The Upper Room

11:45 AM

@BeatMe I think that's a good question. I am certainly one who does, but I'm not qualified to make a proper defense of the position

12:02 PM

@djclayworth Eventually the comment thread started by this comment of yours needs to be cleaned up. Besides myself another commentor requested you point out exactly what in my post you are calling a minority view. I am willing to work on my post if I have made a mistake, but you've given no data to work from. As it stands I don't see how it's a constructive comment.

I don't want to just delete it without having taken it into consideration but you've left nothing to consider. The OP is available here as well if you want to clarify something about with him. @Fabian

TRiG

@dancek My first thought was, Why would anyone want to read The Da Vinci Code?

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DanBrowned

12:33 PM

Hey guys, it's quite a welcome topic but since we have another room for it I think it's best to keep the ongoing creation/evolution stuff in the dedicated room. Anybody mind if I shuttle this over there?

@Caleb nope go ahead

→ 12 messages moved to Creationism chat

← 1 message moved from Creationism chat

Good tidying there @Caleb.

@Waggers he runs a tight ship :)

@waxeagle I vaguely remember a discussion on meta about the inclusion/exclusion of "scientific" topics on this SE

12:38 PM

@Waggers yes, Fabian brought it up.

Your response "...but I'm not qualified to make a proper defense" reminded me of it

Many highly qualified, very knowledgeable theologians - in other words, experts on Christianity - might also struggle. Does that make the question off-topic?

I'm not suggesting it's a bad question or should be closed by the way

@Waggers heh...well quite frankly I'm not super qualified to ask or answer anything scientific, I have a solid foundation in physics (nearly a minor in college), but that was geared towards engineering, not cosmology (although it was covered to a degree)

@Waggers not at all, in fact it makes even more on topic

@waxeagle I like your thinking there

@Waggers its its something that a lot of people aren't qualified to answer that makes it an expert question, and an awesome fit for this site (provided its answerable and topical)

Yeah - but if that expertise needs to be in biology rather than theology to answer a question, shouldn't that question be on biology.SE (if it exists) instead of Christianity.SE?

I guess the answer to that is we need a broad range of experts, not just specialists in the same discipline

12:45 PM

@Waggers No, in fact I agree with waxeagle that it makes it very much on topic, but it needs specific expertise to answer. It's kind of troublesome that everybody with an opinion wants to weigh in on those questions rather than leaving them to people with more informed ideas.

@Waggers yeah, the problem I see is that science from a Christian perspective is not well regarded in the larger science community (partly because so many Christian Scientists do it poorly)

@Waggers I think not. All science and belief includes certain presuppositions. We need good scientific analysis, but when those issues come up on this site we need good analysis from people who operate under Christian presuppositions.

I think we all agree but it was worth discussing it!

It's very hard to resist the temptation to try and answer an unanswered question, even if you don't feel totally qualified to do so

We need to learn to not be afraid of leaving questions unanswered

Otherwise passing experts might not feel they are needed here

I wonder if there is a meta post to be made encouraging people to only answer things they have some level of expertise in ... and have people put out a call for experts in a field when they see things go by that aren't getting quality answers.

It's tricky with things like the recent "have any real people been decanonized" question, where the OP invited answers from all denominations but the idea of canonizing and decanonizing only exists in Catholicism (and perhaps one or two others)

Arguably you could answer "Why and how do Creationists agree with microevolution but disagree with the idea of macroevolution" in a non scientific way

Something like "The Bible tells us that God created animals, birds, trees etc separately, thus negating macroevolution, but the microevolution does not contradict the Bible in the same way."

That's why and how. No science knowledge needed. But I doubt that's what the OP was looking for :)

1:00 PM

@Waggers exactly, an actual scientist with that perspective would be awesome.

BeatMe

well I think christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/3528/… is a good answer, altough of course I disagree with almost anything

TRiG

@waxeagle Actual scientists with that perspective don't exist. That's rather the point.

1:14 PM

@BeatMe That IS a good answer

@TRiG that's only really the case if you hold to the theory that "you can't be a scientist if you believe X, Y and Z". There are lots of scientists who believe in the creation; they don't necessarily publish papers to that effect, it may not be their area of scientific expertise, but nevertheless they ARE creationists and they ARE scientists.

1:34 PM

4

Q: Universe made of water?

Genesis 1:1-2 accounts what was before God gave form to the Earth, and that is water: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. — Genes...

genesis flood-of-noah

Trying so hard not to post a link to the Wikipedia article on clouds. The concept of water in the air seems alien to the OP