Don’t ask me – ask jrchrichton, mulligan, and the other Young Earthers on this forum. As I said, I’m astonished to have to be defending Galileo and heliocentrism in 2008, much less evolution!
You are assuming that whatever evidence you have for to support one of your theories of evolution or an old earth must be correct on its own merit and all other evidence is wrong, because that’s the way it is. And God wouldn’t give you wrong evidence to contradict your theory.
For one, dating methods are extremely inaccurate to a laughable degree. This includes carbon dating, C14 methods, and geological layer dating. There exists no evidence of how old something is which is absolutely necessary for you to make the claim that this one is derived from that one. All you have are fossilized bones subject to different interpretations (and there are lots of them) by different people. And your conclusion of what the evidence indicates will obviously be based on your predetermined self-proclaimed doctrine.
Mapleoak corrects Barbarian:
Sorry but no astrophysicist has ever observed a star that is millions of light years away. They have only observed light and make the conclusion that it is from a star millions of light years away.
Barbarian has observed incorrectly.
Yeah, and of far be it from God to contradict your assumptions.
You have watched a star form? You know a scientist who has watched a star form? Sure. okay.
Your personal opinion and not supportable by scripture or the magisterium.
Are there really such people?
I’m afraid so – ignorance is rife, including on CAF!
Vern, on another thread I asked a YEC what drove him. Here is his illuminating reply.Many of these school bus-sized stars were drowned in a parking lot in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
That’s how science works. Might seem shakey to you, but keep in mind, it works. Better than anything else we can do.
Non-existant. Unless you know of some that no astronomer knows about.
Right.
Recently, someone thought to do a blind test on that. They took some of the material that buried Pompeii (known date) And the method worked; they got an accurate date.
Right. I accept that God wouldn’t fake it. You seem to think He does.
So you’ve never observed a dog; you have only observed light and made the conclusion that it is from a dog. Sorry. Not buying it.
As you learned the evidence contradicts nothing God has told us.
The Hubble telescope has shown countless stars forming. Or are you arguing that giant redwoods don’t grow from seedlings because no one has seen the whole process with his own eyes?
I don’t know any botanist who’s seen a giant redwood grow from a seedling, either. I’m pretty sure you know what’s wrong with the sort of excuse you’re offering here.
No. The conclusion of many, many scientists who have examined the evidence.
Giant redwoods aren’t supportable by scripture or the magesterium, either. But they still exist, regardless of your objections.
Nothing in science is provable. It does not deal in logical certainty. It only makes inferences from evidence, and a hypothesis only becomes a theory when it has enough evidence to make doubt foolish.
First of all, the Heliocentric Model is not true. That is, the Sun is not the center of the universe.
Read book titled “In the beginning…”, a collection of Ratzinger’s homily when he was still a Bishop in Bavaria, Germany.
Quite true, Vern – I simply couldn’t cover the whole of astronomy in one post.
The Church says it is permissible to think of Genesis as literal, or as an allegory. If you think the teaching of the Church is “baloney”, why stay in it?
If you honestly believe that, it’s a good sign; then it’s just ignorance of what science is, and it’s very curable.
It is my opinion that God would not plant fossils of animals that never existed. That would be deceptive, and He is not that kind of a God.
The Bible does not say it was universal, and the evidence shows that it was not.
As early as Saint Augustine, people were noticing that it made no sense to interpret them as literal days.
No, evolution is not about the way living things originated. The point is, because the earth brought forth living things, the YE doctrine of “life ex nihilo” is demonstrably contrary to God’s word.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. There are many things that are true, that are not in scripture. God gave us intelligence and curiosity to learn about some things.
There is a great deal of evidence for abiogenesis, but God’s word ought to be sufficient for you.
I assume that He had His reasons for creating the world as He did. I accept His judgement in the matter.
And you think God couldn’t have created things to so develop? Of course He could. He’s a lot more powerful and capable than the fundamentalists are willing to let Him be.
There is considerable evidence to show it is not. What makes you think there is any evidence that it’s eternal? That is contrary to our faith.
So why are you falsely claiming there is evidence for it?
If you claim there is evidence for an eternal universe, that’s exactly what you have done. In this case, learning more about science would have been useful in disabusing you from a heresy.
It is not so much the mental gymnastics as it is the for whatever reason the account in genesis is the only place you will ever hear of 1 day referring to a million years. As if people were ignorant of what ‘day’ means.
One cannot conclude by finding these fossils that they were fakes of animals that never existed that were planted (it is curious why that argument is even being made). It only shows that there were once living creatures to which the fossilized remains belonged to. If one finds a pile of sheep bones and a pile of goat bones next to them for example, there are number of conclusions one can come to. But that it is evidence of progressive development is not one of them. I had asked for evidence (I have never seen such) of an instance where an elbow joint developed where there previously was none. I was shown drawings of two different creatures. I remain unconvinced that the one developed into the other, but that they are two totally different creatures.
Biblically, the flood destroyed the Earth, not the universe. That would be a logical assumption make however as to the source of fossilized remains and geological features.
The point is why take the same document and conveniently make the portions you want to be literal, literal, and the portions you want to be allegorical, allegorical?
Not necessarily that they never existed, but that it they were created in a ‘state’ of existence set into motion. Anything at all that exists had to have created. Whether an atom were created and subsequently arranged or if a complete universe were created, it would exist in a certain ‘state’. Matter doesn’t exist without apparancy of ‘having existed’. Apparancy is a limitation of man, not of God. It does not indicate deception on God’s part, rather a lack of understanding on man’s part.
Interesting how you were made to look like that is what YOUR conclusion is.
Yes, if it exists, unless it is eternal, it had to be created. And created things have a beginning.
Of course it isn’t. Life comes either directly from the hand of God, or from something else that is already living. Life does not and cannot spontaneously start of its own accord. For matter to be alive, it must be infused with life. If you state that life does start of its own accord, that is demonstably contrary to God’s word.
Of course, it only makes sense to assume that He had His reasons for creating the world as He did.
True.
But since the universe is not eternal, this is not a concern.
Demonstrably it is. Genesis says that life was brought forth by the Earth. God created life from pre-existing matter, not ex nihilo.
If God so desires, life can begin by natural means. Did, in fact.
There is no substance called “life.” It’s a chemical process that makes us alive. When something interrupts that process, it stop and we are dead. This is different than the spiritual life that is not dependant on our body functioning.
Nothing in this universe on its own accord. All things depend on God; if He were to remove Himself from the universe, it would not even exist. However, we have God’s word that life was produced by the earth. Science is just catching up.
I’d like to respond, but would you mind running future posts through a spell checker before posting them? It will make your argument more cogent if it is not replete with misspelled words.
IN short, couldn’t have happened. There is a simple equation