Can Science and Christianity be compatible? LPoT vs SoR. Also open to others.

[lilpixieofterror]

Well this should be interesting. I don't think science and Christianity can be reconciled at all. Falsifiable hypotheses lie at the core of science whereas belief in divine revelation is at the core of Christianity...i.e. two incompatible views of knowledge.

Begs the question and misunderstands what Christians believe. Well, a typical Tassman post.

[KingsGambit]

I've been trying to find what the majority of Christians are, when it comes to creation, but it doesn't seem I could find much on it. More rabid YEC's do seem to be a minority though, but a very vocal minority.

My theory (and this isn't based upon anything outside of my own head) is that the majority of Christians don't really care.

[lilpixieofterror]

Can Science and Christianity be compatible?

The relationship between science and Christianity is inconsistent at best. Christians that try fit science into their worldview must appeal humanism to make it fit.

Really? Prove it.

[lilpixieofterror]

I've slept on it and I have decided that I no longer want lilpixieofterror to be my debate partner. I have simply put in way to much effort and gotten very little feedback from her that I can see now, she's not going to be a very good partner. First she said two days, then a week, then another week, and last Friday she told me straight up we would be starting. I know we've all got a real life to tend to but that doesn't stop you from having good manners and keeping people in the loop; she hasn't logged on in two days but she knows I've been waiting on her.

I'll leave this topic to the rest of the forums users to with it what they will.

I've been busy (as I did inform you, last week), but that doesn't excuse not letting you know what is going on. My mistake and I'll try not to let it happen again.

[lilpixieofterror]

My theory (and this isn't based upon anything outside of my own head) is that the majority of Christians don't really care.

Or really don't know much of how it goes either way. Could many of them even say what YEC or OEC means, let alone what the two positions believe?

[Truthseeker]

Well this should be interesting. I don't think science and Christianity can be reconciled at all. Falsifiable hypotheses lie at the core of science whereas belief in divine revelation is at the core of Christianity...i.e. two incompatible views of knowledge.

They are indeed different, but why cannot they be compatible?

[shunyadragon]

Ok, so you don't know anything - noted...

We have been over this before. We are talking about the methods of science and what these methods are capable of, and not 'knowing things.'

[shunyadragon]

Really? Prove it.

Well, ah . . . proof is for math, philosophy, and logic. I just go by the facts of the problems of Christian belief and science in history and today. The simple facts that the Bible provides no guidance for an independent Methodological Naturalism in science, and as a result there is a wide range of beliefs without guidance. Those who believe in a literal interpretation (YEC) of the Bible reject the science and cosmology of the 13+ billion year natural history and evolution. There are varying beliefs in Christianity toward science that pick and choose among science to make it comfortable to their religious worldview (such as YEC), assume varying acceptance of science to fit their comfort zone (such as TE). Inconsistency is the problem in Christianity simply by the inconsistent beliefs in Christian belief concerning science.

All the known references concerning the church fathers and early Christian scholars concluded that the Bible was literal concerning Creation and history. The only question I see is there is some inconclusiveness as to the length of Day in Genesis. IT was not until the more humanist guided science that this literal view of scripture came into question.

[lilpixieofterror]

Well, ah . . . proof is for math, philosophy, and logic.

Humanism is a philosophy sweety and you claimed that Christians need to 'borrow from humanism to make science and religion work.' Thanks for wrecking your own case, in the very first sentence because you don't have anything to prove the claims you made, but your bald assertions.

I just go by the facts of the problems of Christian belief and science in history and today. The simple facts that the Bible provides no guidance for science, and as a result there is a wide range of beliefs without guidance.

I don't get guidance on a lot of things shuny. I was never given an instruction manual on how to be a big sister, a daughter, a wife, or a mother, but I managed to get something working there. You seem to assume God's job is to hold your hand for you and to guide you around, but how does that give us anything if God is always leading us around by the hand? Although I do find it amusing that non believers complain when the Bible is too specific (such as on its claims of homosexuality being a sin), but turn around and complain when the Bible is rather open about how God created the heavens and the earth. Do you want Christians to figure out things or not?

Those who believe in a literal interpretation (YEC) of the Bible reject the science and cosmology of the 13+ billion year natural history and evolution. There are varying beliefs in Christianity toward science that pick and choose among science to make it comfortable to their religious worldview (such as YEC), assume varying acceptance of science to fit their comfort zone (such as TE). Inconsistency is the problem in Christianity simply by the inconsistent beliefs in Christian belief concerning science.

Too bad YECism isn't a requirement for being a Christian, eh? Besides, as I pointed out above, what do you want? A God that tells us everything to believe or not?

All the known references concerning the church fathers and early Christian scholars concluded that the Bible was literal concerning Creation and history. The only question I see is there is some inconclusiveness as to the length of Day in Genesis. IT was not until the more humanist guided science that this literal view of scripture came into question.

Really, so please explain why Augustine said that creation was in an instant. I'm sorry Shuny, but that is just plain wrong. A literal YEC view of the world has never been a requirement for being a Christian and Christians seem to have gone out of their way, in the past, to avoid nailing down critical beliefs about creation. About the only thing Christians of the past and present have all agreed upon is that God is the creator of the heavens and earth. How it was done, is what is up for debate. I'm sorry, but being a YEC is not a requirement for being a Christian.

[Tassman]

I've slept on it and I have decided that I no longer want lilpixieofterror to be my debate partner. I have simply put in way to much effort and gotten very little feedback from her that I can see now, she's not going to be a very good partner. First she said two days, then a week, then another week, and last Friday she told me straight up we would be starting. I know we've all got a real life to tend to but that doesn't stop you from having good manners and keeping people in the loop; she hasn't logged on in two days but she knows I've been waiting on her.

I'll leave this topic to the rest of the forums users to with it what they will.

That's a great pity James because I know you have put a lot of work into preparing for this and that you would have contributed a great deal...your opponent, not so much.

[Tassman]

They are indeed different, but why cannot they be compatible?

"Observable" might be better than the emphasized word in the last sentence, might it not be?

No!

[shunyadragon]

"Observable" might be better than the emphasized word in the last sentence, might it not be?

Not all attributes of our physical universe are directly 'observable,' but they need to be falsifiable by a proposed hypothesis or theory

[Sea of red]

Very well, here is my first point in how to deal with Genesis 1+2. I believe they are designed not to be a scientific understanding of creation, but to tell ancient peoples that God is the creator of everything around us and that he is the one in charge and not these other gods. Why do I believe this? First, what sense would it make to give ancient people break-down of science and how the universe and earth scientifically came about? It isn't as though they would know that because we were thousands of years from discovering the scientific understandings that we take advantage of today. What they needed to know is that God was in charge. Second, it has similarities to other ancient writings that we find around them. They reason that I think it does because it is suppose to. It is giving the credit of creation to the God of Israel and not to the pagan gods around them because again, they needed to know that God was the creator and not necessarily the science behind it. Now, would a YEC agree with me on these points? No, but I think it is the most accurate and logical way to take Genesis 1+2 vs the more literal accounts.

It's like people back then couldn't comprehend a basic understanding of the universes properties. Basic arithmetic, algebra, and geometry already existed at the point the Bible was written so it's not like the ancients had no idea how to comprehend these kind of things - even if they did get a lot of it wrong. This doesn't explain why God gave false information to them with basic Earth science and biology getting completely butchered in the book of Genesis, or why he would choose such a time to give out this kind of important information to begin with. To me, giving out information that will contradict later study seems a little foolish to me.

My hunch is that the text of Genesis has a similar creation story to other ancient myths is because it was written to appeal to the followers of those mythologies for conversation reasons, rather than it being for the reason you gave. I will say Genesis certainly has all the familiar symptoms of a mythology, and I can't believe how you've pretty much said as much.

But here's what I think you need to really answer: why should I (or anybody else) value your interpretation of the Genesis account over others? Because it's the only one that fits with current scientific understanding? See, there are many ways to interpret the Bible - especially the Genesis account - but it's a kind of a one shot all or nothing deal when it comes to finding an interpretation that's consistent with what we know from the natural sciences. I fail to see what makes theistic evolution more powerful than old earth creationism, or progressive creationism more favorable than young earth creationism.

Above and beyond that, I'd be curious as to how you explain this all in the context of an historical Adam and Eve. How does this all wind together without destroying the concept of original sin? People like Greg Koukl and others see this as a major problem which is why they favor intelligent design over common descent.

Lastly, can you give an example of any place Bible being ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the natural world? As far as I can see, the Bible has never provided scientific insight that we ever came to confirm in study. Newtons laws of motion, Electrodynamics, Relativity, Atomic Theory, DNA, Common Descent, Darwins Tree of life,and the Uncertainty Principle are all things that the Bible... failed to predict. Do you have an example of this not being the case in history before? And by this, I mean something other than the Cosmology somehow being related to "let there be light" in the Bible.

So right now we can see that A) The Bible gets early Earth Science and Biology wrong for the purposes of making it more appealing to other mythologies. B) To remain consistent with a common descent it may exclude (and probably does) an historical Adam and Eve - and thus original sin falls into danger - making an even bigger problem. And lastly C)It has yet to provide scientific insight that is ahead of the curve - though I'm willing to proven wrong so give me your best toss.

I don't see how any of this is good or makes a good case for these two frameworks being consistent. You're going to have to provide some good answers for your case to really work, and it's going to be tough road, but I'm willing to eat my words so give it your best effort.

I look forward to your response.

[Truthseeker]

A reason why Genesis is not suited to interpretations by physicists qua physicists is that Genesis is an one-off affair. See, I think you agree that a scientific requirement is that the results or implications of experiments or observations must be repeated by succeeding experiments/observations. Obviously that cannot be the case for Genesis. Also, God can do effects beyond the ken of any scientist alive today; that is a point that seems to me to be too often overlooked. People like Sea of Red should be put down as silly for insisting that we have a scientific (physical as in physics) account for Genesis.

[lilpixieofterror]

It's like people back then couldn't comprehend a basic understanding of the universes properties. Basic arithmetic, algebra, and geometry already existed at the point the Bible was written so it's not like the ancients had no idea how to comprehend these kind of things - even if they did get a lot of it wrong. This doesn't explain why God gave false information to them with basic Earth science and biology getting completely butchered in the book of Genesis, or why he would choose such a time to give out this kind of important information to begin with. To me, giving out information that will contradict later study seems a little foolish to me.

Key term is 'basic' and the general education level is another important part. Now, depending on who you ask, Genesis was written between the 15th century BC to the 5th century BC. Either one of these ranges, puts it before Plato, Aristotle, or Archimedes and the latest date would put it right around the lifetime of Pythagoras. Considering that mathematical or observational evidence that the sun orbited the earth, was over 2,000 years away still; are you really sure about that? Have you ever read the physics models given by Aristotle? His work (which was wrong, on many things) was the science standard right up until the modern era. Likewise, Archimedes was among the most important mathematical and scientific minds, of the ancient world, and he was born in the 3rd century BC (200 to 1,300 years after Genesis was written). Likewise, education of these subjects was only reserved for the rich elites of society and the rest of society didn't even have the ability to read or write, let alone know much about these subjects. Remember, wide spread literacy and education are a modern invention that didn't exist for most of history. Finally, you're assuming that the goal of Genesis was to give a scientific account of how the world and universe was created, but where does Genesis ever say it is a scientific account to begin with? Remember, science is also a modern invention too. Those, who studied the natural sciences, would have been 'natural philosophers' and their version of 'science' is not the same as ours. The Wiki article does give a pretty good summery and the entire book can be found online, if you're interested in ever reading it. Bottom line is I think you're mistake here is the same mistake many YEC's end up making. You're reading Genesis with a modern view in mind and there is simply no reason to read Genesis, with that modern view in mind. The world of Genesis is a far different world than the world of the 21st century west. The modern scientific way you and I see the world was still thousands of years away.

My hunch is that the text of Genesis has a similar creation story to other ancient myths is because it was written to appeal to the followers of those mythologies for conversation reasons, rather than it being for the reason you gave. I will say Genesis certainly has all the familiar symptoms of a mythology, and I can't believe how you've pretty much said as much.

And does that view fit into what ancient people saw? See, in that era, your worshiped the gods of the area that you were in, so if you were in Egypt, you worshiped the Egyptian gods and if you were somewhere else, you worshiped their gods. The Jews seemed to have abandoned that model and thus you, yet again, are trying to read modern standards into an ancient book. Besides, over 90% of the population could not read or write and these stories were likely written down to be read by the priest and the religious leaders (the very few people, of that era, that could read and write). Taken in that light, your argument doesn't make too much sense since writing was only a skill a few people had and ancient customs towards worship are different than modern customs towards worship.

But here's what I think you need to really answer: why should I (or anybody else) value your interpretation of the Genesis account over others? Because it's the only one that fits with current scientific understanding? See, there are many ways to interpret the Bible - especially the Genesis account - but it's a kind of a one shot all or nothing deal when it comes to finding an interpretation that's consistent with what we know from the natural sciences. I fail to see what makes theistic evolution more powerful than old earth creationism, or progressive creationism more favorable than young earth creationism.

What path did human evolution take? There's different ideas about precisely where modern humans come from. Does that invalidate modern evolution theory? Is string theory true or false? Does that disagreement prove physics is wrong? Name a field and you'll find disagreements among the field. Disagreements do not prove my view is wrong anymore than disagreements among scientist prove science is all wrong. Sorry, but you're not the one that gets to sit upon your judgment seat and cast down judgment and only I need to jump though the hoops that you don't need to jump though yourself. The bottom lines are quite simple. Creation views are not critical to Christianity and if you really need your God to only need a 6,000 year old earth, you must have a pretty tiny God. My view is perfectly consistent with what we know of ancient views of the world as well as how Christians and Jews took the opening chapters of Genesis. There's no nailed down absolute view, from ancient Christians to modern Christians of just how literal Genesis 1 and 2 needs to be. It sounds like to me, you're emotionally invested in the YEC view and need it to be the true view Christians should hold to. Why?

Above and beyond that, I'd be curious as to how you explain this all in the context of an historical Adam and Eve. How does this all wind together without destroying the concept of original sin? People like Greg Koukl and others see this as a major problem which is why they favor intelligent design over common descent.

And many theologians do not see it as a problem at all because not all doctrines of original sin are made the same. Some hold the idea that original sin comes not from Adam, but from the devil and humans inherited this sin upon being temped and falling for the temptation. This view would not need a literal Adam and Eve at all and thus the problem can be solved. Again, if you need your God to only exist in a 6,000 year old universe. You must have a pretty tiny God. Christian views upon original sin vary greatly due to the same reasons that it does on creation and that is because the Bible isn't 100% absolute upon how it happened.

Lastly, can you give an example of any place Bible being ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the natural world? As far as I can see, the Bible has never provided scientific insight that we ever came to confirm in study. Newtons laws of motion, Electrodynamics, Relativity, Atomic Theory, DNA, Common Descent, Darwins Tree of life,and the Uncertainty Principle are all things that the Bible... failed to predict. Do you have an example of this not being the case in history before? And by this, I mean something other than the Cosmology somehow being related to "let there be light" in the Bible.

Actually, one of the most accurate measurements of Pi, pre-Archimedes, comes from the Bible as this math historian says here. Likewise, Aristotle taught that the universe was always existing while Christian and Jewish though taught the universe was a thing that begun to exist. What view today, is accept science and what view is not? Likewise, James Hannom argues in his book (you can find it here, if you so desire and his web site is here, which includes a link to his blog) argues that it was the Christian view of the world (IE that God is rational and his nature of rationality is part of the universe among us) is responsible for the scientific revolution that was not possible before. In actual truth, you're a little off here too and there is quite a bit that you can thank Christians and the Bible for. Of course, the Bible doesn't mention these specific subjects is because it isn't designed to be a book of science, but a book pointing to the fallen nature of man and how we can find God's saving grace though Christ. As I showed above though, Christian understandings of the world, lead to the scientific understandings that simply were not possible before that moment and attempting to ignore this is silliness, to the nth degree.

So right now we can see that A) The Bible gets early Earth Science and Biology wrong for the purposes of making it more appealing to other mythologies. B) To remain consistent with a common descent it may exclude (and probably does) an historical Adam and Eve - and thus original sin falls into danger - making an even bigger problem. And lastly C)It has yet to provide scientific insight that is ahead of the curve - though I'm willing to proven wrong so give me your best toss.

Actually, what I have determined is that you seem to be rather emotionally invested in YEC interpretations and seem to come up with some pretty easy to refute objections to it. 1) The Bible was not nor has ever been a scientific text book and to treat it as though it is, is not correct. 2) The concept of original sin, is easy to keep, if you take the idea that it was the devil that sin descended from and the devil was the one that tempted humans and humans failed. Rather this was a literal Adam and Eve or the earliest hominids, is irrelevant to the point. 3) It provided the philosophy that helped us to break away from the Aristotelian scientific views that lead to the genesis (pun intended) of modern science. In conclusion, I think you're conflict here isn't really so much the topic as it seems you really want YEC views to be true. Remember, I've debated YEC's for years and have heard all the stuff you've come up with and dealt with it. YEC also has its own theological problems too, on top of its shaky science, so pretending as though YEC is somehow theologically sound, and TE isn't, isn't the most honest way to approach the topic.

I don't see how any of this is good or makes a good case for these two frameworks being consistent. You're going to have to provide some good answers for your case to really work, and it's going to be tough road, but I'm willing to eat my words so give it your best effort.

I look forward to your response.

Very well, time to get started. Enjoy.