A 6 Day Creation

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 961 here:

There is now more evidence than ever before about 6-day creation.

For debate:

Please offer evidence for a literal six day creation of the Universe.

Please remember that in this section of the site the Bible is not considered authoritative.

[Sherlock Holmes]

This is a fundamental difference between science and religion/faith. Sciencs says "show me the angels" and tries to find evidence of their existence, while religion simply proclaims they exist and that is all that is required. Again, trying to debate a science vs. religion subject with someone who blindly believes a holy book is pointless ... the science cannot be accepted if it is at odds with the holy book accounts, no matter how sound the science is.

The difference though is due to the different kinds of knowledge. You seem to be assuming that all knowledge is discoverable (empiricism) but the Bible makes it crystal clear that there is knowledge which has to be revealed to us, knowledge that we cannot discover no matter how hard we try, how much we look.

So if there is such knowledge - undiscoverable empirically - science is useless as a tool for acquiring that knowledge.

[Clownboat]

For Jehovah's Witnesses, at least, what you say is true: when a biblical story is well understood (verified, translated and interpreted correctly) there is no valid reason that can discredit it.

Do you not think this sounds a lot like cult behavior, not being allowed to challenge doctrine? Seems awfully self serving for an organization to have such a policy don't you think?
What if the orginazation controlled who you could hang out with or what holidays you could observe, what movies you could watch and how you must treat those that have been disfellowshipped. Would any of that point to cult behavior at work?

We will always try to explain why it does not coincide with something that other people believe, because we consider the Scriptures to be totally true...

Would you not be disfellowshipped if you did not consider scripture to be totally true? Can you not see how some members will remain members because they don't want to lose the only people they are allowed to fellowship with? The control the organization has over its members is scary when viewed from the outside. Do you agree, or see it as a healthy stance more organizations should adapt?

Back to the topic:
Twenty-one Reasons Noah’s Worldwide Flood Never Happened
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Nr38Reasons.pdf

[Eloi]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #389]
That comment was not for you, but for another believer like me. You seem to think that we Christians can't even mention the Bible in this subforum, and you're wrong. That it does not serve you as evidence does not mean that we will not mention it.

The truth is that when we talk about scientific matters, Jehovah's Witnesses usually use a lot of scientific literature that supports our arguments, even though the Bible is our base source of knowledge. The Bible is not a science book, and we have never said such a thing. If you visit this brochure of ours about the origin of life (2010) https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/publication/r1/lp-e/lf , you will see that we quote a lot of up-to-date scientific information ... In fact, from time to time we update our information; that is how we are educated by our Governing Body, so such an accusation that we only use the Bible is false.

[Eloi]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #5]
It happens sometimes, and I don't know the reason why. Probably is that sometimes I login answering certain post and some other times I answer the post when I am logged in already.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Eloi in post #393]

You seem to think that we Christians can't even mention the Bible in this subforum, and you're wrong. That it does not serve you as evidence does not mean that we will not mention it.

I don't think that at all ... mentioning the bible is fine. It is just that it cannot be used as an authoritative source to support a claim (eg. the Genesis flood story is true because it is in the bible and therefore must be true).

The truth is that when we talk about scientific matters, Jehovah's Witnesses usually use a lot of scientific literature that supports our arguments, even though the Bible is our base source of knowledge. The Bible is not a science book, and we have never said such a thing. If you visit this brochure of ours about the origin of life (2010) https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/publication/r1/lp-e/lf , you will see that we quote a lot of up-to-date scientific information ... In fact, from time to time we update our information; that is how we are educated by our Governing Body, so such an accusation that we only use the Bible is false.

Yes ... Answers in Genesis does exactly the same thing, as do other organizations supporting a literal interpretation of the bible. They all seem to have the exact same arguments, especially for topics that science does not yet have explanations for (mechanism for origin of life, for example). Many of these arguments are misapplication of statistics, or ignoring that evolution works on populations and not individuals, etc. (eg. as in the article you referenced).

Topics that science has yet to work out explanations for are always open to other hypotheses, such as god actions, and historically the "god did it" explanations have failed and a science explanation has been found. This process continues with origin of life, explanations for dark matter and dark energy, understanding and curing diesases, and lots of other unsolved science problems. Until there is a scientific solution, god actions are on the table. They just so far have a very poor track record (zero?) of being shown to be correct.

[Eloi]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #2] Well, it turns out that some of us wholeheartedly believe that Noah told the real story to his descendants. It does not determine anything if you believe him or not. That is the end of the matter, if you want to keep talking about the Bible.

Have a nice day.

[Jose Fly]

For Jehovah's Witnesses, at least, what you say is true: when a biblical story is well understood (verified, translated and interpreted correctly) there is no valid reason that can discredit it. We will always try to explain why it does not coincide with something that other people believe, because we consider the Scriptures to be totally true...

I really appreciate your honesty about this very important point. What you're effectively saying is, from your POV there is no debate...scripture trumps everything, end of story, which means there's not much point in showing you data, discussing science with you, or even trying to debate with you in a science/religion forum.

And to be clear, that's fine! As long as you're up front about how you approach things (which you've done), there shouldn't be any misunderstandings.

What bothers me are the creationists who take the same approach as you, but dishonestly pretend that they care about and/or are interested in the science. They end up wasting a lot of people's time with demands and challenges like "show me the evidence", which they promptly ignore or wave away after it's provided.

So thank you for being so open and honest.

[Jose Fly]

[Replying to Eloi in post #381]

I think this is largely true, modern science (or perhaps "scientism" is a more accurate term these days) strives to interpret everything within the framework of uniformitarianism and causality, that is the preferred way to interpret observations. Because of this when something is interpreted that way it is then sometimes later proffered as evidence for uniformitarianism and causality, which is circular reasoning.

We really have no scientific basis to favor one means of interpretation over some other, we seem to think we have a right to expect, demand, that nature operate according to our materialistic models but this is simply not true.

It is an inarguable fact that science cannot be used to show the universe was not created six thousand years ago with an appearance of great age (or rather with characteristics that we choose to interpret as great age). As to whether it "really is" or not that's a separate question, the important point to grasp is that we cannot find out using science, science has limits on the kind of knowledge we can obtain from observations.

Now, do I personally think it was created six thousand years ago? I don't know, I tend to regard it as actually genuinely ancient but I want to stress this is a choice of interpretation it is not a reasoned conclusion based on science because science cannot help with this question.

This is my biggest objection to modern "pop" science, the over confident way popular scientists misrepresent it as some kind of absolute source of knowledge. Historically scientists were aware of and comfortable with these epistemological truths but more recently scientism has taken hold and I think that's a backward step.

More solipsism. And under the same framework, you have no way to tell if Christianity, the Bible, or anything else you believe isn't some sort of illusion or trick played by a devious god who's leading you astray.

Again we see a creationist who, in their eagerness to wave away inconvenient scientific reality, ends up throwing their own religious beliefs out the window. Oops.

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Eloi in post #381]

I think this is largely true, modern science (or perhaps "scientism" is a more accurate term these days) strives to interpret everything within the framework of uniformitarianism and causality, that is the preferred way to interpret observations. Because of this when something is interpreted that way it is then sometimes later proffered as evidence for uniformitarianism and causality, which is circular reasoning.

We really have no scientific basis to favor one means of interpretation over some other, we seem to think we have a right to expect, demand, that nature operate according to our materialistic models but this is simply not true.

It is an inarguable fact that science cannot be used to show the universe was not created six thousand years ago with an appearance of great age (or rather with characteristics that we choose to interpret as great age). As to whether it "really is" or not that's a separate question, the important point to grasp is that we cannot find out using science, science has limits on the kind of knowledge we can obtain from observations.

Now, do I personally think it was created six thousand years ago? I don't know, I tend to regard it as actually genuinely ancient but I want to stress this is a choice of interpretation it is not a reasoned conclusion based on science because science cannot help with this question.

This is my biggest objection to modern "pop" science, the over confident way popular scientists misrepresent it as some kind of absolute source of knowledge. Historically scientists were aware of and comfortable with these epistemological truths but more recently scientism has taken hold and I think that's a backward step.

More solipsism. And under the same framework, you have no way to tell if Christianity, the Bible, or anything else you believe isn't some sort of illusion or trick played by a devious god who's leading you astray.

Again we see a creationist who, in their eagerness to wave away inconvenient scientific reality, ends up throwing their own religious beliefs out the window. Oops.

Did you actually disagree with something I said? if so, what? I can't tell if your expressing disagreement or just disapproval.

[Jose Fly]

[Replying to Eloi in post #381]

I think this is largely true, modern science (or perhaps "scientism" is a more accurate term these days) strives to interpret everything within the framework of uniformitarianism and causality, that is the preferred way to interpret observations. Because of this when something is interpreted that way it is then sometimes later proffered as evidence for uniformitarianism and causality, which is circular reasoning.

We really have no scientific basis to favor one means of interpretation over some other, we seem to think we have a right to expect, demand, that nature operate according to our materialistic models but this is simply not true.

It is an inarguable fact that science cannot be used to show the universe was not created six thousand years ago with an appearance of great age (or rather with characteristics that we choose to interpret as great age). As to whether it "really is" or not that's a separate question, the important point to grasp is that we cannot find out using science, science has limits on the kind of knowledge we can obtain from observations.

Now, do I personally think it was created six thousand years ago? I don't know, I tend to regard it as actually genuinely ancient but I want to stress this is a choice of interpretation it is not a reasoned conclusion based on science because science cannot help with this question.

This is my biggest objection to modern "pop" science, the over confident way popular scientists misrepresent it as some kind of absolute source of knowledge. Historically scientists were aware of and comfortable with these epistemological truths but more recently scientism has taken hold and I think that's a backward step.

More solipsism. And under the same framework, you have no way to tell if Christianity, the Bible, or anything else you believe isn't some sort of illusion or trick played by a devious god who's leading you astray.

Again we see a creationist who, in their eagerness to wave away inconvenient scientific reality, ends up throwing their own religious beliefs out the window. Oops.

Did you actually disagree with something I said? if so, what? I can't tell if your expressing disagreement or just disapproval.

I'm pointing out how your own approach to waving away inconvenient science also renders your religious beliefs meaningless. If find that rather odd, but if you're okay with it....I suppose that's fine.