Young Earth v. Old Earth

[Orogeny]

Thank you Oh Mighty Tower of Darwinian Knowledge. And your response is what one might expect from a born again fundamentalist evolutionist who DISMISSES all recent peer reviewed discoveries in (1) sedimentology,

Garbage. I don’t dismiss any peer reviewed “discoveries” in sedimentology. In fact, I won’t dismiss your, um, discoveries if you can get them published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. I promise!

(2) RC dating of contamination free dinosaur bone organics as well as other fossils in the same strata; (3) distinct dinosaur depictions world-wide only 100’s to a few 1000 years BP and (4) fossil and human footprints in alleged dinosaurian ages and beyond.

Yep, I do dismiss that material just as I dismiss stories of people seeing fairies in the woods.

Of course the mega years of the many and varying evolution hypotheses are crashing along with the “stone arches in an interesting commentary and story by AIG. However Orogeny can’t seem to handle it so at his suggestion: ---- his torpedoes, full speed ahead. Thus I’ve copied the article for those who might be intimidated by his response and so won’t examine the evidence OR haven’t the time to search the AIG news items and editorials.

My position is sound. Your lack of understanding of basic geologic principles continues to shine in your posts.

My reply to your tangential question about embryonic stem cell research is on the Noah thread.

Peace

Tim

 

[jcrichton]

Apparently Ratzinger wrote:
Quote:
“Popular and scientific texts often say ‘nature’ or ‘evolution’ has done this or that. But who is this ‘nature’ or ‘evolution’ as an active subject? It doesn’t exist at all!” Pope Benedict

And it is nonsense. Of course all sorts of inanimate objects can be active subjects in English. If he wanted to make the case that there must be an intelligent agent behind all the natural effects that we assign to nature such as thunderstorms, earthquakes, diversity of species or reproduction, then he’d have to do better than asserting it using an obviously fallacious linguistic argument. So it really wasn’t very clever.

…I think your problem is that you do not see nature as simply a label that is given to forces that have been put in motion from the beginning of Creation… you see evolution as the source of reproduction so you attach a concrete value to an abstract; evolution is not seen as the Creating force but as a condition within Creation… both evolution and nature lack conscious intelligence and thought hence not the active subjects in Creation!

Quote:
yet, you are so enamored with haphazard chance copulating with time and chaos to give birth to order and defined diversification… how intelligent is “just so” or “just right” or “single-celled microbe aspiring to be a monkey who’s aspiring to be a scientist?”

What on earth are you talking about?

…sorry, sometimes I forget that others are not able to follow my reasoning… I am only familiar with the passage you’ve quoted (not an avid reader–lest it’s the Sacred Scriptures or scifi novels) which indicates to me that Pope Benedict XVI was attempting to convey that “nature” and “evolution” are not able to create or do anything other than what they have been Designed to do; to suggest that these labels actually took part in Creation is to believe that they are the active subject of Creation.

Conversely, those who believe in such themes are blindly following the thought that pure chance came together with eons and eons of years which haphazardly came across a fluidic matter which was waiting for just the right electrical interaction so it could produce a single-cell microscopic organism which would hold the genetic composition of all life on the planet; this microscopic organism would, on its own, determine that it was not enough to flourish (make more of itself) but that it needed to metamorphose into both plant and animal and into both the various aquatic and land creatures that populate the earth…

Yet all of those “by chance,” “just right,” and “just wait another eon or so” are not seen as nonsence!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

…but consider what Genesis says about man’s fall:

Genesis 2:14-19 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Now consider these things… pain in childbearing, having to labour to get food, toiling for survival, etc… all of these things are present among other species and would have been in the world before humans were even created, and certainly before they could have committed a sin that caused their imposition,

if these things were inherited through biological evolution, then how does one account for the fact that we are told that we have them because we sinned and not because we were born with them as evolutionary biology would dictate?

These are the sorts of problems that I mean when I say that theologians have not really thought this whole thing through… there may be an explanation out there, but I haven’t seen any in the arguments that are usually made and the ones I can imagine seem like I need to do some degree of uncertain theological gymnastics in order to make it all fit together

In terms of the question as to why the animals should have such things, I think again of the book of Enoch and what it referenced about the angels coming down from heaven and corrupting creation…it is also possible that the animals could have been given such things in an original design and that humans were not, which would certainly seem to contradict the evolutionary appraoch

Hi, D M!

…I have highlighted a clue: “multiply,” this suggests to me that there was to be explected some pain but that childbearing would place a greater demand due to the “Fall.”

Further, there is no way that we can ascertain how painless or painful childbearing was prior to the Fall… nor can we determine how prolific plant and animal life was nor what if any deficiencies existed that hindered an “easy going life…”

…as far as the evolutionary biology dictates, have you considered that He who Created all that exists, both the visible and the invisible, out of naught can exert any change/s as He deems? Remember Jesus’ Word: …“For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[D_M]

Hi, D M!

…I have highlighted a clue: “multiply,” this suggests to me that there was to be explected some pain but that childbearing would place a greater demand due to the “Fall.”

Further, there is no way that we can ascertain how painless or painful childbearing was prior to the Fall… nor can we determine how prolific plant and animal life was nor what if any deficiencies existed that hindered an “easy going life…”

…as far as the evolutionary biology dictates, have you considered that He who Created all that exists, both the visible and the invisible, out of naught can exert any change/s as He deems? Remember Jesus’ Word: …“For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

Maran atha!

Angel

Hi jcrichton,

I wonder if multiply means they had pain beforehand? You could be right, but then why would they experience pain before there was any sin? Maybe I’m not thinking long enough on this…

People do think that they can determine, to some limited degree, how prolific plant and animal life was before homo sapiens supposedly evolved on the earth and they would also consider that these painful things existed before homo sapiens had evolved and that homo sapiens would have inherited these things…

I agree that God could simply change creation at the time of the fall to introduce these things, but that would contradict the understanding of evolutionary biology I think.

God Bless,

 

[jcrichton]

Hi jcrichton,

I wonder if multiply means they had pain beforehand? You could be right, but then why would they experience pain before there was any sin? Maybe I’m not thinking long enough on this…

People do think that they can determine, to some limited degree, how prolific plant and animal life was before homo sapiens supposedly evolved on the earth and they would also consider that these painful things existed before homo sapiens had evolved and that homo sapiens would have inherited these things…

I agree that God could simply change creation at the time of the fall to introduce these things, but that would contradict the understanding of evolutionary biology I think.

God Bless,

…I understand what you are saying… but consider that all we do is speculate about life and the planet; we cannot determine by any means how life really was at the time of Creation; though there are insights that we can gather from what is known to us, exact knowledge evades us.

Further, note that there’s only one mention of eternal life related to Creation–Yahweh God said that man (Adam and Eve) should be removed from Eden so that he should not attempt to eat of the Tree of Life… from this I can only deduce that there was a limit set on nature; that without Divine intervention there would be no immortality; conversely, perfect health and painless existence cannot be assumed as a byproduct of “…and He saw that it was good…” I understand this terminology to mean that God saw that that which He Created was as He determined it to be, no more and no less.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[D_M]

…I understand what you are saying… but consider that all we do is speculate about life and the planet; we cannot determine by any means how life really was at the time of Creation; though there are insights that we can gather from what is known to us, exact knowledge evades us.

Further, note that there’s only one mention of eternal life related to Creation–Yahweh God said that man (Adam and Eve) should be removed from Eden so that he should not attempt to eat of the Tree of Life… from this I can only deduce that there was a limit set on nature; that without Divine intervention there would be no immortality; conversely, perfect health and painless existence cannot be assumed as a byproduct of “…and He saw that it was good…” I understand this terminology to mean that God saw that that which He Created was as He determined it to be, no more and no less.

Maran atha!

Angel

Hi jcrichton,

No, I agree… we don’t really know what life was like on this planet… except current scientific hypothesis and understanding (and science is never certain) holds that those things would have existed before the fall, which does conflict with our faith…

We are told that the pain experienced in childbirth, toil and labour, even biological death itself it would seem (‘remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’) were things that man should experience after sin entered the world.

In the book of Wisdom it says that the generative forces of creation are wholesome and there is no destructive poison in them, which I take to mean that human suffering was not part of the original plan… I could see how animal suffering could be part of an original plan, as that is not an evil thing, but human suffering is different…

St Paul wrote that our flesh is corrupted, and we can even see this from our own experience in that we know that our flesh, in its biological nature (which supposedly we would have inherited through evolution whether we sinned or not) naturally lusts after things that are immoral.

Somehow the theology and the science would have to be made compatible in order for evolution to be true, and at the moment I question how it could be… although there perhaps is a way…

God Bless,

 

[SFTor]

Hello.

This is not a very scientific post, unless I were to label it some sort of sociological commentary.

I wonder whether people on this thread who defend Young Earth Creationism know that they look like complete idiots to outsiders?

Perhaps not idiots: maybe it’s like stepping into a cave that has not seen sunlight for eons, populated by dotty friends who have escaped death for a thousand years. Sitting around the same table they are having the same discussions based on the same knowledge and the same presumptions, ignorant and dismissive of decades of painstaking work done by educated people.

When they are confronted with the accumulated knowledge of new generations they scoff and assert that this work has been undertaken to mock their religion and their god, and to undermine the authority of their holy institutions. As time goes on they learn some of this new knowledge, and decide to retrofit it to agree with the creation story in their book, and end up concocting a spectacular mess of the facts in the process.

I am not saying this to be mean or rude. I am trying to give an insight into the experience of people who happen upon this particular sort of thread and take the time to read the posts.

Do you really want to be these cave-dwelling throwbacks? Do you really want to be the laughing stock of educated people?

 

[Philipp]

Hello.

This is not a very scientific post, unless I were to label it some sort of sociological commentary.

I wonder whether people on this thread who defend Young Earth Creationism know that they look like complete idiots to outsiders?

Perhaps not idiots: maybe it’s like stepping into a cave that has not seen sunlight for eons, populated by dotty friends who have escaped death for a thousand years. Sitting around the same table they are having the same discussions based on the same knowledge and the same presumptions, ignorant and dismissive of decades of painstaking work done by educated people.

When they are confronted with the accumulated knowledge of new generations they scoff and assert that this work has been undertaken to mock their religion and their god, and to undermine the authority of their holy institutions. As time goes on they learn some of this new knowledge, and decide to retrofit it to agree with the creation story in their book, and end up concocting a spectacular mess of the facts in the process.

I am not saying this to be mean or rude. I am trying to give an insight into the experience of people who happen upon this particular sort of thread and take the time to read the posts.

Do you really want to be these cave-dwelling throwbacks? Do you really want to be the laughing stock of educated people?

Regarding cave dwellers: some of our ancestors in one cave in France posted a depiction of a T-Rex in a face-off with a mammoth. I suspect they are far more accurate in their knowledge of life on earth than any evolutionist who posts evolutionary assumptions and claims on these CA threads. These high and mighty Lords of evolutionary knowledge on CA think that they and academia know how we all got here; what a joke!!!

Furthermore, there are other dinosaur depictions world-wide that include depictions of Stegosaurs, Triceratops, Diplodocus, Hadrosaur, Torosaurus, Crylophosaurus etc. Some are as good as our modern day paleontologists and their artists have determined through careful study of their bones. If the ancient Greeks and Roman civilizations had been digging around back 2000 years or so and had museums with the bones or replicas on exhibit I’m waiting for someone to show me the references and/or evidence for specific dinosaurs as other “educated people” from
the Nile Mosaic (Palestrina 100 BC) to the floor Mosaic at Sapphori Israel (300 AD) to the Buddhist temple in Cambodia (1200 AD).

Of course you’ve missed the whole point of this debate. The long ages rqeuired for evolution to have occurred do NOT seem to even exist. I’ve posted many times the cutting edge research from the past 25 years on these threads and will continue to do so irrespective of the sarcasm.

Here is another example from science: Saber tooth tigers, giant bison, giant sloths, mammoths and mastodons have the same C-14 ages as the dinosaurs therefore the claim that dinosaurs died out 65 million years is a monstrous hoax that makes the “Piltdown man” and other “missing link” frauds pale in comparison.

However, catastophists like myself are not scientifically dogmatic about the age of the earth only that Moses and scripture are far closer to the truth than are the claims for mega zillions of years for macroevolution. C-14 ages for the bones of these extinct critters from Tx to AK are in the range of roughly 20,000 to 30,000 Radiocarbon years for both their organic and bioapatite fractions as I have shown in past threads. Most depictions are 500 to ~3,000 real years ago. We are getting closer and closer to the truth and are having fun searching for the truth in science.

Moses sizzles while Darwin fizzles. Goodby now.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Regarding cave dwellers: some of our ancestors in one cave in France posted a depiction of a T-Rex in a face-off with a mammoth.

Problem is no one, except certain creationists can see that it’s a T-rex (even most creationists don’t think so).

Furthermore, there are other dinosaur depictions world-wide that include depictions of Stegosaurs, Triceratops, Diplodocus, Hadrosaur, Torosaurus, Crylophosaurus etc. Some are as good as our modern day paleontologists and their artists have determined through careful study of their bones.

Sounds interesting. Show us those. I saw a nifty “dragon” drawn by ancient Greeks who had found the fossilized bones. It was pretty good, except the bones were that of an extinct giraffe.

If the ancient Greeks and Roman civilizations had been digging around back 2000 years or so and had museums with the bones or replicas on exhibit I’m waiting for someone to show me the references and/or evidence for specific dinosaurs as other “educated people” from
the Nile Mosaic (Palestrina 100 BC) to the floor Mosaic at Sapphori Israel (300 AD) to the Buddhist temple in Cambodia (1200 AD).

Such bones were well-known. In Central Asia, there were numerous specimens of protoceratops known to the tribes there, from which it appears the griffin myth developed.

Of course you’ve missed the whole point of this debate. The long ages rqeuired for evolution to have occurred do NOT seem to even exist.

No one who is familiar with the evidence thinks it is young.

Here is another example from science: Saber tooth tigers, giant bison, giant sloths, mammoths and mastodons have the same C-14 ages as the dinosaurs

Actually, they don’t. Turns out that some giant sloths lived less than a thousand years ago, and their bones show much younger ages, as do the bones of some giant bison, which lived as recently as 10,000 years ago, and therefore can be dated by sensitive C-14 equipment.

But no dinosaur will ever give a result that recent, unless the device is unable to test out past 10,000 years. For the obvious reason; when something is truly ancient, it will always show the max age for that particular C-14 unit, unless there is evidence of percolation of more recent carbon from groundwater.

 

[SFTor]

Regarding cave dwellers: some of our ancestors in one cave in France posted a depiction of a T-Rex in a face-off with a mammoth. I suspect they are far more accurate in their knowledge of life on earth than any evolutionist who posts evolutionary assumptions and claims on these CA threads. These high and mighty Lords of evolutionary knowledge on CA think that they and academia know how we all got here; what a joke!!!

Furthermore, there are other dinosaur depictions world-wide that include depictions of Stegosaurs, Triceratops, Diplodocus, Hadrosaur, Torosaurus, Crylophosaurus etc. Some are as good as our modern day paleontologists and their artists have determined through careful study of their bones. If the ancient Greeks and Roman civilizations had been digging around back 2000 years or so and had museums with the bones or replicas on exhibit I’m waiting for someone to show me the references and/or evidence for specific dinosaurs as other “educated people” from
the Nile Mosaic (Palestrina 100 BC) to the floor Mosaic at Sapphori Israel (300 AD) to the Buddhist temple in Cambodia (1200 AD).

Of course you’ve missed the whole point of this debate. The long ages rqeuired for evolution to have occurred do NOT seem to even exist. I’ve posted many times the cutting edge research from the past 25 years on these threads and will continue to do so irrespective of the sarcasm.

Here is another example from science: Saber tooth tigers, giant bison, giant sloths, mammoths and mastodons have the same C-14 ages as the dinosaurs therefore the claim that dinosaurs died out 65 million years is a monstrous hoax that makes the “Piltdown man” and other “missing link” frauds pale in comparison.

However, catastophists like myself are not scientifically dogmatic about the age of the earth only that Moses and scripture are far closer to the truth than are the claims for mega zillions of years for macroevolution. C-14 ages for the bones of these extinct critters from Tx to AK are in the range of roughly 20,000 to 30,000 Radiocarbon years for both their organic and bioapatite fractions as I have shown in past threads. Most depictions are 500 to ~3,000 real years ago. We are getting closer and closer to the truth and are having fun searching for the truth in science.

Moses sizzles while Darwin fizzles. Goodby now.

Hi Philipp:

It was interesting to learn about the Angkor Wat dinosaur.

I’ve heard and seen pictures of all the other ones you mentioned, and they have been debunked to everyone’s satisfaction.

Now the Angkor Wat dinosaur: either we had a stegosaur walking around in Cambodia one thousand years ago (which would have necessitated a stegosaur population, with no other reports to back it up), or we had an artist who didn’t finish his work on a hippo (which is exactly what this would look like, as the animal does not look like a stegosaur, but a hippo),

If it is indeed a stegosaur (unlikely in the extreme, but here goes,) I think the first place I would look is the quarry where the Angkor Wat stone blocks came from. That’s probably where the fossil was found, if it is a depiction based on a fossil.

Cheers,

Tor

 

[rossum]

Regarding cave dwellers: some of our ancestors in one cave in France posted a depiction of a T-Rex in a face-off with a mammoth.

Again you are showing your lack of understanding of evolution. A “living fossil” is not a problem for evolution. We already have plenty of living fossils: horseshoe crabs, sharks, coelacanths, lungfish, neopilina and others. We even have living dinosaurs, though these days we call them birds. If you want to have evidence against evolution then you need a modern animal in old rocks - a Cambrian rabbit. Old animals in new rocks or alive today are interesting, but not a problem for evolution.

If you wish to disprove evolution then you need to understand it better so you can attack its weaknesses, not its strengths.

rossum

 

[jcrichton]

Hi jcrichton,

No, I agree… we don’t really know what life was like on this planet… except current scientific hypothesis and understanding (and science is never certain) holds that those things would have existed before the fall, which does conflict with our faith…

We are told that the pain experienced in childbirth, toil and labour, even biological death itself it would seem (‘remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’) were things that man should experience after sin entered the world.

In the book of Wisdom it says that the generative forces of creation are wholesome and there is no destructive poison in them, which I take to mean that human suffering was not part of the original plan… I could see how animal suffering could be part of an original plan, as that is not an evil thing, but human suffering is different…

St Paul wrote that our flesh is corrupted, and we can even see this from our own experience in that we know that our flesh, in its biological nature (which supposedly we would have inherited through evolution whether we sinned or not) naturally lusts after things that are immoral.

Somehow the theology and the science would have to be made compatible in order for evolution to be true, and at the moment I question how it could be… although there perhaps is a way…

God Bless,

…all I can tell you is that there are two distinct planes of existence: corporeal and spiritual.

Though Yahweh God warns Adam and Eve of imminent death should they eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge we know that the physical death did not happen until hundreds of years after the Fall. Sin is the corruption that entered into our spiritual existence due to Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience. The curse placed on them and on the planet could well have been meant that nature (corporeal) would suffer through an intensified burden rather than its originally intended course of Creation.

How does this manifest itself in the physical realm? I can only speculate (no science background) but it seems to me that more and more the planet is suffering greater tormoil through natural catastrophes and man-made disasters; conversely, pain and suffering in nature could have been intensified by the curse brough about by Adam’s and Eve’s Sin.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

Hello.

This is not a very scientific post, unless I were to label it some sort of sociological commentary.

I wonder whether people on this thread who defend Young Earth Creationism know that they look like complete idiots to outsiders?

Perhaps not idiots: maybe it’s like stepping into a cave that has not seen sunlight for eons, populated by dotty friends who have escaped death for a thousand years. Sitting around the same table they are having the same discussions based on the same knowledge and the same presumptions, ignorant and dismissive of decades of painstaking work done by educated people.

When they are confronted with the accumulated knowledge of new generations they scoff and assert that this work has been undertaken to mock their religion and their god, and to undermine the authority of their holy institutions. As time goes on they learn some of this new knowledge, and decide to retrofit it to agree with the creation story in their book, and end up concocting a spectacular mess of the facts in the process.

I am not saying this to be mean or rude. I am trying to give an insight into the experience of people who happen upon this particular sort of thread and take the time to read the posts.

Do you really want to be these cave-dwelling throwbacks? Do you really want to be the laughing stock of educated people?

Hi!

…the beauty of opinions is that it allows everyone to exercise their minds by expressing a thought… the sadness about the elite is that even if a person becomes “cultured” enough to exist in their midst they will still turn their nose up in contempt as they seek different reasons to continue their discrimination.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[SFTor]

Hi!

…the beauty of opinions is that it allows everyone to exercise their minds by expressing a thought… the sadness about the elite is that even if a person becomes “cultured” enough to exist in their midst they will still turn their nose up in contempt as they seek different reasons to continue their discrimination.

Maran atha!

Angel

Angel:

this has nothing to do with being “elite.” It is a reaction of fright and alarm to how we are supposed to buy this wholesale fiction that is Young Earth Creationism.

As I feel that in these discussions you get desensitized to the propositions put forward by different participants, it is important to step back once in a while, and take a fresh look.

The first enormous fallacy we are presented is that Darwinism and evolutionary biology is some sort of anti-Catholic plot. Let me assure everyone, no one is hellbent on the destruction of the Catholic Church—especially not a bunch of scientists who would rather be counting millipede legs in Madagascar.

The second pile of nonsense that comes our way is the attack on some aspect of Darwinian theory through one device after another: one moment you’ll hear that there isn’t enough time in the Earth’s history for evolution to unfold, the next moment you’ll hear that Noah’s flood could have shaped the Grand Canyon in five minutes. Then, onward to irreducible complexity. Example one: the eye. Ooops, to well known from an evolutionary point of view? Never mind. How about bacterial flagella? Oh, similar, simpler structures exist that may weaken the argument? Never mind. Let’s try the next one. The immune system. Blood coagulation. And so on, and so on—down the rabbit hole we go, always looking for a silver bullet to kill the beast that is Darwin.

All of this goes on because of the ultimate fallacy: that the Christian creation myth and Darwinian evolution theory are both theories, both equally valid, both worthy of discussion and consideration.

Sorry, but that is just not so. Only one of them is a scientific theory. The other narrative is found in a book that is over 2,000 years old. It is written by people with a rudimentary understanding of the world around them, even for their time. Even what is mentioned in the book about life unfolding on the Earth is demonstrably wrong. It is not a scientific theory. It is a creation myth. And a creation myth doesn’t get to compete with scientific theories. Sorry. There simply is no scientific validity or even content in the Christian creation myth, and that goes for any and all parts of it. Enough said. Full stop.

Again, I am not writing this to be rude or insensitive. But this is the truth. Once in a while it is important to remind oneself of it. Otherwise you start thinking that maybe Noah could fit a couple of blue whales on that Ark after all.

Best,

Tor

 

[jcrichton]

Angel:

this has nothing to do with being “elite.” It is a reaction of fright and alarm to how we are supposed to buy this wholesale fiction that is Young Earth Creationism.

As I feel that in these discussions you get desensitized to the propositions put forward by different participants, it is important to step back once in a while, and take a fresh look.

The first enormous fallacy we are presented is that Darwinism and evolutionary biology is some sort of anti-Catholic plot. Let me assure everyone, no one is hellbent on the destruction of the Catholic Church—especially not a bunch of scientists who would rather be counting millipede legs in Madagascar.

The second pile of nonsense that comes our way is the attack on some aspect of Darwinian theory through one device after another: one moment you’ll hear that there isn’t enough time in the Earth’s history for evolution to unfold, the next moment you’ll hear that Noah’s flood could have shaped the Grand Canyon in five minutes. Then, onward to irreducible complexity. Example one: the eye. Ooops, to well known from an evolutionary point of view? Never mind. How about bacterial flagella? Oh, similar, simpler structures exist that may weaken the argument? Never mind. Let’s try the next one. The immune system. Blood coagulation. And so on, and so on—down the rabbit hole we go, always looking for a silver bullet to kill the beast that is Darwin.

All of this goes on because of the ultimate fallacy: that the Christian creation myth and Darwinian evolution theory are both theories, both equally valid, both worthy of discussion and consideration.

Sorry, but that is just not so. Only one of them is a scientific theory. The other narrative is found in a book that is over 2,000 years old. It is written by people with a rudimentary understanding of the world around them, even for their time. Even what is mentioned in the book about life unfolding on the Earth is demonstrably wrong. It is not a scientific theory. It is a creation myth. And a creation myth doesn’t get to compete with scientific theories. Sorry. There simply is no scientific validity or even content in the Christian creation myth, and that goes for any and all parts of it. Enough said. Full stop.

Again, I am not writing this to be rude or insensitive. But this is the truth. Once in a while it is important to remind oneself of it. Otherwise you start thinking that maybe Noah could fit a couple of blue whales on that Ark after all.

Best,

Tor

…‘change your way of thinking or others will call you names and think that you are not a sensient being…’ or some other seemingly intelligent articulation as such comes only from an elite position. You call Darwin Darwin not some old ancient man, why do you suppose you cannot call the Bible the Bible?

Till science can produce a living complex creature, out of nothing, no amount of theorizing can validate your claims.

Do I believe everything that everyone is saying about what they believe the Holy Scriptures are revealing to them? No. But 8+ billion dollars to create a collider to demonstrate that life “emerged” does sounds as though some scientists are reaching in an effort to prove what they hold, though unsustantiated as yet, as evident: evilution not Yahweh God is the origin of life.

Though you include a clause that seems to mean that you truly do not mean to offend… is that not the same as the guy who uses up the girl and then calls it off with “it’s not you, it’s me…?”

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[buffalo]

A

Sorry, but that is just not so. Only one of them is a scientific theory. The other narrative is found in a book that is over 2,000 years old. It is written by people with a rudimentary understanding of the world around them, even for their time. Even what is mentioned in the book about life unfolding on the Earth is demonstrably wrong. It is not a scientific theory. It is a creation myth. And a creation myth doesn’t get to compete with scientific theories. Sorry. There simply is no scientific validity or even content in the Christian creation myth, and that goes for any and all parts of it. Enough said. Full stop.

The problem is that the Bible contains what is known as Revealed truth. These truths are dogmatic. Revealed truths cannot be undermined by scientific theories. Both must be true, or one is false. Revealed truth cannot be wrong, therefore the science is challenged, and it should be, because as you know science by its own definition has a limited say about the universe.

 

[rossum]

The problem is that the Bible contains what is known as Revealed truth. These truths are dogmatic. Revealed truths cannot be undermined by scientific theories. Both must be true, or one is false. Revealed truth cannot be wrong, therefore the science is challenged, and it should be, because as you know science by its own definition has a limited say about the universe.

Revealed truth cannot be wrong, but human interpretations of revealed truth can be wrong. Can you show that your interpretation of revealed truth is correct and that other interpretations more friendly towards evolution are wrong?

It is also true that God made the world so the world cannot be wrong either. Both revealed truth and the created world must agree. Human interpretations of revealed truth (theology) and human interpretations of the created world (science) may well disagree. The correct interpretation of the revealed truth must agree with the correct interpretation of the created world. So as well as showing that your interpretation of revealed truth is correct, you also have to show that your interpretation of the created world is correct. You need to have both sides of the coin for the complete truth.

Young earth creationism fails on both counts, it is bad theology and bad science.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Revealed truth cannot be wrong, but human interpretations of revealed truth can be wrong. Can you show that your interpretation of revealed truth is correct and that other interpretations more friendly towards evolution are wrong?

It is also true that God made the world so the world cannot be wrong either. Both revealed truth and the created world must agree. Human interpretations of revealed truth (theology) and human interpretations of the created world (science) may well disagree. The correct interpretation of the revealed truth must agree with the correct interpretation of the created world. So as well as showing that your interpretation of revealed truth is correct, you also have to show that your interpretation of the created world is correct. You need to have both sides of the coin for the complete truth.

Young earth creationism fails on both counts, it is bad theology and bad science.

rossum

I never made an argument for YEC.

If we have the wrong interpretation of Sacred Scripture then the Holy Spirit (the guardian of truth) has failed us.

By ourselves we can never find the complete truth. We are limited and can only see what we are allowed to see. That is why Revelation is a reliable guide, information we would never be able to find on our own.

 

[reggieM]

It is also true that God made the world so the world cannot be wrong either. Both revealed truth and the created world must agree. Human interpretations of revealed truth (theology) and human interpretations of the created world (science) may well disagree. The correct interpretation of the revealed truth must agree with the correct interpretation of the created world. So as well as showing that your interpretation of revealed truth is correct, you also have to show that your interpretation of the created world is correct. You need to have both sides of the coin for the complete truth.

Catholics must accept creationism and Intelligent Design theory to some degree. Scientific interpretations of the created world are built on a philosophical foundation – science is subject to philosophy and theology. Thus far, scientists do not have a fully correct interpretation of the created world.

 

[edwest2]

Revealed truth cannot be wrong, but human interpretations of revealed truth can be wrong. Can you show that your interpretation of revealed truth is correct and that other interpretations more friendly towards evolution are wrong?

It is also true that God made the world so the world cannot be wrong either. Both revealed truth and the created world must agree. Human interpretations of revealed truth (theology) and human interpretations of the created world (science) may well disagree. The correct interpretation of the revealed truth must agree with the correct interpretation of the created world. So as well as showing that your interpretation of revealed truth is correct, you also have to show that your interpretation of the created world is correct. You need to have both sides of the coin for the complete truth.

Young earth creationism fails on both counts, it is bad theology and bad science.

rossum

Young earth creationism is a political invention. The Church holds to the deposit of faith. There are certain truths that are always true. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as true God and true man. Modernists, too often, desiring only novelty, along with atheists, appear here. Their goal is change which is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the truths held by the Church.

As it was in 1950 when Humani Generis was written, some think the Bible was not yet read in any sort of intellectual capacity and that somehow, modern ideas undermine established divine revelation. This while at the same time saying science is silent about God, etc. Well obviously not when some claim, based on science, that this or that obviously miraculous event in the Bible did not actually happen.

You might as well say that God does not exist or has the ability to perform miracles as Richard Dawkins likes to scientifically state. When asked, “Did God make man from the dust of the earth and breathe life into his nostrils?” He answered, “No.”

This interpretation merry-go-round would end if some of the interpreters were as familiar with Catholic established truths as they claim to be with science.

Peace,
Ed