God created an aged Universe?

[kenofken]

This is all assuming that the kind of “science” you mention is true in the first place. Do you mean carbon dating, the same dating method that tells us that the most recent eruption of Mount St. Helens didn’t occur thirty years ago but millions of years ago? Modern dating methods all assume uniformitarianism, which is something that has not been proven yet.

Most old-earth Christians claim that they know which chapters of the Bible are literal and which are allegorical, poetic, etc. I do, too. I know that, as we can tell from Jesus’ reference to Genesis in defending traditional marriage, among other sources, Genesis was meant to be a historical record. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be so specific about ages of the patriarchs and such.

There is no credible evidence whatsoever which calls uniformitarianism into question, at least from the moment of the Big Bang forward. ALL of the work of a couple thousands years of natural science, and a couple hundred years of highly methodical science confirms it. You can’t get much better proof than that. I mean, gravity too is “just a theory” but I’ll still take a parachute if I decide to jump out of a plane any day soon. Carbon dating is like any other technology. It’s as good as the skill of the user and its own inherent limitations. It requires extreme care in the harvesting and preparation of samples. I’m not sure what study on Mt. St. Helens you’re referring to. There would be no reason to carbon date material from 30 years ago. For one, the margin of error for carbon dating on a good day is plus or minus 40 years. For another, the atomic testing of the 1950s and 60s has thrown a lot more carbon-14 into the atmosphere. Carbon dating newer material based on the usual assumptions of historical carbon will actually give you a date in the future.

 

[buffalo]

There is no credible evidence whatsoever which calls uniformitarianism into question, at least from the moment of the Big Bang forward. ALL of the work of a couple thousands years of natural science, and a couple hundred years of highly methodical science confirms it. You can’t get much better proof than that. I mean, gravity too is “just a theory” but I’ll still take a parachute if I decide to jump out of a plane any day soon. Carbon dating is like any other technology. It’s as good as the skill of the user and its own inherent limitations. It requires extreme care in the harvesting and preparation of samples. I’m not sure what study on Mt. St. Helens you’re referring to. There would be no reason to carbon date material from 30 years ago. For one, the margin of error for carbon dating on a good day is plus or minus 40 years. For another, the atomic testing of the 1950s and 60s has thrown a lot more carbon-14 into the atmosphere. Carbon dating newer material based on the usual assumptions of historical carbon will actually give you a date in the future.

How old are these?



or these round depressions?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[edwest2]

Here’s an answer that might possibly put a damper on things… who cares how God did it? He did it. God is good, everything else hasn’t the slightest relevance to faith.

Edit: Also, sorry for posting this simple answer in apologetic philosophy, but God’s goodness has got me hooked and I can’t stop sharing.

Obviously, it does matter, or these threads would not appear on a regular basis. Church teaching matters as well. The Church has infallibly ruled that the universe has a finite age. Impossible? No. There is also a Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

For some, the goal is to come here and preach the gospel of long ages. Why? To attempt to remove the idea of thousands of years from the argument. It has to be removed to allow time for certain natural processes to occur, or so they believe. It is hoped that by repeating billions of years often enough, some might abandon the idea of thousands of years.

Truth is truth. The Church is not just faith. What did Paul tell the people? If Christ is not risen then your faith is in vain. So, if Jesus did not actually die and rise again - for real - you’ve got nothing.

That is the other goal: to remove the reality of God acting in history and turning His actions into stories that teach a lesson only. A miracle - a real supernatural event - has been attributed to the intercession of Pope John Paul II. We’re supposed to ignore this tangible sign that God has made for us?

Peace,
Ed

 

[cassini]

Long-abandoned? I was always under the impression that creatio ex nihilo is often presupposed (I’m not ignorant of the ideas which critique this, though).

Hope you didn’t take me up wrong Patrick, but I did not mean that creation ex nihilo has been abandoned, for the dogma ex nihilo does indeed presuppose everything. It is the theology arising from direct creation of each creature, from cosmic to flora to fauna in that order- one that I hold - that has been abandoned for an evolutionary creation theology based on fallable human reasoning.

 

[cassini]

There is no credible evidence whatsoever which calls uniformitarianism into question, at least from the moment of the Big Bang forward. ALL of the work of a couple thousands years of natural science, and a couple hundred years of highly methodical science confirms it. You can’t get much better proof than that. I mean, gravity too is “just a theory” but I’ll still take a parachute if I decide to jump out of a plane any day soon. Carbon dating is like any other technology. It’s as good as the skill of the user and its own inherent limitations. It requires extreme care in the harvesting and preparation of samples. I’m not sure what study on Mt. St. Helens you’re referring to. There would be no reason to carbon date material from 30 years ago. For one, the margin of error for carbon dating on a good day is plus or minus 40 years. For another, the atomic testing of the 1950s and 60s has thrown a lot more carbon-14 into the atmosphere. Carbon dating newer material based on the usual assumptions of historical carbon will actually give you a date in the future.

There is, among the Protestants, a massive amount of scientific study done examining and rejecting all the so-called ‘evidence’ that supposedly confirms a Big Bang to a 15.5 billion year old earth. Only when one reads these studies does one get a balanced view of science itself when trying to confirm or not ages and origins of cosmic bodies. It is HOW genuine evidence is interpreted that decides truth in this particular area of ‘science.’ It matters not a whit if 99% prefer the old earth interpretation and 1% the young earth interpretation, both choices are choices.

For example, as I understand it, one volcanic Island that is known to have arisen out of the sea 200 years ago can be dated millions of years old if one uses the current dating methods.

**‘I mean, gravity too is “just a theory” but I’ll still take a parachute if I decide to jump out of a plane any day soon.’**No, gravity is not a theory, gravity is a fact, the name we gave to an effect we witness, like things falling to the ground as you say. Newton and Einstein were the ones that suggested causes for these effects we know are present on earth, the moon and other cosmic bodies. It is their ideas as to what causes gravity that are the theories, not gravity itself.

 

[kenofken]

There is, among the Protestants, a massive amount of scientific study done examining and rejecting all the so-called ‘evidence’ that supposedly confirms a Big Bang to a 15.5 billion year old earth. Only when one reads these studies does one get a balanced view of science itself when trying to confirm or not ages and origins of cosmic bodies. It is HOW genuine evidence is interpreted that decides truth in this particular area of ‘science.’ It matters not a whit if 99% prefer the old earth interpretation and 1% the young earth interpretation, both choices are choices.

For example, as I understand it, one volcanic Island that is known to have arisen out of the sea 200 years ago can be dated millions of years old if one uses the current dating methods.

**‘I mean, gravity too is “just a theory” but I’ll still take a parachute if I decide to jump out of a plane any day soon.’**No, gravity is not a theory, gravity is a fact, the name we gave to an effect we witness, like things falling to the ground as you say. Newton and Einstein were the ones that suggested causes for these effects we know are present on earth, the moon and other cosmic bodies. It is their ideas as to what causes gravity that are the theories, not gravity itself.

I have no doubt there are writings of all sorts put out by young Earth advocates. None of it would pass muster as “scientific studies” in its methods or reasoning by any reputable scientist anywhere in the world. It is pseudo-science in the same vein as Creationism or UFO conspiracy where normal rules of evidence are stood on their head and where gaps in evidence become ironclad proof of something. In the vast majority of cases, these people either have no scientific background themselves or none in the discipline they claim to be expert in. The Creationism/ID field is full to the brim of geologists or IT engineers making sweeping pronouncements about molecular and evolutionary biology.

The work they do cannot even be described as “science” in any sense of the word because it does not play by any of the rules of science, which works solely in the area of natural causes. In every case, these people resort to an appeal to supernatural, irrational and magical mechanisms for things. That is the reason why their work has achieved zero traction among intelligent educated people who don’t already share their ideological or religious belief.

Young Earth theory requires the abandonment of reason itself. It asserts the existence of massive fluctuations in the fundamental laws of physics. No one has ever observed such a thing, nor has anyone advanced a plausible theory for how or why they would occur. The proponents of this pseudo-science always fall back on an assertion that it was done by hands-on intervention by God and or Satan for unknowable reasons. Their bottom line assertion is that nothing is knowable, everything is irreducibly complex, and so the only thing left to do is to accept a five-year-old’s literal reading of Genesis. That’s a piece of shabby theology, at best, and perhaps grist for a cool action movie, but it ain’t science by any stretch of the imagination. If the human race had bought into the “science” these people propose, the apex of our technology would be broken sticks used to eat termites out of dirt mounds.

It also must be said that the Catholic Church also puts no stock in this tripe. Anyone who knows me on this forum will tell you I give the Church a pretty good knocking on a lot of issues. They have, at times, let their own power agenda blind themselves to science, but on the whole they realize that scientific revelation of things like evolution and an old universe in no way detract from the majesty of creation.

 

[kenofken]

I don’t know where those rock formations in the earlier photographs are to even take a stab at their age. I would also be interested in seeing the studies in which you claim a new volcano tests as millions of years old and the methods used. Before we go too far down this path, we should also get the science straight on radiocarbon dating. It is not a tool that has any application in most areas of geological exploration. It’s usefulness is limited to biological artifacts from the pre-industrial age to about 50,000 years ago. It is based on the fact that living organisms take in carbon from the atmosphere during their lifetimes at a known ratio of radioactive Carbon-14 to the much more common Carbon-12 that predominates in nature.

These creatures, be they trees or animals or early humans, end their life with a proportion of the two carbon isotopes which is related to the ratio of those elements in the world around them at the time. From the time they die, they stop taking in new carbon of any kind, and that radioactive carbon decays at a known and constant rate. It has its limitations like any other method. You can’t use it on most marine life for example because they often get their carbon from carbonate rock and not the atmosphere. Since many interesting geological formations were once ancient seabeds, that takes that tool out of your box right off the bat. You can’t of course use it to date rocks themselves because rocks don’t eat and breathe. You can’t even use it on fossils that would help you date geological formations because Carbon-14 has a short shelf life as radioactive isotopes go. There’s virtually nothing left after a certain point. Our best technology can read the trace amounts left at 60,000 years and that’s it. If someone tells you they carbon dated something to “millions of years old”, they’re pulling your leg. If they’re reading no carbon-14 in something that once had it, all they can tell you is that it’s somewhere between 60,000 and a few billion years old.

If someone dates an artifact known to be, say, 200 years old and it dates as much older, they’re not doing the science correctly. As I said before, carbon dating modern material is a dicey game simply because the carbon ratios have been skewed heavily by the atomic age and even previous industrial activity. Carbon dating itself is a touchy technology and requires extreme care in sample handling and prep. You’re looking for radioactive carbon particles which at their peak concentration, were about one out of every trillion carbon atoms. Any time carbon dating is used in an important study, the work is redone and confirmed by more than one set of hands, preferably at different facilities to prove it out.

 

[buffalo]

I don’t know where those rock formations in the earlier photographs are to even take a stab at their age. I would also be interested in seeing the studies in which you claim a new volcano tests as millions of years old and the methods used. Before we go too far down this path, we should also get the science straight on radiocarbon dating. It is not a tool that has any application in most areas of geological exploration. It’s usefulness is limited to biological artifacts from the pre-industrial age to about 50,000 years ago. It is based on the fact that living organisms take in carbon from the atmosphere during their lifetimes at a known ratio of radioactive Carbon-14 to the much more common Carbon-12 that predominates in nature.

These creatures, be they trees or animals or early humans, end their life with a proportion of the two carbon isotopes which is related to the ratio of those elements in the world around them at the time. From the time they die, they stop taking in new carbon of any kind, and that radioactive carbon decays at a known and constant rate. It has its limitations like any other method. You can’t use it on most marine life for example because they often get their carbon from carbonate rock and not the atmosphere. Since many interesting geological formations were once ancient seabeds, that takes that tool out of your box right off the bat. You can’t of course use it to date rocks themselves because rocks don’t eat and breathe. You can’t even use it on fossils that would help you date geological formations because Carbon-14 has a short shelf life as radioactive isotopes go. There’s virtually nothing left after a certain point. Our best technology can read the trace amounts left at 60,000 years and that’s it. If someone tells you they carbon dated something to “millions of years old”, they’re pulling your leg. If they’re reading no carbon-14 in something that once had it, all they can tell you is that it’s somewhere between 60,000 and a few billion years old.

If someone dates an artifact known to be, say, 200 years old and it dates as much older, they’re not doing the science correctly. As I said before, carbon dating modern material is a dicey game simply because the carbon ratios have been skewed heavily by the atomic age and even previous industrial activity. Carbon dating itself is a touchy technology and requires extreme care in sample handling and prep. You’re looking for radioactive carbon particles which at their peak concentration, were about one out of every trillion carbon atoms. Any time carbon dating is used in an important study, the work is redone and confirmed by more than one set of hands, preferably at different facilities to prove it out.

Be ready for a paradigm shift.

The first was created in a matter of hours.

The second is what is known as a pothole. Formed by the very same flood, drilled holes in solid rock in a matter of hours. These are both from the Scablands.

Find out more here: Mystery of the Megaflood

And until J Harlen Bretz broke through after 50 years or so, everyone believed these took long ages. In this case appearances were deceiving and many deceived.

 

[kenofken]

Be ready for a paradigm shift.

The first was created in a matter of hours.

The second is what is known as a pothole. Formed by the very same flood, drilled holes in solid rock in a matter of hours. These are both from the Scablands.

Find out more here: Mystery of the Megaflood

And until J Harlen Bretz broke through after 50 years or so, everyone believed these took long ages. In this case appearances were deceiving and many deceived.

I took a preliminary look at it, and it is damn interesting, I will admit. It certainly shows that nature sometimes acts in much more dramatic and counterintuitive a fashion than is usually the case. However, it in no way calls into question the age of the Earth itself, only the formation process for some of its surface features in a particular region. If you’re citing this as evidence for a Genesis aged Earth, you’re also driving a stake through your own argument as the science supporting this megaflood shows it to have happened some 11,000 years before Bible literalists say the world was created.

 

[buffalo]

I took a preliminary look at it, and it is damn interesting, I will admit. It certainly shows that nature sometimes acts in much more dramatic and counterintuitive a fashion than is usually the case. However, it in no way calls into question the age of the Earth itself, only the formation process for some of its surface features in a particular region. If you’re citing this as evidence for a Genesis aged Earth, you’re also driving a stake through your own argument as the science supporting this megaflood shows it to have happened some 11,000 years before Bible literalists say the world was created.

The megaflood shows that catastrophism can explain the earth’s geological features, displacing uniformatarianism.

 

[cassini]

I have no doubt there are writings of all sorts put out by young Earth advocates. None of it would pass muster as “scientific studies” in its methods or reasoning by any reputable scientist anywhere in the world. It is pseudo-science in the same vein as Creationism or UFO conspiracy where normal rules of evidence are stood on their head and where gaps in evidence become ironclad proof of something. In the vast majority of cases, these people either have no scientific background themselves or none in the discipline they claim to be expert in. The Creationism/ID field is full to the brim of geologists or IT engineers making sweeping pronouncements about molecular and evolutionary biology.

The work they do cannot even be described as “science” in any sense of the word because it does not play by any of the rules of science, which works solely in the area of natural causes. In every case, these people resort to an appeal to supernatural, irrational and magical mechanisms for things. That is the reason why their work has achieved zero traction among intelligent educated people who don’t already share their ideological or religious belief.

Young Earth theory requires the abandonment of reason itself. It asserts the existence of massive fluctuations in the fundamental laws of physics. No one has ever observed such a thing, nor has anyone advanced a plausible theory for how or why they would occur. The proponents of this pseudo-science always fall back on an assertion that it was done by hands-on intervention by God and or Satan for unknowable reasons. Their bottom line assertion is that nothing is knowable, everything is irreducibly complex, and so the only thing left to do is to accept a five-year-old’s literal reading of Genesis. That’s a piece of shabby theology, at best, and perhaps grist for a cool action movie, but it ain’t science by any stretch of the imagination. If the human race had bought into the “science” these people propose, the apex of our technology would be broken sticks used to eat termites out of dirt mounds.

It also must be said that the Catholic Church also puts no stock in this tripe. Anyone who knows me on this forum will tell you I give the Church a pretty good knocking on a lot of issues. They have, at times, let their own power agenda blind themselves to science, but on the whole they realize that scientific revelation of things like evolution and an old universe in no way detract from the majesty of creation.

I have read very carefully some of the Protestant science and was amazed at the lengths they went into the science of the ‘evidence’ proposed by ‘old earthers’ and if falsifying old earth science is pseudo-science then old age science is also pseudo science. Both sides put forward the best scientific arguments they had, both at the same level of scholarship, and both offered different choices as to which science to accept. Never once did I see either of them introducing miracles to explain any gaps in their thinking. That I have only come across with Catholic theistic evolutionists.

Young earth theory is indeed based on Genesis. Proof for it I agree would be impossible in the sphere of science which cannot include preternatural causes. I know that and admit to it. But having studied carefully the history of science, the foundation of its ‘god’, that is, societies like the Royal Society of London who took upon themselves to be judge and jury as to what is scientific truth, and what is not, who is to be lauded as a scientist, and who is to be criticised as a pseudo-scientist, and having read books like THE CRITERION that shows how scientists who are sympathetic to the creationist science are fired from scientific institutions and lose their government research grants, I see the world of science as corrupt as any other corrupt institution. Having enough intelligence to understand enough of the ‘science’ involved, I am personally happy that no absolute proof for old age earth exists so I can hold a young earth based on faith and know science cannot disprove that.

As for the Catholic Church and science, well as far as I am concerned, were I the pope for 200 years I would never have let science into the Church through a rat hole let alone the hall door as some popes did and still do. All science does is cause trouble to Catholic faith.

Finally, let us both go to a theatre where there are two magicians called God1 a young fellow, and God2, an old man, demonstrating their powers. One comes out and flicks his fingers and there is this big bang and the audience are watching the trick perform its results for 15.5 billion years. Then out comes the old timer and flicks his fingers and pop, the earth appears, Another flick and the earth it is filled with seas, another gesture and the sun, moon and stars appear. Nest flick of the finger and flora appear. A final click of the finger and fauna appear. I know which one impresses me most.

 

[Ichthys4121517]

Finally, let us both go to a theatre where there are two magicians called God1 a young fellow, and God2, an old man, demonstrating their powers. One comes out and flicks his fingers and there is this big bang and the audience are watching the trick perform its results for 15.5 billion years. Then out comes the old timer and flicks his fingers and pop, the earth appears, Another flick and the earth it is filled with seas, another gesture and the sun, moon and stars appear. Nest flick of the finger and flora appear. A final click of the finger and fauna appear. I know which one impresses me most.

Indeed; it’s not just the awe value that makes theistic evolution seem pathetic, but also the moral value. Think about it. I would not worship a God who decided that the best way to create man would be to let him evolve from microbes over millions of years through a harsh, bloody process of “survival of the fittest”. The message of Genesis is that the Fall of man came about due to his sinful choice, not God’s. Evolution would only be possible if animals could die, or else the earth would have overpopulated in well under a million years. I don’t know about you, but something seems irresponsible about putting a soul in a creature (giving his life more value) that is surrounded by animals that would likely kill him. Hence why I believe that animals only became carnivorous after the Fall, as death was a result of the Fall. That’s why God’s killing of animals to make the clothes of Adam and Eve was so significant - it was a poetic (though not necessarily mythological) foreshadowing of the death of the Lamb for the sake of man’s sins. Blood is sacred, even the blood of animals (or else God would not be so pleased with Abel’s offering), so the whole “only human death came from sin” theory seems fishy to me.

Apologies for the wall of text; I tend to do that.

 

[JHow]

It could be true, but it’s far from the most plausible explanation…

I kind of agree with kenfoken here.

If the world is “really” young, but was made to look old, how would you know the difference? Could you be faulted for supposing it was old?

 

[kenofken]

The megaflood shows that catastrophism can explain the earth’s geological features, displacing uniformatarianism.

It is, as you stated at first, indeed a paradigm shift in a particular area of geology. It in no way calls uniformatarianism into question however. You’re either not comprehending or acknowledging the enormity of the gap between old earth and young earth arguments. We have mountains of evidence supporting an old Earth. To get from there to a young Earth understanding in any rational fashion requires MUCH more than the paradigm shift posed by the megaflood. It requires nothing less than an assertion that everything we thought we ever knew about physics and chemistry is an illusion. It demands that we buy into a “Matrix” style existence in which there is no objective consensual reality or knowledge. There’s simply no way to discount the old Earth evidence without asserting that fundamental laws of nature - radioactive decay, the mass of atoms, the flow of electrons in chemical reactions etc., changes at random or through hands-on divine intervention. That’s the kind of paradigm shift that is needed to get from A to B in this case.

The megaflood story does not even begin to scratch the surface of that. It does demonstrate that glacial mechanics caused some much more dramatic events than we’re used to seeing in the scale of our relatively young race, but there’s no new physics at play. It’s not surprising at all that 500 cubic miles of water released at once could tear up rock formations much faster than normal rainfall ever would. It is surprising to learn that those particular geological formations were created in a way so different from typical rock wearing, but it’s a paradigm shift of the sort we see in science every day in every discipline. As scientists, we live for paradigm shifts. It’s what wins Nobel Prizes and keeps us humble and gets us out of bed in a profession where you get inconclusive or negative results 99% of the time. Uniformitarianism has never been understood to mean that nature never does unexpected things or that all geological formations were created in exactly the same way and time line. It has rather to do with the idea that all of the fundamental laws of nature behave consistently across time and space. Nothing in the megaflood theory even comes close to demonstrating that.

 

[Ichthys4121517]

I kind of agree with kenfoken here.

If the world is “really” young, but was made to look old, how would you know the difference? Could you be faulted for supposing it was old?

Exactly; this is why the age of the earth is such a dealbreaker for me. God would not be so callous as to deliberately trick everyone into thinking the world is older than He explicity tells us it is, no doubt causing many people to lose their faith in Him. If, of course, the world really is young and dating methods are used with the wrong presuppositions, then we can hardly blame God for our own mistakes.

I admit that, ironically, these points I’ve made could just as easily be used by an atheist to justify his position, but we cannot try to find loopholes just to make Genesis and an old earth reconcilable, therefore making us appear “smarter”. That would be worse than believing in a young earth with no evidence, which, for the record, I do not do. I have evidence.

My point is that the conclusion that an old earth and Genesis are incompatible can lead a person either to becoming the most ardent Christian or the most ardent atheist. We should not be afraid of such a conclusion just because some people have used it to justify atheism.

 

[kenofken]

I have read very carefully some of the Protestant science and was amazed at the lengths they went into the science of the ‘evidence’ proposed by ‘old earthers’ and if falsifying old earth science is pseudo-science then old age science is also pseudo science. Both sides put forward the best scientific arguments they had, both at the same level of scholarship, and both offered different choices as to which science to accept. Never once did I see either of them introducing miracles to explain any gaps in their thinking. That I have only come across with Catholic theistic evolutionists.

Young earth theory is indeed based on Genesis. Proof for it I agree would be impossible in the sphere of science which cannot include preternatural causes. I know that and admit to it. But having studied carefully the history of science, the foundation of its ‘god’, that is, societies like the Royal Society of London who took upon themselves to be judge and jury as to what is scientific truth, and what is not, who is to be lauded as a scientist, and who is to be criticized as a pseudo-scientist, and having read books like THE CRITERION that shows how scientists who are sympathetic to the creationist science are fired from scientific institutions and lose their government research grants, I see the world of science as corrupt as any other corrupt institution. Having enough intelligence to understand enough of the ‘science’ involved, I am personally happy that no absolute proof for old age earth exists so I can hold a young earth based on faith and know science cannot disprove that.

As for the Catholic Church and science, well as far as I am concerned, were I the pope for 200 years I would never have let science into the Church through a rat hole let alone the hall door as some popes did and still do. All science does is cause trouble to Catholic faith.

Finally, let us both go to a theatre where there are two magicians called God1 a young fellow, and God2, an old man, demonstrating their powers. One comes out and flicks his fingers and there is this big bang and the audience are watching the trick perform its results for 15.5 billion years. Then out comes the old timer and flicks his fingers and pop, the earth appears, Another flick and the earth it is filled with seas, another gesture and the sun, moon and stars appear. Nest flick of the finger and flora appear. A final click of the finger and fauna appear. I know which one impresses me most.

“Creation scientists” should be sacked from their positions. Not because they violated some sacred ideology of the academy, but because they’re not practicing science. It’s no different than if we had people working as Catholic theologions who refused to read or critique the Catechism or scriptures and only produced theological works based on personal revelation or peyote trances. No academic discipline is free-form street theater. You either engage the material on the proper terms or you get out and do something else.

Science does often get corrupt or sloppy people, but guess what? Nobody gets away with shabby science for long. It’s the nature of the game that the competition is always putting your ideas and data to live-fire tests. If your’re cooking your data or producing work based on ideology and not true results, you get found out and discredited, quickly. There is NO such self correcting mechanism in theology. Once doctrine is proclaimed in a revelation-based religion, you’re only way to backtrack is through heresy (and usually genocide) or further revelations which “clarify” the original vision.

If you want to cling to a young Earth theory out of religious conviction, you’re of course free to do so, but it has nothing to do with mainstream science’s failure or pseudo-science’s triumphs. There is no absolute proof of anything, either gravity or the Earth circling the sun or an old Earth. There is a vast amount of conclusive and convincing evidence of all of those things, and the current theories about them explain observed phenomena much better than any other ideas currently out there, especially the crackpot musings of the pseudoscientists. It is not the job of science to disprove beyond a shadow of a doubt that any of it’s theories cannot be proven false. It is not even within the capability of mortal beings to do such a thing.

As to your last part, I would submit that you’re much more easily impressed than I am. Any supreme being who exists independently of time and space limitations who has to hand-make each planet and creature in a 6,000-Earth-year limit doesn’t wow me all that much.

 

[kenofken]

Indeed; it’s not just the awe value that makes theistic evolution seem pathetic, but also the moral value. Think about it. I would not worship a God who decided that the best way to create man would be to let him evolve from microbes over millions of years through a harsh, bloody process of “survival of the fittest”. The message of Genesis is that the Fall of man came about due to his sinful choice, not God’s. Evolution would only be possible if animals could die, or else the earth would have overpopulated in well under a million years. I don’t know about you, but something seems irresponsible about putting a soul in a creature (giving his life more value) that is surrounded by animals that would likely kill him. Hence why I believe that animals only became carnivorous after the Fall, as death was a result of the Fall. That’s why God’s killing of animals to make the clothes of Adam and Eve was so significant - it was a poetic (though not necessarily mythological) foreshadowing of the death of the Lamb for the sake of man’s sins. Blood is sacred, even the blood of animals (or else God would not be so pleased with Abel’s offering), so the whole “only human death came from sin” theory seems fishy to me.

Apologies for the wall of text; I tend to do that.

That is a very telling sentiment. You are saying that you would not worship any god whose motives and majesty cannot be shrunk down to the scale of your own existence as a creature who is deaf and blind to 99% of the universe and has the lifespan of a fruit fly in the scheme of things. It is evident in much of organized religion that God is created in man’s image and not the other way around.

 

[buffalo]

It is, as you stated at first, indeed a paradigm shift in a particular area of geology. It in no way calls uniformatarianism into question however. You’re either not comprehending or acknowledging the enormity of the gap between old earth and young earth arguments. We have mountains of evidence supporting an old Earth. To get from there to a young Earth understanding in any rational fashion requires MUCH more than the paradigm shift posed by the megaflood. It requires nothing less than an assertion that everything we thought we ever knew about physics and chemistry is an illusion. It demands that we buy into a “Matrix” style existence in which there is no objective consensual reality or knowledge. There’s simply no way to discount the old Earth evidence without asserting that fundamental laws of nature - radioactive decay, the mass of atoms, the flow of electrons in chemical reactions etc., changes at random or through hands-on divine intervention. That’s the kind of paradigm shift that is needed to get from A to B in this case.

The megaflood story does not even begin to scratch the surface of that. It does demonstrate that glacial mechanics caused some much more dramatic events than we’re used to seeing in the scale of our relatively young race, but there’s no new physics at play. It’s not surprising at all that 500 cubic miles of water released at once could tear up rock formations much faster than normal rainfall ever would. It is surprising to learn that those particular geological formations were created in a way so different from typical rock wearing, but it’s a paradigm shift of the sort we see in science every day in every discipline. As scientists, we live for paradigm shifts. It’s what wins Nobel Prizes and keeps us humble and gets us out of bed in a profession where you get inconclusive or negative results 99% of the time. Uniformitarianism has never been understood to mean that nature never does unexpected things or that all geological formations were created in exactly the same way and time line. It has rather to do with the idea that all of the fundamental laws of nature behave consistently across time and space. Nothing in the megaflood theory even comes close to demonstrating that.

C’mon now - everyone know that uniformtarianism is indeed the foundation of long ages. At the dawn of uniformatarianism, it was reading the geologic column and assigning a time to the layers.

We now know that catastrophism is much more prevalent than recently thought.

Bottom line - Uniformatarianism was used to discredit the flood and Scripture accounts. It no longer can be used as such.

 

[buffalo]

It is evident in much of organized religion that God is created in man’s image and not the other way around.

Source?

 

[buffalo]

“Creation scientists” should be sacked from their positions. Not because they violated some sacred ideology of the academy, but because they’re not practicing science. It’s no different than if we had people working as Catholic theologions who refused to read or critique the Catechism or scriptures and only produced theological works based on personal revelation or peyote trances. No academic discipline is free-form street theater. You either engage the material on the proper terms or you get out and do something else.

Science does often get corrupt or sloppy people, but guess what? Nobody gets away with shabby science for long. It’s the nature of the game that the competition is always putting your ideas and data to live-fire tests. If your’re cooking your data or producing work based on ideology and not true results, you get found out and discredited, quickly. There is NO such self correcting mechanism in theology. Once doctrine is proclaimed in a revelation-based religion, you’re only way to backtrack is through heresy (and usually genocide) or further revelations which “clarify” the original vision.

If you want to cling to a young Earth theory out of religious conviction, you’re of course free to do so, but it has nothing to do with mainstream science’s failure or pseudo-science’s triumphs. There is no absolute proof of anything, either gravity or the Earth circling the sun or an old Earth. There is a vast amount of conclusive and convincing evidence of all of those things, and the current theories about them explain observed phenomena much better than any other ideas currently out there, especially the crackpot musings of the pseudoscientists. It is not the job of science to disprove beyond a shadow of a doubt that any of it’s theories cannot be proven false. It is not even within the capability of mortal beings to do such a thing.

As to your last part, I would submit that you’re much more easily impressed than I am. Any supreme being who exists independently of time and space limitations who has to hand-make each planet and creature in a 6,000-Earth-year limit doesn’t wow me all that much.

A great post to show how science painted itself in a corner. Your apriori materialism shows right through in this post. You are as guilty as those you are accusing.