"Science" (vs) Genesis

[POI]

I've debated many apologists and/or theists in my day. In doing so, many of the same overarching comments are ultimately often made...

"Science has it's limitations"
"Science is merely about discovering the undiscovered."
"Science cannot or will not account for this/that"
"Science has changed it's stance upon things"
etc....

I understand there exists both YEC's - (young earth creationists), as well as OEC's - (old earth creationists).

I also understand that 'science' does not yet, or maybe never, have all the answers.

However, Genesis makes many claims which appear to fly in the face of 'scientific' discovery. Let's start with the flood claim, and see where this goes.... The two theist positions, which think this event actually happened, are as follows:

1) Global
2) Local

Another part of this claim, is the following:

A) ~4500 years ago
B) much longer

Before we head into this debate, I must mention a couple of caveats:

-- Just because you do not know, for certain, the ultimate answer to something, does not mean you cannot effectively rule out certain claims. Meaning, I do not know exactly how old any mature oak tree is; but I can still logically rule out that the answer could be 'ham sandwich' or "1 day old".

-- Same goes for earth. I may not know the exact shape of earth --- (egg-shaped, pear-shaped, perfectly round, etc), but I still know it is not flat.

For debate:

X) Theists, please select two answers above (i.e.): 1A or 2B. And then please explain why you have chosen this answer?

Y) How is it that a YEC and an OEC can BOTH read the same verses, and can BOTH equally justify their own conclusions respectively? Doesn't this demonstrate that the Bible is quite flawed in it's information delivery?

Z) How do you reconcile that 'science' does not suggest any such flood phenomenon?


My hypothesis? No flood, no bible. Meaning, if the Bible is wrong about this event, then it is logical to dismiss this book as just another mythological story.

[The Tanager]

Still doing excuses and evading the real issue "science vs. Genesis" and using 'genre' to evade that the Bible does not fit the facts. " A science treatise and poetry should not be confused for each other" you say, but that is just what you do when you drag 'genre' in to try to excuse Genesis not being scientifically credible.

You assume that Genesis is trying to make scientific claims. In doing so you are making a claim about its genre, so its not just me dragging genre in to excuse something. You are acting like genre doesnt matter, yet making claims that involve genre. Genre is vital to this discussion. Expecting Genesis to act like modern scientific texts with the questions we ask in that genre will lead to the misunderstandings you, POI, and others are making here.

The point I made, which you ignored, rather jumping on the irrelevance that I don't support (I can only suppose you mean) a debunk of the doings of the Assyrians, which i said I take as true; I can only assume that you don';t read posts) is that, even where the Bible recounts credibly true events, the god behind it is a mere faith-claim; it has no rational validity, let alone scientific.

Or perhaps I only respond to points I think are relevant. What do claims about God being behind events have to do with whether science and a text like Genesis conflict? The God question, whatever your belief, isnt a scientific question.

It looks to me like you have to go right back to the workshop and consider just what you are trying to argue.

Or try a different way to clear up misunderstandings of what I am arguing.

[TRANSPONDER]

Still doing excuses and evading the real issue "science vs. Genesis" and using 'genre' to evade that the Bible does not fit the facts. " A science treatise and poetry should not be confused for each other" you say, but that is just what you do when you drag 'genre' in to try to excuse Genesis not being scientifically credible.

You assume that Genesis is trying to make scientific claims. In doing so you are making a claim about its genre, so its not just me dragging genre in to excuse something. You are acting like genre doesnt matter, yet making claims that involve genre. Genre is vital to this discussion. Expecting Genesis to act like modern scientific texts with the questions we ask in that genre will lead to the misunderstandings you, POI, and others are making here.

The point I made, which you ignored, rather jumping on the irrelevance that I don't support (I can only suppose you mean) a debunk of the doings of the Assyrians, which i said I take as true; I can only assume that you don';t read posts) is that, even where the Bible recounts credibly true events, the god behind it is a mere faith-claim; it has no rational validity, let alone scientific.

Or perhaps I only respond to points I think are relevant. What do claims about God being behind events have to do with whether science and a text like Genesis conflict? The God question, whatever your belief, isnt a scientific question.

It looks to me like you have to go right back to the workshop and consider just what you are trying to argue.

Or try a different way to clear up misunderstandings of what I am arguing.

The topic is 'science and genesis' not 'ways to evade that science debunks Genesis'. If you want to say that Genesis is poetry or metaphor or myth or any other way of saying 'Not True' without actually saying it, do so and stop trying to make it relevant even if not true. To keep fiddling terms and ideas to try to smokescreen the basic that science undermines Genesis is the problem. You can forget about 'misunderstandings' despite your best efforts as smokescreening, we or I understand the situation very well.

[The Tanager]

The topic is 'science and genesis' not 'ways to evade that science debunks Genesis'. If you want to say that Genesis is poetry or metaphor or myth or any other way of saying 'Not True' without actually saying it, do so and stop trying to make it relevant even if not true. To keep fiddling terms and ideas to try to smokescreen the basic that science undermines Genesis is the problem. You can forget about 'misunderstandings' despite your best efforts as smokescreening, we or I understand the situation very well.

There isn't anything new for me to respond to here, so everyone has our thoughts to help them in their understanding of the situation. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and letting me share mine.

[TRANSPONDER]

The topic is 'science and genesis' not 'ways to evade that science debunks Genesis'. If you want to say that Genesis is poetry or metaphor or myth or any other way of saying 'Not True' without actually saying it, do so and stop trying to make it relevant even if not true. To keep fiddling terms and ideas to try to smokescreen the basic that science undermines Genesis is the problem. You can forget about 'misunderstandings' despite your best efforts as smokescreening, we or I understand the situation very well.

There isn't anything new for me to respond to here, so everyone has our thoughts to help them in their understanding of the situation. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and letting me share mine.

You are very welcome as that's what we're here for really - to post and more significantly, argue out our thoughts and let people make up their own minds.e

[1213]

...A cataclysmic flood killed almost all life on the planet yet only managed to wash sea shells onto the tops of mountains and you ask what other organisms there should be. ...

Wouldn't most of them, especially bigger ones, have been drowned before they get to the top? And many of those that were on top, wouldn't they have fallen to lower level because of erosion for example?

[1213]

...
There is a known natural force that 'counters the weight of mountains', tectonic plate movement. This is a validated part of geology. To ignore it is to deny validated science. ...

That is pseudoscience.

...Geology says that if deep time palaontology is true, there should be layers of deposited rock with fossils in exclusive to that time period and no other. If the Flood scenario is true, all the kinds of animals supposed to be on the Ark should be in the 'flood layer'....

I don't think there is any good reason to assume so.

[brunumb]

...A cataclysmic flood killed almost all life on the planet yet only managed to wash sea shells onto the tops of mountains and you ask what other organisms there should be. ...

Wouldn't most of them, especially bigger ones, have been drowned before they get to the top? And many of those that were on top, wouldn't they have fallen to lower level because of erosion for example?

How do you think the sea shells got there and why did they not get eroded away?

[TRANSPONDER]

...A cataclysmic flood killed almost all life on the planet yet only managed to wash sea shells onto the tops of mountains and you ask what other organisms there should be. ...

Wouldn't most of them, especially bigger ones, have been drowned before they get to the top? And many of those that were on top, wouldn't they have fallen to lower level because of erosion for example?

That makes no sense. bigger ones drown? Fish and sea creatures? And you are ignoring that the sea shells and so on are not marine dbris thrown up on mountains but ancient sea beds still with worm burrows in. Thi is proof that they are ancient sea beds raised up as mountains. Despite your denial the evidence shows that happened.Plate tectonics explains how. The movement of contintal plates has een measured today. This is stuff that has been proven to be so.

There is a known natural force that 'counters the weight of mountains', tectonic plate movement. This is a validated part of geology. To ignore it is to deny validated science. ...

That is pseudoscience.

...Geology says that if deep time palaontology is true, there should be layers of deposited rock with fossils in exclusive to that time period and no other. If the Flood scenario is true, all the kinds of animals supposed to be on the Ark should be in the 'flood layer'....

I don't think there is any good reason to assume so.

You may think that denial of validated science and what is obviously true gets you at least a draw, but it just discredits your YE Creationist position. Look. imagine a cellar of (say) a demolished house. It is filled in to build on, so a few trucks of building rubble is brought in and tipped in. It is going to be one space filled top to bottom with a mix. That is what we should find with a flood -level - everything outside matching what was on the ark - including humans, mind, would all have been killed in the flood and their fossils all mixed together in one flood layer. Now, don't tell me or us that you don't understand this point or deny that it is obviously true, or you will simply be showing that that your denialism is not just based on misunderstanding or ignorance, but on denying what is obviously true, just because you don't like it.

[Hawkins]

Human intelligence itself is a joke. What science would say about what your own grandpapa did on exactly Oct 20, 1945? So would you listen to the description from your own grandpapa and grandmama, or you insist on listening to science?

Science basically is not a tool for past events. Science relies on the predictability and falsifiability of a repeatable phenomenon to get to a truth. To simply put, if a phenomenon doesn't repeat, such as a piece of history, science can never get to a falsifiable conclusion. The "science" dedicated to researching a history only represents the best effort humankind can do with their current technology, even under the circumstance that we knew beforehand that nothing can be falsifiably conclusive. We (our scientists are doing the best we can with our current technology at hand).

Now back to the question, what your own grandpapa was doing on Oct 20, 1945? It is a piece of history science is futile about. However you can get to such a truth by putting faith in the words (a testimony) from the mouth of your own grandpapa and grandmama. That remains the only possible way for you to know what he's doing if he's still remember (he remembers if an event occurred that day remains in his memory).

Now creation, our science can hardly get to a falsifiable conclusion. That's why our scientists are still putting effort in simulating what could possibly happen on a proposed Big Bang. CERN is stilling spending millions on the building blocks of such a simulation. The effort is expected to be endless as we already knew beforehand that nothing can be scientifically/falsifiably conclusive in the foreseeable future.

Similarly to the grandpapa's testimony situation. The Bible provides an account to testimony while a God (a trinity) has witnessed such a creation. For the sake of argument, let's assume that God truly created our world. Then all left is for you to believe the Word of God, or science without a falsifiable conclusion. Both by faith, both are "gods" in a sense. When a "science" is never falsifiable, it is a god for your faith to accept it.

[POI]

Human intelligence itself is a joke. What science would say about what your own grandpapa did on exactly Oct 20, 1945? So would you listen to the description from your own grandpapa and grandmama, or you insist on listening to science?

Depends on what they claim?

Science basically is not a tool for past events.

So I guess you reject many, if not all, facets of science?

Science relies on the predictability and falsifiability of a repeatable phenomenon to get to a truth. To simply put, if a phenomenon doesn't repeat, such as a piece of history, science can never get to a falsifiable conclusion.

I do not disagree here... But would you also agree that a one time passed claimed event, which defies the basic laws of physics, should not be believed based upon faith? Otherwise, why not believe virtually every one time passed event, which defies the laws of physics?