Tristen

Tristen, No, that is in no way what I am proposing and I have made this explicit in the OP and in posts! Here, from the OP I mean, I don't know how else to put it! Someone, please help me. Did I not clearly say in the OP that we should not accommodate the sciences by reinterpreting Scripture!? I clearly have said that it is responsible to reexamine Scripture. Reexamining and reinterpreting are not the same thing. Reexamining simply means, looking at it again with fresh eyes (don't read it with the intention of seeing what you always saw). Perhaps you will see what you saw previously. A doctor may have originally thought his subject died of poison; then studies in poison are published which makes him wonder whether his original diagnosis was correct. He goes back to study it again...and he consciously resists the impulse to look at all the same things in the same manner. 1 of 2 things happens: he finds nothing new, and so confirms his original diagnosis; or he sees things he did not see at first, and corrects his original diagnosis. It is the same with exegesis. There are people here who suspect any reading of Scripture other than one that affirms YEC because they can only conclude that an interpretation other than YEC is an accommodation of science. This is NOT true. The doctor's renewed diagnosis was not an accommodation to the new discoveries. The reexamination was influenced by the new discoveries. That is the only influence I am allowing to science: the impulse to reexamine...not what we will find. If we find nothing, then we dismiss the scientific claims. But perhaps you will see something else. In either case it is not natural science but exegesis (and its sub-disciplines of linguistics and history and archaelogy) that guides the process. Scientific claims are merely the spring board. There is no obligation to make Scripture agree with science; there is an obligation to reexamine Scripture when 99% of the scientific community says something contrary to A POPULAR INTERPRETATION. I capitalize to show that we are not pitting scientific claims against God. We are pitting scientific claims against exegetical claims. CLAIMS IN BOTH!! I hate using captilization Both are claims made by humans. Fallible interpreters; interpreting both creation and scripture. Both creation and scripture come from God. We are trying to read both, through the tools of science in the one and the tools of exegesis in the other. Why is this so hard to understand? It's as if everyone thinks that science is a completely human enterprise while the study of Scripture is so easy that we intuitively understand every verse as it was intended by the author! if the latter were true, why would we have so many commentaries over so many years disagreeing with each other--and don't anyone dare say because Satan has his hand in the pot. Pious Christians disagree over interpretations with pious Christians. Both Scripture and Creation were created by God. Both Scripture and Creation should point to God as they were intended. Both Scripture and Creation are therefore objects of study presented to fallible subjects (i.e. us). We are all therefore trying to figure out creation and scripture. Hey CLB, you said, “There are people here who suspect any reading of Scripture other than one that affirms YEC because they can only conclude that an interpretation other than YEC is an accommodation of science. This is NOT true” Not an accommodation to “science”, but an accommodation to secular historical models. We conclude that it is true because of the propensity to use these other interpretations to make the Bible consistent with the secular models. In every instance there is an attempt to either squeeze genesis together with secular history, or just write off the Genesis account as non-historical, so that there is no discrepancy between Genesis and these models. The secular models are not questioned; therefore the Bible has to make way for their assumptive version of history. “That is the only influence I am allowing to science: the impulse to reexamine...not what we will find” So why give science any influence at all – why not just say “let’s try to be objective in our examination of Genesis, let’s make an effort to lay aside all our preconceptions and read Genesis anew”? What do you think we would find? If we examined Genesis 1 & 2 without any preconceived ideas, only relying on the context itself, do you think we would find your vague “God created the universe in His temple” idea, or would we discover the gap theory, or some other form of theistic evolution, or would we find the young-earth creation account? I have no problem ‘re-examining’ the text. Many scholars have done so on countless occasions. But it has to be an honest examination; free from the influence of outside ideas and motives. “It's as if everyone thinks that science is a completely human enterprise while the study of Scripture is so easy that we intuitively understand every verse as it was intended by the author!” Not “intuitively”. We have the tools of logic and reason and the intellectual capacity to establish the most likely intent of the author through examinations of grammatical context. We are not using ‘the force’ – we are examining the actual evidence on its own merit. That doesn’t mitigate the possibility of disagreement – but the opposing arguments have to be equally justified in a logical examination of the textual evidence – not just some extraneous, nebulous suggestion that maybe we are wrong. Remember that as believers, we consider ourselves to be accountable to God for how we approach the scriptures. So weakly supported arguments about what someone thinks the Bible might mean beyond what it actually says, doesn’t cut it for us. So we will defend sound doctrine based on sound interpretation methods in the face of such arguments. Perhaps some get a bit carried away with their defence, but the defence itself is justified. We want to know what the Bible teaches as much as anyone – so we are motivated to defend the scriptures against specious interpretations – and are not motivated to ignore anything that God may want to address to us. “ Pious Christians disagree over interpretations with pious Christians. Both Scripture and Creation were created by God. Both Scripture and Creation should point to God as they were intended. Both Scripture and Creation are therefore objects of study presented to fallible subjects (i.e. us). We are all therefore trying to figure out creation and scripture.” I have no problem with any of this.

Hi Tristen, I agree, and it was never my point that Biblical interpretation should accommodate scientific claims by any means possible; that is clearly irresponsible. The point was that if the majority of scientists tell us the earth is very old, should this not constitute grounds for going back to the Bible and the tools of exegesis to see if we have been approaching Scripture wrongly? Obviously, if nothing turns up, well then we are obligated to let the original interpretation stand. In my case, the evidence points me away from a literalistic reading of Genesis 1, evidence derived from exegesis, not science. I am honest with myself--and, not to be rude, I am a higher authority on my own self-consciousness than you are. I agree, the evidence of exegesis does not support OEC; but neither does it support YEC. It makes no comment whatsoever on the age of the cosmos. I am not sure if "symbolic" is the appropriate term: but the abundant use of the number 7 in and outside the Bible to represent "fullness" or "completion" should be noticed, as well as the pervasive temple motif in Genesis 1 and 2. The point of Genesis is not historical but theological. It is claiming that God created (which is, of course, an historical event) the world as His temple; a theme that recurs again and again from Genesis to the very last chapter of Revelation. "physical" might be a better term. I understand that cosmology cannot be tested in a laboratory; but I find it inconceivable that there is absolutely no evidence on which an Old earth is based. I reject Enoch's conspiracy theory. clb Hey CLB, you said, “it was never my point that Biblical interpretation should accommodate scientific claims by any means possible; that is clearly irresponsible” Yet the clear implication of the example you provided was that the Genesis account, as written, is wrong – because some majority of scientists tells you so. Therefore you believe that we should deviate from exegesis and somehow try to marry these scientific claims to the Biblical text. Why can’t we instead question the quality of the science (which the scientific method itself expressly encourages)? There are many logical weaknesses incorporated into the secular claims of a “very old” earth. So I have no objective scientific reason to resort to extraordinary Bible interpretation methods. I have no thoughtful reason to distrust what I find written in Genesis using common, logically-justified interpretation techniques. “The point was that if the majority of scientists tell us the earth is very old, should this not constitute grounds for going back to the Bible and the tools of exegesis to see if we have been approaching Scripture wrongly?” Exegesis means taking information from the text – i.e. information that is actually contained in the text. You are proposing bringing outside ideas to the text, and interpreting the text in the light of those outside ideas. That is called eisegesis. Whether it’s your intention or not – the application of this methodology implicitly subjects the authority of scripture to those outside ideas. “In my case, the evidence points me away from a literalistic reading of Genesis 1, evidence derived from exegesis, not science” Well I would have to examine your arguments. I have also examined Genesis and found overwhelming evidence to justify an historical reading of the text, and no reason in the text itself to justify the assumption of symbolic interpretation. “I am honest with myself--and, not to be rude, I am a higher authority on my own self-consciousness than you are” Of course you are. But I would be surprised if you didn’t concede that you are trying to reinterpret the prima-facie meaning Genesis to conform to external models of reality. Had you read Genesis without ever hearing those outside ideas, do you think you’d be looking for alternate interpretations? “I agree, the evidence of exegesis does not support OEC; but neither does it support YEC. It makes no comment whatsoever on the age of the cosmos” Yet it does speak to the approximate age of the universe if you do the calculations – assuming the text means what it says; e.g. days are days and years are years. “I am not sure if "symbolic" is the appropriate term” I use that term to encompass all of the grammatical tools employed by Biblical authors to get their message across; i.e metaphor, simile, parable, prophetic language, poetry, lyricisms etc. “but the abundant use of the number 7 in and outside the Bible to represent "fullness" or "completion" should be noticed, as well as the pervasive temple motif in Genesis 1 and 2. The point of Genesis is not historical but theological. It is claiming that God created (which is, of course, an historical event) the world as His temple; a theme that recurs again and again from Genesis to the very last chapter of Revelation” And by use of this obscure typology, you are able to dismiss the rest of the Genesis creation account. I don’t understand how that could satisfy a sincere believer. Why would anyone be happy with that unless they felt compelled by some perceived obligatory allegiance to an external idea? You’re not reinterpreting scripture – you are ejecting all but a few points from two whole chapters. That is not an interpretation methodology I could employ with a clear conscience. I don't mean to cast aspersions on your sincerity, but I would suggest that you are motivated to conform the Bible to these secular models of history – otherwise I don’t think you’d be happy with the above solution either. “I understand that cosmology cannot be tested in a laboratory; but I find it inconceivable that there is absolutely no evidence on which an Old earth is based” Claims of “no evidence” are usually unthoughtful – regardless of the claim. Evidence just means facts which have been interpreted to support a claim (i.e. as ‘evidence’ of that claim). Clearly there are facts which have been interpreted to support the claim of a massively ancient earth. Creationists, such as myself, simply question the interpretations of these facts, provide alternative interpretations of the very same facts, as well as demonstrating the influence of presupposition on all interpretations; thereby demonstrating the subjective nature of the interpretation process.

Oh Tristen, I can't believe I'm reading this. One of your criticisms of carbon dating is "living sea creatures" were dated over 3000 years old? Do you understand the principles behind carbon dating? If you did you would have known that carbon dating a living organism is a ridiculous exercise. You don't carbon date living organisms!! A living creature is ingesting carbon all the time, it's only a while after it's dead that we can measure any significant amount of decay into nitrogen. So why would anyone carbon date a living creature?? I'll need to see the research to back up your other claims since I can clearly not be confident that you're not just posting poor "research" from creationist websites like AIG or ICR. You have to be able to understand the tool before criticizing it and claiming it doesn't work. It would be like me taking fork and using it to eat soup, after I see the poor results I hold the fork up and say "Told you forks don't work well". So of course if you don't use a tool properly or understand the underlying principles, you're results will indeed vary. Aside from this there many more dating techniques. For example, Uranium–lead (U–Pb) dating has two separate decay chains so we have an internal calibration method we can use [concordia-discordia method]. Hey Bonky, you said “One of your criticisms of carbon dating is "living sea creatures" were dated over 3000 years old? Do you understand the principles behind carbon dating? If you did you would have known that carbon dating a living organism is a ridiculous exercise. You don't carbon date living organisms!! A living creature is ingesting carbon all the time, it's only a while after it's dead that we can measure any significant amount of decay into nitrogen” Carbon dating a living organism should theoretically yield an age of ~0, i.e. little to no evidence of C14 decay from the environmental ratio. So any deviation from that ‘age’ represents a failure in the assumptions underlying the “principles behind carbon dating”. BTW, it wasn’t me that carbon dated these organisms. The living tree example was presented to me as evidence that the earth must be more than 6000 years old. “So why would anyone carbon date a living creature??” One might use dating material of known age as an experimental control. “I'll need to see the research to back up your other claims since I can clearly not be confident that you're not just posting poor "research" from creationist websites like AIG or ICR” At least you are consistent in your strategy of avoiding arguments through casting unsupported aspersions on your opponents. Your initial criticism in this post regards your contention that there is no difference between the historical and operational methods. I have provided an argument containing the simple logic justifying the distinction. You have ignored my argument and proceeded to make insinuations about my supposed lack of understanding. You resort to ridicule rather than rational response. Once you address the logic of my presented argument, I’ll be happy to assess any research you wish to provide supporting your position – or you can start a new post and we can go thoroughly through each dating method; separating the facts from the theory and examining all the research (including the supposedly “wrong” dates yielded by these methods).

I didn't reject this historical/operational concept outright, I listened to the argument for why we should consider it and it doesn't hold water. According to your logic, the folks at the ancient aliens studio have just as good a story as anyone else [on whatever topic] because "hey, none of us were there right?". Do you believe that Pluto has ever made a complete orbit around the Sun? Do you think it's reasonable to suggest that it hasn't because "we haven't personally observed it"? I'm not saying that any or all scientific claims of the past are equally supported by evidence. We agreed that the extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs is not entirely agreed upon by the scientific community for example. Radio decay however is something that can be measured, calibrated and verified [supernovae]...so it's not an interpretation but a solid measurement. But your "competing explanation" is "We weren't there". You're holding an empty sack Tristen. By your logic, any murderer would go free unless we had video footage of the actual murder! What claims are consistent with the facts?! You weren't there right!? It's funny how creationists will criticize mainstream science by saying that they sometimes adjust their views on something in light of new evidence [which is used to cast doubt] and yet ALSO feel perfectly fine in suggesting that scientists only go where their preconceived notions dictate to them. Neat how that works isn't it? The thing is, scientists doubt based on scientific evidence, not holy books. The article is in response to AIG, a creationist organization and their suggestion that there's this distinction between operational science and historical science. So even within the Christian community this argument is rejected. This argument made by creationists is attempt to make a literal view of Genesis seem to be just a valid model as any other. If we come across scientific evidence that contradicts an early earth [radio decay measurements] you sit there and say "You weren't there". Hey Bonky, you said, “I didn't reject this historical/operational concept outright, I listened to the argument for why we should consider it and it doesn't hold water” So tell me why? Don’t just spout empty, unsupported statements - argue the flaws in my logic I supported my claim with an argument – where am I wrong? Otherwise your “doesn’t hold water” claim is meaningless. “According to your logic, the folks at the ancient aliens studio have just as good a story as anyone else [on whatever topic] because "hey, none of us were there right?"” I have made no claims about the subjective quality of any argument (i.e. nothing about any argument being “just as good as” any other). I haven’t heard the “ancient aliens studio” arguments – so unlike yourself, cannot prejudge or arbitrarily dismiss them as being of lessor quality. Only blind adherence to a particular faith perspective permits the arbitrary dismissal of arguments prior to hearing them. So yes, since no scientific observations are possible in the past, I am obligated by objectivity to fairly consider their arguments when presented – i.e. to compare their model against the currently available facts. “Do you believe that Pluto has ever made a complete orbit around the Sun? Do you think it's reasonable to suggest that it hasn't because "we haven't personally observed it"?” Considering all the effort gone to in our other conversation, I have to conclude by this statement that you really haven’t heard my arguments, or are being intentionally disingenuous. I have expressed to you many times that creationists interpret all of the same evidence used by secular science, but to be consistent with the Biblical model. I have personally provided you with alternative interpretations of facts you thought could only be interpreted one way. So we are not just claiming lack of observation (which in itself is a massive logical and scientific weakness), but an alternative explanation of the available facts. I have also pointed out to you that all scientific confidence in such historical claims amounts to the logical fallacy Affirming the Consequent. Pluto’s path is, to my knowledge, not contested. So your use of it hear represents a Red Herring fallacy. If someone was claiming otherwise, I would be happy to consider their argument before formulating an opinion – would you? “I'm not saying that any or all scientific claims of the past are equally supported by evidence. We agreed that the extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs is not entirely agreed upon by the scientific community for example” And the reason for this discrepancy is that interpretation of facts is subjective. Since the claims were not observed, there is logical room for more than one account of the past. All that is required for the story to be rationally valid is that the account be consistent with the currently available facts (regardless of how those facts have been alternatively interpreted). “Radio decay however is something that can be measured, calibrated and verified [supernovae]...so it's not an interpretation but a solid measurement” It’s a measurement of what is occurring today. No one is questioning radiometric decay. What we question is the application of these facts (chemical isotope ratios) to theoretical ‘ages’. Our instruments very accurately measure the chemical make-up of the tested materials. But to derive an ‘age’ from such facts, one has to incorporate several layers of unverifiable assumption and make extrapolations of 100 or so years of data to magnitudes of billions of years. In any other scientific endeavour, extrapolations of such magnitudes would be ludicrous. Not to mention that there are many radiometric decay ‘ages’ in the scientific literature that are considered to be “wrong” – i.e. don’t match up with the predetermined secular ‘age’ of the rock (I think I gave at least one example in our other discussion). There are also many examples in the scientific literature where differing dating methods yield different ‘ages’. Furthermore, rocks of known age (i.e. observed formation from volcanic eruptions) have yielded verifiably wrong radiometric ages. I have seen scientific papers claiming evidence of changing decay rates. I have seen carbon-dating data sets which date living trees to 8000 years old, living sea creatures to >3000 years old, and bark fragments dated 3000 years into the future. Also, the presumed ‘date’ of the measured material determines which method is applied – introducing immediate bias into the process. So your impression of some unequivocal, so-called “absolute” measure of ‘age’ is based in propaganda. There is certainly a general pattern, but nothing to justify the overwhelming confidence in the method. It is now to the point that some labs require a description of the rock context before performing the measurements – and if the determined ‘age’ doesn’t match the context, the lab returns a non-result. That is, ‘ages’ that do not line up with secular assumptions rarely make it into the literature anymore – thereby introducing more bias into the available data. As I mentioned repeatedly in our other discussion, fundamentally important to the analysis of any scientific claim, is the capacity to separate the empirical form the theoretical. “But your "competing explanation" is "We weren't there". You're holding an empty sack Tristen. By your logic, any murderer would go free unless we had video footage of the actual murder!” My competing explanation is, self-evidently, the Biblical creation account and the models formulated around this premise – I’m really not sure how you could have missed this. Pointing out the inability to observe the past (which should also be self-evident to most people) serves to mitigate the logically unjustified levels of confidence often expressed in secular historical claims. It really is pretty basic logic – if multiple stories about the unobserved past can account for the same currently available facts, then both should be considered reasonable explanations of the facts. One can make arguments about the quality of each argument with regards to the facts – but both arguments warrant objective consideration. And ultimately, there remains a possibility that none of the presented stories are true – such is the nature of unobserved historical claims. The jury’s role has never been to determine absolute truth – but to determine the quality of each presented story in order to subjectively establish whether the standard of reasonable doubt has been met. In none of our discussions have I suggested you are irrational to subscribe to the secular story – only that you lack objectivity in your determination to reject any other story without fair consideration. “It's funny how creationists will criticize mainstream science by saying that they sometimes adjust their views on something in light of new evidence [which is used to cast doubt] and yet ALSO feel perfectly fine in suggesting that scientists only go where their preconceived notions dictate to them. Neat how that works isn't it?” Who are you talking to? I have never criticised any science for changing their views “in light of new evidence”. I will take issue with any subsequent claim that their newly changed views have survived scrutiny, but have no issue with adjusting theories to suit the evidence. I don’t recall any example of such an adjustment that contradicted the secular faith perspective. You might say that secular science is happy, for example, to question how Common Ancestry occurred, but not that Common Ancestry occurred. They might question the specifics of what occurred over their putative billions of years of history, but the billion-year-history itself is not up for discussion. It is a rational requirement of the naturalistic faith. Scrutiny (or “doubting”) is a valid pursuit in both historical and operational science. The suggestion that any scientific claim be merely accepted is based in faith, not science. “The thing is, scientists doubt based on scientific evidence, not holy books” In reality, secular scientists doubt based on evidence which has been interpreted to conform to their preferred faith presuppositions – as do creationists. Faith presupposition is faith presupposition – regardless of the source. They are equally unverifiable, and have the same influence on the interpretation process. An objective person would realise that the same logic is applied by both perspectives. Just because it isn’t labelled holy writ doesn’t make it any less faith. “The article is in response to AIG, a creationist organization and their suggestion that there's this distinction between operational science and historical science. So even within the Christian community this argument is rejected” Yes, Christians are permitted to disagree. My point was that the argument presented by this Christian is poor – presuming, but failing to address the actual creationist position. “This argument made by creationists is attempt to make a literal view of Genesis seem to be just a valid model as any other” The argument is made because it is justified in logic. I have presented the logic to you several times in several different wordings – but rather than address the presented argument, you fall back on Innuendo, Appeals to Motive and ad-hominem – as though it’s all part of some creationist conspiracy to deceive. It seems like you’ll do anything to avoid addressing the actual argument. “If we come across scientific evidence that contradicts an early earth [radio decay measurements] you sit there and say "You weren't there"” When have I ever left an argument at this stage? I don’t dispute any radiometric decay fact or “measurement”. I dispute the logic underpinning ‘ages’ derived from these facts. It is perfectly valid for me to point out that the assumptions supporting these claims have been demonstrated to be unreliable. Lack of supporting observation is kind-of a big deal when it comes to attributing scientific confidence.

The Apostle Paul describes an experience; 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. 3 And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. The Apostle John describes how he received the visions of Revelations; Revelation 1:10-11 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” So it’s possible for such testimonies to be true. However scripture is our highest authority. Whether these testimonies are true or not, they can never legitimately circumvent our trust in the testimony of scripture. It’s ok to listen with interest, but we must rest our trust upon the Word of God alone. The same is true for all preaching and testimony. We should get to know God through His word; enabling us to; 2 Timothy 2:15 15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And to; 1 Thessalonians 5:21 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

Denominations are not necessarily based on disagreement. Some differences are ministry focused (i.e. some might focus on missionary work, while others focus on evangelism, while others focus on the study of scripture etc.) Some denominations are practically identical to others; but they were started by different people or organizations. Of course there are some differences of opinion over non-essential doctrines. Contrary to popular myth, Christianity teaches freedom of thought - so there are even differences of opinions within denominations. However, all legitimate Christian denominations agree regarding the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, including; the Divine Authority of Scripture, the Virgin Birth of Christ, the Eternal Deity of Christ, the Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ, the Bodily Resurrection of Christ etc. As such, most Christians consider other Christian denominations to be equally Christian. The impression of broad antagonism within Christianity is largely populist myth. I'm not suggesting conflict doesn't occur at all, but it's not as typical as opponents of Christianity like to imply.

Hi GE, I am not American – so I don’t really have the background to comment of what constitutes “American Christianity”. Prior to this I don’t ever recall hearing the term. Yet I would suggest that most of the characteristics on this list (both good and bad) could be found in most Christian churches around the world. It seems to me like someone has set out to criticise what they consider to be “American Christianity” by making massive, self-righteous generalisations about a highly varied group of people and their doctrines. Whilst there are fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, there is no rule in Christianity that we all have to agree on every doctrine. Romans 14:4 4 Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. Philippians 1:18 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

Hi CLB, I would suggest to you that we apply reason because the Biblical version of reality portrays a rational Creator. Not all faiths portray reality this way. For example, in much eastern thought, reality is a great mind that can be changed at any moment. Greek and Roman God’s are often portrayed as erratic, capricious and irrational. Yet the Bible portrays the Creator as a rational God of order. Adherents to the Bible are admonished to "test all things", to think about (“meditate on”) why we believe what we do, to pursue knowledge and truth and wisdom, to question the validity of human claims and philosophies, to apply “reason” to the defence of our beliefs etc. Therefore we apply reason in submission to the authority of scripture, not as an authority over scripture.

Hi bonky, you said “This probably won't be a popular view here but, this idea that "historical science" [creationist invented term by the way] is less legitimate or inferior than/to "observational science" is specious” In what sense is it “specious”? Do you have an argument to back up this claim – or is it another example of Unsupported Assertion? And why is it important who invented the claim – other than to cast more unsupported Innuendo into the fray? If a creationist did invent the term, does that automatically render it illegitimate in your mind – i.e. without giving any consideration to the logical justification? This has nothing to do with being “popular’, but with the incapacity or unwillingness of some to provide a logical defence of their claims. The historical method is different from the operational method; and logically inferior in several aspects – namely 1) the claims themselves can never be subjected to observation, 2) therefore the claims can only be tested indirectly – through comparing the current evidence to the formulated models (i.e. unobserved stories about what might have happened in the past), and 3) since the claims themselves can never be tested through experimentation (only the models can be tested), no legitimate scientific confidence can be attributed to the claims without committing the logical fallacy Affirming the Consequent. Operational science does not suffer these logical weaknesses. “I think you'll find that this mistrust of "historical science" only occurs when scientific claims contradict scripture. I'd like to see the same lack of trust when forensic scientists are trying to figure out who killed their loved one” But if the same evidence can be accounted for by competing explanations, such scrutiny would absolutely exist. This happens in every contested trial. A prosecutor’s job is to interpret the evidence in the context of a story where the accused is guilty. The job of the defence attorney is to interpret the evidence in the context of a story where the accused is not-guilty. For example, if the knife victim’s blood is found on the accused’s body and the accused’s fingerprints on the knife; a) is the accused the murderer, or b) did the accused find the body and remove the knife. One set of facts – two plausible stories that are consistent with the facts. Such is the nature of all historical science. The benefit of a legal trial is that both sides are afforded the opportunity to have their arguments heard – whereas in this debate, the secular side goes to great efforts, utilising a broad range of logical fallacies, to convince everyone that the opposing positions should be automatically dismissed without any consideration. “If science confirms a claim in the Bible [archaeology etc] do they distrust it then, or just when they don't like the conclusions?” It’s not about trust or “distrust”. Everyone prefers the interpretation that agrees with their pre-existing beliefs – that’s called confirmation bias. The issue is whether or not a person recognises that historical claims can have more than one possible explanation – and since none of the claims is scientifically observed, all claims consistent with the facts are valid and worthy of objective consideration. “I would agree that there are varying degrees of confidence based on how much or how little data you have. But doubting "historical science" only when it casts doubt on your interpretation of scripture seems dishonest.” What is truly dishonest is a persistent failure to recognise that all sides ‘doubt’ historical claims that do not conform to their presupposition. Scrutiny (or “doubting”) is a valid pursuit in both historical and operational science. The suggestion that any scientific claim be merely accepted is based in faith, not science. “Here is an article written from a Christian on this creationist tactic to undermine scientific inquiry of the past. http://godandscience...ns_science.html” This article doesn’t address the fundamental creationist arguments. It simplifies the creationist position to a couple of prima-facie points, then makes simple, unsupported claims supporting the author’s position, without any consideration given to the underlying logic of the claims. How can you fall for this after our other conversation (starting http://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/181250-big-bang-continued/page-3#entry2120342 )? You must be aware that our position is misrepresented in this article – or is your confirmation bias really so strong that you haven’t heard anything I said?

Hi CLB, You said, “When is it permissible for the secular sciences to inform our reading of Scripture?” According to the Christian faith, scripture is the highest authoritative communication of God to humanity. Eisogesis is considered a poor interpretation methodology because it diminishes the authority of scripture and subjects it to the authority of outside influences. Scientific discoveries may help us to understand scripture, but not reinterpret it. Only evidence from the context can be used to interpret scripture. “Why should secular science NOT influence our reading of scripture?” Science is fallible by design. Christians believe that the scriptures are inerrant in the autographic manuscripts, and that God has preserved all essential doctrine. Why should the infallible word of God be subjected to fallible, subjective human systems? Either these Christian claims about the inerrancy of scripture are true, or they are not. “the question is NOT “When should Scripture yield to Scientific claims?” This is not about a contest between infallible Scripture and fallible science, or of God’s word vs. Man’s. Rather it is the issue of man’s exegesis of Scripture and its relationship to what I call man’s exegesis of nature; or, between scholarship and physical science” You are suggesting that we reinterpret scripture in the light of science – so you are suggesting that scientific claims be given influence and authority over how we interpret scripture. You are suggesting that if the claims of science contradict the claims of the Bible, then the Bible should give way to science – e.g. we should assume (without any evidence from the scriptures themselves) that the Bible is meant to be interpreted symbolically – because it has the gall to disagree with a scientific claim. So it is a competition where in your mind, science wins. You want to mould scripture to fit the fallible and changing claims of science. Then when the scientific story changes because of some new evidence, we will need to reinterpret scripture again. As the inerrant Word of God, we would expect the Bible to be consistent with the facts. So long as I can interpret a fact to be consistent with the Biblical version of reality, I have no need to compromise my faith in the reliability of scripture. “And most here will acknowledge certain tools which will help refine or correct those “best” explanations: whether it be better handling of the Greek or Hebrew, better understanding of the historical context etc. Sometimes a discovery, like that of the Dead Sea Scrolls, prompts scholars to reexamine traditional readings of Scripture. Should secular science be allowed the same force?” In the preceding examples you are examining scripture by looking into and comparing scripture to scripture. That is desirable and logically consistent. Our understanding can be improved by exegesis – drawing information out of the text – i.e. information contained in the text. If “secular science” is permitted the same authority, you are employing eisogesis – reading information into scripture that is not actually contained in the text. Thereby you have subjected God’s word to the fallible judgement of human systems. When we consider that many secular historical claims are interpreted within the naturalistic paradigm (i.e. in a context that excludes the possibility of an interactive God), the danger faced by subjecting the Bible to “scientific” eisogesis is amplified. The faith premise of these claims directly contradicts the premise of scripture – so your suggestion amounts to submitting our scriptures to a contrary faith perspective. “Obviously the example that looms largest here is cosmology and its influence on our reading of Genesis” Cosmology is an historical science. Operational science attributes confidence to claims through observation. Historical claims cannot be observed without a time machine – so a different method is required to examine those claims; an indirect method – where we make up a story to account for the past (a model), then test that story against the currently available evidence. But since there is more than one story which can account for the current evidence, we can never be confident (apart from faith) which story is true. So these claims have no logically legitimate standing upon which to influence our interpretation of scripture – apart from secular propaganda. “The scientists tell us that the earth is very old, much older than the sum of years mentioned in Genesis would lead us to believe” Find here a list of highly credentialed scientists who consider the Biblical creation account to be a viable explanation of the history of the universe. http://creation.com/scientists-alive-today-who-accept-the-biblical-account-of-creation This is not a science versus faith issue. It is about the secular, naturalistic paradigm vs the Biblical paradigm. It is not an issue of facts, but how the interpretation of those facts is influenced by the faith presupposition of the interpreter. Biblical creationists can interpret all of the very-same facts used by secular science to support their models, but to be consistent with the Biblical model of reality. So there is no objective scientific reason for us to surrender our faith in the Biblical version of reality – or to submit our scriptures to the secular faith’s interpretation of facts. “This has led some to question the intended meaning of the creation account (s)” Those who lack the understanding required to break down the logic underpinning the secular claims allow themselves to be convinced by the propaganda that these claims warrant logically and scientifically unjustified levels of confidence. Yet there is no objective scientific reason for anyone to question what is written in Genesis. I think if you are honest with yourself – you are not suggesting a reinterpretation of the creation account, but a rejection of what is actually written. There is nothing in the Genesis account that mirrors Standard Cosmology or Common Ancestry. There is no logical antecedent/metaphor relationship between Genesis and the secular models. You are basically saying that what is written is wrong because it doesn’t conform to secular ideas – then to reconcile your conscience your make an arbitrary claim that Genesis must have been meant symbolically. And thereby, you circumvent the authority of scripture – if it doesn’t agree with science, the Bible is either wrong or symbolic. Science is king and the Bible must submit. “On the other hand it has been maintained on this forum by many that the abandonment of a literal 6-day reading of Genesis 1 in response to scientific claims made about the earth’s age constitutes nothing less than the abandonment of God’s Word as revelation. I struggle to see why” I would not consider belief in Genesis creation to be a salvation issue. However, the creation account provides the philosophical foundations for many of the most important Biblical doctrines; such as holding humanity accountable for sin and death – and our subsequent requirement of a Saviour, or how can a good God create such a cruel reality? Genesis answers these questions. Also Jesus, and both Old and New Testament authors referred to Genesis as historical events – so in accepting secular interpretations of facts, there is and implication that they were wrong/ignorant. “But I am not here concerned with this or that maneuver but with the general condemnation of even searching for alternative readings” I wouldn’t condemn the search. But I would question the motivation. The Genesis record has been thoroughly researched. The overwhelming evidence from the text itself is that Genesis means what it says; i.e. an historical creation account. The only reason to presume otherwise is some prevailing obligation to contrary (yet unverifiable) secular claims about history. “For it seems to me that many on this forum are not even willing to entertain alternative readings that are prompted by scientific claims: they are regarded wrong a priori, and that simply because behind them lies the influence of secular disciplines. This baffles me. Why the prejudice?” I don’t think its “prejudice” at all. Our faith is in the authority of scripture. We have examined the scriptures to establish the intent of the author and found overwhelming evidence that Genesis is meant as an historical account. Then we examine the claims of secular history and find them logically unverifiable and formulated around the precepts of a contrary faith. So we need more than the mere suggestion that there may be another way to interpret these scriptures – or the unsupported dismissal of these scriptures as symbolic. Ultimately, if you don’t want to believe the Bible, then don’t. But we will take issue with people who go to extraordinary lengths to make our scriptures say something they don’t in order to justify some allegiance to the claims of another faith perspective. “I think it also highly irresponsible not to acknowledge these claims and reexamine what we think we know about Scripture” I am more than happy to examine any claim – so long as the claimant is happy for me to subject their claim to scrutiny. If I provide copious evidence and argument supporting my position, but my opponent just says “maybe it’s meant symbolically”, then I’m sure you’ll understand why I might be tempted to question their motives. Nevertheless, I agree that no claim should be ignored. “Does the fact that it was a secular discipline which initiated the initial search vitiate those finds? Is secular science such a vulgar catalyst that nothing good can come from it, however attractive and (I must say) invigorating results?” I don’t know what you mean by “secular discipline”. Science does not belong to the secular community. I think we may again need to revisit the difference between the historical and operational methodology. Your example is cosmology – that is historical. All such claims are unverifiable because we cannot perform experiments or make observations in the past - unlike gravity, for example, which can be tested and retested by the operational/experimental method. Secular historical models do rely on unverifiable faith assumptions – and are therefore inherently biased (in reality – all historical models are influenced by such bias – including creationism). It’s only ‘vitiated’ when this bias is ignored, and confidence in the claims are subsequently exaggerated beyond what is logically and scientifically justified.

Hey Jerry, you said “As I mentioned this is an opportunity for creationsist to actually have proof as proof only exists in math” And I directed you to articles explaining the math (which you have apparently ignored) – as well as suggested authors who specifically deal in the mathematical side of the creationist models. In reality, no one ever questions the math (because no one is silly enough to publish unchecked formulas; especially not creationists who know that they will be highly scrutinized). “If one could show that the total gravity of the universe could slow time to make it look like the stars we see are much farther away, it would go a long way toward their cause.” I suspect you have misunderstood the creationist model – which doesn’t claim this. But I could be equally obtuse and say – If one could show how the universe could suddenly inflate many times the speed of light, then suddenly slow, “it would go a long way toward their cause”. But that would require you being objectively sceptical of your own preferred, faith-based model. “Otherwise they are just dealing in what-ifs and attacks on accepted math and science” Once again – if you understood how the secular models are formulated, you would not be so critical of the speculation involved in the construction of all cosmology models. But since you are obviously only willing to apply your high standards to models that disagree with you, you can do little but repeat Unsupported Assertions. In his 1973 book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Stephen Hawking admitted, “we are not able to make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology”. In an American Scientist profile (1995 Vol. 273(4)), George Ellis, the co-author of the abovementioned book, said “People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.” “Creationists often lament that they cannot get published, well, no one can argue if their math is correct” Here you employ a logical fallacy known as Non-sequitur. You don’t “argue” to get published; you submit a manuscript. Editors have an absolute right to reject any publication for any reason they see fit (regardless of the integrity of the math). Since many editors have publically admitted their confirmation bias against creationist manuscripts, your veiled Appeal to Authority renders your argument to be specious. Journals have limited publication space and generally only accept about 30% of submissions for publication anyway (even less for better known journals). So many articles, including those with correct math, are not published. There is no obligation whatsoever for a journal editor to publish a manuscript based on the correctness of the math. Even so, when it comes to considering cosmology models, no one ever argues over the correctness of the math. Arguments stem from whether the particular use of math is logically justified. Consider an alternative secular model found here; [http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1007/1007.1750.pdf] This (2010) model revisits an older idea of an infinite universe. The math is consistent with observations (and does ot require the existence of Dark Matter) – it just operates on different set of assumptions to the Standard Model. It is not the math that is in dispute; it is the logical justifications which deviate from the Standard Model that are questioned. Note that it also contains 26 pages of pure mathematical equation. And this is just the formula that deviates from the Standard Model. You seem to think you have formulated an effective ‘gotcha’ by requesting a single mathematical variable for our cosmology model. But anyone who comprehends the complexity of mathematical cosmology models would be aware that such a variable in the absence of the model would be ridiculously uninformative. So either you yourself are uninformed concerning the complexity of cosmology models, or you are dishonestly trying to create the false impression of a solid argument – in the hope that none of the audience has the capacity to see through it. Hi Tristen, I wanted to say that I appreciate your knowledge on the subject. I find that usually the most adamant proponents of creationist theory no nothing about the science of naturalist theory. That being said, what I have found that concerns me, is that many creationist scientists promote their theories behind the veil of Biblical infallibility. So for instance, they look at Genesis, determine what the theory is, then go out and look for evidence that promotes it, then say that it must be right because it is from the Bible. The reason that I think this undermines both the integrity of the scientific method and that of personal faith, is because for one, the scientific method usually requires hypothesis, observation, theory, but creationist work in reverse. They cannot arrive at a theory contrary to the original hypothesis based on observations, because to do so would constitute apostasy in their opinion. It also undermines faith in that it requires them to abandon the very principle of faith, mystery. When St. Thomas denied Christ had risen, Christ revealed Himself to him, and then said, "Blessed is he who believes without seeing." I find the faith of scientists who can approach a subject without the predisposition and still maintain faith as more inspirational than those who do so with the predisposition. And one must recognize the possibility of metaphor, otherwise we would be purporting that the Earth is flat the sun revolves around us. I would say that creationists are akin to a Christian saying simply denying that people suffer because they don't understand why God allows suffering. Likewise, when we make an observation contrary to faith as a creationist understands it, they simply deny that the observation was made. I focus on reconciling my fallible understanding of the Bible with my equally fallible understanding of science, hopefully reaching a intelligent and faithful conclusion that agrees with my heart. Hi Godspells, You said “what I have found that concerns me, is that many creationist scientists promote their theories behind the veil of Biblical infallibility. So for instance, they look at Genesis, determine what the theory is, then go out and look for evidence that promotes it, then say that it must be right because it is from the Bible” I think there is sometimes a confusion between two different types of confidence; scientific confidence and faith. A Christian has every rational right to claim “Biblical infallibility” as an expression of their faith. Now if the Bible is truly inerrant (in the autographic manuscripts), then the expectation would be that the facts line up with the model of reality presented in the Bible – or, more correctly - the expectation would be that the facts can be interpreted to be consistent with the Biblical model of reality. When the facts can be interpreted to be consistent with the Biblical model, a Christian can legitimately claim scientific support for the model. The claim that an idea “must be right” is never legitimate in any scientific sense. Science deals in confidence and probability, not absolutisms such as ‘right’ or ‘truth’ or ‘proof’. So then, anyone making a scientific claim is obligated to use measured language; e.g. “these facts support or evidence the Biblical model”. Whereas absolutist claims are only logically valid within the context of faith. There are people on all sides of the debate who are prone to confusing the two. “The reason that I think this undermines both the integrity of the scientific method and that of personal faith, is because for one, the scientific method usually requires hypothesis, observation, theory, but creationist work in reverse. They cannot arrive at a theory contrary to the original hypothesis based on observations, because to do so would constitute apostasy in their opinion” Respectfully, the secular scientific community investigates history using exactly the same logical structure as creationists. No observation or fact is interpreted in a vacuum. Interpretation is heavily reliant upon the faith perspective of the interpreter. There are many lines of evidence where the most parsimonious interpretation of the facts disagrees with the Common Ancestry/Standard Cosmology models of reality – but those interpretations are automatically rejected because they conflict with the unobserved faith presupposition of Common Ancestry and Standard Cosmology. One example is soft tissue found in dinosaur fossils – which, by the measure of current scientific knowledge, could not have survived intact beyond 1 or 2 million years – even under the most strident laboratory conditions. The most obvious interpretation is that the dinosaurs aren’t the 65-200 million years old claimed by the Common Ancestry story. But that interpretation is not even considered a possibility to secular science because it contradicts their faith about the history of life – and so they are forced to formulate more elaborate explanations that extrapolate beyond current scientific knowledge. That is, secular science also has a predetermined story to which all interpretations of facts must conform. “It also undermines faith in that it requires them to abandon the very principle of faith, mystery” “Mystery” is not a Biblical principle of faith. Only ‘blind faith’ relies upon “mystery”. The Bible encourages its adherents to "test all things", to think about (“meditate on”) why we believe what we do, to pursue knowledge and truth and wisdom, to question the validity of human philosophies, to apply “reason” to the defence of our beliefs etc. So the ‘abandonment’ of blind faith is a good thing for Christians. “I find the faith of scientists who can approach a subject without the predisposition and still maintain faith as more inspirational than those who do so with the predisposition” All historical scientific investigation requires presupposition; otherwise there would be no context for interpretation. I suspect what you mean is that you find those who maintain faith whilst accepting the presuppositions of naturalistic science to be “inspirational”. Naturalistic science assumes no ‘interactive’ God, and therefore a massively ancient universe and history of life. All of the facts pertaining to secular history are interpreted within this unobserved context. I, as a creationist, assume that the Bible is correct. Therefore I interpret all of the same facts within that context. The initial assumptions are different but the logical structure and methodology are identical. The main difference is that I recognise the role that presupposition plays in the formulation of my conclusions – but secular science barely recognises (if at all) that they have assumptions; and therefore feel justified in ridiculing ideas that don’t conform to their preferred faith perspective. Scientific objectivity does not require the rejection of “predisposition”, but rather the capacity to give fair consideration to alternative possible arguments formulated in the context of differering “predisposition”. “And one must recognize the possibility of metaphor, otherwise we would be purporting that the Earth is flat the sun revolves around us” And yet the Bible explicitly claims neither of these – so your comment here approaches a Strawman misrepresentation of the Bible and Christian belief. I recognise that the Bible employs all manner of symbolic grammatical apparatus, but sincere believers do not consider themselves to have the right to arbitrarily assign such labels – there must be evidence of such in the grammatical context (i.e. not from Biblically extraneous sources of information). “I would say that creationists are akin to a Christian saying simply denying that people suffer because they don't understand why God allows suffering. Likewise, when we make an observation contrary to faith as a creationist understands it, they simply deny that the observation was made” There is a perpetual anti-creationist Stawman argument against our position – that we are anti-science, or ignore/reject evidence etc. Your comments here simply add to the specious propaganda. Whilst creationists obviously disagree with certain interpretations of the observations, I, and many creationists, are more than happy to consider any observations you care to submit to our scrutiny – which you think we might have missed (or denied). “I focus on reconciling my fallible understanding of the Bible with my equally fallible understanding of science, hopefully reaching a intelligent and faithful conclusion that agrees with my heart” But how can you do that when your starting position is the arbitrary rejection of one position in deference to another? A better strategy would be to go back and objectively examine the logic underpinning the claims of both perspectives. According to the Bible, it is our fallibility that renders our own hearts untrustworthy – so subjecting the authority of scripture to your “heart” is fraught with spiritual danger. What happens when your heart disagrees with scripture – do you simply right-off the scripture as “metaphor”? In doing so you make yourself a judge over God’s word.

Hi Alpha, You said, “I am often curious how people in the young earth creationist camp think that the *vast majority* of scientists in their fields think the earth is 4.5 billion years old, the universe 13.7 billion yrs old but that somehow they've made the discovery it is not” Your wording is a bit awkward here. No one has ever ‘discovered’ that “the earth is 4.5 billion years old” or that “the universe 13.7 billion yrs old”. These are claims about unobserved history, not observed facts themselves. They are interpretations of facts which are broadly accepted because they conform to the secular faith paradigm – the default faith perspective of most modern scientists. Creationists interpret the very same facts to conform to the Biblical faith paradigm. And the scientific method explicitly permits the questioning of any scientific claim. So, any suggestion that we are somehow obligated to merely accept a scientific claim stems from faith, not science. “How are these basic facts lost on all these researcher whose expertise should give them the best position to judge such things?” What “basic facts” are you referring to? As much as scientists love the idea that only they have the right to tell you what to think - that position is not rationally justified; or in any sense scientific. The scientific method does not prohibit anyone from thinking for themselves – regardless of scientific credentials. The logical fallacy employed here is called an Appeal to Authority. “At times it seems like some suggest there is a vast conspiracy that keeps the truth from coming out” This is an understandable misunderstanding. From its introduction towards the end of the 1700s, the naturalistic faith paradigm has become all-but ubiquitous in our society; with most people only ever being exposed to science interpreted within this paradigm (i.e. in schools, universities, science docos and text books etc.) – giving the false impression that this is the only valid scientific paradigm. As such, it has become the default faith paradigm of most scientists. Faith paradigms influence how the facts are interpreted. So it’s not an organised conspiracy – secular scientists are simply interpreting the facts to be consistent with the most popular naturalistic faith perspective. It’s only a problem when they (those of secular faith) imply that they are the only ones permitted to do use this methodology. Such a position lacks logical objectivity. Creationists are simply interpreting the very same facts to be consistent with a different faith perspective. It’s a different starting position, but an identical logical methodology. “or that people simply believe what they want and find a model to fit it no matter what facts they encounter” Not at all. The facts can be interpreted to be consistent with both models of reality. So the facts are neutral. Neither position has any legitimate right to disregard facts. But we have every rational right to question how the particular facts are interpreted. Interpretation is subjective – highly influenced by the starting faith perspective of the interpreter. This effect is amplified when it comes to unobserved historical claims. “…It was then that the consensus formed” But “consensus” has never been a legitimate source of scientific confidence. Therefore those approaching the evidence from a different perspective have every scientific right to question such “consensus” “where there are facts accessible to all there tends to be converge because the basic facts themselves suggest a basic truth about the physical world” Facts don’t “suggest” anything beyond their own existence. Only after the facts have been interpreted can they “suggest” anything about the “physical world”. But we are not talking about the “physical world” - we are talking about unobserved history. The logical method dealing with history deviates from the operational scientific method that deals with the current “physical world”. Post #5 “that feeds into a pre-existing bias in the conservative Christian (here I just mean more conservative theologically) community against science” I am a “theologically” conservative, creationist Christian with a secular science degree. I think the implication of Christians being anti-science is a mischaracterisation of our position (as well as historically uninformed). The main point of difference is that creationists readily acknowledge the influence of our faith perspective on how we interpret the facts. Recognition of this “bias” enables us to study and objectively consider the secular perspective – without having to surrender our own position. But secular science doesn’t recognise its own “bias”, and therefore tends to ridicule, attack and arbitrarily disregard any perspective contradicting its own faith paradigm. “This disconnect didn't exist in the 19th C, and somehow developed in the 20th C, for historical reasons” Since the introduction of the naturalistic faith paradigm, there was certainly widespread and aggressive debate throughout the 18th & 19th centuries. But by the early 20th century, the naturalistic faith paradigm had replaced the Biblical faith paradigm as the starting assumption of science – And that is all most people have been exposed to who are alive today. “And while I think that young earth creationism cannot be accommodated into prevalent scientific models, that shouldn't stop somebody from believing in God, or more specifically accepting the gospel as true either” What you call “prevalent scientific models” are formulated in the logical context of a purely naturalistic reality. We (creationists) have our own models formulated in the context of a Biblical-Theistic reality. Arguments are only logically obligated to be consistent within their own context. To judge an argument by an opposing premise would be irrational. There are many fundamental contradictions between Biblical claims and secular models which render adherence to both logically tenuous. For example, “the gospel” is God’s offer of salvation to humanity from the just consequences brought about by humanity introducing sin and death into the universe. If sin and death existed before humanity, then humans aren’t responsible – therefore it would be unjust to hold humanity accountable for sin and death - and therefore unjust to prerequisite human salvation on faith in a perfect Saviour. “I think it makes sense for the Christian community to figure out a way to bridge it” I can’t read your mind – but when most people say things like this, what they really mean is Christians should compromise their faith to accommodate the speculations of secular historical science. My solution is to bring objectivity back to science. Let both parties present evidence and argument, let both parties analyse and acknowledge the assumptive basis of all historical modelling, teach people to separate the empirical from the theoretical, teach people to recognise an avoid arguments based on logical fallacies, and give everyone the right and opportunity to consider arguments from all perspectives – so they can formulate a fully-informed opinion. “It does mean the gospel is not really being communicated to a profession of people, at least not nearly as effectively as it could be” When we remain faithful to the Bible we are accused of ignorance. When some compromise their faith they are accused of hypocrisy. The secular world knows all-too-well that compromise undermines our position. So until someone can provide me with an objective scientific reason to compromise – I’m going to stick with the Bible. Post #6 “This is a 'is the sky red or blue' type of situation insofar as, if the Bible said the sky is red, I'd have to assume it is somehow metaphorical or should not be taken at face value, because I know for a fact the sky is blue” Respectfully, I think this is a false analogy. The colour of the sky is currently available for direct observation. Therefore, any hypothesis about the colour of the sky falls under the purview of operational science. But when we talk about hypotheses regarding the age of the earth and universe, we are making unobserved historical claims. You cannot legitimately “know for a fact” that these claims are true without a time machine; enabling you to go and make the necessary observations required for such confidence. “I could be wrong about how I am attempting to understand the Bible as much as I could also be wrong about how I interpret the physical facts about the world. So many facts about the world fit together so neatly with the universe being billions of years old I don't find it possible to downgrade that to 6k years. It's not impossible for me to change my mind, but it seems for that to happen there would have to be an extraordinary change in understanding of physical rules and such” Not really – just an understanding of the logic employed in the formulation of secular scientific claims. View the facts through the lens of a different paradigm, and you may understand why creationists like myself could just as legitimately claim that that “So many facts about the world fit together so neatly with the universe being” created in the time frame described in Biblical manuscript. Once we learn to separate the empirical (facts) from the theoretical (assumptions, explanations, interpretations, hypotheses etc.) – i.e. to think critically – we enable ourselves to engage the issue objectively. Once we understand that interpretation is influenced by faith paradigms, then we can realise that this is true for all interpretations supporting that paradigm. You are then free to consider the interpretations supporting other paradigms; understanding that if the presented arguments and facts are consistent with their premise, then they hold a rational position - even if you ultimately disagree with that position.

I think we may be talking past each other. My original statement had to do with the initial analysis of the ice cores way back when. I'm not talking about current or recent research, I'm talking about when scientists first started studying the ice, how would they have any firm age in their mind before investigation? Creationsts on the other hand, MUST start with the idea that at MOST, they have roughly 6000 years [more likely 4500 or so] to work with. From the start, you have a max age you can deal with and you aren't allowed to go beyond that. I think that's a stark difference personally. I would have to look into this deeper, I can't assume that you are correct here. You're suggesting [you could be right] that they are just assuming those dust bands represent a year. They also may have very good reason to believe that they are. If there are good reasons for believing they represent a year, then I don't see a problem. I agree, they would be referring to volcanic events that were recorded by whatever means in the past. Right with many more hundreds of meters to go yet. A global flood isn't a normal event right? Wouldn't we expect to see some sort of change in the deep ocean cores roughly 4400 years ago to support this claim? I don't think you understood my original statement about the ice cores. Based on what we already know about things like sedimentation, climate change, aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems etc....shouldn't we be able to come up with likely signatures in the core that would identify this event?? It was a global flood after all. This is probably the first time in our discussion that I questioned your integrity. On one hand you admit they do talk about larger timescales, then proceed to ignore it and back Oards statement. I don't know if you caught this, but the "Up to 20°C" and the "as little as 1 to 3 years" are in different sentences altogther. If the situation was reversed you would have been crying strawman so fast and so hard you would've pulled muscles. They specifically mention "decades" and intervals that are taking place over a grand timescale of 100,000 years. Oard is either sloppy or he's intentionally misquoting them. At this point, I'll need to see some honesty from you [a trait of a Christian I thought] before we continue. I don't want to waste my time with someone I can't trust to be honest. I really didn't think it would such a slam to your ego to admit that Oard is definitely not representing that particular statement in context. Hey Bonky, You said, “My original statement had to do with the initial analysis of the ice cores way back when. I'm not talking about current or recent research, I'm talking about when scientists first started studying the ice, how would they have any firm age in their mind before investigation?” You’ll have to point me to the research you’re referring to. It’s not so much about having a “firm age” as it is about the foundational assumptions of the model. If you assume standard rates of deposition over uniformitarian time frames, then that directly impacts the model. Ice layers are compressed by the overlaying ice; which, over millions of years, would shrink the lower layers of ice to the scale of millimetres thick and under. But apart from those assumptions of the model, there is no reason to interpret the various indicators at that scale as “years”. But that is the prevailing model of reality amongst the secular scientific community, so that is how the evidence is interpreted. “Creationsts on the other hand, MUST start with the idea that at MOST, they have roughly 6000 years [more likely 4500 or so] to work with” And secularists start with the assumption of a billions-of-years-old earth with uniformitarian processes and time frames. Secularists interpret the available facts to conform to their model of the unobserved past, and creationists interpret the available facts to conform to our model of the unobserved past. Both parties interpret the data within their given paradigms. If there was something within the facts themselves that contradicted our model, then that would be a problem for our model – but the only discrepancy is between our model and the secular interpretations of the facts, not with the existing facts themselves. “From the start, you have a max age you can deal with and you aren't allowed to go beyond that. I think that's a stark difference personally” It’s no difference at all. We have a model for testing – and if the facts contradict that model, then we would have to account for that discrepancy. But since they don’t, we don’t. And you have still failed to consider that the reason they went looking for those extra 25000 years in the ice cores is because they had predetermined expectations about the what ‘should be there’ – the same accusation you are levelling against creationists. In the ice-core example, they came in too far under expectations. But if you want, I can find many examples of age determinations that were rejected because they came in beyond their predetermined “max age”; especially with radiometric dating methods. For starters; Bell & Powell (1969, Journal of Petrology, Vol. 10) rejected their 773 million year old Rb/Sr age attributed to the tested lava rock because the rock was determined to be sub-Pleistocene – and therefore must be less than 2 million years old. So the age interpretation based on Rb/Sr testing was rejected because it was well over their predetermined “max age”. You don’t like it (or have never previously considered it), but the same kinds of logical restrictions apply to both creationist and secular methods – the specific numbers are different, but the logic is identical. The models of both paradigms have starting parameters to which the facts are expected to conform. Now if the facts themselves cannot be interpreted to conform to a model, then that is a problem for the model – but if they can, then the model remains viable. The same is true for both secular and creationist models – and remains true, even in the face of contrary interpretations of the facts. “You're suggesting [you could be right] that they are just assuming those dust bands represent a year. They also may have very good reason to believe that they are. If there are good reasons for believing they represent a year, then I don't see a problem” The reason they have to assume markers at that scale are years is because the model requires it. If the lower layers have been compressed to millimetres thick (which the secular model assumes), and our instruments only have the capacity to detect markers at that scale, then those markers must be assumed to represent annual layers. Whether that reason is “good” or not is subjective. The main criteria for objectivity is the acknowledgement of assumptions, and their influence on the interpretation process. I didn’t say there was “a problem” – I’m only demonstrating that the interpretations you have accepted as solid are fundamentally reliant upon unverifiable assumptions. Therefore, an objective, thoughtful person will factor this inherent logical weakness into their expressed levels of confidence of these interpretations; as well as remaining open-minded enough to consider the possibility of other interpretations which are themselves influenced by different unverifiable assumptions. “If I remember right [i can't access the article], they were only looking at a depth of 200M” And only found 54 volcanic indicators. “Right with many more hundreds of meters to go yet” Correct! “metres” – not years. In reality, a couple of thousand “metres to go” in several places. “Wouldn't we expect to see some sort of change in the deep ocean cores roughly 4400 years ago to support this claim?” I would have to assess any research claiming to have evidence of ‘time’ in their sediment cores. I would have to analyse their assumption regarding the formation of this sediment data. How did they determine these facts represented years etc.? – I.e. all the same process we went through with the ice cores. I am happy to look at any research you have to offer regarding the sediment data. Yet I would suggest that you examine the research for yourself first – as they probably acknowledge the assumptions upon which their interpretations depend honestly – right there in the text. “I don't think you understood my original statement about the ice cores. Based on what we already know about things like sedimentation, climate change, aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems etc....shouldn't we be able to come up with likely signatures in the core that would identify this event?? It was a global flood after all” Not without making assumptions. Creationists interpret many facts as signatures of the global flood. But these interpretations are rejected by secular science because they are inconsistent with the naturalistic paradigm. But they are consistent with our paradigm and models – and therefore rationally valid and worthy of objective consideration. If the creationist model is correct, then there would be no record of the flood in the ice, since under the creationist model, all of this ice deposition was post-flood. “This is probably the first time in our discussion that I questioned your integrity. On one hand you admit they do talk about larger timescales, then proceed to ignore it and back Oards statement. I don't know if you caught this, but the "Up to 20°C" and the "as little as 1 to 3 years" are in different sentences altogther” In reality we are dealing with two consecutive sentences describing climactic change. The first sentence describes the types of change; including the claim of changes in temperature of “up to 20oC”. The following sentence describes the timeframes of the change; including the claim of timeframes “as little as three years”. You appear to believe that the mention of other types of change (i.e. “twofold changes in snow accumulation, order-of-magnitude changes in wind-blown dust and sea-salt loading, roughly 100 ppbv in methane concentration, etc., with cold, dry, dusty, and low-methane conditions being correlated”) somehow cancels out the claim of temperature changes “up to 20oC”, or that the mention of other timeframes (i.e. “The events often begin or end rapidly: changes equal to most of the glacial-interglacial differences commonly occur over decades”) somehow cancels out the claim of timeframes “in as little as three years”. That doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t see how it could possibly stand up to rational scrutiny. So you can cast aspersions on my honesty and integrity all you want, but it seems increasingly clear to me that you are being unreasonably pedantic in order to satisfy some desperate need to set up an adhominem position – believing that if you can paint us as dishonest, you can justify avoiding any engagement with any of our actual arguments. “At this point, I'll need to see some honesty from you [a trait of a Christian I thought] before we continue. I don't want to waste my time with someone I can't trust to be honest. I really didn't think it would such a slam to your ego to admit that Oard is definitely not representing that particular statement in context” So it is as I suspected. Rather than engage in any argument relevant to the paper, you focus in on a nonsensical criticism of a single sentence that doesn’t even relate to our discussion, then use that one criticism in an attempt to paint both myself and the original author as dishonest – supposedly justifying your refusal to engage in further discussion. That’s a classic Adhominem fallacy. I’m not sure how anyone being honest with themselves could be comfortable with such a logically flawed strategy – but it’s not the first time I’ve encountered it; and no-doubt won’t be the last.

I just find it ironic that the very paper you use to support your model is actually largely rejected. I guess this outlines the issue that I have with creationism claiming to be scientific. When we look at *why* you reject the interpretation of the data, isn't it because it comes into conflict with what you consider holy scripture? If so, how is this approach scientific? Ok I thought near the end they were expressing doubt that the chicxulub crater was a verneshot event. I'm not ignoring them, I read what Oard had to say and I didn't have any issue admitting that there certainly are margins of error with dating methods etc. I don't buy the idea that we therefore declare secular dating methods as unusable. Keep in mind it's not like there's a small discrepancy here, creationists are suggesting extreme differences in ages everywhere we look. I don't feel that they're adequately accounting for this. As a side note, the article from Oard is intended for a Christian audience correct? Or at least it doesn't appear that he's writing in any academic sense. So it's not like we have any experts to counter what he's writing. There may be data out there that would invalidate some of the claims that he's offering. I just want us to acknowledge that we're certainly not doing an exhaustive two sided critique of this data. I had actually hear of Keller's hypothesis before and I knew that there was some debate about whether the Chicxulub impact actually killed off the dinosaurs or not. I don't think Keller is suggesting the how the crater got there, she just isn't convinced it caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. She suggests that there was major volcanism in India and the impact happened a bit later [300k years]. Now I guess you believe the only mass extinction event was the flood and you say "kinds" were preserved but I'm not sure why we see dramatic disappearance from various species from the fossil records then. To be honest, I don't know if I've ever really read anything that outlines the creationist approach to the fossil record. So are you suggesting that one persons take on the available data is just as relevant as any other? Yes you can interpret the facts however you want, how well your interpretation stands up to scrutiny should be of interest. I don't see why naturalistic "boundaries" are a problem when it's a natural world we're investigating. I don't see why this would call into question our ability to study or investigate earthly features. Well if you can't provide an example of a time when this actually became or caused a problem I'm at a loss as to why we'd worry about this. If you say "Well I can't SHOW you the supernatural"...then why worry about it? If the supernatural doesn't exist then your objection to "naturalistic ideology" is unfounded. You are the one asserting there is such a thing to consider so I'll need some evidence to assess. Well their former stance wouldn't have survived but the new one evidently does. I don't see why that is a problem. I don't think that we have to necessarily reject framework because we adjusted our view on something. I don't represent modern secular science. You're right I didn't offer examples of why I feel this way. Google Ray Comfort and "banana". This is just one example but it'll give you an idea. What is an "extinction event" to you? The imagery I get involves a global disaster caused by some natural calamity. Do you agree with Keller et al that there have been times where some disaster affected global conditions which caused the extinction of one or more species? Hi Bonky Sorry about the delayed response. My subsequent responses are likely to be delayed for the next several months – at least. You said, “Surely they figured the ice has been around a while. What I mean is, I have no reason to believe that they had a certain age in mind before they started their analysis. I don't know that we can say the same for the creationist camp. They have a certain age they must work within correct?” Then why did they need a recount to find the missing 25,000 “years”/layers? (Meese et al. 1997, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 102). Clearly the model pre-existed the observations. Both ‘camps’ operate on unverifiable presupposition. Both ‘camps” operate within a predefined framework. You incapacity to recognise this speaks to a lack of objectivity.

Surely they figured the ice has been around a while. What I mean is, I have no reason to believe that they had a certain age in mind before they started their analysis. I don't know that we can say the same for the creationist camp. They have a certain age they must work within correct? So from what I understand we only "see" some eruptions in the ice core record as some volcanic eruptions aren't big enough to transmit aerosols to these remote regions [ice caps]. With this in mind, here's a pretty good article that outlines many volcanic events in the first 200M of ice core data from East Antarctica. http://bprc.osu.edu/Icecore/dai00-1.pdf *As a side note I found another research paper that showed spikes going down several hundred meters* According to this model, we're seeing eruptions from almost 2200BC. Now according to a biblical model, shouldn't 2200BC be the beginning [roughly] of when the ice started to accumulate [post flood]?? How do you account for all the volcanic events that go much lower than this??? I'm trying to understand how we can make sense of this ice core record using a young earth model and somehow not have significant volcanic events happening around the clock. Like I've stated above, your timeline is so short, don't you have volcanic events [of global scale] happening constantly?? I'm sure creationists agree that volcanic markers are there, but how do they account so many in such a short time scale? In the latter document you provide, Oard either intentionally tries to be deceptive, or he exhibits poor reading comprehension skills. He states "The wild Ice Age fluctuations reveal serious problems with the uniformitarian interpretation. Because of the rapid changes in oxygen isotope ratios, uniformitarian scientists now are forced to believe that the temperature on Greenland changed up to 20°C in periods as short as 1 to 3 years! Let's look at his reference and see what they actually said: Do you see how he, knowingly or not, misrepresented the journal? This is such a monstrous gaffe that I'm half inclined to think this was intentional. Also, Oard states I see conjecture on top of conjecture....where's the science? I do want the resources, I expect to see real research from creationists. That is, if they want their position to be considered "scientific". If not, then yeah, I don't need to see anything from them. To compare what you provided me above, here's a journal that discusses climate variabiltiy in the Vostok ice core. Do you see a difference in the amount of data that is supplied along with the conclusions compared to what Oard offered? http://www.daycreek.com/dc/images/1999.pdf So the research paper you list is obviously secular that talks about timescales [and multiple mass extinctions] completely inconsistent with a young earth. This paper actually doesn't tie the Chixculub event with a vernseshot either. This paper was actually interesting to read through, what I'd like to see is something that covers this same data in a biblical timeframe. Gerta Keller has an alternative theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, I wouldn't go so far to say that the jury is out on this. It's so interesting how lovingly you embrace secular science when it suits you and turn around and abandon it elsewhere. It's not just that I prefer secular explanations, there's a reason why I shy away from creationist explanations. The creationist camp is not shy about their firm belief that their conclusions MUST, by default, support a biblical model. Creationists have often criticized mainstream science by noting how the science community has changed it's position from time to time [in light of new data]. What this also shows is that science isn't just marching lockstep with some storyline they're obligated to uphold. I gave you my assessment of what I see coming from mainstream science and what I see coming from creationism. What objective opinion should I be tapping into pray tell? You misrepresented my position, I gave examples of people who I think don't serve the creationist camp very well. Never did I say their "personalities" were why I reject creationism. I see you didn't bother to address that point. I haven't found the creationist position to be rational. I see some criticism of conclusions held by mainstream science but I don't see much in the way of why a biblical model is superior. I mean the primary response I get for when extinction events took place is "It happened during the flood". So yes, you can count me as one that isn't impressed by that. Hey Bonky, you said “Surely they figured the ice has been around a while. What I mean is, I have no reason to believe that they had a certain age in mind before they started their analysis. I don't know that we can say the same for the creationist camp. They have a certain age they must work within correct?” Then why did they need a recount to find the missing 25,000 “years”/layers? (Meese et al. 1997, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 102). Clearly the model pre-existed the observations. Both ‘camps’ operate on unverifiable presupposition. Both ‘camps” operate within a predefined framework. You incapacity to recognise this speaks to a lack of objectivity. “So from what I understand we only "see" some eruptions in the ice core record as some volcanic eruptions aren't big enough to transmit aerosols to these remote regions [ice caps]. With this in mind, here's a pretty good article that outlines many volcanic events in the first 200M of ice core data from East Antarctica. http://bprc.osu.edu/...ore/dai00-1.pdf” There are several issues to consider with regards to this research; Firstly, your argument is employing circular reasoning. Your original argument extolled the use of volcanic activity to date ice cores. This study uses ice core data to date volcanic activity. There needs to be something outside of the logic circle attesting to these events – such as recorded history. As stated in a previous post, there isn’t much of this type of external evidence available. Secondly, the paper verifies my above statement; with only 8 out of the 54 events qualifying as acceptable markers. Thirdly, the research ‘dated’ the collected cores assuming a mean deposition rate – but the authors readily acknowledge that these estimates “may not be representatives of the much longer time period covered by this core” – so to their credit, an acknowledgement of the fundamental flaw associated with uniformitarian inferences. Fourthly, there is an acknowledgement in the study that ice core acidity can result from non-volcanic events; “acidity or sulphate signals may arise from atmospheric and geological effects which may be locally important, but unrelated to volcanic aerosols”. Finally, the authors acknowledge the logistical limitations (and therefore mitigated confidence) of their research; “the flux data reported in this study should be considered tentative and used with caution”. “According to this model, we're seeing eruptions from almost 2200BC. Now according to a biblical model, shouldn't 2200BC be the beginning [roughly] of when the ice started to accumulate [post flood]?? How do you account for all the volcanic events that go much lower than this???” You are judging creationist claims by a secular model. This meets the definition of irrational. An argument is only rationally obligated to be logically consistent with its own premise. “I'm trying to understand how we can make sense of this ice core record using a young earth model and somehow not have significant volcanic events happening around the clock” The study found 54 events which they attributed to volcanic activity (only 13 of which were considered large). I’m surprised that the number is so low; given the geological upheaval which would result from a global flooding event. “Like I've stated above, your timeline is so short, don't you have volcanic events [of global scale] happening constantly?? I'm sure creationists agree that volcanic markers are there, but how do they account so many in such a short time scale?” Geological instability is expected during and after the flood. Like I said above, I am surprised that only 54 events were described. There should be a lot more evidence of volcanic activity resulting from the expected geological volatility. Geology is not my area of speciality, but I would expect many of the earlier markers to be extensive (resulting from the merging of multiple event signals). I suspect this evidence actually exists lower in the ice cores. “Is there a study that I can read that handles this task?” You could try the following; http://creation.com/...j16_1_45-47.pdf In the latter document you provide, Oard either intentionally tries to be deceptive, or he exhibits poor reading comprehension skills. He states "The wild Ice Age fluctuations reveal serious problems with the uniformitarian interpretation. Because of the rapid changes in oxygen isotope ratios, uniformitarian scientists now are forced to believe that the temperature on Greenland changed up to 20°C in periods as short as 1 to 3 years! Let's look at his reference and see what they actually said: Quote "From the central Greenland ice cores we now know that the Earth has experienced large, rapid, regional to global climate oscillations through most of the last 110,000 years on a scale that human agricultural and industrial activities have not yet faced. These millennial-scale events represent quite large climate deviations: probably up to 20øC in central Greenland, twofold changes in snow accumu-lation, order-of-magnitude changes in wind-blown dust and sea-salt loading, roughly 100 ppbv in methane concentration, etc., with cold, dry, dusty, and low-methane conditions being correlated. The events often begin or end rapidly: changes equal to most of the glacial-interglacial differences commonly occur over decades, and some indicators, more sensitive to shifts in the pattern of atmospheric circulation,." "Do you see how he, knowingly or not, misrepresented the journal? This is such a monstrous gaffe that I'm half inclined to think this was intentional." No I don’t. The original paper first made claims about the kinds of change including “up to 20°C”, then made claims about the rate of the change including “change in as little as 1-3 years”. Those are the claims summarised in Oard’s statement (and referenced). I don’t see any misrepresentation (perhaps you mean something else that I haven’t noticed). However, I wonder if you caught the point Oard’s statement – i.e. that acknowledgement of such rate changes demonstrates the insolvency of uniformitarian assumptions. Also, Oard states Quote Thus, during the 700-year post-Flood Ice Age, the oceans would have gradually cooled and the ice sheet thickened with time. Since the Ice Age ended about 4,000 years ago, precipitation would continue to build the thickness of the ice sheet. This precipitation would be greater immediately after the Ice Age because the ice sheet would have been thinner than it is today. “I see conjecture on top of conjecture....where's the science?” This is a nonsense question. Oard’s paper scrutinises the assumptions and interpretations attributed to the ice core data. Conjecture plays an important role in all historical model formulation; secular or otherwise. Since these events were not directly observed, conjecture is necessary for any historical model. And even though the authors of the secular studies address their assumptions – you seem blind to it. How is it that you only see the “conjecture” in creationist arguments? Oard references the flood-ice age model at the start of the discourse containing your quote. It’s easy to decontextualize a statement, and then cry “conjecture”. “I do want the resources, I expect to see real research from creationists. That is, if they want their position to be considered "scientific". If not, then yeah, I don't need to see anything from them. To compare what you provided me above, here's a journal that discusses climate variabiltiy in the Vostok ice core. Do you see a difference in the amount of data that is supplied along with the conclusions compared to what Oard offered? http://www.daycreek....images/1999.pdf” This is pseudo-scientific nonsense. Scientific validity is not determined by “the amount of data that is supplied”. Oard uses the data needed to justify his conclusions. It sounds like what you’re saying is that if creationists don’t drill our own ice cores, then we have no right to examine the data or scrutinise the subsequent claims. That’s not how science has ever worked. We don’t dispute the facts of the research – we question the application of assumptions, interpretations and implications. One of the reasons we publish research is to make it subject to broader scrutiny (peer reviewed publication is not the end of the process – as many assume). The scientific community is constantly criticising each other regarding their publications – as it should. That is exactly what Oard has done. “And does this Verneshot scenario account for the high concentration of iridium and presence of tektite?” Yes – one of the original papers can be found here; It’s also worth re-noting that, according to the latest secular story, the Chicxulub crater predates the famed K-T layer by 300,000 years (Keller et al. (2004). “Chicxulub impact predates the K-T boundary mass extinction”, PNAS, Vol. 101). So the story you are attributing to Chicxulub is out-of-date. It’s also worth noting that both iridium and osmium are found in terrestrial volcanic emissions (not just meteors). “So the research paper you list is obviously secular that talks about timescales [and multiple mass extinctions] completely inconsistent with a young earth” Yes – and I obviously disagree with these assumptions and interpretations. The capacity for objective critical thought permits me to examine the paper without having to be tied to their underlying speculations. In context - I used this theoretical paper to demonstrate the point that when it comes to past claims, the mere existence of one story accounting for the facts does not necessarily make that story true. “This paper actually doesn't tie the Chixculub event with a vernseshot either” I’m not sure what you mean here. The paper explicitly names Chicxulub as a primary example of a possible verneshot event. “what I'd like to see is something that covers this same data in a biblical timeframe” But when I point you to articles explaining the facts within the Biblical paradigm, you ignore the arguments; preferring to make silly, unjustified, innuendo-laced comments like “where’s the science?” Articles on the current creationist models are freely available for those inclined to look – but you refuse to recognise that the same logical methodology is used to investigate both secular and creationist models - i.e. models are formulated within the confines of the starting faith framework, then the facts are examined to see how well they can be fitted to the model. You seem to believe that if an interpretation doesn’t fit your preferred premise and model, it should be automatically rendered invalid – but you don’t seem to be able to rationally defend that position; preferring fallacy and opinion over rational argument. There are no secular or creationist facts. We don’t have to find our own facts. Facts either exist, or they don’t. No existing fact can be disregarded with any scientific legitimacy. We don’t have to redo the research in order to address the facts – because our dispute is not with the facts. And we don’t have to redo the research in order to scrutinise the underlying logic of scientific claims. “Gerta Keller has an alternative theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, I wouldn't go so far to say that the jury is out on this” Absolutely correct! Have you considered why? At the outset you presented supreme confidence in an elaborate scenario about the origin of the Chicxulub crater. Hopefully by now you are starting to understand why such high confidence in past claims cannot be scientifically justified. The main implication of Keller’s research is that Chicxulub cannot be responsible for the putative extinction event – so he needed to come up with another story to explain the extinctions. That’s how it’s done with historical models. Other explanations have since been presented. “It's so interesting how lovingly you embrace secular science when it suits you and turn around and abandon it elsewhere” I neither “lovingly embrace” nor “abandon” any science. As I have previously stated, the capacity to distinguish between fact and theory is fundamental to scientific analysis. The facts are independent of ideology. Nothing in the scientific method obligates any person to accept any theory associated with any research. The facts are rationally indisputable (given the assumption that observation can be trusted). And I am rationally permitted to interpret the facts; regardless of how they have been interpreted in the original research. “It's not just that I prefer secular explanations, there's a reason why I shy away from creationist explanations. The creationist camp is not shy about their firm belief that their conclusions MUST, by default, support a biblical model” And the secular “camp” “MUST, by default”, conform to naturalistic boundaries. Both frameworks have limitations. We’ve been over this already. The rejection of only one paradigm based on the existence of logical limitations is Special Pleading. None of these limitations renders either paradigm to be invalid with regards to truth – so neither can be legitimately rejected based on the existence of these limitations. “Creationists have often criticized mainstream science by noting how the science community has changed it's position from time to time [in light of new data]. What this also shows is that science isn't just marching lockstep with some storyline they're obligated to uphold” Except that they are obligated to naturalistic ideology (and therefore, in effect, dismiss the possibility of any supernatural cause). In context, there is no criticism of secular science changing its position, but in subsequently claiming their position to have survived scrutiny after changing their position. Given the popular propaganda, I, as the creationist, am the one who is supposed to be avoiding the science, not you. It must sooner or later strike an ironic nerve in you that in our discussion, I am the one who is eager to discuss any facts you care to provide, and to confine the discussion to evidence and argument, whilst you are content to rest your position on unsupported fallacy and subjective opinion. “I gave you my assessment of what I see coming from mainstream science and what I see coming from creationism. What objective opinion should I be tapping into pray tell?” The issue is not that you have an opinion, but that you express your opinion without rational support. The reason this conversation exists is because we differ in opinion. So your unsupported expression of opinion adds nothing to the discussion. “Once again, you're registering a 9 on the tension scale. It's honestly not necessary Tristen.” The tension is all in your head (or maybe this is a continuance of an earlier strategy to paint me as precious). I am simply responding to the points you raise. “You misrepresented my position, I gave examples of people who I think don't serve the creationist camp very well. Never did I say their "personalities" were why I reject creationism. I see you didn't bother to address that point” It’s possible that I misunderstood the primary direction of your original question. Nevertheless, I still think I addressed this point by a) pointing to the logical fallacy involved in the rejection of creationism based on an impression of 3 people who b) have tenuous authority to speak on behalf of all creationists. It’s also important to note that all you did was provide a list of names. You didn’t actually provide any argument as to why any of these people “don't serve the creationist camp very well” – because whether or not this accusation is true is dependent upon the arguments they present, not the mention of their names. “I haven't found the creationist position to be rational. I see some criticism of conclusions held by mainstream science but I don't see much in the way of why a biblical model is superior” Rational does not mean “superior”. Which model is “superior” is purely subjective. Rational means that the conclusions, arguments and evidence are logically consistent with the premise. “I mean the primary response I get for when extinction events took place is "It happened during the flood". So yes, you can count me as one that isn't impressed by that” What “extinction events”? Are you still judging creationist claims by secular models? According to the Biblical model, most life on earth was wiped out in the flood, but samples of each life “kind” were preserved. Any “extinction events” were subsequent to the flood.

Well for starters I don't know why anyone would assume anything about the ages ahead of time. If you assume the layers are young, can you account for the variations in seasonal dust storms and volcanic eruptions such as the 1815 Tambora Eruption? So I'm not so sure it's just a matter of "we just start from different assumptions". I'd need to see a detailed analysis done that makes sense of all these different markers and do so within a few thousand years time. Is there a study that I can read that handles this task? We're not in a formal debate Tristen. I would think you would want to be addressing a secular scientist if you thought you were. There are times when I'm merely giving commentary. And does this Verneshot scenario account for the high concentration of iridium and presence of tektite? Sometimes that's exactly what I'm offering Tristen. Never did I say the reason I reject creationism is because of Ken Ham or the like. I'm offering the reason WHY many people might not take it very seriously. Once again, you're registering a 9 on the tension scale. It's honestly not necessary Tristen. Or it confirms that there are variations within the creationist camp and some are more effective at marketing their view than others. Ken Ham and Ray Comfort are very active in the public eye, I don't know if this is also true of anyone at CMI. Did you see his debate with Bill Nye? It's his opinion I guess. I'm not seeing creationism replace the current accepted theories or hypothesis with something that explains the data better. Evidently I'm not the only one that feels this way. So what is CMI doing to show that they have a better model to explain the data? Hey again Bonky. Concerning the ice cores you said “Well for starters I don't know why anyone would assume anything about the ages ahead of time” You have to make assumptions about the history of the ice sheets in order for the analysis to make any sense. If you don’t assume that the deeper layers have been subjected to hundreds of thousands to millions of years of compression, then you have no reason to assume that the markers found at that scale must be annual layers. These assumptions form the logical foundation of this entire line of evidence; without which, there could be no “age” inferences. “If you assume the layers are young, can you account for the variations in seasonal dust storms and volcanic eruptions such as the 1815 Tambora Eruption?” I can account for the markers. Regarding the dust storms, a rapid, volatile deposition model has no problem with sub-annual dust layer oscillations. It’s only if you assume the uniformitarian, standard deposition model, that these oscillations can be considered to be generally annual. I have no problem with volcanic markers. However, their usefulness is determined by the accuracy of external data, and with a few exceptions, we only have accurate external data for the past 200-or-so years; and even then, only really for the northern hemisphere. So this data cannot be used to account for any time before accurate records of volcanic activity. “So I'm not so sure it's just a matter of "we just start from different assumptions"” Without those assumptions, the conclusions cannot be justified. Facts are never interpreted in a vacuum. “I'd need to see a detailed analysis done that makes sense of all these different markers and do so within a few thousand years time” Why? The logic is simple. Dust markers represent dust deposition, depth hoar represents certain types of low temp storms, volcanic markers represent volcanic activity etc. There is no reason beyond assumption to conclude that these represent anything beyond what they actually represent; no reason to assume that they are annual markers unless your model requires it. “Is there a study that I can read that handles this task?” You could try the following; http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j15_3/j15_3_39-42.pdf http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j16_1/j16_1_45-47.pdf There’s a book on the subject which can be purchased here; http://austore.creation.com/catalog/cores-earth-p-226.html?osCsid=5m0hpl7hh1p88adcrfcbp5j5j1 I don’t think you need these resources – just think for yourself. Separate the assumptions from the facts and interpretations and you’ll have the big picture. You don’t have to surrender your preference for the secular interpretation, just recognise that it employs unverified presupposition that warrants a more measured amount of confidence than you have supposed. “We're not in a formal debate Tristen. I would think you would want to be addressing a secular scientist if you thought you were. There are times when I'm merely giving commentary” And I am merely pointing out the lack of rational justification for your “commentary”. “And does this Verneshot scenario account for the high concentration of iridium and presence of tektite?” Yes – one of the original papers can be found here; http://physastro-msci.tripod.com/webonmediacontents/VerneshotEPSL2004.pdf#page=1&zoom=auto,0,786 It’s also worth re-noting that, according to the latest secular story, the Chicxulub crater predates the famed K-T layer by 300,000 years (Keller et al. (2004). “Chicxulub impact predates the K-T boundary mass extinction”, PNAS, Vol. 101). So the story you are attributing to Chicxulub is out-of-date. It’s also worth noting that both iridium and osmium are found in terrestrial volcanic emissions (not just meteors). “So in the end, yes, I happily admit I have "faith" in the mainstream scientific community. I trust that they're on the right track, but ultimately if they're not, then I expect that we'll find that out eventually. On the other hand, I don't see creationists offering something better [explanation] in it's place” In the absence of supporting argument, none of this means anything beyond an unsupported expression of your opinion. “Sometimes that's exactly what I'm offering Tristen” But I already know your opinion. I know that you prefer the secular explanations. I know that you believe alternate explanations to be barely worth consideration. What I am curious to find out is if you can provide any rational justification for this exclusive confidence. Given the popular propaganda, I, as the creationist, am the one who is supposed to be avoiding the science, not you. It must sooner or later strike an ironic nerve in you that in our discussion, I am the one who is eager to discuss any facts you care to provide, and to confine the discussion to evidence and argument, whilst you are content to rest your position on unsupported fallacy and subjective opinion. “Once again, you're registering a 9 on the tension scale. It's honestly not necessary Tristen.” The tension is all in your head (or maybe this is a continuance of an earlier strategy to paint me as precious). I am simply responding to the points you raise. “Did you see his debate with Bill Nye” No – In the past I have found that such debates tend to hinge on rhetorical point scoring. They rarely provide an opportunity to examine the evidence and argument in appropriate depth. It’s usually a matter of the creationists think the creationist won and the secularists think the other guy won. Confirmation bias is a strong force. “A while back I realized that there was a Christian apologist who I really thought had it together, William Lane Craig. It dawned on me that I never really heard him address evolution and deep time etc., so I decided to investigate this. It turns out that Craig is highly critical of the young earth movement, enough to refer to it as "embarrassing"” Which, in the absence of any supporting argument, is merely an Appeal to Ridicule. “It's his opinion I guess” No doubt – but it’s utterly meaningless in the absence of a supporting argument. “I'm not seeing creationism replace the current accepted theories or hypothesis with something that explains the data better” What do you mean by “better”? Humans are too prone to bias to make this standard useable; i.e. it’s entirely subjective. The goal of an argument is to be rational. “Evidently I'm not the only one that feels this way” A statement which, in the absence of supporting argument, is utterly irrelevant. Democratic consensus has never been a legitimate source of scientific confidence. “So what is CMI doing to show that they have a better model to explain the data?” In what sense? They do a lot of things. A subjectively “better” model is not the goal – just a rational model that fits the facts.

Hi Tristen, Thanks for your response. I agree that there is a large segment of scientists that, for whatever motivation, attempt to explain the physical world with both cause and effect, strictly within the confines of the physical world itself. But that should not surprise us. Physical experimentation and proof are all they have to work with. Admittedly we can never truly get to the beginning via any form of science. The best we can do is unravel some of the Glory that God put into creation an I believe scientists down through the ages have done that in part for us. Yes, there are some who said they are in no need of a hypothesis that has God as creator but we know from Romans 1 that is just foolishness. However, though you may disagree with them, they are not the enemy; for we do not struggle against flesh and blood. We were not asked to compete for souls using man’s wisdom and tools to win the battle but by being true to The Word, by the power of the Holy Spirit God has put within us. That is so freeing as well because that means it does not depend on me. It all rests in the power of God. We just keep trusting, obeying and it is always interesting to see how God pulls it off. Usually, even though I believe and expect, He does that in ways that contain great surprise. I believe the movement of God's Spirit through His people will convict the world of sin and the coming judgment, and of the righteousness of Christ alone - which He induced in us who by faith believe. Jesus told us that as recorded by the Apostle John So yes, if I was to put a pareto list together then some of the major divisions I'd have, among those whom we reason with might be: 1. The entrenched a. Sincere enemies of the cross and all it stands for. Haters of God with an agenda that seeks to have sin and the pleasures of this world overtake the Gospel of Grace and promise of the world to come through Christ our Lord. They want sin to continue its deadly mortal reign. These practice a sort of natural selection by intellectual pride and I usually find them to be self-deceived in their struggle, hoping somehow that their half-truths and obfuscated smoke and mirrors will win the day over “the Truth”. We both know that is not going to happen, since the gates of hell will not prevail over those who trust in the Way, the Truth and the Life. We can rest in that, being assured of the outcome. b. There is another form of the “entrenched” however that won’t listen to any semblance of truth that comes from the other camp, and that unfortunately that is a grave mistake. Quite frankly that type of entrenchment is counterproductive in our warfare for truth because truth and reason are not being weighed in the balance with a true search for truth as its arbiter. There is no doubt physical investigations are secondary knowledge as compared to what the Holy Spirit has to say but as Romans 1 states the world manifest its witness of God to us. But if we were to interrogate ant witness we need to follow ground rules for getting to the truth. I think Bacon had the correct genesis for the scientific method and I think Christians and non Christians can agree it has served us petty well. Since our faith is a reasonable faith, than reason we must when the state of some theories is in flux. with regard to redemption the Lord, Himself, calls us to reason together with Him and I know He does that quite patiently since He is still working on me after all these years. Not every argument that come from the naturalistic camp is a bold faced lie. I think we just have to be patient enough to sift through it and be confident the truth will eventually come out, if we persist. While I believe it true that we can unlock a lot of mysteries with weapons of truth I don’t expect we’ll be able to unravel and prove out all mysteries, whether Biblical or physical. The battle for the pearls of the universes physical witness is a rather time consuming venture, especially when we have a dying world where we want to bring as many to Christ as we can. Still it does hold a witness to God's glory that I believe we can translate for the good of all. So we can both battle for the truth of God and His Holy Word and we can debate with secularists all we want for the truths that God's created universe speaks to us. God has a ready supply of truths we can plumb in order to do so but we can’t lose sight of the goal either and I know I myself caught up in it. Sometime I think I can be sleeping like the apostles did the night Jesus was betrayed - unaware of the bigger event, my mind caught up in other details. I always need to remind myself of the prioities. 2. There are also a great many who are seeking the truth, as we once did. They are most likely looking in all the wrong places. This then is a great opportunity. I believe we need to be open to the physical truths God has placed in the universe that are apparent too along with exegeting Scripture more carefully; else we risk the pitfall of taking our own interpretation of Scripture as God’s truth when He might be saying something entirely different. We know some pretty good exegetes have gotten that wrong in the past (e.g as in the case of both the Catholic and Protestant church with Copernicus, Galileo, etc.) God’s Word is pretty deep; I tend to think much deeper than the universal mysteries we still haven’t been able to fathom yet. But it is exhilarating to be discovering both the great pearls of wisdom the Bible has to offer us, as well as what the universe itself is witnessing in shouts and whispers to us every day. 3. There are still yet others who are deceived by the vast amount of intellectual and imaginations concocted in this never ending cycle of explaining away difficult concepts. Many out there are caught up in half-truths. They perceive the man instead of the argument on the table. They gravitate towards renown and popularity rather than good old fashioned truth; hence, failing to check their own logic that God has endowed them to reason with in the first place, they draw incorrect conclusions. There may not even be a conclusion yet but they jump to it quickly. Yep, pareto camp #1 - I've read some. No doubt we are locked in a spiritual struggle. I’ve read of some of the accounts, seen "Expelled" and know this is the case. But this didn’t happen overnight; that #1 campers took over Christian institutions of higher learning like Harvard and Yale. It happened because we stopped having the discussion and made the public perception that there was a war between real science and Christianity. We as Christians must burden some of the blame for a lack of good apologetics and deeper love of the truth that inspired the Christians who pioneered the science of today. Our divorce from the scientific community is appalling. There is no war between physical truths and Spiritual truths, as I said before all truth belongs to God - we simply just haven't discovered them all yet. At least we do know all the truths we need to do battle and obey Christ's lead in preaching the Gospel. That distance between the heart and mind seems to loom pretty large at times but the Bible say we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16)so I choose to believe it and pray God will point me in the pursuit of His objectives and not mine. I take comfort with all His wisdom some of the Pharisees were never going to believe Jesus, sand even though He knew that He still never gave up on them. God gives us time to work with and that includes time to repent. But with regard to our present conditions in the search for the truths the universe itself is speaking; I know the seeds of an anti Christian worldview were planted long ago in academia but don’t forget the ratio of scientists who were also Christian was much higher years ago. That long line of Christians who sought after truth in the temporal world, as well as in the eternal truths of God and Christ included a great many and the science we know today is still shaped by a great many of these. That truth has always been there I think we just stopped talking about it and divorced ourselves from mainstream science and therefore the debate. 1. Newton, 2. Bacon, 3. Occam, 4. Vesalius, 5. Da Vinci, 6. Mendel, 7. Copernicus, 8. Brahe, 9. Kepler, 10. Leibniz, 11. Pascal, 12. Ohm, 13. Ampere, 14. Faraday, 15. Kelvin, 16. Lavoisier, 17. Dalton, 18. Priestly, 19. Carver, 20. Galileo, 21. Harvey, 22. Boyle, 23. Pasteur, 24. Lister, 25. just to mention just a few who were committed Christians as well as committed scientists. I’m afraid that’s all I have time for tonight. May the Lord Bless you and your family and may you rest well and sleep well in the knowledge of Your Savior, In Christ, Pat Hey Pat - I enjoyed reading this. I don’t actually consider any person to be my enemy. I consider my role to be in line with 1 Peter 3:15 “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you” and 2 Corinthians 10:5 “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” and 1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Test all things; hold fast what is good”. My strategy sometimes appears confrontational because I hold the opposing position to account for their arguments. Sometimes Christians adopt a defensive posture and allow the opposing position to dictate the terms of the discussion. I have found this strategy to be time consuming and ineffective. It’s important that the opposing position be responsible for their arguments – and not just sit back, taking pot-shots at our position; without any accountability.

Later you went on to say: Hi Again Tristen, Let's get the Calvin and Luther thing off the table. I wasn't trying to imply Calvin was "in the Bible" when I said he was a Biblical giant. The context for the term "Giant" was as a Biblical exegete and I'm sure many commentators would agree with that assessment. Anyway to your first point only. Let's see where this takes us. 1. You believe you see motivation and intent to eliminate God from His Creation by men and women that use the scientific method to eradicate God as a factor, but this seems to be rather a sweeping prejudicial and predilection against science and scientists who are actually very much real believers. I Think there's a world of difference between astronomy and evolutionists (some, no doubt who may fit the mold of motivations which you propose). Actually, in the case of astronomy, the thing that got them into science in the first place was a love for creation and a desire to both investigate and examine the glory of God's great creation. Now for centuries it was men of faith who actually achieved the lion's share of great discoveries. I love this quote by Francis Bacon. I think this is so true because the universe itself also testifies and witnesses to us the Glory of God's handiwork. I even see this as Einstein progressed in trying to unravel some of the mysteries of the universe. Einstein, who certainly was NOT a Christian but one who also said he was quite taken by the luminous figure of Jesus left us little doubt that his source of inspirational pursuit was the desire to discover the truths of the universe and what He perceived to be the grand intelligence of God, the designer and architect of the physical world. Compare this with Luther and Calvin Obviously Luther was not immune to misinterpreting Holy Scripture. Few of us these days would disagree with Heliocentric theory but it was dangerous in those days to disseminate the truth of what the heavens were telling us and no one was quite willing to think the Scriptures were saying something quite different than most of the zealots of the day were proclaiming as the truth. No one today I believe has a problem with the Scripture that was a stumbling block for them. I know I don't. I've never been able to see why this has become such a sticking point for us or why we think that longer periods of the days of creation go against the Bible” - earlier post from Pat So let's start by addressing point #1, which I believe is an inference or at least some suspicion on your part that there's some sort of massive sinister plot or work to undermine the God of the Bible. This really is not much different than what history shows us took place back to the days of the inquisition and the early protestant reformation. As I said in an earlier post, "all truth is God's truth", and investigating the truth I believe is a good thing. There have been many errors in interpretation of Scripture which have taken Christianity and the Church down some pretty bad roads in the past and these by some rather skilled exegetes who rose to prominence, probably not intentionally, as somewhat the final arbiters of God's Word. It's my hope that we can see through the lens of 16th and 17th century Christians, that they too had mistakenly thought the motivations of these early pioneers in astronomy and science were misguided creants who were attacking God's Word, when in actuality they were simply Christians who both read their Bible but also sought out the truths that the Universe itself was witnessing to us about God's wonderful creation. I propose that it is no different today. Sure there are detractors to be sure who, as you say, try and eliminate God by sophistry and slight of hand hiding behind complex string theory and quantum mechanics but their arguments are circular. Einstein by his own words would have condemned them as mere egotists with no eye towards the unraveling the real beauty and mystery of the universe. As Paul's letter to the Romans implies deep down we all know when we look out upon the heavens that their was a grand hand, the hand of God, behind it. I'll leave the post to point #1 alone until we achieve resolution or just agree to disagree. Good night and may the Lord Bless you and your family. In Christ, Pat Hey Pat, You said “You believe you see motivation and intent to eliminate God from His Creation by men and women that use the scientific method to eradicate God as a factor, but this seems to be rather a sweeping prejudicial and predilection towards science and scientists who are actually very much real believers. Actually the thing that got them into science in the first place was a love for creation and a desire to both investigate and examine the glory of God's great creation. Now for centuries it was men of faith who actually achieved the lion's share of great discoveries.” The naturalistic faith premise can be traced through history. I agree that the foundations of modern science were accomplished within the theistic paradigm. The naturalistic concept of explaining reality without God appeared around the late 1700s. It was essentially ubiquitous in the scientific community by the early 1900s – such that most people today have only ever been exposed to science interpreted to conform to the naturalistic faith premise (in schools, university, scientific documentaries, science text books etc.). This exclusive exposure to naturalistic explanations has biased much of society to falsely (though sincerely) think that this is the only valid way to look at the evidence. I myself was unaware that there was any such thing as a creationist until I converted to Christianity as a young adult. Those early proponents of the naturalistic paradigm (such as Hutton & Lyell) were not shy about revealing their anti-theistic motives. Many modern scientists (including Dawkins) are also open about their anti-theistic motives. Scientific journal editors are also happy to extol their anti-creationist bias. Many scientists have lost careers subsequent to their creationist beliefs being exposed; there's even one instance of an evolutionist losing his career after suggesting that creationists should be engaged in discussion. Consider my discussion with Bonky – the secular/atheist motivation is not about considering the logical merit of each argument, but devoted to formulating a story that accounts for the evidence without God – then simply assuming that story to be automatically superior to all other explanations. It’s a matter of; ‘since I already have an explanation that is consistent with my faith (i.e. explains the facts without God), why should I even bother with giving fair consideration to an alternative perspective? “I have no need”.’ I am obviously aware that there believing scientists. However, if they choose to apply naturalistic assumptions (such as “long-ages” & uniformitarianism) to their investigations, then they are introducing bias onto the interpretation process. I have no problem with this so long as the assumptions are acknowledged. It only becomes problematic when one deviates from objectivity by implying that these assumptions are the only valid assumptions – and all others should be excluded from consideration. I think it is also important to distinguish between operational (repeatable, experimental) science and historical science. These assumptions have little impact on operational scientific investigation; i.e. they don’t impact our capacity to develop new medicines or build a better rocket. These assumptions primarily impact how we apply the evidence to historical models of the unobserved past. To properly understand the debate, you have to be able to understand the distinction between the operational and historical process. “Few of us these days would disagree with Heliocentric theory but it was dangerous in those days to disseminate the truth of what the heavens were telling us” Apart from a brief period towards the latter part of the reign of Pope Urban VIII, I think your impression here does not reflect historical reality. For the centuries of history surrounding this brief period, there was no danger in advocating a heliocentric theory. Obviously, with the evidence they had, Calvin and Luther disagreed with heliocentric theory – and presented arguments for their position. Such debate has been encouraged for most of church history. “I believe is an inference or at least some suspicion that there's some sort of massive sinister plot or work to undermine the God of the Bible” From a spiritual perspective, I believe that the Bible teaches that there are evil forces in play with the specific goal of undermining “the God of the Bible” From a human/temporal perspective, I simply believe that people will advocate for the account that best suits their currently held faith perspective (i.e. confirmation bias). So yes, atheists prefer interpretations of the facts that agree with their naturalistic faith – and will actively promote that perspective. I, likewise, will prefer the interpretations of the facts that are consistent with my faith. My main objections are; - Since the naturalistic faith is now close to ubiquitous in the scientific community, it is presumed to have increased logical legitimacy over other faith perspectives. This assumption is logically unjustified. - Proponents of naturalistic interpretations tend to arbitrarily dismiss arguments that disagree with their faith paradigm – without any rational consideration of the opposing position. Whilst I disagree with the secular historical models, I have given them fair consideration. And I understand their appeal to people of naturalistic faith. I consider these models to be valid; given the premise. But advocates of these models will rarely give fair consideration to my position. They find it difficult to comprehend why they should have to give any consideration to an alternative perspective (which is somewhat ironic for those who are supposedly scientifically trained).

Hi Bonky – hope you’re feeling better. You said “Overall however, what I see more is the creation camp simply coming up with theoretical criticisms and ultimately resting on "we don't know for sure we weren't there"” It’s a valid “theoretical criticism”. Our incapacity to directly observe the claimed history introduces a massive logical gap in the interpretation process. However, I have not left it at that; I have demonstrated a different model with different assumptions and different interpretations of the very same evidence used to support secular models. The very existence of these alternative models logically demonstrates that faith paradigms directly influence the interpretation process. “Or criticism that ultimately don't amount to much” Can you understand how statements like these don’t actually mean anything to me? In my assessments of the evidence, I have considered the underlying logic of each claim, I have separated the actual facts from the theoretical assumptions and interpretations, and I have demonstrated alternative assumptions and interpretations for the very same facts. Then you respond with a statement that my arguments “don't amount to much”. Apart from pointing out the obvious fallacy, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond. You’ve criticised my position, but without providing any rational justification for your criticisms. You’ve provided me with nothing of substance to defend. This is kind-of what I mean by resting on the “everybody knows we’re right” story (mentioned in the previous post). “The ice core response was a good example. Some statements are made about how there are cases where an anomaly can be mistaken for a year of snowfall. So let's say this happened so often the ages are off by %50. We're still talking ages way beyond what we would see in a 7000 year old planet” If that’s your impression, you missed most of my argument. Maybe I didn’t explain it very well. The first logical concept when considering ice cores is that - we cannot observe years or “ages” in ice cores. All we can observe are those things which we have selected as markers (e.g. depth hoar is a common marker). The second major theoretical concept is that - what we assume about the history of the ice deposition before we examine the facts will determine how we interpret the observations; - If we assume that the ice core represents millions of years of standard annual deposition, then all those years of deposition would compress the deeper layers to millimetres thick. Therefore, any markers at that small scale will be assumed to represent an annual layer (and we are happy to acknowledge the possibility of some minute error). - However, if we assume that the ice core represents ~4000 years of deposition and compression; including a ~700 year period of rapid, volatile deposition following the global flood - then the deeper annual layers would have undergone less compression (than the millions of years model), and therefore remain meters thick – containing thousands of markers deposited every year; generally several times per day over the ~700 year period. Apart from assumption, there is no actual way to differentiate any single year from a sub-annual marker. Now depth hoar formation, one of the common ice core markers, has been observed to occur multiple times per year; generally associated with individual storm events. Now; - if we assume the layers are millimetres thick due to millions of years of deposition and compression, then you must, by necessity, assume that any discovery of a depth hoar layer represents a year of deposition. However; - if we assume the layers are metres thick due to only thousands of years of deposition and compression, including an initial volatile period of rapid deposition, then each depth hoar layer could simply represent a sub-daily change in weather conditions. So how the observations are interpreted is entirely dependent upon the starting assumptions of the interpreter. “So I don't see creationism really truly accounting for anything, I just see it offering at times borderline comical alternatives” Innuendo and Appeal to Ridicule – more meaningless logical fallacy. “The verneshot example for instance, I had to look it up as I hadn't heard about it before. Here it turns out to be a hypothetical scenario by a guy referred to as "the father of science fiction"” You have misunderstood what you have read (or the writers didn't understand what they were talking about). Verneshots are named after “the father of science fiction”, Jules Verne, because the proposed mechanism is similar to a moongun in one of his novels. The scientists who proposed verneshots are from Geomar (Kiel University in Germany) - Jason Phipps Morgan, Tim Reston and Cesar Ranero. But you are correct that they are hypothetical. Hypothetical logic forms the basis of all hypotheses (along with the initial observations). Verneshots not only account for the currently observed evidence, they also solve the problem of the highly unlikely coincidental profile of continental basalt floods associated with impact craters – i.e. they render the meteorite explanation of these craters to be unnecessary. You were offering a very elaborate scenario based on an unobserved assumption about the origin of a crater – as though there could be no question about the context of crater formation. I demonstrated that there is more than one way to interpret this fact (the crater). [which is one of the main points of our discussion] “So in the end, yes, I happily admit I have "faith" in the mainstream scientific community. I trust that they're on the right track, but ultimately if they're not, then I expect that we'll find that out eventually. On the other hand, I don't see creationists offering something better [explanation] in it's place” In the absence of supporting argument, none of this means anything beyond an unsupported expression of your opinion. “I know you expressed frustration in that creationists aren't usually taken seriously or spoken of in a good light. You have to remember the "face" of creationism over the past couple decades has been the likes of Kent Hovind, Ken Ham and Ray Comfort [the banana guy]” So? …You're discussion is with me. Refusing to consider arguments based on personality associations is specious. It’s just another example of Innuendo fallacy. In reality, the primary creationist organisation is CMI – an organisation run primarily by highly credentialed scientists. None of the abovementioned people are directly associated with CMI. Since at least 2002, CMI has been at odds with many of the teachings of Kent Hovind. There was a previous affiliation with Ken Ham, but they parted ways in 2005. Ray Comfort is an evangelist who advocates Biblical creationism, not a scientists – his expertise is theological/philosphical. I think we established in an earlier post that you were unfamiliar with the informed creationist position. Your impression that these personalities are representative of creationism confirms this. I am unfamiliar with the teachings of any of these people. I had some exposure to Ken Ham maybe 15 years ago – I don’t remember having any issue with him, but if you find something he says questionable, I am happy to give my take on his arguments (independent of any vague innuendo about his person). “A while back I realized that there was a Christian apologist who I really thought had it together, William Lane Craig. It dawned on me that I never really heard him address evolution and deep time etc., so I decided to investigate this. It turns out that Craig is highly critical of the young earth movement, enough to refer to it as "embarrassing"” Which, in the absence of any supporting argument, is merely an Appeal to Ridicule. “So if one wants, they can embrace this world view anyway and try to make it sound like it's based in science...I'm just not seeing it” It would be nice if you could justify this innuendo with a supporting argument – so I actually have something to respond to. You have provided me nothing whatsoever to justify my questioning any claim I have made. And when I provide a rational answer, you default to innuendo and other logical fallacies – then you ironically insinuate that I, as a creationist, am the one who has departed from critical reason. Ultimately, we are dealing with issues of faith – so you have nothing to lose by objectively considering the possibility of an alternative position. You can never be obligated to agree with any unverifiable assumption. “I'm just seeing the rejection of uniformitarianism but no basis for it” Well – for starters, all conclusions derived from uniformitarianism are utterly reliant on extrapolations of ridiculous magnitudes based on unobserved, unverifiable assumptions (so a logical basis for rejection). For finishers, it is inconsistent with observations of a world being currently remoulded rapidly through catastrophe – volcanism, flooding, erosion etc. - (e.g. the island of Surtsey) – as well as increasing recognition of past catastrophic moulding (e.g. the Spokane Flood) - (so an evidential basis for rejection).

Hi Bonkey, you said “There is other evidence that is offered to support common descent, it's not like this is the only evidenced being put forward and resting entirely on that. Again, we have a known mechanism that offers a very credible explanation for why these similarities exist” This is simply more Innuendo and Unsupported Assertion. What do you mean by “a known mechanism”? Genetic changes are observed in populations, however no observation has demonstrated the kind of genetic change that would be necessary to ‘evolve’ a human from a simpler organism. There are speculations and counter-speculations regarding how this might have occurred, but othing founded in observation. The actual observed mechanisms of genetic change overwhelmingly corrupt genetic material. Even if we do, one day, observe the appropriate type of change, it would not logically mandate that this mechanism explain all of the current complexity of life on earth. And the phrase “very credible explanation” is entirely subjective. What we actually have is a logically possible (yet entirely unfalsifiable) explanation. “You are looking at this single piece of evidence in a vacuum so to speak and crying foul” I think this analysis ignores the context of my response. In context, I responded to the example you provided – so yes, my response technically was to a “single piece of evidence”. I think this discussion has demonstrated that I am happy to deal with any facts you care to provide. And I was not “crying foul” about anything. I was merely demonstrating that any claimed scientific confidence derived from historical models is entirely dependent upon unverifiable assumptions. “We have only one natural mechanism for various genetic markers to be handed down to future generations...genetic inheritance” Actually, prokaryotes and viruses can employ various horizontal gene transfer mechanisms (which becomes very problematic when they are used to support inheritance models like Common Ancestry). “I hate to be the one to point this out but we're not prokaryotes” No, but we do catch viruses, and it is their capacity to transfer genes horizontally which forms the basis of your ERV evidence. Nevertheless my response was appropriate for the claim you made. “Well I know that you're a Christian that views the Genesis creation account as a literal historical event” I wouldn’t use the term “literal”, but yes, historical. “I know that you reject common ancestry” This is somewhat of a mischaracterization; as it implies a lack of consideration on my part. I have considered and formally studied the justifications (in evidence and logic) for both Common Ancestry and Biblical creationism – and I disagree that Common Ancestry is the only valid way to interpret the available evidence. Such exclusive confidence defies both logical and scientific justification. And there is therefore no objective scientific reason for any Christian to compromise their faith in the Biblical account. “so the only other explanation I could think of is that we [humans and chimps] just happened to independently evolved with the same retroviruses [genetic signatures if you prefer]” Or – they are part of the original genetic information which was programmed by the Designer and has nothing to do with retroviruses. They are simply part of the original program – along with all our other genes. If they have a function, then there is no reason to assume they are anything other than original programming; information used in whatever creatures the Designer saw fit. “I really would prefer to have a discussion that is a bit more relaxed. I really feel like you are on some high alert to find any kind of flaw with anything I say” I understand that impression. My issue is that in almost every discussion I have on the issue, the people on the other side of the debate rely heavily on an “everybody knows” story. That is, since most people have been exclusively exposed to the secular perspective (in books, documentaries, school, university etc.), we don’t have to explain ourselves because almost everybody already knows we’re right. Therefore, rather than actually breaking down and examining the logic used to support the secular position, they feel free to rest their case on logical fallacy; assuming that everyone (apart from the religious nuts) is already on-board – but without actually providing a supporting argument or making any attempt to consider the issue from the opposing perspective. They are simply taking advantage of widespread confirmation bias to avoid giving a rational account of their own position. You have echoed this strategy in several of your points. My job is to consider and respond to your comments as sincerely and thoroughly as reasonable in the context of this forum. Since you seem more sincere than most I encounter on your side of this debate, I am more than happy to make the effort. But I don’t think I’d be doing you (or my position) any favours by letting these false strategies slide. “Yet there are mammals that live in these same niches that don't share these segments” And you claim I’m “on some high alert to find any kind of flaw with anything”? I think many of your response (especially in this post) indicate exactly the same. I did not suggest that all segments of DNA must be shared by creatures sharing a similar niche. The creationist model expects that the more similar two organisms are (i.e. the more morphological traits they share), the more likely they are to have larger amounts of genetic material in common. That is, the more alike they are, the more likely they are to require more of the same genetic information; best enabling them to survive and compete in similar environments. “if biological function is indicative of design, what would genetics segments with harmful characteristics be indicative of?” It somewhat depends which harmful genes you are referring to. In general, I would consider harmful genes to be corruptions of the intended design. For example, cancerous tumours result from corruptions to proto-oncogenes and/or tumour suppressor genes (which normally function together to regulate cell growth). It is my opinion that Biblical creation offers a better explanation of the history of life. “To the origin of life maybe, not sure about the "history" of it.” And you accuse me of being overly pedantic? The Biblical model describes both the origin and history of life. “From my observations, the primary supporters of intelligent design are evangelical Christians” Obviously creationists subscribe to an intelligent Designer. But the ID movement (sometimes IDM) is independent of creationism. Most of the people publically associated with IDM (including the leadership) do not subscribe to Biblical creation. They don’t actually choose a designer – they simply argue that the evidence is indicative of intelligence, and against stochasticity. That is, they have no problem with Common Ancestry per se (though there are some Biblical creationists in their mix), but they will dispute the claim that evolution occurred by chance or purely natural processes. Some confusion stems from the propaganda surrounding IDM publically confronting naturalistic evolution. Defenders of naturalistic evolution label them ‘creationists in disguise’ as part of some ad-hominem/Innuendo-based fallacy. But this view is simply uninformed. The two positions are not formally affiliated in any respect. “Intelligent design advocates, bring in a bigger mystery to try to account for this” I don’t know what the big “mystery” is. We believe that God created life in all its complexity. You believe that complex life arose through a series of natural processes. “The explanation for what "God" is and it/his existence is not well explained. I often end up hearing that this being is "outside space and time", I guess that's just something we afford theists so that the claim sounds remotely possible” We don’t need you to “afford” us anything. The Bible explicitly describes God as “eternal”. Whether you have the capacity to be objective beyond your own position is all on you. I suppose we could have a philosophical discussion about what eternal means – but full comprehension of the nature of God is no more necessary to the validity of our model, than fully comprehending the naturalistic source of the Big Bang singularity is to Standard Cosmology. “I've done a little research and I'm trying to find examples of other organisms that we share ERV's with. If it's only primates, that to me is support for common ancestry” - only if you assume them to be retrovirus fragment inserts. Otherwise they no more support Common Ancestry than sharing protein coding genes. “While conclusive evidence is lacking, there is research to suggest [with younger ERV's] that these inserts are associated with disease. [singh SK (June 2007). "Endogenous retroviruses: suspects in the disease world". Future Microbiology 2 (3): 269–75]” This paper speaks to the possible roles that these segments play in some human disease. It doesn’t actually provide (or attempt to provide) evidence for the origin of these segments. It simply states the assumption (i.e. “About 8% of the human genome is derived from the retrovirus like elements. It is expected that these are possibly the remnants of retroviral infections which occurred during primate evolutions”), then proceeds to make a case independant of this assumption (also, it’s a review – not a research paper). [Note: these are not criticisms – they state their assumptions and that is as much as you can ask. But I don’t think this paper means what you think]. Though the paper provides references that might go through why they are considered viral segments. I would encourage you to go through some of those and examine the evidence and assumptions utilised to come to this conclusion (esp. refs 4 & 5). I am defining true atheism. “Labels are just that, labels” The purpose of words is to differentiate between logical entities. Nailing down definitions is fundamental to effective communication. Otherwise we open the door to logical fallacies such as Equivocation. “How does one verify the non-existence of something???” You can’t. Neither can you verify or falsify an unobserved claim about the past or the supernatural. Both theism and atheism make claims about what lies beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe (atheism claims that there is no God beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe, but it’s still a claim). “And this still doesn't properly state where I stand. For me to say "there is no God" I would have to be omni-knowledgeable. I am not, so therefore that position is nonsense” Yes – the wider atheistic community recently figured out that making the true atheistic claim renders them subject to accusations of faith (perish the thought). Some stopped calling themselves atheist; preferring something like ‘agnostic with atheistic preferences’. Others, like Richard Dawkins, started to mitigate their language to “There probably is no god” (and notably, without any supporting justification for their probability claim). But this is still a confidence claim for an unverifiable supposition – so it still employs faith. Everyone who makes a claim is responsible to provide an account of their position. I think it is you who is desperate to avoid having to provide an account of your position. In doing so, you are trying to stack the deck of the conversation so that only the religious position is subject to scrutiny. “A claim in the affirmative perhaps. I see no responsibility for someone to account for their disbelief in bigfoot” Every claim is an affirmative claim. Clever negative semantics don’t change the underlying logic of a claim. “disbelief in bigfoot” is logically identical to the belief that bigfoot doesn’t exist. If you take a position, you are making a claim – which is subject to scrutiny. If they are engaging in a debate on the subject, then yes – they are making a claim, and therefore obligated to give an account of their position. No objective process would only permit the scrutiny of only one side of an argument. You can’t have one party taking pot shots at their opponents, but refusing to defend their position; claiming immunity from such scrutiny. “That's the benefit of not asserting that there's an undetectable being interacting with our world” So only those who disagree with you are obligated to defend their position. But how can they disagree with your position when you are “not asserting” a position? Convenient. Yet your alleged ‘non-position’ seems to find a good deal of disagreement with me on a good many issues. So there is no objective standard constituting “sufficient evidence”? Therefore the concept of “sufficient evidence” is meaningless in a context where everyone is influenced by unverifiable faith presupposition. “You mean the kind of "unverifiable faith presupposition" that Yeti probably doesn't exist?” Yes this is an “unverifiable faith presupposition” – though it might be a stretch to premise an entire model of reality on this assumption. “Unless there is a time where the supernatural decides to manifest itself in the natural. I don't leave out that possibility” Even if it did, we could only observe and measure the natural manifestation, not the underlying supernatural cause. “Keep in mind, so far I haven't seen you describe or define the supernatural in such a way that would differentiate it from something that doesn't exist! Can you do this?” No. In fact I have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that any claim that is not a current, natural, phenomena, can, through logical necessity, only be investigated indirectly – through modelling the putative effects of the claim, then comparing the model against the currently available evidence. The logical weakness of this approach is that scientific confidence in the initial claim can only be derived through Affirming the Consequent. This applies for both historical and supernatural claims. “Well technically one could argue that's there actually a competing explanation. If someone would suggest an alien spaceship was the cause of a burnt section of land, I would bet we find a lot of people who wouldn't even consider that a good explanation [or an explanation at all]” - And yet more unsupported Innuendo about the poor quality of my position. The rational quality of an explanation is determined by the supporting arguments – not allegiance to a particular presupposed framework. Anyone who claims this to not be an explanation does not understand the meaning of the word “explanation”. “Under your paradigm, we can't rule out "evil spirits" as an explanation for illness correct?” Yes. And like the “alien spaceship” explanation; the rational quality of an explanation is determined by accompanying argument – not allegiance to some pre-existing paradigm. “Even if you disagree somehow, you have been championing the idea that we include "supernatural" explanations, so we should leave that open to all kinds of "faith paradigms" right?” I would say ‘consider’ rather than “include” – but generally yes. “I believe that naturalism has been an effective approach to describing and explaining our natural world” But we are not disputing explanations about our current natural world; our disagreement is regarding unobserved and unverifiable claims about the past and the supernatural. Since there is no way to naturally observe these claims, there is no objective way to legitimately gauge the ‘effectiveness’ of our “approach”. “That's right, I assume no supernatural intervention because we keep not needing it” Our starting assumptions influence how we ultimately deal with the facts; i.e. which interpretations we prefer. They impact which interpretations you prefer as much as they impact mine.

Affirming the consequent occurs only when such affirmation is said to provide proof for the antecedent. As you've stated yourself, science isn't out to prove anything. Science is about providing evidence to establish its claims with varying degrees of certainty, not proof that eliminates all uncertainty. We have only one natural mechanism for various genetic markers to be handed down to future generations...genetic inheritance. Now you'll argue that a "Designer" placed these similarities there, but using Occam's razor I can easily choose common ancestry as the best explanation. Isn't it true that some ERV's are found in the exact same location of the genome? And yet we don't share these segments with all of "creation" but with the very animals that "common descent" would predict. Once again, it's not about proof, but just the idea that evolution [in my opinion] offers a better explanation. Intelligent design advocates, bring in a bigger mystery to try to account for this. I've done a little research and I'm trying to find examples of other organisms that we share ERV's with. If it's only primates, that to me is support for common ancestry. Hearing people say "that's just how the designer wanted it" isn't an impressive explanation. Are you asking me or telling me what my response is? I'm not convinced that there's any God, but I am absolutely open to the possibility. I don't have the burden of proof, so what would I be defending? You'd be surprised the blank stares I get when asking people to define a "spirit" or "soul" let alone God. I think it's a relevant question. Wrong, atheism addresses a truth claim that a God or Gods exist. It says NOTHING about spirits, ghouls, ghosts, alternate realities, etc etc. I can see that you desperately want atheism to have a burden of proof. Do you ask those who don't believe in bigfoot to defend their lack of belief? Or is this just a pet requirement for atheists? Who gets to decide? The person assessing the evidence, who else? As I stated in response to enoob: "In my world view I allow any belief or position to be changed based on new evidence. Religious faith, as we've seen here, holds the position that there is holy scripture which can't be challenged. I personally reject that approach when examining claims or evaluating evidence. I know others are comfortable with it, but for me religious faith isn't appealing. I also don't hold the position that there isn't a supernatural realm or supernatural beings. I simply need to be convinced that if there are such things, how would we know. If there is a way we can know, I'm interested in the evidence." I don't exclude the possibility of supernatural intervention, where you differ from me is you ASSUME it and have theological implications if you don't. Hey Bonky, you said “Affirming the consequent occurs only when such affirmation is said to provide proof for the antecedent” This is incorrect. Any level of confidence in the antecedent requires the logic gap to be filled with the same assumption. “As you've stated yourself, science isn't out to prove anything” My point is that the entity “proof” as you are using it, doesn’t actually exist in any legitimate sense. You are miss-defining “proof” to mean some form of absolute verification (i.e. in a pseudo-scientific sense) – a definition which cannot be logically sustained. So using “proof” this way to support your definition of Affirming the Consequent is also illegitimate. “We have only one natural mechanism for various genetic markers to be handed down to future generations...genetic inheritance” Actually, prokaryotes and viruses can employ various horizontal gene transfer mechanisms (which becomes very problematic when they are used to support inheritance models like Common Ancestry). “Now you'll argue that a "Designer" placed these similarities there, but using Occam's razor I can easily choose common ancestry as the best explanation” Since you have left this as an Unsupported Assertion, I’ll have to make assumptions about what you mean based on my own previous conversations. Occam’s Razor states that “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. In application, it means that we should prefer the argument with the least entities (logical steps) between premise and conclusion – over those arguments which require more complexity. Now atheists sometimes try to suggest that God qualifies as an extra logical entity – but that is a misunderstanding and misapplication of the theory. God is the premise of our argument – not an entity between the premise and conclusion. It’s easy to see why this might appeal to an atheist; since removing the premise removes the entire foundation of an argument. But this was never the purpose of Occam’s Razor. Some have subsequently attempted to redefine these "entities" as natural observations. I assume I don't have to explain to you why I consider this a biased redefinition. I would suggest that the theistic explanation is far more parsimonious than the secular explanation. In fact, our opponents often ridicule our position for its simplicity; mischaracterizing it as “Godidit”. Nevertheless, Occam’s Razor is not a law of logic. It’s a good rule-of-thumb, but there always remains the possibility that the more complex explanation represents the truth. “Isn't it true that some ERV's are found in the exact same location of the genome? And yet we don't share these segments with all of "creation" but with the very animals that "common descent" would predict” If these genetic segments are biologically functional, then their existence is no more predicted by common descent, than by design. In both systems, similar organisms are expected to have similar information enabling them to fill similar habitat niches. “it's not about proof, but just the idea that evolution [in my opinion] offers a better explanation” Whilst your conclusion is subjective, you are now employing the correct amount of measured language. It is my opinion that Biblical creation offers a better explanation of the history of life. “Intelligent design advocates, bring in a bigger mystery to try to account for this” Before addressing this point, I think it’s important to differentiate between creationism and Intelligent Design. ID and creationism are represented by different people in different organizations with no formal affiliation (but with some conceptual overlap). I don’t know what the big “mystery” is. We believe that God created life in all its complexity. You believe that complex life arose through a series of natural processes. “I've done a little research and I'm trying to find examples of other organisms that we share ERV's with. If it's only primates, that to me is support for common ancestry” - only if you assume them to be retrovirus fragment inserts. Otherwise they no more support Common Ancestry than sharing protein coding genes. that response takes the form ‘there is no God’ “Are you asking me or telling me what my response is?” I am defining true atheism. “I'm not convinced that there's any God, but I am absolutely open to the possibility” Then you are somewhat agnostic - though your expressed naturalistic preferences would make you some kind of hybrid – I’ve heard the term ag-atheist used. A true agnostic recognises that both atheistic and theistic claims are equally unverifiable. both theism and atheism make claims about what lies beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe (atheism claims nothing lies beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe, but it’s still a claim). “Wrong, atheism addresses a truth claim that a God or Gods exist. It says NOTHING about spirits, ghouls, ghosts, alternate realities, etc etc.” Yes – historically, atheism is an enlightenment response to Christianity; and implied a rejection of all Biblical supernatural claims. Our arguments have since become more sophisticated so that we now incorporate philosophical terms such as naturalism and materialism to account for the shortfall in the original definition. But I am happy to restate; Both theism and atheism make claims about what lies beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe (atheism claims that there is no God beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe, but it’s still a claim). “I can see that you desperately want atheism to have a burden of proof” Everyone who makes a claim is responsible to provide an account of their position. I think it is you who is desperate to avoid having to provide an account of your position. In doing so, you are trying to stack the deck of the conversation so that only the religious position is subject to scrutiny. “Do you ask those who don't believe in bigfoot to defend their lack of belief?” If they are engaging in a debate on the subject, then yes – they are making a claim, and therefore obligated to give an account of their position. No objective process would only permit the scrutiny of only one side of an argument. You can’t have one party taking pot shots at their opponents, but refusing to defend their position; claiming immunity from such scrutiny. “Or is this just a pet requirement for atheists?” It applies to anyone making a claim (including, but not limited to atheists). Therefore both positions are equally obligated to provide a rational justification of their position. Though notably, if one side implies that only their perspective is valid, it is they who are more obligated to provide “sufficient evidence” of their claim. But the subjective nature of “sufficient evidence” renders the point redundant (and somewhat circular) – since evidence incorporates interpretation, and interpretation is influenced by faith paradigm. Who gets to decide what constitutes “sufficient evidence”? “Who gets to decide? The person assessing the evidence, who else?” So there is no objective standard constituting “sufficient evidence”? Therefore the concept of “sufficient evidence” is meaningless in a context where everyone is influenced by unverifiable faith presupposition. “In my world view I allow any belief or position to be changed based on new evidence” But this strategy is also meaningless in a context where; - No naturally observable fact can independently speak to what lies beyond the boundaries of the universe or what occurred the past (beyond its own existence) – rendering all past claims and supernatural claims to be logically unfalsifiable. - Evidence incorporates interpretation; a highly subjective process that is influenced by pre-existing logical frameworks (or faith paradigms). - There are conflicting interpretations of the facts conforming to conflicting models of reality. So it’s not just about “new evidence” but, as the previous question required, “sufficient evidence” – but what does that mean? It’s unspecific, non-committal platitude. In reality, the evidence has (at least) two explanations and you will choose the one that best confirms your currently preferred stance (as will I). “Religious faith, as we've seen here, holds the position that there is holy scripture which can't be challenged. I personally reject that approach when examining claims or evaluating evidence” And the secular approach holds the position that naturalism can’t be challenged. Both paradigms have parameters. So you don’t reject having parameters. You simply prefer the paradigm with the parameters that conform to your current faith perspective. “I don't exclude the possibility of supernatural intervention, where you differ from me is you ASSUME it and have theological implications if you don't” Except by your own argument, you will “ASSUME” no supernatural intervention until such a time as you encounter some mysterious entity called “sufficient evidence” – a logical strategy which I have above demonstrated to be specious.

Hi alphaparticle, I think I have understood your position just fine. You disagree on a couple of issues with some Christians in your circle; - You think that a consistent world-view can be maintained between the Bible, and secular historical models. The Christians around you disagree. - You think that the issue is unimportant. The Christians around you disagree. So it is likely that you are being challenged on your position – which is a cause of frustration for you. I still think the inconsistency lies with you. Since you consider the issue to be unimportant, you are expecting these Christians to act as if they consider the issue to be unimportant. If I might be so bold as to offer advice – You are not obligated to engage on this issue. Ideally, you would be secure enough to be able to get amongst it on any issue, but since, by your own admission, you are becoming frustrated, you could just say when challenged “I have made a decision that I’m going to leave this issue to God’s correction (if He deems it necessary) because it has become a source of distraction and frustration for me” (or some other polite way of saying “This conversation isn’t going to happen”). If they continue to push, then you can say “So what you are saying is that you have no confidence in God’s capacity to correct me?” “I think it is rather important that people know there are Christians out there who do not dismiss evolution, or the big bang, as they are the accepted scientific models by the vast majority of people in the relevant fields” Ultimately, if you know the Lord, then God is able to correct whichever of us needs it as He deems fit; assuming we are open to correction. However, statements like the one above are a source of sincere concern because they indicate a readiness to accept the world’s story over the Biblical account – without due consideration for the logic employed. For example, creationists do not “dismiss” anything. We disagree that Common Ancestry and Standard Cosmology represent the only rational interpretations of the available evidence, and we disagree with the scientifically (and logically) unjustified levels of confidence often expressed in these models, and we disagree with the common claim that our disagreement demonstrates us to be, in any respect, scientifically ignorant. Our disagreement and right to scrutinise any scientific claim is explicitly permitted under the scientific method. Acceptance by the scientific community has never been a legitimate source of scientific confidence – especially when we are dealing with historical models of unobserved claims. Logic simply doesn’t permit confidence from this source. It combines the two logical fallacies Appeal to Consensus and Appeal to Authority. “I find it important to for certain believers and seekers to know this” I’m not sure why. Presumably you think that by conceding these points we make the gospel more appealing to outsiders. I’m not trying to negate your right to an opinion. My disagreement is based on the experience that I have never seen anyone impressed by an attempt to combine the Bible with secular models. Most people have recognised that these secular models are formulated with the intention of explaining reality without God. So they respond by either patronising us as having a half-truth (i.e. we are almost to a point where we’ve figured out that there is no need for God), or by criticising out capacity for reason. Richard Dawkins has demonstrated both of these strategies; in one sense describing Christians as “otherwise sane” or “They half-believe in the Bible but how do they decide which parts to believe literally and which parts are just allegorical?”; yet in another context he describes the attempted combination of secular models with the Bible as “Barking mad”. Since these represent the usual responses (at least in my experience), even if you disagree with us, you must be able to understand why we consider these issues important, and why we feel obligated to passionately defend our position. I empathise that discussing these issues with Christians makes you feel isolated and frustrated – that should not be the case. Christian fellowship should provide a place where we feel safe discussing any issue.

The fossil example may have been a poor one I admit. In hindsight it may have been better to suggest common ancestry within primates being falsifiable via DNA analysis. If humans share common ancestry with primates then we should be more similar genetically than say other mammals. So the fossil example may have been a questionable choice, I do think there are things we could come across that would put common ancestry into question. By the way, what is your take on endogenous retroviruses being shared between humans and other primates? Rejection. Atheism is a response to a claim that there is a God. First this God would have to be described/defined, then sufficient evidence needs to be provided. We don't describe people who doubt the existence of bigfoot as having faith that bigfoot doesn't exist. That's silly. I don't have a problem that we have different starting points or presuppositions. I reject this "faith" argument you're trying to establish. Hi Bonkey, You said, “If humans share common ancestry with primates then we should be more similar genetically than say other mammals” But that’s only half of the Common Ancestry equation. It goes on to say; we find that humans have more genetic material in common with primates than other mammals, therefore that genetic material must have been inherited through a common ancestor. This rationale epitomizes the logical fallacy called Affirming the Consequent. “I do think there are things we could come across that would put common ancestry into question” I agree – but nothing that could categorically falsify it to those who are determined that it is true. “what is your take on endogenous retroviruses being shared between humans and other primates” First I examine the relevant facts; - Certain viruses can make additions to our DNA (the relevant implication of this fact is that if DNA is altered in a germ cell (sperm or egg), it can be inherited by offspring). - Humans and primates (and others) share segments of non-coding DNA which are very similar to DNA commonly found in viruses. Now, if I assume that all non-coding DNA is an evolutionary leftover (i.e. “junk DNA”), and I further assume that viruses must be the origin of these shared DNA segments in primates and humans, then it becomes incredulous that humans and primates would share the same viral segments; apart from inheritance through a common ancestor. An updated fact; - Most of the non-coding region of DNA has been found to be biologically active in cells. For example, some RNAs (transcribed DNA) can fold like proteins to perform gene regulatory functions. We don’t know what all of it does because this discovery is still quite recent (and no one ever thought to look before because of the evolutionary assumption that it was “junk”). If non-coding, ‘endogenous retrovirus’ DNA is found to be functionally active, then as a Christian, I have no reason to presume these so-called “virus” segments are anything other than information originating in the mind of the Designer – just like protein coding DNA. Even before the discovery of functional, non-coding DNA, the term “endogenous retroviruses” was highly assumptive. (B) We are debating two versions of reality; Faith premise 1: God has interacted with the universe in accordance with the Biblical account Faith premise 2: No God has interacted with the universe “Rejection. Atheism is a response to a claim that there is a God” Yes, and that response takes the form ‘there is no God’ (or “nah-ah”). “First this God would have to be described/defined, then sufficient evidence needs to be provided. We don't describe people who doubt the existence of bigfoot as having faith that bigfoot doesn't exist. That's silly.” This is an increasingly common (and admittedly clever) strategy employed by atheists in an attempt to avoid having to provide a rational defence of their position. The word atheism means ‘without God’ or ‘no God’. So an accurate summary of the atheist position would be; “Atheists believe that no God exists” Now most atheists detest this framing of their position because the phrase “Atheists believe” accurately reflects that atheism is premised on the unverifiable (and therefore atheistic confidence = faith). So we are compelled to massage the statement by moving the negation; “Atheists don’t believe that God exists” This statement is logically identical to the first statement, but the semantic switch makes it less adamant about the faith aspect of atheism. It’s good, but we can make it better by using a different negation; “Atheists lack belief in the existence of God” Perfect! – It’s the identical logical construct used in the first statement (so technically accurate), but the phrase “lack belief” can be used to portray atheism as a ‘lack of belief’, rather than a belief; and therefore exempt from any obligation to provide a rational defence. So now, only those whose positions can be described as belief are obligated to defend their position – but not atheists, since atheism is a ‘lack of belief’. It’s brilliant. It’s almost a pity it doesn’t stand up to rational scrutiny. Now back to reality - both theism and atheism make claims about what lies beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe (atheism claims nothing lies beyond the boundaries of the physically observed universe, but it’s still a claim). Therefore both positions are equally obligated to provide a rational justification of their position. Though notably, if one side implies that only their perspective is valid, it is they who are more obligated to provide “sufficient evidence” of their claim. But the subjective nature of “sufficient evidence” renders the point redundant (and somewhat circular) – since evidence incorporates interpretation, and interpretation is influenced by faith paradigm. Who gets to decide what constitutes “sufficient evidence”? “I don't have a problem that we have different starting points or presuppositions. I reject this "faith" argument you're trying to establish” Well, I reject your rejection;) That’s because until you can verify that the universe has always proceeded independently of any supernatural intervention, your rejection has little in the way of rational substance.

Am I the only one here who thinks that a debate on evolution should have it own thread and not be integrated with a thread on the big bang? It appears to me that we have completely diverged from the named topic - I know this not the first time I have encountered this phenomena in my short stint but it does seem to be somewhat inappropriate, not to mention a very inefficient method on focusing on a single subject. Maybe we can just change the thread name to evolution since this is truly what is being debated? Sorry if I offend - it's just a suggestion. In Christ, Pat Hi Pat, The Biblical creation account incorporates the creation of both the universe and life. The naturalistic models separate these into temporally disparate events. Since the same logic is used to justify both, and since it is this logic I am questioning, it shouldn’t matter whether we are dealing with Standard Cosmology (incorporating Big Bang) or Common Ancestry. Also, the two secular models are related. The history proposed by Standard Cosmology provides the massive time-frames required to make Common Ancestry plausible. The Big Bang says the universe had a beginning and we have evidences that there was a great universal expansion. That is the same thing that Genesis maintains; "yes it had a beginning". It also follows many other Scriptures, such as the Lord stretched the heavens out - stretching and expansion being the same things. So I guess I fail to see how the evidence of "a big bang" so called - no scientist worth their salt calls it an explosion, it was an expansion and that expansion can be in the waves and ripples that permeate space. So I have yet to hear any Scripture that negates that. And I have not heard what logic determines the that the theory of evolution and the Big Bang evidence are linked. I myself do believe there was a beginning and the evidence of that is in much of what we call the Big Bang but I do not believe in evolution as Darwin defines it. Of course I do believe that we, whether passed from this life are still living when the Lord comes back will physically change our nature but that is by an act of the creator changing us from mere men to have bodies like Christ, the Son of Man, impervious to death and our spiritually new nature manifests itself in the physical. In Christ, Pat Am I the only one here who thinks that a debate on evolution should have it own thread and not be integrated with a thread on the big bang? It appears to me that we have completely diverged from the named topic - I know this not the first time I have encountered this phenomena in my short stint but it does seem to be somewhat inappropriate, not to mention a very inefficient method on focusing on a single subject. Maybe we can just change the thread name to evolution since this is truly what is being debated? Sorry if I offend - it's just a suggestion. In Christ, Pat Hi Pat, The Biblical creation account incorporates the creation of both the universe and life. The naturalistic models separate these into temporally disparate events. Since the same logic is used to justify both, and since it is this logic I am questioning, it shouldn’t matter whether we are dealing with Standard Cosmology (incorporating Big Bang) or Common Ancestry. Also, the two secular models are related. The history proposed by Standard Cosmology provides the massive time-frames required to make Common Ancestry plausible. Sorry, in my quick read I missed the fact that your problem with the Big Bang was not the evidential expansion of the universe but the massive amount of time in that expansion. Even without the Big Bang, however, we have stars that are millions and even billions of light years away from us and we know by the speed of light it actually has taken millions and even billions of years for that light to reach us. Are we also against that? I don't believe there is anything in Genesis which states a Christian must define the six days of creation as solar days, especially since the solar day was created by God until the 4th day. Throughout history some Christians have misinterpreted the Bible and things like heliocentric theory could have landed you in jail or left you forever an outcast from the Church. Even Biblical giants like Calvin were claiming that the sun revolved around the earth because it says so in the Bible. We don't use that interpretation from Calvin today or argue that heliocentric theory is against the Bible today. However, somehow interpretation by recent tradition seems to carry sway in the Church - although many of the early Church fathers also believed the six days were God days and not solar days. I've never been able to see why this has become such a sticking point for us or why we think that longer periods of the days of creation go against the Bible. They simply do not. Sorry for the ending this abruptly but I must go. Thanks for your input. In Christ, Pat Hi Pat, you said “I have not heard what logic determines the that the theory of evolution and the Big Bang evidence are linked.” I can think of at least two logical links; 1) The motivation of the naturalistic faith, applied to both of their models - to explain the origins of life and the universe without any involvement of a God. 2) The existence of an alternative perspective which describes the origin of life and the universe in the same context (i.e. the Genesis creation week). That is, these two events are intrinsically linked in the Genesis account. If we only consider the issue from one perspective, then we are failing to be objective. “we have stars that are millions and even billions of light years away from us and we know by the speed of light it actually has taken millions and even billions of years for that light to reach us. Are we also against that?” To be fair, that’s not how the distance of stars is determined. The only facts that we have are the photons of light which are recorded as they are detected by our instruments on (or around) earth. The rest is theoretical (interpretations and assumptions). By your model, we would have to assume that those photons have maintained a constant path and speed throughout their massive journey through space; not effected by any external forces (such as gravity – remembering that the current Standard Cosmology model incorporates a universe full of dark matter and its associated gravity). A common assumption of naturalistic models (called uniformitarianism) is that once we measure the current rates of a process, we can simply hit the reverse button to tell us what happened throughout millions and billions of years of history (i.e. history that was not actually observed). Furthermore, in order to determine distance, we don’t just need assumptions about the rate (e.g. speed of light), we also need to make assumptions about the starting point of the light – which could only ever be determined to any degree of certainty by travelling to the point of origin and making the necessary direct observations. Such large distances cannot be determined by any method without making massive assumptions. The actual way these distances are determined is through a property of light called red-shift (it’s actually determined by gas/energy signatures – but I won’t go into too much detail at this stage). Basically, as a light source (e.g. galaxy) moves away from us, it is assumed that the Doppler Effect would stretch the light waves, pushing the light signature towards red in the light spectrum. Mathematically comparing the expected signals against the actual signals theoretically permits us to determine how far the light source is away, and how fast it is moving away from us. The assumption that the Doppler Effect is the only source of red-shift is becoming increasingly contested by new astronomical observations. There are several creationist models. I am not aware of any that dispute the vast distances of stars and galaxies across the universe. My preferred model incorporates Time Dilation – a property of the universe implied by general relativity – that time is an actual dimension that is interwoven into space. Time proceeds differently at different points in space (mainly influenced by gravity). If, as the Bible states, and as you have acknowledged, God “stretched out the heavens”, then there is a range of possible implications for how time might be effected by that ‘stretching’ of space. If time is stretch along with space, then it is theoretically possible for the stretched parts of space to be much older than the space around the earth – even when both were created at the same time. My main point is that all historical models incorporate assumptions (we are specifically talking about the history of light travelling through the universe). Which model we ultimately prefer is determined by the starting paradigm we have adopted. “I don't believe there is anything in Genesis which states a Christian must define the six days of creation as solar days, especially since the solar day was created by God until the 4th day” Using the term “solar days” somewhat stacks the deck of this argument. There are many contextual signals in the text indicating that the day was at the same time period we would call a day (although I am happy to discuss this further, these signals have been thoroughly addressed in other threads). Nevertheless, the concept of massively long-ages is not indicated in the text itself – such ideas must be read into the text based on information from outside of the text (e.g. some perceived obligation of allegiance to the popular long-ages paradigm). “Throughout history some Christians have misinterpreted the Bible and things like heliocentric theory could have landed you in jail or left you forever an outcast from the Church” Not “throughout history”, but primarily during a period of reign by a particular Catholic Pope (Pope Urban VIII) who permitted himself to be convinced that the Copernican (i.e. a Christian cleric from the 1400-1500s) theory of a heliocentric solar system, to be heresy. “Even Biblical giants like Calvin were claiming that the sun revolved around the earth because it says so in the Bible” Calvin is not a “Biblical giant” since he doesn’t appear in the Bible whatsoever. The question you (and Calvin - allegedly) should have asked is, ‘does the Bible actually state that the earth moves around the sun, or has that concept been read into the text based on some misunderstood observation (e.g. like the accurate observation that the sun moves across the sky). “We don't use that interpretation from Calvin today or argue that heliocentric theory is against the Bible today” That’s because it isn’t “against the Bible”. I am not aware of Calvin’s arguments for a geocentric universe, but I am aware that he died before Copernicus released his observations. Since the Bible doesn’t state categorically which body revolves around which, Calvin was free to speculate based on what he read into the Bible – which I suspect was heavily influenced by the prevailing models of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Debate is permitted within the Christian paradigm, and given the available evidence of his time, Calvin probably had a perfectly rational argument supporting his position. The Bible does call the Genesis days, “days” using the Hebrew word yom; with mornings and evenings. As with the English term day, yom can mean ages in certain contexts, but there are many better Hebrew words that could convey this concept. Yet there are no better words in Hebrew that could convey the concept of a literal day. Subsequent scriptures support this interpretation (see Exodus 20:11). “I've never been able to see why this has become such a sticking point for us or why we think that longer periods of the days of creation go against the Bible” It’s a “sticking point” for me because I am being asked to make the Bible say something that it doesn’t actually say, in order to conform it to highly speculative, unfalsifiable models of unobserved history; which were specifically formulated to explain the universe without God - when there is no objective scientific reason for me to distrust what the Bible actually says; without having to read any extraneous concepts into it. The popular propaganda implies that anyone with the gal to question the secular models is somehow scientifically ignorant – but that propaganda is not rationally justified.

Hi Taker, I would first suggest that you avoid the term “proof” in your discussions. Proof isn’t really a scientific word. Only God knows everything. And we don’t know what we don’t know. Legitimate science can only claim to have a certain level of confidence in a claim – not to have proven a claim. Tomorrow some scientist could make a discovery that invalidates whatever we think we know (or can prove) now. “He claimed that there was no scientific evidence to back up a global flood” Claims that an opponent has no evidence are almost always nonsense. Consider that you provided evidence (marine fossils on Everest) to support your position. Now what the atheist disputed was how you interpreted that evidence – not the existence of that evidence. So to claim you have no evidence is self-evidently untrue. “He claimed that if a global flood happened roughly 4000 years ago it would be very easy to confirm with today's science” This claim assumes that the facts would be interpreted fairly. We all believe thing about reality which can’t be confirmed. I believe that the Bible is true – including the Genesis account of history. But I can’t take anyone back in time to show them what actually happened. Atheists believe that the universe exists without God – including the belief that the universe is billions of years older than the Bible claims. But they can’t take me back in time to show me what actually happened either. Both our beliefs have limitations as to what can be accepted as truth. My belief says that any claim that contradicts the Bible cannot be true. The atheist belief (philosophical naturalism) says that any claim that includes God (such as the Biblical flood) cannot be true. These beliefs (sometimes called paradigms, or frameworks, or world-views) determine what we see when we look at the evidence; that is, these beliefs influence how we interpret the facts. Interpreting “fossilized-seashells” on Mt. Everest as evidence of a global flood is a perfectly rational way to interpret these facts. A global flood would have contributed to massive geological upheaval – changing the face of the earth. During that period, mountain ranges would have risen much more rapidly than they do today. But we must also recognise that interpreting these “fossilized-seashells” as coming from an ancient ocean floor is also a rational way to interpret these facts. If we assume that processes have always proceeded at the rate they do today (this assumption is called uniformitarianism), then it is reasonable to conclude that the top of Everest started on the ocean floor millions of years ago. Since your opponent is an atheist operating within the naturalistic paradigm, his perspective does not permit him to consider our interpretations of the facts to be true. Likewise, since we adhere to the Biblical paradigm, we cannot accept their billions-of-years-of-history interpretations of the facts. The only problem in today’s scientific discourse is that many atheists consider their position to be somehow more logically valid (or more scientific) than ours. We who believe the Bible can hopefully be objective enough to realise that we simply disagree with each other – because we each start at different faith perspectives. It’s the same facts, but different stories. “Is there scientific evidence of a global flood that happened roughly 4000 years ago?” Yes, there is an abundance of such evidence (which we interpret to be consistent with a global flood) – including “fossilized-seashells”. I would recommend creation.com as a good resource for such information. Most of their articles are authored by highly credentialed scientists in the relevant fields of expertise.