Copernicus and Darwin: Why is only one not biblical?

[micatala]

[Philip J. Rayment]

[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]

[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.