Science vs. Creationism

[MVP]

There are some differences in the terms used that arise "in translation", and it's probably a stretch to expect technical terms to be correctly applied by shepherds and plowboys across the hundreds of years between Moses and the attempt under Solomon's orders to gather the remnants of old writings and merge them together with the faithful folklore. . .. into a cohesive and compelling "faithful" narrative.

I won't choke on the fact that Bible puts some things in the fifth day, and others in the sixth day, and that it doesn't fit the fossil record exactly. . . .

Today, after only 240 years roughly speaking we Americans can't get it straight that our Constitution was a compact between sovereign states with a Federal government that was limited to specific defined powers. . . .

And, considering the probably murky primeval skies, which had more pollution generally than even Shanghai today, I can see where some anthropocentric shepherds might think the stars came later. They thought, afterall, that stars were little lanterns, not suns. . . .

And it leads to simple question. Why we would take myths written by uneducated shepherds thousands of years ago seriously?

 

[babe]

And it leads to simple question. Why we would take myths written by uneducated shepherds thousands of years ago seriously?

which for many leads to another question. . . . why would we take our own myths seriously???

Some would note that obviously I don't take those myths seriously. I'm not really up here pounding on a fundamentalist pulpit raising the Bible up in the and declaring it the spirit-blreathed infallible innerrant Word of God, the position of "faith" many would take, and they would criticize me for my failure to supply something of that character. . . . well, actually they just don't believe God would contradict Himself by making a new statement.. . ..

However, the reason I can live with a conscience of my own comes from an experience I find comparable to men of faith of other ages, times, and cultures. While I don't feel to call my belief infallible, I would think the God I believe I know would give you the same kind of knowledge if you went directly to Him with your questions, and felt to give Him a chance to give you understandable answers. I feel a kinship of spirit with others who have taken God seriously. . . . shepherds who didn't need exact scientific knowledge like you may have before they would say a prayer, or love their Maker.

In the larger scheme of things, I don't think I am much better informed for all we can know from science, than those shepherds. I accept my condition, and I can still feel to reverence the same God those shepherds did. Obviously, I find other things than technical expertise in science important to my faith. . . .

And I do most seriously believe that God would want us to make that fundamental choice on the basis of love rather than scientific fact.

Most importantly, I believe that God is willing to let us run in this life, and learn all we can, even make mistakes. . . even go wrong for years and decades on our own thinking, until perhaps we might turn and look for Him somehow. . . . and that when we do that, God has made a way for us to come Home, and be forgiven for everything we didn't know, and be loved in a condition still pretty ignorant for all we still won't know.

The Christians have this song. . . .

"He loved me ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ajtJtNXF4

 

[babe]

When I read the Bible, and find say the story of a seriously-afflicted woman in a pressing crowd reaching out in faith to touch the robes of Jesus, and being healed in an instant, I am not reading about something that is a myth to me, but something I can relate to from my own experience. Jesus turned and asked who touched Him, and his friends wondered why he would ask a question like that in a pressing crowd, but he knew something had gone out from Him. Just as I know on one and more occasion, something came to me from Him.

So who am I? What reason would God have to care about me? I found it just unanswerably amazing to know God does care, and would do such a thing for me. For what reason? Why not everybody? I don't know. All I know is that He did it for me. And all I can do is admit that central fact of my life to anyone who would want to know.

I was both totally blind and totally paralyzed on that day, no less afflicted than any story of any healing that Jesus did during His mortal time on earth as found told in the Bible. . . .

I don't think I'm fundamentally different in any way from anyone who doesn't know as I know, except maybe that God would like some people to know what He has done for all of us. . . .something far more enduring and necessary than my eyesight and walking in the broader scheme of our existence.

If we will turn and look for Him, he will come to us and show us what we need to know. . . . principally that we are loved. Loved with a love that goes so far beyond our life in this world that it can make everything we suffer here pass away like a moment of discomfort forgotten as a trifle. . . . for the transcending power of that love. And if we should never have experienced a day of not knowing that, and needing to seek it, we would never be able to value it. . . .

So somehow, our little journey in the dark in this life is meant to give us the time and space to learn, and we will come through it with a kind of knowledge that transcends scientific facts. . . . . and means much more than we can imagine. . . .

We are all blind, but we will all see someday. . . .

But we are also given something more important than that. . . . the chance to choose what we will love. . . . . and be.

 

[colton]

The "6 days to create earth thing doesn't dispute science because days could mean something else." Sounds great and all, but if you weren't trying to incorporate the bible into science than you wouldn't try to find a bunch of loopholes. The 'word of God' shouldn't be trying to trick you.

I don't see the use of symbolism as being "trying to trick" anyone.

Colton, If I came and told you that a virgin had given birth would you believe me just because I told you so?

Depends on what evidences you provided, I suppose.

I'm surprised that a physics professor would think that the laws that govern the universe can be put on hold for a short period of time with divine intervention.

I'm a scientist, but I don't believe science holds all the answers about how the universe works.

Do we have any recordings that gravity has stopped working, or someone has risen from the dead?

Well, the Bible records testimonies of people who said Jesus walked on water, and that Jesus rose from the dead. More recently Joseph Smith testified that the angel Moroni (a resurrected individual) appeared to him and stood in the air above his bed. And that Jesus and God the Father appeared to him in a column of light over his head. So yes, we certainly have recordings of such things happening--but as in the hypothetical case you presented above (you telling me me a virgin had given birth), people need to judge for themselves how credible they find these records/testimonies.

I'm not a huge fan of what Hantlers believes, but hey he is all in. People who grew up religious then later in life just found so much evidence to contradict their beliefs so they try to cram it all into one thing. You could not have two more incompatible things, and I must admit people have done a great job making up stories that seem to make it all work. But come on... The book has been changed throughout history, or the 'meanings' of the words are different? That is just going to great lengths to avoid saying what I think a lot of people know deep down, but they are terrified to admit.
If you wanna believe that stuff it's fine, but don't try to find science in the Bible.

I'm not trying to find science in the Bible, not sure why you would think that. But I think both science and the Bible are 100% compatible if both are properly understood. Any apparent discrepancies come about because we either do not fully understand one or the other. (Same thing for the Book of Mormon, for that matter.)

 

[carolinajazz]

98% of every species that ever existed has gone extinct, there have been five mass extinctions that we know of in the earths lifetime. All that is conveniently left out of the Bible, did God not care about those species he created? Just doing a couple test runs?

While the radioactive dating method is innovative, it is still based on speculation and assumption. In contrast, the Bible account in the first chapter of Genesis simply states the general order of creation. It allows for possibly thousands of millions of years for the formation of the earth and many millenniums of time or longer in six creative eras, or “days,” to prepare the earth for human habitation.

Some dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) may indeed have been created in the fifth era listed in Genesis, when the Bible says that God made “flying creatures” and “great sea monsters.” Perhaps other types of dinosaurs were created in the sixth epoch. The vast array of dinosaurs with their huge appetites would have been appropriate considering the abundant vegetation that evidently existed in their time.—Genesis 1:20-24.

When the dinosaurs had fulfilled their purpose, God ended their life. But the Bible is silent on how he did that or when. We can be sure that dinosaurs were created by God for a purpose, even if we do not fully understand that purpose at this time. They were no mistake, no product of evolution.

That they suddenly appear in the fossil record unconnected to any fossil ancestors, and also disappear without leaving connecting fossil links, is evidence against the view that such animals gradually evolved over millions of years of time. Thus, the fossil record does not support the evolution theory. Instead, it harmonizes with the Bible’s view of creative acts of God.

 

[MVP]

That they suddenly appear in the fossil record unconnected to any fossil ancestors, and also disappear without leaving connecting fossil links, is evidence against the view that such animals gradually evolved over millions of years of time. Thus, the fossil record does not support the evolution theory. Instead, it harmonizes with the Bible’s view of creative acts of God.

Where are you getting this nonsense from? And reliable link please? All I know about evolution and dinosaurs says exact opposite.

 

[Zulu]

And it leads to simple question. Why we would take myths written by uneducated shepherds thousands of years ago seriously?

Dude Moses was a prince of Egypt!!!

 

[LogGrad98]

When I read the Bible, and find say the story of a seriously-afflicted woman in a pressing crowd reaching out in faith to touch the robes of Jesus, and being healed in an instant, I am not reading about something that is a myth to me, but something I can relate to from my own experience. Jesus turned and asked who touched Him, and his friends wondered why he would ask a question like that in a pressing crowd, but he knew something had gone out from Him. Just as I know on one and more occasion, something came to me from Him.

So who am I? What reason would God have to care about me? I found it just unanswerably amazing to know God does care, and would do such a thing for me. For what reason? Why not everybody? I don't know. All I know is that He did it for me. And all I can do is admit that central fact of my life to anyone who would want to know.

I was both totally blind and totally paralyzed on that day, no less afflicted than any story of any healing that Jesus did during His mortal time on earth as found told in the Bible. . . .

I don't think I'm fundamentally different in any way from anyone who doesn't know as I know, except maybe that God would like some people to know what He has done for all of us. . . .something far more enduring and necessary than my eyesight and walking in the broader scheme of our existence.

If we will turn and look for Him, he will come to us and show us what we need to know. . . . principally that we are loved. Loved with a love that goes so far beyond our life in this world that it can make everything we suffer here pass away like a moment of discomfort forgotten as a trifle. . . . for the transcending power of that love. And if we should never have experienced a day of not knowing that, and needing to seek it, we would never be able to value it. . . .

So somehow, our little journey in the dark in this life is meant to give us the time and space to learn, and we will come through it with a kind of knowledge that transcends scientific facts. . . . . and means much more than we can imagine. . . .

We are all blind, but we will all see someday. . . .

But we are also given something more important than that. . . . the chance to choose what we will love. . . . . and be.

I love the sentiment, and really appreciate this post babe.

But sometimes it feels like every silver lining has a cloud.

 

[Zulu]

While the radioactive dating method is innovative, it is still based on speculation and assumption. In contrast, the Bible account in the first chapter of Genesis simply states the general order of creation. It allows for possibly thousands of millions of years for the formation of the earth and many millenniums of time or longer in six creative eras, or “days,” to prepare the earth for human habitation.

Some dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) may indeed have been created in the fifth era listed in Genesis, when the Bible says that God made “flying creatures” and “great sea monsters.” Perhaps other types of dinosaurs were created in the sixth epoch. The vast array of dinosaurs with their huge appetites would have been appropriate considering the abundant vegetation that evidently existed in their time.—Genesis 1:20-24.

When the dinosaurs had fulfilled their purpose, God ended their life. But the Bible is silent on how he did that or when. We can be sure that dinosaurs were created by God for a purpose, even if we do not fully understand that purpose at this time. They were no mistake, no product of evolution.

That they suddenly appear in the fossil record unconnected to any fossil ancestors, and also disappear without leaving connecting fossil links, is evidence against the view that such animals gradually evolved over millions of years of time. Thus, the fossil record does not support the evolution theory. Instead, it harmonizes with the Bible’s view of creative acts of God.

Do you know the chances of a dead organism turning into a fossil.... It is very rare... Hence we we don't have the gradual evolution of many extinct and extant organisms.... But amazingly we do have record of this gradual change over time in some species via the fossil record... Best example... Trilobites!!!

 

[carolinajazz]

Bible as well says Earth was created first and then God made stars. Which is not true again as we know for sure that there are billions of stars older then Earth.

...the Bible does NOT say the earth was create first then stars! Where did you get that idea from??? The fact that rays from remote stars and galaxies millions of light-years distant now reach giant telescopes on earth indicates that the creation of these astral bodies occurred millions of years in the past, since otherwise these rays would not yet have reached our planet. Such creation is evidently included in the initial statement at Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Verse 16 does not contradict this in saying that during the fourth creative “day,” or period, “God proceeded to make .*.*. the stars.” The word “make” (Heb., ‛a·sah′) does not mean the same as the word “create” (Heb., ba·ra’′).

The Scriptures, in stating, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Ge 1:1), leave matters indefinite as to time. This use of the term “beginning” is therefore unassailable, regardless of the age scientists may seek to attach to the earthly globe and to the various planets and other heavenly bodies. The actual time of creation of the material heavens and earth may have been billions of years ago.

 

[carolinajazz]

After creating in the heavens things both invisible and visible, the Creator and his firstborn Son focused on the earth. Where did it come from? The variety of chemical elements making up our planet could have been produced directly by God’s transforming unlimited dynamic energy into matter, which physicists today say is feasible. Or, as many scientists believe, the earth could have been formed out of matter ejected from the explosion of a supernova. Then again, who is to say whether there might have been a combination of methods, those just mentioned and others that scientists have not yet unraveled? Whatever the mechanism, the Creator is the dynamic Source of the elements that make up our earth, including all the minerals that are essential for keeping us alive.

We can appreciate that founding the earth would have involved much more than supplying all the materials in the correct proportions. Earth’s size, its rotation, and its distance from the sun, as well as the inclination of its axis and the nearly circular shape of its orbit around the sun, also had to be just*right—exactly as they are. Clearly, the Creator set in operation natural cycles that make our planet fit to support an abundance of life. We have every right to be amazed at it all!

 

[Bawse Dawg]

Your knowledge of science is dwarfed only by your knowledge of basketball.

 

[Gameface]

After creating in the heavens things both invisible and visible, the Creator and his firstborn Son focused on the earth. Where did it come from? The variety of chemical elements making up our planet could have been produced directly by God’s transforming unlimited dynamic energy into matter, which physicists today say is feasible. Or, as many scientists believe, the earth could have been formed out of matter ejected from the explosion of a supernova. Then again, who is to say whether there might have been a combination of methods, those just mentioned and others that scientists have not yet unraveled? Whatever the mechanism, the Creator is the dynamic Source of the elements that make up our earth, including all the minerals that are essential for keeping us alive.

We can appreciate that founding the earth would have involved much more than supplying all the materials in the correct proportions. Earth’s size, its rotation, and its distance from the sun, as well as the inclination of its axis and the nearly circular shape of its orbit around the sun, also had to be just*right—exactly as they are. Clearly, the Creator set in operation natural cycles that make our planet fit to support an abundance of life. We have every right to be amazed at it all!

I feel like he could have done better, tbpfhwy.

 

[PearlWatson]

Do you know the chances of a dead organism turning into a fossil.... It is very rare... Hence we we don't have the gradual evolution of many extinct and extant organisms....

"Our evidence didn't fossilize. Just take our word for it."

That's my kind of "science."

 

[babe]

"Our evidence didn't fossilize. Just take our word for it."

That's my kind of "science."

Hey guys. . . don't choke on that humble pie.

well, at least Zulu needs to provide some rational hypothesis about why transitional evolutionary mutants don't fossilize as well as the putatively superior lifeforms that form immense masses of fossils. . . . .

I don't doubt that all life is inter-related, and we probably don't understand even now very much about the evolutionary process, or creation process. I think it's clear that any absolute de novo "creation" of any life form is evidently undergoing evolutionary change as we observe it's development. I suspect that it will eventually become as clear that any absolute "evolutionary product" is going to be meddled with in our own laboratories to an extent that we will eventually have to call the result some kind of laboratory "creation".

I simply posit these trends as the normal across the eons of existence while life has acted on it's context, and actual natural laws have acted upon life. . . .

 

[TroutBum]

Do you know the chances of a dead organism turning into a fossil.... It is very rare... Hence we we don't have the gradual evolution of many extinct and extant organisms.... But amazingly we do have record of this gradual change over time in some species via the fossil record... Best example... Trilobites!!!

I love digging trilobites out in Delta. Sounds corny, but to be able to hold something in your hand that is 500,000,000 years old is really something.

 

[carolinajazz]

I love digging trilobites out in Delta. Sounds corny, but to be able to hold something in your hand that is 500,000,000 years old is really something.

...yeah, especially since there dating methods are a tad bit better than the 3 point shooting percentage of this years Jazz team?

 

[carolinajazz]

I feel like he could have done better, tbpfhwy.

...yeah, you would have come up with a game plan that would have dwarfed that of the Denver Bronco's in this years Super Bowl...and made the front office of the N.Y. Knicks look like Albert Einstein, I'm sure!

 

[babe]

...yeah, especially since there dating methods are a tad bit better than the 3 point shooting percentage of this years Jazz team?

This is like saying the universe is entirely chaotic and nothing can be known by any attempt to infer correlations between measurements and hypotheses.

With different methods producing a vast number of coherent results in geologic samples, I'm sure the methods are a lot better than you think, and the only intelligent response an honest scientists disputing the accuracy/precision of a method can make is to develop a database of incoherent or disparate results that define the problems with the methods, if you think there are problems.

My own study has confirmed the larger trend that we have several accurate methods for estimating geologic time. . . .

 

[Johnnyfan12]

After creating in the heavens things both invisible and visible, the Creator and his firstborn Son focused on the earth. Where did it come from? The variety of chemical elements making up our planet could have been produced directly by God’s transforming unlimited dynamic energy into matter, which physicists today say is feasible. Or, as many scientists believe, the earth could have been formed out of matter ejected from the explosion of a supernova. Then again, who is to say whether there might have been a combination of methods, those just mentioned and others that scientists have not yet unraveled? Whatever the mechanism, the Creator is the dynamic Source of the elements that make up our earth, including all the minerals that are essential for keeping us alive.

We can appreciate that founding the earth would have involved much more than supplying all the materials in the correct proportions. Earth’s size, its rotation, and its distance from the sun, as well as the inclination of its axis and the nearly circular shape of its orbit around the sun, also had to be just*right—exactly as they are. Clearly, the Creator set in operation natural cycles that make our planet fit to support an abundance of life. We have every right to be amazed at it all!

Two points that I'll try to keep short/concise:

1. As an atheist-leaning agnostic, I accept there's a fair possibility that some supreme being ultimately created matter (the Big Bang). It's not really all that much more implausible than matter just coming into existence one black day for no reason.

2. That said, you can't just cite fantastic conditions for the support of life on Earth as any kind of proof of Intelligent Design / Divine Creator. Yes, these conditions are extraordinarily improbable. But the universe is extraordinarily frickin' large.
Yeah, you probably won't get that coin to land on the ground and stand on-edge. But try it 100 billion times. Bet you could get one. Or ten, even.