Creationism vs. ☐

6:37 PM

@JonathonByrd: can you elaborate on your comment to my answer to your OEC question?

Specifically the part where you say "4. also includes weak inference because your willing to use deductive reasoning on space to distance of stars but you're not willing to use it on closer objects like the sun and the moon."

BeatMe

"(fallacy in star distance measurements) There have been plenty of arguments against the red shift theory. So it cannot be entirely counted on."

Flimzy

@BeatMe: that's not much of an elaboration... perhaps a re-statement :)

So I'm googling for evidence that redshifting is wrong... the first hit says it's wrong because obviously the universe is far older than redshifting would indicate

although this article is also from 1968 or so it seems

Jonathon Byrd

7:09 PM

@Flimzy to elaborate on that. If I recall properly without looking at your question again. (with the underlying basis that the big bang happened and all stars started from a single spot) you had made the statement that the universe could not be young because the distance from us to stars is many millions of light years away.

This statement uses the idea that because the stars have traveled so much distance away from their origin, the universe must be old.

But if you apply this idea that stars are moving away from us, to planets that are much closer to us. Like our moon. You'll take the same variables. (Object Current distance) = Time X (Speed of object as it moves away from earth) You'll calculate that even a million years ago the moon would be too close to our planet.

Flimzy

@JonathonByrd: The planets in our solar system are orbiting the sun, that is clearly observable. Stars are also orbiting the center of their galaxies...

@JonathonByrd: What's really being measured is the distance/speed of remote galaxies, not individual stars.

TRiG

@stoicfury. Special links work for (a) sites on the Stack Exchange network; (b) Wikipedia; and (c) xkcd. That's all I'm aware of. There may be others.

Flimzy

@JonathonByrd: Although galaxies travel in clusters, too, perhaps even orbiting (I'm a bit rusty on that bit)...

@JonathonByrd: So some of the motion may be spiral motion, and not strictly "moving away from us"

@JonathonByrd: I'm not really sure how that relates to near planets, though

TRiG

13

A: What links and sites are handled specially in chat?

The current list of integrated (we call this onebox, or oneboxing, ala search engines) sites is: Stack Exchange sites: Questions / Answers / Users Stack Exchange Chat: Messages / Rooms / Bookmarked conversations Area 51 proposals Posts from the Stack Exchange blog, the Server Fault blog, and th...

dancek

Remember the creationist count question I asked on Skeptics and linked to yesterday? I nearly fell off my chair when I read this answer:

5

A: Are only 700 out of 480,000 life scientists creationists?

700 scientists is quite likely an over-estimation. The Discovery Institute can only be described as a pro-creation, anti-Evolution think-tank. Started in 1996, the Center for Science and Culture is a Discovery Institute program which: supports research by scientists and other schola...

Flimzy

7:17 PM

I was just doing a little research on that myself

@dancek: I stumbled upon this book on amazon:

amazon.com/Six-Days-Scientists-Believe-Creation/dp/0890513414/…

And this list of the 50 essayists who contributed:

answersingenesis.org/articles/isd

I'm going through the list of essayists to see who have credentials that actually qualify them to write on this subject :)

dancek

hmm, I went to chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/1254/creationism-chat, maybe we should chat there?

@Flimzy wrt amazon.com/Six-Days-Scientists-Believe-Creation/dp/… if the people are only required to have a Ph.D. that doesn't tell much about expertise IMHO

Flimzy

@dancek: Many of their PhD's have nothing to do with the topic they're writing on.

The first guy on the list, for instance, is a mechanical engineer

one of the guys works in agri research

one is a forrester

Hydrometallurgy ??

dancek

@Flimzy yeah, that's definitely not a merit

Flimzy

some of the PhDs actually match with their subject matter

but in a book like that, you'd think they all should

dancek

I do think that a person should not be judged by their lack of relevant education though. But waving Ph.D.'s around like they mean something is misleading.

Flimzy

7:27 PM

Indeed.

dancek

I don't know many hardcore creationists, but the ones I do know either have relevant education or don't really represent themselves as scientists at all.

Flimzy

well, the answer you got is interesting, but I think mostly irrelevant

Right... I don't know any young-earth-creationists who are actually scientists

I may have known some high school science teachers who were YECs

but that's hardly a credential either :)

dancek

@Flimzy of the scientist creationists I know, I don't know whether they're OEC or YEC.

The distinction doesn't matter much in a secular country, where *EC are fools

I can kind of understand why some YEC's in the USA frown upon OEC's, however

Flimzy

I think it's the YEC's that give *EC's a "bad name" in the eyes of the world

because OEC looks very much like secularism, from a scientific perspective

Fabian

@Flimzy The C part is enough, to be honest

Flimzy

7:36 PM

I disagree.

dancek

@Flimzy Wilder-Smith would probably serve as an example of a scientist in a relevant field who held YEC

Flimzy

I think there are many (perhaps a majority) of OECs who simply don't use that terminology.

The only difference between an OEC and an atheist is their opinion of "first cause"

which has little to do with biology or cosmology

Fabian

@Flimzy So you include theistic evolution in OEC?

dancek

@Flimzy that's only true if you consider theistic evolution a subset of OEC

Flimzy

@Fabian: I do...

Fabian

7:37 PM

Which would be very misleading

It is very different from creationism

Flimzy

Perhaps most don't consider that a subset

in which case I need to adjust my terminology :)

dancek

or rather, I'd think evolutionists would still think non-TE OEC's are stupid

TRiG

@Flimzy. I too thought theistic evolution was the same as OEC.

Though, come to think of it, the Witnesses are an exception.

dancek

@TRiG the Witnesses teach OEC?

Flimzy

wikipedia draws a distinction between OEC and TEs

although it also calls TEs "evolutionary creationists", so they're still a *C in that sense

So we have YEC, OEC, and EC

TRiG

7:39 PM

@dancek. Depends on your definitions, again. Old Earth, yes. But humans the standard 6000 years ago. shrug.

Why is your name in italics?

Fabian

@TRiG He's a room owner

dancek

@TRiG I think a lot of OECs are that way. TEs are obviously different

TRiG

@dancek. Witnesses accept "long days" in Genesis, and further say that the opening verse of Genesis is even further before the days begin, but put humans right at the end of the process. And don't accept evolution at all.

Feeds

dancek has added Fabian to the list of this room's owners.

TRiG

@dancek. And they publish the usual pseudoscientific nonsense we're used to from such people.

Feeds

7:46 PM

dancek has added Flimzy to the list of this room's owners.

Fabian

@StackExchange For future reference, you don't need to add a mod as an owner, I already can do anything a room owner can and some more.

dancek

@Fabian can you? this is a Christianity.SE room, and you're a Skeptics.SE mod, right?

Fabian

Chat is not separated, any SE2.0 mod is a mod on the whole chat (you can recognize that by the blue name)

dancek

@Fabian oh, wow!

Fabian

So I could kick out people out of Christianity chat all day long (until the SE team removes my diamond)

TRiG

7:52 PM

@Fabian. Do it. For teh evil lolz.

dancek

@TRiG lolz!

well, thankfully all the diamonds I've seen seem very responsible

Flimzy

8:27 PM

Is it true that a diamond is a woman's best friend?

dancek

8:38 PM

this chatroom is too boring. I might have to start defending YEC one of these days.

Flimzy

ha

You should defend St. Augistine's view, that God created the universe instantaneously, and that the 6 days are just metaphore

dancek

@Flimzy I take it you're a theistic evolutionist? or have you not decided?

Flimzy

I'm undecided

dancek

ok...

what I'd like to know about TE is how the Fall of Man can be viewed, i.e. can it be a historic event Genesis-style in TE

that might make a good †.SE question, actually

I never seem to find any TE experts irl, the TE's I know don't nitpick on the theological details

Flimzy

8:58 PM

I suspect, that Adam and Eve, and the fall, are metaphor

But I'm not (yet) willing to say I completely believe that

dancek

I think the Fall is an important part of Christianity.

I'm not saying it has to be literal to make sense, but I do think it must have happened for Christianity to make sense.

Flimzy

Certainly the fall, as a concept, is important. I'm not sure if the fall as a historical event is. Maybe it is... maybe not... I'm not sure yet.

For Christianity to make sense, the only thing that I think must be true, is that humanity rebelled against God.

Whether that was a single historical event that occurred with first man/woman, or not... I'm not sure if that's important.

If we take the view that it was a literal event, and that sin == selfishness...

Then if the event did not occur, how would babies behave today?

Babies are developmentally completely selfish until a certain age

dancek

also, evolution might require selfishness to work

Flimzy

I find it difficult (maybe not impossible) to buy the argument that a baby's selfishness is the result of the fall, and not the result of God's designing us to become selfless as we mature

dancek

@Flimzy you're not an original sin aficionado, are you?

Flimzy

9:05 PM

heh

well, I suppose it depends on your definition

I think large parts of Genesis are clearly metaphorical

creation, certain details of the flood, details of the tower of babel, etc

Which calls much of the rest of early genesis's literalness into question, IMO

BeatMe

10:26 PM

3

A: How do young earth creationists reconcile the age of the universe with the speed of light, and visible distant objects?

There are two main theories creationists use to explain it: In 1857 Philip Goose wrote the book Omphalos which proposes the omphalos hypothesis and argues, that God must have created the earth as it is today, with mountains, canyons, tree rings, and thus with the light of stars. This theory is...

;)

Flimzy

@Sven: "There hypothosis"... ? Do you mean Their, or The?

BeatMe

ah damn, and I laugh about others who make these mistakes -.-

Flimzy

haha

dancek

10:43 PM

@dancek ok, decided to ask away

0

Q: How do theistic evolutionists view the Fall of Man?

I haven't really decided what to think about the creation of the world. I'm very familiar with the concept of evolution, scientifically, and if I didn't believe in God I'd certainly believe in evolution. However I'm not sure about the theological aspects of evolution. I consider the Fall of Man ...

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