The Upper Room - 2016-05-05 (page 1 of 2)

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Does Elisha speak?

1:44 AM

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Q: Removing one person's comments but not removing the response addressed to them?

RE: This thread, "Are there any Protestant denominations that reject penal substitution?" I'd like to see this site be fair and unbiased in regards to its posters but it's not. My comments were deleted as being discussion, not clarification (I suppose I could reword them) but DJ Clayworth's comm...

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8:10 AM

@El'endiaStarman On the creation account, there are some inerrantists who hold to a literary framework view that interprets Genesis less literally.

5 hours later…

1:25 PM

@El'endiaStarman That's the dominant view within evangelicalism now I suspect... while debates over the age of the earth etc will always continue, books that focus on the (possibly polemic) theological purposes of Gen 1, like The Lost World of Genesis 1 by John Walton are very well received

@curiousdannii Do you really think debates about the age of the earth will "always" continue?

Eventually, the religious "fanatics" always give up their unfounded dogma that the world is flat, that the sun rotates around the earth, etc... don't you think the age of the earth debate will eventually fall away, too?

I suppose there are still flat-earthers... so in a sense, perhaps that debate will "always continue" as well

1:58 PM

@Flimzy What happens is that old, wrong ideas become limited to so few people that those ideas are now on the outer fringes of human intellectual society, so that they can safely be ignored by the vast bulk of humanity. That's what will happen over time to literalist views of the Creation stories of Genesis, as it has with previous wrong religious ideas such as the flat earth.

@Flimzy It's a fundamentally different type of question. There are innumerable ways to prove the earth isn't flat, but the past is studied at a distance, and science can't detect miracles or apparent age.

@curiousdannii "science can't detect miracles or apparent age" would apply exactly the same way to the flat earth theory. God could create an "appearance of orbit"

God could create "an appearance of a globe"

But those ideas, along with a young earth, require belief in a God who a) lies, and b) creates a world that contradicts its appearance for no reason.

@Flimzy That's a fundamentally unscientific perspective, saying that our observations are completely unreliable

@curiousdannii I agree. Which is why I reject a flat earth, and a young earth.

But my point is that believing in either a flat earth or a young earth requires making the exact same class of jump from observation to "miracle"

@Flimzy I don't know if I've gone into this debate with you before, but I don't think there's the slightly inconsistency or deception involved with apparent age

2:02 PM

"Appearance of age" sounds, almost by definition, like deception.

@El'endiaStarman My earlier responses were to give articles related to the general idea that the Bible exists primarily to get us to heaven, and only (very) secondarily to teach us correct doctrine. But about the Creation story specifically, I give a rundown of the seven days as stages in human spiritual rebirth in the last part of this article: Heaven, Regeneration, and the Meaning of Life on Earth

And a much shorter synopsis of the seven days at the end of this article: Can We Really Believe the Bible? This one also deals more generally with the conflict between science and literal interpretations of the Bible.

@Flimzy I disagree. To say God is creating an appearance of orbits is to say that we can't do science. Apparent age means that we can competently observe, model and explain the universe we live in now, but that if the universe was created mature, we won't be able to distinguish in our observations between an object which was created less mature and which matured, and an object created in the later mature state

@curiousdannii I understand what you're saying. Understand the idea that the world was created with an appearance of age...

But the idea that an intelligent being would create a world with an appearance of being something it's not, by definition, makes that being dishonest.

@curiousdannii That still means we can't do science. If we can't trust that things actually are as old as science determines them to be, then science itself, which depends greatly on being able to make accurate time measurements, cannot be trusted, and falls to the ground.

@Flimzy To some extent this is something all Christians have to deal with. Jesus was arguably deceptive at the wedding in Cana

2:07 PM

The only way for an honest creator to create a young world, is with the appearance of being young. That's in the definition of honesty.

@curiousdannii How so?

Jesus was often cryptic.

That's quite a different matter from being dishonest.

Creationists have tried to throw doubt on scientific methods of dating past events. But that is a desperate ploy to try to salvage some sense of "science" in their entirely unscientific theories.

I would accept a creator who created a universe with an inability to detect its age as honest.

But that's not what we have.

@Flimzy He made wine which seemed well aged, which people assumed was well aged, and didn't correct their false belief

We have a universe with an apparent, specific, old age.

In fact, science is able to date past events fairly accurately using various methods that agree with one another.

2:08 PM

@curiousdannii He made wine that was very good. And people attributed that to old age, because in their experience, good wine was old.

@LeeWoofenden Only a tiny fraction of science is about dating things

No, those methods aren't perfect. But they're good enough to know for sure that the earth has been around for longer than 6,000 years. And Creationists are asking us to deny that science.

Did anyone say "Is this wine old?" and him answering "yes"?

@curiousdannii All of science about past events (which is a huge part of science) involves the necessity of dating things. You can't do good cosmological science without dating past events in the universe quite accurately.

Creationist questioning of scientific dating methods is an attempt to overturn existing, settled science wholesale. And it won't work.

@curiousdannii There are countless examples of Jesus not correcting people. These should not be considered justification for continuing in wrong belief.

And ultimately, in the case of Cana, Jesus did set the record straight... the written record is proof of this.

2:12 PM

@Flimzy Well I would say, that whether Adam asked or not, God revealed to him that he made a mature universe. Adam was a farmer, planting gardens, so when he looked at the towering redwoods his scientific model would've said they took a long time to grow, but because of revelation he would instead think that they were wonderfully mature

Apparent age/mature creation can only be deceptive if special revelation is ruled out

@curiousdannii "Well-aged wine" is simply a particular chemical composition. If Jesus changed water into something with that chemical composition, it would have the same properties, even if it wasn't generated the same way. And if he did a good enough job, science wouldn't be able to tell the difference. However, we had no instruments present at the time, so we have no scientific data at all about that miracle, which puts it outside of the purview of science.

@LeeWoofenden I think you're making my point for me

If you want to say that the universe was created by a miracle such that it appears, like Jesus' wine at Cana, to be old when in fact it isn't, you just have to throw science out the window altogether. That's why science doesn't deal in miracles.

Aside from ascribing authority to the Bible, there's no way we can know whether Jesus actually changed water to wine at Cana, or whether that was a story that grew up around Jesus. Science does not, obviously, accept the authority of the Bible on scientific subjects. So it's really a moot point.

@LeeWoofenden Nonsense. Unless you're limiting "science" only to the "science of past events", which is, as I said, only a tiny fraction of science.

@curiousdannii It's a huge part of science.

2:16 PM

@curiousdannii Once again, you, apparently representing a young-earth position, are minimizing what is in fact a massive part of science.

Even when we do experiments in the present, it's often to explain the past.

YECs in general ignore all science that doesn't agree with their position. That's what you're doing.

When my server crashes at work, I do experiments to determine what might have caused the same behavior in the past.

That's what science is all about.

Back to the wine at Cana, I believe it's unimportant whether Jesus actually did that miracle. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The important thing about it is not the scientific veridicity of some past event, but its significance for our spiritual life. And that's why it's in the Bible.

@curiousdannii That will get you arrested in certain circumstances. If I wear a police uniform, and walk into a crowded public place shouting "I'm not an officer! Put your hands in the air!" I'll still be arrested for impersonating an officer, despite offering my "special revelation" of my mere appearance of an officer.

2:19 PM

@LeeWoofenden It may be a large amount of science work-hours, but I meant in terms of the sub fields of science. Chemical compositions, gene sequencing, meteorology, particle physics are all based on observations of the present (or recent past) for which a mature creation is irrelevant

@curiousdannii Geology, anthropology, astronomy... just to name a few, are 100% about the past.

@curiousdannii But all science related to creation involves massive amounts of dating. It makes no sense to say, "there are many areas of science that have nothing to do with the age of the universe that don't contradict a young universe." Obviously, the relevant science is the science that does relate to the age of the universe. And obviously, that branch of science relies fundamentally on dating past events.

Supposing for a moment that we can somehow bend definitions sufficiently that an appearance of age is not a contradiction of God's revealed character... What possible reason would God have to create a universe with photons in-transit from apparently billions of light years away?

@Flimzy No they're not. Determining rock compositions, the structure of tectonic faults etc are present observations. I really don't understand why this is something we're arguing about

Also, the science of the past interrelates with all of those other sciences, because one of the fundamental questions of science is how what we observe in the present got that way. And that involves looking back into the past.

2:22 PM

@LeeWoofenden I was never talking about all science related to creation!

@curiousdannii They're not about the past? Absolutely, and unequivocally they are.

@curiousdannii Isn't that what we're talking about here?

@LeeWoofenden No! I was pointing out the difference between flat earthism and mature creationism

If you think astronomy isn't about the past, then you're right, we shouldn't be discussing this... because your head is stuck in some alternate universe.

I'd have more luck teaching my cat to speak French.

@curiousdannii A large part of plate techtonics is figuring out how earth came to have these moving plates in the first place. And that involves determining how the earth formed over billions of years.

@curiousdannii What's "mature creationism"?

2:24 PM

If you think God is changing your every observation in order to make it look like a round earth exists which in reality does not, then you cannot trust any observation to do science. If you think that God created the universe with maturity, but think he does not act in miracles now but upholds it consistently according to the scientific laws, then the scientific enterprise is open to you

If you think God created the universe with maturity, then you believe in a dishonest God.

That's the crux of the matter to me.

@curiousdannii Not really. Because you have to reject a huge chunk of settled science to maintain the view that God created the universe 6,000 years ago to look as if it were old. Plus, as @Flimzy says, you have to think of God as a deceptive liar.

If you accept the young earth theory, you're saying that we really can't trust science at all.

@LeeWoofenden An adult Adam with blooding pumping through his veins, with ATP from food he never ate. A water cycle complete in every stage. Cicadas half way through their 17-year life cycle

To believe in a "mature creation", you have to believe that 99.9% of what astronomers study is a lie (that is, every object less than 6,000 light years from earth, had its photons created en-route toward earth). Why would God bother doing tihs?

Is it possible (in the philisophical sense)? Yes.

And in fact, Creationists don't trust science. They believe that the Bible (in their literal interpretation of it) trumps science. That if science conflicts with their reading of the Bible, then science is wrong, and the Bible is right. It's impossible to do sound science with that attitude.

2:27 PM

Is it easier to believe that God is this dishonest, or to believe that someone mis-interpreted Genesis 1?

For me, it's easier, and far less insane, to believe that a small minority of Christian fundamentalists mis-interpreted Genesis 1.

You guys are making zero attempt to understand my position. I'm not even arguing in the slightest for a 6000 year creation!

@curiousdannii You're arguing for the appearance of age, no?

the age of the earth like that is not the point whatsoever

@curiousdannii All of which would mean that God is lying to us by making it appear that the universe is old, when in fact it is young. Why would God do that? Is it some silly test of our "faith"? To see whether we'll trust the sum total of human knowledge, or throw that all out the window and say, "God says it happened differently, so I believe it"?

Whether a "mature creation" happened 6,000 years ago, 1 million years ago, or yesterday, is irrelevant to refuting that viewpoint.

2:28 PM

@curiousdannii How old do you think the universe is?

The way God has chosen to create the universe is such that he could not create a single photon without it looking like it had always existed, traveling in a straight line a constant speed. God has the capacity to break the law of conservation of mass/energy, but our scientific observations will never be able to detect that he has done so

@curiousdannii How old do you think the universe is?

@LeeWoofenden I think it is young, but that's not relevant to anything I'm saying.

@curiousdannii Yes it is. Why do you think it's young?

@curiousdannii What, specifically, are you saying, then? What point are you trying to make?

2:32 PM

7 mins ago, by curiousdannii

If you think God is changing your every observation in order to make it look like a round earth exists which in reality does not, then you cannot trust any observation to do science. If you think that God created the universe with maturity, but think he does not act in miracles now but upholds it consistently according to the scientific laws, then the scientific enterprise is open to you

@curiousdannii Okay. I'll grant you that point. One could be philisophically consistent in saying that God created the universe with apparent age, and studying science.

@curiousdannii And as I already said here, that statement simply does not hold water.

However, one cannot hold these views and simultaneously be theologically consistent with the Christian understanding of the nature and person of the creator God, who attributes truth and honesty to himself.

@Flimzy It would be what a lot of deists think and do

@Flimzy I don't grant the point. Too much of science would be completely overturned if we throw out all science that dates past events--which is what we'd have to do to accept the idea that we can do science even if the universe was created 6,000 years ago to look as if it's nearly 14 billion years old.

2:34 PM

Therefore, my answer to such a Deist would not be to debate the merits of their "mature creation" philosophy, but their understanding of God.

@curiousdannii And the question still remains: Why do you think that science is wrong, and the earth is "young" (I presume meaning about 6,000 years old)?

@Flimzy Well that's a secondary question. I've thought about this topic a lot and have read quite a lot too. I'm yet to hear a solid argument for why the character of God would still be impugned if he accompanied his creation with special revelation

@LeeWoofenden I grant the point on a philosophical level, only. The same way it's possible to save and restore state in a computer, why couldn't an omnipotent creator create the universe with a perfectly consistent state, halfway through its runtime?

@Flimzy Theoretically it would be possible. But it would still overturn much of science. Because the things science is telling us would be false. And science is about discovering the truth about the physical universe.

That's not to say I hold it as a realistic possibility. I'm willing to entertain the concept only for the purpose of discussion... and as I stated above, I immediately rule it out on theological grounds.

2:37 PM

@Flimzy What it would be saying is that we cannot trust science to determine the truth about the physical universe. So it undermines the very foundations of science.

@LeeWoofenden If such a universe were created at mid-run, it wouldn't affect science... because the observable state would be consistent. But it's still relegated to the idea of a thought experiment in my mind. There are too many reasons to reject the idea.

And that is precisely what YECs say: that the Bible, not science, must be our authority when it comes to the age of the universe, and scientific matters in general.

@LeeWoofenden Granted. Science would be powerless to detect the "maturely created" nature.

In the same way that science would be powerless to measure if our universe's creator hits a 'pause' button every now and again.

All of these concpets would be "outside the nature of the universe"

With out currently scientific understanding, their is only one stable configuration for the universe: a singularity. It is therefore inevitable that the universe will look like it came from the big-bang. Maybe God made the universe through the big-bang, maybe he didn't, either way, as we model and trace back the interactions of the particles in the universe, they will inevitable converge into a singularity

all science can measure is what is within the nature of the universe... and in such a "mature creation" philosophy, the apparent age is part of that nature.

2:39 PM

@Flimzy For it not to undermine science, there would have to be some way for science eventually to determine, through scientific means, that the universe was, in fact, only 6,000 years old, but simply appears to be 3.8 billion years old. The whole thought experiment says that there is no way for science to determine that. So as I say, it undermines the very foundations of science.

So an honest "mature creationist" would quickly come to the conclusion that trying to convince people of their view is a wasted effort. :P

@Flimzy Which is why I don't try to do it very often

@curiousdannii Do you consider yourself a mature creationist?

Today there are theories that the universe may actually be a 3D holographic projection of a 2D universe. If so, that would fundamentally change our concept of the universe. And that's a valid possibility in science. But that conclusion would be arrived at by the scientific study of the universe, not by accepting the authority of religious texts as trumping science, and saying that science is wrong even though all sound science points to a particular conclusion.

@LeeWoofenden And oops, I should have said the universe is 13.8 billion years old, not 3.8 billion years.

@Flimzy Yeah. It's inevitable because of the reasons I've been giving. But I'm also kind of a maximalist maturist - God could create a mature creation without, for example, erosion, or he could create one with it. Creating it with erosion might seem more 'dishonest', but I don't think any of it is dishonest, so I'm happy to say that he could well have created it with lots of erosion

2:43 PM

@Flimzy But they would also be outside the concept of a non-whimsical God, who created a lawful universe to reflect the lawful nature of God. Which I think is another way of stating your "is God a liar?" objection.

@curiousdannii When did you become a mature creationist?

@curiousdannii But to answer my own question of you for you: You believe the physical universe is "young" because you believe the Bible says this, correct? Your reasons for believing this have nothing to do with science, nor are they scientific reasons.

@Flimzy Maybe 8-9 years ago. I was convinced by an article written by a friend of mine

@curiousdannii When was that article written?

@curiousdannii Whose conclusion seems to say exactly what I'm saying: that the Bible trumps science. The only reason for believing that the universe is about 6,000 years old is attribution of authority to a literal reading of the Bible. There is simply no other reason to believe such a thing.

So the whole enterprise is a frontal assault on science. It is saying that we cannot trust the conclusions of science, but must instead accept the (literal) authority of Scripture, and re-interpret the entire nature of the universe based on that, and not on what science tells us.

2:50 PM

@LeeWoofenden Did I ever claim they were? I would of course counter that ultimately it is their philosophical background that leads others to interpret the world as old. To consider the most basic issue of radiometric dating in the most basic way, we must assume that we know what the isotopic makeup of a rock was when it was formed. If it was formed in place by God then he could form it with any isotopic makeup he desired

@Flimzy 2006-2009 I think

@curiousdannii IOW, you believe that science is useless and wrong if it contradicts (your interpretation of) Scripture. That's a frontal assault on science, and an assertion of scriptural authority against science.

@LeeWoofenden Thank you for making no attempt whatsoever to understand me, and for insisting I believe things that I don't believe. I feel very respected by you, and consider you worthy of conversations of substance.

Lol. The article is not at all promoting literalism. If anything it is assaulting YEC. It is definitely not assaulting science.

@curiousdannii I see Lee paroting your words back to you, and you taking offence that he's repeated your meaning. Perhaps you can elucidate the difference between what you mean and what Lee (and I) understand you to mean.

And if a Christian isn't allowed to rely on theology, then Christians can't exist

@curiousdannii If I'm wrong, please explain to my why I am wrong. Don't you, in fact, believe (your interpretation of) the Bible over science? Isn't that what this is all about?

2:55 PM

@LeeWoofenden Fundamentally it is not.

You think the Bible is an authority on science. I think the Bible is not about science, but entirely about spiritual matters, even if it uses "scientific" events as metaphors for those spiritual matters. That is the fundamental difference between your perspective and mine on science and the Bible.

@curiousdannii I don't think that's an accurate statement at all. Or if it is, only at the most fundamental level. But there have been, and continue to be, countless Christians who have little to no concept of "Theology", except to admire and follow the example of Christ's life.

Firstly, as Flimzy understood, but you seemingly have not yet, mature creation does not prevent the scientific enterprise. Science can be performed perfectly. Mature creation is much more damaging to our views on God than it is to science

I don't think mature creation is damaging to anything, since it's a fiction.

@Flimzy So how do you understand the miracle at Cana?

2:57 PM

@curiousdannii I simply think you're wrong that "mature creation does not prevent the scientific enterprise." It renders the scientific enterprise useless for anything related to past events, and calls the entire enterprise of science into question by saying that we cannot trust what science tells us about the past.

@curiousdannii I don't have any scientific understanding of the miracle at Cana. Not enough details have been provided to form one.

You're saying that science is all well and good as long as it doesn't conflict with (your literal interpretation of) the Bible. But if it does conflict with a literal interpretation of the Bible, then we must throw science's conclusions out the window.

@LeeWoofenden Lee, stop twisting what I say. I am talking in general about the scientific enterprise, not just past events.

I have the same scientific understanding of the miracle at Cana as I do for the crossing of the Red Sea. That is to say, there's a certain amount of historical evidence that something described in these terms by the event's contemporaries happened.

So you are saying, fundamentally: We cannot trust science to give us reliable information about the nature of the physical universe.

2:59 PM

@LeeWoofenden Please refrain from ever calling me a literalist, or calling my interpretations literal. I have asked you to do so many times before. Please stop offending me in this way.

The only reliable source of information about the nature of the physical universe is the Bible, on any matter about the nature of the physical universe that the Bible says something about. Science must bow to the Bible on those matters. And that leads to the undermining of all of science.

@LeeWoofenden To me, the idea of a mature creation falls outside the physical universe, and thus is not subject to scientific inquiry. In exactly the same way "Pink elephants live in the purple dimension" falls outside the physical universe, and are thus not subject to scientific inquiry.

@LeeWoofenden No! We can completely trust science to give us reliable information about the (present) nature of the physical universe

@curiousdannii But you are a literalist if you believe that the earth is young because the Bible says so. I won't stop calling you a literalist when you are in fact, a literalist.

@LeeWoofenden I'm a historicist you tool

Lee, you obviously have no respect for people you disagree with. You refuse to allow people to define what they believe.

3:01 PM

@curiousdannii: Do you believe Genesis 1 describes the creation of the universe literally?

@curiousdannii You can assault and deny everyone else's definition of "literal" and "literalist" if you want. But you don't get to decide how the culture uses the words that compose the English language. And by the generally accepted definition of "literalist"--which is its dictionary definition, you are a literalist.

@Flimzy Absolutely not

@curiousdannii I use the words of the English language the way the culture uses them, not the way you use them contrary to the way the culture uses them.

@curiousdannii Do you believe the world was created in 6 literal (24-hour) days?

"taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or exaggeration." -> this is not my hermeneutic

3:03 PM

@curiousdannii I refuse to allow people to redefine the words in the English language to avoid admitting that a particular word, as usually used in the culture, accurately describes their perspective.

@curiousdannii You don't get to redefine the English language to conform to your self-perspective.

@Flimzy Maybe. It is of course consistent with Genesis 1. But I like to some extent ahistorical framework interpretations of the chapter

@curiousdannii How old do you think the universe is?

@LeeWoofenden I'm not redefining the English language. I just quoted Google's definition.

@LeeWoofenden That's a tangent I don't want to go do with you again

@curiousdannii On what grounds do you base the idea that (maybe) the world was created in 6 literal days?

@curiousdannii Words have more than one meaning. The culture uses "literalist," in this context, to mean "someone who believes that the Creation story describes how the physical universe was created."

@curiousdannii It's not a tangent. You're speaking from a young universe perspective. And that colors and underlies this entire conversation.

3:06 PM

@LeeWoofenden Which if you had read anything I've just written, you would know I have not been claiming

@curiousdannii Then why do you believe that the universe is "young"?

@curiousdannii Don't you believe that because "the Bible says so"?

@Flimzy If Gen 1 is more than a framework, then I think the Hebrew grammar strongly implies 6 24ish hour days. A day-age "ie a day = many billion or million years" is not supportable

@curiousdannii What amazes me about YEC and other Creationist stuff is the contortions they get into to try to maintain anything other than the truth of the matter: that their beliefs have nothing to do with science, but are based entirely on the authority of the Bible in scientific matters.

@curiousdannii: It really feels like you're talking in circles. Probably to avoid discussing some particular aspect of your belief system that you think Lee and/or I will disagree with. Whatever the reason, it's quite frustrating the way you appear to be saying "I believe X, but that doesn't mean I really believe X, and I don't want to talk about it any more."

@Flimzy Well that's largely because I have almost no respect for Lee as a conversation partner.

3:08 PM

@curiousdannii You keep denying that you take the Creation story literally, but everything you say indicates that you do take it literally.

@curiousdannii Because I ask questions you don't want to answer.

@curiousdannii If your belief is based on a literal interpretation of the Creation account in Genesis, then just admit it, and say it. At least you would then be straightforward about your beliefs, and not trying to hide behind "something that you think @Flimzy and/or I will disagree with."

@LeeWoofenden Because of the genealogies, which I interpret historically. Everyone recognises that Genesis 1 is a distinct text, with a peculiar non-straight forward history genre

@curiousdannii Might I suggest, then, not engaging in conversation with him? (i.e. not continuing this discussion at all now) Alternately, perhaps confront Lee about where he's erred. I have a feeling he would at least listen to you. And even if he doesn't, at least then you've tried.

@LeeWoofenden If you stop putting words in my mouth then I'd be more inclined to answer your questions

@curiousdannii If in "non-straight forward history genre" you include "non-historical genre", I agree with you on that point, at least. :)

@curiousdannii You haven't answered my questions. I've had to answer them for you. Then you tell me I'm wrong. But you fail to explain to me why I'm wrong. You just start calling me names instead.

3:11 PM

@Flimzy I don't think that can be determined from the text! ;)

@curiousdannii How do the geneologies relate to the age of the world? I understand that they might relate to the age of humanity....

@curiousdannii If you were to come right out and say that you think the universe is about 6,000 years old because the Bible says so, and that it has nothing to do with science, I'd disagree with you, but at least I'd feel you're being honest about your own beliefs.

@curiousdannii perhaps not. But fortunately, we aren't limited in our study just to the text!

Genesis 1 (and the rest of the Bible) was written within a historical context. And we can learn a lot about the genre from that context.

@LeeWoofenden Well you've been calling me names too, such as literalist. It's incredibly insulting to be called a literalist interpreter when you're a genre sensitive historicist

@curiousdannii I think you're avoiding the term "literalist" because the wider culture has decided that literalism is mistaken, not because you're not actually a literalist.

@curiousdannii You are fighting against the culture, and your fundamental rejection is not of the term "literalist," but of conclusions of the wider culture about the nature of the universe, and of the Bible, that you disagree with.

3:14 PM

@curiousdannii "literalist" is hardly a name. And from appearances thus far, it does seem to be a more or less accurate description of your hermaneutic. Although I'd consider you, from what I understand, a more liberal literalist.

@curiousdannii Calling you a "historicist" instead of a "literalist" simply obscures things.

@Flimzy Yeah, which is what matters theologically, because of the NT passages on Adam and death etc. In theory I'd have nothing wrong with a very old creation and a young humanity, but almost no one pushes that framework - neither secular scientists or YECs would be impressed by such a position, so as a kind of compromise, it just loses everything

@curiousdannii I understand that you don't interpret the entire Bible literally. But the major debate with Creationists is over the age of the universe, and whether the Creation story in Genesis is to be taken as a description of the creation of the physical universe. On that critical issue of Bible interpretation, you are a literalist.

@curiousdannii I don't think that matters one iota for the NT passages on Adam and death, personally. And historically, neither do the vast majority of Christians.

So I have to wonder, how is it that a particular, minority, interpretation of these NT passages about death is sufficient to overthrow all of scientific knowledge?

If that interpretation of 'death' in the NT had a stronger theological history, it might seem to me like a good argument

But when even that is a relatively new theory, created directly in response to Darwinism, and not because it made sense on its own...

@Flimzy I just think it is a completely unhelpful term. It basically is used only in a pejorative sense: someone who doesn't give enough attention to the genre and idiom of a text. There are really incredibly few people who are like that, who think that there is a physical fermament, or actual windows in the heavens. A "historicist" is a meaningful label: it indicates you think texts in the historical genre communicate accurately about reality in some fashion

3:19 PM

that view lives in a huge shadow of doubt in my mind.

@Flimzy I don't think it does overthrow all scientific knowledge?

@curiousdannii This whole line of thinking is also a literalist line of thinking. It assumes that when the New Testament refers to "Adam," it must be referring to a literal individual human person named "Adam." I don't think that's what the NT is referring to at all when it mentions "Adam." It is, like the OT, using "Adam" as a metaphor for a greater, spiritual reality about the human condition.

@curiousdannii It overthrows everything we know about gravity, the speed of light, biology, genetics, magnetism, etc.

@curiousdannii You have to basically throw out every meaningful scientific discovery of the last 200-300 years. Which is the vast majority of scientific discovery.

@curiousdannii Well, I'm sorry you don't like the term "literalist." I don't like the term "Swedenborgian." But I have to live with it anyway.

@LeeWoofenden You're applying the term not to hermeneutics at all, but to doctrine. Where is that sense of "literal" used in common society? I can't see anything like that in the Wikipedia page on Biblical literalism

3:22 PM

@curiousdannii The fact of the matter is that the term "literalist" as used in society generally is the most common, widely recognized term for your view of significant parts of the Bible. I'm not going to stop using accurate terminology just because you don't like it.

@curiousdannii Your view that NT verses about Adam and death indicate, indirectly, the age of the world, is a literalist interpretation/view/theology/whatever.

@curiousdannii There are three people active in this chatroom. Two of them think the term "literalist" applies to you. One doesn't.

@Flimzy ... that doesn't make any sense at all to me. The only thing it strictly denies is an evolutionary origin for homo sapiens

@curiousdannii then you have absolutely no understanding of modern science.

@curiousdannii It also strictly denies the age of the glaciers. It denies the age of fossils. It denies the speed of light in a vacuum over long distances.

@LeeWoofenden You also don't like the term modalist, which most trinitarians would consider your position to be functionally equivalent to, but out of respect we don't call you that. If you really dislike Swedenborgian, then I'll call you a New Churchian if you prefer.

3:24 PM

@curiousdannii I'm simply using the term "literalist" the way most people in the culture use it.

And all of these things relate to practically everything else done in science.

If the earth is 6,000 years old (barring mature creationism, which is easily rejected for theological reasons as we've discussed), GPS systems won't work.

GPS systems work only because we know the precise, and unchanging speed of light.

@Flimzy Only if you interpret those NT passages as applying to more than human death. But I can't see how it possibly could deny GPS systems. Please explain that to me.

@curiousdannii The term "modalist" is fine. I just don't happen to be modalist, as I've explained quite thoroughly here:

6

A: What's the difference, if any, between the Swedenborgian and Oneness Pentecostal doctrines of God?

tl;dr Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) agrees with Oneness Pentecostals and other modalists in affirming the full divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while denying that they are three persons. This has led to the common error of labeling Swedenborg and Swedenborgians "modalist." However, ...

@LeeWoofenden Just like I think the term "literalist" is fine for the people who think there actually is a physical firmament

@curiousdannii If the speed of light is not constant (as YECs like to hypothesize, to explain the "apparent distance of far away objects"), then GPS won't be able to tell us where we are. Because GPS is based on measuring the time interval between a broadcast and a reception, which depends intimately and solely on the unchanging speed of light.

Even if we say that the speed of light is constant over short distances, or near Earth, or whatever....

3:27 PM

@curiousdannii There are different varieties of literalist. Literalists disagree with one another on many things.

There are countless other observations related to the speed of light over long distances

which wouldn't be true if the speed of light varied, as YECs will try to say

@Flimzy 1. You said my interpretation of the NT passages on death would overthrow all science, which is not the same as YEC. 2. No YECs suggest the speed of light is not constant, and they haven't for decades?!?

@curiousdannii Unfortunately, "New Church" is also a poor term for my version of Christianity, based, I believe, on a not particularly good reading of Swedenborg's use of the term. It's really a generic term for any new spiritual era, or "church," of which Swedenborg says there have been at least five. So it's not a very good description of this "new church."

@LeeWoofenden So what label do you prefer?

@curiousdannii If by "No YECs" you mean "no leading YEC psuedo-researchers" you might be right. If by "No YECs" you mean "No YECs", you're sadly mistaken. But then, most YEC's understanding of science is sorely outdated and flat out incorrect to begin with. I cant expect all my YEC friends to keep up on the "state of the (non-)art" when it comes to what nonsense the YEC "big wigs" are spouting tihs month.

3:30 PM

@curiousdannii When Swedenborg himself was pressed on the matter, he said (referring to his enemies who had labeled his teaching "Swedenborgian"): "They refer to it as 'Swedenborgianism.' But for my part, I call it true Christianity." That is actually how I think of my belief. But realistically, the culture is not, at this point, going to accept that label for my belief, no matter how much I wish it would, and think it should.

@Flimzy Well perhaps there are some, but it's been on their list of arguments not to use for a very very long time.

@curiousdannii So I just have to accept the label that society has put on my belief. And the most descriptive and specific term for it as used in the wider society is "Swedenborgian," whether I like it or not.

(Today notwithstanding, my most recent YEC converstation included the statement "I think it's ridiculous that God would make fish and whales evolve lungs and start walking on the water." To which I replied "Actually, whales have lungs... and they evolved from land-dwelling animals.")

@Flimzy Idiots abound. Not much I can do about that :P

@curiousdannii That doesn't address the more recent version I've heard, that the speed of light is different over long distances

3:32 PM

@curiousdannii Similarly, no matter how much you wiggle, and no matter how much you don't like it, the term "literalist" is the word that the wider society uses to describe the general approach to the Bible that encompasses your view within its circle on the Venn Diagram of Biblical interpretation. Sorry, but that's just the fact of the matter.

@Flimzy I've never heard of such a thing. Do you mean the gravitational time dilation theories?

@curiousdannii I don't know. Maybe?

In case you haven't noticed, I don't waste much time reading YEC "science"

@curiousdannii So you'll probably keep calling me a Swedenborgian, because that's what society calls those who hold my views, and I'll keep calling you a literalist, because that's what society calls those who hold your views.

@Flimzy If so, it absolutely does not involve a changing speed of light

Such a theory could be scientifically possible, but it's overly complicated and completely disconnected from exegesis, so I prefer the philosophically simpler, if also philosophically unpleasant, mature creation

you forgot "theologically dishonest"

So here's what it boils down to:

3:36 PM

@Flimzy Make your case

@curiousdannii It still all boils down to thinking that the Bible provides us reliable information about the nature of the physical universe--information that's so reliable that it is to be trusted against the combined weight of scientific investigation.

@curiousdannii That's what the culture calls "literalism."

1. God created the universe via the Big Bang, ~13B years ago, [ everything science says about geology and evolution ]... And when Paul talks about Adam and death, he's making a general, spiritual point, not a claim to historical accuracy.
2. The vast majority of science for the last 200+ years is wrong. God is a liar, and created a world that looks older than it is, and Paul literally meant "Adam and death" when he said these things, even though most Christians, up until 1850, didn't think this was the case.

I can respect the desire to honor God's word over science.

I have a hard time accepting one, small minority interpretation, of God's word, over the majority interpretation + science

And not only is it a minority interpretation of "death," it's one that's utterly un-satisfying to me as a Christian, who wants to understand what Paul is talking about.

The age of the universe aside, it's bad theology.

@Flimzy Minority interpretations should always give us great caution. The reason why I think it's valid in this case is that the fundamental axiom of Christian theology is that God exists and he can and does act in this world, transcending the laws of nature if and when he chooses. The fundamental axiom of the scientific enterprise, even when performed by Christians, is that nothing we are considering is in the slightest impacted by the supernatural.

@curiousdannii That's a false dichotomy.

Basing any belief system, theological or otherwise, on a false dichotomy, is a recipe for disaster.

@curiousdannii If you want to use the term "historicist" to refer to yourself, that's fine. But "historicist" as you define it is a sub-category of "literalist" as society defines it. So all you're really saying with the "historicist" label is: "This is the precise kind of literalist I am."

3:43 PM

This is why I think it's intellectually reasonable to completely accept the science that studies the present, while question that which passes the threshold of the major supernatural events of the flood (if you believe in a global one) or the creation (whether you believe in a global flood or not)

@Flimzy Why is it a false dichotomy?

@curiousdannii What you just said. "the fundamental axiom of Christian theology is God exists and he can and does act in the world" vs "The fundamental axiom of the scientific enterprise...is that nothing we are considering is in the slightest impacted by the supernatural"

Not only is it a false dichotomy, but both statements are factually incorrect.

@curiousdannii Do you really think that God "transcending the laws of nature if and when he chooses" is a fundamental axiom of Christianity? It seems rather peripheral to Christianity to me.

@LeeWoofenden If you deny it then the resurrection is impossible. God doing the supernatural is axiomatic I think. (Not that he regularly does it, but that it is within his capabilities.)

@LeeWoofenden My thoughts exactly.

@Flimzy What would be the middle ground?

3:47 PM

@curiousdannii Well first, there's nothing within science that rejects the supernatural. Science simply cannot, by definition, measure the supernatural.

So your statement about the fundamental axiom of science is "fundamentally" incorrect.

@Flimzy That's exactly what I meant.

@curiousdannii I also don't think that the supernatural not affecting the scientific enterprise is not really a fundamental axiom of science. Rather, I would say that science assumes that any supernatural influence does not change the nature and laws of physical reality.

science makes no claims, whatsoever about the supernatural. your statement says that it rejects the supernatural.

@curiousdannii I happen to think that the supernatural continually holds the natural (physical) in existence, and is a pervasive presence in all physical reality. But I also believe that God created physical reality such that it operates by constant laws within its own level of reality, because those laws are expressions of the laws of spiritual (and divine) reality.

@Flimzy It makes the null hypothesis that there is no supernatural interference

3:49 PM

@curiousdannii No, the resurrection is not impossible. Even scientifically, people have been "resurrected" after periods of clinical death.

@curiousdannii That's not even true.

And incidentally, virgin births are also a common phenomena in nature, though rare (but not impossible) in higher, mammalian species.

@LeeWoofenden That's really not at all comparable to what most people think Jesus' resurrection was

In any case, if your position is "I choose a literal interpretation of Paul's letter to the Romans, because science doesn't like the supernatural" you're still missing the majority interpretation of Paul's letter.

@curiousdannii I think that the entirety of nature is an example of the supernatural acting into the natural. God, I believe, never violates the laws of nature. God may, however, operate in ways that we think violates the laws of nature because we don't fully understand those laws as God (who created them) does.

3:52 PM

Not to mention that it's a non sequitur

@Flimzy Well not strictly, because it's not something that is ever considered to be challengeable

@curiousdannii The null hypothesis is "X will have no effect on Y." There's no mention of supernatural causes there (there can't be, by definition).

How would you design an experiment to measure supernatural causes?

@Flimzy I don't understand why you're disagreeing with me. How would you describe the LHC team's assumptions about the supernatural?

@curiousdannii I don't know what the team thinks about the supernatural (that's a matter of personal philosophy). I know what their experiments say about the supernatural: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

@curiousdannii From a scientific viewpoint, Christ's resurrection would be his dead body coming back to life. And science has, in fact, observed this happening. As for the theological implications of it, or God's purposes behind it, that's entirely beyond the purview of science. And that, of course, is precisely where religion begins.

3:54 PM

@Flimzy But that's exactly my point. Science can't detect the supernatural, and the assumption is that there will be only natural

@curiousdannii Which is not what you said. You said that science rejects the supernatural. It doesn't. It ignores the supernatural.

It's time for me to get going...

@Flimzy I didn't say it rejects the supernatural. I said that the assumption is that the observations and conclusions will not have been impacted by the supernatural

@curiousdannii No, the assumption is not that there is "only natural," or no supernatural, phenomena. It's that we can study natural phenomena without reference to supernatural phenomena. There's a huge difference.

@Flimzy ttyl

@curiousdannii That would be a more accurate statement. Science does not deny the supernatural. It simply assumes that natural phenomena can be studied on their own level without reference to the supernatural.

Stephen Jay Gould's Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) idea is well-known and reasonably well-accepted among many thinkers. It handles this whole situation fairly well.

@LeeWoofenden But it goes beyond that, to the practical level where even Christian scientists do not expect to be encountering the supernatural. If there were an even mix of natural and supernatural, if, for example, the law of conservation of energy was constantly being violated, the discipline could not function effectively

Or in other words, there is a very practical sense of that "can be studied on their own level without reference to the supernatural"

@curiousdannii They don't expect to encounter supernatural influences in their scientific pursuits that would make it impossible to study the physical universe in a scientific manner. But there are plenty of scientists who have had supernatural experiences, and don't consider those experiences to be at all conflicting with or contradictory to their scientific pursuits.

4:02 PM

@LeeWoofenden Yes exactly

@curiousdannii In other words, they believe that both the natural and the supernatural operate at the same time on their own levels, but don't contradict or invalidate one another.

@LeeWoofenden I don't like that way of phrasing it. There are not two levels. There is the universe, where God most of the time acts in providence in completely regular ways, and occassionally acts in unusual ways. From his perspective there is no difference. From our perspective the first is the natural and the second is the supernatural

@curiousdannii I don't think the supernatural violates the natural because I believe that the natural is an expression and manifestation of the supernatural. For the supernatural to break physical laws, it would have to break its own laws, too. Or put another way, for God to violate natural law would be for God to violate God's own laws. And I don't believe God violates God's own laws.

But every action of God, whether natural or supernatural, has chain reaction flow on effects to (eventually) every other part of the creation

@curiousdannii Do you believe that there is a spiritual realm that is non-material? Or do you think that all of existence consists of physical matter-and-energy?

4:06 PM

@LeeWoofenden Yes of course, but I was speaking about the physical universe

@curiousdannii Nature itself sometimes acts in unusual ways that surprise us. Just because something is unusual, that doesn't necessarily mean that it violates the laws of nature.

@curiousdannii I was just wondering. I see the universe as a multi-leveled affair. The physical universe is only one part of the totality of reality that exists. The spiritual world, or spiritual universe, I believe, constitutes an entirely distinct (though interrelated) level of reality. And God constitutes yet another entirely distinct (though interrelated) level of reality: divine reality, which, unlike the others, is self-existing.

@LeeWoofenden We don't fully understand how God acts providentially. But we have no doubt about some of it, such as, for example, the conservation of energy. Excluding quantum fluctuations, there's no way for a photon to appear in a way that we can observe it looking like it just appeared

@curiousdannii I'm not sure what your point is . . . .

If God violated the conservation of energy and made a new photon in that way, we could only describe it, in effect, with "history" - comparing or present and past observations. But the photon would not look in the present as if it had ever not existed

@curiousdannii Are you angling back toward miraculous creation a few thousand years ago to look as if the universe were billions of years old?

4:10 PM

@LeeWoofenden No, just discussing the limitations of the scientific enterprise

Though that point does indicate that some level of apparent age is unavoidable. Unless God created through the big bang, then universe will look like it came from a big bang.

@curiousdannii Well, if you mean that science can't observe and study miracles, I would agree with that. If something is truly miraculous, then it's outside the purview of science. I simply don't think that God would do a miracle that contradicts and overturns everything that the human mind can learn and discover about the nature of the physical universe. And I believe YEC theories do exactly that.

Science exists to study material phenomena, not spiritual phenomena. And religion, I believe, exists to teach us about spiritual phenomena, not material phenomena.

> Unless God created through the big bang, then universe will look like it came from a big bang.

Huh?

@LeeWoofenden So the sticking point is the scope of the "miracle"? If it is local, it's okay, but if it's of cosmic scope then you don't accept it?

@curiousdannii I don't think miracles actually violate the laws of nature.

I think they involve working in and through the laws of nature.

Nature, in my view, is held in existence every nanosecond by the inflow of spiritual reality into material reality--which reflects and expresses the spiritual reality behind it. This happens so organically that material reality operates consistently with its own laws, because those laws are expressions of spiritual laws on the natural level. This is the principle that Swebenborg called "correspondences."

@LeeWoofenden What about the feeding of the 5000? That would seem to me to be some kind of violating of the conservation matter. Either because new matter was just made, or matter was transmuted, and the energy was created

2 hours ago, by curiousdannii

With out currently scientific understanding, their is only one stable configuration for the universe: a singularity. It is therefore inevitable that the universe will look like it came from the big-bang. Maybe God made the universe through the big-bang, maybe he didn't, either way, as we model and trace back the interactions of the particles in the universe, they will inevitable converge into a singularity

@curiousdannii Two things: First, we can't scientifically study the feeding of the 5,000, because there were no scientific instruments present to measure the multiplication of the food. So we really don't know scientifically whether it happened.

Second, whether or not it actually happened physically is, in my view, entirely irrelevant to the reasons it's included in the Bible. If we actually had a time machine and could go back and discover that in fact Jesus never did feed five thousand with a few loaves and fish, it would have no effect whatsoever on my belief in the Bible.

It's quite possible that Jesus did feed five thousand people with a few loaves and fish. But since we can't study it scientifically, there's no way for us to know how he did that--whether he did, in fact, use some physical laws that he had command of that we don't.

4:19 PM

@LeeWoofenden Well the point of the gospel miracles is to witness to Jesus' divinity. If none of them happened then that would be a big deal. It wouldn't mean he couldn't be divine, but it would sure make it seem like God's inspiration of the scriptures was very dishonest

At any rate, it's a moot point, because we can't scientifically study what happened.

@curiousdannii Only if you think that it's very important that the Bible is literally accurate. I doubt even the original storytellers of the Gospel stories were terribly concerned about that. They were concerned about the spiritual state of their listeners, and the spiritual impact that these stories would have upon them.

For the record, I am generally inclined to think Jesus actually did do the things he is described as having done in the Bible. But my faith doesn't depend on that, because I believe the point of the Bible stories is to convey a spiritual message, and that the "shock and awe" aspect of it is relatively superficial.

@LeeWoofenden So how do we scientifically study and rule out God acting in a supernatural way in a cosmic scope in the past, such as the creation of the world? Or a global flood? God could do it of course. But it wouldn't be scientifically studiable. So to rule it out you must do so for philosophical reasons

@curiousdannii If the point of the miracles is to show that Jesus was divine, why do most people today generally not experience miracles of that sort? Why doesn't God continue to do those sorts of things in order to bring about belief in skeptical people today? I would say that even in Bible times, the impact of miracles was relatively superficial. The Israelites saw many miracles, yet they still kept violating God's commandments, worshiping other Gods, etc.

@curiousdannii The difference is that we can't scientifically study what a guy named Jesus did 2,000 years ago. But we can scientifically study what happened in the universe several billion years ago.

@LeeWoofenden Well such a belief leads to the divine and christology being irrelevant. It's not at all surprising to me that you're a universalist of some sort. Your thinking is consistent in these matters. But it means that I can't see you standing up for very much at all. The spiritual message you tell us about is always a small subset of the spiritual message I see in the Bible

@LeeWoofenden Well they were to simultaneously prove his divinity, and convict the Jews for rejecting the signs God was presenting to them.

@curiousdannii This only shows how little you understand my beliefs. And incidentally, "universalist" in religious circles means someone who believes that all people are ultimately saved--which I do not.

4:25 PM

@LeeWoofenden You're an all-roads-lead-to-God kind of person aren't you?

Not all will be saved because not all do right, but those who do right will be saved regardless of what they believe

@curiousdannii I have no problem with the idea that Jesus performed miracles 2,000 years ago. But those miracles have no effect on the pursuit of science, because they're not something science can study. However, saying that the universe was created 6,000 years ago to look as if it were billions of years old does have a huge impact on science, because it fundamentally calls into question science's ability to come to valid conclusions about anything.

@curiousdannii I believe that God is present in all faiths, and saves through all faiths, yes. But that's not the same as "universalism" as it's used in religious circles. The "Universalist" part of "Unitarian-Universalist" was a denominational group that believed that all people are ultimately saved.

@LeeWoofenden No, it only questions science's ability to make valid conclusions back in time further than a supernatural event.

@curiousdannii But what you don't seem to understand is how fundamental it is to science that it be able to accurately date things. If it cannot do that, then the whole enterprise of science collapses.

Science is about being able to accurately understand and describe the nature of the physical universe. If all of science that comes to any conclusions about anything that happened prior to 6,000 years ago is false, then you've just ripped the arms and legs off of science.

@LeeWoofenden I don't not understand, I dispute what you're saying. Dating is relevant to many things, but not to many more things. It is not relevant to gene sequencing. It is not relevant to sending probes to Pluto. It is not relevant to building transistors or quantum computers. These are all things that can be accomplished with observations from the last century alone.

@curiousdannii Not actually "regardless of what they believe." It is possible to do good works and not be saved because we are doing them for our own benefit rather than to benefit others. So some sort of belief in the good of humanity is necessary for people to be saved.

@curiousdannii But once we reach Pluto, and conclude that some of its surface features are "young," meaning in this context only on the order of a few million years old, your stance says that those conclusions we're drawing based on our probe's flyby of Pluto are all wrong. What's the point of going to Pluto if everything we learn there about the development of our solar system is wrong? The whole enterprise becomes meaningless.

@curiousdannii Even gene sequencing is all tied in with evolution, which is the science of how genes got to be the way they are. There is really no science that isn't affected by our science of the past. And if our science of the past is denied as relevant to reality, once again, you've chopped the arms and legs off of science.

4:33 PM

@LeeWoofenden Well science doesn't depend on meaning...

@curiousdannii Not if you mean purpose. Science doesn't deal with purpose in the metaphysical sense. But science does deal in accurately describing the physical universe. And you're saying that when it comes to anything older than 6,000 years, science is useless for that purpose.

And really, you're saying it for no other reason than that you believe that the Creation story in Genesis should be read as describing physical reality in some way.

@LeeWoofenden It really isn't useless. Science is aiming at improving the scope and quality of its observations, and the consistency of the models it derives from those observations

@curiousdannii But you're saying that its models are wrong in one of their key aspects: the age of the universe. That is not incidental to science. It is a fundamental area of scientific inquiry. If science can't be trusted to come to any valid conclusions about that, it calls into question science's ability to come to valid conclusions about anything.

If God didn't act in providence we could do neither with reliability. But I think his providential nature even extends to his mature creation, so that even if everything is created mature, it's created with a consistent and predictable level of maturity

Maybe we're not actually sequencing genes at all. Maybe God just made the universe to appear as if we're splicing genes, when in fact we're playing with legos that look like genes. Based on your theory, there's really no valid counter-argument to that. Perhaps everything science does is illusory, and doesn't actually reflect the real nature of physical reality. That's the only sound conclusion that could be draw if you are right.

4:38 PM

If everything depended on the age of the universe then school kids couldn't perform any scientific experiments.

@curiousdannii But why would God lie to us about the age of the universe? Why would God create an entire universe to look like it's 13.8 billion years old, when in fact it's only 6,000 years old? There is no sound or sensible reason for God to deceive us in that way.

@LeeWoofenden And now we're right back at the beginning. That's what Flimzy was saying about the flat earth being magically observed as round. Well I'll just say that throughout all of Christian history God's providence has been consistently affirmed

If God really wanted us to believe in a literal Creation as described in Genesis, wouldn't it make far more sense for God to create the universe to look like it's 6,000 years old? Then our faith would be supported by our science, instead of science being in conflict with faith.

@curiousdannii You realize, don't you, that Biblical literalism as a principle is a relatively recent phenomenon--only about a hundred years old. Even Luther with his sola scriptura principle did not assert that scripture is literally true on scientific subjects. His meaning was that scripture should be our sole source of church doctrine.

@LeeWoofenden Because a universe that looked 6000 years old would, according to our science, have nothing more than hydrogen and helium

@LeeWoofenden I am not asserting, nor have I ever, that the scriptures are literally true on scientific subjects :/

Biblical literalism as it exists today is a response to the scientific revolution. Before that, people may have innocently believed that the world is 6,000 years old, but it wasn't particularly an article of faith. It was more like assuming that clouds are just white, wispy things because we don't yet know that they're actually vast amalgamations of tiny droplets of water, and of water vapor.

4:43 PM

@LeeWoofenden The main thing is that God created a mature creation. It was created complete, and functional

@curiousdannii You are asserting that the Creation story somehow describes the creation of the physical universe, are you not?

For almost all of human history there's been almost no way we could even approximately investigate the age of the universe

@LeeWoofenden The text describe history, not science. That's a basic distinction

@curiousdannii Right. So Christians had no particular reason to believe that the universe was not 6,000 years old. But various ancient Greek and Roman philosophers believed, based on philosophical considerations, that the universe was far older, if not infinitely old.

@curiousdannii It's a false distinction. By "history" here you mean the physical beginning of the physical universe. That's a matter of science. It's not part of what would today be described as "history"--which is generally about the history of human civilization.

Now we can investigate how old the universe looks, but we do so only millenia after the scriptures were written and preserved. If you accept the scriptures as inspired their is still no deception, because the base fact is not that the universe is X years old, but that it is mature

@curiousdannii "Deception" about what? The idea that the scriptures would be "deceptive" if the universe were not 6,000 years old is assuming that the Bible's intent is to convey scientific and historical (if you like) information to us. I do not believe that was the intent of the human authors of the Bible, nor do I think it was God's intent.

4:47 PM

@LeeWoofenden I meant that it's written in a historical non-scientifically informed fashion. Most history is about humans because only humans can write. If God exists then he can write his own history. That's what I believe Genesis 1 is. It's basically autobiographical.

Do way say that the movie Star Wars is "deceptive" because nothing in it ever actually happened? No. Because Star Wars isn't intended to teach us about historical events.

@LeeWoofenden Not the scriptures, the scientific world, if it looked older than it was

@curiousdannii And I think you're wrong about that if you think "history" means "how the universe was physically created." That is the fundamental difference between your view and mine. You think that the Bible is intended, at least in part, to convey information about the physical universe. I don't think that's any part of the Bible's intent.

If you would simply and clearly admit that in your view, some of the Bible is meant to be taken literally as describing how this universe was physically made, then we could just agree to disagree. But you keep trying to confuse the issue by insisting that you're not talking about science, when in fact you are talking about the Bible as a scientific textbook.

@LeeWoofenden Yes, because your view of theology and spiritual matters is essentially timeless truths.

@LeeWoofenden You're putting words in my mouth again

@curiousdannii You believe that the Bible conveys scientific information to us that takes precedence over what human scientists discover through the scientific method.

4:50 PM

@LeeWoofenden I do not think that it describes how it was physically made in a scientific textbook fashion

The age of the physical universe is a scientific issue.

@LeeWoofenden No.

@curiousdannii Yes.

@LeeWoofenden Prove to me why I do not understand what I believe.

@curiousdannii You believe that it contradicts what science tells us about scientific subjects, and that we should believe what the Bible says about those scientific subjects rather than believing what science tells us about those scientific subjects.

@curiousdannii I'm not so much saying you don't understand what you believe, as that you're trying to deny what you believe.

You do, in fact, believe that the Bible trumps science on certain scientific subjects. But you keep insisting that you don't believe that.

4:52 PM

@LeeWoofenden I believe that it has implications which contradict some scientific consensus positions, but the implications are not the message itself

@curiousdannii No, you believe that the Bible calls the entire foundation of science into question. Science cannot be based on scriptural authority. It must be based on the empirical study of natural phenomena. You're saying that we really can't trust science to do that in any area where it conflicts with Biblical authority on scientific issues. That undermines all of science.

If the Bible happened to take a position on DNA, you would say that we have to trust the Bible, not science, when it comes to those aspects of DNA.

@LeeWoofenden You mustn't have understood anything I have written in the past 3 hours. The process of science is not questioned by anything in the Bible. In fact it is the character of God in the Bible that underpins science.

It's time for bed.

Thanks for the chat.

@curiousdannii Once again, I believe you're actually denying your own beliefs. The age of the physical universe is a scientific matter. It relates to the physical universe. And that's what science studies. You're saying that because the Bible disagrees with science, science is wrong, and the Bible is right. You just can't wiggle out of the fact that you are saying that the Bible trumps science on any scientific subject on which the Bible (interpreted literally) takes a position.

@curiousdannii Sleep well.

@LeeWoofenden I'm just distinguishing between the message conveyed and the implications we draw from it. Yes, ultimately, the inspired scriptures trump the reasoning of mankind. This is uncontroversial among Christians throughout history.

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