the brim, gourds encircled it, ten to the cubit all the way around; the gourds were in two rows and were cast in one mold with the sea.
This rested on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east, with their haunches all toward the center, where the sea was set upon them.
It was a handbreadth thick, and its brim resembled that of a cup, being lily-shaped. Its capacity was two thousand measures. 1 Kings 7:23-26

Close enough for me.

 

[Brad]

Trelow:

The sea was then cast; it was made with a circular rim, and measured ten cubits across, five in height, and thirty in circumference.
Under the brim, gourds encircled it, ten to the cubit all the way around; the gourds were in two rows and were cast in one mold with the sea.
This rested on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east, with their haunches all toward the center, where the sea was set upon them.
It was a handbreadth thick, and its brim resembled that of a cup, being lily-shaped. Its capacity was two thousand measures. 1 Kings 7:23-26

Close enough for me.

Agreed. If anything, 3 would be a confirrmation of the Bible’s accuracy. This is not worth arguing over.

 

[Catholic2003]

Brad:

In other words, do you think, when God created trees, he created them all at 1 mili-second old? Certainly he could create rocks that appear to be 300,000 years old using our flawed human dating systems that science knows are flawed.

A space-time manifold that is truncated at 4004 B.C. (according to some particular reference frame) does not satisfy Einstein’s gravity equation in general relativity.

I’m not aware of any other equations proposed by young-Earth creationists.

 

[Catholic2003]

(because mainstream science continues to undermine the existence of God - you may say you believe but you have to check much of this belief at the door and discount chunks of scipture to be a respected scientist today)

I’ve had the opposite problem all my life until I became Catholic. Fundamentalist Protestantism undermines the study of science - you have to check your brain at the door and discount gigantic chunks of experimental evidence to be accepted as a “saved” member in good standing. I would think this would be enough to show fundamentalist Protestants the error of their ways.

Science does conflict with a literal interpretation of some scripture. Fortunately the Church does not require a literal interpration of those particular scriptures.

 

[buffalo]

Catholic2003:

So God designed the original DNA, but the DNA that we see today in all living things was produced by some other mechanism? Could this other mechanism be evolution?

Perhaps - or it could be devolution - as a result of the fall.

 

[Brad]

Catholic2003:

A space-time manifold that is truncated at 4004 B.C. (according to some particular reference frame) does not satisfy Einstein’s gravity equation in general relativity.

I’m not aware of any other equations proposed by young-Earth creationists.

How old did Einstein think the universe was and what method did he use? I don’t see how a gravity equation can verify the age of space, let alone earth.

 

[Brad]

Catholic2003:

Science does conflict with a literal interpretation of some scripture. Fortunately the Church does not require a literal interpration of those particular scriptures.

I agree. The problem I have is when any multiple-degreed individual (be they scientist or otherwise) refuses to believe that anything that cannot be abolutely verified today could not have happened and therefore, biblical stories such as the plagues and the crossing of the red sea have to be explained through solely natural means.

Like you said, the discipline of science consists of that which can be verified but that doesn’t encompass all of what has happened or all that is real.

 

[Catholic2003]

Brad:

I agree. The problem I have is when any multiple-degreed individual (be they scientist or otherwise) refuses to believe that anything that cannot be abolutely verified today could not have happened and therefore, biblical stories such as the plagues and the crossing of the red sea have to be explained through solely natural means.

Like you said, the discipline of science consists of that which can be verified but that doesn’t encompass all of what has happened or all that is real.

Wow, we’re agreed on something!

 

[Catholic2003]

Brad:

How old did Einstein think the universe was and what method did he use? I don’t see how a gravity equation can verify the age of space, let alone earth.

It’s not just 4004 B.C. specifically. Because partitioning the coordinates of a four-dimensional manifold into time and space axes is somewhat arbitrary, if the universe has a finite age, then the space extent of the universe at this earliest point in time must have been fairly small. That is, the “big bang” must have happened at 4004 B.C.

In other words, creating a fully-formed, already humongous universe at a definite point in time is not consistent with Einstein’s G = 8piT equation.

 

[buffalo]

Catholic2003:

It’s not just 4004 B.C. specifically. Because partitioning the coordinates of a four-dimensional manifold into time and space axes is somewhat arbitrary, if the universe has a finite age, then the space extent of the universe at this earliest point in time must have been fairly small. That is, the “big bang” must have happened at 4004 B.C.

In other words, creating a fully-formed, already humongous universe at a definite point in time is not consistent with Einstein’s G = 8piT equation.

Do his calculations account for the newly discovered data that says the speed of light has been slowing down? What factor does this have in our trying to do dating?