Does Old-Earth Creationism Undermine the Gospel? A Response to Kevin Bauder
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[Mark_Smith]Ok, I’m not clear how you think time dilation resolves the issue. As I keep saying, the Bible is clear in saying all creation was a 6 day event. We have no reason in scripture to see a universe that is billions of years old, but evidence that indicates a much younger universe of 6-10 thousand years. The only place people go to find billions of years is in science, to explain scientific theories that contradict scripture. Time dilation doesn’t change the reading of Genesis 1, the morning and the evening were a day marked six times.Chip, for example, NEVER FIGURED OUT that I was saying the YEC model can be right but the universe be old…its called TIME DILATION. look it up, Chip.
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
Let’s be honest…how much cosmology and astronomy do you know?
I have about 12 systematic theologies in my library(since you mention theology), I have taken 2 graduate classes in theology. I am not bragging, just saying that I have a reasonable amount of theological and biblical knowledge.
Can you, in one paragraph, describe how the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy was first measured (and don’t slip over to wikipedia and try to fake it either :-) ) ? Do you know who first measured that distance? Do you know what role uniformitarianism has in that measurement? That should be easy if you have any astrophysical knowledge?
Let me be clear, I don’t expect you to answer the question. I am just saying astrophysics doesn’t matter to you. You see practically no value in it. So, hand-waving it away rather than trying to do the hard work of making observations of nature and the Biblical text work is irrelevant to you.
[Chip Van Emmerik]As I keep saying, the Bible is clear in saying all creation was a 6 day event. We have no reason in scripture to see a universe that is billions of years old, but evidence that indicates a much younger universe of 6-10 thousand years. The only place people go to find billions of years is in science, to explain scientific theories that contradict scripture. Time dilation doesn’t change the reading of Genesis 1, the morning and the evening were a day marked six times.
This proves my point. You have no interest in science in general, let alone astronomy. You read Genesis, and the rest of the OT (genealogies, etc), to give a universe about 6000 years old. You don’t even look to see whether you are right OR WORSE, HOW THAT IS RIGHT! You have no interest in the Sun (other than it glows and warms you up), the Moon, etc…so you can hand wave the whole thing. It simply doesn’t matter to you…but you insist you MUST BE RIGHT.
Nature works, and that is good enough for you…
Finally, you also imply that asking any scientific questions that haven’t been pre-cleared by your theological interpretation are forbidden, or show a lack of faith or trust in the Bible as the word of God. That is scary.
Mark,
You read way to much into opposing views. No one, including myself, has tried to wave away science. No one has refused to investigate nature. No one has expressed disinterest in the sun or moon. Several of us have repeatedly made this clear to you, but you keep throwing that straw man out there attributing values and positions to myself and others that we have openly rejected. You claim to be upset when you perceive people here to be misrepresenting your beliefs about the Bible or creation, but you don’t show any remorse when you misrepresent other’s views. The only person being dismissive here is you, as when you arrogantly hand wave away a simple explanation like appearance of age (that we know was part of creation as recorded in scripture and that could provide a workable answer) just because it doesn’t fit your personal framework. Really Mark, that’s not a very scientific approach.
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
I am trying to get you to see the result of your views. My heart aches for youths who are told by parents and pastors that the universe “just looks old”. Then they go off to college and take an astronomy class, and WHAM…what is going on…too many drop off the radar at that point.
I think we are done. No real profit is being accomplished.
But…if you think there is more to be said, answer this question from appearance of age. How far away is the Milky Way Galaxy center? How do you measure distance when the light didn’t really traverse the space? Answer that and your framework can at least do something.
Now, ONE ANSWER could be a relativistic effect (ie Time Dilation), but you dismissed that a few answers ago. What else do you have?
Mark,
You are not really asking about distance (how far) but time (how long). To that I ask, “What difference does the time make to the age of the earth or universe - unless you are assuming uniformitarianism?” Appearance of age provides for everything you have asked about, and better fits the facts provided in scripture. We know there was appearance of age in creation because it is recorded so in Genesis 1. We know that the natural laws have not always operated in the same way in the past denying the ability to read the tea leaves of the present to unearth all the hidden truths of the past. At best, uniformitarianism gives us vague parameters for limited estimates that are interesting but entirely unprovable and must still be reconciled to the inerrant, eternal record of scripture. Several of us have continued to draw this conversation back the main issue - either your acceptance of scientific thought is going to mold your understanding of scripture or your faith in scripture is going to mold you scientific investigation. Only one can be preeminent when the two sides clash, and you have consistently identified yourself with the side that massages scripture to fit your scientific theory of the day.
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
[Chip Van Emmerik]Mark,
You are not really asking about distance (how far) but time (how long). To that I ask, “What difference does the time make to the age of the earth or universe - unless you are assuming uniformitarianism?” Appearance of age provides for everything you have asked about, and better fits the facts provided in scripture.
Well I agree Chip, and you prove my point. With that statement that you made you eliminate the entire science of astronomy! You don’t care about what nature looks like or how it behaves. It just is.
[Chip Van Emmerik]Mark,
Several of us have continued to draw this conversation back the main issue - either your acceptance of scientific thought is going to mold your understanding of scripture or your faith in scripture is going to mold you scientific investigation. Only one can be preeminent when the two sides clash, and you have consistently identified yourself with the side that massages scripture to fit your scientific theory of the day.
Well, Chip. That is interesting. ‘Cause here is what I believe. I have stated it repeatedly:
I believe in a special creation by God in 6 literal days as explained in Genesis. Period. That is what I believe. As for the age of the universe the Bible seems to indicate something around 6000 years. When you look at nature it looks old. I think there have been some kind of relativistic effects (time dilation or something like that) to allow an enormous amount of time to pass out there, but 6000 years at home. Shoot, maybe even some time dilation happened here at home, I don’t know. I believe the elapsed time seen in the universe is real, not mere appearance.
The main difference between you and me Chip is I am looking for details! You aren’t.
[Mark_Smith]Mark, would “the appearance of age” be an appropriate descriptive term for a smaller miracle, such as turning the water into wine? If a scientist in Cana had examined that wine, the scientist would have observed a substance which normally takes a mature fruit and a process of fermentation to produce. I don’t think we can use time dilation to explain how there could be wine without some grown grapes and that process of fermentation, so can we say the wine had only an appearance of age without actually being old?When you look at nature it looks old. I think there have been some kind of relativistic effects (time dilation or something like that) to allow an enormous amount of time to pass out there, but 6000 years at home. Shoot, maybe even some time dilation happened here at home, I don’t know. I believe the elapsed time seen in the universe is real, not mere appearance.
Many ask about the wine miracle. I don’t see it being all that relevant to creation, but many ask about it since it is a miracle.
The main reason I don’t like the “appearance of age” argument for the universe is because the problem is the universe doesn’t just look old, it looks like time processes have transpired. You see proto-stars (that is forming stars), baby stars, adult stars, middle aged stars, old stars, dying stars and dead stars…you see LOTS of dead stars…far more than could’ve died in the 6000 years since creation. Do you think God made a bunch of dead stars? Its just odd. You see galaxies colliding with other galaxies by the thousands, you see starburst regions in galaxies, you see black holes gobbling up matter falling into it. In the Milky Way galaxy there is direct evidence of the remnants of something like a dozen smaller galaxies the Milky Way has “eaten” in the past!
Second, with the wine analogy, Jesus told some guys to fill pots of water, and when the ladled the water out, it was in instead wine. To make a comparable analogy with the universe, the wine would’ve showed up in a UPS truck, with a shipping manifest, with a distillery in progress, then the wine would’ve been bottled and labeled Chateau de Iesou. Then after the miracle, people would’ve kept the bottles for all to see for eternity. The point being in the universe you see every stage present just as if it developed over time. That is not what happened with the wine. Jesus miracled it. BAM, the water turned into wine.
As far as time dilation it wouldn’t be the cause of the wine. That was an overt, instantaneous miracle. The difference with creation, in my view, is that the EVIDENCE OF THE PROCESS OF THE UNIVERSE EXISTING FOR A LONG TIME is immediately evident.
[Mark_Smith]It seems to me that your descriptions of the difference between the two events is simply a matter of degree. I admit, it is a BIG difference of degree, since the universe is a lot bigger than some vats of wine, but you seem to downplay the scientific qualities of wine when you say, “Jesus miracled it. Bam, the water turned into wine.” It was wine with the appearance of age, wasn’t it? You said of the universe that “it looks like time processes have transpired,” but the exact same situation is present for the wine. It looked like time processes had transpired in order for it to actually be wine. A wine expert would have been able to test the wine and say exactly which kinds of grapes were used and even how long it had been fermented. There was EVIDENCE OF THE PROCESS OF THE WINE EXISTING FOR A PERIOD OF TIME even though it had just been instantaneously created. I’m not seeing much difference at all between the two miracles other than size of the created items and the length of time that formation processes would have required if the instantaneous miracle had not taken place.Many ask about the wine miracle. I don’t see it being all that relevant to creation, but many ask about it since it is a miracle.
The main reason I don’t like the “appearance of age” argument for the universe is because the problem is the universe doesn’t just look old, it looks like time processes have transpired. You see proto-stars (that is forming stars), baby stars, adult stars, middle aged stars, old stars, dying stars and dead stars…you see LOTS of dead stars…far more than could’ve died in the 6000 years since creation. Do you think God made a bunch of dead stars? Its just odd. You see galaxies colliding with other galaxies by the thousands, you see starburst regions in galaxies, you see black holes gobbling up matter falling into it. In the Milky Way galaxy there is direct evidence of the remnants of something like a dozen smaller galaxies the Milky Way has “eaten” in the past!
Second, with the wine analogy, Jesus told some guys to fill pots of water, and when the ladled the water out, it was in instead wine. To make a comparable analogy with the universe, the wine would’ve showed up in a UPS truck, with a shipping manifest, with a distillery in progress, then the wine would’ve been bottled and labeled Chateau de Iesou. Then after the miracle, people would’ve kept the bottles for all to see for eternity. The point being in the universe you see every stage present just as if it developed over time. That is not what happened with the wine. Jesus miracled it. BAM, the water turned into wine.
As far as time dilation it wouldn’t be the cause of the wine. That was an overt, instantaneous miracle. The difference with creation, in my view, is that the EVIDENCE OF THE PROCESS OF THE UNIVERSE EXISTING FOR A LONG TIME is immediately evident.
[Mark_Smith]Chip Van Emmerik wrote:
Mark,
Several of us have continued to draw this conversation back the main issue - either your acceptance of scientific thought is going to mold your understanding of scripture or your faith in scripture is going to mold you scientific investigation. Only one can be preeminent when the two sides clash, and you have consistently identified yourself with the side that massages scripture to fit your scientific theory of the day.
Well, Chip. That is interesting. ‘Cause here is what I believe. I have stated it repeatedly:
I believe in a special creation by God in 6 literal days as explained in Genesis. Period. That is what I believe. As for the age of the universe the Bible seems to indicate something around 6000 years. When you look at nature it looks old. I think there have been some kind of relativistic effects (time dilation or something like that) to allow an enormous amount of time to pass out there, but 6000 years at home. Shoot, maybe even some time dilation happened here at home, I don’t know. I believe the elapsed time seen in the universe is real, not mere appearance.
The main difference between you and me Chip is I am looking for details! You aren’t.
Mark, the problem here is that time dilation or relativistic effects that you are looking for are not well defined science. There may be some theories, but it isn’t real observable science. It is almost not a lot different than saying there is a God who created it with an appearance of age. With that said, I am not sure I see a real big gap here between what we say. A God created it with apparent age, even though science may not definitively acknowledge this, and you saying that after/or during creation a time dilation activity took place, even though science may not definitively acknowledge this. Maybe God used a bending of time. Who knows. At the end of the day it isn’t critical, whether God took one action or not. I just don’t see the real gap.
In astronomy you can see the vats, the wine barrels, the fermenting process, the shipping process, the delivery process, the bottling process, the vineyard, everything. You see counter evidence to an instantaneous miracle. Its more like a process happened. That is why I (and many others…it isn’t my original idea. See John Hartnett in Starlight, Time and the New Physics or Russell Humphreys in Starlight and Time for 2 possibilities. Also, Jason Lisle formerly at Answers in Genesis had a similar idea with Time anisotropy from the one-way speed of light.) have suggested some form of time dilation to give time for the process of star and galaxy lifetimes, etc.
Jesus took water and made wine. The people observed the miracle. There were no steps. It was instantaneous.
When you look up into space, you see all of the steps.
Make sense?
[Mark_Smith]I’m trying to make sense of what you’re saying. Are you saying that if a scientist had observed the wine closely in the same intense way we have of observing the universe, that the wine scientist would NOT have seen specific grapes or specific fermentation processes in the wine?Jesus took water and made wine. The people observed the miracle. There were no steps. It was instantaneous.
When you look up into space, you see all of the steps.
Make sense?
[Mark_Smith]In astronomy you can see the vats, the wine barrels, the fermenting process, the shipping process, the delivery process, the bottling process, the vineyard, everything. You see counter evidence to an instantaneous miracle. Its more like a process happened. That is why I (and many others…it isn’t my original idea. See John Hartnett in Starlight, Time and the New Physics or Russell Humphreys in Starlight and Time for 2 possibilities. Also, Jason Lisle formerly at Answers in Genesis had a similar idea with Time anisotropy from the one-way speed of light.) have suggested some form of time dilation to give time for the process of star and galaxy lifetimes, etc.
Jesus took water and made wine. The people observed the miracle. There were no steps. It was instantaneous.
When you look up into space, you see all of the steps.
Make sense?
Yes, but time dilation is a theory, and in my opinion not that good of one from a true scientific perspective. I understand what you are saying, but how is a very fast time dilation much different than say things were created with apparent age? We could say that time dilation took place in 8 hours, or 50 miliseconds. What is the difference.
Also, with all of that said, and if you are studied up on cosmology than you also know that Quantum Mechanics and Relativity have never played very nicely together. What I have increasingly seen in the literature is that it’s problematic nature is increasingly getting in the way of science (for example, it doesn’t make scientific sense for the universe to be so big). A number of renowned cosmologist, including Nima Arkani-Hamed (just recently) have been proposing that we are about to enter a revolution where everything we know about Relativity and Quantum Mechanics will be utterly changed and will be defined by a new set of theories that will upend both of these bedrocks of cosmology. This may have significant impacts to how we view the universe. Lord Kelvin and Albert Michelson, renowned physicist at the turn of the 1900’s both stated that “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement” A few months later, Plank threw that out with really the first real start of Quantum Mechanics (E=hv), where it was fully established in 1927 at the Solvay Conference (I was an employee at Solvay for a long time and stood in the room where this was established). Einstein began his trend into relativity in 1905. So in 1900 at the pinnacle of what was thought by science to be a finality of physics, was only a few months and years later all thrown out.
We are now coming to the same point. We can’t even really explain why the universe is expanding, since it violates some conditions. In addition, there are a number of renowned cosmologist including, Christof Wetterich, who are beginning to publish some papers that maybe the universe is really not expanding, but that the relativistic mass of objects are increasing. Remember light shifts can occur with movement, and also with changes in mass. Both will exhibit shifts in frequency (red-shifts).
I say all of this, because you like to put a stake in the ground that science has observed something, and therefore it is final. When in reality, practically nothing in science is final, and it is filled with constant revolutions.
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