I said it would be deception if God were to make an earth that appeared to be old but in fact was young. It has nothing to do with misinterpreting.How so? Just because God does something that we interpret wrongly or not understand is not deceptive. We are limited to 5 senses and 4 dimensions. God is not.
If time is linear.I said it would be deception if God were to make an earth that appeared to be old but in fact was young. It has nothing to do with misinterpreting.
In this particular case anyway it doesn’t apply because the earth is not young. Its about 4.5 billion years old!
Because I don’t believe in evolution. I don’t find that it has any sort of scientific merit or a smidgeon of empirical evidence to its name. Evolution would simply take way too long if we were to apply to apply the current theory of random and isolated mutations forming us as an end-result.Out of curiosity, why do you accept the age of the universe, but not the length of time that life has existed on earth?
Sidestep the issue? Why would the Church involve itself in the science of cosmology any more than it would make pronouncements on quantum mechanics or string or M-theory?Evolution is not considered incompatible with Church teaching, although the Church leaves the exact belief up to the individual catholic. Which is sad, I would have more respect for the Church if they did not sidestep the issue.
Your link was to an article about Setterfield’s work on the speed of light. I shall quote Answers in Genesis on the subject:The biggest difficulty, however, is with certain physical consequences of the theory. If c has declined the way Setterfield proposed, these consequences should still be discernible in the light from distant galaxies but they are apparently not. In short, none of the theory’s defenders have been able to answer all the questions raised.Speed of light slowing down?
Whoever wrote this for WND didn’t know much about abiogenesis. Biochemicals as complex as haemoglobin or chlorophyll did not “self assemble in the primordial goo”, they came along a lot later. The initial forms of life had no blood (haemoglobin) and did not photosynthesise (chlorophyll). This is a strawman argument.it’s still hard to imagine how complex biochemicals such as hemoglobin or chlorophyll self assembled in the primordial goo.
No, the answer is that you are questioning the wrong process. Haemoglobin did not self assemble in the primordial goo, it was assembled from pre-existing globin molecules. Now go and study the molecular makeup of haemoglobin, and its alpha and beta chains. After that study the other globin molecules, such as myoglobin. When you have done that you can ask you own questions rather than regurgiposting stuff from WorldNetDaily, which is not a good scientific reference.But to those of us who question the process, the answer is always the same. Time. More time than you can grasp – timespans so vast that anything is possible, even chance combinations of random chemicals to form the stunning complexities of reproducing life.
The church has been involved in issues of science for many centuries now.Sidestep the issue? Why would the Church involve itself in the science of cosmology any more than it would make pronouncements on quantum mechanics or string or M-theory?
More improbable than the sequence of events that lead to the formation of the earth in the first place? The universe has been around for 13.7 billion years, and it took 9.2 billion years for the forces to align such that the earth could be formed. I think that you underestimate, or misunderstand, evolution. We have plenty of fossil evidence that traces back the evolution of different species and branches of all living things over the last billion years or so.Because I don’t believe in evolution. I don’t find that it has any sort of scientific merit or a smidgeon of empirical evidence to its name. Evolution would simply take way too long if we were to apply to apply the current theory of random and isolated mutations forming us as an end-result.
Right you are. The Church is interested in faith and reason. They have been scientific advocates for centuries as you rightly point out.The church has been involved in issues of science for many centuries now.
M-theory really is not a theory yet, and religious people rarely go out of their way to provide ‘faith-based’ alternatives to quantum mechanics. However, there is a serious effort to undermine evolution for the sake of certain Christian beliefs. By sidestepping the issue, the Church is effectively putting evolution and creation on the same footing, which is a travesty.
This is known science, which I have already mentioned in this thread:It is hair-curling science. They looked at light from the most distant objects in the universe, quasars up to a billion times the size of our sun, which are 10 billion or 12 billion light years away.
“The light that comes to you from a quasar has been travelling for most of the age of the universe - several billion years - and it carries with it information about what happened to it along the way,” Murphy says.
On its long journey, the light from those quasars has passed through gas clouds full of metals. The photons in the light - little packets of energy that make up the light itself - interact with the electrons in the gas clouds, charged particles that orbit the nuclei of the metal atoms. This leaves a fingerprint on the light as it arrives on Earth, called the fine structure constant, Murphy explains.
When they measured the fine structure constant of this 12 billion-year-old light, Webb and Murphy found it was slightly smaller than it would be today. Mathematically, there were two possible reasons for this - either the electric charge of the electrons had increased, or the speed of light had fallen.
The problem for those who support a 6,000 year old earth is that the speed of light has been shown to be constant for 10 billion years. Even before 10 billion years a 0.001% change (if true) is not going to have a major effect on the measurement of the age of the universe.Astronomers have tested the speed of light out to 10 billion years ago by studying distant astronomical objects. The speed has been constant for that time. It is just possible that there was a very small change (less than 0.001%) before that, between 10 and 12 billion years ago. For details see Search for Time Variation of the Fine Structure Constant.
This is not a 6,000 yec argument.This is known science, which I have already mentioned in this thread:
The problem for those who support a 6,000 year old earth is that the speed of light has been shown to be constant for 10 billion years. Even before 10 billion years a 0.001% change (if true) is not going to have a major effect on the measurement of the age of the universe.
rossum
The Church has been an advocate of science and many persons within the Church, even clerics, have been scientists. But the Church’s mission is to proclaim the gospel, not evaluate scientific theses.The church has been involved in issues of science for many centuries now.
M-theory really is not a theory yet, and religious people rarely go out of their way to provide ‘faith-based’ alternatives to quantum mechanics. However, there is a serious effort to undermine evolution for the sake of certain Christian beliefs. By sidestepping the issue, the Church is effectively putting evolution and creation on the same footing, which is a travesty.
Actually, we don’t.More improbable than the sequence of events that lead to the formation of the earth in the first place? The universe has been around for 13.7 billion years, and it took 9.2 billion years for the forces to align such that the earth could be formed. I think that you underestimate, or misunderstand, evolution. We have plenty of fossil evidence that traces back the evolution of different species and branches of all living things over the last billion years or so.
Of course, this is a common assumption, but one which fails to take into account much of the biblical data. Indeed, the concept of divine “creation” in Scripture is more often providential than miraculous, properly speaking. For example, was not each one of us “created” by God? Of course. However, we also came to be through a nine-month material process of reproduction and gestation. It’s interesting that Job uses terminology almost identical to that of Genesis when he describes his own development in his mother’s womb:Creation is a miracle.
Of course God didn’t make us out of nothing. Dust has a little bit of everything in it. But that doesn’t automatically mean providence was a facilitating factor towards our existence. It’s not the fact that He made us out of stardust that sparks argument on miracles; it’s the switch from non-living matter to living matter that’s miraculous and gives us warrant to believe that He didn’t simply use providence in our creation.Of course, this is a common assumption, but one which fails to take into account much of the biblical data. Indeed, the concept of divine “creation” in Scripture is more often providential than miraculous, properly speaking. For example, was not each one of us “created” by God? Of course. However, we also came to be through a nine-month material process of reproduction and gestation. It’s interesting that Job uses terminology almost identical to that of Genesis when he describes his own development in his mother’s womb:
"Your hands fashioned and made me… Remember that you have made me of clay; and will you turn me to dust again?.. You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews…" (10:8-11).
Job describes his “creation” by God not in terms of a direct miracle, but in terms of an indirect, intermediate physical process common to all of us. Therefore, God’s bringing something into being is not always, or even usually, a miraculous divine zapping into existence out of nothing. More often, “creation” involves God working providentially through the physical laws and principles that he put in place at the start. And this is precisely the case with the scientific concept of organic evolution, which simply describes the providential activity of God in creation.
Don
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