Does Appearance of Age Render God a Deceiver?

Faith.

Yes, that’s why it’s a big problem for YEC.

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Not Necessarily. It could be out of artistic considerations. You are assuming God’s major concern is what people would assume the age of the tree is. Deception need not be a motive.

I agree there are issues. A lot of current scientific understanding/explanations would have to be wrong in this scenario.
I don’t see it as impossible for a lot of our origins science to be wrong. It would be hubris not to.

So deception is merely an unintended consequence of the artistic impulse? I’m afraid that substitutes incompetence for malice. God should realize that people would interpret appearance of age as actual age. If he realizes it, that’s deception. If he doesn’t, stupidity.

I think the hubris is in your pronouncements on things you haven’t thought about and don’t know about. “Impossible” isn’t a word we use much in science; but “very, very unlikely” is close enough, and accurate.

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Has it occurred to you that ascribing all life to chance can be seen as being purposely dense. Perhaps, it’s impossible to convey truth to a person who will go to ridiculous extents to deny it.

You are putting yourself in God’s place and applying a worldview that is totally alien to God. That is why you find it difficult to understand.

This is one thing that astound me about science. When it comes to natural explanations, very very unlikely is always welcome.
However, when it comes to ideas you disagree with, it become an u surmountable wall. There must be some consistency in how you think on this.

For sure. But nobody ascribes all life to chance. Where are you going with that? Now, weren’t you just putting yourself in God’s place? I’m merely pointing out that your idea of God’s reasons is incoherent.

I’m afraid this is just another example of your misunderstandings about science. You really should engage directly with what I’m saying rather than dodge around like this. In what way is unnecessary appearance of age not deceptive? The “artistic design” defense doesn’t work; it’s merely a justification for deception, not a refutation of deception.

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Ok fair enough. What do you ascribe all life to?

This is still not addressing the topic. And you ask a complicated question. How life began is not well understood, though there are a few clues. But at some point we get accurate enough inheritance that natural selection takes over the interesting stuff. Some time after that comes the most recent common ancestor of all extant life, which is where we actually start to have significant data. There’s certainly a fair amount of randomness in the history of life, as Joshua will tell you, it dominates evolution quantitatively, but by no means is it responsible for all of life.

Please get back to the subject.

Yes this is what i;m saying. i don’t know the triggering mechanism. i don’t think virus.
it must be a innate ability. Also I see it as needed to increase reproduction in order to meet deadline. filling the earth quickly before people did and before water levels rose to shut off S america and australia etc etc.
Yes , if the word is mutation, I think just a few could do it.
its not just reproductive organs but a few minor other details.
NOW evolutionists have to invent a great concept CONVERGENT evolution.
So they explain away the likeness of marsupials with placentals

You can watch the marsupial wolf on youtube alive.
where my essay was published was on NW Creation where the boss had come to this option that i came too.
However most YEC organizations still reject it.
the mechanism is a hangup for them.
so they make up impossible cases of segregating groups of creatures from the ark landing in different places or weird die offs of groups.

It is part of the subject. This was mentioned before. You are approaching the subject from a materialist perspective.
This is why you feel mention God’s motivations in terms of aethetics is ridiculous.

When you examine the current understanding of life, there are many unlikely events that need to take place one after the other. You seem comfortable with considering that.
Yet, you somehow reject the idea that some of the current scientific understanding could be wrong as extremely “unlikely”.
The ability of the scientific method to access truth in history is what I am questioning here. Perhaps the scientific narrative of history is wrong because of limitations in methodology/human cognition. On such a scenario, a young earth would not be deception on God’s part.
The motivation would not be to deceive. However we come to a wrong conclusion because of limitations in the methodology used to investigate + limitations in human cognition.
You may feel this is unlikely. However it is plausible.

No, that isn’t. Please read what I said about that and address my actual objection.

I don’t believe that’s true, but I also don’t know what unlikely events you have in mind.

That depends on which bits of the current understanding you’re talking about. Which bits are you talking about?

Only true if God is unable to take our limitations into account. You are going down the road to divine incompetence. You also contradict the theological notion that we are designed to understand the world. Was that your intention?

Absolutely true!

But that’s God for ya…

I think you are making an error in logic here. Can you write down your premises and how you arrived at this conclusion?

You misunderstood this theological notion. it points out that we understand the world better because we are created in the image of God. The primary purpose of creation is not that we understand the universe, but rather that we bear God’s image. Our ability to understand the universe is a secondary effect.
The same theology explains that, the image of God is marred in us due to the fall. It also teaches that human beings are finite creature whereas God is infinite.
No claim is being made that we will understand the universe in an infallible or complete manner. We just have the tools to investigate it. And we will learn a lot within the limitations of being fallible human beings.

@Ashwin_s

And yet the consistency of nature seems more seamless and perfect than our ability to perceive the Cosmos itself. Why would we DOUBT what seems the purest of our observations?

Human beings have a histroy of being very sure of the world and turning out to be wrong.There is no need to second guess our best hypothesis about the universe. However, if our best hypothesis turn out to be wrong, there is no basis to blame God for deceiving us.
The errors are because of our limited cognition/data.
I am making a very limited point as answer to a particular question in the OP.

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It is strange that YEC’s never consider how these same concepts apply to our understanding of the Bible.

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Sure. In no particular order:

  1. God created the world with appearance of age.
  2. God knew, being omniscient, that we would interpret that appearance as actual age.
  3. His purpose in creating this appearance of age is irrelevant to its effect on us.
  4. He could have created the world in such a way that we would not interpret it as old.
  5. God is responsible for the consequences of his actions.

Therefore God is knowingly responsible for us thinking something that’s untrue. If that isn’t deception, what would you call it?

You realize that this is a vacuous notion, as it can account for either our knowledge or our ignorance of anything whatsoever. You think we’re right about something?: image of God. You think we’re wrong about something?: the Fall. It explains everything and therefore nothing.

And of course it doesn’t affect whether God is deceptive, because he presumably knows what we will or will not understand. If the universe is not designed for us to understand it, that doesn’t affect whether it’s deceptive; it just says that God doesn’t care that it’s deceptive.

@Ashwin_s

Old Earth Creationists show that your initial premise is unfounded. All a Young Earth Creationist is doing is DENYING the evidence that God provides us. He or she displays no extra analytical or perceptual powers.

Appearance of age to whom?
God created the world according to his will. The appearance of age to us would be a side effect. He has clearly revealed his actions through prophets to the world and this is recorded in the bible. So we know enough to believe in him. For a Christian and most people on this planet, the age of the earth is a trivial issue in the long run.

Why should God take responsibility for our wrong conclusions? God also knew before hand that @John_Harshman would reject the idea of his existence. Is God responsible for your athiesm also?

There is no logical connection in this premise.

This is true. But your conclusion is illogical.
1.There are people who have concluded that the age of the earth is young and there are people that have concluded that the age of the earth is old. By your logic, both are consequences of God’s actions.

2.Different people have looked at the evidence (including the bible) differently and come to different conclusions. Who is responsible for their conclusions? God or the people themselves?

You seem to think that your conclusions at some level are infallible and they there cannot be a better explanation other than what you have come to believe. Perhaps you are correct. But if you turn out to be wrong, it’s not because God decieved you. It’s because of your limitations. Why is this so hard to understand?