tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post2032171099386356784..comments2024-03-25T14:27:40.121-05:00Comments on Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength: Controversies in the church: CreationWeekend Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10425001168670801073noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-8515173128088802822010-12-17T20:38:51.239-06:002010-12-17T20:38:51.239-06:00Correlation does not equal causation.
You're ...Correlation does not equal causation.<br /><br />You're <i>hoping</i> against all experience that observed similarities in program (DNA) or structure (fossils) indicate common descent.<br /><br />That's the equivalent of seeing an Echo and a Prius and concluding that the latter descended from the former (or a common ancestor -- the Corolla?), or that an iPod gave birth to an iPad.<br /><br />The differences between cars or computers indicate "evolving" <i>design</i>, not the accidental results of energy applied randomly to matter over billions of years.Amillennialisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03468148711631335265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-3484964427207176982010-12-17T11:00:49.463-06:002010-12-17T11:00:49.463-06:00For one thing, and most important, similarities, o...For one thing, and most important, similarities, or even identities, between the DNA of all sorts of organisms.<br /><br />For another, fossil evidence.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-69167363525435947342010-11-20T20:25:06.712-06:002010-11-20T20:25:06.712-06:00And in defense of that, to what can he point, Mart...And in defense of that, to what can he point, Martin?Amillennialisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03468148711631335265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-47270945810855176462010-11-19T05:20:22.773-06:002010-11-19T05:20:22.773-06:00To quote
Todd C. Wood, a young-earth creationist ...To <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html" rel="nofollow">quote</a><br /> Todd C. Wood, a young-earth creationist with impeccable scientific credentials, "Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it."Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-43755913977661561542010-11-12T12:29:42.346-06:002010-11-12T12:29:42.346-06:00one of the key claims of evolution -- namely, that...<i>one of the key claims of evolution -- namely, that the changes in life forms are the product of chance alone -- is not properly a scientific claim as it is not open to testing or verification.</i><br /><br />The problem for Darwinian evolution is that <i>all</i> observation shows that it <i>never</i> occurs. Random genetic mutations happen, but they're normally harmful or fatal to the organism. They never add newer, more complex program/structure/function.<br /><br />If Life is constantly evolving into newer, more complex forms, then how can anyone catch a Coelacanth, a fish contemporaneous with the tyrant lizards?<br /><br />If in five hundred million years, coelacanth evolved into . . . coelacanth, then how did some ape-like organism(s) evolve in only a few million years into Man?<br /><br />The best Darwinists can do in defense of their creation myth is Lenski's <i>E. Coli</i>, and what do they show? After tens of thousands of generations, the bacteria evolved into . . . <i>bacteria!</i><br /><br />The Darwinists demonstrate their inability (or unwillingness) to deal honestly with facts also in how they treat the T. Rex red blood cells discovered in Montana. At first, they did everything they could to avoid admitting that red blood cells were discovered in a fossil at least (according to them) 65 million years old. Then, rather than revise their assumptions with regard to dating, they instead suggested that protein has a longer shelf life than they realized!<br /><br />(And really, moving the goalposts is all that's left to those who believe that Man arose accidentally from microbes by way of maggots, mice, and monkeys. That and name-calling.)<br /><br /><i>At what point of certainty do you accept a scientific finding?</i><br /><br />Observable fact. Whether it's Science or Religion, without observable fact, all you've got is fiction.<br /><br />No scientist observed the Big Bang (anyway, who's ever heard of explosions <i>building</i> things?). No Darwinist has ever observed abiogenesis (so much so, that they run from the topic). And no one's ever observed a bird hatch from a reptile egg.<br /><br />Darwinism isn't Science, it's <i>science fiction</i>.<br /><br />Yet we've got sixteen hundred years of eyewitness accounts of YHWH's intervening in human affairs -- culminating with the Crucifixion and Resurrection -- preserved by the societies in which they occurred.<br /><br />Histories written, words recorded, monuments made, and worshiped as a god. Yet no one denies the historicity of Julius Caesar. Even allegedly-hostile, non-Christian history calling Christ a "sorcerer" acknowledges (unwillingly, no doubt) His miracles, and still the evolutionists mock.<br /><br />Two thousand years ago, Paul observed that God's eternal power and divine nature are obvious in the Creation. If someone won't believe Moses -- or their lyin' eyes -- then they won't believe even if Someone rises from the dead.<br /><br />Christians have no reason to be ashamed.Amillennialisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03468148711631335265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-85863387737219254762010-05-15T20:59:54.932-05:002010-05-15T20:59:54.932-05:00Well, Howard, that kind of thing has gone too far....Well, Howard, that kind of thing has gone too far. I agree.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-4541280161762076282010-05-15T17:51:16.331-05:002010-05-15T17:51:16.331-05:00"we are also on dangerous ground if we reject..."we are also on dangerous ground if we reject or ignore scientific findings, when God has told us that observing nature is one of the ways He reveals Himself to us".<br /><br /><br />Thanks for the response, Martin. I have no problem "hearing' what scientific findings convey - William Dembski, for example, recently covered this well in his book, 'The End of Christianity'. What troubles me greatly, as noted in my blog, is that what has been commonly identified as vital strands of Christian theology are now being re-defined or even sidelined as a result of the weight given to that voice - and this takes us in a direction that is very troubling indeed. The 'voice' being heard loud and clear amidst many right now is that the 'stories' of Genesis are little more than myth - a miracle-working 'god' invented to grant a particular colony of refugees an identity during their diaspora - it therefore has no real bearing upon the actual human story - one of eras of pain and suffering and death which are purely 'natural' in their origin and outcome.<br />There needs to be a truly satisfying theological and historical resolution to this, and when christian teachers begin finding this in the notion that at present,humanity is essentially good, we just become mildly 'bad' through poor judgment or life choices (which need 'tweaking', nit wholesale redemption) there really isn't that much left to say to the adherent to naturalism, who asks 'why need God?'Howardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13707181627588121525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-25291622512671948612010-05-15T17:47:56.261-05:002010-05-15T17:47:56.261-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Howardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13707181627588121525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-39397017053037211622010-05-15T08:27:08.238-05:002010-05-15T08:27:08.238-05:00Thanks, Howard, for responding to my comment. (Thi...Thanks, Howard, for responding to my comment. (This isn't my blog, of course!)<br /><br />You are right that we are on dangerous ground if we interpret something as other than history when God wants us to interpret it as such. Very dangerous ground.<br /><br />But we are also on dangerous ground if we reject or ignore scientific findings, when God has told us that observing nature is one of the ways He reveals Himself to us.<br /><br />There are questions about the narrative, itself, that don't come up because one is already wedded to an old-earth view. One such is on Genesis 2, especially verse 5, which seems to say that there weren't any plants growing in the earth, because it hadn't rained yet, (I recognize that there are different translations of that verse, but that, in itself, indicates uncertainty about the meaning) at the time when people were created, which doesn't match Genesis 1.<br /><br />There are other reasons to question the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2, such as how Adam could have gone to sleep, had surgery, and named all the animals, all in one day.<br /><br />The most important thing about Genesis 1 and 2 is not its timing, whatever that may have been, but the Who of creation, and the fact that there was a Who -- all too many people think that the universe, and we ourselves, are here by chance. Genesis doesn't seem to offer much of an alternative to a Who, no matter what the timing.<br /><br />Thanks again.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-21645962612749224972010-05-15T08:13:47.896-05:002010-05-15T08:13:47.896-05:00Craig, Schroeder may even be right on this, but pr...Craig, Schroeder may even be right on this, but proposing that the six days did what he says they did seems to be without any scriptural foundation, and to just be something he made up out of whole cloth.<br /><br />Thanks for responding.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-51491642478641397102010-05-13T11:20:36.475-05:002010-05-13T11:20:36.475-05:00Martin,
Many thanks for checking my blog entry - w...Martin,<br />Many thanks for checking my blog entry - which was actually posted prior to reading WF's entry, but which seemed to refer in some aspects to the quote I used here.<br /><br />I think the questions matter because the issues they refer to are already being 'adjusted', theologically, by those who view them as secondary at best (hence my blog entry). However we might chose to view the creation process, it essentially contains the miraculous - it is a work of God, as do so many of the events spoken about in Genesis. If we interpret such an element as nothing more than "special language", not history, that leaves us in very murky waters.Howardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13707181627588121525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-1980848936738016122010-05-13T11:19:01.233-05:002010-05-13T11:19:01.233-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Howardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13707181627588121525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-85631428899931936912010-05-13T08:12:09.497-05:002010-05-13T08:12:09.497-05:00I'm not a scientist, and I obviously can't...I'm not a scientist, and I obviously can't defend Schroeder's theories. I don't have any stock in him being right or wrong, so I offer his theories only because I find it a unique attempt to synthesize the scientific evidence for an old-earth with a "literal" reading of Genesis 1. You could be right; perhaps it is too neat (and I would be lying if I said I didn't have the same concerns myself).<br /><br />With that said, Schroeder does base his half-lives on the general theory of relativity, using it to calculate the effects caused by the stretching outward of space and time since the Big Bang. From an article at his website:<br /><br />---BEGIN QUOTE---<br />What is a "day?"<br /><br />The usual answer to that is let the word day in Genesis chapter one be any long period of time. Bend the Bible to match the science. Fortunately, the Talmud in Hagigah (12A), Rashi there and Nahmanides (Gen. 1:3) all tell us that the word day means 24 hours. But the commentary continues in Exodus and Leviticus, that the days are 24 hours each (not relating to sunrise and sunset, merely sets of 24 hours). There are six of them, and the duration is not longer than the six days of a work week, BUT contain all the ages of the world. How can six 24 hour days contain all the ages of the world?<br /><br />Einstein taught the world that time is relative. That in regions of high velocity or high gravity time actually passes more slowly relative to regions of lower gravity or lower velocity. (One system relative to another, hence the name, the laws of relativity) This is now proven fact. Time actually stretches out. Were ever you are time is normal for you because your biology is part of that local system.<br /><br />That is Einstein and gravity and velocity. But there is a third aspect of the universe that changes the perception of time, Not gravity and not velocity. That is the stretching of space. The universe started as a minuscule speck, perhaps not larger that a grain of mustard and stretched out from there. Space actually stretches. The effect of the stretching of space produces the effect that when observing an event that took place far from our galaxy, as the light from that event travels through space and the sequence of events travels through space, the information is actually stretched out. (In The Science of God I give the logic in detail in simple easy to understand terms.)<br />---END QUOTE---<br /><br />You can read more here: <br />http://www.geraldschroeder.com/AgeUniverse.aspxCraighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-40571255184875793682010-05-13T06:12:25.036-05:002010-05-13T06:12:25.036-05:00Thanks for the link, Craig. It works.
I'm wit...Thanks for the link, Craig. It works.<br /><br />I'm with you, WF. It's too neat. Two observations:<br /><br />Genesis 1:2 mentions waters, seemingly as if they were there in the beginning.<br /><br />Day 5 seems to describe the appearance of water animals only, not land ones. That's not how Schroeder puts it.<br /><br />Granted, I'm not sure how literally to take the days, but Schroeder's scheme doesn't exactly parallel the day scheme of Genesis 1.<br /><br />And I also wonder about the half-lives. I don't think we know enough to pin those periods down with accuracy nearly that close.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-27910632074458032802010-05-12T20:00:57.555-05:002010-05-12T20:00:57.555-05:00It's a tough call sometimes; "What is rel...It's a tough call sometimes; "What is relevant" varies by where you stand on the spectrum of beliefs. <br /><br />And though I would take Schroeder's spreadsheet with a grain of salt -- it just looked so ... tidy ... as far as the half-lives of the "days", & made me wonder about how exactly those listed boundaries were chosen -- my point here is not to judge the issue but to catalog the range of beliefs and perspectives. If there was some sort of accelerating rhythm to the cosmos' formation it would be fascinating; but the sheer neat-ness of the dates ... I'm curious about the corroboration, to say the least. <br /><br />Martin -- you're someone who follows that kind of thing in far more depth than I've ever garnered the interest for, I'd really love to hear your comments on Schroeder's spreadsheet. What's your two cent's worth on that? <br /><br />Take care & God bless<br />Anne / WFWeekend Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10425001168670801073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-83468245535630646462010-05-12T14:02:41.212-05:002010-05-12T14:02:41.212-05:00Ooops - sorry for the bad link. I think this shoul...Ooops - sorry for the bad link. I think this should give you access - http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tvzLHwyr0s7V4THdEjwdCow&output=htmlCraighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-29195167331543763462010-05-12T13:58:24.417-05:002010-05-12T13:58:24.417-05:00I also tried to look at Schroeder's chart, ref...I also tried to look at Schroeder's chart, referred to in Craig's comment. I do not have access to it, and suspect that others won't, either.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-86411623788205711182010-05-12T13:36:36.164-05:002010-05-12T13:36:36.164-05:00Thanks.
I checked Howard's blog, and didn'...Thanks.<br /><br />I checked Howard's blog, and didn't find it to be exactly relevant to your post. He asks some good questions, but there are Christ- and Bible-loving scholars who think that the narrative, itself, suggests that it isn't meant to be taken strictly literally. (And, of course, others who think it is.) But you are writing about controversies . . .<br /><br />Thanks for mentioning my work. You have done a valuable service (as usual) in organizing the strengths and weaknesses of two of the more than two sides in this controversy.<br /><br />Thanks again.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-86685966111186180152010-05-12T13:30:06.119-05:002010-05-12T13:30:06.119-05:00This is one controversy in which I have generally ...This is one controversy in which I have generally sat in the middle. I am with the evolutionists in that a particular writing in Scripture has to be interpreted by remaining faithful to the style of literature it is, e.g., historical, apocalyptic, symbolic wisdom, etc. But I am with the creationists in that there are a lot of problems *scientifically* with evolution. So my opposition to evolution is based on science and my opposition to creationism is based on style of scriptural interpretation. I just get in trouble with everybody.<br /><br />Gerald Schroeder has an interesting approach in his book "The Science of God." He advances the theory that the days of creation parallel the actual epochs of astronomical, geological, and biological formation (i.e., old-earth timeline) - http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlCJPtt4pNIedHZ6TEh3eXIwczdWNFRIZEVqd2RDb3c&hl=enCraighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-35666037830032172952010-05-11T07:21:03.774-05:002010-05-11T07:21:03.774-05:00Thank you for the links. I've read them, &...Thank you for the links. I've read them, & there's interesting material all around. <br /><br />I'll put a link up in the main post, to help anyone else follow along who may be interested. <br /><br />Martin: Your work shows the marks of someone who is WAY more invested in this particular controversy than many of us -- but that's a good thing. It means you'll have something thoroughly thought-out and researched on the table. <br /><br />Take care & God bless<br />Anne / WFWeekend Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10425001168670801073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-32990067089598390302010-05-10T08:40:52.155-05:002010-05-10T08:40:52.155-05:00This is a good post, well organized. Thanks.
One ...This is a good post, well organized. Thanks.<br /><br />One problem I see is this (and it's very common -- I've done it myself): "evolution" is not defined.<br /><br />When people who discuss these matters use that term, it should be defined, because it has a lot of meanings for different people, such as:<br />1) Selection of insects resistant to insecticide<br />2) Appearance of new species<br />3) Appearance of larger groups, such as reptiles, from another group<br />4) Origin of humans from a non-human ancestor<br />5) Origin of life from non-life<br />6) Origin of the universe by chance, or at least with no purpose.<br /><br />Another problem is Intelligent Design. Is it a political movement, a particular belief in origins, or both of these?<br /><br />All, or nearly all, of the leaders of the ID movement are <a href="http://sunandshield.blogspot.com/2006/07/young-earth-creationism-vs-intelligent.html" rel="nofollow">on record</a> as saying that they believe, or are willing to accept, that the earth is very old.<br /><br />Thanks again.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-91758094408240586812010-05-10T03:09:40.318-05:002010-05-10T03:09:40.318-05:00"Once you begin second-guessing the narrative..."Once you begin second-guessing the narrative, how do you know when to stop? Is there anything in the Bible that you take as certain; if so, why that and not the rest? Is there any belief you are sure will not be overthrown someday; if so, what is it and how are you sure about that?"<br /><br />Many thanks for taking on this subject head on. The above issue is something my latest blog seeks to address:<br />http://wwwjustifiedsinner.blogspot.com/Howardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13707181627588121525noreply@blogger.com