What is creation science?

[Bulldog Bats]

The Bible was written by men - although inspired by God. I think it is clear that when it was written, the authors did not have a modern understanding of those concepts of earth science. Photosynthesis was not studied until the 17th century - to expect the authors of the books of the Old Testament to have an understanding of thos concepts centuries prior is unrealistic.

My point is that they are not mutually exclusive. One can accept that God created the world, consistent with both evolution and Genesis.

 

[Arakhor]

My point is that they are not mutually exclusive. One can accept that God created the world, consistent with both evolution and Genesis.

Of course you can. Religion is such a personal thing, one can believe almost anything. It's society as a whole that mandates believing specific things.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Yes, but your point was not a "personal" view. You brought up where Genesis and evolution had a conflict, I assumed, to try to counter my position. I merely brought up logic to show that there was not a conflict. It was an attempt to explain something, consistent with the author's known view of the world.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think the main conflict is that evolution requires the concepts of 'death and suffering' to exist long before the existence of mankind and sin. And the idea is that 'death and suffering' are due to sin.

 

[timtofly]

Well, if you ignore that Genesis has God creating a day/night cycle without heavenly lights and bringing forth all green vegetation before he creates the sun, the moon and the stars, then yes.

A spinning earth does not need the sun to create a cycle, it needs light. The seeds were in the ground yes, They did not die, nor will plants die immediately if there is no sun light. Artificial light will work, just not as well. If God said there was light it does not have to mean the sun. That things worked out a couple of days later and the sun started giving it's life ability to the plants does not kill anything but the notion that the sun came thousands or millions of a certain time span later that fits evolution and not a 24 hour time period.

The Bible was written by men - although inspired by God. I think it is clear that when it was written, the authors did not have a modern understanding of those concepts of earth science. Photosynthesis was not studied until the 17th century - to expect the authors of the books of the Old Testament to have an understanding of thos concepts centuries prior is unrealistic.

My point is that they are not mutually exclusive. One can accept that God created the world, consistent with both evolution and Genesis.

If one interprets the Bible to fit pop psychology or even science for that matter, would that not be defining God yourself? Just because what God says in the Bible happens to contradict modern thought does not prove that God is wrong. If God does not change, then who is wrong if it contradicts what the Bible says? Attempting to change just what the Bible says to avoid any contradictions would seem to sidestep the issue that God may be right and others may be wrong. While I do not advocate going around and telling others they are just flat out wrong and stupid, does not mean that I re-interpret God just to fit in.

I think the main conflict is that evolution requires the concepts of 'death and suffering' to exist long before the existence of mankind and sin. And the idea is that 'death and suffering' are due to sin.

I have never thought about that, however evolution does not IMO present itself as a proponent of death and suffering. It is more a progression to get from point A to point Z.

 

[Arakhor]

The Bible was written by men - although inspired by God. I think it is clear that when it was written, the authors did not have a modern understanding of those concepts of earth science. Photosynthesis was not studied until the 17th century - to expect the authors of the books of the Old Testament to have an understanding of thos concepts centuries prior is unrealistic.

I completely agree. I don't agree that Genesis is consistent with the scientific creation of the world, but I don't expect it to be. My faith and that of millions of others does not require Genesis to be correct for God to be real.

 

[Hygro]

The Bible was written by men - although inspired by God. I think it is clear that when it was written, the authors did not have a modern understanding of those concepts of earth science. Photosynthesis was not studied until the 17th century - to expect the authors of the books of the Old Testament to have an understanding of thos concepts centuries prior is unrealistic.

My point is that they are not mutually exclusive. One can accept that God created the world, consistent with both evolution and Genesis.

That line of logic suggests a pretty strong endpoint which is that eventually our scientific knowledge gobbles up all things Abrahamic until the religion is relegating to a tiny corner of "what if".

But like how our Canaanite ancestors were sort of kind of on the right track to their limits, perhaps we should consider that the best expression of religion was only sort of kind of on the right track, and while subsuming Abrahamism in its historical foundation, articulate something that doesn't put itself on the defensive.

There are religio-spiritualities today that are on the other side of the divide and actually serve forward guidance.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

I do not agree that such a position puts either science or religion on the back burner, nor do I consider such a position "pop philosophy". I am not trying to contradict the Bible. I jus think that rather than presuming that the two exist in separate circles, one can find where they meet.

Further, what is wrong with interpreting scripture? That is part of what the study of religion is. That is what my priest does every week at mass - give his opinion as to what each reading means, and how it fits into the everyday lifes of the paritioners. Jesus spoke in parables - why? He was trying to explain/interpret the word of God to his followers.

Obviously I respect everyone's opinion.

 

[Hygro]

I do not agree that such a position puts either science or religion on the back burner, nor do I consider such a position "pop philosophy". I am not trying to contradict the Bible. I jus think that rather than presuming that the two exist in separate circles, one can find where they meet.

Further, what is wrong with interpreting scripture? That is part of what the study of religion is. That is what my priest does every week at mass - give his opinion as to what each reading means, and how it fits into the everyday lifes of the paritioners. Jesus spoke in parables - why? He was trying to explain/interpret the word of God to his followers.

Obviously I respect everyone's opinion.

I'm basically with you, I'm just pointing out that "where they meet" is going to keep changing, and keep shrinking, and the marginally returns of wisdom from appealing to the Bible are going to get razor thin and not worth the opportunity cost. I guess what I'm saying is that atheism, i.e. not having a parable/myth directed focus and worldview is going to lead to Christian values better than formally attending to Christianity will. For some forms of Christianity this has been true for quite some time.

But I reject that rejecting religiosity and/or spirituality produces the best outcome. I.e. atheism is good insofar as it rejects bad religions and can support openmindedness and make room for non-bad-religion worldviews.

Clear to me, a good religion that has all the right tropes and no extraneous ones that uses productive parables/myths/magical thinking. The best magical thinking combines what we will later discover is actually true with what drives us to get there. I.e. God says let there be light makes it a lot easier for humanity to accept the big bang theory and then give scientists resources and social validation to discover even more.

What I'm suggesting is that we can still get some juice out of appealing to the Bible but we can get waaaay more spiritual juice elsewhere.

 

[Graceheart the Leopard]

What is creation science? Madness. Pure madness.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What I find funny is that too many people fail to acknowledge that Genesis dovetails pretty nicely with evolution and the big bang, once you accept that a Biblical "day" is not 24 hours:

A day is however long it takes for a planet to rotate once. Earth's days were shorter, many millions of years ago. Those "Biblical days" must have whooshed by awfully fast!

The Bible was written by men - although inspired by God. I think it is clear that when it was written, the authors did not have a modern understanding of those concepts of earth science. Photosynthesis was not studied until the 17th century - to expect the authors of the books of the Old Testament to have an understanding of thos concepts centuries prior is unrealistic.

It was rather unsporting of God to not have explained photosynthesis to the original Old Testament authors.

 

[Perfection]

A sausage derived from and similar to the Italian mortadella, a finely ground pork sausage containing cubes of lard.

 

[Agent327]

Very interesting...

Nor did I say you did. That's how it works, you see. First you "invert" a term rendering something meaningful into something rhetorical that recontextualizes heterodox medicine as quackery.

I didn't invert a term, I inverted the use of a term. I still have never heard of 'heterodox medicine' by the way. Perhaps you are referring to the more commonly used 'alternative' medicine?

 

[timtofly]

I do not agree that such a position puts either science or religion on the back burner, nor do I consider such a position "pop philosophy". I am not trying to contradict the Bible. I jus think that rather than presuming that the two exist in separate circles, one can find where they meet.

Further, what is wrong with interpreting scripture? That is part of what the study of religion is. That is what my priest does every week at mass - give his opinion as to what each reading means, and how it fits into the everyday lifes of the paritioners. Jesus spoke in parables - why? He was trying to explain/interpret the word of God to his followers.

Obviously I respect everyone's opinion.

Is there a difference between applying Bible principles to daily life and changing the Bible to fit into daily life?

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Yes - read my statement re my priest and parables (how else do you explain "covet" to your children?). Any study of any subject involves interepretation.

Why do we celebrate Chirstmas in December? Nothing that I know of from the Bible states it was then - in fact, Mary and Joseph were coming to the city at a time specified by the government, which I believe was in the spring. But approximately the winter solstice is when we celebrate it. Why?

 

[timtofly]

I am glad that no one corrected the Bible to make it say that Jesus was born on December 25th. Likewise change the wording of Genesis 1 to say that God used evolution over billions of years.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

I'm trying to have a serious discussion, not make flip comments. I don't expect that either of us is going to change the opinion of the other, but I will always listen and consider what you have to say (politics and religion have few converts, but some).

I take it your position is that the Bible is the literal word of God. I see it as divinely inspired, but necessarily subject to man's knowledge and understanding at the time he wrote it. I see that because of inconsistencies.

 

[Hygro]

Very interesting...

I didn't invert a term, I inverted the use of a term. I still have never heard of 'heterodox medicine' by the way. Perhaps you are referring to the more commonly used 'alternative' medicine?

What are you trying to say? That homeopathy is highly dubious and nothing else? Or are you trying to say homeopathy is highly dubious and there.... [something].

 

[Harv]

Seriously, I have no clue. Some 'creation scientists' claim to be looking for evidence of creation in their respective disciplines, others claim to be looking for evidence of a literal 6-day creation, seeing it as 'opposed to Darwinian evolution' (even though evolution isn't even concerned with how life came about, a subject beyond the discipline of biology altogether). It seems to me that building a 'science' on an unproven premise is not science at all, but simply theoretical speculation.

There are countless youtube videos on 'creation science', but I don't consider youtube a science medium (I hadn't even heard of 'creation science' until I stumbled upon of these vids). So I would be interested if anyone can shed some light on this subject.

Going back to the OP - Here is another Wikipedia article on Creation Science. We still have not heard from our favorite proponent of creation science. He should be encouraged that people keep asking questions.

I read a part of one book several months ago, but never finished. I seem to remember some broad sweeping statements and claims being made, but no citation and this makes it very difficult to research the source material. When I am at home, I will try to dig up the reference and an example.

Basically, creation science claims that mainstream sciece is wrong and:

The universe was created 6000 years ago, not 14 Billion years ago.
The Earth was created 6000 years ago, not 5 Billion years ago.
Dinsaurs and humans coexisted in the past. Think Flintstones.
The Flood was a global event, not a local event.
Many rock formations and fossils were created by the Flood.
The Earth was repopulated by the 8 human survivors of the Flood.
All humans spoke the same language until the Tower of Babel?

Here are the questions I can think of so far:
When do you say the Earth was created?
Radiometric dating methods yield a different answer. How do you explain the difference?
Where does Uranium come from?
If humans and dinosaurs coexisted, what happened to the dinosaurs?
When did the Flood occur?
If the Flood was a global event and 15 cubits above the peak of Mount Everest, how could Noah have possibly measured this?
Where did all the water come from?
How was the Grand Canyon formed? How much water flow is required?
When did the Tower of Babel event happen?
Where do you find evidence that this occured?
Where did the Native Americans come from?

That is all I can think of for now.

 

[Hygro]

The real question is why don't YEC believe that the earth was created fully formed in accordance to scientific laws etc. That God created the Earth 6000 years ago with preexisting 80,000,000 year old monstersaurus bones.

It's such an incredibly easy solution but instead they insist on upholding a falsifiable religion which is clearly a) an empirically wrong religion and b) unnecessarily reducing the religion's long term relevance.

It seems strange to me. Cultlike--demands extra devotion from its followers and creates stronger us-vs-them divides. Someone prove me otherwise.