Young Earth Creationism
I know I give you Darwinists a hard time on this blog, so for the next several weeks, I’m going to be periodically posting some common arguments for Young Earth Creationism, and giving the reasons why I do not believe it to be a valid scientific position.
There are tons and tons of organizations out there which have dedicated massive time and resources to prove that which they assume to be true. That’s my main beef with YEC (young earth creationism).
One of the most difficult things to do as a Christian studying science, is to lay aside our pre-existing assumptions about the origins of the universe and life. I almost have more respect for someone who will say that they have an utter disregard for science and care only about what the Bible says, than I do for someone who claims to be objectively scientific, yet does research based on a fundamental belief that the evidence will prove their assumption, as is the case with YEC. You simply cannot be interested in what the evidence indicates if you’ve already decided to throw out any evidence that contradicts your assumption.
That’s not science … that’s religious fundamentalism.
So if you’re in the mood for some (hopefully) stirring debate on such topics as, The Age of the Universe, The Age of the Earth, Fossils, The Genesis Flood, and many more, you’ll want to be coming back. No, this blog won’t be dominated by science posts, but this is something I think we REALLY need to cover.
And for those of you with a feed reader, the best way to stay up with the conversation is by subscribing to my feed. Also, if you want to leave a comment on any of the stories coming up, make sure you check the box that says “subscribe to comments” when you submit your comment. That way, you’ll be emailed when a someone replies to the story. Also, you can subscribe to my comment feed in your feed reader to be alerted to any new comments on this blog.
I’m looking forward to these next few weeks!!!
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Shalom…
Nathan said… (“I almost have more respect for someone who will say that they have an utter disregard for science and care only about what the Bible says,”)
Yay! There is a place for me here in the scientific theory war!
Nathan said… (“I’m looking forward to these next few weeks!!!”)
Alas, I will have to just read, and not comment. The last time I commented, I think I looked kinda like an uneducated, babbling fool amongst the “Hawkings”…
Though I do have one question that is kinda scientific…
Is God in control of what scientific discoveries that mankind supposedly makes?
Ergo, the only way we excel in science is by the Grace of God?
Very cool. A Christian, and subscriber to ID, would probably be considered an inherently more credible source in refuting young-Earth creationism than a grouchy atheist- creationists reading this blog would be less likely to dismiss your arguments offhand than if they were coming from someone like me.
Of course, as Christians we would be amiss to not concede and embrace that God is in control of everything, including scientific discovery.
One of the elegant beauties of the natural world is the fact that He allows us to sense it, which is one reason I embrace science, rather than shun it as many of my peers do.
Matt,
Concerning the “prophecies came true” argument:
The only verification of these fulfillments is in the Bible itself. This is tantamount to saying that because there was a prophecy that “the one” would return in the movie “The Matrix”, and it came true in the character Neo, the movie should be considered absolute truth. Obviously, this isn’t a good road to go down.
I mean that with no disrespect, Matt. Believe me, I would have thought that argument was a good one too, no more than 3 years ago.
Just for future reference, when trying to defend the Bible’s veracity, referring to the Bible is usually not the best tactic. Self-referential proofs probably won’t convince anyone.
Rock on everyone!!! And please don’t hesitate to comment!
Nathan
Nathan Said… (“Of course, as Christians we would be amiss to not concede and embrace that God is in control of everything, including scientific discovery.”)
Good! I just wanted to make sure we are all on the same page.
I sat and meditated on this before I answered… And I think I have come up with a new attitude towards science.
I am a “Calvinist” ergo, the “Elect” have already been written in the “Lambs Book Of Life” long before the dawn of time.
But does that mean that I should give up on the “Missions field” seeing as the elect will be saved whether I “witness” or not?
NO! I should support missions even more knowing that those elect are out there waiting for me and others!
Since God is obviously in control of mankind’s scientific discoveries, should I just ignore science, and allow man not to progress in knowledge, seeing as God is only going to allow us to discover what he wants us to know anyways?
Well… No!
Like missions, there are many elect to hunt down and bring home, so maybe science has things that have yet to be revealed that I need. What if God is preparing the way for new medicines that will cure diseases that we are plagued by? Or ancient artifacts yet to be found that will shed new light on early Semetic cultures? Or innovations that will pave the way to new forms of fuels or transportation that will be less harmful to the planet?
Maybe what I need to do is judge science by its “fruits”? throw out the “junk science” and embrace the science that is supported by God’s Word?
It just goes to show… You can teach an old theology dog, new science tricks!
Nathan,
…”"yet does research based on a fundamental belief that the evidence will prove their assumption, as is the case with YEC. You simply cannot be interested in what the evidence indicates if you’ve already decided to throw out any evidence that contradicts your assumption.”"
I’m sad to say I think you’ve entirely missed the nature of the issue. Only an ignorant polemicist (creationist or Darwinist) would ever make the claim that the evidence could possibly “prove their assumption” in any science field. Science doesn’t work like that.
Secondly, no real scientist of any persuasion ever “throws out evidence” – that is perhaps one of the grandest illusions that anti-creationists (not calling you one, necessarily) make. They say “heh, PBS said that the evidence proves Darwinism, so if you reject Darwinism you are throwing out evidence.” What is really happening, of course, is that raw data is being interpreted by each party as being supportive of their assumptions.
That said, if you consider it “religious fundamentalism” to interpret data in accordance with a pre-determined worldview, two conclusions are in order:
-almost everyone is a fundi.
- Christians, of all groups, are given no option otherwise.
Cheers,
-Matthew
Matthew,
Precisely my point. It’s NOT science. Yet, as I’m sure you’re aware, many Christians believe whole-heartedly that God created the world in 6 days 10,000 years ago. They believe this without a single bit of evidence other than scripture.
Many (if not most or all) of the apologetic creationist organizations do their research based on the fundamental belief that if they just dig deep enough, there will be evidence to support what they already unwaveringly believe.
To quote from AiG:
I think that quote speaks for itself.
You are correct. Perhaps I should have said selectively interpret, or reinterpret. This, as you are aware, happens quite often on both sides of the aisle.
Perhaps you could elaborate on your last paragraph. I’m not quite sure I understood it.
I’ll be lurking mostly on these threads, but don’t take my silence as a sign of boredom. I’m just not as well-versed on the topic and most of my comments would only drag us all down to a very low common denominator.
It’s been a while since I’ve studied this stuff, so I’m looking forward to reading.
However, I will say this: The Bible was not written as a historical or scientific book of record. Reading it as such always leads to trouble. At the same time, it is the infallible, inspired Word of God. I believe that truth is universal and absolute. If something is true, it will ultimately be confirmed across the board. This is why Christians should NOT be afraid of science! Explore the possibilities, and do the “real” science. In the end the truth will reveal itself.
Faith, as the Bible defines it, never includes ignoring the facts or blissful naievity. Faith looks at the facts square in the face and holds those facts in the light of the truth of who God is (as revealed in scripture). Christians who hide from the facts, misunderstand faith and misunderstand how great their God is.
Hi Nathan
I wonder that some of your remarks might be on dangerous grounds. It seems that the flaw is that belief in the Bible needs some sort of scientific evidence. Now I might be reading into something that isn’t there. But… if you really are saying something like this for the first three chapters of Genesis then I believe you are on dangerous ground.
Rich
Nathan,
“”"Many (if not most or all) of the apologetic creationist organizations do their research based on the fundamental belief that if they just dig deep enough, there will be evidence to support what they already unwaveringly believe.”"”
Read one, or two, or any of a single Uniformitarian geologist’s website/research papers/ journals. It is standard protocol.
That is exactly what bothers me about the anti-creationist arguments (though of course many of their comments are appropriate) – there is the false suggestion that somehow many of these demonstrated data treatments are unique.
As for the quote from AIG – re-read it, and everything else they say. They do not take an evidentialist approach to their apologetics – it is clearly a presuppositional interpretation approach (as with all other persuasions of scientists).
My last paragraph… My point was that if you are defining religious fundamentalism as, say, “a tendency or extreme tendency to interpret all data as in accordance with some general pre-supposed assumption framework” – then everybody is a religious fundamentalist. As for Christians, we have no other option (this does not, of course, excuse ignorance – but does require a presuppositional treatment of special revelation (scripture) over general revelation (our understanding of nature)).
-Matthew
Hi Matthew
Totally go with what you’ve written. This paragraph is key:
As for Christians, we have no other option (this does not, of course, excuse ignorance – but does require a presuppositional treatment of special revelation (scripture) over general revelation (our understanding of nature)).
Thanks
Rich
Now I already admitted there is a use for science, but the one thing I don’t understand about the Christian who believes that the bible is infallable, is that why isn’t God’s word enough? What happened to their so-called “Faith”?
So here is one for you science people….
What scientific evidence could possibly be found to prove that an omnipotent breath gave life to dust? Or evidence of a thought creatio ex nihilo?
I am dying to see the answer to this one!
“The Daily Way,”
The point is not, as some I think fail to recognize, to “prove” or “disprove” Scripture. It merely stands that IF two sources of information are non-contradictory, the very well may be complimentary – science should demonstrate that data (properly interpreted) will compliment the Bible.
In our incredibly illogical society in the West, Christian parents tend to often stress “education, education, education” – you know, 5-6 days a week. Then when that education system happens to promote an anti-theistic post-enlightenment humanistic interpretation of good data, kids come away thinking that their parents religion has been debunked.
In reality the parents forgot to mention (on that 1 day a week that they did mention religion) that everybody interprets the world through their religious views, and that the anti-theists were going to try to demonstrate the physical superiority of their view.
So much for keeping those kids Biblical theists! Of course now many intelligent young folks are realizing that the Uniformitarian/Darwinistic spin isn’t really objective or logical at all.
That is why you have such a huge ID movement.
-Matt
Matthew Said… “when that education system happens to promote an anti-theistic post-enlightenment humanistic interpretation of good data, kids come away thinking that their parents religion has been debunked.”
Thats why all of my children are homeschooled!
But I still wonder why a person that claims to believe that the Bible is infallable, would even contemplate wanting answers from sources that are not “God-Breathed”?
Hey Satan! I have read God’s Word in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, so what is your spin on it? Something sounds wrong with that question???
Or maybe I was wrong, maybe you can’t teach an old theology dog new science tricks…
Ah, the old ‘geological uniformitarianism is an unwarranted assumption!’ argument. You are aware that rates of radioactive decay have not changed measurably since we’ve been able to measure them? That experiments attempting to recreate the types of conditions YECs claim changed these rates failed to change them at all? That the frequency of gamma radiation we receive from objects like, say, supernovae, specifically depends on the radioactive decay rates at the time the radiation originated, and yet from that we do not detect any difference in decay rates between light from objects of greatly varying distance (and thus greatly varying age)? That if the amount of decay we currently observe had occurred in less than 10,000 years time, the Earth would be a superheated, unliveable crisp?
YECs want to have it both ways. On the one hand, they argue for the fine-tuning of the universe, that even slight changes in fundamental constants would have made the universe totally unsuitable for life. Yet on the other hand, they claim that radical changes in constants such as the speed of light or the rates of radioactive decay occurred without significant effect on the human population.
Hi
I have to admit that if I were the devil the two books I would want to discredit the most would be Genesis – why the world went wrong and Revelation – how I am going to get it!
Genesis remains fundamental to Christian belief and yet we scorn it so freely. If the words in the first three chapters is so wrong, then why was Abraham able to have a child with Sarah at 100?
Rich
OK, well ….
I’m a bit speechless here. First of all, I can say almost for certain that the next few weeks will not be short on reader participation
Second, I’m shocked at how out of the Christian mainstream I actually am. I’m not sure which is worse, disagreeing with the Darwinists or the creationists
OK, I have a few points I want to make in response to some of the comments here, so here goes.
1) This site is partially an apologetic site, especially with respect to science. That means I want to DEFEND the Bible, not denigrate it. That will be important later, so keep it in mind.
2) Axioms are great when they are demonstrably self evident. Otherwise, they are used as a means to set your position up as default. That doesn’t fly here.
3) No question is dangerous. No question, no matter how sac religious it may seem, will be ignored. The fear of asking questions has perpetuated the rampant ignorance of science and theology for centuries. We MUST ask questions, both of defacto Darwinism, and concrete Christianity.
4) This series is not meant to attack Christianity. Don’t get defensive.
5) Faith and science should be separate, in my opinion. I have no problem with (and believe myself) that we should value special revelation over scientific discovery. But we must concede, regardless of our beliefs, that what science discovers, no matter how much it contradicts our world view, should be taught AS SCIENCE. If dogs bark, but the Bible says they meow, science cannot deny that. (that was a hypothetical statement, so don’t start telling people I said the Bible says that dogs meow.)
6) God’s Word is enough. It does what it’s meant to do. However, it doesn’t tell me how to cook a casserole. For that, I use a cookbook. You get the idea.
7) God cannot be proven with the available data. Belief in God is by faith. My beef is not the belief that God created the world 10K years ago, but that creationists want to TEACH that God created the world 10K years ago AS SCIENCE. Remember what I said in the article …
9) Sometimes scripture is misinterpreted. Sometimes it needs to be reinterpreted. Think geocentricism, flat-earth. More on that later.
10) Regardless of whether or not someone else is guilty of the same thing, the point of this series is to focus on creationism.
11) Interpreting data based on an unproven assumption is wrong, no matter who does it.
I think that covers it for now. You may now continue
Richard Brown said:
Exactly! The Alpha and Omega! God’s description of himself. To cast doubt upon those two books, is to cast doubt on God’s very existence!
Even more important… How did Mary become with child… “knowing no man”? Sarai’s miracle of giving birth is a giant arrow pointing at Mary’s giving of the virgin birth of Christ Jesus. You can bet Satan wants Genesis doubted!
Nathan said:
Because the darwinist folks will think you are a religious brainwashed sheep, and the creationist folks will judge you by your fruits? You certainly have opened a debate that puts you quite in the pickle jar indeed!
Against who? from what? Actually if you set the unsaved aside, you would probably have to defend it more from the masses of the modern day New Testament church, who has turned on it! (sadly enough)
We have the “cookbook”, and there are 66 books inside of it that describe in detail the origin of man and the earth. and their purpose for existence…
Well, dude, glad yer catching up, about 11-15 years late for the discussion though. We already did this on TalkOrigins.com between 1995-1999. In fact I was a religion columinist qho published a variety of creationist authors work in major newspapers owned by USAToday, and I started on the site as a YEC. Within a year, after mainly specking with JPL and Cal Tech scientists, I conceded the evidence for evolution was massive, overwhleming, undeniable, and on multiple (hundreds) and independent lines of and disciplines of evidence. Thus, I realized the demise of YEC would leave 30 million fundamentalists without a means of defending the doctrine of creation, so I spent 2 years developing a replacement theory called Presuppositional Creationism. There’s lots of people out there, including a bunce of Calvinist assholes (Mark Rushdoony, this means you) who are 11 years later now picking up on what I knew then, and they are starting to use the term, which is by the way, copyright infringement!!!!! Jerks!!!! You had your heads up your ass while I was doing the hard work, then you ignore me, and now you want to f****** steal from me!!!!!????? Ah, well, what can you expect from Christians? It’s what they do. Bone your wife, pick your pocket, then lead you in the sinners prayer and baptize you.
I guess you can’t tell I’m a little bitter, can you? Does it show?
If your hoping for ID to help you, it’s just as bankrupt as YEC, friend. It only leads to theistic evolution. It’s a scam, it does nothing to lead us to a traditional view of Genesis, or answer real science questions either. Irreducible complexity is a laughable concept, becuase it’s obtuse. It says nothing. In fact, Behe was laughed at the other night on I think it was Colbert’s show, or one of those late night shows, it was hilarious. If you say something is irreducibly complex, investigation into it’s development ceases. You cannot know abything further about that subject, unless you interview the designer. You are assuming a designer which is a presuppositional position, not a materialist one. Science is possible in a presuppositional methodology, but it is severely limited by the curse of the ground, and the materialist methodology, while clearly an anti-christ methodology, is nevertheless destined to be used to the Eschaton. It works, but that doesn;t mean it’s nessacarily true.
Last thing I’ll say about ID, is that the are stuck up, they are interested in publishing their books for money, and their evidentialist position is utterly stupid. Think about it, trying to defeat naturalism using naturalistic explanations. Duh. And they give these guys degrees?
Oh, and in case you didn’t know, Jonathan Wells (Discovery Institute) is a Unification Church apologist (a MOONIE, yeah that’s right, he worships the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, the re-incarnation of Jesus via Seoul, South Korea, yeee hah!!
Man, I just love this s***. Yeah, believe me you don’t want to start asking these characters what they believe in bud. William Lane Craig=theistic evolutionist.
Progressive creationism is half a theory, and it amazes me how millions of christians can run after Hugh Ross and get all glazy-eyed when he describes what he sees through his yelescopes, in other words when the processes are kept to chemical evolution and astrophysics. The way he contorts Gensis into Big Bang is obviously nothing short of ludicrous, but people in their quest to validate their faith will overlook a multitude of sins (except in my case). When you get to biological evolution his explanations become offensive. He not only misrepresents scripture (etymology of words, context, etc.), he misrepresents what science teaches at that point because the conclusions don’t help his model. In other words, Adam and Eve must have been specially created about 10,000 -50,000 years ago, but anthropology places our ancestors 500,000 – 3 million years in the past. Remains found that show ancient bipeds drawing art on walls, burying their dead in religious ceremonies, making jewelry, etc., all these things are not the instances of humans with a “spirit” Ross says, but animals mimicking something they saw on TV.
Anyway, I haven’t even talked about my trials with my real pals, YEC. Let’s just say that I pray that Kent Hovind’s prison cell-mate is big and black, and really strong and really mean and really gay. (Hovind is serving 10 years, fyi).
Anyway, I have studied and sacrificed as a creationist for 25 years to just find out that the whole freaking lot of them are a bunch of GD idiots that couldn’t think their way out of a wet paper bag.
tHE SOLUTION TO THE CREATION PROBLEM IS NOT IN ANY EVIDENTIALIST METHODOLOGY. iT ALSO REQUIRES THE RESOLUTION OF ANOTHER THEOLOGICAL/PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM, THAT OF fREE wILL. I’m the only theologian that has ever done that, and I know none of you will believe that, so go ahead and ignore that one, keep believing you understanding providence-predestination-free will, I get my rocks off knowing none of you do. Also it takes a theological model thats about 800 years old, called the Hypothetical Question, only Duns Scotus didn’t go the right direction with it and the CC decided to censure him for teaching it. i took it and finished the theory, doing it the right way, and the HQ aolves everything, it’s like Hawkings beautiful equation.
I don’t mean to be mean, but you guys don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk about it, but understand that unless someone who knows what’s going on guides you, you’ll be like the millions of other christians running around still using the arguments of these other models, and not even know how stupid they sound because everybody else is beyond that. Or you ignore me and waste 11 years, and i’ll come back and see if you discovered anything on your own, by luck. Better yet, listen to the authors making money off you, who haven’t had an original thought in 40 years. And they wouldn’t admit to being wrong if their life depended on it, because the money talks, and the bulls*** walks, baby.
SonnyC
I used to be a young earth creationist. Then I read books by mainstream biologists who had the patience to explain where the YECs not only misunderstand but misrepresent the evidence.
I recently offered a ‘most hypocritical argument’ award to young-earth creationist John C. Whitcomb on my blog. You may find that post interesting:
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/09/award-for-most-hypocritical-argument-in.html
James,
I’d be interested in talking to some of these “mainstream biologists.” About 2-3 weeks ago I was sitting down and talking with the inventor of the gene gun (John Sanford) and discussing why so many biologists are so poorly informed on Darwinism as to actually believe it, perhaps you and they would have benefited from the conversation…
It’d be great to have a long conversation with you some time, should you decide you are tired of being so ignorant on various issues from physics to biology…
-Matthew
Thanks for the insult. I’m sure it will help make the long conversation you want to have with me productive.
I read a bit about Sanford online. He appears to have come to faith and been converted in the process to young-earth creationism. Now he seems to be in the intelligent design fold. So the evidence suggests that, although he did have an ideological shift, he is moving back away from being antiscientific, which is good news.
http://creationwiki.org/John_Sanford
Nathan,
“One of the most difficult things to do as a Christian studying science, is to lay aside our pre-existing assumptions about the origins of the universe and life.”
I would argue that we shouldn’t lay aside our pre-existing assumptions. For those assumptions are not mere assumptions but they are for us as christians the very truth of God as revealed in the scriptures. Why would one lay aside absolute truth!!! Now of course if those assumptions are just that just assumptions then yes. But as a christian we are oporating in the context that what God has revealed in His Word is absolute truth whether you take it literally or not it is still absolute. Thus to lay aside our assumptions is to lay aside the very truth of God and would He agree that we should lay aside His truth that is to guide us into all truth to obtain truth? To do so would be to at the beginning point of our investigation of any matter of truth to assume that God’s truth is a mere assumption that needs something higher then itself to guide us to the truth of. If there is none higher then God then why are we reasoning as though there is!!!! So to lay aside our assumptions is 1) to assume they are not absolute truth to understand our world by and 2) then would be to “not be interested in what the evidence indicates” for reasoning this way “you’ve already decided to throw out any evidence that contradicts your assumption” namely that what laying aside our assumptions as christians equals to an assumption that our assumptions are mere assumptions!!!!
The YEC is a movement that starts with first what does God have to say about the world and then go out to understand in light of that revelation. So for you to ask an YECer to lay aside his/her assumptions is to ask him/her to lay aside the bible. Good luck!!! For if the Bible is what you and I both I think agree it is it is not a mere assumption but absolute truth no matter how you interpret it doesn’t matter unless your interpretation leads to an understanding that it is not God’s revealed Word which if it did would then lead to a contradiction of His Word which then would be to disprove His Word as true on His own terms which I don’t think we want to go that way as christians.
Anyways. Take care have a great day. I found your 3 posts rather late by a friend and just had these 3 critiques of them and I will for now leave you alone and I notice I am coming in much later then when these posts began but still wanted to respond even if it is just you that has a chance to review them. I think I agree with most of what Matt has said. But I am not entirely sure since I haven’t read all the responses but some on this post. I hope I have presented something that may be of challenge and worth to you. I am in noway speaking out of meanness. Maybe some frustration here or there but rather attempting to just stick to the logic of it all and who knows I may be wrong also. But one thing I am pretty confident about is that God is right even though we are all messed up and so I know you and I can place our trust in Him forever and it will be nice when we are outta here into His mansions but we are here for others and hopefully we can be used of God to bring along some others.
Take care,
Tim
@Tim
One question for ya …
If you were trying to convince a muslim or an atheist to become a Christian, would you not want them to lay aside their assumptions?
The search for truth first begins with emptying out everything, and whatever god is the real God, or if a god exists at all, it will be overwhelmingly evident. By rigidly holding to one’s assumptions, the muslim may never know he is wrong. Perhaps we are wrong! If so, at the risk of eternity, I WANT TO KNOW! Do I think I’m wrong? Of course not. But I’ve been wrong before, so it never hurts to consider it.
Nathan,
Thank you for your response. I was not expecting one since I came in quite late. But to answer your question that…”If you were trying to convince a muslim or an atheist to become a Christian, would you not want them to lay aside their assumptions?”
Actually I lean more toward presuppositional apologetics and being presuppositional I would argue that it is an logical impossibility to really empty oneself of all assumptions. Jesus (who claims to be the Truth) said that we are either for or against Him. There is no neutral position. We are born biased against Him until He does a work in our lives to take away our enmity in our minds against Him first by dying on the cross and then by applying that truth to us later on by grace thru faith and the Holy Spirit. And starting with that assumption as revealed by the Truth Himself I see evidence of that all around. I will point this out in your argument. Now I am not saying you are not a christian but your argument I would argue is unchristian or would lead one ultimately away from the Truth as revealed in the scriptures. Let me present the evidence for this assumption.
You said, “The search for truth first begins with emptying out everything” First I would point out that when one empties him/herself of everything what is one then going to fill themselves up with? So I think you need more for a search of truth then just emptying oneself. But secondly even if this is where “the search for truth first begins” is that not an assumption itself!!! So then to use your own argument why have you not emptied yourself of that assumption if it is true that “the search for truth first begins with emptying EVERYTHING”. It seems to me that if “The search for truth first begins with emptying everything” is where we should begin then we must empty ourselves of that very assumption!!! It is a self contradictory position. So for me there is no need to go any further to review any evidence whatsoever for it is “overwhelmingly evident” that any evidence that leads to the truth of a self contradictory assumption would be self refuting.
Now you said, “But I’ve been wrong before, so it never hurts to consider it.” And I appreciate your consideration, however, I don’t think we should consider that God could be wrong. Maybe my argument is flawed and maybe yours is. But whatever God has revealed to us we should never consider the possibility that He is wrong nor flawed we must exercise faith as opposed to neutrality or doubt. When Jesus says that we are either for or against Him and by nature not neutral subjects then we need to consider that as absolute and bend our arguments to conform to His truth and His thoughts especially if He is as He claims in the scripture to be (THE TRUTH).
Now if He isn’t then go ahead and empty yourself of even Him for He is but a lie. But if He is then the logical position would be to fill our lifes up with Him in every area of life for He Himself being THE TRUTH would be the determiner of what is TRUTH. So if “the search for truth first begins with emptying everything” where are we going to go from there. If you say we are to fill it up with scriptural truth then fine but if we are to start with something outside of Jesus being the TRUTH to then determine that He is the TRUTH then we have problems both scripturally speaking and logically speaking.
So I would argue against Muslims and Atheism and your position that Christ is what He claims to be THE TRUTH. And I would argue that that is where the inquiry for truth should start with as opposed to emptying ourselves of our assumptions or as opposed to unbelief in Atheism or as opposed to Allah in Islam.
So we allow for assumptions and we examine the assumptions to see if they are even worthy to look for evidence for. If the assumptions themselves are bad as I have argued that yours is then there is no need to go out and look at anything we have already shown they can’t be true even granting the truth of the assumptions. And everybody assumes it is logically impossible to get away from assuming something to start with it is rather a matter of what assumptions are valid to even begin with and then we can go from there.
Take care and sorry to be so long winded. I understand that you can’t respond to everything in my posts since they are so long. But I hope I am being somewhat of a challenge and hopefully a biblical challenge to you only in the hopes that we are all in the process of conforming more and more to THE TRUTH and for christians we have WHO that is in common.
Sorry also for my bad grammar!!!
@Tim
You never answered my question … if a Muslim or Atheist were to take the position that their position is, by presumption, fundamentally and unwaveringly correct, then they according to the Christian standard, they cannot go to heaven. Would it not be BEST for them to empty themselves of that assumption and consider other positions and beliefs?
Although most of your response seemed to be over epistemological necessity, I’ll make myself a bit more clear this time around …
Obviously, we can’t empty ourselves of all assumptions. Although some assumptions are made axiomatically, and thus are fair to make, most are learned, inherited, or are otherwise ignorantly held beliefs. That goes for me as well. Will I celebrate my birthday this year? Sure, but I’ve never really thought about why, so my assumption that I should celebrate my birthday this year is an ignorantly held belief. Fortunately, this is of little consequence in the long run.
But when discussing matters of dire consequence, like origins, one shouldn’t be so cavalier in their ignorance. I’m not saying that we can empty ourselves of all assumptions, but when we are about to make a judgment call on a set of options, the origin of the universe and thus the existence of a god, then one must lay aside our previously help assumptions within the data set.
For example …
Let’s say that I’m trying to decide whether or not to wear boots, sandals, or snow shoes on the walk I’m about to take. I must first empty my assumptions about not only the choice of shoes, but also my assumptions about the weather, the terrain, etc. I don’t, however, need to rid myself of the assumption that I need to eat later that day. This is unrelated to the choice I am making. I have to consider, instead, what the weather is like that day, what route I will be taking, the benefits of each type of footwear given the weather and terrain, and whether or not all three of the options are available … or none at all … or more than the 3. Again, the example is of little consequence, but it is an analogy for the topic we are discussing at the moment, religion.
Lastly, I agree that God can’t be wrong. But let us not make the mistake of thinking that we fully understand Him. When you say, “God can’t be wrong”, I fear that you mean by that “We can’t be wrong in interpreting the Bible.” Any example in history where there are humans and time, things are prone to go wrong. We’ve misinterpreted the Bible many times in the past, and we’re not immune from it today. Just think of flat earth cosmology or square earth geology.
That’s all for now …
Nathan,
Hello again. “Would it not be BEST for them to empty themselves of that assumption and consider other positions and beliefs?”
No. I think until one sees the absurdity of what one assumes and the absurdity of assuming an assumptionless position one will not desire to empty themselves of those assumptions (I must first make it reasonable for one to abandon ones own assumptions or else they would be making an unreasonable leap of faith). It seems to me both scripturally and logically all have assumptions when reviewing any piece of evidence. And to assume we should not have any assumptions is self refuting and thus an evidence that is consistent with what the scriptures teach. Namely that, we are either for or against He and His truth. We are either trusting and assuming His truth or we are not. If we are not then I would challenge a christian, is this biblical and also challenge that assumption whatever it may be as I have done here.
Have you been able to identify why it is self refuting to assume an assumptionless position to begin with to inquire about the truth of something? I will try to argue it again. It is self refuting to 1) assume that 2) we should begin assumptionless. Why? Cause you are assuming a position to begin with which happens to be in this case (no matter how odd this may type) an assumptionless position!!! So in assuming an assumptionless position you are assuming a position thus you are not beginning with an assumptionless position but rather an assumed one. So I do think there is a logical problem and a self refuting problem if we begin with an assumptionless position. Or rather it is logically impossible to do so and quite consistent with what the scriptures teach.
“But when discussing matters of dire consequence, like origins, one shouldn’t be so cavalier in their ignorance. I’m not saying that we can empty ourselves of all assumptions, but when we are about to make a judgment call on a set of options, the origin of the universe and thus the existence of a god, then one must lay aside our previously help assumptions within the data set.”
Sure I would agree to a point. That we should empty ourselves of all distorting assumptions if you will. But not all cause if God has revealed that He did create the universe then to lay aside what He has to say about the origins would be to lay aside the most enlightning form of understanding we have on the subject. Even more enlightning then the thousands of years of the progress of science to date. It would be incomparable for many reasons. And especially if what we discover today is inconsistent with what He has revealed. I think we would have to relook the thing thru if it contradicted the MAKER of the universe. I mean who are we but men. Now if God hasn’t revealed then I could understand why your position but I don’t share that assumption so I hope you can understand my position!!!!
Now I know you are a christian and believe that God has revealed something about Himself and Creation in the scriptures. I just think you are setting up an argument that is from the get go inconsistent with what you believe. It is not the problem of the scriptures for I don’t believe the scriptures teach that we should argue for or against claimed truths in the manner in which you are suggesting.
“Lastly, I agree that God can’t be wrong.”
Me too. We finally do agree!!!!
“But let us not make the mistake of thinking that we fully understand Him.”
I agree!!!!
“When you say, “God can’t be wrong”, I fear that you mean by that “We can’t be wrong in interpreting the Bible.””
I agree that we can be wrong in our interpretation. But this changes nothing about my arguments. I purposefully kept it away from interpretation and so forth for this very point. But let us assume these points which being a Christian I believe you would agree with me. 1) that God has spoken to us 2) with an intent for us to know what He says 3) thus in some way we are able to come to know what He says and 4) whatever that is is absolutely true. And with that it is clear we should start with what He says to be true as true and then go from there in our discoveries of whatever as opposed to settling for emptying ourselves of all assumptions. Why not fill ourselves with His truth to begin with? The only reason I can think as to why one would not do so is because they are an atheist or Muslim but you are a christian so why encourage christian to reason inconsistently with what they know to be true in God’s Word.
Now back to the Muslim and Atheist I would argue very much the same way. I would attempt to show them the unreasonableness of there beginning assumptions as I feel I have with yours. And then guide them to replace them with His.
Another huge point in all this is that the reason why we ultimately cling on to our own assumptions no matter how comfortable they may be to us is because of sin. We have ultimately invented up these other assumptions because we are at enmity with God so as I said in one of my posts it takes not an argument though argumentation is useful but ultimately it takes Christ work on the cross to do away with sin and then by grace and faith the Holy Spirit allows us to agree with His truth and thus become saved and see the absurdity and sinfulness of our prior positions concerning God.
Now christians are able to make the same mistakes even after becoming saved. So just because we sin in these areas of thought doesn’t mean we are not saved but in time we may come to other conclusions and reasons for why we believe what we believe.
Nathan, I am so sorry for being so long. I understand you can’t respond to all of this. I probabily won’t be able to type back again today. I greatly enjoy conversations like this and I am open to being wrong but I am only open to being wrong if it is scripturally supported directly or indirectly in some way that I am wrong. I don’t want to conclude myself to be either right or wrong unless there is some authority back of it and to me the ultimate authority is God and in comparison to Him there is no authority so ultimately you will have to convince me that I am wrong by use of the scriptures in some form. But I will be examining your interpretation of them quite closely!!!!
Take care. I say that humorously but truthfully.
Congratulations about getting married! I hope that you will participate in, and spread the word about, a blog-a-thon on Evolution weekend. See http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2008/01/evolution-weekend-blog-thon-february-8.html for further details.
Hey Nathan,
I just found this article that may be of interest to you concerning this subject we have been discussing. And I just also wanted to say thank you for discussing this with me and I hope the best for you and your blog.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/01/25/feedback-prove-God
Take care,
Tim
I believe the greatest miracle is the air we breathe. The presence of 20-21% free oxygen enveloped by nitrogen and maintenance of this balance by organisms. I have 2 questions.
1.What happens to man if this is say 3% less or even more at ground level.
2.Could animals like the large reptiles have survived and flourisged at some different atmospheric composition.
Is it possible that earth’s atmosphere changed due to some catastrophic events that finally led to the presenr atmosphere and advent of Man.Is there data on oxygen and nitrogen levels through the ages.