lundi 25 octobre 2010

Debate with mainly a Christian who is a scientist, but not a Christian Scientist

me: "5.) Because I prefer the idea that a (insert god of choice) went ALLA-KADABRA-ALLAKAZAM!!!"

I do. If I can insert the one true god in Three Persons and replace alla-kadabra ... with "fiat lux" and stuff that is in the Bible. I definitely do.

JA: >>I definitely do.<<

Christianity does not conflict with evolution. Creationism conflicts with evolution.

me: Meaning you do not consider Creationism included in or implied by Christianity.

I do.

JA: Creationism is a philosophy. It has no scientific merit. It has no religious merit.

Creationism is not implied by Christianity.

Christians believe that God created the universe.

Christians who have an appreciation of science accept that the evidence the natural world is the evidence of Creation - and if the evidence of the natural world appears to conflict with the Creation account in the Bible then it is the interpretation of Genesis which is at fault - and needs to be reinterpreted in the light of the evidence of Creation itself (the natural world).

me: "if the evidence of the natural world appears to conflict with the Creation account in the Bible"

key word: appears

to whom and according to what hermeneutic principles?

JA: Scientific methodology has proved to be exceptionally robust - and is increasingly so.

The application of science is demonstration of the resilience of scientific research.
One cannot say that evolution is false and that other branches of science (the application of which our technology fundamentally depends on) are true because the investigative and deductive processes are essentially the same.

Creationists always ask for evidence in scripture that the Creation account in Genesis is not a scientific or literal history - they refuse to see that that is an irrelevance: the evidence of the non-scientific and non-literal nature of the Creation account in Genesis is in nature, not in scripture - and the reason is that Genesis is not a science book.

me: "Scientific methodology has proved to be exceptionally robust - and is increasingly so."

Not about evolutionism.

"The application of science is demonstration of the resilience of scientific research."

The applications that give evidence for "science" do not touch evolutionism, nor heliocentrism/geokinetism. No one has proven that geocentrics or creationists would be logically obliged to disbelieve in television, internet, bacteriology or gynaecology.

"One cannot say that evolution is false and that other branches of science (the application of which our technology fundamentally depends on) are true because the investigative and deductive processes are essentially the same."

1838 is discovered that very many stars do have a movement that circles in a year, same direction as sun, the biggest one angle being 0.76 seconds, and all others smaller, most stars still not having one recognisable angle (at least that was the case back in 1980, when the measurable angle parallaxes were for "tens of thousands of stars" among the hundreds of thousand known).

The methodology by which interpretation "stars stand still, mostly, and earth moves, and different observed movements are due to different distance" is preferred over "stars are moved by heavenly dancers" is not any technological one, except such as are applicable to dead matter alone, i e a denial of angelic hypothesis (the old scholastic one) in the principle of research rather than in application. Similarily for C14 datings exceeding Biblical chronology preference of interpretation "C14 was same proportion in athmosphere and present very much lower proportion is entirely due to old age" over interpretation "C14 was back close to creation lower proportion in atmosphere, which accounts for lower proportion now, even without exceeding Biblical chronology".

"Creationists always..."

Do not tell me what creationists always do, deal with what I do - in proving, asking, explaining, challenging.

"...ask for evidence in scripture that the Creation account in Genesis is not a scientific or literal history - they refuse to see that that is an irrelevance: the evidence of the non-scientific and non-literal nature of the Creation account in Genesis is in nature, not in scripture - and the reason is that Genesis is not a science book."

Genesis neither is nor purports to be a science book, however it was for most of its existence accepted by considerable communities as literal history. Which indirectly makes it scientifically relevant.

What you are saying is that Jews from Moses to Jesus and Christians from Jesus to Darwin and Spencer got it wrong. I say that is not compatible with Christianity.

@ CD saying "Hey if you got proof that evolution is false give me some ideas.I already have some maybe we can share some ideas"

Check this out: - a general checkout on chromosome numbers was suggested by Kent Hovind, but I use it in a different way. (Yes, it is my post, a composite of smaller posts on another of my blogs)

JA: >>Do not tell me what creationists always do, deal with what I do - in proving, asking, explaining, challenging.<<

If was you who brought up hermeneutic principals - as do many Creationists I have discussed these issues with.

I know about parallax - I have studied astronomy for over 40 years.
Carbon dating is only used for comparatively recent geology - other radiometric dating techniques are used, and used reliably, for older dating.

>>Which indirectly makes it scientifically relevant.<<

Wrong. SCripture has nothing to do with science.

Scripture is about interpersonal relationships - and the sole purpose of Genesis is to set the context for scripture.

In common with most (all?) Creationists you are clearly a "Genesis Christian" rather than a Gospel Christian.

>>What you are saying is that Jews from Moses to Jesus and Christians from Jesus to Darwin and Spencer got it wrong. I say that is not compatible with Christianity.<<

No. What I am saying is that the Bible is not about science. Genesis is not a history. Genesis sets the context for *your* personal relationship with God, and with your neighbour.

me: A Gospel Christian IS a Genesis Christian, since Gospels tell us Christ was a Genesis Hebrew.

Gospel is not limited to my personal relationship with God or man, though it includes that, it is reliable history as in Resurrection of Christ AND sayings of what He really said. And that includes historicity of Adam and Eve. He very specifically referred to Genesis History when talking about marriage.

Your Biblical hermeneutics are very clearly not those of the Catholic Church Fathers.
You avoided questions brought up about parallax (though you studied Astronomy for fourty years) and C14.

1) Can the movement currently interpreted as a parallax be interpreted as something other, like the dance of angels to honour God?

2) Are the older radiometric age datings you used to corroborate C14 as implying earth was too old for the doubt I brought up maybe subject to similar doubts as C14 itself?

I also go back to your previous answer, where you claimed there were no methodological difference between the science used in technology - as electronics, medicine - and the one used in heliocentrism and evolutionism. There is ONE clear difference:

Medicine students study bacteria that are there here before them and now while they are being studied, electricians study currents that are similarily circumscribed in time and space BUT evolution is about billions of years ago and heliocentrism is about 4 to 4 billion light years away. Except the kind of stuff that has also geocentric and creationist interpretations.

JA: Jesus's reference to the Old Testament was in respect of its teaching. Not its historicity. A teaching need not be historically accurate in order to convey the truth.

And the truth is that when Genesis talks about Adam, it is talking about you. When it talks about the serpent it is talking about sin acting on you.

The whole point of the Bible - and in particular of the Gospel, are the relationships. The whole point of the death and Resurrection of Jesus was God's desire for that relationship between God and man (specifically you, the reader) which man (specifically you, the reader) broke through his own fault be fixed. It is not Adam's sin, but yours for which Christ died. It does not matter that Adam never existed historically, but it is vitally important that you exist historically, and that Christ exists historically, to repair the relationship with God, which you broke.

me: "Jesus's reference to the Old Testament was in respect of its teaching. Not its historicity"

That is clearly NOT a limitation the Gospel brings out. Btw, I have updated the post you answered.

"The _whole_ point of the Bible - and in particular of the Gospel, are the relationships."

As excluding historicity? NO.

There are four senses*, not just one, and the fact that your favourite one is not the literal does not make your exegesis less lopsided.

*literal/historic
prophetic as in OT pointing to Christ
moral - your fav
AND anagogic as in NT pointing to Heaven

4 commentaires:

  1. JA: All the senses only exist in scripture as far as they affect your relationship with God. That is all the Bible is about. Such real history as there is exists to confirm that God created the universe, and that since the time man first sinned - and I do not deny that that did happen, though the Biblical account is definitely allegory - onward God has been working towards restoring the relationship between himself and man (not mankind, but each individual human being).
    The bottom line is that evolution (as scientificially defined - not as defined by some Joe in the streed) is a fact, and has been observed.
    And if that means to you that Jesus's death and Resurrection are pointless because we are a product of (as you would have it) chance and therefore not responsible for our sins, then that is a problem for you to deal with - it doesn't alter the fact of evolution. And if evolution takes away our culpability, then so does our genetic make-up - because our genes determine our behaviour as well as our appearance. And if evolution takes away our culpability then so does God's omniscience - because he knows how things are going to end up - and with this knowledge he knows who is going to be judged fit for heaven and who is not - and therefore there is not a thing anyone can do about it.
    So on all levels, by your definition, irresepective of evolution, we can have no free will, and cannot be culpable for our actions or our thoughts, and likewise there can be no avenue for God to redeem any of us, given that we are all sinners.
    >>You avoided questions brought up about parallax (though you studied Astronomy for fourty years) and C14.<<
    You didn't actually ask any questions about them - you made statements. (Questions are usually denoted by a query mark). (And 40 is forty - not fourty).
    >> where you claimed there were no methodological difference<<
    You clearly read what you wanted to read. I did not say there were *no* differences. I said they were "essentially the same".
    >>Medicine students study bacteria that are there here before them and now while they are being studied, electricians study currents that are similarily circumscribed in time and space BUT evolution is about billions of years ago<<
    Wrong. Evoution is the change in frequency of genetic traits in a population over generations - and according to that (the scientific) definition, evolution has uncontrovertably been observed to have happened real-time.
    Problem is that Creationists (even in their most authoritative literature) interchangeably use the phrase "the theory of evolution" and "evolution" when they are two quite separate things. Furthermore when Creationists use the word "evolution" they actually mean "common descent" and "speciation", which are predictions of the theory.

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  2. me: I did make statements. They should have brought some questions to a mind believing C14 to prove there were people around 80.000 or 800.000 years ago in Atapuerca.
    " BUT evolution is about billions of years ago" I said, and meant of course common descent and phyletisation (is that speciation taken to the power of phylae). I do stand corrected in terminology.
    "All the senses only exist in scripture as far as they affect your relationship with God. That is all the Bible is about."
    You mean that is all the purpose there is. It does not mean that is all the divinely inspired content there is.
    "Such real history as there is exists to confirm that God created the universe,"
    and that in a way that Laplace and Darwin did not agree with.
    "and that since the time man first sinned - and I do not deny that that did happen,"
    Thank you.
    "though the Biblical account is definitely allegory"
    It is history about the first man sinning, it is allegory about the New Adam restoring.
    "- onward God has been working towards restoring the relationship between himself and man (not mankind, but each individual human being)."
    Both individually and socially actually. "Go ye therefore to all nations" is not limited to individual reception. The Church both Universal and Local and between both National are visible societies.
    "The bottom line is that evolution (as scientificially defined - not as defined by some Joe in the streed) is a fact, and has been observed."
    But speciation by chromosome fission in mammals has not been observed, even if calling it "evolution" is a misnomer.
    "And if that means to you that Jesus's death and Resurrection are pointless because we are a product of (as you would have it) chance and therefore not responsible for our sins, then that is a problem for you to deal with - it doesn't alter the fact of evolution."
    It doesn't alter the fact that noses and skin colours and hair shapes and eyes have evolved differently since at least Noah, maybe even the three daughters in law and his wife were different from him in respects.
    I am of course against blind evolution in a universe without God, that cosmology makes the death of Christ pointless and his resurrection impossible. They are therefore contradicted by evidence, very solid historical one, for resurrection. But I am equally against theistic evolution, on - historic - grounds as contradicting Genesis, Enuma Elish, Greek legend, Nordic legend, if preserved in Gylfaginning, et c et c
    "And if evolution takes away our culpability, then so does our genetic make-up - because our genes determine our behaviour as well as our appearance."
    Stop. Genetic make up may determine whether you are wimpy or freaky, but not each choice. You may be prone to lust after each beauty you look at, but that is no forcing you to look at each beauty.
    "And if evolution takes away our culpability then so does God's omniscience - because he knows how things are going to end up - and with this knowledge he knows who is going to be judged fit for heaven and who is not - and therefore there is not a thing anyone can do about it."
    Stop again. God knows "beforehand" not as a planner only, but even more so as one seeing all times at once. God knows my sins as before as after as when I commit them: as observing them. Not as deciding them. Sins are my choices, not God's. Or when they might happen to be God's choice, as in my having no responsability, that would be occasions when my will and responsability were lowered below sin level.
    "So on all levels, by your definition, irresepective of evolution, we can have no free will,"
    Again: do not mix me up with other creationists. I am RC.
    "and cannot be culpable for our actions or our thoughts, and likewise there can be no avenue for God to redeem any of us, given that we are all sinners."
    That is your conclusion from a straw man version of me.

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  3. JA:Science does not prove. Mathematics proves. Science uses probability based on the physical evidence. Which is why the Bible is irrelevant to science, and science to the Bible - because God is beyond science - God is beyond the physical.
    me: "Science does not prove."
    Oh boy! Observing noon time sun at Assuan and Alexandria does not prove earth curved?
    "Mathematics proves."
    When it is rightly applied. Which is why parallax trigonometry and C14 dating are doubtful, since application is doubtful.
    "Science uses probability based on the physical evidence. Which is why the Bible is irrelevant to science, and science to the Bible - because God is beyond science - God is beyond the physical."
    Being above the physical does not mean being irrelevant to it. And using probability but not proof is no proof for having to reinterpret the Bible as not historical.

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  4. I quote from his answer to another poster:

    "The theory of evolution is the best (and only credible) explanation of the observed evidence of the natural world. If you deny that evidence then you are calling God an imbecile and a deceiver."

    Nope. Saying "fiat lux" is not imbecile. Having written in your book "et lux facta est" is not deceiving.

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