How to perform science without using "methodological naturalism."

Speaking of which, this is a favorite:

Let me challenge you with something based upon the verse you sent that reads, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?”

When i, a puny, simple, finite and sometimes a rather irrational little man see the vastness of the universe and the fact that light from the most distant stars could not have made it to earth in a few thousand years, my inclination is to trust that the earth and universe is quite old. But then i read the Scriptures that essentially equate the full mass sum of all of the universe as mere dirt under the fingernails of such a Great God who transcends time and space, i am left with my jaw hitting the floor in awe of such a God who did not need billions, millions or thousands of years to build the universe. He could have done it in hours.

Abiding by the naturalistic principles espoused by mainstream science and the old earth big bang cosmology robs God of the glory due Him as One whose ways are fully beyond our rationale in His creative purposes. I have never been firmer in my position as a young earth creationist. After receiving the invitation i have recd to attend God’s banquet in heaven, i am choosing not a seat of trusting human rationale that gives me the nerve to define my deserving a seat in front at that banquet. Rather, i choose a seat in the back, humbly trusting what God seems to be clearly saying in His word. And if my King thinks im worthy of moving up closer to the front, then that’s His choice and not mine.

So thanks for the invite Dale but i will have to decline.

Blessed Weekend.

Why did he take 144 hours? He could have done it in an instant. Did it take him ‘all day’ to create light? Is God short of time that he has to do things in a hurry? God’s omnipotence is not in question for either of us, and really should not need to even be mentioned between two Christians. About mornings and evenings…

Earth’s morning has long since passed and its day nearly spent. Its evening will be over when the bright Morning Star returns.

4 posts were split to a new topic: Death before the fall

@Ashwin_s

Of course it is wrong. That is equivalent to saying a proclamation that God does not exist is a statement about God.

If that were true, then there would never be a way to make a denial of God that you wouldn’t interpret as “God talk”. You have to use terminology in a natural way … or people are going to think you lack interpretive judgment.

What you have to explain is why the evidence is consistent with biodiversity, geology, and cosmology having been produced by natural mechanisms. If these things were not produced by these natural mechanisms, then why is the evidence consistent with them? Did God plant false evidence? Did God put fake fossils in the ground? Did God put fake star and galaxy histories in the sky?

Complaining about the interpretations won’t cut it. What you need to is show how those interpretations are wrong, not simply say they are wrong because they contradict your beliefs.

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For one, I would encourage you to visit creationist perspectives on the fossil record. Things like the cambrian explosion, to lacking trasitional species (even gould admits this) to incredible bio complexity found in the bottom layers to a lack of fossil evidence supporting marsupial evolution in Australia.

I have noticed that when one chooses a previously held position, it is easy to spin things like the fossil record to fit their view. But we all need to agree that there is an absolute truth about our existence and that the subtleness of a presupposition can easily cause our interpretations to miss that truth by miles!

I just dont trust MY presuppositions. I do trust in the God who has so dominantly transformed my world away from self righteous meism to one that treasures God and wants to love people in truth that i fund myself trusting and basing my presuppositions on principles and facts from a book called the Bible. We were not there in the beginning. God was. I choose to abide what i believe He says and interpret the fossil record based on this.

You may think this to be foolish. But even the gospel of Jesus is foolish to many who are not willing to place a mustard seeds worth of trust in Gods grace via the cross, so i would not expect an atheist to accept a creationists terms.

The bone i have to pick is that the atheistic mainstream evolutionary ideas attempting to be inserted into the churches theology and beliefs. That is really bad and not sure who exactly you are or if you have the ability to understand this or not.

Anyway, thanks for comment. Good one

Where in that perspective can I find an explanation of why this fossil history correlates with isotope ratios in rocks? Where can I find explanations of why we don’t find rabbits in the Cambrian, or flowering plants in the Permian? How do you explain the nested hierarchy in fossils? How do you explain transitional fossils like Australopithecines or Tiktaalik rosae?

All I ever see from creationists is denial. They claim that there are no transitional fossils, but they refuse to address transitional fossils when they are brought forward. They refuse to deal with the nested hierarchy. They refuse to deal with the temporal progression of fossils over 100’s of millions or even billions of years.

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No, Gould did not say there were no transitional forms in the fossil record. That is a gross misrepresentation.

Watch the video below. Punctuated Equilibrium, contrary to the lies and propaganda of the creationists, is not something made up to explain away gaps in the fossil record. Rather, it is a model based on observing changes in minute detail in thousands of fossil specimens.

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Forgot to deal with this in the previous post. This is what Gould has to say.

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And i see the same of mainstream refusing to acknowledge the fact that many times these “transition fossils” are a tooth, a femur and a tail bone that give the evolutionist a facade permission slip to paint a beautiful mural of depicting universal common decent evolution that deceive the masses into an unproven worldview.

And mainstream will not acknowledge the possibilities of catastrophism being part of the fabric of fossils either. Kurt Wise brings this up often…marine animals are the vast majority of fossils and found speckeled thru the fossil record. But mainstream has this inhibition against anything anywhere close to speaking of a massive catastrophic flood that best explains fossil formation in the first place.

So it goes both ways. You can choose a bible based on mans science. Im not putting you in a headlock
You can think im a fool. I dont feel obligated to change your mind on that either. I trust in God who sonetimes confounds the science of man and all the preconceptions therein. I will go to my grave standing with Him at His word

Really?

Like I said, all you have is denial.

How does catastrophism explain the nested hierarchy or the correlation between fossils and the ratios of isotopes in the rocks above and below them?

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To the knowledgeable person, a single tooth can reveal a vast amount of information about the organism that possessed it. Your skepticism is unwarranted.

Scientists know stuff. Creationists don’t. That’s just the way it is. Deal with it.

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Therefore there was a massive worldwide flood?

Is that the kind of “reasoning” that creationists use?

What do skulls of a mix of apes and humans have anything to prove about our evolution from an ape creature? Do you see your massive presupposition? I believe those fossils represent some ape like animals not made in the image of God and some which are truly human made in the image of God. The only way to really distinguish them apart is use of tools, fire and acts of burial of the dead.

Do you see how presupositions matter in our interpeting the evidence? I dont blame you for seeing this as evolution of man fr ape. I do blame a Christian for ignoring the tenants of Scripture to interpret it this way

(cough cough) Angular unconformities. Impossible to form in a one time one year Flood. Even Wise couldn’t think up a plausible lie to explain away those, just repeated the nonsense “the FLUD did it!”

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A general localized flood that does not bury skeletons deep in sediment will tend not to produce fossils. The remains become quickly destroyed and therefore no fossilization. A catastrphic floid that buries animal remains deep into sediment caused by the flood will tend to create fossils bc the remains are deep and away from the powers of decomposition and scavengers. So when we see fossils of land animals and marine animals mixed, sense has it that a catastrophic flood is best explanation.

(cough cough) Lagerstätte. Impossible to form rapidly during a violent Flood. Creationists won’t even try to muster a “Flood” explanation. :slightly_smiling_face:

And the fossil record consists of both genesis flood geology and non genesis flood geology. I dont understand the idea of angular unconformities but can say that some geologists attribute this better to catastrophism.

Give us some examples of each, and how you determined Genesis or non-Genesis.

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