Copernicus and Darwin: Why is only one not biblical?

[micatala]

I've brought up this question on a number of threads, and thought it might be worth its own discussion.

The question is:

Why should we (or do you, as the case may be) accept the literal '6-day creation' interpretation of Genesis as the only legitimate interpretation, and not accept the literal interpretation made by many in the 16th and 17th centuries who said that the Copernican system was counter to Holy Scripture?

Stated in another way:

If Martin Luther was wrong about the solar system, why not those who claim evolution is not compatible with the Bible?

I have often asked creationists why it is not possible that the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is incorrect, when we know that the literal interprations of Martin Luther, John Calvin, not to mention the Catholic heirarchy, concerning the immobility of the earth were wrong.

My question is really for those who insist there is no other possible interpretation of Genesis other than the YEC version.

My assumption is not that all literal interpretations are wrong, only that this is a definite possibility, and has demonstrably occurred.

I will note that I am a Christian and my goal is certainly not to deprecate or denigrate either Scripture, Christianity, or fellow Christians.

Some of the relevant passages of scripture (I did not do an exhaustive search) are given below in a quote from the God a Part of Evolution? thread.

From Luther:
"This fool [Copernicus] wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Luther is referring to Joshua, chapter 10.


Not on the subject of Copernicus, but a quote on the age of the world.

"We know, on the authority of Moses, that longer than six thousand years the world did not exist."

Regarding the inspiration of scripture:
"We should throw the Epistle of James out of this school [the University of Wittenberg]....
This is not really on the subject, but does speak to the issue that not everyone agrees with what should be and what should not be included in scripture.

A quote from Calvin
"Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?" He is citing Psalm 93:1 in his Commentary on Genesis

and from the same
"We indeed are not ignorant, that the circuit of the heavens is finite, and that the earth, like a little globe, is placed in the center."

"The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves.... Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it."
-- Melanchthon, emphasizing Ecclesiastes 1:4-5


Some of the quotes Luther and others cited or may have cited are:
Ps 19:4-5 where the heavens are described as a tent and the sun "a champion rejoicing to run his course." According to the Hebrew view of the universe, the sky was a solid dome under which the planets including the sun moved around the fixed earth. My understanding from a variety fo sources is that they believed in a flat earth, which most Christians later replaced with a fixed but spherical earth at the center of the "sphere of stars." (See Kuhn, for example) This belief was influenced by Aristotle and also the dominant Ptolemaic astronomical system. It is worth noting Genesis 1:6, where God talks about establishing the expanse of sky between the "waters above and the waters below," the former being the source of rain.

Matthew 5:45 " He causes his sun to rise on the evel and the good . . ."

Ps. 104:5 "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved". This idea occurs in a number of other passages.

Ps. 104:19 "The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down."

Ecclesiastes 1:5 "The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north . . ."

Job 38:4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tell me, if you understand."

"And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz."
-- 2 Kings 20:11

Many years later, of course, we have the more famous events surrounding Galileo.

"... And whereas it has also come to the knowledge of the said Congregation that the Pythagorean doctrine -- which is false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture -- of the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun, which is also taught by Nicolaus Copernicus in De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, and by Diego de Zuñiga On Job, is now being spread abroad and accepted by many... Therefore, in order that this opinion may not insinuate itself any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation has decreed that the said Nicolaus Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium, and Diego de Zuñiga, On Job, be suspended until they are corrected."
-- The Roman Catholic Church, from The Decree of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Index which condemned De Revolutionibus on March 5, 1616

Quotes from Cardinal Bellarmine, who communicated the decree personally to Galileo, can be found in "The Crime of Galileo" by Giorgio de Santillana.


Now, I am not saying that any of these individuals should be deprecated for their quotes or for not accepting the Copernican system. I am also not saying that there understanding of scripture were necessary. Obviously, we have all made our peace with Copernicus and I am certainly not throwing away my bible because of what other people believed it said. My only point is that many people in Copernicus' day and for 100 year or more afterwards believed that Copernicanism was unscriptural.

If we can reconcile Copernicanism with the Bible and Christianity, why not biological evolution?

Consider John 6:63. "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life."

It seems to me a reasonable implication of this is that God cares not at all whether we believe in evolution or not. How our flesh got here is not important. What is important is our spiritual being, and it is to this aspect of ourselves that Jesus addresses us. When we are "created in his image," I think this can only mean His spiritual image, as God is spirit.

[Philip J. Rayment]

If we are to read Genesis literally then why would God create the world,which is by all accounts, of the utmost importance, so insignificant compared to the rest of the universe?

What makes you think that it is insignificant? Are you basing your opinion on sheer size alone?

Consider instead that this is the only known planet with life, or even with conditions like we have. Surely that makes Earth very significant? There is so much more about how unique our planet and our solar system are that it is hard to accept that we are in any way insignificant.

God created all the stars in the sky on the third day ...

Fourth day actually.

...yet it took considerably longer to create the earth and it's inhabitants.

More correctly, God (not "it") took considerably longer. The distinction is not that I object to you referring to the Creator as "it", but that your statement implies that the process necessarily took longer, rather than God choosing to take longer.

Compared to the work involved creating the rest of the universe the earth should have been a walk in the park.

God could have created the universe in an instant, but he chose to spread it over a period of six days—plus a day of rest—in order to set the pattern for our week.

How could there be a day before the sun?

Quite easily. A day is measured by the rotation of the Earth around its axis. As long as the earth was rotating (and there was a source of light to illuminate it), there could have been a day. And Genesis says that God created light on day one.

What made the division between light and darkness to create night and day?

The rotation of the Earth.

If we are to say the day is not a literal day, then to hold the rest literally makes no sense.

I won't argue there.

If ,as some say, the light was an aspect of God's spirit then the darkness would indicate an absence of spirit. Then why call this night? The chronology of the earth, sun, moon, stars and the animals(including humans) as well as plant life is all proven beyond any reasonable doubt to be incorrect.

Sorry, which chronology? The biblical one or the anti-biblical one?

Of course this does not in any way prove that there is no God but it is pretty compelling evidence that the Genesis version of creation is not literal fact.

The anti-biblical chronology is not scientifically proven. It is a hypothesis that a priori excludes a Creator from consideration.

[QED]

...showing how marginalized they are in the real world.

Probably more people believe in creation than evolution, if you look worldwide. It is the atheists that are marginalised, if anything.

I don't know about atheism, but I think it's very safe to say that believers in a Young Earth are in the minority. This is quite evident whenever we go into a museum anywhere in the world and find fossilized dinosaur skeletons bearing labels dating them to many millions of years ago. Have you ever seen any form of "political correctness" demonstrated where the exhibitors have taken the trouble to offer a YEC interpretation?

It's not something restricted to natural history either. I don't know about US media, but in the UK all forms of public service broadcasting talk in terms of a very old Earth. I've been watching TV since the 50's and have never once been startled by some documentary or news report offering an alternative chronology. All the important arguments about this subject ended more than a century ago so none of this is surprising. The only question that I have ever seen debated in the public domain is whether a god provided the impetus for everything we see in the natural world or not.

[Philip J. Rayment]

...showing how marginalized they are in the real world.

Probably more people believe in creation than evolution, if you look worldwide. It is the atheists that are marginalised, if anything.

I don't know about atheism, but I think it's very safe to say that believers in a Young Earth are in the minority.

Perhaps, but I was talking about evolution, not an old earth.

This is quite evident whenever we go into a museum anywhere in the world and find fossilized dinosaur skeletons bearing labels dating them to many millions of years ago.

However, the people that run museums are not representative of the world's population as a whole.

Have you ever seen any form of "political correctness" demonstrated where the exhibitors have taken the trouble to offer a YEC interpretation?

Generally, no. But it is not "politically correct" to give any ground to Christian views.

It's not something restricted to natural history either. I don't know about US media, but in the UK all forms of public service broadcasting talk in terms of a very old Earth. I've been watching TV since the 50's and have never once been startled by some documentary or news report offering an alternative chronology.

Similarly to those that run museums, most people involved in the public media have views that are not representative of the general population.

All the important arguments about this subject ended more than a century ago so none of this is surprising. The only question that I have ever seen debated in the public domain is whether a god provided the impetus for everything we see in the natural world or not.

It depends on exactly what you are talking about. Belief in a universe billions rather than thousands of years old is more widespread than belief in evolution. Belief in evolution is more widespread in western countries than in, for example, Muslim countries (and note that I was referring to world-wide population). And belief in evolution is more widespread in academia and the media than in the general population. So you are unlikely to see the age of the earth debated among academia or the media in a western country, but that is not the claim that I was making.

[micatala]

Welcome to the forum, Philip, and thanks for your thoughtful contribution to date.

I, of course, have a number of disagreements, but that is what we are here for .

steen wrote:
Of course this does not in any way prove that there is no God but it is pretty compelling evidence that the Genesis version of creation is not literal fact.

Philip Rayment:
The anti-biblical chronology is not scientifically proven. It is a hypothesis that a priori excludes a Creator from consideration.

I would vehementaly disagree that the standard evolutionary and old earth scientific chronologies are anti-biblical. I would also say they have as much scientific support as just about any other area of science, at least in their basic aspects. Obviously, if you look around the other threads that are more focused on the physical evidence, you will see a lot of this evidence cited and presented. In my view, the YEC chronology is disproven, based on the overwhelming amount of evidence that contradicts a global flood occuring in the last 4000 years. Here is a sampling.

One of the reason's I don't believe evolution is anti-biblical is because of the verse I quoted previously, "my words are spirit and they are life, the flesh counts for nothing." I think most Christians would agree that God is spirit and it is spiritual matters which are most important in God's eyes. Biology (flesh) is mostly irrelevant. When we are created in God's image, this can only mean we are spiritually created in his image.

With regards to the 'days' question, it is fairly evident that there is no consensus among scholars that days (yom) must mean 24 literal hours. You could visit some of the discussion in the Biblical Inerrancy thread where extensive arguments and citations are given on both sides (along with some unfortunate vitriol towards the latter pages). Even as far back as Augustine, some considered the days to be metaphorical.

steen wrote:
The universe, the solar system, Earth and life, as well as changes in life, all have happened on a continuum over a very long time.

Rayment:
According to the creation myth that you believe in.

On what basis do you refer to the scientific model for the history of the universe or the earth or evolution as myth? This seems to be a gross misapplication of the word. Science is based on physical evidence. Myth typically is not. Your reference to evolution as an 'alternate creation myth' seems to me nothing more than name-calling without any basis. Particularly off-base, in my view, is to refer to it as an atheistic creation myth.

Evolution is not atheistic. It is irrelevant to spiritual matters. The fact that some in the past (eg. Huxley) or the present (Dawkins) are of the opinion that it is means only that they have read implications into the theory that are not part of the theory itself, just as some people read implications into the Bible that are not necessarily there (eg. black people are descended from Ham and were inferior due to the 'curse of Ham' and therefore racism is justified).

steen wrote:
So science and Genesis are not contradictory, ...

Rayment:
Only evolutionists claim that they are.

Some may claim this. To the extent that I am an 'evolutionist' in that I accept evolution is the best, most logical, and most supported theory about the history of life as we know it I do not make this claim. I only claim that particular interpretations of Genesis are contradictory to science.

micatala wrote:
With regards to Protestants, I think you also make a good point. My understanding is that modern 'literalistic creationism' is not much more than 100 years old.

PR:
It depends on how you define "modern literalistic creationism". By definition, "modern literalistic creationism" can't be very old, can it? Modern creationism in most respects dates to the publication of The Genesis Flood in 1963 I think it was. But 6-day creationism has historically always been understood by Bible-believers.

Yes, I suppose it depends on who you count as a 'creationist'. On the other hand, it is not true that a 6-day creation has always been understood by 'Bible-believers.' See Augustine. For a more modern example, see Hugh Ross. Ross is not a believer in evolution, and my understanding is he does believe in miraculous intervention and a supernatural beginning of life. He does not believe in a young earth or a world wide flood, and he does have a discussion on his site that does a good job of de-bunking both the physical evidence and scriptural interpretation of a literal world wide flood.

micatala wrote:
Creationism as we know it today arose out of the 7th day adventist sect before spreading to other fundamentalist denominations and churches.

PR:
Creationism existed before SDA George McCready Price. It did not start with him.

Fair enough.

micatala wrote:
I have often asked creationists why it is not possible that the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is incorrect, when we know that the literal interprations of Martin Luther, John Calvin, not to mention the Catholic heirarchy, concerning the immobility of the earth were wrong.

PR:
So if someone who believes the Bible to be accurate is wrong on a point, why does that imply that others that hold the Bible to be accurate can also be wrong? The two questions are not related.

Not related???? What???


Sorry for the question marks, but this seems a bizarre statement.

If expert A testified against a defendent and we later found that the foundation of his testimony was wrong (eg. the chemical analysis, or DNA methodology, or whatever), would we not question the testimony of expert B if he or she based their testimony on the same foundation? Both geocentrism and creationism were supported with arguments from scripture, the same foundation, even if those 'testifying' today are not named Luther, Calvin, or Bellarmine.

The Bible was used to support geocentrism. You may disagree that the interpretations were valid, but they were certainly conidered every bit as valid in their day as you consider the literal 6-day interpretation of Genesis. Geocentrism was as much a part of the world-view of the day as the 6-day creation. WE now that the interpretations related to geocentrism were wrong. This is absolutely relevant today, as it is again claimed by some that a particular scientifc theory is wrong because of a particular interpretation of scripture. How could this NOT be relevant?

I do want to get back to some of your comments on scriptural interpreation issues, but it is now time to put the 4-year old to bed.

Later.

[Philip J. Rayment]

Welcome to the forum, Philip, and thanks for your thoughtful contribution to date.

Thank you.

steen wrote:
Of course this does not in any way prove that there is no God but it is pretty compelling evidence that the Genesis version of creation is not literal fact.

Philip Rayment:
The anti-biblical chronology is not scientifically proven. It is a hypothesis that a priori excludes a Creator from consideration.

I would vehementaly disagree that the standard evolutionary and old earth scientific chronologies are anti-biblical.

They were invented to avoid having to acknowledge a Creator, they are still promoted by many people with that aim, and they exclude consideration of a Creator from their deliberations.

I would also say they have as much scientific support as just about any other area of science, at least in their basic aspects.

Not at all. If you want to check a claim that water boils at 100 degrees celsius, do the experiments yourself. If you want to check a claim that a particular rock is 3.6 billion years old, you can't go back in time to check. You can measure isotopes yourself, but the age itself is a deduction, not a measurement. The deduction is based on unprovable assumptions. Thus the age of the earth and goo-to-you evolution, being unique past events, are most definitely not like "just about any other area of science", as those other areas can be observed today.

Obviously, if you look around the other threads that are more focused on the physical evidence, you will see a lot of this evidence cited and presented. In my view, the YEC chronology is disproven, based on the overwhelming amount of evidence that contradicts a global flood occuring in the last 4000 years. Here is a sampling.

I will leave responding to those individual points until if and when I get around to reading that very long thread, but to take just one bit of evidence you offered there...

a flood should ordinarily produce only one sedimentary layer. To get multiple layers, you need sediment to wash into place and settle, and then harden before the next layer comes in. The hardening, whether it takes place under water or not, takes some time, and in the meantime there cannot be a disturbing of the sediment until it is hardened. I don't see how this could reasonably happen many many times over during a single flood.

We have observed multiple layers being formed simultaneously in moving water. This claim is therefore demonstrably wrong.

One of the reason's I don't believe evolution is anti-biblical is because of the verse I quoted previously, "my words are spirit and they are life, the flesh counts for nothing." I think most Christians would agree that God is spirit and it is spiritual matters which are most important in God's eyes. Biology (flesh) is mostly irrelevant. When we are created in God's image, this can only mean we are spiritually created in his image.

That particular point (which I'm not sure has much relevance to this question) does not refute other points, such as the one I mentioned about evolution requiring death before mankind, whereas the Bible teaches that death came as a result of mankind('s sin).

With regards to the 'days' question, it is fairly evident that there is no consensus among scholars that days (yom) must mean 24 literal hours. You could visit some of the discussion in the Biblical Inerrancy thread where extensive arguments and citations are given on both sides (along with some unfortunate vitriol towards the latter pages). Even as far back as Augustine, some considered the days to be metaphorical.

Augustine was an exception to the rule, but even he didn't claim that the days could refer to long periods of time.

If I say to you, "In my father's day, it took six days to drive across the country, travelling through the day", I have just used the word "day" in three different ways. Did you have any trouble discerning which meaning each use had? I very much doubt it. In almost every case, it is possible to tell the meaning of the word from its context, and the same applies to yom in Hebrew. The word yom is never used as anything other than an ordinary (24-hour) day when used (a) with the word "morning", (b) with the word "evening", or (c) with a number. The days of Genesis have all three! Nowhere else in the Bible where the word yom is used is there any dispute about its meaning. Why only in Genesis? Before the idea of millions of years was floated by Hutton and others nearly 200 years ago, nobody thought that the Bible taught anything other than Creation being about 6000 years ago. Why today? Many evangelical scholars who accept long ages also acknowledge that their only reason for believing in long ages is for reasons outside of the Bible, as the Bible itself doesn't teach it! I have already quoted James Barr claiming that he doesn't know of any professors of Hebrew at any world-class university that believes the words weren't intended to mean 24-hour days. So who are these "scholars" that you are quoting? Well-meaning theologians that are not Hebrew experts, perhaps? And to top it all off, Jesus said (in Mark 10:6) that man has existed "from the beginning of creation". That fits perfectly with the 6-day creation view, but not at all with the long-ages view that man appeared on the scene right near the very end of that timescale.

steen wrote:
The universe, the solar system, Earth and life, as well as changes in life, all have happened on a continuum over a very long time.

Rayment:
According to the creation myth that you believe in.

On what basis do you refer to the scientific model for the history of the universe or the earth or evolution as myth? This seems to be a gross misapplication of the word.

Interesting you should say that, because atheists often refer to the Genesis account as a myth, and when questioned on it they point out (correctly, in anthropological usage) that "myth" does not mean "not true"!

Science is based on physical evidence.

But origins is to do with the past, that is outside the realm of empirical science.

Myth typically is not. Your reference to evolution as an 'alternate creation myth' seems to me nothing more than name-calling without any basis. Particularly off-base, in my view, is to refer to it as an atheistic creation myth.

It is a creation story without scientific support that is promoted by atheists, even though many non-atheists also believe it.

Evolution is not atheistic.

It attempts to explain how we came to be without invoking God. That seems to me to qualify.

It is irrelevant to spiritual matters. The fact that some in the past (eg. Huxley) or the present (Dawkins) are of the opinion that it is means only that they have read implications into the theory that are not part of the theory itself, ...

Or perhaps you have not recognised those implications? It teaches, for example, that death is a requirement for life, whereas the Bible teaches us that death is an enemy.

...just as some people read implications into the Bible that are not necessarily there (eg. black people are descended from Ham and were inferior due to the 'curse of Ham' and therefore racism is justified).

"Not necessarily there" is an understatement, given that there is no "curse of Ham". The curse was on his son, Canaan.

micatala wrote:
With regards to Protestants, I think you also make a good point. My understanding is that modern 'literalistic creationism' is not much more than 100 years old.

PR:
It depends on how you define "modern literalistic creationism". By definition, "modern literalistic creationism" can't be very old, can it? Modern creationism in most respects dates to the publication of The Genesis Flood in 1963 I think it was. But 6-day creationism has historically always been understood by Bible-believers.

Yes, I suppose it depends on who you count as a 'creationist'. On the other hand, it is not true that a 6-day creation has always been understood by 'Bible-believers.' See Augustine. For a more modern example, see Hugh Ross. Ross is not a believer in evolution, and my understanding is he does believe in miraculous intervention and a supernatural beginning of life. He does not believe in a young earth or a world wide flood, and he does have a discussion on his site that does a good job of de-bunking both the physical evidence and scriptural interpretation of a literal world wide flood.

I have already commented on Augustine. The word "historically" in my sentence was meant to exclude current-day people such as Ross. My point was that the church always believed in a creation date of around 6000 B.C., until uniformitarian geology taught otherwise. So the idea that young-earth creationism is a recent phenomena is wrong.

micatala wrote:
I have often asked creationists why it is not possible that the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is incorrect, when we know that the literal interprations of Martin Luther, John Calvin, not to mention the Catholic heirarchy, concerning the immobility of the earth were wrong.

PR:
So if someone who believes the Bible to be accurate is wrong on a point, why does that imply that others that hold the Bible to be accurate can also be wrong? The two questions are not related.

Not related???? What???

Sorry for the question marks, but this seems a bizarre statement.

If expert A testified against a defendent and we later found that the foundation of his testimony was wrong (eg. the chemical analysis, or DNA methodology, or whatever), would we not question the testimony of expert B if he or she based their testimony on the same foundation? Both geocentrism and creationism were supported with arguments from scripture, the same foundation, even if those 'testifying' today are not named Luther, Calvin, or Bellarmine.

In this example you have "the foundation of" the testimony being wrong, rather than the testimony itself. You have not established that this is the case with geocentrism and the Bible. We are agreed that their testimony was wrong, not the foundation of it (the Bible).

The Bible was used to support geocentrism. You may disagree that the interpretations were valid, but they were certainly conidered every bit as valid in their day as you consider the literal 6-day interpretation of Genesis.

But considering them valid is not the same as them being valid.

Geocentrism was as much a part of the world-view of the day as the 6-day creation. WE now that the interpretations related to geocentrism were wrong. This is absolutely relevant today, as it is again claimed by some that a particular scientifc theory is wrong because of a particular interpretation of scripture. How could this NOT be relevant?

Given that it is the claims, not the foundation of the claims, that we are disputing, each claim should be considered on its own merits.

[micatala]

I fear I am not going to have time to keep up very well with the discussion this week (a busy one at work and church), so this will just be a short post addressing a couple of comments.

micatala wrote:
Quote:
steen wrote:
Of course this does not in any way prove that there is no God but it is pretty compelling evidence that the Genesis version of creation is not literal fact.

Philip Rayment:
The anti-biblical chronology is not scientifically proven. It is a hypothesis that a priori excludes a Creator from consideration.


Micatala:
I would vehementaly disagree that the standard evolutionary and old earth scientific chronologies are anti-biblical.

PR:
They were invented to avoid having to acknowledge a Creator, they are still promoted by many people with that aim, and they exclude consideration of a Creator from their deliberations.

Evolution was not 'invented to avoid having to acknowledge a creator.' It was invented to give an explanation of the evidence we see related to life as it exists, and as it existed in the past. If you have actual evidence that evolution is a conspiracy on the part of atheists past and present, please present. Isolated examples of atheistic scientists is not adequate. IT seems to me to prove your statement, you need to show that theory of evolution would not exist except for the plotting of atheists.

It is true that evolution is promoted by some people with atheistic aims. This does not make evolution atheistic any more than the fact that some Christians used the Bible to justify slavery means the Bible promotes racism and oppression.

If evolution is atheistic because it does not include consideration of a creator as part of the explanation of naturalistic phenomenon than this means that chemistry, physics, astronomy, mathematics, in fact, probably ALL of science would be considered atheistic.

In fact, so would engineering, our criminal justice system, computer science and engineering, etc. We do not allow 'God did it' explanations in a court of law, for obvious reasons. Does this make our courst atheistic? We do not allow 'God did it' explanations as a part of science because it would make science impossible to practice in any meaningful way. This does not make science atheistic at all.

Evolution itself deals only with how the nature of life on earth has changed over time. It does not include abiogenesis, or the origins of life, or of the universe as a whole. As such, evolution does NOT exclude the idea of an ultimate creator; this is just an opinion shared by some atheists and some Christians and others who believe in God, both because they feel it is a good tool to further their different ends.

PR:That particular point (which I'm not sure has much relevance to this question) does not refute other points, such as the one I mentioned about evolution requiring death before mankind, whereas the Bible teaches that death came as a result of mankind('s sin).

Again, this is most appropriately (IMV) viewed as spiritual death, not physical death. In Genesis, God says that when Adam and Eve eat the 'forbidden fruit', they will die. But, they did not die a physical death when they ate the fruit. When this passage is referred to by Paul, he is also talking about spiritual death. It seems, based on the intention of the authors and the context, that the best interpretation is that these passages are using physical death as a metaphor for spiritual death.

Before the idea of millions of years was floated by Hutton and others nearly 200 years ago, nobody thought that the Bible taught anything other than Creation being about 6000 years ago. Why today?

Note that Hutton pre-dated Darwin, and so his results were not based on the theory of evolution, although they eventually informed Darwin and others.

This may or may not be true, but even if it is, this just supports my main contention. No one (or very few) thought the Bible said anything other than the earth was the center of the universe until after 450 years ago. Why today?

Answer: Because the overwhelming preponderance of physical evidence shows, in both cases, that the interpretations of geocentrism and a 6000 year old earth are wrong.

micatala wrote:
Science is based on physical evidence.

PR:
But origins is to do with the past, that is outside the realm of empirical science.

This is a mischaracterization of science. Science very often deals with phenomenon that we cannot directly observe, either because of time considerations or for other reasons.

No one has ever observed the interiors of the sun, the earth, or any other stars or planets. Are you saying that all our inferences about what happens inside astronomical bodies is wrong because we cannot make these direct observations? Are you saying geologists, astronomers, astrophysicists, etc. are not empirical scientists?

Quantum mechanics and particle physics deal with phenomenon that we cannot directly observe, both because of the small sizes involved and because the phenomenon often happen too quickly to be observed. We only observe the traces of these events indirectly. And yet, quantum mechanics is often described as the most successful scientific theory in history because of the accuracty of its predictions. Is this not empirical science?

It is true that we cannot set up an 'experiment' to recreate evolutionary history as it occurred, but we absolutely can test the theory by making additional observations and, in recent times, by conducting experiments that bear on the events that happened many years ago. The same is true of our study of the interior of stars. Your claim that evolution is not empirical science is simply false. Evolution is based on observable evidence, and the theory makes specific predictions which can be tested. The theory has passed literally thousands, if not millions of such tests to date.

[steen]

Belief in a universe billions rather than thousands of years old is more widespread than belief in evolution.

Science is not about beliefs, but rather about the data.

Belief in evolution is more widespread in western countries than in, for example, Muslim countries (and note that I was referring to world-wide population). And belief in evolution is more widespread in academia and the media than in the general population. So you are unlikely to see the age of the earth debated among academia or the media in a western country, but that is not the claim that I was making.

And so on and so on. What people want to believe per their personal/political convictions have little bearing on reality.

[QED]

Philip Rayment clearly has difficulty with the concept of anyone being able to conduct reliable science retrospectively. This is an unreasonable position to hold because events patently do not have to be witnessed in order to be known about at a later date. This simple fact can be reasoned-out by anyone who makes an observation that enables them to infer a particular event. Events leave traces. Air-crash investigators can reconstruct detailed accounts of accidents in the absence of any witnesses by examining such traces. So can Police, Geologists, Engineers, Palaeontologists, Doctors, Archeologists, Insurance assessors, Anthropologists etc.

Simply stating that things must be witnessed directly is no excuse for ignoring the wealth of information at our disposal. If any given inference is contested then fine, there is an established mechanism for submitting new interpretations of the data leading to those inferences (and there are no shortage of experts trying to make their mark in their respective fields by revising the conclusions of others).

[Philip J. Rayment]

micatala wrote:
Quote:
steen wrote:
Of course this does not in any way prove that there is no God but it is pretty compelling evidence that the Genesis version of creation is not literal fact.

Philip Rayment:
The anti-biblical chronology is not scientifically proven. It is a hypothesis that a priori excludes a Creator from consideration.

Micatala:
I would vehementaly disagree that the standard evolutionary and old earth scientific chronologies are anti-biblical.

PR:
They were invented to avoid having to acknowledge a Creator, they are still promoted by many people with that aim, and they exclude consideration of a Creator from their deliberations.

Evolution was not 'invented to avoid having to acknowledge a creator.' It was invented to give an explanation of the evidence we see related to life as it exists, and as it existed in the past.

From here:

• Harvard’s renowned Professor Stephen Jay Gould is a vigorous anticreationist (and Marxist), and perhaps the most knowledgeable student of the history of evolutionary thought and all things Darwinian.
  
  I’m glad he and I are on the same side about one thing at least — the real meaning of ‘Darwin’s revolution’. And we both agree that it’s a meaning that the vast majority of people in the world today, nearly a century and a half after Darwin, don’t really want to face up to. Gould argues that Darwin’s theory is inherently anti-plan, anti-purpose, anti-meaning (in other words, is pure philosophical materialism). Also, that Darwin himself knew this very well and meant it to be so.

If you have actual evidence that evolution is a conspiracy on the part of atheists past and present, please present.

I never claimed a conspiracy. They are merely trying to explain the world within their worldview. But calling it science.

Isolated examples of atheistic scientists is not adequate.

It's more than just "isolated examples". Most of the leading proponents of it have been and are atheists of one sort or another.

IT seems to me to prove your statement, you need to show that theory of evolution would not exist except for the plotting of atheists.

Apart from Gould that I have quoted above, there is also the matter of the a priori exclusion of a creator from consideration.

It is true that evolution is promoted by some people with atheistic aims. This does not make evolution atheistic any more than the fact that some Christians used the Bible to justify slavery means the Bible promotes racism and oppression.

The difference is that the Bible clearly doesn't promote racism and oppression. Despite some people misusing the Bible to justify slavery, many other Christians opposed slavery on the basis of their Biblical beliefs. Evolution, on the other hand, is clearly at odds with the Biblical record of creation, despite the attempts to harmonize the two (by bending the Biblical record to fit evolution).

If evolution is atheistic because it does not include consideration of a creator as part of the explanation of naturalistic phenomenon than this means that chemistry, physics, astronomy, mathematics, in fact, probably ALL of science would be considered atheistic.

Evolution does not simply not include consideration of a creator, it specifically excludes the Biblical creator, something that chemistry, etc. doesn't do.

In fact, so would engineering, our criminal justice system, computer science and engineering, etc. We do not allow 'God did it' explanations in a court of law, for obvious reasons.

Not good examples. The origins of the criminal justice system in many countries can be traced back to the Ten Commandments. And engineering is based on the presupposition that the laws of physics are fixed. Bridge builders, for example, don't make allowance for the possibility that the strength of gravity will change. This sort of presupposition has a Biblical origin in this world being created by a Creator who Himself doesn't change and who doesn't change the laws of physics. Why would this be the case if the universe was an accident? Why should gravity be a constant?

Does this make our courst atheistic? We do not allow 'God did it' explanations as a part of science because it would make science impossible to practice in any meaningful way.

Not at all. First, surely science should be an attempt to find a true explanation of what we observe, not a naturalistic one. What if the true explanation is a supernatural one? Then naturalistic science won't even consider it!

Second, whilst the supernatural cannot itself be scientifically studied, it does not follow that a supernatural explanation is beyond investigation. For example, if Darwinian evolution is true, we would predict innumerable intermediate forms of living things, and expect to find plenty of intermediate forms in the fossil record. Darwin himself predicted just this. On the other hand, if Biblical creation is true, we would expect to find no intermediate forms between the created kinds, and therefore no fossils of such. Without discussing what is actually found, it should be clear that we can investigate and find out which prediction is borne out. Thus the supernatural explanation is testable. (And the fact that there may be other explanations of this particular observation doesn't change this aspect.)

This does not make science atheistic at all.

I was talking about evolution, not science, but it does if the supernatural is ruled out of consideration.

Evolution itself deals only with how the nature of life on earth has changed over time. It does not include abiogenesis, or the origins of life, or of the universe as a whole.

It depends on how you are using the word. Haven't you ever heard of anyone talking about the evolution of stars?

As such, evolution does NOT exclude the idea of an ultimate creator; this is just an opinion shared by some atheists and some Christians and others who believe in God, both because they feel it is a good tool to further their different ends.

Evolution does exclude the idea of a creator creating each kind separately, the specific idea recorded in the Bible. Claiming that it doesn't exclude the idea of an ultimate creator is sidestepping the issue.

PR:That particular point (which I'm not sure has much relevance to this question) does not refute other points, such as the one I mentioned about evolution requiring death before mankind, whereas the Bible teaches that death came as a result of mankind('s sin).

Again, this is most appropriately (IMV) viewed as spiritual death, not physical death. In Genesis, God says that when Adam and Eve eat the 'forbidden fruit', they will die. But, they did not die a physical death when they ate the fruit.

Adam and Eve were supposed to not die at all. The meaning of the Hebrew is that they would begin to die and keep on dying until they were dead. On the very day that they disobeyed, they lost their immortality and began dying. It took 960 years until Adam was dead, but the death was physical.

When this passage is referred to by Paul, he is also talking about spiritual death. It seems, based on the intention of the authors and the context, that the best interpretation is that these passages are using physical death as a metaphor for spiritual death.

Not at all. Physical death was clearly not a part of the original creation. Jesus died a physical death to take the punishment man was condemned to. The temporary substitute for sin was the physical death of an animal.

In any case, my original reference wasn't just to death, but also to suffering. At the end of the creation week, God pronounced his creation "very good". Do you think that God considers death and suffering "very good"? We are supposed to look forward to a time in the future when there will be no more death, when there will be no more curse. When did the curse and death start? This time in the future is when things are to be restored to the way they were. "Restored" to millions of years of death and suffering?

Before the idea of millions of years was floated by Hutton and others nearly 200 years ago, nobody thought that the Bible taught anything other than Creation being about 6000 years ago. Why today?

Note that Hutton pre-dated Darwin, and so his results were not based on the theory of evolution, although they eventually informed Darwin and others.

I was aware of that.

This may or may not be true, but even if it is, this just supports my main contention. No one (or very few) thought the Bible said anything other than the earth was the center of the universe until after 450 years ago. Why today?

Because we now see things from a different perspective and there is nothing in the Bible to contradict it (the helio-centric view).

Answer: Because the overwhelming preponderance of physical evidence shows, in both cases, that the interpretations of geocentrism and a 6000 year old earth are wrong.

Except that it does not show the latter, and the Bible clearly does claim the latter, but not the former.

micatala wrote:
Science is based on physical evidence.

PR:
But origins is to do with the past, that is outside the realm of empirical science.

This is a mischaracterization of science. Science very often deals with phenomenon that we cannot directly observe, either because of time considerations or for other reasons.

It might "deal with it", but it cannot test things in the past. And science requires testing things.

No one has ever observed the interiors of the sun, the earth, or any other stars or planets. Are you saying that all our inferences about what happens inside astronomical bodies is wrong because we cannot make these direct observations?

No, I'm not saying that they are automatically wrong. But how certain can we be of their accuracy? If you contend that the temperature of the core of the Earth is x degrees, how can I check and see if you are right or wrong? I can do the same tests and measurements that you did, and to the extent that they can give us the temperature, we have both therefore "observed" what that is.

But if you contend that the temperature of the core of the Earth 3000 years ago was y, what measurements and tests can I do to check and see if you are correct?

Are you saying geologists, astronomers, astrophysicists, etc. are not empirical scientists?

No, as long as they are measuring things that are available to measure, they are empirical scientists. But they don't have the past to measure and test.

It is true that we cannot set up an 'experiment' to recreate evolutionary history as it occurred, but we absolutely can test the theory by making additional observations and, in recent times, by conducting experiments that bear on the events that happened many years ago.

We can test how realistic it is for, for example, a reptile/dinosaur to turn into a bird, by comparing DNA, seeing if there is some mechanism that would cause it, etc. etc. But even if we can conclusively show that it could have happened, how do we test to see if it did happen? I have already acknowledged in this post that some tests can be done (e.g. to see of the intermediate fossils are there), but pretty well every such bit of evidence could have an alternative explanation. We can perhaps come up with a "reasonable" conclusion, but not an empirical one.

The same is true of our study of the interior of stars. Your claim that evolution is not empirical science is simply false. Evolution is based on observable evidence, and the theory makes specific predictions which can be tested. The theory has passed literally thousands, if not millions of such tests to date.

Actually, it has failed many of those tests, but it keeps getting modified to "explain" them. Up to a point that is quite legitimate of course, but it has failed so often that it should have been discarded long ago.

[Philip J. Rayment]

Belief in a universe billions rather than thousands of years old is more widespread than belief in evolution.

Science is not about beliefs, but rather about the data.

I know. But the age of the universe is about beliefs.

Belief in evolution is more widespread in western countries than in, for example, Muslim countries (and note that I was referring to world-wide population). And belief in evolution is more widespread in academia and the media than in the general population. So you are unlikely to see the age of the earth debated among academia or the media in a western country, but that is not the claim that I was making.

And so on and so on. What people want to believe per their personal/political convictions have little bearing on reality.

My comments that you are replying to were in response to a post by QED that began, "I don't know about atheism, but I think it's very safe to say that believers in a Young Earth are in the minority." So I take it that you are disagreeing with him that believers in a young earth (supposedly) being in a minority is irrelevant?

It's funny how evolutionists can try to claim numerical superiority (e.g. "most scientists accept evolution"), but when creationists point out that the argument may not be true, they are told that what people believe doesn't count, only reality does!

Philip Rayment clearly has difficulty with the concept of anyone being able to conduct reliable science retrospectively. This is an unreasonable position to hold because events patently do not have to be witnessed in order to be known about at a later date. This simple fact can be reasoned-out by anyone who makes an observation that enables them to infer a particular event. Events leave traces. Air-crash investigators can reconstruct detailed accounts of accidents in the absence of any witnesses by examining such traces. So can Police, Geologists, Engineers, Palaeontologists, Doctors, Archeologists, Insurance assessors, Anthropologists etc.

But they are not in the same league as those studying things in the present, where measurements can be taken and tests repeated. Therefore they have often been known to get it wrong, and that is not to disparage what they do manage to do.

Simply stating that things must be witnessed directly is no excuse for ignoring the wealth of information at our disposal.

I wasn't proposing that, so that is a straw man argument.

If any given inference is contested then fine, there is an established mechanism for submitting new interpretations of the data leading to those inferences (and there are no shortage of experts trying to make their mark in their respective fields by revising the conclusions of others).

I have no problem with that, except that creationists are generally excluded from having their ideas considered in a scientific forum.