Problems with the Big Bang Theory

[JohnMartin]

So God had Adam in some form of magic baby reins. How cute.So giraffe trampling could exist in a pre-fall world, and your claim that it wouldn't was unconsidered drivel. So you don't know. You're just spouting invented twaddle.Save your proselytising for some-one who hasn't yet realised you're a blithering idiot.

Roy seems to think he knows so much that the supernatural and preternatural can be fully understood and explained, which he implicitly rejects in his atheism. So when someone else proposes a partial response he must mock it, even though he doesn't have a hope of understanding the supernatural and preternatural himself.

For the non Christian, unbeliever, to have this approach, something like the following world view is held, with all of its falsity.

Atheism is false.

Faith in the BB theory is faith in a false theory.

Faith in the Darwinian evolutionary theory is faith in a false theory.

The understanding of the supernatural and the preternatural and the ability of men to explain it is also false.

Faith in the academy to always produce the truth about reality is false.

Faith in naturalism and materialism is false.

The understanding of the nature of man is false.

Consequently, an understanding of morality is most likely also false, which flows from the false understanding of man. Such will most likely embrace some form of utilitarian or hedenistic forms of morality, apart from the morality of eudaimonism along with Christian revelation.

Consequently the understanding of death is false, where such most likely denies the existence of an afterlife and the final judgment by God, with the accompanied ultimate ends of heaven and hell.

Consequently such manner of treating their fellow man is also false, whereby cunning and using others is normative.

Consequent to all of these false ideas is the falsity of secular humanism, and/or Marxist communism, which unbelievers are prone to be disposed to.

JM

[Yttrium]

So, I think JM has very thoroughly established that Geocentrism does not work with Big Bang theory. Fortunately, only a few people on the planet remain concerned about that.

On the other hand, Young Earth Creationists have problems with Big Bang theory. That's more than a few people. A quick look at the Answers in Genesis website shows that they complain about it quite a bit. Their main problem is the time scale, though, but I'm sure there are other things they don't like about it. If one replaces a fixed Earth with a 6,000 year timeframe, calling that divine revelation, then many of the arguments that JM makes could be pretty much the same for them.

[JohnMartin]

Quote Originally Posted by JohnMartin View Post
The Darwinian theory and the BB theory are both adverse to Genesis, the church fathers and some church councils. Any claims made by non Catholics concerning what Popes have said, always seem to ignore the hierarchical nature of doctrine and the circumstances required to establish the authority of Papal statements.

The Pope is not just an animated doll that in certain instances happens to be right (whatever your magical criteria are). He is a man selected by his peers because of his exceptional holiness and commitment to the Church and to Christ. How such a person deals with an issue is not something to take lightly, or dismiss casually. And this from a non-Catholic.

Yes you are a non Catholic and it shows all the time, when you try to make a statement about the value of Papal statement.

Your cavalier attitude to the Pope as a self-proclaimed super-Catholic is at best hypocritical.

But this is based upon your false understanding of the value of Papal statements. Such statements are made to diverse audiences with diverse formulations. Not all statements are normative and binding as matters of faith. Some statements are infallible and others merely the opinion of a cleric. You are oblivious to such simple distinctions.

When a Pope gives an audience to a secular group of non Catholics, such as the Pontifical Academy of Science, those statements are merely the opinions of a cleric. Such statements are not of faith and not binding to anyone in any way. Statements of faith are made by Church Council's, scripture, and the church fathers, along with approved congregations, such as the Pontifical Biblical commission. These statements require the faithful to give consent and the other Papal statements do not. This is very simple to understand, yet you get it wrong.

At worst belies the cowboy nature of how you approach your own faith, an approach you routinely criticize in your Protestant brethren.

Your statement is based upon your own misunderstanding of the role and powers of the Papacy.

I see very little difference between your routine dismissal of the majority opinions of Bishops and Popes and Luther's own problems with certain elements of Church doctrine.

The difference is the faithful are bound by the statements of the councils, fathers and Papal statements with more authority than the mere opinion of a cleric.

You just haven't nailed "Galileo was wrong" to the Church door yet.

That was done by the psalmist, and those clerics who condemned Galileo's false theories. I'm just here to repeat the truth already given, which you in your false private interpretation of a series of texts and ignorance of church history have falsely rejected.

According to The Traditional Catholic Doctrine of Creation

Also according to the Council of Lateran IV taught instantaneous creation from the power of God manifested in the spoken divine word.

We also have the statements of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on Genesis -

Such answers are authoritative and binding and are in direct contradiction to Darwinian evolution and BB cosmology as a model of the origin of the universe.

JM

I don't see how any element if the Genesis passages on Creation could be contradictory to the concept of the BB cosmology.

Well that is merely your opinion, made without a magesterium and no reference to church history.

The biggest issue would be time, not the first few verses that correspond to the BB itself (and God said "Let there be light" followed by "And God separated the light from the darkness"). And time is a matter of perspective (reference frame), and especially from God's perspective where a day is as a thousand years or a thousand years as a day. Not to mention the fact God Himself (and therefore the ascended Christ) are outside of time. Witness Christ's statement: Before Abraham was I AM. God exists/inhabits all times and in all places. How He describes the timeframe of creation in a revelatory bit of scripture is always going to be an accommodation to His audience. Science implies that accommodation involved speaking of the time-frame of creation from some non-human perspective, or perhaps simply as a metaphor for His work, providing a model for how we should work - 6 'days' on, 1 'day' off.


Jim

Just another opinion. That's Protestantism. Just opinion upon opinion. Once the Catholic Magesterium is denied, then all you have to go on is the opinion of "Christian" scholarship, the opinion of the "science" academy (which contains contrary opinions) and you own particular spin on the world. No single authority in your world view is binding on anyone, and those who embrace a similar world view to you also have diverse opinions to you. So you are merely one voice among billions, floating in an ocean of contradictory and contrary opinions.

Your opinion is simply not worthy of anyone's serious attention.

JM

[JohnMartin]

So, I think JM has very thoroughly established that Geocentrism does not work with Big Bang theory. Fortunately, only a few people on the planet remain concerned about that.

On the other hand, Young Earth Creationists have problems with Big Bang theory. That's more than a few people. A quick look at the Answers in Genesis website shows that they complain about it quite a bit. Their main problem is the time scale, though, but I'm sure there are other things they don't like about it. If one replaces a fixed Earth with a 6,000 year timeframe, calling that divine revelation, then many of the arguments that JM makes could be pretty much the same for them.

And I'm not surprised. If other christian websites want to embrace a cosmology that has not been revealed, that is their choice.

JM

[Sparko]

The BB theory is adverse to Genesis 1-3, the Church Fathers and the statements of the Magesterium. Hence the BB theory is adverse to the deposit of faith is is therefore adverse to divine revelation.

JM

so you are calling the pope a heretic then?

[Roy]

EMphasis mine:

For the non Christian, unbeliever, to have this approach, something like the following world view is held, with all of its falsity.
...
Consequent to all of these false ideas is the falsity of secular humanism, and/or Marxist communism, which unbelievers are prone to be disposed to.

So you say lots of things are false. So what? Your views aren't convincing. Or are you trying for a new fallacy - the argument from lack of authority?

Anyway, non-believers are not prone to Marxist communism.

[Duragizer]

Your opinion is simply not worthy of anyone's serious attention.

Projection thy name is Johnnycake.

[rogue06]

Your recent request involved copying the contents of post 185, which came after post 179. It was in post 179 that I initially stated Augustine had a non literal theory about G1. The statement in post 185



Is a summary of post 179. I firmly believe there is a unanimous moral consent concerning the literal creation week in Genesis.

JM

In 179 you incorrectly asserted that "Genesis 1 was understood by the Church fathers as a literal week, with the exception of Augustine." As I've shown this was false. There were others aside from Augustine who rejected the literal week reading. As I pointed out, and you vainly tried to hand wave away, there were several Early Church Fathers (ECFs) who held that the days mentioned in Genesis 1 lasted a thousand years.

Also, Augustine does not appear to have been the only one who thought that the Creation was an instantaneous event. In his lectures on Genesis Martin Luther complains about how "Hilary and Augustine, almost the two greatest lights of the church, hold that the world was created instantaneously and all at the same time, not successively in the course of six days." Luther, who did believe the days were literal 24 hour long ones, continued in this vein when he wrote

The Days of Creation were ordinary days in length. We must understand that these days were actual days (verso dies), contrary to the opinion of the Holy Fathers. Whenever we observe that the opinions of the Fathers disagree with Scripture, we reverently bear with them and acknowledge them to be our elders. Nevertheless, we do not depart from the authority of the Scripture for their sake.

The point being that he recognized that widely divergent views about the length of the creation days existed among the ECFs. And IIRC, in Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas also recognized the difference of opinion among the ECFs for the proper interpretation of "days" in Genesis 1.

And let's not forget Clement of Alexandria, who in his Miscellanies, suggests that the creation took place outside of time when he wrote "And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist?"

[JohnMartin]

so you are calling the pope a heretic then?

Only the Church Magesterium can call the Pope a heretic at Council. The Pope can express his own private opinions from time to time. He can also make errors from time to time as has been recorded many times in Church history. If a Pope makes a statement that is contrary to tradition, then the Pope has erred. Such is what we see with the non binding statements of recent Popes on matters of science.

JM

[JohnMartin]

EMphasis mine:
So you say lots of things are false. So what? Your views aren't convincing. Or are you trying for a new fallacy - the argument from lack of authority?

The views presented are not just my views, but that of the Catholic Church, with its 2000 year intellectual tradition.

Anyway, non-believers are not prone to Marxist communism.

This is partially correct. Although Marxists are predominantly atheistic and Marxism is a materialist atheistic world view.

JM

[JohnMartin]

In 179 you incorrectly asserted that "Genesis 1 was understood by the Church fathers as a literal week, with the exception of Augustine." As I've shown this was false. There were others aside from Augustine who rejected the literal week reading. As I pointed out, and you vainly tried to hand wave away, there were several Early Church Fathers (ECFs) who held that the days mentioned in Genesis 1 lasted a thousand years.

Also, Augustine does not appear to have been the only one who thought that the Creation was an instantaneous event. In his lectures on Genesis Martin Luther complains about how "Hilary and Augustine, almost the two greatest lights of the church, hold that the world was created instantaneously and all at the same time, not successively in the course of six days." Luther, who did believe the days were literal 24 hour long ones, continued in this vein when he wrote

The Days of Creation were ordinary days in length. We must understand that these days were actual days (verso dies), contrary to the opinion of the Holy Fathers. Whenever we observe that the opinions of the Fathers disagree with Scripture, we reverently bear with them and acknowledge them to be our elders. Nevertheless, we do not depart from the authority of the Scripture for their sake.

The point being that he recognized that widely divergent views about the length of the creation days existed among the ECFs. And IIRC, in Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas also recognized the difference of opinion among the ECFs for the proper interpretation of "days" in Genesis 1.

And let's not forget Clement of Alexandria, who in his Miscellanies, suggests that the creation took place outside of time when he wrote "And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist?"

The allegorical understanding of the creation week does not exclude the literal understanding. The literal is derived from the literal sense of the text and the allegorical from comparing the Genesis texts to other texts in the spiritual sense. Hence the Fathers who had an allegorical understanding of the creation week does not exclude another interpretation by the same father according to a literal creation week. You have failed to grasp this fundamental truth of biblical exegesis.

JM

[rogue06]

I don't think you understand what allegorical means. Believing that each of the days took a thousand years is not allegorical.

Now if you want an example of what may be an allegorical understanding we can turn to Origen who wrote in his De Principiis

I should also note that in Book VI of his Contra Celsum," (a.k.a., "Contra Celsus") Origen mentions "[finding] fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world" giving more evidence that he disagreed with those he held that view (why else would he have "found fault" with them?).

[JohnMartin]

I don't think you understand what allegorical means. Believing that each of the days took a thousand years is not allegorical.

Now if you want an example of what may be an allegorical understanding we can turn to Origen who wrote in his De Principiis

I should also note that in Book VI of his Contra Celsum," (a.k.a., "Contra Celsus") Origen mentions "[finding] fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world" giving more evidence that he disagreed with those he held that view (why else would he have "found fault" with them?).

Allegorical means another meaning. When the creation act is portrayed as a week, the literal meaning is a week and the allegorical meaning is other than a week. The allegorical meaning is derived through a comparison with other texts according to a spiritual sense. Your thinking that a day is a thousand years is a conclusion arrived at using the spiritual sense of the text.

Gen 1 portrays a creation week. - (Literal sense).
Another text from the psalms and/or the NT speaks of a day as like 1000 years.
Then the original meaning is a week is changed to thousands of years (allegorical sense).

The allegorical sense does not remove the literal meaning of the text according to the literal sense.

Your example of Origen's quote does nothing to undermine the literal sense of the text. Origen was notorious for his allegorical interpretation of the OT made apart from any reference to the literal sense. Origen's opinion regarding the "hidden sense" is his reference to allegory of the creation week.

Also, Origen's objections to the literal sense are easily answered. The 24 hour day is a day as noted by the prophetic author hence the day would have been marked as a time. As time does not require the sun and stars, the time was measured by God. Also God can do anything that is possible, even making trees in a day.

Your citations of the Fathers who thought the creation week was a time other than a week is always under the allegorical sense of the text, which does nothing to undermine the literal sense of the Genesis 1 text.

JM

[Roy]

I don't think you understand what allegorical means.

Allegorical means another meaning. When the creation act is portrayed as a week, the literal meaning is a week and the allegorical meaning is other than a week. The allegorical meaning is derived through a comparison with other texts according to a spiritual sense. Your thinking that a day is a thousand years is a conclusion arrived at using the spiritual sense of the text.

Allegory added to cluelessness list:

Abiogenesis, accuracy, aeroplanes, algebra, allegory, alliteration, apes, Apollo program, apostrophes, astronomy, atheism, atmospheres, axioms, Baroness Orczy, barycentres, bats, bears, biology, black holes, calculus, chemistry, circumferences, cladograms, common descent, co-ordinate systems, Coriolis forces, currents, cyclones, dark matter, deduction, degrees and radians, ectropy, English, entropy, equations, error bars, evolution, eyes, experimental equipment, fallacies, field of view, fitness, fossils, Foucault's pendulum, friction, Galileo, genetic drift, geometry, GPS, gravity, history, ibices, iiwis, inertia, integrity, intelligent design, irreducible complexity, jet streams, logic, mass (kg), mathematics, migraine, momentum, music, natural selection, navigation, orbital mechanics, navigation, Occam's razor, orbital parameters, parallax, perspective, poetry, philosophy, physics, precision, prediction, probability, radiodating, redshift, reification, relativity, Reunion, rivers, rockets/thrusters, satellites, science, significant figures and rounding, solstices, sperm, symbolic logic, temperature, theology, thermodynamics, thermometers, tides, totem poles, transitional organisms, trigonometry, units, vectors, velocity, Wheatstone bridges, winds.

[JohnMartin]

Allegory added to cluelessness list:

Abiogenesis, accuracy, aeroplanes, algebra, allegory, alliteration, apes, Apollo program, apostrophes, astronomy, atheism, atmospheres, axioms, Baroness Orczy, barycentres, bats, bears, biology, black holes, calculus, chemistry, circumferences, cladograms, common descent, co-ordinate systems, Coriolis forces, currents, cyclones, dark matter, deduction, degrees and radians, ectropy, English, entropy, equations, error bars, evolution, eyes, experimental equipment, fallacies, field of view, fitness, fossils, Foucault's pendulum, friction, Galileo, genetic drift, geometry, GPS, gravity, history, ibices, iiwis, inertia, integrity, intelligent design, irreducible complexity, jet streams, logic, mass (kg), mathematics, migraine, momentum, music, natural selection, navigation, orbital mechanics, navigation, Occam's razor, orbital parameters, parallax, perspective, poetry, philosophy, physics, precision, prediction, probability, radiodating, redshift, reification, relativity, Reunion, rivers, rockets/thrusters, satellites, science, significant figures and rounding, solstices, sperm, symbolic logic, temperature, theology, thermodynamics, thermometers, tides, totem poles, transitional organisms, trigonometry, units, vectors, velocity, Wheatstone bridges, winds.

Allegory as defined in the Online Etymology Dictionary -

allegory (n.) Look up allegory at Dictionary.com
late 14c., from Old French allegorie (12c.), from Latin allegoria, from Greek allegoria "figurative language, description of one thing under the image of another," literally "a speaking about something else," from allos "another, different" (see alias (adv.)) + agoreuein "speak openly, speak in the assembly," from agora "assembly" (see agora).

JM