Isn't it reasonable to doubt Young Earth Creationism?

Derf

Well-known member
Thank you, that is in agreement with the text from Jeremiah that you quoted. But it is in opposition to 6days' claim about God knowing the future.

While I might disagree with [MENTION=15431]6days[/MENTION] on God knowing the future exhaustively, I share in his concern about [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION]'s statement about God experimenting, especially if we try to apply such experimenting to how He made plants, animals and humans, as well as elements, planets, stars, star systems and galaxies.

My concern about your post was the caricature of God's prophecy to you. Though I like the idea of storifying theological ideas (I use the tactic myself), I felt it achieved the opposite purpose than you intended--it actually seemed to mock the idea that God would prophecy something and then work to bring it about. That's just my opinion, and I suppose I shouldn't have butted in.

But you were gracious in your responses to me. Thank you!
Derf
 

Jose Fly

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I'm curious about something regarding the creationists in this thread who are advocating for Brown's hydroplate ideas...what are your long-term, big picture expectations? Do you figure flood geology is poised to become the dominant framework of the earth science sometime soon? Do you expect Brown's ideas to be part of that?

Or do you expect it all to stay the way it is, where the concept of a Biblical flood is 100% scientifically irrelevant and is just something that people argue about in religious internet forums?
 

JudgeRightly

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I'm curious about something regarding the creationists in this thread who are advocating for Brown's hydroplate ideas...what are your long-term, big picture expectations? Do you figure flood geology is poised to become the dominant framework of the earth science sometime soon? Do you expect Brown's ideas to be part of that?

No, we expect that those who hate God will reject it all the more, but that as more evidence surfaces, and more predictions are confirmed, it will become undeniable that it's what happened.

It's already poised to topple CPT and CT, and Real Science Radio just finished another series on the earth's features that shake up the foundations of PT (no pun intended).

Or do you expect it all to stay the way it is, where the concept of a Biblical flood is 100% scientifically irrelevant and is just something that people argue about in religious internet forums?

Well, considering that all scientists are working for Walt Brown anyways, I'm sure it'll eventually become the standard model. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong though. :)
 
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Jose Fly

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No, we expect that those who hate God will reject it all the more
Do you believe all Christians who are not young-earth creationists "hate God"?

but that as more evidence surfaces, and more predictions are confirmed, it will become undeniable that it's what happened.

It's already poised to topple CPT and CT, and Real Science Radio just finished another series on the earth's features that shake up the foundations of PT (no pun intended).
Do you expect this to happen soon, as in say....within the next 20 years?


You lost me with that one. "All scientists are working for Walt Brown"? How so?
 

JudgeRightly

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Do you believe all Christians who are not young-earth creationists "hate God"?

No. If they hated God, they wouldn't be Christians. :think:

Do you expect this to happen soon, as in say....within the next 20 years?

Possibly, more likely within my lifetime.

You lost me with that one. "All scientists are working for Walt Brown"? How so?

Sorry, forgot to put the end "URL" tag. Post has been updated with the fix.
 

Jose Fly

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No. If they hated God, they wouldn't be Christians.
Given the large numbers of Christians who aren't young-earth creationists (and therefore don't subscribe to Walt Brown's ideas), I guess I don't understand your comment, which seemed to imply that only those who "hate God" reject Brown's ideas.

Possibly, more likely within my lifetime.
I appreciate your answer. Do you see any signs right now that such a major paradigm shift in the earth sciences is on the horizon?

Sorry, forgot to put the end "URL" tag. Post has been updated with the fix.
Thanks.
 

JudgeRightly

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Given the large numbers of Christians who aren't young-earth creationists (and therefore don't subscribe to Walt Brown's ideas), I guess I don't understand your comment, which seemed to imply that only those who "hate God" reject Brown's ideas.

More that I expect those who love God (aka, Christians), and therefore love truth (not that all those who hate God hate truth), will humbly admit when their beliefs are shown to be wrong.

Then again, maybe I'm putting too much stock into how I hope people will react... :think: Maybe "expect" is too strong a word.

I hope that those who love God will humble themselves if WB's theory is vindicated, though I don't expect that all will, just that many will.

As for the other group, those who are not Christians, I hope that they would too, but I expect that most will still reject it simply because it affirms the truth of the Bible, and therefore God.

I appreciate your answer. Do you see any signs right now that such a major paradigm shift in the earth sciences is on the horizon?

I do.

For examples, I recommend you check out rsr.org/list (which I'm sure you have before, but there are a few new ones you could check out).


:)
 

Jose Fly

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More that I expect those who love God (aka, Christians), and therefore love truth (not that all those who hate God hate truth), will humbly admit when their beliefs are shown to be wrong.

Then again, maybe I'm putting too much stock into how I hope people will react... :think: Maybe "expect" is too strong a word.

I hope that those who love God will humble themselves if WB's theory is vindicated, though I don't expect that all will, just that many will.

As for the other group, those who are not Christians, I hope that they would too, but I expect that most will still reject it simply because it affirms the truth of the Bible, and therefore God.
Understood. Thanks.

I do.

For examples, I recommend you check out rsr.org/list (which I'm sure you have before, but there are a few new ones you could check out).
I understand that within creationist world predictions regarding eminent paradigm changes towards creationism are common (the "demise of Darwinism" is often referred to as the "longest running falsehood in creationism").

I was thinking more along the lines of you seeing signs within the scientific community that they are on the verge of abandoning the current framework and will replace it with Brown's flood ideas.
 

redfern

Active member
While I might disagree with [MENTION=15431]6days[/MENTION] on God knowing the future exhaustively,

You realize [MENTION=15431]6days[/MENTION] may just thump on you for that comment?

I share in his concern about [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION]'s statement about God experimenting, especially if we try to apply such experimenting to how He made plants, animals and humans, as well as elements, planets, stars, star systems and galaxies.

On that issue, I will come over to your side, though probably for different reasons. Generally I respect [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION]’s breadth of knowledge about science. But I see [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION] and YECs as both trying to force-fit ideas from science to into their peculiar theological frameworks. From my stance as an outsider to Christianity, it would be much like watching you guys and OECs hotly debating what the divine truths in “The Lord of the Rings” are.

Since [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION] is an OEC (of sorts), he makes frequent reference to buried layers of “biomes” as fossil evidence of failed long-ago experiments as god was learning about this making-living-things business. But if god didn’t get it quite right each of the past times, it is entirely possible god will once again realize, “Hey, I see even a better way of creating life than this Adam and Eve business. Time to empty out that petri dish on top of the other biomes and try making super-humans. Got lots of petri dishes left on the shelf, gonna keep experimenting until they all show superman-type abilities.”

My concern about your post was the caricature of God's prophecy to you. Though I like the idea of storifying theological ideas (I use the tactic myself), I felt it achieved the opposite purpose than you intended--it actually seemed to mock the idea that God would prophecy something and then work to bring it about.

My intent was to use a simple scenario that made clear the conflict between perfect knowledge of the future and us having real free will

That's just my opinion, and I suppose I shouldn't have butted in.

Hold on there, Newt. Don’t you go bugging out on me. You have been a refreshing breath of courtesy and honesty. I value my friends, and you are on that list.

But you were gracious in your responses to me. Thank you!
Derf

The feeling is mutual.
 

Stripe

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I'm curious about something regarding the creationists in this thread who are advocating for Brown's hydroplate ideas...what are your long-term, big picture expectations? Do you figure flood geology is poised to become the dominant framework of the earth science sometime soon? Do you expect Brown's ideas to be part of that?

Or do you expect it all to stay the way it is, where the concept of a Biblical flood is 100% scientifically irrelevant and is just something that people argue about in religious internet forums?
:yawn:

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redfern

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I mentioned to Stripe a few days ago that I was looking into something that I think is pretty clearly “evidence” regarding Walt Brown’s HPT. I am not going to try to take on HPT in total just yet, since it draws on “evidences” from numerous disciplines. My attention here will be to focus on one specific, but important claim that I see made several times in this thread, in Walt’s book, and in this liquefaction video JR pointed to:

https://youtu.be/lThoaW3EVaE

The specific claim I take issue with is that the alternating patterns of magnetic striping seen in rocks on each side of the mid-Atlantic ridge are simply due to different amounts of magnetization in the rocks, and not to actual reversals of magnetism in the rocks.

Quoting from Walt Brown’s book:

Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor. At a few places along the Mid-Oceanic Ridge, magnetic patterns on one side of the ridge are almost a mirror image of those on the other side. The plate tectonic theory gained wide acceptance in the 1960s when this surprising discovery was misinterpreted.

Some people proposed that these variations were caused by periodic reversals of the earth’s magnetic field, although there is no theoretical understanding of how that could happen.9 Supposedly, as molten material moves away from the ridge (in seafloor spreading) over millions of years, the magma solidifies, and its magnetic material is locked in the orientation of the earth’s magnetic field at the time. Thus, a record of past “flips” of earth’s magnetic field is preserved in rocks at different distances from the ridge.

<Image here in the book>

That explanation is wrong, as detailed magnetic maps clearly show. No compass, shielded from earth’s magnetic field, would reverse direction whenever it crossed an alleged (and misleading) reversed band. However, as one moves across the Mid-Oceanic Ridge, magnetic intensities fluctuate, as shown in Figure 48. Someone merely drew a line through these fluctuations and labeled everything below this average intensity as a “reversal.” There is a false but widespread impression that these slight deviations below the average represent magnetic fields that reversed millions of years ago. Calling these fluctuations reversals causes one to completely miss a more likely explanation.


The video JR linked to about liquefaction (and I linked to it above) makes almost verbatim the same claim, and so did Stripe in earlier posts.

Walt Brown is no dummy. And for that reason I cannot fathom him actually making such a trivially easy claim to test. I am certainly open to clear and specific data that supports his claim that the stripes in the solidified magma do not correspond to reversed polarity, so if ya got , let’s see it.

A couple of details here:

Walt says:

“No compass, shielded from earth’s magnetic field, would reverse direction whenever it crossed an alleged (and misleading) reversed band.”

That may be true. Anytime you are near any of these sea-floor bands, the magnetic field you will measure will be the sum (actually the vector sum – but hopefully we don’t need to get into that level of detail just yet) of the earth's native magnetic field and the rock's innate magnetic field at that point. Which means if the “normal” magnetic field of the earth is 10 units in strength, and the nearby rock has reversed magnetism of 3 units of strength, then a measurement will show the sum of those two (10 <earth> - 3 <rock> = 7 <measured>). In that example, the rock is most definitely of reversed polarity. If it had been of forward polarity, it would have added to the measured magnetic field strength.

More importantly, I can think of at least two major organizations that would like to be corrected if their understanding of the reversed polarity in mid-Atlantic rocks is wrong. One organization is the submarine and anti-submarine forces of all the world’s major military powers. Submarines like to sneak around undetected underwater, and anti-submarine aircraft desperately want to find those subs deep below the ocean surface. 30,000 tons of metal in a submerged tube is something a sensitive magnetometer in a low-flying airplane can register. A sub might be able to “hide” in a region where magnetic fluctuations are the norm. That is not a place where ambiguous “maybe weak normal magnetization, or maybe reversed magnetization – who cares?” is gonna cut it.

Secondly, How about the USGS? A massive organization that is responsible for a vast diversity of geological expertise. Do they say “reversed polarity”? You bet they do, and not by whim, but because they have in a fairly literal sense, gone out and grabbed a lot of the rocks in question, brought them back and taken careful and precise studies of their magnetism, including whether it is forward or reversed.

Now – turnabout is fair play. Posters in this thread who dispute HPT have often been advised to watch some well-done (I know cause I actually intently watched a couple of them) videos explaining HPT. So, I offer a link below which the USGS put out a couple decades ago. It is a well-done 32-minute video focused largely on how PT went from a silly conjecture to a pillar of modern geology. Part of it very specifically details the study of the rocks in the bands along the mid-Atlantic ridge. And … since there has been a little bit of reverence shown to Walt Brown’s academic credentials (PhD in Mechanic Engineering at MIT), pay attention to the fact that one of the fellows (Richard Dole) leading the USGS study was an assistant professor of geology at MIT (not just a student, like Walt, and not in an engineering discipline, like Walt, but in geology).

Anyway – enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Ow9HEHa4s

Comments welcomed (if offered respectfully) (hint, hint, Stripe)
 

Stripe

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Comments welcomed (if offered respectfully) (hint, hint, Stripe)

You'll get what you get and like it, Sunshine.

More importantly, I can think of at least two major organizations that would like to be corrected if their understanding of the reversed polarity in mid-Atlantic rocks is wrong. One organization is the submarine and anti-submarine forces of all the world’s major military powers. Submarines like to sneak around undetected underwater, and anti-submarine aircraft desperately want to find those subs deep below the ocean surface. 30,000 tons of metal in a submerged tube is something a sensitive magnetometer in a low-flying airplane can register. A sub might be able to “hide” in a region where magnetic fluctuations are the norm. That is not a place where ambiguous “maybe weak normal magnetization, or maybe reversed magnetization – who cares?” is gonna cut it.

Secondly, How about the USGS? A massive organization that is responsible for a vast diversity of geological expertise. Do they say “reversed polarity”? You bet they do, and not by whim, but because they have in a fairly literal sense, gone out and grabbed a lot of the rocks in question, brought them back and taken careful and precise studies of their magnetism, including whether it is forward or reversed.
So tell them. :idunno:

There's nothing in this post that suggests Brown's ideas cannot be correct.

And there is plenty in his work that shows PT is impossible.

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redfern

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There's nothing in this post that suggests Brown's ideas cannot be correct.

Brown says no reversed polarity in the mid-Atlantic Ridge magma (and you posted that too). USGS (and several other scientific groups as well) have actually taken samples into the lab and documented clear patterns of reversed polarity.

And there is plenty in his work that shows PT is impossible.

No Gish Gallops please. Do you have something more definitive about reversed polarity than just the unsubstantiated claims I see in Walt's book and video?
 

Stripe

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Brown says no reversed polarity in the mid-Atlantic Ridge magma (and you posted that too). USGS (and several other scientific groups as well) have actually taken samples into the lab and documented clear patterns of reversed polarity.
Like in the video?

No Gish Gallops please.
A what now?

Do you have something more definitive about reversed polarity than just the unsubstantiated claims I see in Walt's book and video?

What's unsubstantiated? You yourself said that a problem he raised was correct.

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6days

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Redfern said:
6days said:
.. Thorns, pain, suffering and death (entropy) entered the world, as a consequence of man's sin. …
Hmmmm… look under “Question 3: Did the 2nd Law begin at...
The articles /authors you refer to would agree that thorns, pain, suffering and death entered the world as a consequence of men's sin. They may not agree with the narrow definition I have used for the word entropy...(deterioration of a system).
 

Derf

Well-known member
You realize [MENTION=15431]6days[/MENTION] may just thump on you for that comment?
Let him thump. Yet I agree with [MENTION=15431]6days[/MENTION] much of the time, including on much of the YEC stuff.


On that issue, I will come over to your side, though probably for different reasons. Generally I respect [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION]’s breadth of knowledge about science. But I see [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION] and YECs as both trying to force-fit ideas from science to into their peculiar theological frameworks. From my stance as an outsider to Christianity, it would be much like watching you guys and OECs hotly debating what the divine truths in “The Lord of the Rings” are.
The difference, of course, is Tolkien doesn't claim inspiration from God.

Standing, as you claim, as an outsider to Christianity, let me introduce you to the idea that God both made the world and also told us something about how He created it, something no one else that we know of observed. The idea, then, that we are force-fitting ideas from science into our peculiar theological frameworks, while not a wholly inaccurate description, might be at least justifiable. On the other hand, force-fitting the text of the bible into current science frameworks might be helpful or might be futile--kind of depends on how good the current science framework turns out to be.

Since [MENTION=17583]iouae[/MENTION] is an OEC (of sorts), he makes frequent reference to buried layers of “biomes” as fossil evidence of failed long-ago experiments as god was learning about this making-living-things business. But if god didn’t get it quite right each of the past times, it is entirely possible god will once again realize, “Hey, I see even a better way of creating life than this Adam and Eve business. Time to empty out that petri dish on top of the other biomes and try making super-humans. Got lots of petri dishes left on the shelf, gonna keep experimenting until they all show superman-type abilities.”
And not only the humans, but the whole of creation would be subject to that concern. Maybe humans are ok, but He got the environment wrong. Or maybe He didn't quite expect that our sun would go nova on Him.

These arguments are also used on those of us that think God doesn't have to know the future exhaustively, which might be cause for us just to whittle down the concerns to the humans. (I.e., if God doesn't even know how to make a universe, is He worthy of being called God?)



My intent was to use a simple scenario that made clear the conflict between perfect knowledge of the future and us having real free will
Which attracted me to the conversation. But 6days' point, even if I don't agree with Him on the exhaustivity of God's knowledge, was the same one you say you were willing to "come over to [my] side" on: that God is surely competent enough not to just be experimenting.


Hold on there, Newt. Don’t you go bugging out on me. You have been a refreshing breath of courtesy and honesty. I value my friends, and you are on that list.


The feeling is mutual.
Well, thank you! Let's talk some more.
 
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