Originally posted by Jorge
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Jorge's opportunity to debate specific data
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I'm always still in trouble again
"You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
"Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
"Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman
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Originally posted by rogue06 View PostYou are a first rate hypocrite Jorge. You engage in just the sort of behavior that you so gleefully seek to condemn others for.
Jorge
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Originally posted by rogue06 View PostJorge, why don't you present what you think is the strongest cases from that list instead of trying a Gish Gallop?
Jorge
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Originally posted by Jorge View PostI'm not saying that you have refuted this item but, just for the sake of argument, let's say that your "explanation" has refuted it. Okay, that means that from the list you only have 100 more to go. Get hopping, Hop-Along Cassidy!
Jorge
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At what point does knowledge of the universe around us begin to influence exegetical methods and/or their conclusions?
Originally posted by Jorge View Post... Yes, IF the days of Genesis are metaphors then there is no denial of that miracle. BUT ALL OF THE EVIDENCE FROM SCHOLARS (as well as from my own studies) INDICATES THAT THOSE DAYS ARE not, Not, NOT METAPHORS.
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I tried to answer this yesterday, but the post got lost. Considering the conversation has moved on a bit, hopefully this little bit can remain somewhat connected. BTW thank you Jorge for providing a post that is simply a discussion of concepts.
Originally posted by Jorge View PostIt's hard - if not impossible - for me to reply to such a request without making it sound like I'm "attacking" your intellect. I know that many, many times in the past I have stated that the age issue begins with BELIEFS, not with physical data. The physical data - what you call "science" - serves a secondary support role for those beliefs, not the other way around (as you may have convinced yourself or others). Yet here you make a request that totally and completely ignores those statements - you want to discuss physical, scientific data that makes the case for YEC.
In the past many times I have presented data that supports YEC's position. Not long ago Santa Klaus posted a list which, although inaccurate and incomplete, contained several of those arguments. None of those arguments (or data, if you like) make the case for YEC. Just as there is no argument or data that seals the case for gigayears.
Why do I say the two approaches can't be made symmetric? Because in an Old Universe, there can be many, many young things. But in a Young Universe, there can't be ANY old things. And so, if a person brings a bit of data that shows that something is only a few thousand years old, that is not proof the universe is only a few thousand years old. It may well be that thing is only a few thousand years old, but the universe is billions of years old. But, if a person brings a bit of data that shows something is 10 million years old, then either the universe is old OR that date is wrong. There is no possibility of both being true assessments of the state of the universe on the YE side. It might seem unfair, but it is just the way the logic works out.
So to show the universe is older than 10,000 years, we only need to show there are things in the universe that are without reasonable doubt older than 10,000 years. But OTOH, the YE side must show that EVERYTHING in the universe is no more than 10,000 years old.
Now if in fact most things looked <10,000 years old. It would not be so hard for a YEC to make his case. But that just isn't the way things are. If we look at the physical state of the Universe, no matter if we allow for miracles or not, most things show the ravages of a great deal of time, WAY more than 10,000 years. These 'marks' must have an explanation. In the OE view, the explanation is simply time. In the YE view the explanations are generally many, diverse, inconsilient, OR they are a God how deceives in how He creates.
What you have to once and for all understand is that in this matter it must begin with your metaphysical beliefs. For whatever reason, sometime in your past you decided/chose to embrace the assumptions and presuppositions under which Materialism is founded. That embrace has determined the rest of your views, interpretations and overall attitude in this controversy.
So for me, how Genesis 1 correlates with physical reality is not a given, it is a mystery (inspired, God breathed nevertheless) which must be unlocked. And the ONLY other direct witness we have to help unlock that mystery is creation itself.
My reluctance (if you want to call it that) in discussing "data" is that I have read the final chapter, page and paragraph of that book - I know exactly where and how it ends.
Just to illustrate, I'll spend a few minutes on one: comets. Here's a ultra-brief write-up on that subject by Dr. Faulkner (PhD astronomer):
That maximum age is only a few million years. Obviously, their prevalence makes sense if the entire solar system was created just a few thousand years ago, but not if it arose billions of years ago.
And here we have a classic mistake in arguing for a young Earth/Universe. Yes, comets have a limited lifetime. But before you draw a conclusion about how old that implies the universe must be, one needs to determine IF the data we have on comets allows them to function as some kind of clock. And when we do that, the first thing we have to ask is this: Is the set of comets we can observe represent a closed or open set? And the answer to that is: it is open. That is, we observe, year after year, comets which enter the solar system from 'out there'. From somewhere else that we can't observe directly - at least not yet. So we know NEW comets enter the system every year. So we have a system were comets die after a while, but we also have a system where new comets enter the system too. And they often enter 'fresh' as if they had never been here before. Which is consistent with 'out there', in that out past the orbit of pluto, a comet can last forever. There is nothing to boil away its volatile's.
So what does that mean if we try to use comets as clocks? It means that unless we have an accurate accounting of the influx of comets coupled with the death of comets, they can't function as a clock of any reliable sort. So we really don't have any sort of reliable upper bound for the age of the Universe that is a consequence of the fact comets exist in the solar system today.
Rescuing Devices
Evolutionary astronomers have answered this problem by claiming that comets must come from two sources. They propose that a Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune hosts short-period comets (comets with orbits under 200 years), and a much larger, distant Oort cloud hosts long-period comets (comets with orbits over 200 years).
Yet there is no evidence for the supposed Oort cloud, and there likely never will be. In the past twenty years astronomers have found thousands of asteroids orbiting beyond Neptune, and they are assumed to be the Kuiper belt. However, the large size of these asteroids (Pluto is one of the larger ones) and the difference in composition between these asteroids and comets argue against this conclusion."
Now, all you'd have to do to prolong that topic, thereby allowing you to retain your beliefs, is to either introduce a new auxiliary hypothesis or to doggedly maintain your stance regarding the Kuiper Belt and/or the Oort Cloud (remember, there is NO observable evidence that an Oort Cloud is there). Round and round we'd go with no end to it. That's not science - not in my book - that's an ideological debate.
So to correctly characterize the 'process' from a scientific perspective: The overwhelming evidence is that the solar system and universe are very ,very old. Comets can't survive that long without replenishment. We observe new comets entering the solar system all the time. These new comets tend to come from about 20,000 AU away. This points to a cloud of frozen objects out at 20,000 AU. Simple density calculations based on the periodic influx of comets from this region suggest a quantity of objects far beyond that needed to keep the set of inner comets at the level observed. Questions remain as to what perturbs them to cause them to fall in, and whether the current set of comets represents an equilibrium or some sort of statistical fluctuation above or below 'normal'.
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Try this (relevant to my point) ... TRUE OR FALSE :
1. Human beings, as they now exist, developed from an earlier species of non-human animals.
2. According to the theory of Evolution, human beings, as they now exist, developed from an earlier species of non-human animals.
1, 2 or both - are they true or false?
It so happens that a researcher at YALE concluded, after examining over 2,000 people, that how an individual responds to that question has much more to do with a person's religious position than with the person's knowledge/ability in science. This has been my position for at least the last 20-25 years. As you may have guessed, my answers are 1 - false ... 2 - true.
Keep trying, Jim... do keep trying.
Jorge
Neither of these questions addresses the issue of what the scientific evidence and method implies. #1 is summary opinion. And of course it correlates better to religious belief than knowledge. Most people don't know enough to evaluate the science (sadly enough) and so they go with what their world view accepts as true without having evaluated it. Others, like Kurt Wise, make a choice to belief one way or the other independent of what they see the science implies. #2 is just a statement of fact. That is what ToE says happened.
There needs to be a #3; What does the scientific evidence itself imply is true about human origins. And it needs to be asked only of those with technical degrees who likely have a basic understanding of the sicence itself. Then it shifts substantially.
Here we are talking about what the science and data imply about the age of the universe and the Earth.
I do not and refuse to answer #1 yes or no/true or false. I say God created mankind, but I think the evidence points to evolution as His method. And the reason is simple, too many people are conditioned to see evolution as implying a lack of belief in God as Creator. And so I can't in good conscience allow that false implication to be derived from my answer.
#2 is the same as yours of course
My question to you as regards the data: How do you account for the craters on the moon and other solar system objects? The evidence indicates they are very old, and that sometime Early in the 4.5 billion year history the solar system was inundated with debris which created this scarring on most objects in the solar sytem. How do you compensate for the violence and destructivness of such a barrage in a <10,000 year old Earth Moon System. And a follow on to that: How did the Earth escape what the Moon endured.
JimMy brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1
If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19
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Originally posted by Omega Red View PostAt what point does knowledge of the universe around us begin to influence exegetical methods and/or their conclusions?
Interpretation with context and a proper, time-tested exegesis-hermeneutic
should reign whenever there is conflict between the two (which isn't very often).
Uhmmm ... hey, Bozo, I gave them WHAT THEY ASKED FOR and what they loudly claimed did not exist. One of these days you may want to try some integrity - it won't hurt.
Yup. If God says it then you had better maintain that belief. Consider the time that God told Noah to prepare for the Flood. Imagine building a huge boat on dry land based solely on a "Word" given to you. Methinks that folk like you would have perished thinking to yourself, "This is nuts! Building a huge boat far away from any body of water is crazy!" Yup, that sounds just like you.
Here it comes - time to bring in the PRATTs!
The "solid dome" and "geocentric views" has been asked and answered countless times - why bring them up yet again? Go to the CSR, AiG, CMI websites and you'll find scores of articles that address and answer those objections - that's not even counting the books and presentations that have been given on those topics.
You ask, "Or are we still discovering?" Of course we are! So? God's Word remains (should remain) through it all. It's not that we "bolt the doors", it's that there are events that transcend Naturalistic science - period! But, as I know well, for people like you that's not necessarily true. That's why you people are constantly seeking for Naturalistic explanations for events that the Bible reports but that upset your Materialistically-inclined thinking. So, for example, we read stuff like what O-Mudd posted recently - Naturalistic explanations for how thousands can be fed with just a few loaves and fishes. Exactly the same (Naturalistic "explanations") have been sought and proposed for all of the other Scriptural miracles.
Let me share something that I first wrote way back - around 1982: People that place too much weight on the physical 'evidence' that they observe and measure are to be pitied. These people simply haven't grasped the sheer power and wonder of the God that some of them profess to believe in and follow. They remind of the Egyptian in the the movie The Ten Commandments who said (paraphrasing): "Their God is a poor general, he gives them no retreat." [This was at the part of the movie when the Egyptian army was chasing down the Israelis and had cornered them at the Red Sea]. That Egyptian, just as those that place physical 'evidence' on too high a pedestal, was clueless as to the Majestic, infinite power that he was dealing with. I envision God smiling at that poor slob's remark and then opening up the Red Sea for Israel to cross it - how's that for being a "good general"? Yes, that was just a movie but my point remains - try to stick to it.
The lesson is obvious: STOP TRYING TO LIMIT OR TO DICTATE what God has done / can do because your feeble intellect (just like that of the Egyptian) is incapable of grasping a Being that transcends anything that you (or any of us) can even imagine. I mean, do you think it even crossed the mind of that Egyptian that the Red Sea would open up to allow transit? Of course not. So stop trying to make God fit what the 'physical evidence' appears to indicate. Otherwise, I guarantee you that, like the Egyptian, you will lose - God will laugh at your vain imaginations.
Jorge
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If only one tribe of bronze-age goat herders had not been so anal about writing down their opinions and preserving them (except for a fairly steady process of rewriting and redaction), a good chunk of the modern world would be far less ignorant, and common understanding of the world we live in would be far more nearly correct.
We are constantly refighting the same battle Kurt Wise fought -- and lost. He was both intelligent and educated enough to recognize that physical reality and biblical speculations of millennia ago cannot be reconciled EXCEPT in two ways. Either reality must be discarded (or nearly everything we have ever learned must be horribly wrong), or else these ancient writings must be placed into rational context, AS the speculations, preferences, and misunderstandings of a primitive people. Kurt Wise chose the first option, and apparently Jorge does as well.
And so we have an endless procession of ships in the night, where one side is shouting " data, evidence, logic, observation, test" and the other side is shouting "bible, bible, god, god, bible." And both sides regard the other as unwilling to come to their senses! After a while, this gets really old.
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Originally posted by phank View PostIf only one tribe of bronze-age goat herders had not been so anal about writing down their opinions and preserving them (except for a fairly steady process of rewriting and redaction), a good chunk of the modern world would be far less ignorant, and common understanding of the world we live in would be far more nearly correct.
We are constantly refighting the same battle Kurt Wise fought -- and lost. He was both intelligent and educated enough to recognize that physical reality and biblical speculations of millennia ago cannot be reconciled EXCEPT in two ways. Either reality must be discarded (or nearly everything we have ever learned must be horribly wrong), or else these ancient writings must be placed into rational context, AS the speculations, preferences, and misunderstandings of a primitive people. Kurt Wise chose the first option, and apparently Jorge does as well.
And so we have an endless procession of ships in the night, where one side is shouting " data, evidence, logic, observation, test" and the other side is shouting "bible, bible, god, god, bible." And both sides regard the other as unwilling to come to their senses! After a while, this gets really old.
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Originally posted by phank View PostIf only one tribe of bronze-age goat herders had not been so anal about writing down their opinions and preserving them (except for a fairly steady process of rewriting and redaction), a good chunk of the modern world would be far less ignorant, and common understanding of the world we live in would be far more nearly correct.
JimMy brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1
If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19
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Originally posted by Jorge View PostThe "solid dome" and "geocentric views" has been asked and answered countless times - why bring them up yet again? Go to the CSR, AiG, CMI websites and you'll find scores of articles that address and answer those objections - that's not even counting the books and presentations that have been given on those topics.
I understand that for the YEC interpretation to persist, these texts can't be referring to what they are referring to and so it will be impossible to persuade you otherwise. Nevertheless, the text and its interpretation are obvious outside that set of blinders.
JimLast edited by oxmixmudd; 05-30-2014, 04:08 PM.My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1
If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19
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