One of the problems with creation science (and there are gazillions to choose from) is the name itself: it’s not a science. It is not based on evidence, it does not promote investigation into reality, and when it’s shown to be wrong (every single time) the promoters tend to resort to lying about it. That’s not creationism’s fault, but it comes with the territory.
So what are reality-based people to do when creationists constantly and erroneously claim that it really is science?
Why, mock them of course. Something Awful has a list of creation research proposals for your perusal, and they’re brilliant. My favorite:
"Oil and the Vapor Canopy: locating crude deposits through the applied principles of flood geology"
Creation scientific evidence suggests the world was once surrounded by a layer of atmospheric water that collapsed and condensed on the land in a catastrophic event. Using the knowledge that this event wiped out nearly all life on earth, we will find low spots where dead bodies collected during the upheaval to derive techniques for locating crude oil formed many hundreds of years ago and then placed by God beneath dinosaur bones.
I can think of lots of others. If I had to submit only one, it would be "Why The Ninth Commandment Is Optional When Promoting Creationism". I think that would be a very popular project.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 am
“Abstract:
…Our goal is to achieve Sixth Day dating accuracy of plus or minus one half hour.
Proposal REJECTED – Fossils, like starlight, were created to test our Faith in the Biblical reality of Creation. No dating methods, no matter how Christian, can be trusted.”
Is it just me or is it hard to tell they’re joking?
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 am
I stopped reading Something Awful ages ago when it just started feeling that they would randomly think of something in the morning and decide just like that that it was their bash of the day.
But that one is good. They make nice hits sometime. I did enjoy their Photoshop Phridays.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
There is a huge debate within Christianity about the age of the Universe. There are many Christians out there that pretty much agree with science.
If you want to go really deep into theology, here’s an interesting article: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Bible-Science/6-02Watts.html. I haven’t read through it completely but the general idea is that the original readers of Genesis wouldn’t think the creation days were literal 24hour days, about 6000 years ago.
Christians generally accept the Bible as truth and view the world based on that. That’s why the young earth group is so problematic. They have taken a faulty interpretation from the Bible and made it a test for orthodoxy. They continue to build walls around themselves by finding ‘proofs’ for their young earth views. This site views it as dishonesty (sometimes that may be true) but often it’s probably more along the lines of willful ignorance.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
So Mike, I’m not really sure if I read that well but…. the first readers would think that the Genesis was 6000 years ago… Makes sense actually! But then the universe can’t be older than 12,000 years? Still a bit far away from the billions.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:29 am
The difference between willful ignorance and a lie is purely semantic.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Christians have a marked ability to ignore the mythological roots of their religion. Accepting ANY mythology as fact is destined to lead to faulty thinking. The origen of the legend of Lucifer is a good example of mythological misapropriation.
My personal feeling is that ALL such mythologies be accompanied by a disclaimer labeling them as Fantasy/Science fiction. Entertaining but NOT to be taken literally.
GAry 7
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Sorry to disagree with you Dr. Phil but true creation science IS a science in the fullest sense of the words.
What you are referring to is a branch of literalist religion which misuses the name “creation science”. True creation science looks at the evidence and produces a model that best fits the facts (Big Bang, 14 billion years and all that). The ID gurus of the world have hijacked the label “creation science” and have abused it to such an extent that it has become a bit of a joke – hence the opening statement in this entry.
It would be nice if “creation science” could be reapplied to that to which it was originally applied: true science about how the universe was created. Unfortunately, whilst the Biblical literalists and real scientists use it for the same branch of Biblical literalism, it’s not likely to happen.
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Selina, why not just stick to cosmology?
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Cosmology’s the word for the real science of how the universe was born from what I remember… You know, the one that disproves what ID creationists say…?
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
True – cosmology hasn’t been abducted yet. I just hate it when correct phrases are warped out of all recognition so that their meaning becomes the antithesis of their original intent.
It is a rant I have from time to time.
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Does Cosmology really cover what happened before the Big Bang? My understanding is that it starts roughly one Planck time after the Big Bang.
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Whenever we understand more about the universe at or before the Planck time, it will be incorporated into “cosmology”.
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:32 pm
There is no such term as “creation science” outside of the meaning given to it by creationists, and others with religious motives. The word “creation” infers that there is/was a creator, and while it is often used in poetic and/or religious terms to describe the wonders of the Universe, it has no scientific merit whatsoever.
The correct term is cosmology which, as far as I know, also encompasses theories about what happened “before” the Big Bang.
So, Selina, you are getting hot under the collar for no reason really. Let the creationists have the term “creation science”. It has no significance in science at all.
November 23rd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Michelle,
Sorry my previous post was so poorly written.
When I said:
“the general idea is that the original readers of Genesis wouldn’t think the creation days were literal 24hour days, about 6000 years ago”
A more clear version would be:
The general idea is that the original readers of Genesis wouldn’t think the creation days were literal 24 hour days, and wouldn’t think creation happened about 6000 years before now.
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:18 pm
A caller to the Alan Colmes show recently declared that “creationism is the Achilles’ Heel of the political right.”
I’m not sure it is “the” Achilles Heel but it is a significant weakness any way you look at it.
Being of a conservative bent myself, I don’t find this comforting.
Creationists have been hanging around on the right for many years but they seem to have multiplied like lemmings in recent years; specifically since the rise of the sanitized version known as ID.
Dealing with crazies in one’s own camp is always difficult, and always necessary since everybody has them, but Creationist clout has grown to the point where they are running the asylum in many parts of the country.
No Republican candidate with a real pretense of electability would dare to confront them directly; though most, in my experience, privately consider them insane or dishonest or both.
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Mike R.
You wrote that, “I haven’t read through [the link] completely but the general idea is that the original readers of Genesis wouldn’t think the creation days were literal 24 hour days.”
On the contrary, your link states, “[I]t seems to me that the use of evening/morning terminology and Yahweh’s rest on the seventh day… makes it all but undeniable that twenty-four hour periods are in view.”
(Just search your link for the term “twenty-four”)
This makes sense, as Genesis 1:5 states, “Vayehi-erev vayehi-voker yom echad.” (It was evening and it was morning, one day.)
Each day of creation is represented in exactly this same manner:
Vayehi-erev vayehi-voker yom sheni (second).
Vayehi-erev vayehi-voker yom shlishi (third).
Vayehi-erev vayehi-voker yom revi’i (fourth).
Vayehi-erev vayehi-voker yom chamishi (fifth).
Vayehi-erev vayehi-voker yom hashishi (sixth).
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Just to set the record straight, SA front page articles are almost always fictional. This one in particular is satirical. On the rare occasion I’ve seen a factual front page article, it takes on a vastly different editorial tone and they explicitly link their source. SA isn’t a news reporting site, strictly comedy.
Zack Parsons is a fantastic comedy writer, though, the best on Something Awful. If you’re in the mood I recommend him highly.
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Creationism promoters covet their neighbours’ houses?
Oh, wait, the other 9th commandment. They can’t even get that straight.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
SirJonah,
Some other quotes from my link are:
“it appears that Genesis 1 is not intended to be read “literally,” at least in the popular usage where it usually means “concretely” or strictly and without the possibility of metaphor, hyperbole, or symbol. This does not mean Genesis 1 is not true. It does, however, mean that its truth claims are of a different nature.”
And in the conclusion, this:
“On this reading the twenty-four hour periods, or more accurately dawn-to-dusk days, probably reflect the notion of the customary daily periods of work. Yahweh is the builder, and each day he speaks and thus by divine fiat builds or fills a discrete part of his realm. Consequently, the injunction to keep Sabbath is less intent on imitating six literal twenty-four-hour days of creation than it is a summons for Israel to live out her creation story—structured as it is in the nature of the case by six days with a seventh to rest—and so to declare herself to be Yahweh’s “son,” imitating him in continuing his creation work of bringing order with the ultimate goal of Sabbath rest.”
… So I hold to my position that Genesis does not teach that God created the universe in six days about 6,000 years ago.
Phil, I hope adding theology to this discussion is OK. I cheer you on when you go after Creation Science, Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism because you’re right about many of the people pushing these things. They have a (not so) hidden agenda that should be opposed. And I agree that it is not science.
My goal here is to point out that not all Christians are like that and many of us are excited about science, astronomy etc. We just think God is on the other side of the big bang. That’s a big thing, I know, but it’s a philosophical/metaphysical thing. I wouldn’t want to believe in a God that could be manipulated with laboratory experiments or governed by an equation. God as revealed in the Bible is not like that at all.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I’m glad to see your response, Mike. I was just about to point out that SirJonah is guilty of the sort of “quote mining” that we all despise. I will also add that it is primarily our responsibility, as people who believe there is room for both science and faith, to take on the anti-science within our respective churches. I know Mike and I aren’t the only ones who read this board, so I would say to all like-minded individuals that we are the logical mediators, we MUST take a stand against anti-science and show people that there are other choices besides “Bible believer” and “Godless Darwinist”.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:23 am
There are three main strains of Christian thought regarding the Bible and science:
1) The Bible is inerrant and its meaning is plainly understood. Genesis says that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, Noah’s flood was a global flood, and anything from science that says otherwise is must be untrue. This is usually the stance of Young-Earth creationists.
2) The Bible is inerrant, but you cannot necessarily apprehend its meaning from straightforward reading of the text. The Genesis account is consistent with an old Earth (billions of years) and Noah’s flood was a regional flood. The Bible says nothing that is in direct conflict with science. This is usually the stance of Old Earth creationists and many IDists.
3) The Bible is not inerrant, and much of the Bible is mythology or simply the result of oral history being written down many years after the events. Genesis is a collection of fables that illustrate the relationship of Man with God; the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Flood did not happen. Where the Bible conflicts with science, it is merely because it was written by a primitive tribal society who knew little about how the world around them worked. This is usually the stance of Theistic Evolutionists.
All three sets of believers are pretty certain that they’re correct and the others are wrong. YECists are typically accused of being flat out wrong when it comes to much of science. OECists/IDists are typically accused of tying themselves up in knots, and compromising the Bible’s plain spoken message as they try to find an interpretation of Genesis that will fit with the current scientific thinking. TEists are typically accused of diluting the message of the Bible to the point where none of it can be trusted.
To put it in simple terms, either only position is correct, or they all are. I vote for “none of the above”.
November 24th, 2007 at 3:28 am
@Mike R.: Let me first make clear that I respect personal beliefs of any kind, including the belief in UFOs, urinekinesis or the deity/deities of your choice. However, it seems to me that your belief in a god that “is on the other side of the big bang” is no more rational than the belief in a young earth. There are many religious people like you who restrict the effective range of their belief systems a little bit each time a scientific discovery is made that contradicts some part of it. You have simply taken this strategy to its logical conclusion for the time being, as no-one can look at or beyond the big bang. Yet. But of course, theoretical physicists will at some point be able to look beyond the big bang, and when they do, you are going to have to withdraw even further — you will have to believe in a deity that does not interact with the physical universe in any way. Now, for all intents and purposes, such a deity is indistinguishable from a non-existing deity. In fact, you already hint at this final withdrawal when you say that you “wouldn’t want to believe in a God that could be manipulated with laboratory experiments or governed by an equation”. But let me point out that, while, as I said, I respect that position as part of your personal belief system, it is not compatible with a scientifically grounded world view, in which you never posit things that are inherently unfalsifiable.
@Wayne: Much as I appreciate your position that moderate Christians (which is what I am assuming you are) should “take a stand against anti-science”, I don’t think you can be part of the cure. As I just pointed out, even Mike R.’s moderate position (which you seem to share) is completely incompatible with a scientific world view and you therefore simply don’t have any credibility when it comes to defending science. You want to “show people that there are other choices besides “Bible believer†and “Godless Darwinist— — sure there are. You could, for example, be a Quran believer, a numerologist, a reiki believer, a UFO believer, a urinekinesis believer, or any other kind of a believer. Since belief does not require evidence, you can believe in anything you want, and thus there are an infinite number of belief systems that do not differ from each other in any meaningful way.
November 24th, 2007 at 7:47 am
>”Does Cosmology really cover what happened before the Big Bang?”
String theory does. Brane collisions and all that.
Good book:
http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Universe-Beyond-Big-Bang/dp/0385509642/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195915493&sr=1-2
Written by the cosmologists who are developing it. Last I checked the WMAP results support both their model and the inflationary model.
November 24th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Tactius: “There are three main strains of Christian thought regarding the Bible and science:”
A nice attempt to boil it down, but my experience tells me there are literally as many interpretations of the Bible as there are readers( and non-readers for that matter). Anyone who ever attended a Bible study class can attest to the above.
But still I wonder how many devout athiest would remain such when push comes to shove in the proverbial “Fox Hole”. Hope is a powerful stimulant to survival. It is not an unlikely connection between evolutionary survival and strong belief systems. Progress however, has always continued dispite the Flat Earthers (aka Creationist, aka ID’est).
November 24th, 2007 at 9:13 am
W/O a definition of what we mean by God, Deists and atheists are arguing about apples and oranges. Having said that, allow me to offer a (possibly) useful definition:
“God is an emergant property of a mutiplicity of complex nervous systems,,,”
Thus, as WE evolve, so does God.
For all the gods worshipped by the Romans, none interfered with their pragmatic comprehension of the universe around them. They continued to acquire knowledge(scientia) of their world and developed means to manipulate it(roads, bridges and aquducts).
That’s all natural knowledge(science) really means, understanding HOW the universe works.
IF God can be described as an emergant property of our complex, interactive nervous systems, then we really have no argument, for the emergant God IS us,,,and in a million years or so, we’ll be passing along our ethical heritage to another creation,,,perhaps another universe???
As far as that emergant God consciousness is concerned, it would have about as much impact on the human precusors to it as our individual conscioueness can have upon our individual neurons,,,so praying would be of little value,,,but having fun/feeling good, might.
Hey, I really enjoy my dopamine receptors.
GAry 7
November 24th, 2007 at 9:17 am
But still I wonder how many devout athiest would remain such when push comes to shove in the proverbial “Fox Holeâ€.
Does it matter? It is a generally accepted principle, even in the less-than-civilized parts of the world, that oaths and contracts made under duress are invalid. An atheist conversion in the proverbial fox hole would certainly qualify as such a situation. Even the Bible suggest that such forced conversions are not valid.
If we assume something so fantastical as the existence of the Christian God, would he not see through the ruse of an atheist conversion under duress? How pathetically stupid is this Christian God if he’d buy into “I disavowed you for years, but since I’m about to have my arse handed to me, can I be on your team?”
If we base our thinking on something more rational, WHY would an atheist bother appealing to some invisible being that he knows doesn’t exist? Irrational thinking brought on by extreme duress, perhaps, but can we really hold that against him? Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
November 24th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Evolving Squid: Clearly your legalistic jargon has some application, however the point is that in the survival situation belief systems have value. The failure to survive is the failure to evolve. If you acknowledge that man still faces survival issues then one can conclude he may still need this survival mechanism that has evolved with him. And by the way most “fox hole conversions” I have heard about were enduring changes.
November 24th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Well said, Evolving Squid. What is particularly dishonest about the “fox hole” argument is that it is typically offered as proof for a deity, via the route of “there are no real atheists”.
Lcedar, sure, there may have been enduring fox hole conversions, but one would argue that those people already had the propensity for belief (much like doubting Thomas). On the other hand, there are plenty of cases where the atheist in the fox hole was scared sh*tless but nevertheless stayed an atheist throughout the whole ordeal.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:12 am
I found it amusing that the proposal Phil cited was turned down. You’d think that if young-earth geology were true, that it would give better results than mainstream geology, and in particular would be better able to predict where to find oil. And if that were the case, oil companies would hire young-earth geologists (like Glenn Morton used to be), whether YECism was accepted by mainstream science or not. Same thing goes for dowsers.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:50 am
All I’m trying to say is that not all Christians are opposed to science or think scientists are the enemy.
Frank said:
“There are many religious people like you who restrict the effective range of their belief systems a little bit each time a scientific discovery is made that contradicts some part of it. You have simply taken this strategy to its logical conclusion for the time being, as no-one can look at or beyond the big bang.”
I agree with the comment. I’ve modified my interpretation of the Bible as I’ve learned more about the natural world. I’ll probably do it some more. The Bible states that God reveals himself through nature. So, from a Christian perspective, science is teaching us more about God just as much as the Bible. The big bang theory is compatible with the Bible. When/if science commits to a theory that is incompatible with the Bible, I’ll go with the Bible.
But as a Christian, I do have some whacked out, anti-science, totally nuts beliefs. This is the “What We Believe” statement from my church, and I agree with it. God can do anything he wants in any way he wants so miracles, resurrections, and all that are possible with God.
Frank said some more:
“Since belief does not require evidence, you can believe in anything you want, and thus there are an infinite number of belief systems that do not differ from each other in any meaningful way.”
Why have I chosen the Bible and not some other religion? Well, I became a Christian when I was a kid and really didn’t think much about why. I accepted God’s forgiveness through Christ on faith and that was it. Some call it dopamine, I call it God. I’ve read some great stuff that has increased my confidence in my belief system. I’d recommend “Evidence That Demands A Verdict” by Josh McDowell (amazon) and
“Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis (amazon).
A few blogs I like are:
He Lives, by David Heddle and Thinking Christian, by Tom Gilson.
A web site with a lot of topical information is God and Science. But the tone of this site is a little condescending.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Despite the satire posted by Something Awful and BA, some geologists do say global flood theory better predicts oil deposits. One is David D’Armond.
Also, a New Scientist story last year focused on a new deposition theory for Lihir gold mine (one of the world’s largest), which proposes the entire gold formation may have been deposited by geothermal forces in a matter of days or months. Global flood theory may need more development, but there’s no denying more and more geologists are proposing floods to explain what they’re observing in the field.
November 24th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I agree wholeheartedly, which sort of makes a mockery of the whole inerrancy doctrine, but when it comes to debating the issue of origins (including astronomy) then all these varied opinions do tend to fall into one of those three camps.
I can only relate my own experience. I have never been in a real foxhole but a few years ago, after I had become an atheist, I was utterly convinced I was going to die from ALS. I was a mess. Nothing would convince me otherwise even after multiple trips to the neurologist. It was over a years before I finally had to agree that I was not really dying. (Turns out I have Benign Fasciculation Syndrome, and fears over ALS are not that uncommon amongst new sufferers, since the early symptoms of ALS are quite similar).
Anyway, afterwards, when I looked back, I realized that not once, even in my darkest moments (and they were pretty dark) did I cry out to a deity of any kind. Being an atheist, it just didn’t occur to me to do it, not even subconsciously. Since I don’t believe there is a God (at least not as the Bible explains the concept) it would not have made any sense to do such a thing — sort of the way a Christian would react it asked if they had ever considered praying to Thor for help when stuck out in the middle of a colossal thunderstorm.
That’s why I believe that the vast majority of atheists in real foxholes do not pray to God when they are under fire, although I am sure it does happen occasionally. What we have here is an example of reporting bias. When a soldier who is an atheist steps out of a foxhole still an atheist, what’s the news in that? It happens everyday, and the atheists in question are hardly likely to testify to all their friends “Yep, I’m still an atheist” every time it happens.
Now, when on the odd occasion an atheist does have a conversion under fire, to them it’s often a major, life changing event, and you can bet your bottom dollar they are going to tell lots of people about it. Those are the only ones you hear about, that’s news, whereas an atheist remaining an atheist is news to no one.
November 24th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
John McDowell’s writings are popular, but his arguments are pretty shallow and unimpressive. His choice of experts to interview for his books is very biased towards Christian sympathizers (despite his claims to be objective). There are plenty of good refutations to his claims on the web.
Heddle falls into category (2) in my list earlier in this thread. He believes that the Bible is inerrant, but he is not a young Earth creationist. Hence his arguments for reconciling the Bible with science can get pretty contorted and often involves trying to dissect the original meaning of individual Hebrew words. Trying to turn the plain reading of Noah’s Flood as a global flood and turn it into a regional event takes a lot of deft ducking and diving. Why not call it a parable and be done with it?
November 24th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
@tacitus, your steadfast non-belief even in your darkest moments is a great inspiration for every atheist
Seriously, though, I don’t see how it would be an argument for the existence of a god even if you had faltered. I once went through an extremely difficult time, and in my many moments of weakness I showed all kinds of irrational behaviors and voiced all kinds of silly beliefs. That doesn’t make any of them true though…
November 24th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Ive said this before on this blog and I’ll say it again. All religion from Christian to Moslem to the ancient Egyptians created thir faith from a inherent and natural fear of death. This may sound like something really basic that need not be expounded on but I think people need to consider it a bit. People everywhere fear the unknown. And death is the ultimate unknown, right? Well, wouldn’t that be the ultimate breeding ground for the most outlandish belief systems? All religions everywhere and everytime stem from this one basic concept. People can’t imagine that their pathetic little lives can just end, blink out of existance and have nothing more to look forward to.
The question is, can that be combated against? I say no. There will never be an end to it because no one will ever be able to prove that there is lide after death. No one can prove that there isn’t, either. Therefore, the power-hungry will invent something for the hopeless mass of humanity to believe in and that hopeless mass will cling to it like a drowning man will cling to a raft. This allows the power-hungry to control the masses and thereby secure themselves, in this life at least. I doubt they believe in their own fantasies; they just want to be on the top of the heap.
And if you think about it in terms of evolution and the theory that the most powerful silverback gorilla gets to hump the most females, it pretty much confirms the theory of evolution, doesn’t it? It’s all instinctive behavior. It’s just been rationalized by man’s thinking brain. Power provides security and security tends to ensure survival. Survival of the tribe, survival of the fittest, no?
I’m no writer like Phil is and I didn’t say this very well, I know, but it makes perfect sense to me in my own deficient little brain. This is why I have never placed any stock in religion. It is a creation of man and is therefore highly suspect. When repeatable proof of the existance of a higher being is provided to me by the scientific community, then I’ll reconsider my belief system. Till then, keep religion the hell away from me and keep it out of politics, schools, the workplace, and anywhere else it could have an effect on my lifestyle.
November 24th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Mike R.:
Let’s not forget that the book of Luke (Luke 3:23-38) claims to trace Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Adam. While “Adam is the first human being” is a different claim than “the earth was created 6000 years ago”, it’s closely related, and it says that human beings were created 6000 years ago in a special act of creation. Nevermind the fact that we share so many genetic similarities to apes – including sharing many of the same broken genes.
November 24th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Evolving Squid: Clearly your legalistic jargon has some application, however the point is that in the survival situation belief systems have value.
it’s got nothing to do with jargon. Let me simplify it for you:
Life threatening stress can make people crazy.
And by the way most “fox hole conversions†I have heard about were enduring changes.
I’ve never heard of one, and I know lots of atheists who served in a multitude of horrible places, but I’ll grant you that there have been some of which I am unaware.
As an explanation, I offer my previous posit, which does much more to explain the conversion than does any “survival” or “evolution” angle.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:26 am
@Lcedar: I have actually been in a foxhole, more times than I care to count, and the majority of my troops have been either agnostic or atheist. The commonest call when someone was in mortal fear, especially if they had been injured, was for their mother. I have never once heard anyone who was agnostic or atheist call on any deity, at least not unless they were using the term pejoratively.
@MikeR: As for Heddle, you want to visit PZ’s site and see him get handed his arse every time he tries his convoluted logic to balance science against his belief, not a pretty sight. He is also one of those believers who constantly redefines his god such that it is not possible to understand who or what his god actually is most of the time. In fact, for someone who claims to be a xtian, by the time he has finished his redefinitions I doubt if the majority of other xtians would recognise his god either.
November 25th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Daniel Devine.
There is a whole lot of difference between proposing a flood caused a mineral deposit and there being a Biblical ‘Global Flood’
November 25th, 2007 at 7:50 am
It baffles/perplexes me that everyone seems to ignore the fact that the “original readers” of Genesis were rabbis. The Torah (of which Genesis is the first book) was written BY Jews FOR Jews. It is for the JUDAIC religions. If you want the correct religious interpretation, go ask a rabbi. Why the xtians grabbed on to the “Old” Testament is one of the strange twists of history. Really strange, since it’s a collection that states only Jews are God’s chosen people and that if you’re a gentile, you have other gods to worship…
November 25th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Again, my point is that not all Christians are anti-science.
The Bible teaches that God reveals himself through his creation. Science helps us understand the creation. We can know God better through a better understanding of science.
November 25th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Adam and Eve were the first JEWISH humans, not the precusors of ALL humanity. It is the norm for every low-tech tribe to refer to themselves as “humans” and all those outside their tribe as “something else”(read,”not us”).
Religions get their start from the spiritual/mystical experience of one person, who has been to the edge of darkness and found,,,something,,,which is then blathered all over the place. Anyone who has ever had such an experience can testify to the power and immediacy of it. It gets accepted by the ordinary human because those so affected are often extraordinary in some impressive way. Among Muslims, there is the conviction that the Suras of the Quran are the most perfect poetry ever and must therefore be the literal word of Allah. They also believe that Mohammed stopped a meteor in flight, which is the rock contained in the Great mosque in Mecca. My friend Saib Al Ghamdi said that the rock sat upon a slab of granit and was presumed to still be “floating” slightly above it, but when I asked if they ever checked to see if it was really suspended he said,” That would be an abrogation of faith”.
We are not the only animal that appreciates death. Elephants have been observed apparently mourning the passing of one of their number. I wonder if they have a conception of a god and an afterlife???
Fear of personal extinction derives from the evolutionary drive to survive. Nearly four billion years of such selection will not be denied. There is one thing to consider about immortality however,,,it might get REALLY,REALLY boring,,,
Gary 7
November 25th, 2007 at 11:51 am
If we can ever solve the Telemere replication problem people might very well live a lot longer barring cancer, heart problems or the any number of ways you can naturally die.
November 25th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
One interesting aspect of Christianity that isn’t talked about much is that for all the descriptions of how wonderful, amazing, and fantastic Heaven is supposed to be, very few Christians, even among the staunchest of believers, are keen to get there in a hurry. Christians are willing to endure as much pain and suffering in an effort to remain alive as the most avowed atheist.
So while promises of a glorious Heaven obviously provide some sort of comfort to people, in practical terms, it doesn’t actually make much difference, which is odd really, given that compared with an eternity of bliss in Heaven, our lives are brutal, full of pain and suffering, and infinitesimally short.
You can bet your bottom dollar that Christians will be right up there are the front of the line when the first real life-extending treatment is introduced.
November 25th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I’ve always wondered how good Heaven could possibly be, given that it seems that it will be full of fundamentalist Christians, Islamic suicide bombers, bizarre cultists and such.
November 25th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Or perhaps heaven is like this…
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0492.html
November 25th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Daniel Devine:
Your second paragraph is misleading. The article has nothing to do with global flood theories and does not mention “days or months” anywhere. It is a summary of a New Scientist article about the rate that gold deposits could form from the heated water in hydrothermal vents. The main point is that a geologist has measured the rate of formation of the Lihr gold deposit on Papua New Guinea’s Lihir Island. He states that it took 55,000 years to form at the current rate of hydrothermal activity. Another researcher states that he has seen sites with 1000 times the concentration of gold and the rate of deposition would then be 1000 times faster, i.e. 50-60 years.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Mike R.:
“The Bible teaches that God reveals himself through his creation. Science helps us understand the creation. We can know God better through a better understanding of science.”
Yes, I understand that is your faith-based position, but is it true? It seems like this philosophy is a way to avoid the collision between science and religion. Further, every time a theists find something in science that they don’t like, they avoid attributing it to God or create some excuse. Why did God make malaria, mosquitoes, ticks, leprosy, venomous snakes, scorpions, the black plague, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc etc? Of course, we’re not supposed to learn that God created those things and just threw them in to make his “reality TV show” called “Earth” more interesting. No, we’re supposed to interpret them in a way that preserves God’s benevolence – which is ridiculous and one-sided way to look at things. I think if science teaches us anything about God, it’s that He’s an absent landlord who simply doesn’t care, or maybe He simply doesn’t exist.
November 26th, 2007 at 2:22 am
8th Commandment…
The 9th is “Though Shalt not cover thy neighbours ass” remembered by all good little catholic schoolboys 
November 26th, 2007 at 8:05 am
[...] in the comments to a blog post entitled “Creation research” at the Bad Astronomy [...]
November 26th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
> But let me point out that, while, as I said, I respect that position as part of your personal belief system, it is not compatible with a scientifically grounded world view, in which you never posit things that are inherently unfalsifiable.
Such as the value of a human being as a moral agent, the value of individuality and free thought versus communal action and conformity, the rule of law, Western liberalism in general, so on and so forth. These concepts are intrinsically philosophical in nature and thus inherently unfalsifiable, but it’s a rare person with a ’scientific worldview’ that doesn’t support the ideals of Western liberalism and posit them freely.
I severely doubt at this time that natural materialism, as good at it is in explaining natural phenomena, will develop into a ’science of philosophy’ where any concept that can be thought can be subject to mathematical proof. This is my concern with science becoming a ‘world-view’ ideology rather than a methodology for explaining the world around us; at the current point in time, such scientism is insufficient for describing not only the world around us but the world inside our brain and thus dangerously limiting.
One could and probably will make the reasonable argument that a God-concept is not the same as an abstract ideal of action and value, such as the tenets of Western liberalism. My counterargument is that once people remove their Gods from being natural active agents (in no case can anyone say “Goddidit” as God doesn’t do), and instead make them only metaphysical concepts from which to derive philosophical positions, then the God-concept is itself an abstract ideal that does not conflict with naturalistic explanation of the universe around us. Certainly, one may as well not believe, but at that point one may as well not believe in the various freedoms many have come to assume to be ‘natural’ and ‘truths’ assumed ’self-evident’ through repetition cementing them as such in our cultural consciousness.
November 26th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Thank you for your reply. I have no idea if you will ever see this, but here goes:
I did, in fact, read those two quotes before I posted, but deemed them apologetic in nature (in other words, I quickly dismissed them after thinking about them for a bit). That is why I stuck with the pertinent quote that I found wherein the author concedes that “six twenty-four hour days are in view.”
My mistake was that I should have realized that THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IS AN APOLOGETIC RATIONALIZATION IN SUPPORT OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION! It even goes so far as to denigrate “Darwinism.”
I’m such a dummy! Seriously.
That is the article’s entire point. This is my stupid mistake. So in a sense, Wayne is right, I was quote mining. But not in the intentional, deceptive way he hopes or has faith I was. I was inadvertently quote mining. But quote mining nevertheless.
My mistake was to commit the mistake I was accusing you of: namely, of not reading (recognizing) the whole article (for what it was).
This is called irony. And you have won the argument.
I see now more clearly what this writer (at your link ) was/is trying to do. In my opinion, he is trying to have it both ways. It is a classic strategy of Christian apologetics. He is trying to reconcile what is otherwise a very concise, straightforward late Iron Age story of creation (even though it is actually two creation stories written during different centuries, but I digress) with no hint of metaphor or symbolism… with what he knows about 21st century science — namely, that the world could not have been created in six literal twenty-four hour days.
Notice that we never seriously question whether the Babylonians or Assyrians or Egyptians truly believed their creation myths or if they thought it was a metaphor. I think the reason Christians such as this gentleman (and yourself) view clearly incorrect passages of the Bible as metaphor or symbolism is precisely because Judiasm (and by association, Christianity) was the lottery winner of ancient Middle Eastern religions — a stroke of serindipidy that it survives to this day to be re-evaluated and re-interpreted by modern minds.
As a Christian, the author of your linked-to article, has absolute faith that the Bible is the word of God so it must be conveying some kind — any kind of truth… therefore his argument is that, yes, Genesis speaks of six twenty-four hour days… but it was only symbolic! to serve the later and more important purpose of establishing the Sabbath tradition that later crops up in Exodus.
Riiiiiighhhht.
Of course, this is a slippery slope. Deciding what was “meant” as metaphor and what was “meant” as literal in a multi-thousand year-old document that has anonymous authorship and only rarely lines up with external contemporaneous sources and the archaeological record. Is Adam a metaphor or literal? Was he a real person who committed a real sin that we inherited through heredity that Christ was sent to atone for? If the story of Adam is just a metaphor, then why did Jesus have to be tortured and killed? If it’s literal, isn’t God the one who is responible for the whole mess?
Did Paul believe that Adam was a metaphor? Did Jesus?
I’m sure there’s an apologetic somewhere that explains this. There always is.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:02 am
I never thought I would see the say when a SA front page article would get this many people seriously arguing about ID. WTG Zak.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Tinyfrog:
The “God can’t be good and all powerful” argument is a powerful one.
The basic argument is:
1. Christians claim God is omnipotent and loving.
2. An omnipotent and loving god would create a perfect universe.
3. The universe is not perfect, suffering and pain exist.
4. Because the universe is not perfect, God cannot exist.
#2 is what I disagree with, invalidating #3 and #4.
It’s interesting that the Bible never claims that creation is perfect, but “very good”.
So why would an omnipotent and loving God want a creation where pain and suffering can exist? Even more, God had to know how it would turn out. What was his purpose?
God’s first purpose is to glorify himself. Mankind’s free will is a way to bring more Glory to God. We can choose to love him, or not. The Bible teaches that the greatest commandment is to love God, then your neighbor.
I’d recommend reading “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis if you want to have a really great Christian Thinker argue this point. I’m more along the lines of a poor Christian dunce when it comes to arguing points of theology.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:07 am
http://www.theledger.com/article/20071120/NEWS/711200414
“A majority of Polk County School Board members say they support teaching intelligent design in addition to evolution in public schools.†They also oppose the proposed Florida State science education standards that specify teaching godless evolution!
Florida education and intellect hard at work!
Cordially,
Rick O’Keefe
Center for Inquiry Tampa
(formerly Center for Inquiry-Florida)
rokeefe@CenterForInquiry.net
The Center for Inquiry is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization
encouraging evidence-based inquiry into science,
pseudoscience, medicine and health, religion, ethics,
and society. Through education, research, publishing,
and social services, CFI seeks to present affirmative
alternatives based on scientific naturalism.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:17 am
> God’s first purpose is to glorify himself. Mankind’s free will is a way to bring more Glory to God.
I’m a deist, as I’ve never been shy to admit, and this is half the reason why. Either a tinkerer clockwork-orange God is malevolent and enjoys people’s suffering, or He has a self-image problem and creates toys to say nice things about Him. Clemens had a good rebuttal to this…
“If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks. He would not stoop to ask for any man’s compliments, praises, flatteries; and He would be far above exacting them. I would have Him as self-respecting as the better sort of man in these regards.” (Scroll about halfway down to the bottom)
November 27th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
But Intelligent Design has got nothing to do with religion. Nope, nosireebob…
:-p
November 27th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Soemone along way up this thread said :
“If we base our thinking on something more rational, WHY would an atheist bother appealing to some invisible being that he knows doesn’t exist? Irrational thinking brought on by extreme duress, perhaps, but can we really hold that against him? Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.”
Guilty? Bit of a value judgement there, mate.
‘Innocent’ equaling atheist and ‘guilty’ equaling believer in God is an assertion or statement that reflects rather badly on you and your prejudice some might possibly say. What penalty would you applyas sentence for those convicted of ..well having convictions different to your own? Lets not forget sometimes intolerance goes both ways and atheists too can be intolerant and closed-minded.
As to the question of :
“If we base our thinking on something more rational, WHY would an atheist bother appealing to some invisible being that he knows doesn’t exist?”
Perhaps its not a matter of KNOWING God doesnt exist but thinking or considering it to be so.
Perhaps the athiest might _doubt_ God’s existence but have some faint HOPE (or perhaps fear) of it. When put tothe test perhaps theathuiest may pary in hope ratehr than expectation and be answered despite their previously held belief or proclaimed “knowledge” …
I don’t claim to know, I claim unceratinty and maybe that admissionof what we don’t know butcould hope for inour dakest times is something, however vague and unscientific… ?
As for ‘xtian’; never heard of that one. If the person here using it meant ‘Christian’ then why not simply say it or is the word itself too offensive to the sensitivity of that person?
November 28th, 2007 at 12:08 am
As for science and religion both have their place and their role – & I’d agree with most here when noting religion is best given little if any role in the governing of nations.
Galileo stated well : “Religion tells us how to go to heaven not how the heavens go.”
The Bible is NOT a science textbook and shouldn’t be used as such.
It is however meant to be a guide to faith, personal and community relations with God and between you and me and our “neighbours” -meaning all other people.
Sceince is great at explaining and describing some things – the spectral type of a star or characteristics of a comet but less good at calculating and less useful in valuing others – such as the expression on the face of a child viewing that star or comet or better yet the emotions stirred by that experience.
Science isn’t a religion. Religion isn’t a science. Both along with art and politics are aspects of our lives and how we choose to balance them is up to us.
November 28th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
>such as the expression on the face of a child viewing that star or comet or better yet the emotions stirred by that experience.
I know what you’re getting at and I do agree, but in the interests of pedantic fairness computer facial recognition of emotional states is getting pretty darned good… and it’s based on SCIENCE! Well, statistics based on database matching… but SCIENCE! nonetheless.
March 25th, 2009 at 11:41 am
The Bible states “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the easrtg exhibits His handiwork.” I rest my case.
March 25th, 2009 at 11:42 am
the word should be Earth not easrtg.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Man could no more have evolved from nothing than an aircraft carrier could have evolved from a john boat.