User talk:Philip J. Rayment/Discussion with BRPierce

Possible continuation

Philip,

As I mentioned on the Expelled talk page, I feel that the debate there has moved far beyond the proper scope of an article talk page. However, that it not to say that I would not be interested in pursuing the topic. Nor, however, do I wish to intrude myself into your discussion with Yopienso. If you would be willing to have such a discussion, please let me know. --BRPierce (talk) 01:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

You're suggesting continuing a discussion here on my talk page? Yes, that's fine by me. Philip J. Rayment (talk) 02:06, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Most excellent!

I'd like to begin by saying that you're one of the relatively few Young Earth Creationists I've met for whom I have quite a bit

of respect. You know evolution well, which is a rarity, and you have a sound grasp of Biblical exegesis, which I also find to

be surprisingly uncommon among Creationists. If you'll forgive my saying so, many of them say they believe every word of the

Bible--but on examination, it appears that what they believe is what others (whom they perceive to be authorities) have

told them about the Bible. And, yes, I recognize that this will invite the inevitable tu quoque response of "Many

evolutionists believe what they've been told about evolution." I object to that, as well. God commanded us to test all things

and keep that which is good.

That being said, I have spent quite a number of years now testing Young Earth claims...and I regret to say that I have yet

to find one which is "good," in that it holds up under rigorous scrutiny.

To begin with, I'd like to reiterate what I see as the central flaw in Biblical inerrantism--the persistent assumption that

inerrantist interpretations achieved through use of the historical-grammatical heuristic are God's Word. While some grudging

lip service is paid to the notion that only the autographic texts are inerrant by some inerrantists, lip service is all that

it generally seems to be; in all practical matters, it is my experience that inerrantists use "God's Word" and "Inerrantist

interpretations of God's Word" interchangeably. For instance, I have been told (repeatedly) that it is God's Word that

the Earth is 6,000 years old, that Behemoth was a sauropod dinosaur, and that the Flood was responsible for the creation of

mountains.

As I'm sure you're well aware, NONE of those things are God's Word; they're interpretations (and in the case of Behemoth the

brontosaurus in particular, I would argue, amazingly fanciful interpretations that display a serious ignorance of context--

Hebrew Midrash tradition, for instance.)

Nevertheless, many inerrantists continue to insist that their reading of the Bible (which I will not call "literal," since,

let's be honest, it's as selective in what it reads literally and what it reads metaphorically as ANY interpretation) is the

only possible and reasonable reading, and that those who disagree lack education or discernment. (The less charitable ones

trot out "not a real Christian.") This is, of course, not the case; many of the early Church fathers rejected a literal

reading of Genesis. I tend towards Augustinian principles: I believe that God reveals Himself through His creation as well

as through scripture, and that in a case where the evidence contradicts a given reading of scripture, it is likely the

reading which is in error--not the evidence, and not scripture itself. I further believe that the overwhelming preponderance

of evidence indicates an ancient universe, an ancient Earth, and common descent with modification. I further reject claims

of "appearance of age," because I do not believe it is in God's nature to deceive.

There are Young Earth Creationists who admit that their faith is just that--faith, and that they would hold to that faith

regardless of apparent evidence to the contrary. Dr. Todd Wood comes to mind immediately; I respect such frank and

uncompromising faith. What I do not respect is attempts to make that faith into something it is not--to wit, science. Nor

do I respect attempts to undermine science which is perceived as being disharmonious with that faith. It is for this reason

that I have a generally low opinion of Creationism; I find that for every Dr. Wood or Philip Rayment, there are several

Kent Hovinds or Carl Baughs. (Or, for that matter, kdbuffalos--I believe you'll recognize the allusion.) --BRPierce (talk) 23:07, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments. In return, I must say that you show an uncommon understanding of just where the issues are.

There are, of course, creationists, and creationists. They are not all alike. I have on other occasions drawn a distinction between two different types of "professional" creationists, as well as between "professional" and "amateur" creationists.

The "professional" creationists can be divided into two camps: those that work for or associated with one of the leading creationist groups (CMI, AiG, ICR, CRS, etc.), and the "lone wolf" creationists. The distinction is that those in the first group don't get to espouse their views in isolation; they are moderated by the group. This is, in principle, the same as peer review. None of the CMI scientists/speakers, for example, will say anything that is not in line with the CMI view; if they have some new argument to make, it has to be run past others in the organisation. Even apart from the peer-reviewed Journal of Creation, every article that goes on their web-site or in their layman's magazine is reviewed by others before publication. It may not be the same peer-review process as happens with the Journal, but it is a review nevertheless. The "lone wolf" creationists, on the other hand, have nobody to answer to. And it often shows, with people like Carl Baugh making claims that most other creationists don't accept. My point is, don't lump all creationists in together, and don't assume that those in the former category are the exception.

Then, of course, there are the "amateur" creationists. Like the population in general, some are not good with logic, some don't have a good grasp of the language, some are not good at expressing themselves, some are not good at maintaining self-control in the face of anti-creationist abuse or fallacious arguments, and some repeat claims of the "lone wolf" creationists without discrimination. Other, however (and I like to consider myself in this camp), rely on the leading creationists for information, and have a good enough knowledge not to get flustered by unexpected anti-creationist arguments. Most of the creationists that you encounter on Internet forums would be of the "amateur" variety. I would have to leave it to you to decide how many are ones that get their information from "lone wolf" creationists vs. ones that get their information from better sources. One thing that I would recommend, though, is that encountering discredited or silly arguments from uninformed creationists, you should direct them to the leading creationists, particularly the lists of "arguments that creationists should not use" maintained by CMI and AiG.

Of course all people—not just creationists and not just evolutionists—rely on information from others. Nobody checks everything for themselves. The difference is how discriminating people are in which sources they rely on.

On inerrantism, I disagree with your characterisation. Inerrantists distinguish between the original autograph (as you grudgingly mention) and their own ideas. Further, they don't ignore the difference between the original autographs and the copies we have; they have argued that there is evidence that we can be confident that the copies are very close to the originals. But we can't avoid understanding the text in a particular way. That is the whole point of text (and language): to understand it. Sure, understandings might at times differ, especially where the text is not clear, but this is the exception, not the rule, else language would be useless. And it's not just inerrantists who believe that they have the correct understanding. I don't see too many people who believe that the Bible allows for millions of years saying, "Well, I think the Bible allows for millions of years, but I'm really not sure". No, they generally argue as though it's plain to see. (That's perhaps not the best example, but my point is that people on both sides can be convinced that they are right.)

For instance, I have been told (repeatedly) that it is God's Word that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that Behemoth was a sauropod dinosaur, and that the Flood was responsible for the creation of mountains. Can you quote any leading creationists explicitly saying that? This is not an either/or situation. At one end you can have direct teaching of Scripture, at the other end things that are not in Scripture at all. In between you can of course have a range of things with a greater or lesser certainty, such as things that are implied by Scripture but which we can't be certain about, and logical deductions from Scripture, such as the Trinity. The age of 6,000 years I would consider to be a pretty clear logical deduction. That the flood was responsible for mountains seems pretty likely. That Behemoth was a sauropod is based on it being the best-fitting creature that we know of, although there is always the small possibility of it being some creature that we haven't yet discovered.

A contrary example is the vapour canopy idea. This was popularised by Morris and Whitcomb's The Genesis Flood, the book that instigated the modern creationist movement. It was based on the Scriptural mention of no rain at the time and the world being watered by a mist, by the mention of the waters above being separated from the waters below, and by God declaring at the end of the flood that the rainbow would be a reminder, implying that there had been no rainbows—and therefore no rain—prior to then. It's proposed collapse explained the source of the 40 days and nights of rain during Noah's Flood, and offered an explanation of longer prediluvian life-spans: the climate was much milder thanks to a vapour-canopy-caused greenhouse effect, and it would have shielded the inhabitants from cosmic rays. It appeared to have a lot going for it, and was widely accepted, much like the idea of Behemoth being a sauropod is widely accepted (among creationists, of course). But when the scientific analysis was done, the figures didn't stack up. The biblical mention of no rain at the time was at the time of creation; it didn't say that this state persisted until the flood. Neither does Genesis say that the rainbow first appeared at the time of the flood. There's no good reason to think that God didn't make use of an existing phenomenon to serve as a reminder. Other explanations could be (and have been) found for longer lifespans and for the source of the rain. So the idea was ditched. It was not equated with Scripture itself. For more on this principle have a read of ‘Hanging Loose’: What should we defend?

...(which I will not call "literal," since, let's be honest, it's as selective in what it reads literally and what it reads metaphorically as ANY interpretation)... I complimented you on your understanding of the issues, partly because you correctly identified that creationists use the "historical-grammatical" method of understanding Scripture. Yet here you regress into caricaturing them as claiming (but not living up to being) wooden literalists. And no, I don't accept that inerrantists are "selective" about which parts they take literally, if by that you mean arbitrarily selective. They consider some parts as literal and some as metaphoric the same basic way that any person makes the distinction in everyday life: on the basis of understanding the language. Further, rigorous studies have been done on this, showing, for example, that the creation account in Genesis uses verbs typical of narrative and not typical of metaphoric language.

...many inerrantists continue to insist that their reading of the Bible ... is the only possible and reasonable reading, and that those who disagree lack education or discernment. On the first point, the proper response to that is to demonstrate that their reading is not the only possible and reasonable reading. But critics frequently do not do that, preferring instead to insist that being convinced that the text is clear and that there are not other reasonable readings is somehow a crime. Alternatively, they argue that alternative readings are reasonable on clearly-fallacious reasoning, which could give rise to the inerrantists making comments about their reasoning ability that they mightn't appreciate. For example, an obvious way to understand what the writer meant (intended) is to see what he actually said, in context. But some people insist that it means something else because it must mean something else because science has supposedly proved the obvious meaning wrong. This is clearly a case of forcing an interpretation on the text rather than trying to understand what the writer intended, and is clearly fallacious reasoning.

...many of the early Church fathers rejected a literal reading of Genesis. Not true. Some did consider that the text has both literal and symbolic meanings, and some of them concentrated on the symbolic meanings, but that is not a denial of the literal meaning.

I tend towards Augustinian principles: I believe that God reveals Himself through His creation as well as through scripture... That's a biblical principle, actually. Psalm 19:1: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.". And Augustine believed that the world was only a few thousand years old, and 'one of the chapters in his City of God bears the title “On the mistaken view of history that ascribes many thousands of years to the age of the earth.”'[1]

...Augustinian principles:... in a case where the evidence contradicts a given reading of scripture, it is likely the reading which is in error--not the evidence, and not scripture itself. I don't know what thing Augustinian wrote that you are referring to here, but there is one bit Augustine wrote that is often misused. See here for a rebuttal.

I further reject claims of "appearance of age," because I do not believe it is in God's nature to deceive. I agree, but with considerable qualification. To use an analogy, if someone makes a piece of "reproduction" furniture that intentionally looks old, but advertises it for sale clearly marked as a "reproduction" piece, can they be accused of deception? If Adam looked like a 20-year old seconds after he was created, but God told us (even implicitly) that Adam was created in adult form, where is the deception? I agree that some cases could justify a charge of deception, such as light rays from a distant star showing events that never happened, or Adam having scars from events that never occurred. I think it's useful to draw a distinction between something being necessarily created mature (but without defect), and something showing the ravages of time—aging.

What I do not respect is attempts to make that faith into something it is not--to wit, science. That's a caricature. Creationists have faith in what God has revealed about history, that certain events (such as creation and the flood) occurred. The science is done within that historical framework.

Nor do I respect attempts to undermine science which is perceived as being disharmonious with that faith. Nor do I, but I rarely see that happening. Rather, what I often see is disagreement with evolution, and critics misrepresenting that as disagreement with science. This is such a blatant misrepresentation that I find it hard to believe that it's unintentional.

It is for this reason that I have a generally low opinion of Creationism Well, given that this is not what generally happens, you have little reason to have a low opinion of it.

I'm not sure that I consider being put in the same bracket at Todd Wood to be a compliment!

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 11:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Narrowing the focus for a moment, I'd like to press th: that of inerrantist confidence in their "plain and straightforward"

reading of the Bible. Again--while, as you say, Creationists will acknowledge in the abstract that there may be errors

of transmission and interpretation--in PRACTICE, I meet exceptionally few who are willing to acknowledge the possibility of

serious errors in their interpretation.

This, I feel, is a serious error...in fact, the sin of pride.

To take the position that we can confidently know the original intent of the authors of the Bible strikes me as staggering

hubris. Likewise, the idea that we can confidently differentiate between literal and figurative idiom in the Bible is

astounding to me, given that the same inerrantists who seem confident of their ability to do so in a language and cultural

idiom thousands of years removed from their own cannot do the same in their own language and cultural idiom.

Consider the following statement:

"New York is too hot in the summer, but it's a very cool place in the fall."

Can you tell me with confidence whether I mean "cool" in a literal or figurative sense in the above statement?

Probably not--and yet, it's a straightforward statement in your own native language!

Let's make it a bit easier:

"Phoenix is a very cool place during August."

Now, clearly, if you know anything about Phoenix, you can determine that I probably mean "cool" in the sense of "very

good." You have the cultural context necessary to understand my intent.

Suppose, though, we took my statement back in time a hundred years and gave it to an expert linguist. He would be forced

to conclude that I meant that Phoenix was not hot, because he lacks the cultural context to recognize the figurative use.

The odds that he would accurately grasp the meaning of my statement would be zero--and that's at a remove of only a hundred

years!

Let's suppose further that an onlooker overhears his analysis, and says, "Now, hold on, there. I've been to Phoenix in

August. You can fry an egg on the sidewalk. The author can't possibly mean what you say he means!"

Our renowned expert, of course, responds with "The language is clear. The plain and straightforward meaning is that

Phoenix is not hot in August."

The onlooker says, "Well, then, the author is a fool who doesn't know what he's talking about, and I see no reason to

take his writing seriously!"

This is precisely the error I believe inerrantists make--and precisely the danger I feel that error poses to Christian

faith. By insisting on a "plain and straightforward meaning" that may be seriously distorted by a lack of cultural

context, I think inerrantists alienate those who can look around and recognize that the observable evidence of creation

contradicts that reading...which it most manifestly does.

The Bible is a complex and varied text, and I strongly suspect that much of the nuance and texture is lost on us today.

It contains humor, wordplay, rhetorical flourishes--all manner of linguistic play that is very, VERY easy to lose in

translation. I sometimes wonder how many of the passages we pore over in utmost seriousness were wry jokes that would

have been glaringly obvious AS jokes to the original audience--but not to us.

You raise a lot of other points I'd like to address, in good time. Yes, Augustine believed in a young

Earth, but he had no reason not to believe thus--he had never seen evidence to the contrary! To hold that up

as support is highly questionable--as is the frequently-employed Creationist tactic of holding up men like Newton

as examples of scientists who accepted Creationism. Again, if you have to cite adherents to a position who were never

given the OPPORTUNITY to examine the contrary evidence, it doesn't speak very strongly for that position! I do believe that

inerrantists are arbitrarily selective in their reading--or at least, that the filter they apply is based on their own

beliefs and not those of the original authors. (We can talk at some length about how amazingly out of context it is to

read "ha'aretz" as "the planet" rather than "the (local) land," for instance.) However, for now, let's focus on one

issue: how can inerrantists be so confident that they have the necessary cultural context to discern intent in the Bible

as accurately or more accurately than they can do so in their native tongue?

--BRPierce (talk) 21:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

One of the problems with your analogy and argument is that they ignore one of the points I made. I said (emphasis changed): "an obvious way to understand what the writer meant (intended) is to see what he actually said, in context". By "context" I meant both the textual context and the societal context. Your analogy has no textual context—it's an isolated sentence.

The next problem is that you assume that the societal context cannot be known. You ask me to suppose that "we took my statement back in time a hundred years and gave it to an expert linguist. He would be forced to conclude that I meant that Phoenix was not hot, because he lacks the cultural context to recognize the figurative use." Well, of course a linguist from 100 years in the past would not know the cultural context. But you can't say the same about a linguist 100 years in the future. The Bible is by far the most-studied ancient document, and the culture it came from has also been intensely studied. It is therefore nonsense to claim that the odds of accurately understanding are "zero". They are, in fact, considerably more than zero.

You are also mistaken in implying that it's only inerrantists who believe that they can understand the text. I've already pointed out that most people think their understanding is correct, but note the following:

...the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

Do you want to have a guess which inerrantist said that? Of course, you will probably realise that I'm not quoting an inerrantist. I'm quoting Oxford Professor of Hebrew James Barr. But it's not just him. Here's the fuller version:

Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.

Note that: it's not just Barr. He's saying that this is the consensus view of the top experts. They believe that they are capable of understanding the intended meaning of the text. Not only that, their view of what the text means is consistent with that of the "inerrantist" creationists! This is despite the fact that Barr himself doesn't believe the account to be true. He is not saying "this happened"; he's saying "this is what the author wanted you to understand". Your claim that we can't really understand is not shared by the experts.

You also display what is very close to an inconsistent attitude towards this. You say that people today are too far removed from the original context to properly understand what the writers meant, but somehow scientists, who are just as far removed (actually, much, much further removed according to their timescales), are able to better understand what happened! Science does not have the past to test. The extant evidence is interpreted within their worldview; it is the scientists who should question the confidence that they display, not people reading a written record of what transpired.

You misrepresent me and creationists on Augustine, Newton, etc. Nobody is holding them up as examples of people who have studied evidence from both sides and found in favour of creation. We hold them up as examples of how the text is best understood without the influence of modern pseudo-scientific ideas like deep time and evolution, to counter those that claim that the Bible allows millions of years. If the Bible meant millions of years, why did nobody see it until modern claims challenged that? Why did God effectively deceive everyone by having a text that nobody saw millions of years in until extra-biblical evidence supposedly made that clear? Scientists like Newton are also cited to refute claims that believing in a 6,000-year-old Earth is inherently unscientific, i.e. not just opposed to the evidence.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 02:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

It's easy to claim understanding of cultural context, but that doesn't necessarily mean that such context is actually

understood. "Extensively studied" is worlds away from "fully comprehended." The amount we know about ancient cultures

pales in comparison to what we don't know about them. A good example: almond milk. We know that in the middle ages,

just about everybody used it in just about every recipe. What we don't know is how it was actually made--because it was

SO ubiquitous that nobody thought to write it down. It was just assumed that everyone would know what the author of

a recipe was talking about when he mentioned "almond milk."

And, of course, we're talking about a culture MUCH closer to our own than that of the ancient Hebrews--closer in cultural

idiom, and closer in language.

As for experts claiming that they understand the text, what of it? To borrow a favorite Creationist phrase: were they

there? Did they actually experience the culture in question? Do they know the thousand pieces of cultural context and

subtext which add nuance to statements? No; of course not. They're firmly convinced that they understand what was

meant, just as the scholar in my example would have been firmly convinced that HE understood what was meant. You brush

that example off because I chose a scholar in the past, but you seem to be overlooking the point: unavailable context

is unavailable context, whether past or future, and there is a great deal of unavailable context when dealing with a

culture thousands of years removed from our own.

Let's also keep in mind that the consensus opinion of Biblical experts, up until roughly the 1500's, was that the Bible

plainly and clearly indicated a solid dome of a sky, on which the sun, moon, and stars were fixed. Martin Luther went

on at length about the "false science" of heliocentrism, and how it should be rejected because the Bible so evidently

indicated a solid sky and geocentrism.

Of course, it turned out that that consensus opinion was wrong--and the experts promptly "discovered" that the word

"raqiya" in fact DIDN'T mean "dome," but rather "expanse!" Naturally, the party line is now that the Bible "plainly

indicated" that all along, and it was just those nasty pagan Greeks that misled a few folks into thinking otherwise.

Of course, your question applies just as well there: if the Bible means heliocentrism and a vast expanse of sky, why

did nobody see it until Copernican astronomy challenged it? Why did God effectively deceive everyone by having a text

that nobody saw a vast universe in until extra-biblical evidence supposedly made that clear?

I suspect strongly that evolution will follow the same course. Creationists have redrawn their line in the sand over and

over again already to permit things they previously said were impossible--all the while proclaiming that they've always

known those things were possible. Eventually, the line will be so far redrawn that they've effectively conceded the

entire evolution debate. As for deep time...Philip, I respect your intelligence, but I believe your position takes

a staggering level of selective dogmatic tunnel vision.

You said earlier that you weren't sure you considered it a compliment to be compared to Todd Wood. I think you should.

I know Creationists who consider him a "traitor," an "atheist pretending to be a Christian," and a "hell-bound liar"

for daring to go against the official party line and acknowledge that there is evidence for evolution. (And I only

wish those weren't direct quotes.)

Me? I admire his honesty and his courage...and, in my brief exchanges with him, I wished him well in his search.

I don't believe that he will prove to be correct, but I hope he will...and there, I think, is the crucial difference

between us. I have no reason NOT to welcome evidence of a young Earth and a literal Creation; I just don't think that

evidence is there. You, on the other hand, have the strongest of reasons not to welcome evidence of an old Earth and

a figurative Creation--unless you have changed your position or I misremember your position, you believe that such

evidence would completely undermine the basis for Christianity and render Christ's sacrifice of atonement meaningless.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about that...but if I'm right, then which of us has the stronger bias?

--BRPierce (talk) 04:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not claiming that our understanding is perfect, just that it's sufficient for most purposes. There are cultural differences even between Oz and the US that occasionally lead to misunderstandings, but that doesn't mean that we don't understand each other most of the time. The argument you are making for insufficient understanding gives the impression of being so far-reaching that's its a wonder that we can build any sorts of histories of ancient peoples at all. But we do, and it seems that about the only objections that understanding is insufficient are made when we are talking about taking biblical texts literally.

As for experts claiming that they understand the text, what of it? To borrow a favorite Creationist phrase: were they there? That "favorite Creationist phrase" is used to make the point that evolutionists don't have first-hand information, as opposed to us who do have first-hand information, in the form of written testimony from eye-witnesses. The same applies to those experts—they have written sources of information that allows them to understand the cultural context sufficiently to understand what the writers meant.

You brush that example off because I chose a scholar in the past, but you seem to be overlooking the point: unavailable context is unavailable context, whether past or future, and there is a great deal of unavailable context when dealing with a culture thousands of years removed from our own. I didn't overlook the point. Your analogy was flawed because a scholar from the past can't have any knowledge of cultural factors that began later, which is simply not true of a scholar from the future. I did not say that the future one would have perfect knowledge; I was just saying that an example where a past scholar can't have knowledge is quite unlike a future scholar who can. To put it another way, you effectively exaggerated the situation to the point of misrepresenting it.

I don't accept your analogy regarding raqiya‘. First, your example is of the interpretation of a single word, not an entire account. Second, the analogy requires that raqiya‘ would never have been understood as "expanse". But it's more likely that the word could always have had either meaning, and people only opted for something solid because of Greek thinking. This is unlike, say, the days of creation where the argument does not rest on the meaning of a single word, but on an entire argument. I also believe that you exaggerate in claiming that "the consensus opinion of Biblical experts, up until roughly the 1500's, was that the Bible plainly and clearly indicated a solid dome". They may have leant to that meaning, but did they ever really argue that it had to be that meaning? It seems that you also exaggerate regarding Luther. Rather than going "on at length about the "false science" of heliocentrism, and how it should be rejected because the Bible so evidently indicated a solid sky and geocentrism.", it was, according to this article, an "offhand remark".

Naturally, the party line is now that the Bible "plainly indicated" that all along... It is? Evidence please. Sure, the "party line" is now that the word means "expanse", and even that ancient people could have figured that out, but I can't say I've ever seen anyone claiming that it "plainly indicated" that all along in the sense of being indisputably obvious.

Of course, your question applies just as well there: if the Bible means heliocentrism and a vast expanse of sky, why did nobody see it until Copernican astronomy challenged it? That's not analogous. In my case, the question was about something quite clearly taught (each day numbered off, the length of the day defined, etc.). In your case, what orbits what is not discussed. That's not to say that there aren't clues, but that's all they are: clues, not explicit statements.

Why did God effectively deceive everyone by having a text that nobody saw a vast universe in until extra-biblical evidence supposedly made that clear? My question, even if I didn't express it this way, was why did God effectively deceive everyone by having a text that very apparently said one thing when it was actually something else. Your question, by contrast, is, why did God effectively deceive everyone by having a text that didn't say much about the topic, so that people ended up believing something incorrect from extra-biblical sources. They are not the same question.

I know Creationists who consider him a "traitor," an "atheist pretending to be a Christian," and a "hell-bound liar" for daring to go against the official party line and acknowledge that there is evidence for evolution. (And I only wish those weren't direct quotes.) Direct quotes from whom? I Googled those terms with his name, and apart from "traitor", came up with zilch, and checking the first few hits didn't find any "traitor" ones that applied to him either. By asking whom, I'm asking in the context of the "leading"/"lone-wolf"/"amateur" categories I explained before. Further, I don't know of any leading creationist who ever claimed that there was no evidence for evolution. Part of the problem I have with Todd Wood is his implication that they do. It's the classic refute-the-straw-man argument, and I find it odd that he makes that sort of fallacious argument.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about that...but if I'm right, then which of us has the stronger bias? You're not wrong, but to paraphrase another creationist line, how strong your bias is is not the issue; the issue is whether you have the right bias or not.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 13:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

There are cultural differences even between Oz and the US that occasionally lead to misunderstandings, but that

doesn't mean that we don't understand each other most of the time.

Thank you for acknowledging that! Our cultures are infinitely closer than most cultures were historically, due to

instantaneous mass communication and cultural osmosis. We share a common language and parent country; really, it's

difficult to imagine ANY scenario in which two cultures would have significantly more cultural capital in common.

And yet, as you acknowledge, there are still occasional misunderstandings. Now, it's easy enough to say "Oh, our

understanding is "sufficient for most purposes" when dealing with two cultures so very close together--but as we

move to cultures slightly less similar, that becomes less and less true. A gesture which signifies agreement in

America will likely get you into a fistfight in Italy; an American businessman without cultural training is unlikely

to realize that the Japanese businessman who is politely saying, "I will consult with my superiors concerning your

proposal" is actually saying "No." Cultural differences between European culture and Middle Eastern culture lead

to violence on a regular basis--and yet, I'm supposed to accept that we have a "sufficient" understanding of a

Middle Eastern culture thousands of years old? Again, I think that's hubris.

But we do, and it seems that about the only objections that understanding is insufficient are made when we are

talking about taking biblical texts literally.

Oh, heavens, if you think that's the only time there are such objections, you've clearly never attended a gathering

of historians or cultural anthropologists! There are heated debates over the most innocuous aspects of

ancient cultures.

That "favorite Creationist phrase" is used to make the point that evolutionists don't have first-hand information,

as opposed to us who do have first-hand information, in the form of written testimony from eye-witnesses.

...or second-hand information in the form of non-eyewitness accounts, or TRANSLATIONS of second-hand information.

You know as well as I do that much of the Bible was NOT first-hand accounts, and I know you're a serious enough

student of the history of the Bible to know how much debate and negotiation went into determining WHICH eyewitness

accounts to include and which to exclude--which resulted in oddities like Enoch being excluded from MOST versions

of the Bible (not all, but most) despite the fact that he's confirmed as a valid prophet elsewhere in the Bible!

Clearly, God did NOT intervene to ensure that all valid information and only valid information was included in the

Bible; we can establish that sola scriptura by observing that different versions of the Bible include different books

even today, and also by noting that God cautioned AGAINST altering scripture, which perforce means that it is POSSIBLE

to alter scripture.

I will also point out that the "directly observable" bar that Creationists have tried repeatedly to set doesn't

apply in ANY field of science. Not one. EVERY field of science makes use of the hypothetico-deductive model

and indirect observation. To put it another way: the only eyewitness to the murder says that he's innocent,

but the second-hand evidence of fingerprints, DNA, and ballistics indicates that he's guilty. Do we dismiss the

case because first-hand eyewitness information trumps such flimsy second-hand evidence, or do we accept that a

preponderance of "second-hand" evidence can be more reliable than a firsthand account?

The same applies to those experts—they have written sources of information that allows them to understand the

cultural context sufficiently to understand what the writers meant.

Respectfully, how in the world would they know? If they're missing necessary contextual cultural information,

how are they going to be aware of that?

Going back to my analogy, if the figurative sense of the word "cool" is unavailable to them, then it doesn't

matter WHAT sources they have--they're going to miss the meaning, and confidently proclaim a very different one.

I'm going to cut the point-by-point response somewhat short, in the interests of trying to control the ever-increasing

response sizes, but a few quick responses: the direct quotes are from what you would term "amateur Creationists."

Does that somehow make them less real, and less troubling? Does it indicate less closed-mindedness and judgmentalism?

I dispute that the belief in a solid sky came mainly from the Greeks, given that the Bible plainly speaks of the

sky as if it were solid in many places. (Naturally, today those passages are "obviously" metaphorical to

inerrantists; it's amazing how obvious things are in hindsight!) As to having the right bias, the problem is that

those who are most confident they have the right bias are often those who have the least reason for confidence.

I can think of at least one website that proudly proclaims that it has "the right bias"--and, as I recall, you

chose to leave that website. --BRPierce (talk) 21:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine who, in my limited understanding, did not hold the belief that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience, but rather was both instantaneous and symbolically took six days. Do give my regards to the Hippo, and please for legibility avoid adding new paragraphs in the middle of sentences. . dave souza, talk 23:05, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

We are a bit like the optimist and the pessimist. I'm looking at how much understanding there is, and you're looking at how much can be missed in not understanding. We are both correct up to a point, but because we are not quantifying it, it's easy to continue to disagree. Of course accurately quantifying it is almost certainly beyond either of us. But regarding Oz/US understanding, I'll take a stab and say that 99.999% of communication is adequately understood. The remaining 0.001% is not missed nuances, but outright misunderstanding. So if the difference in misunderstanding between us and biblical cultures is, say, 1000 times greater, understanding still runs at 99%. Yes, those figures are indicative only. But you've not shown anything to say that they are wrong. Instead, you've held a magnifying glass over that (say) 1% to make it look like it's a major problem. (And Oz and NZ would be closer than Oz and US, for what it's worth.)

I'm supposed to accept that we have a "sufficient" understanding of a Middle Eastern culture thousands of years old? Again, I think that's hubris. What should I call it when you dispute the experts solely on the grounds of anecdotal evidence and highlighting a few exceptions to the rule?

Oh, heavens, if you think that's the only time there are such objections, you've clearly never attended a gathering of historians or cultural anthropologists! There are heated debates over the most innocuous aspects of ancient cultures. Here's your response at its basics: "If you think that's the only time A happens, you've clearly never attended a gathering of historians or cultural anthropologists where B happens.", which is, of course, equivocation. I was talking about creationists being told that they can't be sure their understanding is correct, and you give an example of people attempting a correct understanding. Are any of those historians and cultural anthropologists told, "there's no point in claiming that you know what they meant, as there is no way for you to know"?

...or second-hand information in the form of non-eyewitness accounts, or TRANSLATIONS of second-hand information. You know as well as I do that much of the Bible was NOT first-hand accounts... It depends on what you mean by "much", but I actually believe that that much of it was first-hand accounts. Citing the existence of translations is a red herring, as we also have the Bible in the original languages, and they are consulted when there is doubt or disagreement.

...I know you're a serious enough student of the history of the Bible to know how much debate and negotiation went into determining WHICH eyewitness accounts to include and which to exclude... Not much, actually. Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you know about it.

I will also point out that the "directly observable" bar that Creationists have tried repeatedly to set doesn't apply in ANY field of science. Not one. EVERY field of science makes use of the hypothetico-deductive model and indirect observation. Huh? What are you talking about? A biologist looking through a microscope is directly observing. Not that creationists mean it that literally. Included in "directly observing" are things like observing the results of a readout of a mass spectrometer: they are not "directly observing" the atoms, but they are directly observing results of tests.

To put it another way: the only eyewitness... Rarely is a judgment made on the basis of a single eyewitness, and the Bible says that there must be at least two witnesses.

...the second-hand evidence of fingerprints, DNA, and ballistics indicates that he's guilty. Do we dismiss the case because first-hand eyewitness information trumps such flimsy second-hand evidence, or do we accept that a preponderance of "second-hand" evidence can be more reliable than a firsthand account? I'm not saying that scientific evidence never trumps eyewitnesses, but your question presumes too much. Fingerprints "prove" that the person was there; not that they committed the crime (in most cases; it does, of course, depends on just where the fingerprints were found). Similar with DNA evidence. Ballistic evidence does not usually implicate a particular person, as opposed to a particular weapon. Such evidence can be useful—even vital—for establishing certain facts, but the evidence is still interpreted to say that it means that someone is guilty. In reply to Yopienso in the section above I mentioned the Azaria Chamberlain case. On one hand we had several witnesses who said that Azaria was alive after the time the prosecution said that she had been killed. On the other hand there was scientific evidence that the clothing had been cut by scissors, not a dingo's teeth, and that a pattern of spray inside the Chamberlain's car proved positive when a chemical used to test for foetal blood was applied to it. But the scientist who said the cuts were made by scissors had never studied cuts made by dingo teeth, and it turned out that he was wrong. And the chemical test for foetal blood turned out to also test positive for sound deadener sprayed inside the car when it was manufactured. Scientific evidence is not absolute—like eyewitnesses, it is also subject to human fallibility. Sure, in different circumstances (than court cases), scientific evidence can be very conclusive, where multiple scientists all come up with the same results. But in one-off situations where repeatability, etc. is not possible, eyewitness testimony is still often the best source of information. Historical claims such as those in the Bible are more like the court cases, as they are one-off events that science didn't observe and can't measure or reproduce.

Before I leave that, I'll mention another case. Here in Victoria Greg Domaszewicz was charged with the murder of toddler Jaidyn Leskie, but acquitted, as the jury found the evidence insufficient. Then police found the DNA of another woman on Jaidyn's clothing. However, despite the Victorian Police having had a good reputation for their forensics, it was determined that the woman's DNA had contaminated Jaidyn's clothing in the forensics laboratory. Why didn't they think the woman was involved? Because she lived a long way from the crime and had probably never left the town she lived in. How would they know that? I'm sure that there were no scientific tests available to determine that the woman never left her town. Rather, it would have been on the eyewitness testimony of people who knew her. So eyewitness testimony trumped forensic evidence, because (in this case) the eyewitness testimony was considered more reliable than the scientific evidence, which is itself subject to human fallibility.

Respectfully, how in the world would they know? If they're missing necessary contextual cultural information, how are they going to be aware of that? So we ignore all ancient (and not-so-ancient) documents because there might be some contextual cultural information that we are unaware of. We might as well ditch all history. I'd also add that (depending on how much information we have), we would have enough knowledge of the culture to be confident of understanding it sufficiently well, and the onus in such cases is on the critic to propose alternative understandings, which you have not done.

...the direct quotes are from what you would term "amateur Creationists." Does that somehow make them less real, and less troubling? Does it indicate less closed-mindedness and judgmentalism? It means that you should not judge creationists generally on the basis of comments from people who can't be said to be representatives of creationism. I'll go further. As I've documented here, ridicule and name-calling is common among leading anti-creationists/anti-IDers, but (see here in the same article), the opposite is the case with leading creationists. Citing the attitudes of the worst as being typical of the movement as a whole is intellectually dishonest, and criticising creationists when leading anti-creationists are much worse is called being one-eyed.

I dispute that the belief in a solid sky came mainly from the Greeks, given that the Bible plainly speaks of the sky as if it were solid in many places. (Naturally, today those passages are "obviously" metaphorical to inerrantists; it's amazing how obvious things are in hindsight!) I don't believe that it's "plain" at all, and neither do I think they are necessarily all metaphorical. This page refutes claims of the Bible teaching a solid dome. It does a few time says things like "So, it is pretty obvious...", but in context I believe that they are saying that it's pretty obvious once you consider the arguments they make, not obvious with a casual reading. Further, the arguments are not ones based on what we know from science today; the arguments are all based on the text.

As to having the right bias, the problem is that those who are most confident they have the right bias are often those who have the least reason for confidence. You mean like Wikipedia? Ignoring that question, your comment is simply rhetoric.

I can think of at least one website that proudly proclaims that it has "the right bias"--and, as I recall, you chose to leave that website. I don't particularly recall it claiming that. I know I was one that defended the Christian (not political) bias of the site, but even so, it wasn't the Christian bias that was the problem.

Augustine ... did not hold the belief that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience... About right. See here.

...please for legibility avoid adding new paragraphs in the middle of sentences. I don't know who you are directing that to or what you re referring to.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 13:00, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

About right, Philip? Looks completely right to me. You cite Creation Ministries International which confirms that St. Augustine did not hold the belief that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience, but rather was both instantaneous and symbolically took six days. Even though CMI is generally an unreliable source, no quarrels with that part.

My comment followed one by BRPierce, who uses line breaks such as  ::::::::::: in mid-sentence, rather hard to read if you enlarge the text size at all, but it's not my talk page so carry on. . . dave souza, talk 14:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

CMI is, in fact, a very reliable source, and I suggest that it's only your bias that says otherwise.

I said "about" right because there's also this bit: "As Augustine became older, he gave greater emphasis to the underlying historicity and necessity of a literal interpretation of Scripture. His most important work is De Genesi ad litteram. The title says it: On the necessity of taking Genesis literally. In this later work of his, Augustine says farewell to his earlier allegorical and typological exegesis of parts of Genesis..."

Regarding BRPierce's posting style, I took your reference to "paragraphs" be be "paragraph-sized blocks of text", not line breaks, so didn't connect it to BRPierce. I see he's stopped doing it now, but it didn't bother me as much as you simply because I am using a wide-enough screen that the text was not further wrapping itself.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 00:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

(Unindent)

We are a bit like the optimist and the pessimist. I'm looking at how much understanding there is, and you're looking at how much can be missed in not understanding.

I prefer to think of it in terms of being properly humble when seeking to understand the will of the Almighty. By recognizing that my man-made heuristics and methodologies are not perfect and are subject to error, I seek to avoid falling into the trap of pride. I think that understanding of God's will comes more from prayer and a personal relationship than from the historical-grammatical method and exegesis.

Which is generally wiser? To say "I'm sure what I know is enough," or to say "I'm not sure that what I know is enough?"

Yes, those figures are indicative only. But you've not shown anything to say that they are wrong.

By the same token, I can say that the gap is 72.3%, and YOU haven't shown anything to say that it's wrong. Arbitrary and unprovable guesses serve no purpose, and neither one of us is going to score any particular points by saying that the other hasn't shown that those arbitrary and unprovable guesses are wrong.

Instead, you've held a magnifying glass over that (say) 1% to make it look like it's a major problem.

The problem, of course, is that we don't know how major a problem it is. You confidently assume that it's not a major problem; I make no such assumption. I cheerfully admit that I don't know how much I don't know.

What should I call it when you dispute the experts solely on the grounds of anecdotal evidence and highlighting a few exceptions to the rule?

"Rejecting an argument from authority" springs to mind immediately. What should I call it when you dispute the 99-plus percent of biologists, geneticists, geologists, geophysicists, astrophysicists, and astronomers who see overwhelming evidence for an ancient universe, employing methodologies and evidences which are completely independent of one another--and you do so on the strength of James Ussher's rather sketchy and assumption-laden calculations?

Are any of those historians and cultural anthropologists told, "there's no point in claiming that you know what they meant, as there is no way for you to know"?

If they confidently claim certainty? Yes, and rightly so; that sort of thinking doesn't even wash in freshman anthro courses. Anyone who's convinced that they fully understand a foreign culture as an outside observer is committing a cardinal error; it's why ethnographers are reminded, over and over, that the closest they will EVER get to truth is a reasonable approximation and that they WILL miss important data.

Not much, actually. Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you know about it.

Ad hom...even politely veiled...serves no purpose. I respect the time and effort you've put into studying the Bible; please respect that I have done the same, and that the beliefs I hold were not reached casually or frivolously. While you may brush off Gnosticism, Marcionism, Meletianism, Arianism, and the other schisms which divided the early Church, I think that's a viewpoint that reflects the fact that you're looking at the Bible through...to paraphrase Ken Ham..."inerrantist glasses."

Scientific evidence is not absolute—like eyewitnesses, it is also subject to human fallibility. Sure, in different circumstances (than court cases), scientific evidence can be very conclusive, where multiple scientists all come up with the same results. But in one-off situations where repeatability, etc. is not possible, eyewitness testimony is still often the best source of information. Historical claims such as those in the Bible are more like the court cases, as they are one-off events that science didn't observe and can't measure or reproduce.

You've made some interesting points here.

1. Eyewitnesses are fallible. We know this from constant observation, but Biblical inerrancy is based on the presumption that the eyewitness accounts (and non-eyewitness accounts) in the Bible are NOT fallible. This is at the absolute core of inerrancy, in fact...and it's based on remarkably little actual scripture. Invariably, when asked to produce scripture establishing that scripture is the inerrant Word of God, inerrantists produce 2 Timothy 3:16, which says nothing of the sort; it merely says that scripture is inspired by God. (Yes, inerrantists prefer the more poetic literal translation of the NIV--but selecting a more-appealing sounding translation doesn't change the sense of the passage, which is one of INSPIRATION, not authorship.) In truth, the Bible never says that scripture and the Word of God are one and the same; indeed, never once in the Old or New Testaments is the term "Word of God" EVER used to apply to words spoken or written by man's hand (I will make exception for the CEV, which renders 2 Timothy 3:16 as "God's Word," but I frankly think that's an appallingly bad translation.)

2. Scientific evidence can be conclusive when multiple scientists all come up with the same results. I will go one step farther and say that it's even MORE convincing when they come up with different results using different experiments, and those different results all agree with one another. For instance, if five scientists all measure the amount of water in a glass using a ruler and the volume of a cylinder and get the same result, that's reasonably convincing. If two scientists measure it using a ruler, another measures it using a scale and allowing for the weight of the glass, and a third measures the amount of air displaced from the glass and calculates the amount of water THAT way...and if all of those results agree that there are 3.6 fluid ounces of water in the glass...THAT is more convincing. And that is precisely the situation that attains today concerning the age of the Earth...except with many, many more measurements. If this were a court case, it would be one with thousands of pieces of scientific evidence stacked up against a single written account...and, when pressed as to whether the written account (Genesis 1-2) was an eyewitness account, the defense would have to admit that it was not, but that he's absolutely confident that the person who wrote down the story after the fact got it perfectly right! You tell me: if the case dealt with ANYTHING other than the Bible, how convincing would it be?

So we ignore all ancient (and not-so-ancient) documents because there might be some contextual cultural information that we are unaware of. We might as well ditch all history.

...or at least acknowledge that all history is, to some extent, fictionalized--which historians have acknowledged for a very long time--and that history is always filtered through the eyes of the historian, and NEVER perfectly accurate.

I'd also add that (depending on how much information we have), we would have enough knowledge of the culture to be confident of understanding it sufficiently well, and the onus in such cases is on the critic to propose alternative understandings, which you have not done.

I would have thought that the alternative understandings were self-evident; I can't imagine that you're unaware of the positions of old Earth creationists like Hugh Ross, for instance, or of those who argue for a figurative and metaphorical reading of Genesis. You REJECT those alternative understandings, but they've certainly been proposed! If you like, we can discuss the textual reasons that I personally think the assumption of a young Earth and worldwide Flood are unwarranted, but that's going to be a lengthy discussion unto itself, and not something I wished to tackle as a casual aside--it's a very large can of linguistic worms to open.

As I've documented here, ridicule and name-calling is common among leading anti-creationists/anti-IDers, but (see here in the same article), the opposite is the case with leading creationists. Citing the attitudes of the worst as being typical of the movement as a whole is intellectually dishonest, and criticising creationists when leading anti-creationists are much worse is called being one-eyed.

...except that I think you're using circular reasoning there. You're defining "leading anti-creationists" as those who employ such language, and "leading creationists" as being those who do not employ such language. You list a handful of examples, some of them rather far-reaching (P.Z. Meyers is a "leading anti-creationist?" You flatter him greatly.) You also present no evidence that leading Creationists don't employ the same tactics; I certainly know that I've encountered a goodly number of scare quotes on Answers in Genesis, for instance.

Realistically speaking, I think it's fairly safe to say that many, many more Creationists hear and are influenced by the words of Kent Hovind than, say, Steve Austin or John Baumgardner. Who is typical of the movement? The handful of researchers who publish at CMI and AiG, or the thousands upon thousands who say "Evolutionists believe a cat can turn into a dog," "If we evolved from monkeys, there wouldn't still be monkeys," and "Evolution is a fairy tale with NO evidence?"

Ignoring that question, your comment is simply rhetoric.

Actually, it's crucial; how do you know you have the right bias?

I don't particularly recall it claiming that. I know I was one that defended the Christian (not political) bias of the site, but even so, it wasn't the Christian bias that was the problem.

Many of the people with whom you had issues there didn't see it that way. The behavior that drove you away WAS, in their eyes, "Christian bias" and therefore right--whereas in your eyes, it wasn't Christian or right at all. Something to consider; "Christian bias" means many different things to many different people. I've found that, for the most part, inerrantists agree that there is one true and evident meaning to the Bible--they just don't agree on what that true and evident meaning is.

--BRPierce (talk) 15:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not answering your points strictly in the order you've made them, as I want to deal with the comments about the Bible first.

Eyewitnesses are fallible. We know this from constant observation, but Biblical inerrancy is based on the presumption that the eyewitness accounts (and non-eyewitness accounts) in the Bible are NOT fallible. This is at the absolute core of inerrancy... Notice the words I bolded in that quote from you? You've switched from "eyewitnesses" to "eyewitness accounts". Your clear implication is that the eyewitness accounts in the Bible are fallible because the eyewitnesses themselves are fallible. There are two problems with this. One is the matter of inspiration, which I'll get to in a moment. The other is that there are parts of the Bible written by God Himself, specifically the Ten Commandments (in which He plainly says that He created everything in six days), and, probably, the creation account in Genesis 1 (see http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/w/Colophons_in_Genesis).

...inerrantists produce 2 Timothy 3:16, which says nothing of the sort; it merely says that scripture is inspired by God. (Yes, inerrantists prefer the more poetic literal translation of the NIV--but selecting a more-appealing sounding translation doesn't change the sense of the passage, which is one of INSPIRATION, not authorship.) The NIV is not "more poetic", but more literal. The Greek word is theópneustos, which is, literally, God-breathed (theó is a prefix meaning "God", and pneustos is "breathed"). From here: "G. Archer, "2315 (theópneustos) is better rendered 'breathed out by God' as the emphasis is upon the divine origin of the inscripturated revelation itself" (A Survey of OT Introduction, fn. 7, 29)"

...it's based on remarkably little actual scripture... Not true. Apart from 2 Timothy 3:16, there is also 2 Peter 1:20–21: "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.". And we have the example of Jesus quoting Scripture as an answer for critics, including Satan.

I prefer to think of it in terms of being properly humble when seeking to understand the will of the Almighty. I prefer to think of it in terms of being properly humble by accepting that God is capable of communicating to us what He wants us to know and of accepting what He has told us.

Which is generally wiser? To say "I'm sure what I know is enough," or to say "I'm not sure that what I know is enough?" To say "I'll believe what God said".

By the same token, I can say that the gap is 72.3%, and YOU haven't shown anything to say that it's wrong. True, but it is you who is making the claim that we don't have enough understanding, and my point was that you haven't shown that. Further, your figure is obviously plucked from the air to make a point. My figure, although unresearched, is an estimate based on the amount of communication that goes on between Oz and the US and the number of times (very few) that misunderstandings have significant consequences. My figure was an attempt to be correct.

I cheerfully admit that I don't know how much I don't know. Yet you are making a case on the assumption that you don't know enough, despite saying that you don't know if that's true!

"Rejecting an argument from authority" springs to mind immediately. The fallacy of an "argument from authority" is in citing someone who is not an authority on the subject. Like citing a geologist on history. There is no fallacy in citing someone who is an authority on the topic.

What should I call it when you dispute the 99-plus percent of biologists, geneticists, geologists, geophysicists, astrophysicists, and astronomers... For one thing, you should call it a doubly-loaded question. I don't agree that the figure is 99-plus percent, nor that those disciplines make them authorities on the history of the world. For another you should call it rejecting the worldview in which they interpret the evidence.

... employing methodologies and evidences which are completely independent of one another--and you do so on the strength of James Ussher's rather sketchy and assumption-laden calculations? Usher's calculations were not "rather sketchy", and his "assumptions" were that the Bible is inerrant. And those scientists have their own, anti-biblical, assumptions, such as the assumption that the Bible does not record accurate history, that uniformitarianism is a valid principle, etc. I do not reject their observations, but I reject the assumptions that they use to interpret their observations.

If they confidently claim certainty? Yes, and rightly so. Show me an example.

Anyone who's convinced that they fully understand a foreign culture... Equivocation again. We are not talking about "fully understanding" a foreign culture, but about being able to conclude some things with certainty.

Ad hom...even politely veiled...serves no purpose. Sorry; that wasn't intended as an ad hominem; it was simply a response to your comment about my level of knowledge, "I know you're a serious enough student of the history of the Bible to know how much debate and negotiation went into...", as though that was a point that we agreed on.

While you may brush off Gnosticism, Marcionism, Meletianism, Arianism, and the other schisms which divided the early Church... What I don't agree with is the characterisation. That sort of comment I see as equivalent to saying that Jehovah's Witnesses have divided the church today. Sure, there is disagreement between the two groups, but that's a far cry from claiming that the church is "divided" over such issues.

Scientific evidence can be conclusive when multiple scientists all come up with the same results. Assuming that they are talking about testable evidence and not worldview-influenced opinions.

...it's even MORE convincing when they come up with different results using different experiments, and those different results all agree with one another. Agreed, but that has no relevance to this discussion.

And that is precisely the situation that attains today concerning the age of the Earth...except with many, many more measurements Incorrect. There are very few direct measurements of the age of the Earth, and (expanding the focus to other dating results), the measurements frequently do not agree.

...when pressed as to whether the written account (Genesis 1-2) was an eyewitness account, the defense would have to admit that it was not... No it wouldn't. God Himself counts as an eyewitness. And an infallible one to boot.

You tell me: if the case dealt with ANYTHING other than the Bible, how convincing would it be? Anything other than the Bible that was also infallible? Silly question. And doubly silly given the lack of consistency of the evidence from the "scientific" viewpoint.

..or at least acknowledge that all history is, to some extent, fictionalized... "To some extent" implies that we can determine, at least reasonably well, what part is fiction and what isn't. My point is that your argument for not knowing how much we don't know effectively denies that we can do even that.

I would have thought that the alternative understandings were self-evident; I can't imagine that you're unaware of the positions of old Earth creationists like Hugh Ross... Sure, I'm aware that there are alternative claims, but my point was that the claims themselves need to be dealt with; simply pointing out that there are alternatives, or vaguely claiming that we might not be completely correct somewhere, doesn't do that, and fails to address whether alternative claims have good grounds or are frivolous, for example.

You REJECT those alternative understandings, but they've certainly been proposed! But the mere fact that alternatives have been proposed means nothing. What means something is how good a case can be made.

...except that I think you're using circular reasoning there. You're defining "leading anti-creationists" as those who employ such language, and "leading creationists" as being those who do not employ such language. No I am not. As I partly explained, I'm using "leading creationist" as one connected to one of the creationist groups that are not "lone wolf" operations; i.e. one of the creationist groups that have some sort of (formal or informal) peer-review process in place. Not only do CMI, AiG, CRS, and ICR (for example) have multiple scientists in the respective organisations, they also interact with each other in a review type of way, and they endorse (explicitly or implicitly) the message of the other groups. However, to pick one example, you won't find CMI endorsing Kent Hovind or Carl Baugh; in fact they have on occasions expressed disagreement with them. And "leading anti-creationists" are those organisations, such as the NCSE, or individuals, such as Dawkins, P. Z. Myers, etc., that also form a self-endorsing group.

(P.Z. Meyers is a "leading anti-creationist?" You flatter him greatly.) He's part of that group, endorsed by others in the group, as well as being quite popular and outspoken.

You also present no evidence that leading Creationists don't employ the same tactics. Did you check the reference at the link I pointed you to?

...I certainly know that I've encountered a goodly number of scare quotes on Answers in Genesis, for instance. "Scare quote"? I was referring to ridicule, vilification, etc. Is that what you are meaning? If so, please provide examples.

Realistically speaking, I think it's fairly safe to say that many, many more Creationists hear and are influenced by the words of Kent Hovind than, say, Steve Austin or John Baumgardner. I agree that Hovind is popular. If popularity was the definition, my argument may not be be as strong. But, as explained, my definition excluded the "lone wolf" creationists, which I would class Hovind as.

Who is typical of the movement? The handful of researchers who publish at CMI and AiG, or the thousands upon thousands who say "Evolutionists believe a cat can turn into a dog,"... The researchers who publish at CMI and AiG are more than a "handful", and those who say the sorts of things you quote would not be "thousands upon thousands", especially if you are not counting the "amateur" creationists I described above.

Actually, it's crucial; how do you know you have the right bias? It wasn't crucial; you are now asking a question that you didn't ask before. How do you know you have the right bias (and please don't try telling me you don't have one, nor that claiming that you don't know what is true is not itself a bias). We believe that we are right (have the right bias) because of our consideration of the evidence before us.

The behavior that drove you away WAS, in their eyes, "Christian bias" and therefore right--whereas in your eyes, it wasn't Christian or right at all. I don't agree, at least for the most part. By "Christian bias", I'm referring to a belief that the Bible was true. The things I disagreed with were things like how to deal with people who questioned their actions, etc. For the most part at least, they did not justify their reasons for how they dealt with people on the basis of the Bible.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 02:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Philip, my response to you is written, but is extremely long. Do you want it here, or would you perhaps prefer to create a subpage for it? --BRPierce (talk) 21:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Part 2

Sorry for the delay on this. Here we go:

The other is that there are parts of the Bible written by God Himself, specifically the Ten Commandments (in which He plainly says that He created everything in six days), and, probably, the creation account in Genesis 1 ...and, as I noted, the Decalogue IS referred to as the "Word of God." In fact, it's the only instance in the Bible where writing is referred to as the Word of God. And, yes, the reference in Exodus 20:11 could be a reference to literal days--or a metaphoric parallel to the command to keep the seventh day holy. (Note that this structure also applies to years elsewhere in the Bible, not merely days.)

The NIV is not "more poetic", but more literal. The Greek word is theópneustos, which is, literally, God-breathed (theó is a prefix meaning "God", and pneustos is "breathed"). From here: "G. Archer, "2315 (theópneustos) is better rendered 'breathed out by God' as the emphasis is upon the divine origin of the inscripturated revelation itself" (A Survey of OT Introduction, fn. 7, 29)" ...and yet, for centuries, the passage was rendered as "inspired by God." Apparently, the context indicated inspiration and not literal authorship to rather a lot of people. So, bringing back your earlier question: why should we accept that the passage should better be read as "breathed out by God" when that wasn't apparent for so many centuries? It seems to me that there's a rather strong correlation between that interpretation finding favor and the rise of Biblical inerrantism as a movement. As for the claim that it's "more literal" rather than "more poetic," the two are not mutually exclusive; the literal reading is the poetic reading, but the context makes it obvious that it's metaphor.

Not true. Apart from 2 Timothy 3:16, there is also 2 Peter 1:20–21: "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.". ...which in no ways says "Scripture is the Word of God," but merely confirms that valid prophecy is inspired by God. I'm not disputing that; I'm disputing the assumption that "inspired by God" is exactly synonymous with "the inerrant Word of God." Nor does it say that such prophecy is not subject to error.

And we have the example of Jesus quoting Scripture as an answer for critics, including Satan. Of course! All Scripture is profitable for instruction. How does that mean that it is and must be the inerrant Word of God? Jesus also spoke in parables as an answer for critics; those parables were spiritually and metaphorically true, but hardly literally true. (And let's stay away from "Parables were always plainly identified;" that's simply not the case. The story of Lazarus and the rich man springs to mind immediately.)

I prefer to think of it in terms of being properly humble by accepting that God is capable of communicating to us what He wants us to know and of accepting what He has told us. ...so what about all the people throughout history who have disagreed with the "plain and evident" meaning of the Bible espoused by inerrantists today? Did they just lack the wisdom and discernment to see what God meant...wisdom and discernment which has (conveniently) been provided to today's inerrantists? Again, how is it that you can be confident that God has communicated what he wants us to know to YOU, and not to any of the (many, many) Christians who have historically held beliefs that differed from yours in one respect or another?

To say "I'll believe what God said". ...but that's not what inerrantists do in practice. They believe what they have interpreted the Bible to mean, and then call it believing what God said. God didn't say the Earth is 6,000 years old. God didn't say that the Bible is the whole, complete, and inerrant Word of God. Men said that--fallible, imperfect men.

Further, your figure is obviously plucked from the air to make a point. My figure, although unresearched, is an estimate based on the amount of communication that goes on between Oz and the US and the number of times (very few) that misunderstandings have significant consequences. My figure was an attempt to be correct. Your figure was plucked from the air every bit as much as mine was, and has no more validity. You think the figure is very small; therefore, you picked a very small number. That's hardly any sort of evidence that the figure is very small. Your estimate on the difference between us and the ancient Israelites is even more of a case of spitballing, to the point of being a wild guess.

Yet you are making a case on the assumption that you don't know enough, despite saying that you don't know if that's true! Oh, I KNOW that I don't know enough. The fact that I don't know how much I don't know means, by definition, that I don't know enough to have the kind of certainty you evince.

The fallacy of an "argument from authority" is in citing someone who is not an authority on the subject. Like citing a geologist on history. There is no fallacy in citing someone who is an authority on the topic. ...the problem being, of course, that the only people you consider authorities on the topic are the ones who share your conclusions. How many historians have concluded that Egypt was alive and thriving at the time the Great Flood supposedly wiped them out, just for example?

I don't agree that the figure is 99-plus percent, nor that those disciplines make them authorities on the history of the world. ...and yet, you cannot provide any evidence that it's less than 99 percent. I think the absolute most generous surveys of "scientists" (which included anyone in any vaguely-related scientific field) still returned a result of greater than 95% who accepted an ancient Earth--and no survey of those in relevant fields with which I am familiar has ever returned a result less than 99%. (The standard Young Earth response is "You can't prove that there aren't lots of young Earth scientists keeping their views a secret for fear of being persecuted!" That's true, but I also can't prove that there aren't little invisible teleporting elves living in my basement! I think it's prudent if we confine ourselves to what the evidence shows, rather than attempting to make a lack of evidence serve in PLACE of evidence.)

As for "making them authorities on the history of the world," what WOULD you accept as a valid authority on the history of the world...other than a scholar who studies the Bible and believes it's inerrant?

For another you should call it rejecting the worldview in which they interpret the evidence. ...except that that's another Creationist claim that falls apart on examination. "We just interpret the evidence according to a different worldview!" sounds good, but it just isn't so. Creationists don't simply interpret the evidence according to a different worldview; they flat-out reject any evidence that contradicts that worldview. Again, this is a discussion unto itself, and one I'm more than willing to have, but it's likely to be lengthy; the list of evidences for which Creationists have no explanation beyond vague hand-waving is quite, quite long.

Usher's calculations were not "rather sketchy", and his "assumptions" were that the Bible is inerrant. Are you really prepared to defend Ussher's calculations as accurate? Ussher assumed generational, non-telescopic chronologies; both of which assumptions are unwarranted. There's a reason even many Young Earth Creationists acknowledge that his oh-so-precise calculation of date and time was--while an impressive piece of scholarship GIVEN his assumptions--probably not accurate. Yet another discussion that would take quite some time to have fully--the topic of Middle Eastern genealogy is fascinating, but not easily covered in an hour or a day.

And those scientists have their own, anti-biblical, assumptions, such as the assumption that the Bible does not record accurate history, that uniformitarianism is a valid principle, etc. I do not reject their observations, but I reject the assumptions that they use to interpret their observations. ...and yet, many of those observations are simply incompatible with the assumption that the Bible (as you and other inerrantists interpret it-sorry, but I must insist on that distinction) records accurate history.

Show me an example. You seem to have a very high opinion of my access to information if you assume that I can readily provide links to such things. The Internet is a lovely resource, but it's not the oracular source of all wisdom! I could certainly find textbooks that reiterate this principle, given some time, but I have no idea how many of those textbooks would be available online.

We are not talking about "fully understanding" a foreign culture, but about being able to conclude some things with certainty. Which things? And how do you know which things can be known for certain?

What I don't agree with is the characterisation. That sort of comment I see as equivalent to saying that Jehovah's Witnesses have divided the church today. Sure, there is disagreement between the two groups, but that's a far cry from claiming that the church is "divided" over such issues. Some of those groups claimed that Christ wasn't God. How much more of a division can you GET, from a Christian perspective? They were far more divided than, say, Protestants and Catholics...and it's no great feat to find entire denominations of Protestants who denounce Catholics as being pagan Isis-worshippers and not Christian at all.

Assuming that they are talking about testable evidence and not worldview-influenced opinions. ...and, generally, it is testable evidence. It's just that Young Earth Creationists dismiss any evidence that doesn't line up with a young Earth as "opinion"--which is ironic, given that most of those "opinions" ARE based on observation. Certain processes occur at constant rates, and cannot occur at significantly different rates if any of our understanding if the laws of physics is in any way accurate? "Uniformitarian opinion." Clearly, they maintain, these processes must have occurred at wildly different rates in the past--despite the fact that there is no observable evidence of such wild variations.

I see a tremendous double-standard there. I suspect that you don't...but I would suggest that that is the result of bias and selective perception.

Incorrect. There are very few direct measurements of the age of the Earth, and (expanding the focus to other dating results), the measurements frequently do not agree. Actually, they do, Creationist obfuscation notwithstanding. Most of the Creationist claims of "wildly inaccurate dates" are based on spectacular misinterpretation. One that springs to mind immediately is their claim that "Lava from an 1801 eruption was dated at 22 million years old!" In actuality, the lava in question was dated as having no significant age; the xenoliths in the lava were dated as being very old (which they were.) Moreover, the scientists expected the age of those xenoliths to be inaccurate--it's what they were testing.

To use a metaphor: I ask my friend what time it is. He says it's 3:45 PM. Our mutual acquaintance says, "I don't think it's 3:45. How do you know? That watch could be unreliable!"

Reasonable enough--so I ask another passerby, and he says it's 3:44. Our acquaintance says, "See!? The answers don't agree! You can't trust those watches! It's probably 6 AM!"

So I ask another passerby, and another, and another, and all of them give me answers between 3:43 and 3:47. Our acquaintance says, "Why are you wasting your time? We've already established that watches aren't a reliable method of telling time!"

I ask someone with a wind-up watch. I ask someone with a digital watch. I ask someone with a cellphone. I call up Greenwich and consult their atomic clock. All of them say it's about 3:45. I look at a sundial; it shows that it's right around 3:45. I notice the 3:45 express bus just pulling away from the bus stop.

But my acquaintance continues to insist that it's 6 AM, and I'm merelt "interpreting the evidence wrong."

This is where Young Earth Creationism utterly collapses. It sounds plausible as long as the Creationist can restrict the discussion to ONE natural clock, or a few--but once you look at the sheer number of natural clocks that exist, and the fact that they'd ALL have to provide wrong ages--consistently wrong--it crumbles like so much sand.

And keep in mind, this IS a matter of providing wrong ages. It's not just "If you look at it one way, it indicates an old Earth, and if you look at it another way, it indicates an age of 6,000 years!" Creationists don't have ANY reliable dating methods to back up a 6,000 year figure--not one. Instead, they claim that some unknown force skewed the data, and if we just knew what that force was, then all of the figures would show a young Earth.

Seems a bit far-fetched, doesn't it? Why would God unleash forces that altered ALL of the natural clocks. Surely he should have left a FEW that plainly indicate an age of 6-10,000 years!

No it wouldn't. God Himself counts as an eyewitness. And an infallible one to boot. ...so please tell me where the Bible says that God Himself wrote Genesis 1-2. If you don't have a solid source, that's a MIGHTY assumption to make.

Anything other than the Bible that was also infallible? Silly question. Special pleading.

"To some extent" implies that we can determine, at least reasonably well, what part is fiction and what isn't. My point is that your argument for not knowing how much we don't know effectively denies that we can do even that. ...because we can't. Not with confidence. At best, we can disprove accounts previously thought to be factual; we can never CONFIRM beyond a shadow of a doubt that a particular historical account is entirely factual.

Sure, I'm aware that there are alternative claims, but my point was that the claims themselves need to be dealt with; simply pointing out that there are alternatives, or vaguely claiming that we might not be completely correct somewhere, doesn't do that, and fails to address whether alternative claims have good grounds or are frivolous, for example. Oh, that's a discussion I'm more than willing to have...but, of course, once we get into specifics, this is going to be a very long discussion, indeed. Where should we start? The Biblical arguments for an old Earth? The geological arguments? The paleontological arguments? The arguments from physics and astronomy? Any of those categories could take us weeks.

Did you check the reference at the link I pointed you to? I did. Where is the evidence that they don't employ ad hominem attacks, impeachment of character, and similar tactics of vilification? I will cheerfully admit that my own interactions with members of these groups have led me to believe they're more polite, in general, than some of the antitheists with whom I have debated--but one can be relatively polite while still engaging in ad hominem.

"Scare quote"? I was referring to ridicule, vilification, etc. Is that what you are meaning? If so, please provide examples. Your link specifically mentioned "scare quotes" as a common form of vilification.

I agree that Hovind is popular. If popularity was the definition, my argument may not be be as strong. But, as explained, my definition excluded the "lone wolf" creationists, which I would class Hovind as. ...which goes back to what I said: you're defining your categories according to your conclusion, which again strikes me as circular in nature. Claiming that Hovind is not a leading Creationist because he's not a member of the groups you have defined as leading Creationists renders that definition of "leading Creationist" extremely shaky, in my opinion--how are we to accept a definition that disallows some of the most influential voices in the Creationist movement?

The researchers who publish at CMI and AiG are more than a "handful", and those who say the sorts of things you quote would not be "thousands upon thousands", especially if you are not counting the "amateur" creationists I described above. "We outnumber the enemy, if you don't count the guys with swords!" Naturally, I'm not discounting the "amateur" Creationists you listed above, because they're every bit as much a part of the Creationist movement--indeed, likely moreso--than the relatively few "professional Creationists" you endorse. Now, don't get me wrong; I wish that more of the Creationist movement was modeled along the lines of AiG and CMI. Their willingness to abandon obviously bad arguments is at least a step in the right direction. The truth, though, is that they DON'T speak for Creationists as a whole; the fact that those terrible arguments which they ask Creationists not to use are still regularly employed demonstrates that.

How do you know you have the right bias (and please don't try telling me you don't have one, nor that claiming that you don't know what is true is not itself a bias). Of course I have a bias, but I think to claim that "I don't know for sure whether I'm right about this" is a bias again renders the term "bias" useless. It's rather strange to ask me how I know I have the right bias, when you're characterizing "I don't know" as being a bias! How shall I respond? "I don't know if "I don't know if I have the right bias" is the right bias?"

We believe that we are right (have the right bias) because of our consideration of the evidence before us. With respect, this is one claim that I don't think any presuppositionalist can honestly make. You have already affirmed that you start with the presumption that your reading of the Bible is correct, and interpret all evidence in light of that presupposition. You cannot fairly then turn around and claim that you know your presupposition is right because of the evidence.

--BRPierce (talk) 22:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

...as I noted, the Decalogue IS referred to as the "Word of God." You didn't explicitly mention the Decalogue, but I can see now where you might have indirectly referred to that.

In fact, it's the only instance in the Bible where writing is referred to as the Word of God. Explictly, perhaps, but I'm not convinced that it's possible to say that none of the other references can possible be referring to the Bible.

...the reference in Exodus 20:11 could be a reference to literal days--or a metaphoric parallel to the command to keep the seventh day holy. There are no grounds for considering it metaphorical, and good ground for rejecting that view. When someone says "Do A because of B", if B is not the case, then there are no grounds for doing A. That is, if the reason for doing something is not true, then there is no reason for doing it. If someone says "drive at 50 kph because that's safer than other speeds", but 50kph is not safer than other speeds, why should you drive at 50 kph? If God said "observe a week because that's what I took to create", and He didn't actually take a week, then why observe the week? My point is that you don't base an action, rule, etc. on a metaphor, hence the days are not a metaphor.

...and yet, for centuries, the passage was rendered as "inspired by God." Apparently, the context indicated inspiration and not literal authorship to rather a lot of people. Or, "inspiration" was understood for centuries as meaning that God was the ultimate author. I also reject your implication that inerrantism is a recent phenomenon. This looks like it answers your point.

...which in no ways says "Scripture is the Word of God," but merely confirms that valid prophecy is inspired by God. Are you disputing that Scripture is prophecy, or just that this applies to all Scripture as opposed to some of it?

Nor does it say that such prophecy is not subject to error. Are you suggesting that prophecy given by an infallible God could be subject to error? Or are you suggesting that God gave infallible prophecy but it was potentially recorded with errors?

Of course! All Scripture is profitable for instruction. How does that mean that it is and must be the inerrant Word of God? This wasn't a case of giving instruction in the sense of education; this was a case of giving an authoritative answer. And why would Jesus cite the Bible as authoritative if it was less authoritative than Himself?

Jesus also spoke in parables as an answer for critics; those parables were spiritually and metaphorically true, but hardly literally true. A parable is something you use to illustrate a point; it doesn't make the point. We don't consider everyone we encounter as our neighbers because Jesus told a short fictional story; but the parable of the Good Samaritan helps us see what is already true, that people we encounter are our neighbours.

(And let's stay away from "Parables were always plainly identified;" that's simply not the case. The story of Lazarus and the rich man springs to mind immediately.) How do you know that wasn't a true story? I understand your point, but I don't think it proves much, other than many rules have an exception.

...so what about all the people throughout history who have disagreed with the "plain and evident" meaning of the Bible espoused by inerrantists today? What about all the people throughout history—such as Richard Dawkins—who have disagreed with the Bible? There are always going to be people who disagree, but I reject your characterisation that most haven't seen what a few can see today; I say that most have seen what some today refuse to see.

Again, how is it that you can be confident that God has communicated what he wants us to know to YOU, and not to any of the (many, many) Christians who have historically held beliefs that differed from yours in one respect or another? God hasn't communicated just to me; He's communicated to everyone, but some prefer the words of men than the Word of God. And I reject your inference that my view is the exception.

..but that's not what inerrantists do. It's what they SAY, but not what they DO. Nonsense. You are arguing in a circle. Inerrantists say—and mean—"I'll believe what God said". God said X, therefore I believe X. Person J says, "but God mightn't have meant X". Inerrantists will say, "Okay, show me why He didn't mean X, and why He meant Y, and I'll believe that instead". But either person J simply rests his argument on "but God mightn't have meant X", or he gives reasoning that the inerrantist finds unconvincing. Therefore the inerrantist sticks with his beliefs. It is not then reasonable for person J to accuse the inerrantist of believing their interpretation rather than what God said. When my father when to Bible College, the college outlined the rules of the college. They also added that if anyone could show that a rule was contrary to a biblical principle, the rule would be changed. But of course to do that, the students had to actually make the case. If they couldn't, the rules stood. The college made clear which took priority, but of course in practice, they had to be convinced that one of their rules was contrary to the Bible. Not being convinced did not mean that they weren't sincere about their espoused principle.

God didn't say the Earth is 6,000 years old. Yeah? I wonder why? It might be because if He did, then 2,000 years later the statement would be wrong (by 2,000 years)! So I wonder how He could say it in a way that didn't go out of date? Perhaps He could give a list of time periods from the beginning up to some later reference point? Yeah, that would do it! Guess what! That's exactly what the Bible has! So, in effect He did say that, just not in a way that would quickly go out of date.

God didn't say that the Bible is the whole, complete, and inerrant Word of God. Christianity has traditionally believed that He did effectively say that, just like He recorded how long ago He create the Earth.

Your figure was plucked from the air every bit as much as mine was... No, as I said, mine was an estimate; I tried to be realistic.

Your estimate on the difference between us and the ancient Israelites is even more of a case of spitballing, to the point of being a wild guess. I was being generous, actually, and you've not provided any better evidence.

Oh, I KNOW that I don't know enough. The fact that I don't know how much I don't know means, by definition, that I don't know enough to have the kind of certainty you evince. So you're trying to impose your uncertainty on me. Becaue you are uncertain, I must be too, and you seem fairly certain of that.

...the problem being, of course, that the only people you consider authorities on the topic are the ones who share your conclusions. Contradicted, of course, by the fact that I cited a non-errantist, non-creationist as an authority. Oops. And ignoring that I cited as authorities the sort of people that, objectively, should be considered authorities! Your rebuttal is baseless and contrary to the evidence.

How many historians have concluded that Egypt was alive and thriving at the time the Great Flood supposedly wiped them out, just for example? Huh? I don't know anyone who even believes that, let alone a historian claiming that. But to address the point that you didn't make, I'm happy to accept as authoritative people who are educated in or have studied the matters at some length, and who are citing facts, or who are offering expert opinions that are not based on an opposing worldview.

...and yet, you cannot provide any evidence that it's less than 99 percent. I can't? What makes you think that? Being a bit presumptuous, aren't you?

The standard Young Earth response is "You can't prove that there aren't lots of young Earth scientists keeping their views a secret for fear of being persecuted!" That would be part of my response, but not the entirety of it, and it's quite a fair one in that there is obvious and blatant persecution. In principle, however, it should not affect a proper survey where the respondents could not be identified. Another factor (which doesn't affect how many there are, but does bear on any claims that the percentage is related to properly considering the arguments) is that, because of suppression, many have not even considered the case for a young Earth.

That's true, but I also can't prove that there aren't little invisible teleporting elves living in my basement! No, I can't you can't. But then there's no reason to believe that there is, either, which makes this analogy non-analogous to the young-Earth scientist case.

I think it's prudent if we confine ourselves to what the evidence shows, rather than attempting to make a lack of evidence serve in PLACE of evidence. But given that I've hinted that you've not provided any evidence of the 99%, isn't that exactly what you are doing?

Creationists don't simply interpret the evidence according to a different worldview; they flat-out reject any evidence that contradicts that worldview. Utterly false.

the list of evidences for which Creationists have no explanation beyond vague hand-waving is quite, quite long. Whether or not the explanations are merely "hand-waving" is, I suggest, somewhat subjective. I would reject that analysis in most cases, but conversely, I consider many of the evolutionist explanations as hand-waving.

Are you really prepared to defend Ussher's calculations as accurate? Generally, yes. He did make some assumptions that may have been reasonable but not necessarily correct that, if wrong, would make a small difference, but not a huge difference.

Ussher assumed generational, non-telescopic chronologies; both of which assumptions are unwarranted. Because...?

There's a reason even many Young Earth Creationists acknowledge that his oh-so-precise calculation of date and time was--while an impressive piece of scholarship--probably not accurate. I don't know of any who believe that he was out by more than, say, 100 years or so.

...and yet, many of those observations are simply incompatible with the assumption that the Bible ... records accurate history. So you say. I disagree.

You seem to have a very high opinion of my access to information if you assume that I can readily provide links to such things. On the contrary, I have the opinion that you make claims that you are unable to support.

Which things? And how do you know which things can be known for certain? It depends on how good the evidence and knowledge of the context is. It's the sort of thing that is handled on a case-by-case basis.

Some of those groups claimed that Christ wasn't God. How much more of a division can you GET, from a Christian perspective? That's what the JWs claim, but I've already pointed out in the comment you replied to that that doesn't mean that the church is divided.

...and, generally, it is testable evidence. Rhetoric.

It's just that Young Earth Creationists dismiss any evidence that doesn't line up with a young Earth as "opinion" Incorrect. They know how to distinguish evidence from conclusion, and I've seen numerous cases of evolutionists presenting their conclusions as though they are the evidence.

Certain processes occur at constant rates, and cannot occur at significantly different rates if any of our understanding if the laws of physics is in any way accurate? You overstate our understanding of the laws of physics, and ignore that there is evidence of non-constant rates.

Clearly, they maintain, these processes must have occurred at wildly different rates in the past--despite the fact that there is no observable evidence of such wild variations. You're rejecting a straw-man (overstated) argument with a false claim. There is evidence of variation in the past.

Most of the Creationist claims of "wildly inaccurate dates" are based on spectacular misinterpretation. Rhetoric.

One that springs to mind immediately is their claim that "Lava from an 1801 eruption was dated at 22 million years old!" In actuality, the lava in question was dated as having no significant age; the xenoliths in the lava were dated as being very old (which they were.) Moreover, the scientists expected the age of those xenoliths to be inaccurate--it's what they were testing. Evidence please. Who made the claim, which particular case are we talking about, etc.

To use a metaphor:... You've used an analogy, actually, not a metaphor. And the analogy is incorrect. Creationists do not claim that dates are unreliable on the basis of a very small discrepancy in dates. Their claims are based on large discrepancies, usually well outside error bars. Here's my version of your analogy:

You ask your friend what time it is. He says that his digital watch could be a bit out, but he makes it between 5:46 a.m. and 6:14 a.m. (Note: do not take too much notice of the size of the range; that could be misleading; I'll explain why at the end.)

Another friend overhears, and disagrees. He says that according to his analogue watch it is between 6:35 a.m. and 7:31 a.m. Note that the times proffered by these two friends don't even overlap, so there is no common ground.

Yet another friend jumps in, disagreeing again. He says that his sundial, his wall clock, and his hourglass all agree: the time is 2:35 p.m, plus or minus 85 minutes.

The second friend (yes, the one who said 6:35 a.m. to 7:31 a.m.) isn't happy with that figure, so he consults his hourglass, and says that the time is actually 9:24 a.m., plus or minus 28 minutes.

You tell me that it's clear: the time is around 9:24 a.m.

I (the creationist) am standing there watching all this, laughing at how these supposedly-reliable timepieces can be considered accurate, and point out the problem. I then groan as you misrepresent me as complaining that the clocks are unreliable when they actually all agree within a minute or so.

Unlike your baseless analogy, my analogy is based on the actual dates claimed for the Mungo Man fossils. I have somewhat-arbitrarily based the analogy on the first date being 6 a.m. and calculated the other times—including time ranges/error bars—proportionally from that. So the actual sizes of the ranges depend on that arbitrarily-chosen starting point. The discrepancies between the different times are real. Also, my mentions of types of timepieces was not meant to relate to relative precision; just, like you, to point out that different methods were used, which didn't agree.

And keep in mind, this IS a matter of providing wrong ages. It's not just "If you look at it one way, it indicates an old Earth, and if you look at it another way, it indicates an age of 6,000 years!" Not true.

Creationists don't have ANY reliable dating methods to back up a 6,000 year figure--not one. Except infallible eyewitness testimony, for starters.

Instead, they claim that some unknown force skewed the data, and if we just knew what that force was, then all of the figures would show a young Earth. Actually, some show a young-Earth size figure without any skewing. But of course those methods are obviously wrong because, well, they show a young Earth!

so please tell me where the Bible says that God Himself wrote Genesis 1-2. If you don't have a solid source, that's a MIGHTY assumption to make. I've already pointed you to an article providing the rationale. I'm not claiming proof, but I am claiming that that's a reasonable conclusion to come to. In any case, as God is the ultimate author of the entire Bible, He counts as a reliable eyewitness even for the parts written by human hand.

Special pleading. No, it's not special pleading. Special pleading is where a different standard is applied "without providing adequate justification for the exemption"[2] That the Bible is infallible (if true) is adequate justification for treating the Bible differently.

we can never CONFIRM beyond a shadow of a doubt that a particular historical account is entirely factual. Why "beyond a shadow of a doubt"? Why not, say, beyond reasonable doubt?

Oh, that's a discussion I'm more than willing to have... Any of those categories could take us weeks. Nevertheless, unless you have those discussions, simply pointing out that there are alternative claims means nothing.

Where should we start? The Biblical arguments for an old Earth? The geological arguments? The paleontological arguments? The arguments from physics and astronomy? Well, we were talking about alternative understandings of the Bible, so "The Biblical arguments for an old Earth" seems like a good place to start.

I did. Where is the evidence that they don't employ ad hominem attacks, impeachment of character, and similar tactics of vilification? ... one can be relatively polite while still engaging in ad hominem. Oh, is that your point? So you're suggesting that they are polite name-callers, etc.? That, superficially, at least, seems a bit of a contradiction. However, to the extent that it's possible, given the admitted politeness, I'd say the onus is on you to prove claims of vilification.

Your link specifically mentioned "scare quotes" as a common form of vilification. I overlooked that, so I see what you are getting at, but I don't agree. It actually mentioned the use of scare quotes "to subtly question legitimacy". There are other uses of scare quotes that don't involve vilification.

Claiming that Hovind is not a leading Creationist because he's not a member of the groups you have defined as leading Creationists renders that definition of "leading Creationist" extremely shaky, in my opinion--how are we to accept a definition that disallows some of the most influential voices in the Creationist movement? You are ignoring that I have provided a fairly-objective criteria, not an ad hoc one. If there was a popular evolutionist who went against mainstream evolutionary views, would it be fair to count him as representative of what evolutionists say? I can also point out that Wikipedia defines the "scientific community" as "a diverse network of interacting scientists". It uses this term as a weapon to bash creationists with ("creationists say this, but the scientific community says that"), despite the fact that the scientific community includes creationists. When challenged on this, they usually resort to (real) special pleading, that the creationists are not "real" scientists because they don't publish in the mainstream science journals, or don't do research. When it's shown that they do, they resort to saying that they don't publish their creationist views in the mainstream science journals. Effectively, they are trying to define scientists in a way that excludes creationists, i.e. a circular argument. You are accusing me of the same thing, yet all I'm doing is the equivalent of that original criterion: in fact, it might have been better if I called it the "creationist community": a network of interacting creationists. My point is that Hovind is not part of that interacting network. I don't consider that to be a circular argument.

"We outnumber the enemy, if you don't count the guys with swords!" Naturally, I'm not discounting the "amateur" Creationists you listed above, because they're every bit as much a part of the Creationist movement--indeed, likely moreso--than the relatively few "professional Creationists" you endorse. So I can quote any claim by any amateur evolutionist as typical of evolutionists too? After all, I've encountered many more evolutionists who claim that carbon dating proves millions of years than I have creationists who say "If we evolved from monkeys, there wouldn't still be monkeys", for example. But I don't hold such silly claims against evolutionists generally, because I don't believe that it's fair to tar all evolutionists with having that standard of discussion.

The truth, though, is that they DON'T speak for Creationists as a whole... In a sense, why not? If you want to know what, say, (Christian) Charismatic views are on an issue, which is fairer: to ask a Charismatic church pew-warmer, or to ask an official representative of the Charismatic churches?

It's rather strange to ask me how I know I have the right bias, when you're characterizing "I don't know" as being a bias! Perhaps I didn't phrase it as well as I could have, but you are not admitting that you don't know; you are wearing "not knowing" as a badge of honour, something to be admired and something which others ought to agree with. That is your bias.

With respect, this is one claim that I don't think any presuppositionalist can honestly make. You have already affirmed that you start with the presumption that your reading of the Bible is correct, and interpret all evidence in light of that presupposition. You cannot fairly then turn around and claim that you know your presupposition is right because of the evidence. On the contrary, I can. We all start with presuppositions, and interpret the evidence in that light. But then we assess how well the evidence fits the presuppositions, and can make a judgement that we have the right presupposition.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 11:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Explictly, perhaps, but I'm not convinced that it's possible to say that none of the other references can possible be referring to the Bible.

If you can find another reference where writing of any kind is referred to as the Word of God, I'll frankly be surprised. I'm willing to acknowledge that it's possible--as I've said before, my own understanding of the Bible is most certainly not inerrant--but I have yet to find anyone who could provide such an example.

There are no grounds for considering it metaphorical, and good ground for rejecting that view.

Actually, there are quite solid grounds for considering the use of the word "yom" metaphorical...and the arguments of inerrantists as to why "yom" MUST mean literal 24-hour days don't hold up under scrutiny. "Yom" is used to mean a non-24-hour period elsewhere in Genesis; "yom" coupled with the words "morning" and "evening" is used in this sense in Daniel; "yom" coupled with an ordinal number ("echad yom") is used in this sense in Zechariah. We can get into this in more detail in our discussion of the Biblical reasons for believing in an old Earth.

My point is that you don't base an action, rule, etc. on a metaphor, hence the days are not a metaphor.

That really seems a remarkable claim to me, given the number of times God uses metaphors to drive home rules in the Bible; if we can say nothing else about Him, I think we can say that He is VERY fond of making rules clear through the use of metaphor. This is not necessarily the same as basing the rule on metaphor--but I don't think He's doing so here, merely expressing the creative process in an easily-grasped manner. It's a similar issue to the issue of whether sin came into the world through one man named Adam, or through Man.

Or, "inspiration" was understood for centuries as meaning that God was the ultimate author. I also reject your implication that inerrantism is a recent phenomenon.

Inerrantism, in a general sense, is not; inerrantism, in the modern highly-idiosyncratic sense, is. Moreover, the notion that contemporary inerrantism has been the consensus throughout Christian history is most certainly untrue; many of the early Church fathers accepted that the days of Creation were probably not literal 24-hour days, just for instance--as did many of the more influential Hebrew scholars. I would say that the evidence suggests the most common view throughout Christian history was closer to the current doctrine of Biblical infallibility, rather than the present doctrine of Biblical inerrancy.

Are you disputing that Scripture is prophecy, or just that this applies to all Scripture as opposed to some of it?

I'm disputing that "inspired by God" and "the inerrant Word of God" are the same thing. We can establish fairly easily, sola Scriptura, that simply being a prophet is no guarantee of inerrancy. The Book of Enoch is not included in most versions of the Bible, despite the fact that Enoch is confirmed as a valid prophet by Jude. This leaves us with only two possibilities. Either Enoch, as an inspired prophet, was speaking the inerrant Word of God--in which case the exclusion of the Book of Enoch was an error, and the Bible is not inerrant--or Enoch, as an inspired prophet, was NOT speaking the inerrant Word of God, in which case there is justification for excluding the Book of Enoch, but none for claiming that valid prophecy is and must be inerrant.

Are you suggesting that prophecy given by an infallible God could be subject to error? Or are you suggesting that God gave infallible prophecy but it was potentially recorded with errors?

The latter. In fact, I'm doing more than suggesting it; I believe it's demonstrably true, as shown above, and I'm not sure where inerrantists claim justification for the notion that this could not happen. We know that errors of transmission have occurred; clearly, God has NOT acted to prevent this from happening. Why should we then accept that He intervened to prevent this in the FIRST case, but not in later cases?

This wasn't a case of giving instruction in the sense of education; this was a case of giving an authoritative answer. And why would Jesus cite the Bible as authoritative if it was less authoritative than Himself?

Isn't it obvious? He was speaking, quite frequently, to an audience that did not recognize his authority, but DID recognize the authority of Scripture. How better to demonstrate the error of the Pharisees than through the words of the Law they claimed to honor?

A parable is something you use to illustrate a point; it doesn't make the point.

Very true. So how do we know that many of the stories inerrantists claim are literal aren't parables used to illustrate points--the point that God created the universe, for example?

How do you know that wasn't a true story? I understand your point, but I don't think it proves much, other than many rules have an exception.

It proves that when people claim with confidence that the parables are clearly labeled and we can confidently differentiate between literal account and parable on that basis, they're mistaken. Can you say with confidence that the story of Lazarus and the rich man is NOT a parable?

There are always going to be people who disagree, but I reject your characterisation that most haven't seen what a few can see today; I say that most have seen what some today refuse to see.

Now, that really is an indefensible claim. The numbers simply aren't on your side. When you factor in the number of non-Christians throughout history--not merely atheists, but adherents to other faiths--you cannot credibly claim that "most have seen" the evident truth of your position. And that's BEFORE factoring in the Christians who reject some or all of the inerrantist position! By any standard, "most" have not shared your viewpoint.

God hasn't communicated just to me; He's communicated to everyone, but some prefer the words of men than the Word of God. And I reject your inference that my view is the exception.

You think that a majority of Christians alive today believe just as you do? Or a majority of Christians throughout history? And I agree with you that some prefer the words of men to the Word of God--and, quite frequently, they refuse to distinguish between the two.

Nonsense. You are arguing in a circle. Inerrantists say—and mean—"I'll believe what God said". God said X, therefore I believe X.

God said "yom," which can mean "a 24-hour day" or "a period of time." Therefore, I believe that it absolutely must mean a 24-hour day in Genesis 1 (but a period of time in Genesis 2.)

God said that there was a flood which covered all the land ("kol erets.") Therefore, I believe that the Flood covered the whole planet--even though "kol erets" almost always means "the local region" and NOT "the planet," and even though the word "tebel," which DOES properly and only mean "the planet," is never used in conjunction with the Flood.

No, Philip; I'm sorry. This isn't a matter of not believing that you're sincere; I believe that YOU believe what you're saying. I don't think inerrantists are LYING when they say "I believe the Word of God." I just think that their bias renders them blind to the amount of interpretation they do.

Yeah? I wonder why? It might be because if He did, then 2,000 years later the statement would be wrong (by 2,000 years)! So I wonder how He could say it in a way that didn't go out of date? Perhaps He could give a list of time periods from the beginning up to some later reference point? Yeah, that would do it! Guess what! That's exactly what the Bible has! So, in effect He did say that, just not in a way that would quickly go out of date.

Nope. Again, interpretation, and we can talk about the flaws in that interpretation--particularly in placing so much faith in estimations of age based on the assumption that the lineages in the Bible are generation-by-generation, complete, and free of error.

Christianity has traditionally believed that He did effectively say that, just like He recorded how long ago He create the Earth.

Now you're not appealing to the Word of God, but the traditions of man. Christianity has traditionally believed many things that turned out to be wrong.

No, as I said, mine was an estimate; I tried to be realistic.

What data did you use to reach your estimate, beyond "I think the number is very small?"

So you're trying to impose your uncertainty on me. Becaue you are uncertain, I must be too, and you seem fairly certain of that.

Certainty, in and of itself, is not a virtue; nor is it any guarantee of rightness. There are people out there so certain of the rightness of their religious beliefs that they're willing to fly airplanes into buildings on the strength of that certainty. I think we would both agree that their certainty is neither justified nor virtuous, but it's certainly strong.

Contradicted, of course, by the fact that I cited a non-errantist, non-creationist as an authority. Oops.

...in one very narrow case where it happened to serve your purposes. Are you willing to claim that you still consider him an authority when he disagrees with you? When he says that the stories in the Bible are not historically accurate? An authority who is only an authority when he agrees with you is no authority at all.

And ignoring that I cited as authorities the sort of people that, objectively, should be considered authorities! Your rebuttal is baseless and contrary to the evidence.

"Objectively?" Please explain your "objective" reasons for believing that someone with a degree in history can know something about the past with certainty, but someone with a degree in geology cannot. In particular, please explain your "objective" reasons for believing that someone with a degree in history is better qualified to talk about the age of the Earth, a topic which does not fall under the purview of history by most standards.

Huh? I don't know anyone who even believes that, let alone a historian claiming that.

You don't know of a single historian who believes that Egypt existed in (and through) 2400 BC? Really? Seriously?

But to address the point that you didn't make, I'm happy to accept as authoritative people who are educated in or have studied the matters at some length, and who are citing facts, or who are offering expert opinions that are not based on an opposing worldview.

...that last part strikes me as a very convenient escape clause. If a historian claims evidence of human habitation ten thousand years ago, what are the odds that that's going to meet your definition of "based on an opposing worldview?"

I can't? What makes you think that? Being a bit presumptuous, aren't you?

Present solid evidence that demonstrates that the figure is incorrect, and I will, of course, apologize. Given that no Creationist, in my experience, has ever been able to do so makes me think it's unlikely that such an apology will be needed. Certainly, I've never seen a single study that would indicate otherwise, and I've looked for such studies; likewise, I've never seen a list of Creationist scientists that numbered significantly more than a thousand names--which is FAR less than one percent of the practicing scientists in the relevant fields. I could, of course, be wrong; if so, please correct me.

Another factor (which doesn't affect how many there are, but does bear on any claims that the percentage is related to properly considering the arguments) is that, because of suppression, many have not even considered the case for a young Earth.

Isn't THAT a bit presumptuous, as well as being uselessly speculative? Certainly, I don't think we can make a credible case for calculations based on "If X, Y, and Z happened, maybe some arbitrary percentage of scientists who accept the evidence for evolution would believe in Creation instead!" By the same token, it's possible that, given the right set of circumstances, any given scientist might accept the existence of alien abductions, but we hardly use that as a factor when considering the strength of the case for alien abductions!

I can say, based on long experience, that Creationists have a tendency to assume that anyone who accepts evolution must be ignorant of Creationist arguments; Heaven knows I've had to disabuse my fair share of that notion by demonstrating that, in general, I know the Creationist arguments quite a bit better than they do. (Please notice that I said "in general." I'm more than willing to concede that you are an exception.)

But given that I've hinted that you've not provided any evidence of the 99%, isn't that exactly what you are doing?

Would you like a list of the relevant studies and surveys? Again, I was assuming that you were familiar with them already, based on your general level of expertise; if that's not the case, I'll be happy to provide such a list. Let's begin, though, with this: according to the International Federation of Biologists, there are slightly over 3 million practicing biologists currently. One percent of that would be 30,000. One-tenth of one percent would be 3,000. Are there, in fact, reliable sources that list 3,000 practicing Creationist biologists? We can consider genetics and other fields, as well, but let's start with biology.

Utterly false.

Utterly false? Really? Need I point to the BSG's standards for determining baramins--which list as their first principle the rule that any evidence which would contradict what they believe the Bible teaches must be disregarded? That any evidence which would place apes and humans in the same baramin is, by definition, invalid and to be disallowed?

And that's just one example.

Whether or not the explanations are merely "hand-waving" is, I suggest, somewhat subjective.

I suppose, in the sense that you could praise RATE's dismissal of the waste heat problem as something God must have taken care of as a highly factual, specific, and evidence-laden conclusion. You COULD, but I think by most people's standards, it would be considered hand-waving. That's not even touching on the areas where the only explanation is "We can't understand God's ways." It may be true, but as an explanation, it's hand-waving nonetheless.

Ussher assumed generational, non-telescopic chronologies; both of which assumptions are unwarranted. Because...?

Well, because middle eastern chronologies of the time generally didn't WORK that way. Certainly, regnal chronologies generally didn't. There's also the issue of multiple lineages through multiple wives, the question of overlapping reigns, and...well, quite a number of other considerations that would make this response even more of a monster than it already is. I think the better question, when someone is making such a significant assumption, is why they think it IS justified.

It depends on how good the evidence and knowledge of the context is. It's the sort of thing that is handled on a case-by-case basis.

So you know the context for certain if you're certain that you know the context?

That's what the JWs claim, but I've already pointed out in the comment you replied to that that doesn't mean that the church is divided.

I don't see how anyone could seriously take the position that the Church is NOT divided, just on the basis of the division between Catholic and Protestant--and that's not even adding in the Eastern Orthodox church, or any of the OTHER traditions out there. Given how many times Catholics and Protestants have slaughtered each other over theological differences, exactly how much of a schism would there have to be before you considered it a "division?"

Rhetoric.

Meaningless dismissal. Please provide the Creationist explanation for the following:

1. The fact that isotope ratios in deep ocean-core samples fluctuate in a 23:41:100 ratio--almost perfectly corresponding to Milankovich's projected cycles of orbital eccentricity and periods of maximal insolation.

2. The presence of polystrate fossils with their fine rootlet systems intact and growing through multiple layers of "flood sediment."

3. Ice-core samples demonstrating over 50,000 annual layers, verified through use of oxygen-ratio differentiation to ascertain whether the layers were, in fact, annual.

4. The absence of short-period radioactive elements on Earth. (And if the answer is accelerated decay, please also provide the explanation of what happened to the excess heat produced by such decay.)

5. The presence of animal tracks, animal burrows, and layers of evaporates sandwiched between layers of "Flood sediment."

We can start with those; if your claim is valid, then there should be a clear and evident explanation for how all of these things fit into Young Earth conclusions.

You overstate our understanding of the laws of physics, and ignore that there is evidence of non-constant rates.

Creationists vastly overstate the evidence of non-constant rates...and brush aside the rather extreme circumstances required for those variations. But this isn't a case where we need to be able to perfectly understand the laws of physics; it's a case where, if Young Earth Creationists are right, EVERYTHING we know is wrong. We're not right about one single thing--not the speed of light, not the nature of atoms, nothing. We've gotten every single thing wrong, and yet somehow still managed to build sophisticated technologies based on those wrong answers.

Evidence please. Who made the claim, which particular case are we talking about, etc.

The particular case is the 1801 eruption of Hualalai, and the specific study being criticized was conducted by Funkhouser and Naughton in the early 1960's. (I can dig up the citation if you really want it.) Numerous Creationists have referenced it, including a number of the stalwarts we've already discussed; Steve Austin makes the error in his paper here. If I recall correctly, Snelling makes the same mistake, though I can't quickly lay my hands on the paper in question.

Actually, some show a young-Earth size figure without any skewing. But of course those methods are obviously wrong because, well, they show a young Earth!

Which methods would those be? Please cite a single testable, reliable method which consistently indicates an age of 6-10,000 years.

I've already pointed you to an article providing the rationale. I'm not claiming proof, but I am claiming that that's a reasonable conclusion to come to.

...which strikes me again as placing faith in the words of man. I'd need quite a bit stronger justification than an online article, myself, before claiming that something was God's inerrant Word.

In any case, as God is the ultimate author of the entire Bible, He counts as a reliable eyewitness even for the parts written by human hand.

Circular logic based on your assumption that Scripture is the inerrant Word of God.

Well, we were talking about alternative understandings of the Bible, so "The Biblical arguments for an old Earth" seems like a good place to start.

Very good! I'll tackle that as a discreet response, since this one has already exceeded 10 pages in length.

Oh, is that your point? So you're suggesting that they are polite name-callers, etc.? That, superficially, at least, seems a bit of a contradiction.

Really? What about superficially-polite condescension? Paralipsis? There are many ways to somewhat-politely denigrate or impeach someone's character or reliability.

I overlooked that, so I see what you are getting at, but I don't agree. It actually mentioned the use of scare quotes "to subtly question legitimacy". There are other uses of scare quotes that don't involve vilification.

So you don't think AiG and ICR use scare quotes to question the legitimacy of evolutionist "evidence" and "proof?" While I'm not going to dive in and search for examples right at the moment, I really don't think I'd have any trouble finding some.

You are ignoring that I have provided a fairly-objective criteria, not an ad hoc one.

Not really; you've claimed that leading Creationists are members of a related group of organizations that happen to agree with one another. In effect, you've defined their position as "mainstream Creationism" and then turned around and said that mainstream Creationists adhere to that position, and that anyone who doesn't is by definition not a mainstream Creationist. I'm still not seeing any real justification for claiming that their position defines mainstream Creationism.

If there was a popular evolutionist who went against mainstream evolutionary views, would it be fair to count him as representative of what evolutionists say?

Creationists do so all the time. How many quote-mines can you find from Lynn Margulis, for instance?

It uses this term as a weapon to bash creationists with ("creationists say this, but the scientific community says that"), despite the fact that the scientific community includes creationists.

Remarkably, though, many of those Creationists employ "evolutionist assumptions" in their actual scientific work. Andrew Snelling espouses a Young Earth position in his various papers at ICR and elsewhere--but openly measures the age of geological formations in terms of millions of years in his mainstream scientific publications ("Geology of the Mineral Deposits of Australia and Papua New Guinea," for instance!) What are we to make of that? Is Snelling falsifying data in those papers? Is he deceptively presenting conclusions despite knowing them to be false, in order to preserve his job and grants? If so, why should we consider him a trustworthy source?

This is another area where the claims of equivalency just fall down; those "evolutionist assumptions" about the age of the

Earth and the nature of the forces that shaped it work. Oil companies use "evolutionist assumptions" about how and where oil and natural gas form and under what conditions--and, lo and behold, they find oil and natural gas! How successful would the "Creationist model" be at predicting the presence of oil reserves, and at what depth?

When challenged on this, they usually resort to (real) special pleading, that the creationists are not "real" scientists because they don't publish in the mainstream science journals, or don't do research.

...or that when they DO research, they seem to forget that they're Young Earth Creationists!

When it's shown that they do, they resort to saying that they don't publish their creationist views in the mainstream science journals.

So I ask again: when a Creationist publishes scientific papers that support an age of millions of years and CLAIM an age of millions of years, and then turns around and says "The Earth is 6,000 years old," why should that Creationist be regarded as being in any way trustworthy?

So I can quote any claim by any amateur evolutionist as typical of evolutionists too?

Given that your definition of "amateur Creationist" seems to extend to people like Hovind, Baugh, and Comfort--and, I would presume, Ron Wyatt--I hardly see a parallel.

Perhaps I didn't phrase it as well as I could have, but you are not admitting that you don't know; you are wearing "not knowing" as a badge of honour, something to be admired and something which others ought to agree with. That is your bias.

Only inasmuch as I'm honest about it. I think honest and candor are admirable qualities, and that an arrogant certainty in my own beliefs would not be admirable.

On the contrary, I can. We all start with presuppositions, and interpret the evidence in that light. But then we assess how well the evidence fits the presuppositions, and can make a judgement that we have the right presupposition.

So what evidence could I or anyone else show you that would make you change your presuppositions? What evidence could an atheist show you that would cause you to say "There is no God?" What evidence could I show you that would cause you to say "The Earth is ancient?"

I freely admit that there is NO evidence that would cause me to say "There is no God." Then again, I don't claim that my faith in God is dependent on evidence. How about you?

--BRPierce (talk) 20:14, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

If you can find another reference where writing of any kind is referred to as the Word of God, I'll frankly be surprised. I'm not sure that you understood me. In Luke 8:11, to pick an example, Jesus explains the parabla of the seed, and says "The seed is the word of God". To take your point, that may not be referring to the Bible. But my point is that it may be. I don't think you've got any grounds for saying that it's definitely not, which is what you claimed (e.g. you said that the Decalogue is "the only instance in the Bible where writing is referred to as the Word of God", which means that Luke 8:11 is not referring to that).

"yom" coupled with the words "morning" and "evening" is used in this sense in Daniel; "yom" coupled with an ordinal number ("echad yom") is used in this sense in Zechariah. Yeah? I note that you offer no specifics.

Actually, there are quite solid grounds for considering the use of the word "yom" metaphorical...and the arguments of inerrantists as to why "yom" MUST mean literal 24-hour days don't hold up under scrutiny. Given that you've not shown this, this is simply argument by assertion.

This is not necessarily the same as basing the rule on metaphor... Exactly.

...--but I don't think He's doing so here, merely expressing the creative process in an easily-grasped manner. Er, no. It is giving the six days of creation as a basis.

It's a similar issue to the issue of whether sin came into the world through one man named Adam, or through Man. Yep, I guess it is. And the Bible says "one man", i.e. Adam, not mankind. When you start compromising on some points, you need to compromise on others in order to retain consistency.

...many of the early Church fathers accepted that the days of Creation were probably not literal 24-hour days... Not many, actually.

Either Enoch, as an inspired prophet, was speaking the inerrant Word of God--in which case the exclusion of the Book of Enoch was an error, and the Bible is not inerrant--or Enoch, as an inspired prophet, was NOT speaking the inerrant Word of God, in which case there is justification for excluding the Book of Enoch, but none for claiming that valid prophecy is and must be inerrant. Or that Enoch's prophecy was not written down or was lost, and the extant book of Enoch is not his original prophecy.

Why should we then accept that He intervened to prevent this in the FIRST case, but not in later cases? Your question presumes that God would either allow errors in both or neither, and that to allow them in copies but not the original is inconsistent. I think this article adequately answers that question. It presumes inerrant originals, and argues why copies could not be inerrant.

Isn't it obvious? He was speaking, quite frequently, to an audience that did not recognize his authority, but DID recognize the authority of Scripture.

The case of Satan, at least, refutes that answer.

Very true. So how do we know that many of the stories inerrantists claim are literal aren't parables used to illustrate points--the point that God created the universe, for example? For a couple of reasons. First, because we can tell the difference between narrative and parables. A few examples of borderline cases does not change that rule. Further, where do you stop? Perhaps the account of Jesus's death is also a parable? Or His resurrection? Second, because later biblical writers took the creation account as actual history, not parable.

It proves that when people claim with confidence that the parables are clearly labeled and we can confidently differentiate between literal account and parable on that basis, they're mistaken. As mentioned above, a few borderline cases does not change the rule. This applies today too. We still use metaphors, similes, etc. Does that mean that we can never be sure when someone is being literal or when they are speaking symbolically? If that was the case, communication would completely break down, and civilisation with it. That doesn't mean that even today every single case is black and white, but it does mean that exceptions do not disprove the rule.

Now, that really is an indefensible claim. The numbers simply aren't on your side. When you factor in the number of non-Christians throughout history... My answer was in response to your question, in which you referred to "all the people throughout history who have disagreed with the "plain and evident" meaning of the Bible"—I was talking about people who were actually familiar with the Bible, not all those non-Christians throughout history.

You think that a majority of Christians alive today believe just as you do? Or a majority of Christians throughout history Yes to the second question.

God said "yom," which can mean "a 24-hour day" or "a period of time." Depending on context, yes.

Therefore, I believe that it absolutely must mean a 24-hour day in Genesis 1 (but a period of time in Genesis 2.) Yes, because that's what the context indicates.

I just think that their bias renders them blind to the amount of interpretation they do. I think your bias renders you blind to the amount of reasoning they do to check their interpretation.

What data did you use to reach your estimate, beyond "I think the number is very small?" Experience.

Certainty, in and of itself, is not a virtue;... Yet you seem to treat it as one.

There are people out there so certain of the rightness of their religious beliefs... And there are some who are so certain of the rightness of their belief that we can't be certain of our beliefs...

...that they're willing to fly airplanes into buildings on the strength of that certainty. Which has nothing to do with Christianity.

...in one very narrow case where it happened to serve your purposes. Not that narrow, and that it served my purposes is beside the point.

Are you willing to claim that you still consider him an authority when he disagrees with you? When he says that the stories in the Bible are not historically accurate? He is a language expert, not, as far as I know, a history expert. And it would depend on what his reasoning was.

"Objectively?" Please explain your "objective" reasons for believing that someone with a degree in history can know something about the past with certainty, but someone with a degree in geology cannot. Because the historian is relying on eyewitness accounts (even if passed down), whereas the geoologist is interpreting present-day evidence in the light of his worldview.

please explain your "objective" reasons for believing that someone with a degree in history is better qualified to talk about the age of the Earth, a topic which does not fall under the purview of history by most standards. The assumption at the end of your question is begging the question. It's not according to "most standards", but according to the secular (anti-biblical) worldview. I don't share that worldview.

You don't know of a single historian who believes that Egypt existed in (and through) 2400 BC? Really? Seriously? That was not the question. Your question related to those who believe that "Egypt was alive and thriving at the time the Great Flood supposedly wiped them out". Those that believe that Egypt existed in 2400 B.C. don't believe in the Flood (or at least that the flood occurred at that time).

...that last part strikes me as a very convenient escape clause. Not at all. It's as fundamental as wanting someone who is qualified for the job. Would you want someone designing your office block, for example, who didn't believe that materials have properties that you can rely on to hold the building up, which is part of the the Islamic worldview? (At least according to a book I've recently read.) For me, I'm not going to take notice of a historian or scientist who says that X is the most likely explanation, when he's refused to even consider explanation Y. But that is exactly the case with materialistic scientists making pronouncements on the past.

If a historian claims evidence of human habitation ten thousand years ago, what are the odds that that's going to meet your definition of "based on an opposing worldview?" Given that his worldview must include the anti-biblical view that the world is older than 6,000 years, he is.

Present solid evidence that demonstrates that the figure is incorrect, and I will, of course, apologize. Excuse me? You were the one who made the dogmatic claim. The onus is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it. Is this a tacit admission that you have nothing to back up your claim?

Certainly, I've never seen a single study that would indicate otherwise, and I've looked for such studies... Then I suggest that you haven't looked very far.

likewise, I've never seen a list of Creationist scientists that numbered significantly more than a thousand names--which is FAR less than one percent of the practicing scientists in the relevant fields. Given the overt suppression that exists, this figure is meaningless.

Isn't THAT a bit presumptuous, as well as being uselessly speculative? Not at all. Many people have become convinced that the creationary view is correct once they've been exposed to that side. Some have even been angry that they've not heard the creationary side sooner.

Certainly, I don't think we can make a credible case for calculations based on "If X, Y, and Z happened, maybe some arbitrary percentage of scientists who accept the evidence for evolution would believe in Creation instead!" I wasn't suggesting that we could put a figure on it. I was merely saying that any existing figures are likely to be quite wrong.

By the same token, it's possible that, given the right set of circumstances, any given scientist might accept the existence of alien abductions, but we hardly use that as a factor when considering the strength of the case for alien abductions! You've just switched topics again. We are not talking about the strength of the case, but the size of support for the case. And implicit in your failed analogy is that those scientists actually get to consider the strength of the case, which is my point that many scientists don't get to consider the strength of the evidence for the creationary view, because it's so demonised that they dare not go near it.

I can say, based on long experience, that Creationists have a tendency to assume that anyone who accepts evolution must be ignorant of Creationist arguments... And I can say, based on long experience, that they often are.

Heaven knows I've had to disabuse my fair share of that notion by demonstrating that, in general, I know the Creationist arguments quite a bit better than they do. (Please notice that I said "in general." I'm more than willing to concede that you are an exception.) And I'm willing to concede that you are an exception. But then your point was not about the exceptions, but the general rule.

Would you like a list of the relevant studies and surveys [evidence of the 99%]? Yes.

Again, I was assuming that you were familiar with them already... I believe that I am familiar with what exists, which is close to zero supporting your claim.

Let's begin ... with this: ... there are slightly over 3 million practicing biologists currently. ... One-tenth of one percent would be 3,000. Are there, in fact, reliable sources that list 3,000 practicing Creationist biologists? Excuse me? I thought that this was supposed to be a study supporting your 99% figure. Instead, all you've done is quote what 1% would be, and asked me to show evidence that it's more than that. That is not a study supporting your 99%; that's an attempt to put the onus on me to disprove your claim. The fact that you provide this non-study in support of your claim actually supports my claim that there are no good figures supporting your claim.

Utterly false? Really? Need I point to the BSG's standards for determining baramins--which list as their first principle the rule that any evidence which would contradict what they believe the Bible teaches must be disregarded? Please quote the exact rule and/or provide a link. I've heard similar claims before which turned out to be a misunderstanding.

That any evidence which would place apes and humans in the same baramin is, by definition, invalid and to be disallowed? What evidence could conclusively show such a thing?

I suppose, in the sense that you could praise RATE's dismissal of the waste heat problem as something God must have taken care of as a highly factual, specific, and evidence-laden conclusion. In that particular case, I would be inclined to agree with you. However, I consider that to be an exception to the rule.

Well, because middle eastern chronologies of the time generally didn't WORK that way. Certainly, regnal chronologies generally didn't. Didn't work what way, specifically? What I think your suggesting is that regnal chronologies weren't always on the basis that one reign began at the same time another finished, that there was some overlap. True, but that's hardly applicable to the chronogenealogies in Genesis. They already overlap, in a sense, because the son was born before the father dies, but that's why the age at birth is given. And overlapping chronologies shorten the overall chronology, not lengthen it, as would be required to fit the Genesis chronogenealogies to a longer time period.

I think the better question, when someone is making such a significant assumption, is why they think it IS justified. See here

So you know the context for certain if you're certain that you know the context? Are you questioning the value of certainty?

I don't see how anyone could seriously take the position that the Church is NOT divided... My specific claim is that it would be unreasonable to claim that the church is divided on the issue of the divinity of Christ merely because of the existence of the JWs. That you now move on to a different issue seems to be a tacit admission that my case was made there.

...just on the basis of the division between Catholic and Protestant--and that's not even adding in the Eastern Orthodox church, or any of the OTHER traditions out there. This part of the discussion began in connection with your claim that the early church was divided. Now you are pointing to a later division to support your claim, although it seems more like you've switched claims to the modern church.

Please provide the Creationist explanation for the following: I don't accept that I need to; that is, that the claimed facts that need explaining are actually facts.

The fact that isotope ratios in deep ocean-core samples fluctuate in a 23:41:100 ratio--almost perfectly corresponding to Milankovich's projected cycles of orbital eccentricity and periods of maximal insolation. Without doing any research now, but relying on my memory, I don't believe that they do correspond that closely.

The presence of polystrate fossils with their fine rootlet systems intact and growing through multiple layers of "flood sediment." This is a problem for the evolutionists, not the creationists. Except, I suppose, for your mischaracterisation that the fossils are growing. The roots exist through multiple layers; that they grew there is explanation, not evidence.

Ice-core samples demonstrating over 50,000 annual layers, verified through use of oxygen-ratio differentiation to ascertain whether the layers were, in fact, annual. From memory, they have not demonstrated that all those 50,000 layers are annual. The oxygen-ratio differentation might have been used to show that, say, the uppermost ones are annual, not that they are all annual. I'd probably need more specifics to answer this any better.

The absence of short-period radioactive elements on Earth. (And if the answer is accelerated decay, please also provide the explanation of what happened to the excess heat produced by such decay.) Part of the answer might be accelerated decay, and the latest Journal of Creation had a proposal that I think might explain the heat: in a nutshell, the radioactive elements were deep in the Earth's crust when they were created, and the accelerated decay is what caused the rocks to melt, contributing to the magma that erupted as part of the tectonic activity during the flood, and this erupting magma is what brought these materials to the surface.

The presence of animal tracks, animal burrows, and layers of evaporates sandwiched between layers of "Flood sediment." See here, and perhaps also here.

it's a case where, if Young Earth Creationists are right, EVERYTHING we know is wrong. We're not right about one single thing--not the speed of light, not the nature of atoms, nothing. That sounds like more rhetoric to me.

The particular case is the 1801 eruption of Hualalai, and the specific study being criticized was conducted by Funkhouser and Naughton in the early 1960's. ... Numerous Creationists have referenced it, including a number of the stalwarts we've already discussed; Steve Austin makes the error in his paper here. The paper you link to doesn't mention Funkhouser and Naughton, although does mention data from an 1800-1801 eruption. However, it also discusses the possibility of xenoliths, so I can't see that Austin has done what you accuse him of. You'll have to be even more specific about how Austin has "spectactular[ly] misinterpret[ed]" this.

Which methods would those be? Please cite a single testable, reliable method which consistently indicates an age of 6-10,000 years. Define "reliable", given that you are not referring to "consistent", as you mention that separately.

...which strikes me again as placing faith in the words of man. I'd need quite a bit stronger justification than an online article, myself, before claiming that something was God's inerrant Word. One has to wonder what justification would be acceptable to you. God speaking to you personally, perhaps? In any case, I wasn't claiming certainty in this case. I specifically said that it was "probably" the case; I never said it was definite. Your response was to ask where the Bible said that God wrote it, as though your default position is that it was written by men unless there is an explicit statement saying otherwise. This shows your bias, that divine authorship is not to be accepted as a possibility unless it can be proved beyond doubt.

Circular logic based on your assumption that Scripture is the inerrant Word of God. It's not an assumption.

So you don't think AiG and ICR use scare quotes to question the legitimacy of evolutionist "evidence" and "proof?" No I don't. They would use it for evolutionist explanations, but not evidence.

Not really; you've claimed that leading Creationists are members of a related group of organizations that happen to agree with one another. They don't necessarily always agree, but yes, they do for the most part.

I'm still not seeing any real justification for claiming that their position defines mainstream Creationism. How else would you define such a group? By definition, if the majority agree on a general position but there are a few outliers, then surely the outliers cannot be considered part of the mainstream.

Creationists do so all the time. How many quote-mines can you find from Lynn Margulis, for instance? The context was the behaviour of evolutionists vs. creationists. I'm not aware of any creationist quoting Lynn Margulis on behaviour, nor even on position as a representative of what evolutionists say.

Remarkably, though, many of those Creationists employ "evolutionist assumptions" in their actual scientific work. Andrew Snelling espouses a Young Earth position in his various papers at ICR and elsewhere--but openly measures the age of geological formations in terms of millions of years in his mainstream scientific publications... Goodness! You're showing your age there! Just as well I've been around a while too! See here.

This is another area where the claims of equivalency just fall down; those "evolutionist assumptions" about the age of the Earth and the nature of the forces that shaped it work. Oil companies use "evolutionist assumptions" about how and where oil and natural gas form and under what conditions--and, lo and behold, they find oil and natural gas! How successful would the "Creationist model" be at predicting the presence of oil reserves, and at what depth? What evolutionary assumptions do they use, that contribute to the success of finding oil? Or is this just more rhetoric?

...or that when they DO research, they seem to forget that they're Young Earth Creationists! No, I can't say that I've encountered that objection too often. But to the extent it's true, it's because most scientific research doesn't require either evolutionary assumptions. But then there are the creationist assumptions that all science has, such as the universe being a place of rational order because a rational Creator made it.

So I ask again: when a Creationist publishes scientific papers that support an age of millions of years and CLAIM an age of millions of years, and then turns around and says "The Earth is 6,000 years old," why should that Creationist be regarded as being in any way trustworthy? You're asking a question based on a claim that is false.

Given that your definition of "amateur Creationist" seems to extend to people like Hovind, Baugh, and Comfort--and, I would presume, Ron Wyatt--I hardly see a parallel. No, they don't fall in my "amateur creationist" category. In fact I specifically mentioned which category two of them do fall into.

Only inasmuch as I'm honest about it. I think honest and candor are admirable qualities, and that an arrogant certainty in my own beliefs would not be admirable. True, but then is an arrogant certainty in your own uncertainty—or the uncertainty that you expect others to have—any better?

So what evidence could I or anyone else show you that would make you change your presuppositions? What evidence could an atheist show you that would cause you to say "There is no God?" What evidence could I show you that would cause you to say "The Earth is ancient?" Perhaps the one mentioned in the Bible—that Jesus did not rise from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:14).

I freely admit that there is NO evidence that would cause me to say "There is no God." Then again, I don't claim that my faith in God is dependent on evidence. How about you? My faith is very much dependent on evidence. When I trust someone, I do it because I have good reason to. If a stranger approached you and asked to borrow $10,000 and promised to return it to you in a year's time, would you have faith that he would? Why is God any different? If God said "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.", why should you believe Him? Are you so gullible as to believe every person who comes along making some promise? Or do you have, umm, reason for believing God. After all, as I point out above, perhaps even Jesus' death is merely a parable. Perhaps His promise of an afterlife with Him is also a parable. After all, the Bible could be considered evidence of God's promises, but you've just indicated that you don't need evidence, so therefore you don't need the Bible. I have to wonder what "god" you are talking about, if your source of information is not the Bible.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 12:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Part 3

I'm not sure that you understood me. In Luke 8:11, to pick an example, Jesus explains the parabla of the seed, and says "The seed is the word of God". To take your point, that may not be referring to the Bible. But my point is that it may be. I don't think you've got any grounds for saying that it's definitely not, which is what you claimed (e.g. you said that the Decalogue is "the only instance in the Bible where writing is referred to as the Word of God", which means that Luke 8:11 is not referring to that). Ironically, I think this is a case where I'm sticking closer to the plain and evident meaning of the text than you are. The text says "the Word of God"; I take it to mean the Word of God. Given that the authors of the various books of the Bible freely refer to scripture when they mean scripture--and that Christ does likewise--I see no reason why there would be any need for ambiguity here. "You can't prove that it doesn't refer to writing" is not compelling; there's no evidence that it DOES refer to writing. I think I'm safe for the same reason I'm safe in saying that the Bible makes no reference to alien life. The verses speaking of God's creatures could also refer to life on other planets--but there's no evidence that they do.

Yeah? I note that you offer no specifics. I honestly thought you'd be familiar enough with the verses in question that I wouldn't need to; my apologies. Please keep in mind that I've been discussing these verses for a long time, and it's easy for me to fall into the trap of assuming that a worthy opponent has spent the same amount of time on those specific issues, which is of course unwarranted and unfair on my part. I'm thinking specifically of Daniel 8:26, which is, as far as I know, the only verse outside of Genesis that employs the words ereb, boqer, and yom in the same sequence as Genesis--yet definitely refers to an indefinite period of time. As for "echad yom" meaning an indefinite period of time, the verse I was referencing is Zechariah 14:7, which speaks of "one day" that will extend through both summer and winter--but it's hardly the only one. We could also speak of Daniel 11:20 which refers to a 12-year period as "a few days" ("echadim yom.")

Given that you've not shown this, this is simply argument by assertion. Still working on that response; please bear with me. As I said, it's going to be a lengthy one.

It is giving the six days of creation as a basis. ...and the same period of time is similarly (and repeatedly) given as a basis for the Day of the Lord, which is a period of seven years.

When you start compromising on some points, you need to compromise on others in order to retain consistency. No moreso than inerrantists; some of their compromises are rather fanciful. (Giant floating islands of vegetation? Volcanic geysers that propelled the animals to various parts of the world after the Flood? Super-fast evolution that would result in speciation events every single day from the Flood until now?)

Not many, actually. Augustine. Origen. Clement. Hilary of Poitiers. Irenaeus. Justin Martyr. On the side of the Hebrew scholars, Philo and Maimonides. Barnabas claimed that the "six days" were, in fact, the six thousand years that he believed Creation would endure. Even the most literal of the early Church fathers saw the Old Testament as largely metaphorical and symbolic, in that they viewed the primary purpose of the Old Testament as prefiguring the coming of Christ--not recounting literal history. And that's just off the top of my head.

Your question presumes that God would either allow errors in both or neither, and that to allow them in copies but not the original is inconsistent. I think this article adequately answers that question. It presumes inerrant originals, and argues why copies could not be inerrant. The key word in your statement above is "presumes." The article makes an excellent case for why copies would not and could not be inerrant, and I completely agree with his points. He does not, however, make a strong case (or really, any case at all) for why we should presume that the original copies were inerrant.

The case of Satan, at least, refutes that answer. Not particularly. Satan quotes Scripture; Christ quotes it right back at him. It was a standard form of debate; why wouldn't they use it?

For a couple of reasons. First, because we can tell the difference between narrative and parables. So we can tell the difference between narrative and parables because...we can tell the difference between narrative and parables? Seems sort of circular to me!

A few examples of borderline cases does not change that rule. Ah! So we can tell the difference between narrative and parables because we can tell the difference between narrative and parables, except when we can't?

Further, where do you stop? Perhaps the account of Jesus's death is also a parable? Or His resurrection? Slippery slope fallacy. This is simply arguing "It can't be true because that would force us to question other parts of the Bible." Whether it would force us to question other parts of the Bible has nothing at all to do with whether it's true or not. Now, that said, I will argue that this is the reason most responsible for the tremendous resistance to considering the possibility that Genesis is metaphorical or allegorical; the fear that it would undermine other parts of the Bible. Yes, that's a disturbing possibility, but what of it? Who ever promised us that faith would be comfortable?

Second, because later biblical writers took the creation account as actual history, not parable. Some of them, yes, just as some of the early Church fathers took it as actual history. And some did not--so where does that leave us? In actuality, most of the cases of Biblical writers "taking Creation as actual history" are, again, cases of interpretation on the part of the reader. Those who already believe it was literal history take many passages as indicating literal history, even when they don't directly establish that.

As mentioned above, a few borderline cases does not change the rule. This applies today too. We still use metaphors, similes, etc. Does that mean that we can never be sure when someone is being literal or when they are speaking symbolically? Certainly not with the level of confidence that inerrantists advocate! People routinely miss figurative speech even in their own language and idiom. You couldn't determine whether my "New York is a very cool place in the fall" was literal, figurative, or BOTH (a possibility which many people overlook.) You claimed that it lacked context, but the truth is that I could provide you with the entire passage and you still wouldn't be able to say with certainty--because sometimes, it's just not POSSIBLE to be certain. Once you add in a second language, figurative speech is one of the first things to fall through the cracks. As for speaking symbolically, my goodness! Just attend any graduate-level English class to hear people fighting tooth and nail over the symbolism or lack thereof in various texts. I remember one class where a woman was utterly convinced that a poem I had written was an extended allegorical commentary on the writings of Sylvia Plath--who, at the time, I had never read. Even when I pointed this out to her, she continued to maintain that it was such a commentary! Generations of literary scholars have sworn and will swear that The Old Man and the Sea is symbolic, despite the fact that Hemingway explicitly denied it and explicitly said that he HATED stories with predetermined symbolism. No, I think I can safely say that being sure that someone is speaking symbolically is NO guarantee that they actually are.

That doesn't mean that even today every single case is black and white, but it does mean that exceptions do not disprove the rule. Ironically, "The exception proves the rule" is one of the most frequently misunderstood sayings in the English language; it actually means that the exception is what puts the rule to the test. The meaning of "proof" has shifted over time to the point where the "plain and straightforward" meaning of the expression is the opposite of what it actually means! Is there perhaps a lesson to be learned there?

You think that a majority of Christians alive today believe just as you do? Or a majority of Christians throughout history Yes to the second question. Again, I think that the evidence doesn't back you up. Allegorical interpretation of Scripture was the rule rather than the exception in the Middle Ages; the Reformation happened, in part, in reaction to that.

Yes, because that's what the context indicates. ...and you believe that the context indicates that because you're predisposed to accept 24-hour days.

I think your bias renders you blind to the amount of reasoning they do to check their interpretation. Nope; in fact, their reasoning is frequently the clearest evidence of their bias. I've shed my own share of exegetical blood, sweat, and tears; I know how much work it can be. And I wonder: what do you imagine my bias to be, apart from "I don't claim to know for certain?" What other biases do you think I have that led me to the conclusion that inerrantism is not warranted? It's very easy to say that a non-Christian has such a bias because they don't want the Bible to be true--but I have no such desire. Indeed, if Genesis is literally true, that's GREAT news for me! Yet, I don't believe that it is. Why do you suppose that's the case?

Experience. My experience tells me that miscommunications occur far more frequently than that--and that sometimes, the parties walk away from the exchange totally unaware that a miscommunication HAS occurred. Where does that leave us? Moreover, language and communication, and studies of the same, are my profession. My degrees are in English, cultural anthropology, and psychology--and all three are focused on language and communication. Which of our experiences are likely to be more relevant in this case?

Yet you seem to treat it as one. By no means. What makes you think so?

And there are some who are so certain of the rightness of their belief that we can't be certain of our beliefs... Who is more justified? The man who is certain that he will live another ten years, or the man who is certain that he can't be certain that he will live another ten years? The first man may well live another ten years; does that mean he was right to be certain of it? The second man may well live another ten years; does that mean he was wrong to say "I can't be certain of it?"

Which has nothing to do with Christianity. ...except to establish that certainty--even absolute certainty--is no guarantee of rightness.

He is a language expert, not, as far as I know, a history expert. And it would depend on what his reasoning was. That sounds quite a bit like a "No." As I said: an expert who is only an expert when his reasoning agrees with yours is no expert at all.

Because the historian is relying on eyewitness accounts (even if passed down), whereas the geoologist is interpreting present-day evidence in the light of his worldview. Where in the world did you get the notion that historians base their work entirely (or even mostly) on eyewitness accounts? And where did you get the notion that eyewitness accounts are more reliable than other forms of evidence?

The assumption at the end of your question is begging the question. It's not according to "most standards", but according to the secular (anti-biblical) worldview. I don't share that worldview. ...so you believe that (Biblical) historians are the only valid authorities when talking about the age of the Earth--and then you reject anyone who presents a case for an ancient Earth because you don't consider them authorities. Self-confirmation bias, don't you think?

That was not the question. Your question related to those who believe that "Egypt was alive and thriving at the time the Great Flood supposedly wiped them out". Those that believe that Egypt existed in 2400 B.C. don't believe in the Flood (or at least that the flood occurred at that time). I didn't say they believed in the Flood; I said that they believed that Egypt was alive and thriving at the time the Flood supposedly wiped them out. It's like saying that the prosecutor believes the defendant was at the scene of the crime at the time he was supposedly home in bed. I'm sorry if that was unclear; I guess miscommunications happen, even when the communicators are highly skilled, hmm?

For me, I'm not going to take notice of a historian or scientist who says that X is the most likely explanation, when he's refused to even consider explanation Y. But that is exactly the case with materialistic scientists making pronouncements on the past. Would you even consider "God doesn't exist" as a valid explanation? Your repeated comments seem to indicate that you would not, and would in fact reject any argument based on that explanation out-of-hand.

Given that his worldview must include the anti-biblical view that the world is older than 6,000 years, he is. ...which precisely proves my point. You reject out-of-hand any evidence influenced by someone with the "wrong worldview"--and your standard for the "wrong worldview" seems to be anyone presenting evidence that runs counter to your own worldview.

Excuse me? You were the one who made the dogmatic claim. The onus is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it. Is this a tacit admission that you have nothing to back up your claim? You said that I was being presumptuous in saying that you couldn't present evidence to the contrary. I pointed out that, in my experience, no Creationist can or has--a statement which remains true as of this conversation.

Then I suggest that you haven't looked very far. You're free to suggest it. You'll be wrong if you do. I know that sounds flippant, and perhaps even cocky, but it's the truth.

Given the overt suppression that exists, this figure is meaningless. Once again, you reject the evidence, but provide none of your own.

Not at all. Many people have become convinced that the creationary view is correct once they've been exposed to that side. Some have even been angry that they've not heard the creationary side sooner. Name ten credentialed biologists or geneticists who have done so, please. Just ten. Please don't waste our mutual time with people who aren't trained to examine the evidence; I have no doubt that there are many. In my experience, that's what Creationism is all about--coming up with stuff that sounds impressive and compelling to those who lack the training to really evaluate the evidence.

So: just ten. I'll spot you John Sanford. You only have nine to go.

I wasn't suggesting that we could put a figure on it. I was merely saying that any existing figures are likely to be quite wrong. So I'm arguing based on the figures that DO exist; you're arguing based on the figures that DON'T exist. Which is the more evidence-based position?

You've just switched topics again. We are not talking about the strength of the case, but the size of support for the case. And implicit in your failed analogy is that those scientists actually get to consider the strength of the case, which is my point that many scientists don't get to consider the strength of the evidence for the creationary view, because it's so demonised that they dare not go near it. Aren't you being just a little bit silly, Philip? Do you imagine that they can't visit the same sources you use? That they can't go to Answers in Genesis? That they can't visit Creation Ministries International? You're getting painfully close to conspiracy theory territory here--and the thing about conspiracy theories is that NO evidence can ever convince a believer that such a theory is false...because, of course, the REAL evidence is being concealed by the conspiracy!

And I can say, based on long experience, that they often are. Cheerfully agreed. Just as the large majority of Creationists are ignorant of even the basics of evolution. While we're on the subject, I've found that quite a lot of Creationists are rather abysmally ignorant of the Bible. To be fair, quite a few people who accept evolution are likewise ignorant of evolution--but in my experience, the proportion there is lower than the proportion of Creationists who believe "every word of the Bible" without really knowing much about those words.

Excuse me? I thought that this was supposed to be a study supporting your 99% figure. Instead, all you've done is quote what 1% would be, and asked me to show evidence that it's more than that. That is not a study supporting your 99%; that's an attempt to put the onus on me to disprove your claim. The fact that you provide this non-study in support of your claim actually supports my claim that there are no good figures supporting your claim. If I simply cite studies claiming 99-point-whatever-percent, you're going to quite reasonably ask for justification of that figure; I figured we'd lay that groundwork first and THEN cite the figures. I ask again: are there 3,000 Creationist biologists? (Actual biologists, please, not speculative "Maybe they exist and are hiding" biologists.)

Please quote the exact rule and/or provide a link. I've heard similar claims before which turned out to be a misunderstanding. I'm referencing the guidelines penned by Wayne Frair. You can find them here, among other places. I direct your attention to guideline number one:

"1. Scripture claims (used in baraminology but not in discontinuity systematics). This has priority over all other considerations. For example humans are a separate holobaramin because they separately were created (Genesis 1 and 2). However, even as explained by Wise in his 1990 oral presentation, there is not much relevant taxonomic information in the Bible. Also, ReMine’s discontinuity systematics, because it is a neutral scientific enterprise, does not include the Bible as a source of taxonomic information."

In that particular case, I would be inclined to agree with you. However, I consider that to be an exception to the rule. I do, too, but probably for very different reasons; RATE comes the closest to an evidence-based argument for Creationism of any study I've seen, so I view it as an exception. It still fails to explain the evidence, but it tries valiantly.

What I think your suggesting is that regnal chronologies weren't always on the basis that one reign began at the same time another finished, that there was some overlap. True, but that's hardly applicable to the chronogenealogies in Genesis. They already overlap, in a sense, because the son was born before the father dies, but that's why the age at birth is given. And overlapping chronologies shorten the overall chronology, not lengthen it, as would be required to fit the Genesis chronogenealogies to a longer time period. That's a little bit of it; the main issue is that regnal chronologies were generally telescopic. (There's also the issue of how lineages were traced, but again, that's a long, LONG discussion, NOT one of my primary areas of study, and probably better saved for another time.)

I think the better question, when someone is making such a significant assumption, is why they think it IS justified. See here Oh, trust me--I'm very familiar with Dr. Sarfati and his arguments. I don't think they're particularly compelling. If I remember this particular paper correctly, it boils down to "The Septuagint and Pentateuch are unreliable and untrustworthy, but we can trust the Masoretic Text!" Of course, he doesn't give any positive case for thinking that the Masoretic Text is any more trustworthy and inerrant than the others.

Are you questioning the value of certainty? I've already pointed out that the value of certainty is questionable at best.

My specific claim is that it would be unreasonable to claim that the church is divided on the issue of the divinity of Christ merely because of the existence of the JWs. That you now move on to a different issue seems to be a tacit admission that my case was made there. ...except that it's a case that has nothing to do with the original point, which was that the Church was divided on that issue and many others early in its history. Shall I take it that your switching the issue to the modern case of the Jehovah's Witnesses is a tacit admission that MY case was made there? No; I'll instead take it as a good faith attempt at an analogy...but at the same time, I don't think you've in any way made a case that the two situations are comparable.

This part of the discussion began in connection with your claim that the early church was divided. Now you are pointing to a later division to support your claim, although it seems more like you've switched claims to the modern church. With respect, Philip, the blame for that one falls squarely on you. You're the one who changed the topic to the modern church and the Jehovah's Witnesses; I merely followed along.

I don't accept that I need to; that is, that the claimed facts that need explaining are actually facts. ...which amounts to hand-waving.

Without doing any research now, but relying on my memory, I don't believe that they do correspond that closely. They do, but how am I to prove it to you? You've already indicated that you refuse to accept anything that comes from someone with an "un-Biblical worldview!" There's not much point to my citing figures when you turn around and say that they're probably wrong.

This is a problem for the evolutionists, not the creationists. That one always makes me chuckle, for a number of reasons. First, it's no problem at all for "evolutionists." The explanation is not only easy, but directly observable. We SEE the processes which result in this kind of burial going on today; all you need to do is go to a peat bog or Flood plain to see trees being covered in stages, layer by layer. I've personally seen that sort of partial, step-by-step burial. Second, it's such a big problem for Creationists that it largely killed Flood geology before Darwin ever came along in the first place. Geologists didn't abandon Flood geology because of evolution; they abandoned it because the evidence didn't support it.

Except, I suppose, for your mischaracterisation that the fossils are growing. The roots exist through multiple layers; that they grew there is explanation, not evidence. ...except that Creationists have no explanation at all for how the trees could be "violently uprooted" and deposited by the Flood without damaging the fine rootlet systems. Tearing up trees just doesn't work that way...and, Creationist skepticism of uniformitarianism aside, there's no reason to think that it did work that way before the Flood. (Exactly which natural laws could we tweak to allow trees to be ripped up without damaging their roots?) That's not even touching on the trees that have a second system of roots halfway up. Now, the "evolutionist" explanation is, again, easy. The tree was partially buried, and then sprouted new roots and continued growing before eventually being buried completely. Again, we can find examples of trees like that today. How does Creationism explain it?

The oxygen-ratio differentation might have been used to show that, say, the uppermost ones are annual, not that they are all annual. I'd probably need more specifics to answer this any better. Fair enough; I'll try to find a copy of the relevant study that I can actually link without asking you to pay rather hefty database fees.

Part of the answer might be accelerated decay, and the latest Journal of Creation had a proposal that I think might explain the heat: in a nutshell, the radioactive elements were deep in the Earth's crust when they were created, and the accelerated decay is what caused the rocks to melt, contributing to the magma that erupted as part of the tectonic activity during the flood, and this erupting magma is what brought these materials to the surface. ...except that that doesn't begin to account for the AMOUNT of heat which would be generated, and it also creates all sorts of other problems--like the issue of what the planet would have been like with a solid core all those years prior to the Flood! Plug one hole, and three more appear...

The presence of animal tracks, animal burrows, and layers of evaporates sandwiched between layers of "Flood sediment." See here, and perhaps also here. Oh, my goodness...where to start with the problems those "explanations" cause? The "waning flood phase" must have come, and gone, and come again, and gone again, DOZENS of times--because we don't just find such things near the bottom of the geologic column, which might represent the "first 150 days," we find them all the way THROUGH the column! Again, what we have here is Creationists attempting to invent an explanation for one specific piece of evidence, while ignoring the larger context in which that evidence is found. And, of course, fossil beds of the sort described add even MORE problems for Creationists...because, taken as a whole, they contain FAR too many fossils. I don't want to get off on a tangent right now, but we can talk about that later.

That sounds like more rhetoric to me. That doesn't alter the fact that it's true.

The paper you link to doesn't mention Funkhouser and Naughton, although does mention data from an 1800-1801 eruption. However, it also discusses the possibility of xenoliths, so I can't see that Austin has done what you accuse him of. You'll have to be even more specific about how Austin has "spectactular[ly] misinterpret[ed]" this. It doesn't mention Funkhouser and Naughton because he didn't do his homework; he's citing Dalrymple, who cites Funkhouser and Naughton. What he failed to take into account was that the "excess argon" was, in fact, from the xenoliths, and was expected...and that once the xenoliths were removed, the remaining matrix exhibited no excess argon whatsoever.

Define "reliable", given that you are not referring to "consistent", as you mention that separately. Counting tree rings will consistently give a number lower than 6,000; however, this isn't a reliable method of determining the age of the planet, because there's no reason to think that those trees were there when the planet came into being. Likewise, Creationists often cite the maximal age of Niagara Falls as evidence; again, this is not reliable, since there's no reason to think Niagara Falls is as old as the planet.

One has to wonder what justification would be acceptable to you. God speaking to you personally, perhaps? In all honesty? Yes. I think that's the strongest justification--FAR stronger than any man's claim of authority when interpreting the Bible. Isn't it why we pray and seek guidance from God?

In any case, I wasn't claiming certainty in this case. I specifically said that it was "probably" the case; I never said it was definite. Your response was to ask where the Bible said that God wrote it, as though your default position is that it was written by men unless there is an explicit statement saying otherwise. I'm in pretty good company, given the rather large number of scholars who accept that it was written by Moses. Argument from authority, perhaps--but, as you pointed out, an authority in his own field has weight.

This shows your bias, that divine authorship is not to be accepted as a possibility unless it can be proved beyond doubt. ...because the authors of the Bible went out of their way to identify the Word of God. The writing of the Decalogue is a HUGELY important event; the fact that it is the direct Word of God is emphasized. Don't you think that, if God had written the first two chapters of Genesis, SOME indication would have been given that this was the case? It's not that I haven't considered it; it's that I consider it speculative at very best, with some very big problems that nobody seems to be able to solve.

It's not an assumption. The fact that you don't think so again proves my point: inerrantists are often blind to the difference between God's Word and their assumptions about God's Word.

No I don't. They would use it for evolutionist explanations, but not evidence. ...but you acknowledge their use of scare quotes? How else would you define such a group? By definition, if the majority agree on a general position but there are a few outliers, then surely the outliers cannot be considered part of the mainstream. What makes you think they're the majority? Or even that they speak for the majority?

Goodness! You're showing your age there! Well, I did say I've been doing this for a while.

Just as well I've been around a while too! See here. ...of course, that also means that I've been around long enough to know the problems with this rebuttal.

1. So what if Snelling was a junior author? He was still signing his name to something which he claimed to be accurate, and apparently believed to be false!

2. The fact that the ages were mentioned in passing is precisely the point--Snelling and his colleagues were taking the age of the rocks, not as some sort of discovery, but as a matter of established fact!

3. The terms used are irrelevant; what matters is the explicit dates mentioned.

4. More appeal to conspiracy theory. Moreover, the author of the rebuttal seems to be advocating dishonesty on the part of Snelling on the basis that honesty would have had negative consequences.

From there on in, the "rebuttal" degenerates into mere character assassination--apparently, Plimer can't be correct because he's a bad person who didn't like Dr. Snelling. Again: what of it? The fact remains that Snelling co-authored a paper (more than one, actually) that took an ancient Earth for granted.

What evolutionary assumptions do they use, that contribute to the success of finding oil? Or is this just more rhetoric? I'm using "evolutionary" in the Creationist sense, of course--that is, "Any science which indicates an ancient Earth and contradicts a literal interpretation of Genesis." In this case, we're mainly talking about deep-time geology, which definitely falls under most Creationists' blanket category of "evolutionism." The assumption here, of course, is that oil, coal, and natural gas are formed by predictable, uniform processes, that those processes are predictable, and that, by making such predictions, likely locations for oil, coal, and natural gas can be ascertained. Such assumptions, for instance, led to oil exploration in the Gobi desert and Alaska--because deep-time models indicated that such areas were once far more fertile and home to the kinds of organic deposits which produce oil.

Would Creation science have predicted oil in those specific areas? Why there, as opposed to other places?

No, I can't say that I've encountered that objection too often. But to the extent it's true, it's because most scientific research doesn't require either evolutionary assumptions. But then there are the creationist assumptions that all science has, such as the universe being a place of rational order because a rational Creator made it. ...on which point you will get no argument from me; any serious student of the history of Western thought knows that the Judeo-Christian tradition laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment. I dispute, however, that that can be considered a "creationist assumption" except in the most general sense--under which both you and I are "creationists."

You're asking a question based on a claim that is false. Nope. Note that at no point did your rebuttal offer ANY actual rebuttal of the fact that Snelling's paper...to which he signed his name...cited dates in the millions of years for those layers. Either he believed what he was co-writing, or he signed off on something he thought was false for reasons of his own.

True, but then is an arrogant certainty in your own uncertainty—or the uncertainty that you expect others to have—any better? What's arrogant about saying "I can't know for sure?" What's arrogant about thinking that that's a better approach than to say "I know everything I need to know?" I hold that position in order to try to AVOID getting arrogant. The truth is (and this WILL sound arrogant) that I'm extremely intelligent and quite well educated; it would be very easy for me to fall into the trap of assuming that what I think is right is obviously right. But a trap is precisely what it would be--and so, I remind myself that, yes, I AM capable of being wrong, even about beliefs I hold deeply and fundamentally. And, yes, I think that it's a healthier mindset than "I know I'm right, end of sentence."

Perhaps the one mentioned in the Bible—that Jesus did not rise from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:14). What evidence would convince you of that?

My faith is very much dependent on evidence. When I trust someone, I do it because I have good reason to. If a stranger approached you and asked to borrow $10,000 and promised to return it to you in a year's time, would you have faith that he would? Why is God any different? ...because he's God, and I have faith, and faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. If God said "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.", why should you believe Him? ...because he's God, and I have faith, and faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. When did He ever promise that it would be easy to follow Him?

Are you so gullible as to believe every person who comes along making some promise? Or do you have, umm, reason for believing God. Yep. And I also have confidence in what I hope for and assurance about what I do not see.

After all, as I point out above, perhaps even Jesus' death is merely a parable. Perhaps His promise of an afterlife with Him is also a parable. Perhaps. But I have faith that it was not. And faith is...well, you know.

I have to wonder what "god" you are talking about, if your source of information is not the Bible. That's coming within spitting distance of "No True Scotsman," and very close to questioning my Christianity. Shame on you, Philip; I expect that sort of thing from your "amateur Creationists," but not from you, no matter how politely couched.

--BRPierce (talk) 23:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The text says "the Word of God"; I take it to mean the Word of God. Duh! So do I.

"You can't prove that it doesn't refer to writing" is not compelling; there's no evidence that it DOES refer to writing. I think it is a compelling argument that you've not shown that they definitely don't ever refer to Scripture.

The verses speaking of God's creatures could also refer to life on other planets--but there's no evidence that they do. I would not assume for one moment that they are not—if there was any reason to think that God had created alien life (whereas there's good reason to think He didn't).

I honestly thought you'd be familiar enough with the verses in question that I wouldn't need to; my apologies I'm aware of some claims, but I don't (didn't) know if you were referring to the same verses as others make claims about.

I'm thinking specifically of Daniel 8:26, which is, as far as I know, the only verse outside of Genesis that employs the words ereb, boqer, and yom in the same sequence as Genesis--yet definitely refers to an indefinite period of time. No, it does not definitely refer to an indefinite period of time. The verse is part of an interpretation of a vision that Daniel had, which is described in verses 1 to 14. In that he was told about a period of "2,300 evening and mornings", i.e. literal days. Verse 26 is a reference to these literal days of the vision.

...Zechariah 14:7 ... speaks of "one day" that will extend through both summer and winter--but it's hardly the only one. It's not clear that that's what it's saying. "The passage makes good sense as a normal period of time leading into a long period of time, so the translation should be ‘unique day’ (following the NIV). This is by no means an exception to any of the normal use patterns."[3]

...and the same period of time is similarly (and repeatedly) given as a basis for the Day of the Lord, which is a period of seven years. Huh? It's not given as a "basis" for an instruction or principle. I think you mean that it's often described or perhaps defined as a period of seven years. But it's not a basis.

No moreso than inerrantists; some of their compromises are rather fanciful. (Giant floating islands of vegetation? Volcanic geysers that propelled the animals to various parts of the world after the Flood? Super-fast evolution that would result in speciation events every single day from the Flood until now?) They are not compromises of the biblical text, but extra-biblical proposals to fill in details on which the Bible is silent. And the last two—if not all three—sound like caricatures of creationist explanations anyway.

Augustine. Origen. Clement. Hilary of Poitiers. Irenaeus. Justin Martyr. On the side of the Hebrew scholars, Philo and Maimonides. Barnabas claimed that the "six days" were, in fact, the six thousand years that he believed Creation would endure. Not so. See here, here, and here.

The key word in your statement above is "presumes." The article makes an excellent case for why copies would not and could not be inerrant, and I completely agree with his points. He does not, however, make a strong case (or really, any case at all) for why we should presume that the original copies were inerrant. True, but that misses the point. Your point was the inconsistency of allowing errors in copies but not in the original. The article I linked to does answer that supposed inconsistency.

Not particularly. Satan quotes Scripture; Christ quotes it right back at him. It was a standard form of debate; why wouldn't they use it? More to the point, why would Satan use it if it wasn't at least as authoritative as Jesus?

So we can tell the difference between narrative and parables because...we can tell the difference between narrative and parables? Seems sort of circular to me! That misrepresents what I said, which was that "we know that many of the stories inerrantists claim are literal aren't parables used to illustrate points ...because we can tell the difference between narrative and parables".

Ah! So we can tell the difference between narrative and parables because we can tell the difference between narrative and parables, except when we can't? I can see that you are dodging the point: Are you suggesting that we never can?

Slippery slope fallacy. Not at all. I asked a question; I didn't make an assertion.

This is simply arguing "It can't be true because that would force us to question other parts of the Bible." No, it's asking you where you stop questioning other parts of the Bible, and why. It's pointing out that you probably already have the answer to your own objection.

Some of them, yes, just as some of the early Church fathers took it as actual history. And some did not--so where does that leave us? You have not shown that any other later biblical authors didn't take it as literal.

In actuality, most of the cases of Biblical writers "taking Creation as actual history" are, again, cases of interpretation on the part of the reader. No, it's understanding what they wrote. You know, the reason that we have writing, to convey information.

Certainly not with the level of confidence that inerrantists advocate! Because...?

...sometimes, it's just not POSSIBLE to be certain. But most of the time it is, else we would be hopelessly confused.

I remember one class where a woman was utterly convinced that a poem I had written was an extended allegorical commentary on the writings of Sylvia Plath--who, at the time, I had never read. Even when I pointed this out to her, she continued to maintain that it was such a commentary! Sounds like someone I know. I point out that Jesus treated Genesis as history, but you continue to insist that I can't be certain.

Ironically, "The exception proves the rule" is one of the most frequently misunderstood sayings in the English language;... Interesting diversion, given that that's not the phrase I used.

...it actually means that the exception is what puts the rule to the test. Apparently not. See Exception that proves the rule.

Is there perhaps a lesson to be learned there? Yep. You're not always right.

...and you believe that the context indicates that because you're predisposed to accept 24-hour days. Evidence?

Nope; in fact, their reasoning is frequently the clearest evidence of their bias. Ummm, yeah... right.

And I wonder: what do you imagine my bias to be, apart from "I don't claim to know for certain?" Your bias is that nobody can know for certain.

What other biases do you think I have that led me to the conclusion that inerrantism is not warranted? It's very easy to say that a non-Christian has such a bias because they don't want the Bible to be true--but I have no such desire. But perhaps (I'm speculating here, given that you asked) you have a desire to conform to the ruling paradigm on the age of the Earth.

Indeed, if Genesis is literally true, that's GREAT news for me! Yet, I don't believe that it is. Why do you suppose that's the case? Losing face? Given that you've emotionally committed to the popular view.

Which of our experiences are likely to be more relevant in this case? Yours, it would seem from what you are saying. But then, according to you, I've likely misunderstood what you are saying and not realised it, so perhaps you're actually saying that I have better experience. In which case my experience is more relevant.

By no means. What makes you think so? A distinct impression from what you've written.

Who is more justified? The man who is certain that he will live another ten years, or the man who is certain that he can't be certain that he will live another ten years? What makes you think that justification can be based on what each believes, rather than why they believe it?

...except to establish that certainty--even absolute certainty--is no guarantee of rightness. Yet I didn't claim that, so it was doubly irrelevant.

That sounds quite a bit like a "No." As I said: an expert who is only an expert when his reasoning agrees with yours is no expert at all. It is a 'no', but the rest is a straw-man.

Where in the world did you get the notion that historians base their work entirely (or even mostly) on eyewitness accounts? From the fact that historians base much of their work on written records, which are (a) fiction (which you would hope that they are capable of discerning and rejecting), (b) original accounts from eyewitnesses, or (c) based on earlier written accounts of type (a) or (b). What other sources do written accounts have?

And where did you get the notion that eyewitness accounts are more reliable than other forms of evidence? First, I only have that notion in particular cases, such as history; not in all cases. Second, because no other source originates from the time. Scientific evidence (e.g. artefacts) exist in the present, and are limited in what they can tell you about the past. How else but eyewitness testimony could you tell that, for example, Vesuvius erupted on 24th August, 79AD? Radiometric dates (if they were reliable), might nail it down to the decade, or possibly even the year, but it takes an eyewitness to tell you the exact date. And when radiometric methods were used, they were incorrect and had to be adjusted to get the correct date.

...so you believe that (Biblical) historians are the only valid authorities when talking about the age of the Earth--and then you reject anyone who presents a case for an ancient Earth because you don't consider them authorities. Self-confirmation bias, don't you think? Not at all. Simply a case of going with the appropriate experts. And how is your claim, if reversed, any different to what secular people do? They reject anyone who presents a case for a young Earth because they don't consider them authorities. Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

I didn't say they believed in the Flood;... First, that was the implication of your wording. Second, your alternative explanation is a straw-man. You referred to those who believe that "Egypt was alive and thriving at the time the Great Flood supposedly wiped them out". Now your saying that it's the mainstream historians who believed that the Egyptians existed at time X, being the time that others believe the flood wiped out "them" Who is "them"? The Egyptians, presumably. But who are these "others" that believe that? They don't exist. Those that believed that the flood occurred at time X don't believe that the flood wiped out the Egyptians, because they believe that Egypt only arose after the flood. There were no Egyptians at the time of the flood. By asking the question the way you did, you indicated that you were talking about some group that believes that the flood wiped out the Egyptians. Therefore I answered—quite correctly—that "I don't know anyone who even believes that", and you took issue with my answer.

I guess miscommunications happen, even when the communicators are highly skilled, hmm? Or when one of those communicators doesn't get his facts straight.

Would you even consider "God doesn't exist" as a valid explanation? Of course not; it's an assertion, not an explanation. It doesn't purport to explain anything.

Your repeated comments seem to indicate that you would not, and would in fact reject any argument based on that explanation out-of-hand. Given that the "explanation" is not an explanation (it doesn't explain anything), this comment is nonsense.

...which precisely proves my point. You reject out-of-hand any evidence influenced by someone with the "wrong worldview" But you've not explained what is wrong with this, or why I am criticised for it but others (e.g. materialists) are not.

...your standard for the "wrong worldview" seems to be anyone presenting evidence that runs counter to your own worldview. If that's the way it "seems" to you, then you need to open your eyes. My standared for the "wrong worldview" is anyone who holds a worldview that is incompatible with mine. That is, the worldview—not the evidence—is incompatible.

You said that I was being presumptuous in saying that you couldn't present evidence to the contrary. I pointed out that, in my experience, no Creationist can or has--a statement which remains true as of this conversation. Let's see. I'll take your word that in your experience no creationist has presented evidence to the contrary. But you've also indicated that (a) most creationists don't make very good arguments, such that you have little respect for them, and (b) I am an exception—you respect me. Therefore, I find your comment that in your experience no creationist can present evidence to the contrary, as a justification for your presumption that I can't either, to be rather hollow. Further, this completely dodges my point that "You were the one who made the dogmatic claim. The onus is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it." That remains true as of this conversation.

You're free to suggest it. You'll be wrong if you do. I know that sounds flippant, and perhaps even cocky, but it's the truth. No, it's not the truth.

Once again, you reject the evidence, but provide none of your own. I reject the relevance of the evidence. I can legitimately do that without providing any evidence of my own.

Name ten credentialed biologists or geneticists who have done so, please. Just ten. ... I'll spot you John Sanford. You only have nine to go. Geoff Downes, D. B. Gower, Bob Hosken, Dean Kenyon, John K.G. Kramer, Peter Line, Gina Mohammed, Gary Parker, Timothy G. Standish, Susanna Su, Esther Su, ... oops. Too many.

So I'm arguing based on the figures that DO exist; you're arguing based on the figures that DON'T exist. Which is the more evidence-based position? Which is more useful—a lack of evidence or misleading evidence?

Aren't you being just a little bit silly, Philip? Do you imagine that they can't visit the same sources you use? ... You're getting painfully close to conspiracy theory territory here... On the contrary, I think you're getting painfully close to blaming the victim. There is widespread suppression and vilification of the creationary view, but you seem to think that these efforts at suppression are totally ineffective, so that if someone fails to investigate it, it must be their fault. If a government (to use an exaggerated analogy) tries to prevent access to the Bible on the Internet, disallows it from being discussed in its schools, bans the media from reporting on it, won't allow it to be printed anywhere, but fails to stop people from copying it out and passing it on, would you disagree with those that complain about this suppression, calling them "a little bit silly" because the government hasn't managed to suppress it completely? As I said, the analogy is exaggerated, but the point is that you are ignoring the widespread attempts to suppress and criticising me for highlighting this on the grounds that the message is not completely suppressed.

If I simply cite studies claiming 99-point-whatever-percent, you're going to quite reasonably ask for justification of that figure; True. But...

I figured we'd lay that groundwork first and THEN cite the figures. I ask again: are there 3,000 Creationist biologists? That is not "laying the groundwork". That is trying to put the onus on my to disprove your (so far baseless) assertion. So I repeat: The fact that you provide this non-study in support of your claim actually supports my claim that there are no good figures supporting your claim.

I'm referencing the guidelines penned by Wayne Frair. So I was right. Your claim was that "Creationists don't simply interpret the evidence according to a different worldview; they flat-out reject any evidence that contradicts that worldview." and backed this up with "...the BSG's standards for determining baramins--[lists] as their first principle the rule that any evidence which would contradict what they believe the Bible teaches must be disregarded". However, the principle you quote says nothing about rejecting evidence. Rather, it talks about which sources take priority, in an inexact science where competing claims need to be weighed up.

That's a little bit of it; the main issue is that regnal chronologies were generally telescopic. Which, as I pointed out and you didn't address, is hardly applicable to the chronogenealogies in Genesis.

Oh, trust me--I'm very familiar with Dr. Sarfati and his arguments. Yet you subsequent comments show otherwise.

If I remember this particular paper correctly, it boils down to "The Septuagint and [Samaritan] Pentateuch are unreliable and untrustworthy, but we can trust the Masoretic Text!" Straw-man. That may have been the conclusion, but it's false to suggest that that was the gist of the paper.

Of course, he doesn't give any positive case for thinking that the Masoretic Text is any more trustworthy and inerrant than the others. You mean apart from "Biblical chronology should be based on the Masoretic Text, because the other texts show evidence of editing.³ For example, The Septuagint chronologies are demonstrably inflated, as they contain the (obvious) error that Methuselah lived 17 years after the Flood."? And apart from the paper referenced in that bit?

I've already pointed out that the value of certainty is questionable at best. Are you certain of that (that the value of certainty is questionable)? In any case, I seem to recall you claiming an inability to be certain, not a lack of value in it.

...except that it's a case that has nothing to do with the original point, ... I'll ... take it as a good faith attempt at an analogy... Which it was.

...but at the same time, I don't think you've in any way made a case that the two situations are comparable. And neither have you made a case that they are not. You claimed that the early church was divided, and my response was that I didn't agree that "divided" was any more appropriate term than it would be today regarding JWs. My comment has as much weight behind it as yours.

With respect, Philip, the blame for that one falls squarely on you. You're the one who changed the topic to the modern church and the Jehovah's Witnesses; I merely followed along. No I didn't. You just said that you would accept that I was making an analogy. I was. I was comparing the "division" today between Christianity and JWs with your claim of division in the early church, saying that I thought the two were comparable. You then switched to the division between Protestantism and Catholicism today. I was making comment on your claimed division in the early church, but you switched to a different division, in the modern church.

...which amounts to hand-waving. Not at all. It's a rejection of your request on grounds of it being a loaded question.

They do, but how am I to prove it to you? Ummm, with the evidence?

You've already indicated that you refuse to accept anything that comes from someone with an "un-Biblical worldview!" I have not. I've said that I won't accept explanations based on a worldview contrary to mine; I haven't said that I won't accept hard facts from people holding such a view.

First, it's no problem at all for "evolutionists." Why the quote marks?

The explanation is not only easy, but directly observable. We SEE the processes which result in this kind of burial going on today; all you need to do is go to a peat bog or Flood plain to see trees being covered in stages, layer by layer. I've personally seen that sort of partial, step-by-step burial. Wow! You must be older than I thought! The problem, after all, is that those layers are supposed to have taken millions of years to build up, and all the while these trees are standing there not rotting. And you've seen this happen? The only way you would have seen this happen is if the layers built up quickly, before the tree had time to rot. But that involves rapid processes, not ones over the supposed geological deep time.

Second, it's such a big problem for Creationists that it largely killed Flood geology before Darwin ever came along in the first place. Yeah? Explanation (how is it a problem for creationists?) and evidence please.

Geologists didn't abandon Flood geology because of evolution; they abandoned it because the evidence didn't support it. Incorrect. They abandoned it because they decided to adopt a new (and contra-biblical) paradigm, that of uniformitarianism. It wasn't the evidence that cause them to change their views, it was a philosophy. And "flood geology" didn't exist at the time anyway. What they went away from was a view that the Earth's surface was formed by a series of major catastrophes (of which the biblical Flood was one), not just (primarily) the Flood. Further, the evidence has caused geologists to partially abandon the uniformitarian paradigm, returning to accepting the existence of catastrophes.

...except that Creationists have no explanation at all for how the trees could be "violently uprooted" and deposited by the Flood without damaging the fine rootlet systems. Hmmm. I should have asked you to give me an example of this. Most polystrate fossils don't have intact rootlets (or even roots), consistent with them being torn up in a violent flood.

That's not even touching on the trees that have a second system of roots halfway up. I've never heard of such a thing.

...except that that doesn't begin to account for the AMOUNT of heat which would be generated... Doesn't "begin" to????

like the issue of what the planet would have been like with a solid core all those years prior to the Flood! Plug one hole, and three more appear... Ummm, what's the issue there?

Oh, my goodness...where to start with the problems those "explanations" cause? Why the quote marks? You might disagree that the explanations are correct ones, but why disagree that they are explanations?

...we don't just find such things near the bottom of the geologic column, which might represent the "first 150 days," we find them all the way THROUGH the column! You mean that artificial construct maintained by evolutionists?

Again, what we have here is Creationists attempting to invent an explanation for one specific piece of evidence, while ignoring the larger context in which that evidence is found. Or what we have is evolutionists making sweeping statements devoid of specifics.

...taken as a whole, they contain FAR too many fossils. And there's another of those sweeping statements devoid of specifics.

That doesn't alter the fact that it's true. Utter nonsense. I was being kind in merely saying that it sounds like more rhetoric. Your claim was that "if Young Earth Creationists are right, EVERYTHING we know is wrong." This completely-over-the-top, fact-free, logic-free assertion is utter nonsense. I called you on it, and all you could do is assert that it's true.

Recapping the discussion about dating lava, you earlier said that:

One that springs to mind immediately is their claim that "Lava from an 1801 eruption was dated at 22 million years old!". In fact the paper you subsequently linked to in support of that claim doesn't mention that age. Strike 1. You followed up with:

...the specific study being criticized was conducted by Funkhouser and Naughton in the early 1960's. In fact they were not criticising that paper. Strike 2. When you finally provided a link:

...Steve Austin makes the error in his paper here. I said that "You'll have to be even more specific about how Austin has "spectactular[ly] misinterpret[ed]" this". This is what you laughably provided as "more specific":

What he failed to take into account was that the "excess argon" was, in fact, from the xenoliths, and was expected... In fact the paper was not about the 1801 eruption; it was about new research he undertook. He mentioned the 1801 eruption in a table listing other research where, according to secular researchers, there was "excess argon". Austin was acknowledging that these other researchers were not claiming their results to be giving true ages. Strike 3. You have failed to substantiated your claim, which is therefore shown to be false. Further, you have wasted my time that I spent reading the paper right through again because you failed to provide the sufficiently-specific information you were asked to provide to support your claim.

Counting tree rings will consistently give a number lower than 6,000; however, this isn't a reliable method of determining the age of the planet... Oh, please. I'm not about to provide an age for something younger than the Earth as though it was the age of the Earth. You have not defined "reliable" as requested; you've only pointed out a distinction between "reliable" and "consistent", and given examples of things that would not be reliable.

Likewise, Creationists often cite the maximal age of Niagara Falls as evidence; again, this is not reliable, since there's no reason to think Niagara Falls is as old as the planet. Strawman! Creationists do not cite the age of Niagara Falls as evidence of the age of the Earth. Rather, they cite it's age to show that it's not inconsistent with a biblical age.

In all honesty? Yes. I think that's the strongest justification--FAR stronger than any man's claim of authority when interpreting the Bible. So no creationist can ever provide sufficient justification, because they are not God. And the only justification that you would accept is one that you can't provide to anyone else.

Isn't it why we pray and seek guidance from God? No. Seeking guidance might be one reason (others are for help for others, and to praise God), but not the reason, and that encompasses a big range anyway. Do we pray to find out whether, say, adultery is sinful? Or whether God loves us? Or whether Jesus died for us? Or when we pray for guidance, do we pray for thing specific to us?

I'm in pretty good company, given the rather large number of scholars who accept that it was written by Moses. Although I don't know how many, a large number believe that it was written much later than Moses. But even referring to those you are talking about, their evidence is probably (a) that this is the tradition and what later Bible writers—and Jesus Himself—indicate, and (b) that evidence of a later origin is lacking. None of this refutes that Moses may have been the compiler of Genesis from pre-existing documents.

Don't you think that, if God had written the first two chapters of Genesis, SOME indication would have been given that this was the case? But "some" indication was given: the fact that this is the only section without a human author being named, not to mention the only section describing events not witnessed by a human.

The fact that you don't think so again proves my point: inerrantists are often blind to the difference between God's Word and their assumptions about God's Word. More rhetoric, given that you've not provided a scrap of reasoning for your claim.

...but you acknowledge their use of scare quotes? I'm not disputing the use in some cases, but I haven't specifically checked.

What makes you think they're the majority? Or even that they speak for the majority? How many other creationary scientists do you know that are not connected with those organisations but do publicly speak on the topic?

...of course, that also means that I've been around long enough to know the problems with this rebuttal. Yet none of the things you list stand up to scrutiny.

So what if Snelling was a junior author? He was still signing his name to something which he claimed to be accurate, and apparently believed to be false! Where did he "claim" that the ages were accurate? And why do you think that a junior author could get away with including a disclaimer?

The fact that the ages were mentioned in passing is precisely the point--Snelling and his colleagues were taking the age of the rocks, not as some sort of discovery, but as a matter of established fact! Yes, in the sense that they are the accepted ages, but it does not follow from that that Snelling was endorsing them.

The terms used are irrelevant; what matters is the explicit dates mentioned. The link I provided was to a rebuttal of Plimer's book, which book didn't mention Snelling giving any ages; it only mentioned the names of eras.

More appeal to conspiracy theory. False. Rather, they point out that there is a ruling paradigm that suppresses creationary views. The charge of claiming conspiracy is a straw-man invented by anticreationsts because they can't mount a good honest argument. You demean yourself by repeating it.

Moreover, the author of the rebuttal seems to be advocating dishonesty on the part of Snelling on the basis that honesty would have had negative consequences. "Seems"? It seems that you are ignoring the fact that creationists views get suppressed and want to pick on a creationist who has had to tiptoe through that suppression, and find fault with him rather than with the suppressors.

From there on in, the "rebuttal" degenerates into mere character assassination--apparently, Plimer can't be correct because he's a bad person who didn't like Dr. Snelling. Again: what of it? So you completely ignore the actual arguments given and simply criticise them for pointing out the problems.

The fact remains that Snelling co-authored a paper (more than one, actually) that took an ancient Earth for granted. The fact remains that this amounts to trying to point out the (alleged) splinter in the creationist's eye while ignoring the log in the anti-creationists eye.

I'm using "evolutionary" in the Creationist sense... That's okay; that's the way I meant it too.

The assumption here, of course, is that oil, coal, and natural gas are formed by predictable, uniform processes, that those processes are predictable, and that, by making such predictions, likely locations for oil, coal, and natural gas can be ascertained. I wouldn't argue against those being the assumptions. But I question what makes them evolutionary assumptions. Creationists would agree that the processess are predictable.

Such assumptions, for instance, led to oil exploration in the Gobi desert and Alaska--because deep-time models indicated that such areas were once far more fertile and home to the kinds of organic deposits which produce oil. Deep-time models may indeed predict that, but I have a question about that which I'll get back to. But so would creationary models, because (a) creationary models say that the world was once a much wetter place (and I'm not talking about the year of the flood, but post-flood), (b) creationary models would predict more garden-like (than desert-like) conditions before the flood, and (c) creationary models would predict that biomass could get washed into all sorts of places.

Would Creation science have predicted oil in those specific areas? Why there, as opposed to other places? What you have not explained is why a deep-time view would predict oil in those specific locations rather than other locations. I would say that on a deep-time view everywhere would have had the right conditions at some time or other. So everywhere could have oil, not just certain specific locations.

...on which point you will get no argument from me; any serious student of the history of Western thought knows that the Judeo-Christian tradition laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment. But it was the Christian worldview—not the enlightenment—that gave rise to modern science.

I dispute, however, that that can be considered a "creationist assumption" except in the most general sense--under which both you and I are "creationists." True, but then there were other reasons, too, including ones specific to biblical creation and/or taking the Bible literally.[4].

Nope. Note that at no point did your rebuttal offer ANY actual rebuttal of the fact that Snelling's paper...to which he signed his name...cited dates in the millions of years for those layers. Your claim that I called false (a) said that Snelling "claim[ed]" an age of millions of years, and (b) implied dishonesty which is not the case.

What's arrogant about saying "I can't know for sure?" When you say that you know for sure that you can't know for sure, and, further, when you claim that others can't know for sure.

What's arrogant about thinking that that's a better approach than to say "I know everything I need to know?" Because there is no reason to think that uncertainty is inherently better than certainty.

it would be very easy for me to fall into the trap of assuming that what I think is right is obviously right. Which is exactly what you have done. You've fallen into the trap of assuming that your belief that it's better to be uncertain is obviously right.

I AM capable of being wrong, even about beliefs I hold deeply and fundamentally. Including the belief that we can't be certain about various things in the Bible?

And, yes, I think that it's a healthier mindset than "I know I'm right, end of sentence." Yet that is what you say: "I know I'm right (that you can't be certain about particular things in the Bible), end of sentence".

What evidence would convince you of that? I don't know, but possibly very good evidence that the main manuscripts of the New Testament are forgeries.

...because he's God, and I have faith... How do you know He is God? And how do you know that God can be trusted?

...faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. How do you know that? Is that something you get from that Bible that is not God's Word, is not inerrant, and which you can't know anything for certain about?

Yep. And I also have confidence in what I hope for and assurance about what I do not see. Okay, you have confidence and assurance, but I asked you about reason, which you answered "yep" to but didn't explain.

Perhaps. But I have faith that it was not. And faith is...well, you know. Yes, I know that faith is based on evidence, but you're denying that, so is your faith blind faith?

That's coming within spitting distance of "No True Scotsman," and very close to questioning my Christianity. Shame on you, Philip; I'm not questioning your Christianity, but the basis for your Christianity.

I expect that sort of thing from your "amateur Creationists," but not from you, no matter how politely couched. Unfortunately, I should have expected this from you: avoiding answering the point.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 14:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Part 4

Duh! So do I. You think that "Word of God" could refer to Scripture because you think Scripture is the Word of God. You're asking me to prove that Scripture is NOT the Word of God. I maintain that it's on inerrantists to prove that it is, since they're the ones making the assertion; I can't prove a negative.

I think it is a compelling argument that you've not shown that they definitely don't ever refer to Scripture. I also haven't shown that they definitely don't refer to ANY written document. Again, I can't prove a negative. In any event, my point...that those who claim Scripture is the inerrant Word of God can't produce a single passage in the Bible that proves the two are synonymous...stands. "It MIGHT mean that!" isn't proof, or even strong evidence.

I would not assume for one moment that they are not—if there was any reason to think that God had created alien life (whereas there's good reason to think He didn't). That's another argument completely, but the same logic applies: there's no good reason to think that Scripture is exactly the same thing as the inerrant Word of God, and good reason to think that it isn't. The fact that none of the authors ever explicitly refers to scripture as the Word of God strikes me as being far beyond coincidence.

The verse is part of an interpretation of a vision that Daniel had, which is described in verses 1 to 14. In that he was told about a period of "2,300 evening and mornings", i.e. literal days. Verse 26 is a reference to these literal days of the vision. Err...no. No, no, no. Verse 26 most certainly does not refer to those 2300 (or 1150, depending on how you interpret it!) days . It refers to the amount of time that will elapse BEFORE the days mentioned in the vision. It's telling Daniel to seal up the vision because many days will pass before the events of the vision take place. Just about every commentary I can locate concurs with my reading on this; Barnes' Notes on the Bible affirms it, Clarke's Commentary says it's a period of at least 2300 years, Gill's Exposition says 300 years or more, as does Wesley's Notes. Keil and Delitzsch explicitly caution that the "many days" of verse 26 are NOT to be identified with the "time of the end" referenced in Daniel 8:17 (that is to say, the time of the vision itself.)

Seriously, don't take my word for it; break out your favorite commentaries and see what they say on the matter. Now, of course, I allow for the possibility that they might be wrong--but they'd ALL have to be wrong...which would, of course, prove my point about the reliability of man's interpretation of the Bible nicely.

It's not clear that that's what it's saying. "It's not clear?" Whatever happened to all examples of "yom" coupled with an ordinal clearly referring to normal 24-hour days? I note that even your source on creation.com is forced to admit that they cannot definitively state that this means a 24-hour day. So where does this leave the justification for claiming that "yom" plus an ordinal must mean a 24-hour day?

Huh? It's not given as a "basis" for an instruction or principle. I think you mean that it's often described or perhaps defined as a period of seven years. But it's not a basis. Then why is the Day of the Lord seven years long? Why not ten, or five, or twenty? What was the basis for that period of time?

They are not compromises of the biblical text, but extra-biblical proposals to fill in details on which the Bible is silent. And the last two—if not all three—sound like caricatures of creationist explanations anyway. Hardly that; I only wish they were. They're all explanations which have been seriously proposed by Creationists.

Not so. See here, here, and here. I'm just going to observe here that you place remarkable faith in Creation Ministries International and their arguments. Did it ever occur to you that those arguments might perhaps be wrong...or (Heaven forbid!) selective in their presentation of the evidence? I notice, for example, that the article on Hebrew scholars mentions Maimonides and implies that he shared a viewpoint with Ibn Ezra by commenting on how he "highly commended" him, but never actually mentions Maimonides' own position on the subject. Why is that, do you suppose...particularly given that the article acknowledges what an important figure Maimonides was?

I don't reject arguments out-of-hand because they come from someone with the "wrong worldview," but omissions like that make me feel like I need to take what CMI says with a large grain of salt.

True, but that misses the point. Your point was the inconsistency of allowing errors in copies but not in the original. The article I linked to does answer that supposed inconsistency. Not in the slightest! Saying "Copies can have errors, but the originals can't" remains just as inconsistent, because the question of WHY the originals can't have errors hasn't been addressed!

More to the point, why would Satan use it if it wasn't at least as authoritative as Jesus? What else would he use? It's not as if he could compel Jesus to speak! As for his sources being "at least as authoritative as Jesus," what makes you think they were? If you'll recall, he lost that little sparring match rather badly. Was it because he just didn't know Scripture very well that Jesus was able to best him? Or was it because Scriptural quotes were no match for the Word made flesh?

I can see that you are dodging the point: Are you suggesting that we never can? Not with perfect reliability, no. We can come reasonably close, in some cases. There are things of which we can be certain for all practical intents and purposes. I'm as certain as I can be that, if I don't eat food and drink water, I will die. It's just barely possible that I'm some sort of super-mutant who doesn't need to eat and drink, but the probability is so vanishingly small that I think I can safely discount it. But when it comes to reliably ascertaining the original intent of an author writing in an archaic form of a dead language in a cultural idiom thousands of years removed from any living person's? When that attempt is further complicated by the absolute lack of autographic texts, and therefore the complete inability to say with certainty whether any given passage is wholly true to the original? No, I don't think we can ever be completely certain.

I asked a question; I didn't make an assertion. A rhetorical question; how did it differ in substance from an assertion?

No, it's asking you where you stop questioning other parts of the Bible, and why. As I've observed before, I don't question the Bible; I question fallible men and their interpretations of the Bible. Including myself, of course. On matters of spiritual truth, I consider the Bible infallible; I believe that the truths God wanted to communicate about salvation and righteousness endure despite errors of transmission and interpretation. I believe, though, that when people attempt to misuse the Bible--employing it as a history book or a science textbook--they're going to get wrong results. That's not a failure of the Bible any more than it would be a failure of a hammer if you tried to use it to cut paper and failed.

You have not shown that any other later biblical authors didn't take it as literal. Paul certainly had no problem treating the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar as allegory. Did he also believe it was literal truth? Perhaps, but at the least he believed that it was both literally and allegorically true...which was also the viewpoint of most of the more conservative mediaval Church scholars. They saw it as primarily allegory prefiguring the coming of Christ; the literal truth of the accounts, or lack thereof, was of only secondary concern.

No, it's understanding what they wrote. You know, the reason that we have writing, to convey information. ...which can be misunderstood. You understand it one way; I understand it another way. Misunderstandings happen all the time, even with a shared language. Add in a foreign language, and the misunderstandings increase drastically. Add in an archaic language, and misunderstandings increase drastically. (Watch someone unfamiliar with Middle English try to make sense of the Canterbury Tales sometime--or, better still, Beowulf.) Add in an archaic, foreign language, and misunderstandings skyrocket. This isn't speculation; this is simple observation. We can't perfectly understand the writings of the ancient Egyptians; we can't perfectly understand the writings of the Mayans; we can't perfectly understand the writings of the Babylonians. Why would the ancient Israelites be any different? Either you accept the premise that God acted to preserve the message and make it understandable to us today--in which case you have to account for the many different interpretations throughout history, as well as the errors of transmission which we both agree have taken place--or you accept the premise that He did not, in which case you need to explain why the language in the Bible is somehow less difficult to understand with perfect accuracy than other ancient languages.

Because...? ...because inerrantists have no basis that I can see for their belief in the de facto inerrancy of their methods. (Yes, I know they don't actually SAY their methods are inerrant, but they proceed as if the perfect reliability of the historical-grammatical method was beyond question--hence, a de facto belief in its inerrancy.)

But most of the time it is, else we would be hopelessly confused. "It can't be so because that would be bad!" isn't an argument. Given the tremendous conflicts that have occurred over differing interpretations of the Bible, I would suggest that we ARE, at least on some levels, "hopelessly confused." Wars have been fought over differing interpretations of the Bible; people have been burned at the stake over the issue of whether Jesus is the "immortal Son of God" or the "son of the immortal God." When Christians can kill Christians and believe that they're doing the will of the Almighty, how much more confused can things possibly get?

I point out that Jesus treated Genesis as history, but you continue to insist that I can't be certain. You can be certain; I just don't think your certainty is justified.

...it actually means that the exception is what puts the rule to the test. Apparently not. See Exception that proves the rule. Y'know what? You've got me on that one. It contradicts what my sources on the etiology of the phrase say, but I should've remembered my Cicero--and Cicero's original formulation supports the reading you cite. Mea maxima culpa! On this point, I'm wrong, and you're right.

Yep. You're not always right. ...which is something I have cheerfully acknowledged. Are you always right?

Evidence? I'll borrow a phrase from you and say that it's a distinct impression from what you've written...and, I think, a justified one. If you can tell me that you're not axiomatically predisposed to a literal reading of Genesis and the idea that the historical-grammatical method can positively determine the correct reading, I'll consider revising my statement.

Ummm, yeah... right. Irony aside, uhm, yeah, right! Those creation.com articles you keep citing are prime examples of the great lengths people will go to in order to justify their predetermined conclusion. That's hardly a quality unique to Young Earth Creationists, but it's also not a quality from which they're exempt.

Your bias is that nobody can know for certain. Well, you've agreed that I can be wrong, so I think we can safely agree that I, at least, can't know for certain. Please tell me who the person is who can't be wrong, so that I can abandon that "bias."

But perhaps (I'm speculating here, given that you asked) you have a desire to conform to the ruling paradigm on the age of the Earth. Why? If anything, I'm a nonconformist.

Losing face? Given that you've emotionally committed to the popular view. If I were the sort of person who couldn't admit to being wrong, you might have an argument. However, you'll note that I've just done exactly that--and admitting that I was wrong about the origin of an expression I should have known is considerably more of a loss of face for me. Studying evolution is a hobby; studying language is my profession. Making errors in that area reflects poorly on my professional knowledge. If I can accept a loss of face there, I think I could accept a loss of face when it comes to my views on evolution.

As an aside, last I checked, Creationism was the "popular view," at least here in America. I've never been particularly concerned with whether my views are popular or not.

Yours, it would seem from what you are saying. But then, according to you, I've likely misunderstood what you are saying and not realised it, so perhaps you're actually saying that I have better experience. In which case my experience is more relevant. An attempt at reductio works better if it can demonstrate an absurd conclusion. The problem is that you have misunderstood what I was saying in the course of this conversation; as such, the conclusion that you may be misunderstanding me is hardly absurd. That said, there's a world of difference between "We can't be perfectly confident that we have perfectly understood the original intent of an author thousands of years removed from us" and "We probably misunderstand everything that everyone says to us." You're heading into strawman territory here, Philip; pull it back a bit.

A distinct impression from what you've written. Fair enough, but I'll claim the same privilege of making such conclusions from impressions.

What makes you think that justification can be based on what each believes, rather than why they believe it? If you can suggest a valid reason for the certain man to BE certain that he's going to live ten more years, I'll consider it. Likewise, if you can suggest a valid reason for the certain inerrantist to BE certain that HIS methods of exegesis are perfectly reliable, I'll consider it. I have heard no such reason thus far.

That aside, the Bible makes me think that justification can be based on what each believes rather than why they believe it. Christ teaches us that whosoever believes in Him shall be saved; He doesn't say "whosoever believes in me for the right, evidence-based reasons."

Yet I didn't claim that, so it was doubly irrelevant. It's completely relevant to my central thesis: that perfect certainty is neither justifiable nor prudent in many cases.

From the fact that historians base much of their work on written records, which are (a) fiction (which you would hope that they are capable of discerning and rejecting), (b) original accounts from eyewitnesses, or (c) based on earlier written accounts of type (a) or (b). What other sources do written accounts have? That's a very large simplification. In fact, I think I can safely call it an oversimplification. Are written passages informing us that Pluto orbits the sun fiction, or eyewitness accounts? Bear in mind that nobody's actually witnessed such an orbit. Written records aren't restricted to the three categories you mentioned, and there's overlap even within those categories. Is the Iliad history based on eyewitness accounts, or is it fiction? Historically, in many cultures, there WAS no fine line between "factual historical account" and "fiction." That's a modern distinction, and it's a serious mistake to presume that modern standards were universally held.

First, I only have that notion in particular cases, such as history; not in all cases. What in the world would make an eyewitness account more reliable simply because it's "history?" Were the tales of Marco Polo's travels, which were presented as eyewitness accounts, perfectly reliable? If not, what evidence outweighs those eyewitness accounts?

How else but eyewitness testimony could you tell that, for example, Vesuvius erupted on 24th August, 79AD? Oh, I can think of ways. We could find multiple calendars buried in the ash, all marking it as that day, just for instance. It wouldn't be absolute proof, but then again, neither would an eyewitness account.

Not at all. Simply a case of going with the appropriate experts. And how is your claim, if reversed, any different to what secular people do? They reject anyone who presents a case for a young Earth because they don't consider them authorities. Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Horse before the cart, at least in my case. I don't reject the claims of Young Earth Creationists because I don't consider them authorities; I don't consider them authorities because, having evaluated their claims and found them to be generally seriously lacking, I reject their claims. It's the difference between an authoritarian and non-authoritarian mindset. Of course, I'm not a "secular person," and I can't really speak for anyone other than myself. I will say that I think that anyone who simply rejects Creationist arguments categorically because they're Creationist arguments is as misguided as a Creationist who rejects all evolutionary arguments categorically because they're evolutionary arguments. As I said before, I take Creationist arguments seriously enough to investigate them; if I reject them, it's because, having investigated them, I have found that they contain serious flaws.

First, that was the implication of your wording. No, that was what you took to be the implication of my wording. You misunderstood it. Perhaps I could have worded it better, but I think most people would have gotten the point I was making.

Given that the "explanation" is not an explanation (it doesn't explain anything), this comment is nonsense. Oh, it would explain all sorts of things. "Why do good things happen to bad people?" comes to mind immediately. It's not the only explanation, and I don't think it's the correct explanation, but it would be an explanation.

But you've not explained what is wrong with this, or why I am criticised for it but others (e.g. materialists) are not. If someone were to present a credible case where materialists rejected a claim simply because it was based on the "wrong worldview," I would take issue with it. Lord knows I've called some rabid anti-theists out on the carpet as the result of such reflexive dismissal! Most of the examples Creationists cite, though, fall flat; the claims are rejected because they don't stand up to serious scrutiny.

If that's the way it "seems" to you, then you need to open your eyes. My standared for the "wrong worldview" is anyone who holds a worldview that is incompatible with mine. That is, the worldview—not the evidence—is incompatible. With respect, how would you ever be able to evaluate whether your worldview is wrong, given that standard? It sounds very much like your standard for "right" is "agrees with Philip."

Let's see. I'll take your word that in your experience no creationist has presented evidence to the contrary. But you've also indicated that (a) most creationists don't make very good arguments, such that you have little respect for them, and (b) I am an exception—you respect me. Therefore, I find your comment that in your experience no creationist can present evidence to the contrary, as a justification for your presumption that I can't either, to be rather hollow. ...except that I have encountered other Creationists I respected, and they couldn't provide such evidence, either. Why would the fact that I respect you except you from an observation that has, thus far, had no exceptions in my experience?

Further, this completely dodges my point that "You were the one who made the dogmatic claim. The onus is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it." That remains true as of this conversation. You then proceeded to systematically disallow all possible methods of proof. I'm not allowed to cite secular studies, because you've declared that all secular studies are based on the wrong worldview. I'm not allowed to cite actual lists of Creationists compiled BY Creationists, because you say there are probably many more and thus those figures are unreliable. What evidence WOULD you accept as proof? If there is none, a demand for proof is disingenuous.

I reject the relevance of the evidence. I can legitimately do that without providing any evidence of my own. Sure. Just like you could simply say "Nope, that's wrong!" to every claim you dislike without ever providing evidence. Many people do that. It doesn't, however, amount to any kind of compelling case--and neither does rejecting the relevance of the evidence without providing any competing evidence.

Geoff Downes, D. B. Gower, Bob Hosken, Dean Kenyon, John K.G. Kramer, Peter Line, Gina Mohammed, Gary Parker, Timothy G. Standish, Susanna Su, Esther Su, ... oops. Too many. Also not what I asked for. I'll admit that I'm not familiar with everyone on that list, but the ones with whom I am familiar, for the most part, don't fit the bill. Gower is hardly someone who was converted after hearing the Creationist account, given that according to his own biography, he was raised in a Creationist home. Hosken, again by his own account, always rejected the idea of naturalistic evolution. Ditto with Kramer, who grew up believing in a young Earth, had some doubts later in life, and then settled back into firm belief in a young Earth. What you've given me here is largely a group of biologists and geneticists who grew up believing in God and the creationary account--hardly a group that had to be "exposed to the creationary side." "Briefly flirted with evolution" would be a better description for a lot of them.

Which is more useful—a lack of evidence or misleading evidence? I'd have to say misleading evidence. I have terrible eyesight, but that doesn't mean I'd rather be blind. I might be able to learn something useful from even misleading evidence--like, for instance, why it's misleading.

On the contrary, I think you're getting painfully close to blaming the victim. There is widespread suppression and vilification of the creationary view, but you seem to think that these efforts at suppression are totally ineffective, so that if someone fails to investigate it, it must be their fault. I think the notion of such suppression is vastly overstated, given that (if anything) the creationist perspective is dominant in American culture. I don't see how a group can both claim that they're the majority and that they're suppressed and persecuted...yet Creationists make both arguments regularly.

Take the case d'jour, for instance: David Coppedge. Creationists have been gearing up to declare this a case of censorship of intelligent design since before the court case began, REGARDLESS of the verdict. They've already said, in essence, "Coppedge is obviously the victim of discrimination and if the Judge doesn't rule the right way then he's an activist judge and an agent of the evolutionists."

But is that really the case? Conspicuously absent from Creationist accounts are the claims that Coppedge refused to keep his skills up to date, which would be a serious problem for a computer specialist at NASA. As for the charges of workplace harassment which Creationists claim are unjustified: if the situation were reversed...if an ATHEIST working at NASA were going around constantly attempting to engage Christians in arguments about why their beliefs were wrong, and repeatedly tried to make them watch DVDs talking about why the Bible is full of lies...would Creationists feel the same way? Of course not; I suspect they absolutely agree that that constituted workplace harassment, and applaud loudly if such a person were fired.

Coppedge will go down in the Creationist accounts as yet another clear-cut case of someone who was fired for no other reason than to silence intelligent design. It'll happen regardless of the ruling in the court case, and regardless of the evidence presented; that was a foregone conclusion from the moment he was fired. How many other "clear-cut cases" are the same?

If a government (to use an exaggerated analogy) tries to prevent access to the Bible on the Internet, disallows it from being discussed in its schools, bans the media from reporting on it, won't allow it to be printed anywhere, but fails to stop people from copying it out and passing it on, would you disagree with those that complain about this suppression, calling them "a little bit silly" because the government hasn't managed to suppress it completely? I'd certainly call them a little bit silly if they employed an analogy THAT overblown!

As I said, the analogy is exaggerated... ...and then some! Sorry, Philip, but it's so exaggerated that I don't see that it has any relevance at all. Any response I make to it would have nothing to do with the actual situation at hand.

...but the point is that you are ignoring the widespread attempts to suppress and criticising me for highlighting this on the grounds that the message is not completely suppressed. How about "not suppressed very much at all?" I can walk into any bookstore and find Creationist books--generally more easily than I can find books on evolution. I can find dozens upon dozens of Creationist websites. I can find colleges where the entire faculty is required to sign a statement of faith affirming that Young Earth Creationism is correct, and any faculty member repudiating that statement is fired. I can find television programs on Creationism; I can find giant theme parks dedicated to Creationism (and getting pretty juicy tax breaks, to boot!)

Most positions would kill to be so "suppressed." I'm hearing many ASSERTIONS of widespread suppression, but I'm not seeing much EVIDENCE.

That is not "laying the groundwork". That is trying to put the onus on my to disprove your (so far baseless) assertion. So I repeat: The fact that you provide this non-study in support of your claim actually supports my claim that there are no good figures supporting your claim. You're asking me for a square circle. You want me to produce "good figures"--you will only ACCEPT "good figures"--but you've already taken the position that no figures can be "good" because of the possibility of "suppressed" Creationists hiding in the woodwork. What am I do to in such a situation? It's a little like the ever-popular "Until you can show me a dog turning into a cat, you haven't proven evolution!" Well, of course, the problem with that is that a dog turning into a cat is impossible according to evolutionary theory. It would completely overturn it. Such Catch-22's just don't have a place in honest debate, in my opinion.

So I was right. Your claim was that "Creationists don't simply interpret the evidence according to a different worldview; they flat-out reject any evidence that contradicts that worldview." and backed this up with "...the BSG's standards for determining baramins--[lists] as their first principle the rule that any evidence which would contradict what they believe the Bible teaches must be disregarded". However, the principle you quote says nothing about rejecting evidence. Rather, it talks about which sources take priority, in an inexact science where competing claims need to be weighed up. Err...no. You might have a case if they'd made allowance for a preponderance of evidence to trump their scriptural beliefs; they do not. No evidence, no matter how compelling, can take precedence over what they believe scripture teaches. That's very clear from the standards laid down. I stand by my characterization.

Which, as I pointed out and you didn't address, is hardly applicable to the chronogenealogies in Genesis. I didn't address it because you didn't explain why you think it's not applicable. What makes you confident that the Biblical chronologies are complete and correct...particularly given that the same chronologies in different parts of the Bible feature different numbers of names? (I'm thinking specifically of Cainan, here, since he does NOT appear in the Genesis chronology but DOES appear in Luke; we could also discuss the differences between Chronicles and Matthew.)

Yet you subsequent comments show otherwise. The fact that I disagree with his arguments doesn't mean I don't know them.

That may have been the conclusion, but it's false to suggest that that was the gist of the paper. It was the portion relevant to the topic at hand.

You mean apart from "Biblical chronology should be based on the Masoretic Text, because the other texts show evidence of editing.3 For example, The Septuagint chronologies are demonstrably inflated, as they contain the (obvious) error that Methuselah lived 17 years after the Flood."? And apart from the paper referenced in that bit? That's precisely the bit that proves my point. He justifies his argument that the Septuagint's chronologies are inflated because they contradict a date for the Flood. That date is the result of calculations arrived at...by assuming the Masoretic Text is accurate, among other things.

Are you certain of that (that the value of certainty is questionable)? I have questioned the value of certainty; therefore, the value of certainty is questionable, Q.E.D. Now, it's always possible that I'm in error--I could, for example, simply be a figument of someone's imagination, and not really extant--but that seems like needless navel-gazing in this case. I'm reasonably certain...and, I'll note, you're questioning even that level of certainty.

In any case, I seem to recall you claiming an inability to be certain, not a lack of value in it. Not exactly. I've pointed out numerous examples of certainty. The terrorists responsible for 9/11 were certain enough to die for their beliefs. It's just that, as far as I'm concerned, they were wrong. Their certainty was as close to absolute as humans can get, but it wasn't justified. I'm not claiming that certainty is impossible; I'm claiming that, in many cases, it's unjustified.

You claimed that the early church was divided, and my response was that I didn't agree that "divided" was any more appropriate term than it would be today regarding JWs. My comment has as much weight behind it as yours. ...except that the church today isn't calling councils comparable to the Council of Nicaea to resolve those issues.

Ummm, with the evidence? You mean "the evidence that you don't reject as irrelevant because you think it's probably wrong?" What evidence could I possibly present that would be compelling to you?

I have not. I've said that I won't accept explanations based on a worldview contrary to mine; I haven't said that I won't accept hard facts from people holding such a view. ...but given the scope of what you reject as "explanation," I'm not sure ANY facts could ever convince you that you're in error. Is there any demonstrable fact you can imagine which you couldn't fit into your existing worldview? If I presented hard facts that DID pose a problem for your worldview, what would stop you from concluding that the figures were probably inaccurate, given that biased evolutionists provided them?

Why the quote marks? I consider it a politically-loaded term--and not a particularly useful one, given the broad spectrum of people Creationists lump into the category. When we're talking about polystrate fossils, which are properly the domain of geology and have nothing at all to do with evolution, putting "evolutionist" in quotes is appropriate.

Wow! You must be older than I thought! The problem, after all, is that those layers are supposed to have taken millions of years to build up, and all the while these trees are standing there not rotting. And you've seen this happen? The only way you would have seen this happen is if the layers built up quickly, before the tree had time to rot. But that involves rapid processes, not ones over the supposed geological deep time. ...and that's one of the mistakes Young Earth Creationists constantly make--the assumption that because deep-time geology involves large periods of time, everything must have taken long periods of time. That's not the case. Rapid burials happen; why would that pose a problem for deep-time geology? Can you present a single "evolutionary" source arguing that rapid sedimentation doesn't take place? The thing is, we know the conditions under which it takes place, and we know what sorts of traces such conditions leave.

Yeah? Explanation (how is it a problem for creationists?) and evidence please. As I said: Creationists can't explain how an in situ polystrate fossil with an extended root network extending through multiple layers of "flood sediment" could have occurred (except, perhaps, by saying "God must have made it happen.") The existence of such fossils has been a matter of record for a hundred and fifty years; John Dawson described them in his book, Acadian Geology: The geological structure, organic remains, and mineral resources of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.

Incorrect. They abandoned it because they decided to adopt a new (and contra-biblical) paradigm, that of uniformitarianism. Really? All of the geologists in the world just up and decided to adopt a new paradigm one day, despite the fact that there was no good evidence for it? Why would they do that? Who got them together and planned it? Why weren't the Creationist geologists able to defeat this little insurrection, given that (according to you) their position was stronger and better supported?

It wasn't the evidence that cause them to change their views, it was a philosophy. And "flood geology" didn't exist at the time anyway. Not in the form popularized by Morris, no, but I think we can safely say that most of the essential elements were there. After all, didn't you claim that most Christians throughout history have believed what you believe?

Further, the evidence has caused geologists to partially abandon the uniformitarian paradigm, returning to accepting the existence of catastrophes. They never rejected the existence of catastrophes; they simply posit that those catastrophes were governed by the same forces that govern catastrophes today.

Hmmm. I should have asked you to give me an example of this. Most polystrate fossils don't have intact rootlets (or even roots), consistent with them being torn up in a violent flood. I'm curious: how do you know that most of them don't have intact rootlets? How many have you examined? I'll freely admit that I have no idea what the ratio is; where are you finding that data? As for examples, what would you accept? I can provide quotes from Dawson, for instance, but will you simply reject them? I can probably dig up some other online papers discussing such fossils, but will you accept those? I'm trying NOT to link to "evolutionist" websites, because you've already indicates that you'll reject those (although you seem to think I should accept Creation Ministries International as a valid and reliable source.)

I've never heard of such a thing. Such fossils are documented here: Gastaldo, R.A., 1992, Regenerative growth in fossil horsetails (Calamites) following burial by alluvium. Historical Biology, 6(3):203-220. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to find an online copy of the paper outside of a subscription database. I had to go to my local university's maths and sciences library to track it down; you might be able to do the same.

Doesn't "begin" to???? Doesn't begin to. Where did the excess heat go?

Ummm, what's the issue there? What's the issue with a solid core as opposed to a molten core? Well, for starters, the earth's magnetic field is largely dependent on the molten core. No magnetic field would be sort of problematic. (Of course, we can just add our understanding of the magnetic field to "evolutionist assumptions," if you like. The list is awfully long already, and it's pretty fundamental to geophysics, but...)

Why the quote marks? You might disagree that the explanations are correct ones, but why disagree that they are explanations? ...because I don't believe they do explain the evidence.

You mean that artificial construct maintained by evolutionists? No, I mean the ACTUAL geologic column--the one which can be observed in its entirety in numerous places (and the list is growing all the time--a side effect of deep-core oil drilling.) Woodmorappe's obfuscations notwithstanding, it most definitely exists.

Or what we have is evolutionists making sweeping statements devoid of specifics. And there's another of those sweeping statements devoid of specifics. This would have more weight if you weren't taking the position that you can reject the relevance of data without providing evidence of your own. These responses are already works of a couple of hours; if you want more specifics on a particular claim, I'll be happy to provide them, but I'm NOT going to go into a dissertation on each and every point. I just don't have that much time to devote. If we're going to get into detailed specifics, we're also going to have to narrow the focus of our discussion quite a bit.

Utter nonsense. I was being kind in merely saying that it sounds like more rhetoric. Your claim was that "if Young Earth Creationists are right, EVERYTHING we know is wrong." This completely-over-the-top, fact-free, logic-free assertion is utter nonsense. I called you on it, and all you could do is assert that it's true. Name one field of science that would not have to be rewritten from the ground up to account for Young Earth Creationism.

In fact the paper you subsequently linked to in support of that claim doesn't mention that age. Strike 1. Would you have preferred numerous websites that cite that age? I figured you'd disallow those as coming from "amateur Creationists."

You followed up with: ...the specific study being criticized was conducted by Funkhouser and Naughton in the early 1960's. In fact they were not criticising that paper. Strike 2. In fact, they were--just as part of a blanket criticism. It wasn't the main focus of the paper, true; I never said that it was.

You have failed to substantiated your claim, which is therefore shown to be false. My goodness, THAT'S a large assumption! Employing that same logic, I can declare your assertion that surveys of how many scientists accept Creationism are unreliable to be false, since you haven't substantiated THAT! If you'd like more substantiation, I'll cheerfully provide it; I just thought I'd try to stick to sources that meet your approval as "mainstream Creationists."

Strawman! Creationists do not cite the age of Niagara Falls as evidence of the age of the Earth. Rather, they cite it's age to show that it's not inconsistent with a biblical age. No? "Well, now hold it! Niagara Falls has only moved 7 miles. All the textbooks agree, Niagara Falls has moved about 7 miles. Well, at 4 or 5 feet a year, that would be 9,900 years. If the earth is billions of years old, why has it not moved all the way to Lake Erie by now? Why has Niagara Falls only moved about 7 miles? Well, about 6,000 years ago, God created the heaven and the earth, 4,400 years ago there was a Flood that destroyed the world. As the Flood water was running off about half of that creek probably washed out very quickly because there was lots of water moving through soft mud. Today it is just a trickle and it is over solid rock so the erosion rate is pretty slow. See, they forgot the Flood, that is why they look at it and think it took 9,900 years, when in reality it only took 4,400 years plus one Flood." http://www.truthingenesis.com/Age_of_the_Earth.html

So no creationist can ever provide sufficient justification, because they are not God. And the only justification that you would accept is one that you can't provide to anyone else. Not the only justification; the strongest justification. I can think of other justifications that I would accept--but no Creationist has ever actually provided them. The discovery of Noah's Ark would be strong justification; the discovery of archaelogical and paleontological evidence consistent with all life radiating outward from a central point somewhere around Turkey would be strong justification.

But "some" indication was given: the fact that this is the only section without a human author being named, not to mention the only section describing events not witnessed by a human. ...and on that basis, I'm supposed to conclude that God wrote it directly? Again, word of man, not Word of God, and pretty darned sketchy reasoning. No, thank you; for all that non-inerrantists like me are accused of taking liberties with the Bible, that's WAY farther into the field of supposition and speculation than I'm comfortable going!

More rhetoric, given that you've not provided a scrap of reasoning for your claim. The problem is that you won't acknowledge it if I do--because as far as you're concerned, there IS no difference. How am I to show you, given that?

How many other creationary scientists do you know that are not connected with those organisations but do publicly speak on the topic? Quite a few. Setting aside all of the Old-Earth Creationists...of whom there are many, and who should properly be included, since they are, in fact, part of the Creationist community...there's Kent Hovind, Carl Baugh, Don Patton, Malcolm Bowden, John Pendleton, Laurence Tisdall, Todd Wood, and Ian Juby, just off the top of my head.

Yet none of the things you list stand up to scrutiny. I disagree; I think they stand up just fine.

Where did he "claim" that the ages were accurate? And why do you think that a junior author could get away with including a disclaimer? If he didn't agree with the information in the paper, academic integrity should have compelled him not to sign his name to it.

Yes, in the sense that they are the accepted ages, but it does not follow from that that Snelling was endorsing them. That's a bit like saying that if I was one of the authors of a paper which mentioned as an established matter of fact that the age of the Earth was 6,000 years, it wouldn't follow that I was endorsing a young Earth. If I sign my name to it, I'm endorsing it.

The link I provided was to a rebuttal of Plimer's book, which book didn't mention Snelling giving any ages; it only mentioned the names of eras. ...which is, I think, remarkably selective and somewhat disingenuous. The paper mentions ages; Plimer's book probably shouldn't have excluded them. False. Rather, they point out that there is a ruling paradigm that suppresses creationary views. I've already explained why I think THAT particular complaint is wildly overblown.

"Seems"? It seems that you are ignoring the fact that creationists views get suppressed and want to pick on a creationist who has had to tiptoe through that suppression, and find fault with him rather than with the suppressors. It seems that you're okay with a Creationist co-authoring a paper which lends credence to the idea of an old Earth on the basis that being open about his views could have a negative impact on his career. So you completely ignore the actual arguments given and simply criticise them for pointing out the problems. WHAT arguments? They didn't PRESENT any arguments; they presented distractions and rationalizations. Show me where they offered ANY evidence that Snelling did not, in fact, co-author a paper which presumed an ancient Earth.

The fact remains that this amounts to trying to point out the (alleged) splinter in the creationist's eye while ignoring the log in the anti-creationists eye. Well, two things spring to mind immediately. First, I don't recall any anti-creationists co-authoring papers which contradict their stated position; second, it seems to me that Christians should hold themselves to higher standards when it comes to honesty and integrity.

The assumption here, of course, is that oil, coal, and natural gas are formed by predictable, uniform processes, that those processes are predictable, and that, by making such predictions, likely locations for oil, coal, and natural gas can be ascertained. I wouldn't argue against those being the assumptions. But I question what makes them evolutionary assumptions. Creationists would agree that the processess are predictable. ...but disagree on what the processes were. The processes which they stipulate actually aren't predictable, because in large part, they involve a massive catastrophe which (it is posited) didn't conform to the same natural laws in place today. How would one predict where such a catastrophe would lay down deposits?

Deep-time models may indeed predict that, but I have a question about that which I'll get back to. But so would creationary models, because (a) creationary models say that the world was once a much wetter place (and I'm not talking about the year of the flood, but post-flood), (b) creationary models would predict more garden-like (than desert-like) conditions before the flood, and (c) creationary models would predict that biomass could get washed into all sorts of places. "All sorts of places" isn't very precise, and that's the point: a Flood model WOULD suggest that biomass distribution would be more-or-less unpredictable, because a global Food WOULD wash biomass into all sorts of places. None of what you mention would suggest oil deposits in a particular area at a particular depth--whereas a deep-time geology model does make such predictions. (Positing that there was a large rain-forest in a specific location during the upper Cretaceous, for example, permits a prediction that oil should be found at a depth roughly corresponding to that epoch. That's grossly oversimplified, of course, and I'm sure that a qualified geologist could name a hundred other factors of which I'm not aware.)

What you have not explained is why a deep-time view would predict oil in those specific locations rather than other locations. I would say that on a deep-time view everywhere would have had the right conditions at some time or other. The key phrase there is "at some time or other." The question is which time. Since deep time geology equates age with depth, a prediction of time also allows a prediction of depth...and, given how successful petroleum companies have been at locating oil reserves, those predictions must be pretty good ones. If they weren't, why in the world would said companies continue to employ those pesky deep-time geologists?

But it was the Christian worldview—not the enlightenment—that gave rise to modern science. I think that's overstated. The Christian worldview was a factor, but hardly the only one.

Your claim that I called false (a) said that Snelling "claim[ed]" an age of millions of years, and (b) implied dishonesty which is not the case. It's not? If a scientist signs his name to a medical report claiming that a drug is safe, and the drug turns out to be wildly dangerous, don't you think the scientist is going to be held accountable? Would you accept a defense of "I was only a junior author" or "I didn't actually believe everything in the paper?" Scientists are responsible for the information to which they affix their names, and that includes Snelling. It's possible that he didn't intend to deceive people; neither you nor I knows that for sure. At the end of the day, though, it doesn't matter; he put his name to a paper which contained information he believed to be untrue.

When you say that you know for sure that you can't know for sure, and, further, when you claim that others can't know for sure. I know I'm not inerrant; why would I presume that others are?

What's arrogant about thinking that that's a better approach than to say "I know everything I need to know?" Because there is no reason to think that uncertainty is inherently better than certainty. Well, yes, there is; pretty good reason, really. For any given issue, there is one right answer and there are many, many wrong answers. The odds of a wrong answer, all other things being equal, are much higher than the odds of a right answer. On positions where people hold many different beliefs, most of those beliefs are of a necessity wrong. If all of them are certain of their beliefs, then most of them are WRONGLY certain. No matter how you slice it, certainty is going to be unjustified more often than it's justified.

Which is exactly what you have done. You've fallen into the trap of assuming that your belief that it's better to be uncertain is obviously right. I think it's justified, to be sure. In fact, I think you would agree with me in all cases except yours. Would it be better for a Muslim to be certain that he's right, or to be uncertain, and thus open to the possibility of conversion? How about a Buddhist? A Hindu? An atheist? An old-Earth Creationist? A theistic evolutionist? Is it better for them to be certain, or uncertain?

Including the belief that we can't be certain about various things in the Bible? Again, you can be certain; I just don't think the certainty is justified when it comes to the tenets of Creationism. I'm certain about various things in the Bible; they're just different things, and they're justified, not by semantic arguments and heuristics, but by faith.

Yet that is what you say: "I know I'm right (that you can't be certain about particular things in the Bible), end of sentence". Nope. Tu quoque falls flat; I don't say that.

I don't know, but possibly very good evidence that the main manuscripts of the New Testament are forgeries. Such as...? I'm seriously trying to picture the evidence that would be convincing here. How many of those manuscripts would have to be forgeries? How would we know they were forgeries? Given that most of them were written after the fact anyway, what would constitute a "forgery," as opposed to a second-hand account?

How do you know He is God? And how do you know that God can be trusted? Through faith. It is by faith alone that we are justified.

How do you know that? Is that something you get from that Bible that is not God's Word, is not inerrant, and which you can't know anything for certain about? Yep. It's something I get from the Bible which I consider to be revealed spiritual truth. Not necessarily literal, historical truth; not inerrant; but truth nonetheless, and spiritually infallible.

Okay, you have confidence and assurance, but I asked you about reason, which you answered "yep" to but didn't explain. Faith is my reason. Personal communion with God is my reason. This notion that faith is primarily evidence-based is recent, and in my opinion, contrary to what the Bible teaches.

Yes, I know that faith is based on evidence, but you're denying that, so is your faith blind faith? Only if you believe that personal communion with God is of no worth. If you think that prayer is of no value and God doesn't speak to His children in their hearts, then by all means, call my faith "blind." It IS faith in the traditional sense--faith that accepts that the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man and that Mystery is at the heart of faith. Paul knew this very well; he pointed out that, to someone who is not saved, the message of the Cross is foolishness. It's NOT obvious; it's NOT "evidence based." If it was, then it would be obvious whether or NOT someone is saved. God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached. Those who seek wisdom are NOT on the right track.

I'm not questioning your Christianity, but the basis for your Christianity. With respect, when you question whether we're worshiping the same God, then, yes, you're questioning my Christianity--or your own, but I really doubt that that's the case.

Unfortunately, I should have expected this from you: avoiding answering the point. The point is no point at all. You're attempting, as many Creationists do, to re-invent faith as something based on evidence and rationalism, and it isn't. The robber crucified on the cross, if he'd gone on evidence, would have concluded that Christ was just another prisoner in the same boat. He had plenty of evidence of that. Christ bled, He suffered, He asked why He had been abandoned, He was mocked and did nothing about it. But the robber had faith--not because of the evidence, but DESPITE the evidence. And his reward was salvation. I reject your point, because I reject the underlying assumption on which you base it.

--BRPierce (talk) 02:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I haven't heard from you in a bit, and I hope that doesn't mean you've abandoned the discussion. I'd like to narrow things down for a bit and focus on a single assertion which I feel is really at the core of the "mainstream" Creationism you advocate--the assertion that mutations represent only "loss or modification of information" and that no "gain in information" has ever been observed.

The problem I see with this is that virtually anything can be conceptualized as a loss or change of information. E coli demonstrates a novel capability to metabolize citrate? It lost the information that prevented it from metabolizing citrate. C. vulgaris mutates from a unicellular form into a stable eight-celled form? It lost the information that kept it at a single-celled size.

Thus, my question to you is simply this: what would you accept as a clear, unambiguous gain in information? What could I or anyone else show you that would make you say "Yep, no doubt about it, there was a gain in information here?" --BRPierce (talk) 01:46, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

No, I haven't abandoned the discussion. I've had a reply largely prepared for a couple of weeks, but I've been extremely busy and I need to review and possibly add to my reply before I post it. However, I expect to be able to do that in the very near future.

The problem I have with your questions about loss of information is that it typically comes from a position which denies the very premise of information. I believe that it is blatantly obvious that to go from a single-celled organism such as a bacterium to the wide variety of life we see today there must be a massive gain in genetic information, and evolution has no evidence to support that it is capable of supplying all this information. So it quibbles about whether particular changes constitute a gain or a loss. To use a loose analogy, if the amount of genetic information was plotted on a graph from the last universal common ancestor up to, say, humans, there would be a very obvious clear line from very near the bottom left of the graph (i.e. near 0,0) to the top right of the graph, albeit not a straight line. Evolution cannot provide a mechanism for this. So it zooms into the line so far that you can see the individual pixels making up the graph line, and then asks the creationist to demonstrate his claim at that scale.

The specific answer to the questions in your final paragraph is two-fold. First, creationists don't deny that there may, by chance, occasionally be very minor trivial gains in information. What, I believe, ID proponent Behe discusses in Edge of evolution (if I have the correct title; this is from memory). The problem is that evolution needs to demonstrate ways to gain massive amounts of new information, not these minor trivial changes. Second, a clear, unambiguous gain in information of the sort required by evolution (i.e. the non-trivial) would be the appearance of a completely new function, structure, or organ. Not necessarily on the scale, of, say, a kidney, and not necessarily in a single step. But nevertheless something that was not just a variant of something already existing, which Lenski's experiments produced.

But now to back up to your previous paragraph: Your argument seems to be that creationists will represent any change in information as a loss, regardless of whether it's a loss or a gain. What you are not arguing is that it's actually a gain in information. You claim that information was "lost" in C. vulgaris, implying that this could actually be seen as a gain, but would be characterised by creationists as a loss. But you've not discussed the actual genetic information and made any sort of argument that it is actually a gain. Rather, the implicit assumption is that there is no such thing as a gain or a loss—denying, as I said at the start, the very premise of information. According to this page, the change in C. vulgaris was due to the failure of a pump. That is, something stopped working the way it was supposed to. Now, assuming that this failure was due to a mutation, we here have a case of a change in information such that something that the information coded for it no longer codes for. That is a loss of information, by definition. How that could be seen as a gain in information is something that can only be done by evolutionists who deny the reality of a quantitative entity.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 02:38, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

No, I haven't abandoned the discussion. I've had a reply largely prepared for a couple of weeks, but I've been extremely busy and I need to review and possibly add to my reply before I post it. However, I expect to be able to do that in the very near future.

Glad to hear from you! I completely understand; it's a busy time of year. I'll look forward to reading your response.

The problem I have with your questions about loss of information is that it typically comes from a position which denies the very premise of information. I believe that it is blatantly obvious that to go from a single-celled organism such as a bacterium to the wide variety of life we see today there must be a massive gain in genetic information, and evolution has no evidence to support that it is capable of supplying all this information.

It certainly seems to make sense, doesn't it? A human is bigger and more complex than an amoeba; therefore, it should require more information. Except, of course, that that's not what we actually see; in reality, some "simple" organisms have genomes far larger than the human genome. Amoeba dubia, for example, has 200 times more DNA than a human. How to account for that? Now, you could argue that most of that extra DNA is junk DNA...but the existence of massive amounts of junk DNA is problematic for design arguments, and it's been my experience that most Creationists deny that there's such a thing a

So it quibbles about whether particular changes constitute a gain or a loss. To use a loose analogy, if the amount of genetic information was plotted on a graph from the last universal common ancestor up to, say, humans, there would be a very obvious clear line from very near the bottom left of the graph (i.e. near 0,0) to the top right of the graph, albeit not a straight line. Evolution cannot provide a mechanism for this. So it zooms into the line so far that you can see the individual pixels making up the graph line, and then asks the creationist to demonstrate his claim at that scale.

...because when we zoom out to the big line, we find that no matter how many points we plot on that line, Creationists simply say "Those aren't valid points!" Of course we're going to zoom in at that point! You can't plot a line until you agree on the equation!

Here's the problem, Philip: it's impossible to talk about how fast an organism can gain information unless we know what counts as a gain of information. We've observed species that undergo changes that double the number of chromosomes they have, but Creationists typically say that that's not a gain in information, because it duplicates existing information and doesn't add anything new. We've observed point mutations within that duplicated material, creating novel genetic material, but Creationists say THAT isn't a gain in information, because it modifies existing information. So what would count? Generally, it seems like the only thing that would satisfy Creationists is for new information to suddenly appear out of nowhere--which doesn't happen, and which evolutionary theory says is impossible. So what counts as a gain in information? I think it's a pretty critical question.

The specific answer to the questions in your final paragraph is two-fold. First, creationists don't deny that there may, by chance, occasionally be very minor trivial gains in information.

Well, I have to raise an eyebrow at that; Answers in Genesis, for example, has always been pretty unequivocal in saying that mutations always represent a loss of information, in my experience. It's possible that they've moderated that stance, but I'd have to see it...and, of course, as soon as you acknowledge that gains in information can take place, you next have to explain why only "trivial" gains can take place.

What, I believe, ID proponent Behe discusses in Edge of evolution (if I have the correct title; this is from memory).

Let's recall that Behe also accepts that universal common descent is evident; he's arguing from more-or-less the same position I am. We both believe that evolution required guidance, but we also accept that the evidence indicates that it took place. Behe believes there's an edge to evolution--but he thinks that edge is out beyond "We evolved from a common ancestor."

The problem is that evolution needs to demonstrate ways to gain massive amounts of new information, not these minor trivial changes. Second, a clear, unambiguous gain in information of the sort required by evolution (i.e. the non-trivial) would be the appearance of a completely new function, structure, or organ. Not necessarily on the scale, of, say, a kidney, and not necessarily in a single step. But nevertheless something that was not just a variant of something already existing, which Lenski's experiments produced.

...except that that's not how evolution works, Philip. It modifies what's already there; you know the theory well enough to know that. EVERYTHING is a variant of something already existing. Demanding that someone produce a new function that doesn't result from modification as proof of a theory that amounts to "common descent with modification" is demanding a square circle; it's akin to saying "Show me a cat turning into a dog and I'll believe in evolution." If I could show you a dog turning into a cat...or a new trait appearing from nowhere that didn't either duplicate or modify a previous trait...it would, in fact, disprove the theory of evolution. No fair trying to get me to do Creationists' work for them!

But now to back up to your previous paragraph: Your argument seems to be that creationists will represent any change in information as a loss, regardless of whether it's a loss or a gain.

That's certainly been my experience.

What you are not arguing is that it's actually a gain in information. You claim that information was "lost" in C. vulgaris, implying that this could actually be seen as a gain, but would be characterised by creationists as a loss.

Oh, I'll cheerfully argue that we've observed and documented gains in information. We've seen increased volume of genetic information; we've seen the emergence of novel genetic information; we've seen the emergence of novel traits based on genetic information. By any reasonable definition of "gain in information," it's taken place, and it's observed and documented. The problem is that the Creationists I've encountered don't accept ANY of those definitions...leaving me to wonder exactly what WOULD qualify in their eyes.

But you've not discussed the actual genetic information and made any sort of argument that it is actually a gain.

How can I? Whether it's a gain or a loss depends entirely on what we mean by "gain" and "loss!" By some definitions, it would be a gain; by others, it would be a loss.

According to this page, the change in C. vulgaris was due to the failure of a pump. That is, something stopped working the way it was supposed to. Now, assuming that this failure was due to a mutation, we here have a case of a change in information such that something that the information coded for it no longer codes for. That is a loss of information, by definition. How that could be seen as a gain in information is something that can only be done by evolutionists who deny the reality of a quantitative entity.

It's a loss of information by ONE definition, that being "A set of instructions for a predetermined function." There's an assumption implicit in your argument, and I think it's at the heart of the issue. You're assuming that there's an ideal way that any given organism is SUPPOSED to work--and proceeding from that assumption, ANY change would be a "loss of information," because it would be a departure from that ideal. Humans experience a mutation that leads to super-dense, nearly-unbreakable bones? Applying your assumption, that simply means that the factors regulating their bone density aren't working the way they're supposed to--loss of information.

The truth is that I haven't the faintest idea of whether the change observed by Boraas in C. vulgaris is a "gain in information." I simply haven't pored over the data to the point of being able to explain the specific genetic change. If I found that it added novel genetic information which resulted in a major morphological change, I'd be inclined to call that a "gain in information"...but you've already declared that because that change involved altering an existing function, it's a loss. Again, we need a clear definition, because without it ANY change could be characterized either way.

Of course, that raises an interesting question: if a loss of information can result in a change so drastic that it represents a shift, not just in species, but in family...then why would we need a gain in information for evolution? We could just as easily see that amoeba with 200 times as much DNA as humans go through a series of "losses of information" that add major new functions.

Let's take a specific example: Apolipoprotein A1-Milano. By all reasonable standards, this is a gain in information. There's novel genetic material (the mutation adds an extra cysteine bridge to the protein.) There's added function (it enables dimerization of the molecule.) There's a significant benefit to the organism (drastically reduced rates of heart disease and arterial plaque formation.) What more is needed? About the only argument I can see that a Creationist could possibly make is that the cysteine replaces argenine, and therefore it somehow "doesn't count" as a gain of information--but then we're right back to not accepting anything but a magical gain of information that appears de novo, without cause or source, which would disprove evolution!

--BRPierce (talk) 22:33, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I replied "Duh! So do I.", and your response completely missed the point, which was that claiming that The text says "the Word of God"; I take it to mean the Word of God. is saying nothing, as we can both agree with that statement, because it's just stating that "A = A". I was not making a major point; just pointing out that your wording was such that it said nothing.

You're asking me to prove that Scripture is NOT the Word of God. No, I'm not asking you to; I was pointing out that you haven't.

I maintain that it's on inerrantists to prove that it is, since they're the ones making the assertion... If they do, then yes. I wasn't however. As I've said to Yopienso on my talk page, I think this is a red herring. My position is that Scripture is inerrant. You claimed that the "Word of God" doesn't refer to Scripture, with the implication being that therefore Scripture is not inerrant. But that conclusion does not follow from the premise, and I didn't make any explicit claim, or at least base any argument on, that idea the "Word of God" was synonymous with Scripture.

I can't prove a negative. ... Again, I can't prove a negative. Why not? It's logically possible to prove a negative. What I presume that you are alluding to is the impossibility of proving a universal negative. But a limited negative can be proved. All you have to do is demonstrate the negative in each instance. If I, for example, claim "there are no matches in any matchbox in the country", it is impossible for me to prove that, because there is no way I could check every matchbox. But if I claim "there are no matches in any matchbox in my pocket", that's easy to prove, as there are only a few matchboxes at most to check. So, to repeat, it is possible to prove a negative in many cases.

The fact that none of the authors ever explicitly refers to scripture as the Word of God strikes me as being far beyond coincidence. As I said above, that does not follow from the idea Scripture is synonymous with the "Word of God".

Just about every commentary I can locate concurs with my reading on this;... Matthew Henry's doesn't.

Keil and Delitzsch explicitly caution that the "many days" of verse 26 are NOT to be identified with the "time of the end" referenced in Daniel 8:17 (that is to say, the time of the vision itself.) I said that v.26 is a reference to the days in v.14, not 17.

"It's not clear?" Whatever happened to all examples of "yom" coupled with an ordinal clearly referring to normal 24-hour days? Like a lot of claims you've made, you exaggerate to create a straw-man. The claim, I believe, is that every other reference to yom with an ordinal refers to a normal 24-hour day. I don't believe that the claim is that this is "clearly" the case in every single case.

I note that even your source on creation.com is forced to admit that they cannot definitively state that this means a 24-hour day. So where does this leave the justification for claiming that "yom" plus an ordinal must mean a 24-hour day? Right where it was, with a possible dubious exception not disproving the rule.

Then why is the Day of the Lord seven years long? Why not ten, or five, or twenty? What was the basis for that period of time? You tell me. You are missing or avoiding the point, that the time is not given as a basis for an instruction or principle, which is what Exodus 20:11 is about.

Hardly that; I only wish they were [caricatures]. They are, and you've not shown otherwise.

They're all explanations which have been seriously proposed by Creationists. Yes, they are explanations, not "compromises of the biblical text", which is what you claimed they were.

I'm just going to observe here that you place remarkable faith in Creation Ministries International and their arguments. For good reason.

Did it ever occur to you that those arguments might perhaps be wrong...or (Heaven forbid!) selective in their presentation of the evidence? Did it ever occur to me that they are fallible? Of course. But the onus is on the person disagreeing with them to point out the faults.

Not in the slightest! Saying "Copies can have errors, but the originals can't" remains just as inconsistent, because the question of WHY the originals can't have errors hasn't been addressed! It doesn't need to be addressed in order to make the argument. The arguments for the copies needing to have errors uses reasoning which doesn't apply to the originals, hence the claimed inconsistency is addressed.

What else would he use? It's not as if he could compel Jesus to speak! Was he unfamiliar with anything Jesus had ever said?

As for his sources being "at least as authoritative as Jesus," what makes you think they were? If you'll recall, he lost that little sparring match rather badly. Because he misused them, not because they were less authoritative, as shown by the fact that Jesus didn't dismiss the sources as wrong (or even questionable); instead, he implicitly questioned Satan's use of them.

Not with perfect reliability, no. We can come reasonably close, in some cases. In other words, the answer is (a reluctant) "yes", we can tell the difference between narrative and parables (which is not the same as saying we always can). Yet your earlier question, "So how do we know that many of the stories inerrantists claim are literal aren't parables used to illustrate points" doesn't make sense unless we can't tell the difference.

There are things of which we can be certain for all practical intents and purposes. And I consider that at least some of the claims about the creation account are in that category, your attempts to sow doubt by highlighting the lack of absoluteness and ignoring the positive reasons notwithstanding.

A rhetorical question; how did it differ in substance from an assertion? It wasn't strictly rhetorical. The slippery slope fallacy is where one claims a slippery slope that doesn't exist. I was asking if there was a reason why, if you can dismiss creation as a literal event, you shouldn't also dismiss other miracles. I was giving you an opportunity to argue that the slippery slope does not exist. You failed to do so. The implication of a slippery slope therefore seems to be supported, and consequently it would not be a fallacy to claim that one exists.

As I've observed before, I don't question the Bible; I question fallible men and their interpretations of the Bible. Including myself, of course. So you question your belief that creationists can't be certain that the creation account is narrative. Good. Why, then, are you arguing something that you question to be true?

On matters of spiritual truth, I consider the Bible infallible. Why only spiritual truth? Is that bit the only bit that God could get right? Wait... This is not "God's Word", is it? So the human authors got the spiritual bits right, but not the non-spiritual bits! Yeah, that makes sense!

...at the least he believed that it was both literally and allegorically true... I'm probably only disputing your choice of words, but something can't be both allegorical and literal. It can be both literal and have symbolic meaning, which I presume is what you mean.

They saw it as primarily allegory prefiguring the coming of Christ; the literal truth was of only secondary concern, if that. What do you mean by "secondary"? When God said to observe a seven-day week because He did in creation, the primary concern here is obviously the intent, that His people observe a seven-day week. In that sense the creation week is "secondary". However, that does not in any way imply that the creation week is in any way inferior in certainty that it happened.

...which can be misunderstood. But which is understood so often that it's routine and because misunderstandings are the exception.

..because inerrantists have no basis that I can see for their belief in the de facto inerrancy of their methods. Inerrantists don't claim to have inerrant methods. Another straw-man.

"It can't be so because that would be bad!" isn't an argument. That wasn't the argument. To put the argument in those terms, it can't be so else it would be bad and it isn't bad.

Given the tremendous conflicts that have occurred over differing interpretations of the Bible, I would suggest that we ARE, at least on some levels, "hopelessly confused." We were, of course, directly talking about current-day language, specifically your New York analogy.

Wars have been fought over differing interpretations of the Bible;... Your argument is that because there exists disagreement (in places), nothing can be known with any certainty. I don't know of any wars fought over interpretations of Genesis.

When Christians can kill Christians and believe that they're doing the will of the Almighty, how much more confused can we possibly get? When we start compromising with atheistic views on the age of the Earth, etc.

You can be certain; I just don't think your certainty is justified. Yet apart from selective analogies and non-specific arguments, you've offered no good reason. That is, your argument has been a general one of not being able to be certain.

...which is something I have cheerfully acknowledged. Are you? Always right? Of course not. But I've yet to see convincing reason why I'm not right on this.

If you can tell me that you're not axiomatically predisposed to a literal reading of Genesis and the idea that the historical-grammatical method can positively determine the correct reading, I'll consider revising my statement. I noticed how you switched the claim.

Those creation.com articles you keep citing are prime examples of the great lengths people will go to in order to justify their predetermined conclusion. You've not shown that they are predetermined. Rather, you seem to prefer to undermine the source than address the arguments.

Please tell me who the person is who can't be wrong, so that I can abandon that "bias." Again, you've switched claims. We were talking about the ability of being certain, not of being infallible.

Why? If anything, I'm a nonconformist. Yet you conform to views of questioning inerrancy and the creation account as actual history.

As an aside, last I checked, Creationism was the "popular view," at least here in America. It depends on what circles you move in or group you admire. It is not the popular view in the media or the scientific community, for example.

That said, there's a world of difference between "We can't be perfectly confident that we have perfectly understood the original intent of an author thousands of years removed from us" and "We probably misunderstand everything that everyone says to us." There's also a world of difference between those and "We can be confident that we have understood the original intent of the authors". And that's my point, as much as anything: that you are acting as though we think we are infallible, and trying to counter that with arguments that say (or imply) that we can't know anything for sure.

You're heading into strawman territory here, Philip Okay. I don't want to follow you there.

Likewise, if you can suggest a valid reason for the certain inerrantist to BE certain that HIS methods of exegesis are perfectly reliable, I'll consider it. Ignoring that overstated "perfectly", because reasoned analysis of multiple texts leaves no reasonable doubt.

I have heard no such reason thus far. Because you've spent your effort on saying that there are no reasons rather than asking for reasons.

That aside, the Bible makes me think that justification can be based on what each believes rather than why they believe it. Christ teaches us that whosoever believes in Him shall be saved; He doesn't say "whosoever believes in me for the right, evidence-based reasons." You're confusing justification with attitude.

It's completely relevant to my central thesis: that perfect certainty is neither justifiable nor prudent in many cases. But I'm not claiming infallibility (perfect certainty), merely (reasonable) certainty.

Are written passages informing us that Pluto orbits the sun fiction, or eyewitness accounts? Bear in mind that nobody's actually witnessed such an orbit. Arguably, they have, in the sense of witnessing enough information to draw that conclusion. But that's probably beside the point, because I was talking about history, or, to put it another way, events. Something that happened, not something that is.

Written records aren't restricted to the three categories you mentioned, and there's overlap even within those categories. Is the Iliad history based on eyewitness accounts, or is it fiction? That falls into my category (c).

That's not to even touch on the non-written sources historians employ. I did say that they base "much" of their work on written records; I never claimed that there were no other sources at all.

What in the world would make an eyewitness account more reliable simply because it's "history?" Because of a lack of alternatives in the case of history, but not in the case of the present.

Oh, I can think of ways. We could find multiple calendars buried in the ash, all marking it as that day... Hmmm. I nearly added "the morning of", but even if I'd done that, you'd probably have proposed sundials with shadows frozen at the time, or something! The point is that there are always going to be lots of facts of history for which the only source of information we have is eyewitness testimony, and that can tell us things that non-testimony is either not going to or is unlikely to. Perhaps I'll try another example: what other source could we have for Jesus walking on water except eyewitness testimony?

I will say that I think that anyone who simply rejects Creationist arguments categorically because they're Creationist arguments is as misguided as a Creationist who rejects all evolutionary arguments categorically because they're evolutionary arguments. There are plenty of the former and not many of the latter. Seriously. I've made clear my own views already, that I'll reject conclusion from people with an incompatible worldview that are based on that worldview, not "all evolutionary arguments categorically".

Perhaps I could have worded it better, but I think most people would have gotten the point I was making. Maybe, but I've seen too many cases of people rejecting the creationary view not because it's internally inconsistent or opposed to the evidence, but because it doesn't fit with their views. An example is very close to your question: I've had people argue that the flood didn't occur as recorded in the Bible because we know of civilisations, such as Egypt, that existed at the time of the flood. The problem is that they are trying to fit a biblical date for the flood with a secular date for Egypt, and rejecting the biblical date because it doesn't fit the secular date.

Oh, it would explain all sorts of things. "Why do good things happen to bad people?" comes to mind immediately. Even in that case, the non-existence of God is not an explanation, merely a factor.

If someone were to present a credible case where materialists rejected a claim simply because it was based on the "wrong worldview," I would take issue with it. Good to hear it.

Most of the examples Creationists cite, though, fall flat; the claims are rejected because they don't stand up to serious scrutiny. Yeah, right.

With respect, how would you ever be able to evaluate whether your worldview is wrong, given that standard? That's a separate question, and it would depend on the particular worldview, and in some cases one probably never can, ultimately. What happens, for example, if part of your worldview is the rejection of reason?

It sounds very much like your standard for "right" is "agrees with Philip." It's not, but what do you propose instead? The point is that one's worldview is used to interpret the evidence, so seeing if the evidence supports it or not may not be useful. Another way, if your worldview includes logic, is to see if the worldview is internally consistent.

...except that I have encountered other Creationists I respected, and they couldn't provide such evidence, either. Why would the fact that I respect you except you from an observation that has, thus far, had no exceptions in my experience? If I'm one of a small number of exceptions, then it would seem that the number of exceptions is too small to base much on.

You then proceeded to systematically disallow all possible methods of proof. Absolutely false.

I'm not allowed to cite secular studies, because you've declared that all secular studies are based on the wrong worldview. Absolutely false.

I'm not allowed to cite actual lists of Creationists compiled BY Creationists, because you say there are probably many more and thus those figures are unreliable. Yes, I did point out the fallacy of that one, and you've not shown that I'm wrong in that.

What evidence WOULD you accept as proof? A proper, blind, survey.

If there is none, a demand for proof is disingenuous at best. Not at all. A demand for proof is reasonable not on the grounds of the availability of the proof, but on the grounds of the claim. If expecting proof if not reasonable, it's not reasonable to make the claim.

Sure. Just like you could simply say "Nope, that's wrong!" to every claim you dislike without ever providing evidence Yes, and as long as you fail to provide evidence of those claims, I would be entitled to.

Many people do that. It doesn't, however, amount to any kind of compelling case--and neither does rejecting the relevance of the evidence without providing any competing evidence. Nonsense. You presenting irrelevant evidence is no better than presenting no evidence, and in neither case do I have to present contrary evidence to reject your claim.

Also not what I asked for. It's near enough. You were asking for evidence in support of my claim that "Many people have become convinced that the creationary view is correct once they've been exposed to that side." Every one of those scientists were at one time not creationists but became convinced that the creationary view is correct on the basis of scientific evidence. Yes, some were raised in Christian homes, but became evolutionists, until the evidence convinced them otherwise. Actually, I could have added more names to that list, but didn't because I was limiting myself to those for whom the scientific evidence was the main factor, as opposed to the biblical evidence.

Hosken, again by his own account, always rejected the idea of naturalistic evolution First, so what that he rejected naturalistic evolution? That didn't make him a creationist. Second, his account here doesn't say that he rejected evolution, only that he never found it all that exciting.

What you've given me here is largely a group of biologists and geneticists who grew up believing in God and the creationary account--hardly a group that had to be "exposed to the creationary side." "Briefly flirted with evolution" would be a better description for a lot of them. Regardless of how brief or otherwise, it was the scientific evidence that caused them to become creationists.

I'd have to say misleading evidence. ... I might be able to learn something useful from even misleading evidence--like, for instance, why it's misleading. To do that, you'd have to have some other evidence in order to know that it was misleading. Would misleading evidence by itself be better than no evidence? You've argued that thinking you're not certain is better than thinking you are certain (regardless of whether the certainty is justified). Surely knowing you don't know is better than wrongly thinking you do know.

I think the notion of such suppression is vastly overstated, given that (if anything) the creationist perspective is dominant in American culture. That would be funny if it wasn't so serious. The creationist perspective is definitely not dominant in the media nor the education system, even in America.

I don't see how a group can both claim that they're the majority and that they're suppressed and persecuted...yet Creationists make both arguments regularly. Simply because they are the majority (or close to it) in public opinion, but suppressed and persecuted in academia, the media, etc. Even in America, let alone the rest of the West.

How about "not suppressed very much at all?" Nope, simply not true.

I can walk into any bookstore and find Creationist books--generally more easily than I can find books on evolution. How many school or university libraries? And although I have to admit that I'm not in America, so don't know that situation first hand, I am still very sceptical even of the bookshop claim. Okay, your claim was availability, not sales, but one of the best-selling creationist books (Safarti's Refuting Evoluition) has sold a bit over half a million copies, world-wide. Dawkin's The God Delusion has sold over 900,000 in North America alone.

I can find colleges where the entire faculty is required to sign a statement of faith affirming that Young Earth Creationism is correct, and any faculty member repudiating that statement is fired. Government ones?

I can find television programs on Creationism; ... And far more on evolution, especially when you include the ones that implicitly assume it.

I can find giant theme parks dedicated to Creationism (and getting pretty juicy tax breaks, to boot!) And many, many, more museums that promote evolution. And paid for by taxpayers, which includes creationists. As far as I know, the tax breaks that creationist theme parks get is not due to them being religious (let alone being creationist), but due to them being non-profit. That would certainly be the case here in Oz.

I'm hearing many ASSERTIONS of widespread suppression, but I'm not seeing much EVIDENCE. Read Slaughter of the Dissidents by Jerry Bergman.

You're asking me for a square circle. Nonsense. I'm not asking for something that's logically impossible.

You want me to produce "good figures"--you will only ACCEPT "good figures"--but you've already taken the position that no figures can be "good" because of the possibility of "suppressed" Creationists hiding in the woodwork. More nonsense. Figures that only take publicly-known creationists into account, and assume the rest of the community are evolutionists are obviously no good, and the suppression just goes to underline how misleading they could be. But taking all creationists into account (even if by proxy of a small-but-sufficient sample) would not have this problem.

What am I do to in such a situation? Admit that your claim is without firm foundation and withdraw it.

You might have a case if they'd made allowance for a preponderance of evidence to trump their scriptural beliefs; they do not. I have a case anyway. My case is valid.

No evidence, no matter how compelling, can take precedence over what they believe scripture teaches. That is your interpretation, not what they say.

That's very clear from the standards laid down. I stand by my characterization. And I stand by my rejection of it.

I didn't address [application to the chronogenealogies] because you didn't explain why you think it's not applicable. On the contrary, I did. I said, "They already overlap, in a sense, because the son was born before the father dies, but that's why the age at birth is given. And overlapping chronologies shorten the overall chronology, not lengthen it, as would be required to fit the Genesis chronogenealogies to a longer time period." To expand on that, regnal chronologies can be misleading if it's falsely assumed that one reign began when another finishes, whereas in fact sometimes a reign begins before the previous one has finished. So can this apply to the chronogenealogies in Genesis? I'd like to know how. They purport to comprise what age a father was when his son was born. Nobody makes the false assumption that the son's life began when the father's finished. The overlap is already understood, and calculated in.

What makes you confident that the Biblical chronologies are complete and correct...particularly given that the same chronologies in different parts of the Bible feature different numbers of names? With one exception (Cainan), the chronogenealogies (the ones giving ages when the son was born) do not have such differences.

(I'm thinking specifically of Cainan, here, since he does NOT appear in the Genesis chronology but DOES appear in Luke... Well, yes and no. See here.

The fact that I disagree with his arguments doesn't mean I don't know them. Except that you didn't "disagree", you misrepresented them. You claimed that "...he doesn't give any positive case for thinking that the Masoretic Text is any more trustworthy and inerrant than the others", when in fact he does. You might disagree with it, you might think it's weak, but a case it is, and obviously a positive, not a negative, one.

That's precisely the bit that proves my point. He justifies his argument that the Septuagint's chronologies are inflated because they contradict a date for the Flood. That date is the result of calculations arrived at...by assuming the Masoretic Text is accurate, among other things. More evidence that you are not familiar with his argument. That was not his argument. He argued that the Septuagint's chronologies are inflated because they contradict the Septuagint's date for the flood!

I have questioned the value of certainty; therefore, the value of certainty is questionable, Q.E.D. So you're not certain that the value of certainty is questionable.

Now, it's always possible that I'm in error--I could, for example, simply be a figument of someone's imagination, and not really extant--but that seems like needless navel-gazing in this case. Hmmm. Sounds rather like the degree of certainty that you decry in inerrantists and misrepresent as "perfect certainty" and "perfectly confident".

I'm reasonably certain...and, I'll note, you're questioning even that level of certainty. Rather, I'm holding up a mirror reflecting your own questioning of the level of certainty.

I'm not claiming that certainty is impossible; I'm claiming that, in many cases, it's unjustified. But you're claiming that on the basis of generalisations, rather than on the basis of the merits of the particular cases.

...except that the church today isn't calling councils comparable to the Council of Nicaea to resolve those issues. Not those issues, as those issues were "resolved" back then.

You mean "the evidence that you don't reject as irrelevant because you think it's probably wrong?" What evidence could I possibly present that would be compelling to you? Evidence that didn't rely on a worldview that was incompatible with the one I hold.

Is there any demonstrable fact you can imagine which you couldn't fit into your existing worldview? Probably, but it would depend on the particular circumstance.

If I presented hard facts that DID pose a problem for your worldview, what would stop you from concluding that the figures were probably inaccurate, given that biased evolutionists provided them? It's not who produces them that is the issue, but whether they are providing facts or worldview-dependent conclusions. As we are talking about ice cores, if they actually count layers and there is no doubt that they are annual, that would be hard facts. But if they use, say, radiometric dating to work out how many "layers" there must be on the basis of how many inches of ice cover x number of carbon-dated years, then, because carbon-dating is partly worldview-dependent, that is a worldview-dependent conclusion, not a hard fact.

I consider it a politically-loaded term--and not a particularly useful one, given the broad spectrum of people Creationists lump into the category. Yet it's simply a descriptive term, and one that is used by evolutionists themselves.

When we're talking about polystrate fossils, which are properly the domain of geology and have nothing at all to do with evolution, putting "evolutionist" in quotes is appropriate. "Evolution" is not restricted to biology.

...and that's one of the mistakes Young Earth Creationists constantly make--the assumption that because deep-time geology involves large periods of time, everything must have taken long periods of time. False. This is not a creationist assumption, but evolutionary teaching.

That's not the case. Rapid burials happen; why would that pose a problem for deep-time geology? Because if the only difference between rapid deposition and slow deposition is the existence of polystrate fossils, the evidence for slow deposition disappears.

Can you present a single "evolutionary" source arguing that rapid sedimentation doesn't take place? Not off the top of my head, but one of the problems with evolution and deep time is the flexibility of the ideas. They are so flexible they cannot be disproved. Things took a long time. Except when they didn't. Evolution happens slowly. Except when it happens in short bursts. Similarities (homologies) are due to common ancestry. Except when they are due to "convergent evolution" (i.e. no common ancestry).

The thing is, we know the conditions under which it takes place, and we know what sorts of traces such conditions leave. Which are...? Obviously, polystrate fossils indicate quick processes. What indicates slow processes?

As I said: Creationists can't explain how an in situ polystrate fossil with an extended root network extending through multiple layers of "flood sediment" could have occurred And yet they already have.

Really? All of the geologists in the world just up and decided to adopt a new paradigm one day, despite the fact that there was no good evidence for it? Goodness, you really are into exaggerating, aren't you? No, not all geologists went along with it, and I never said that they all agreed with it at once.

Why would they do that? Because it meant that they could ignore the biblical account.

Why weren't the Creationist geologists able to defeat this little insurrection, given that (according to you) their position was stronger and better supported? Because such things are spiritual issues, not evidential ones. To quote 2 Peter 3:3-6 (my emphasis): "Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that times was deluged and destroyed."

Not in the form popularized by Morris, no, but I think we can safely say that most of the essential elements were there. In a sense, yes, but much of the geological evidence for the Flood, and various explanations, such as catastrophic plate tectonics, did not exist then, so from a scientific model perspective, flood geology as we know it today didn't exist then.

After all, didn't you claim that most Christians throughout history have believed what you believe? Yes, and in that sense it did exist, but not in the sense of the modern flood geology models.

They never rejected the existence of catastrophes; they simply posit that those catastrophes were governed by the same forces that govern catastrophes today. False. It was not the forces that they concentrated on. They did reject the existence of catastrophes that were unlike anything they had seen. Small, local "catastrophes" were not a problem, but large ones unlike they were familiar with were what was rejected.

I'm curious: how do you know that most of them don't have intact rootlets? Simply that most of what I've read about them says that they are torn off.

I'm trying NOT to link to "evolutionist" websites, because you've already indicates that you'll reject those ... Yet again, I have not, as long as they are talking about observations and not paradigm-based conclusions.

...(although you seem to think I should accept Creation Ministries International as a valid and reliable source.) Because it is.

Such fossils are documented here: When I said that I've never heard of such a thing, I was including living counterparts in that. I never, by the way, denied their existence. But I also note that you quote one source, an off-line one. They must be very rare if there is only about one source discussing them, and if no on-line sources discuss living examples, then I would question how such things came to be (i.e. was it really partial burial, or something else; can we know for sure?).

Doesn't begin to. Where did the excess heat go? I thought you indicated that you had read the paper? Into the rocks, which is what caused them to melt.

What's the issue with a solid core as opposed to a molten core? Well, for starters, the earth's magnetic field is largely dependent on the molten core. No, no, no. This is an example of conclusions based on an evolutionary worldview, rather than an example of evidence. The evolutionary worldview has the world being so old that any original magnetic field would long ago have decayed away, so they need some mechanism to keep it going. For this, they propose a liquid core acting as a dynamo. But if the world is only 6,000 years old, this additional mechanism is not required, and an originally-solid core would not be a problem. This is also an example of the problem I mentioned above with Egypt as an example, of assessing the merits of the creationary view by seeing how well it fits into the evolutionary view. Of course it doesn't fit in the evolutionary view, but it's not supposed to.

(Of course, we can just add our understanding of the magnetic field to "evolutionist assumptions," if you like. I like, because I've just shown how it is such.

...because I don't believe they do explain the evidence. They are explanations nevertheless.

No, I mean the ACTUAL geologic column--the one which can be observed in its entirety in numerous places... As far as I know, it is not found in its entirety anywhere. What is found in a few places is all the major divisions in one place, but that's not the same as saying that it's found in its entirety.

This would have more weight if you weren't taking the position that you can reject the relevance of data without providing evidence of your own. Yeah, perhaps it would have "more weight", but it's still valid nevertheless.

Name one field of science that would not have to be rewritten from the ground up to account for Young Earth Creationism. Chemistry. Physics. Mathematics (if you count that). Biology. Geology. Zoology. In fact almost every field that exists. A few would require significant revision, but virtually none would require being "rewritten from the ground up". In fact, many of the fields were started by biblical creationists.

Would you have preferred numerous websites that cite that age? I figured you'd disallow those as coming from "amateur Creationists." It would, of course, depend on the web-site. But the point remains that you used this paper as an example, but this paper didn't mention it. So the strike stands.

In fact, they were--just as part of a blanket criticism. It wasn't the main focus of the paper, true; I never said that it was. I have already pointed out not just that they didn't, but explained why it is that they didn't. In your attempted rebuttal, you've reasserted your position, but not shown anything to support your claim. That is, you've not shown how that paper was part of a blanket criticism.

My goodness, THAT'S a large assumption! Employing that same logic, I can declare your assertion that surveys of how many scientists accept Creationism are unreliable to be false, since you haven't substantiated THAT! The two are not the same, because I asked you to substantiate your claim, and you attempted to but failed to do so. You asked me to refute your claim, and I declined to do so on the grounds that the onus was not on me to do so. I have not failed to substantiate my position; I have rejected the need to as you have not substantiated your claim yet.

No? "Well, now hold it! Niagara Falls has only moved 7 miles. [rest snipped] Ignoring that it's not a leading creationist source, this doesn't actually refute my claim at all. They have done what I said: shown that the age of Niagara Falls is not inconsistent with the biblical age of the Earth. Neither the 6,000 years age of the Earth nor the 4,400 years since the flood that they cite are, in the quote, based on the age of Niagara Falls. Rather, they show that the Age of Niagara Falls fits the biblical timescale.

Not the only justification; the strongest justification. My question was "what justification would be acceptable to you", not "what is the strongest justification". You only mentioned the one.

... the discovery of archaelogical and paleontological evidence consistent with all life radiating outward from a central point somewhere around Turkey would be strong justification. More accurately, I'd say that the widespread acceptance of archaeological and palaeontological evidence consistent with all life radiating outward from there would convince you. My point is that I think that the evidence you mention probably does exist (well, probably not evidence of "all" life, as much of the evidence would be missing). From memory, various grain crops are traced back to the Middle East. This also applies to early civilisation. Of course evolutionists won't like too much evidence like this and will downplay it and highlight contrary evidence, such as proposing that man came out of Africa, although the "evidence" for this is various "ape-man" claims which don't withstand scrutiny.

...and on that basis, I'm supposed to conclude that God wrote it directly? Not "supposed to", but could, and could at least acknowledge the possibility.

The problem is that you won't acknowledge it if I do--because as far as you're concerned, there IS no difference. So you justify your rhetoric by engaging in more rhetoric! I won't acknowledge evidence of a difference because... I won't acknowledge that the difference exists, because...you say so?

How am I to show you, given that? Given what? That strawman rhetoric?

Quite a few. ...there's Kent Hovind, Carl Baugh, Don Patton, Malcolm Bowden, John Pendleton, Laurence Tisdall, Todd Wood, and Ian Juby, just off the top of my head. From what I know or can tell, Todd Wood is the only one in that list that is a scientist, which I'm defining as having a PhD in a scientific field (my normal definition, so I don't have to convince anti-creationists that creationists without a PhD are scientsts). Further, some of those have had some association with leading creationist groups, including Todd Wood.

If he didn't agree with the information in the paper, academic integrity should have compelled him not to sign his name to it. Easy to say from your armchair. And presumably he did agree with 99.99% of it, and the remaining 0.01% was not germane to the rest.

That's a bit like saying that if I was one of the authors of a paper which mentioned as an established matter of fact that the age of the Earth was 6,000 years, it wouldn't follow that I was endorsing a young Earth. If I sign my name to it, I'm endorsing it. Not necessarily if it's a minor point in an otherwise endorsed paper.

...which is, I think, remarkably selective and somewhat disingenuous. The paper mentions ages; Plimer's book probably shouldn't have excluded them. You've read the paper, have you? I have seen one source that claims that the paper mentions the ages, but if that's true, I don't understand Plimer not mentioning it.

It seems that you're okay with a Creationist co-authoring a paper which lends credence to the idea of an old Earth on the basis that being open about his views could have a negative impact on his career. That was not the rationale; he was already, in other places, open about his views. It would be something closer to having a negative impact on his career by refusing to put his name to a paper that he was partly responsible for, that he had worked on as part of a team.

WHAT arguments? They didn't PRESENT any arguments; they presented distractions and rationalizations. Show me where they offered ANY evidence that Snelling did not, in fact, co-author a paper which presumed an ancient Earth. Since when does "presenting arguments" become "presenting a particular argument that you think they should have presented if they want to claim that they've presented arguments"? They presented arguments that he was justified in doing what he did.

Well, two things spring to mind immediately. First, I don't recall any anti-creationists co-authoring papers which contradict their stated position; second, it seems to me that Christians should hold themselves to higher standards when it comes to honesty and integrity. The first is nonsense, given that anti-creationists don't need to (although I'm sure that examples abound, even if not well known), and both the first and second are distractions from my point that the log in the anti-creationist eye is the widespread suppression and discrimination.

The processes which they stipulate actually aren't predictable, because in large part, they involve a massive catastrophe which (it is posited) didn't conform to the same natural laws in place today. How would one predict where such a catastrophe would lay down deposits? No, it is NOT posited that the catastrophe didn't conform to the same natural laws in place today, at least in any sense that makes the entire thing unpredictable.

Regarding locating oil deposits, you are engaging in special pleading. You claim that deep time geology would allow a prediction of depth for a given time. What you don't deny is that, under deep time geology, oil could be predicted everywhere, as everywhere would have had the right conditions at some time. So although they might have to drill deeper in some places than others, they should be able to find oil everywhere.

The real issue is not where oil could have potentially formed according to where a rain forest once was, but what rock formations are likely to hold oil, as opposed to rock formations that would not be likely to hold oil. The operative word there is "hold". That is, even if a rainforest existed at point x at time y, it doesn't follow that the forest was converted to oil, that the oil was contained, and that the oil survives to this day. For this to be the case, the right burial conditions and rock formations are required. Burial conditions are largely unknown, so the only useful data are the rock formations. However, both creationary and evolutionary geologists can learn from experience which formations are likely to hold oil and are also able to find similar formations. Evolutionary (or creationary) assumptions need not come into it, and probably don't come into it much.

I think that's overstated. The Christian worldview was a factor, but hardly the only one. It's not overstated at all. See here. Most of the other factors (such as the time to pursue science) were also due to the Christian worldview.

It's not? If a scientist signs his name to a medical report claiming that a drug is safe, and the drug turns out to be wildly dangerous, don't you think the scientist is going to be held accountable? Would you accept a defense of "I was only a junior author" or "I didn't actually believe everything in the paper?" Not a valid analogy, as the safety of the drug is the key point. I would accept a defence of "I didn't actually believe everything in the paper" if the thing in dispute was incidental to the main point (the safety of the drug).

At the end of the day, though, it doesn't matter; he put his name to a paper which contained information he believed to be untrue. And for reasons which have been explained and which are quite reasonable.

I know I'm not inerrant; why would I presume that others are? I'm not talking about inerrancy, but about (reasonable) certainty.

No matter how you slice it, certainty is going to be unjustified more often than it's justified. So? I was talking about certainty vs. uncertainty, not correct certainty vs. incorrect certainty.

I think it's justified, to be sure. In fact, I think you would agree with me in all cases except yours. Not at all.

Would it be better for a Muslim to be certain that he's right, or to be uncertain, and thus open to the possibility of conversion? How about a Buddhist? A Hindu? An atheist? An old-Earth Creationist? A theistic evolutionist? Is it better for them to be certain, or uncertain? Would it be better for an engineer designing safety-critical systems to be certain or uncertain? What about a doctor doing surgery? Or a judge sentencing someone to death? Or a builder building a house? Uncertainty is not better than certainty, except in those cases where the certainty is misplaced, which means that it's not the existence of certainty that is the issue, but the grounds for the certainty.

Again, you can be certain; I just don't think the certainty is justified when it comes to the tenets of Creationism. And I guess you can be certain of that, but I don't think certainty is justified when it comes to saying that creationists have insufficient reason to be certain.

I'm certain about various things in the Bible; they're just different things, and they're justified, not by semantic arguments and heuristics, but by faith. Why can't I say that I'm certain that Genesis is an accurate historical narrative because I have faith that it is?

Nope. Tu quoque falls flat; I don't say that. If I rephrase it to "I know I'm right (that you don't have reason to be certain about particular things in the Bible), end of sentence", then that is what you are saying.

Such as...? I'm seriously trying to picture the evidence that would be convincing here. It's hard, but for reasons that you are probably not realising. Your suggestion is basically that I've made up my mind and won't accept any evidence. That, however, is wrong. Yes, I've made up my mind because of the evidence, so it is hard to imagine—given all that evidence—what could possibly dissuade me. However, an inability to think of persuasive evidence does not mean that I'm not open to considering such evidence if it appears.

Through faith. It is by faith alone that we are justified. That doesn't explain it. Faith is faith in something or someone. That is, if X tells you Y, you have faith that Y is correct. So if I ask you how you know Y is the case, it's not good enough to say that you have faith. That might explain why you believe it, but not how you know it.

Not necessarily literal, historical truth; not inerrant; but truth nonetheless... Huh? If it's errant, it's not truth! But at least here you seem to answer my previous question: you know God can be trusted because the Bible tells you so. That is, the Bible is the source of your information. Yet this source of information you seem to believe is riddled with mistakes, except, miraculously, in the bits that talk about spiritual matters. So God revealed a whole lot of information—spiritual and material mixed up together—but only managed to make sure that the spiritual bits are correct (well, some of the material bits might be too, but no guarantees on those bits, despite the same Guarantor). And on top of this, Jesus said "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" This could be loosely paraphrased as "But since you don't believe the history that Moses recorded, how are you going to believe the spiritual truths I tell you?". Or to quote 2 Peter 3 again, "But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that times was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly." Here a historical event is directly tied to a "spiritual truth": the future judgement of mankind. It says that rejection of the historical event causes scoffers to scoff about Jesus return.

Personal communion with God is my reason. So if I said that I had personal communication from God that He created in six literal days around 6,000 years ago, you'd accept that I had good reason to be certain?

This notion that faith is primarily evidence-based is recent, and in my opinion, contrary to what the Bible teaches. Not so.

If you think that prayer is of no value and God doesn't speak to His children in their hearts... Well, I don't think that God normally speaks to His children in structured sentences conveying unambiguous information. He might occasionally, and He does "speak" in other ways, such as opening or closing doors, but I believe that He has conveyed much of the information He wants us to know in the Bible, so why keep repeating it to every individual? But then are you really saying that, given that you've also said that you got some of your information from the Bible?

You're attempting, as many Creationists do, to re-invent faith as something based on evidence and rationalism, and it isn't. It's no re-invention.

The robber crucified on the cross, if he'd gone on evidence, would have concluded that Christ was just another prisoner in the same boat. Pure speculation on your part. The fact that the thief told the other criminal "this man has done nothing wrong." surely implies that he knew something of Jesus other than the fact that he was being crucified as a criminal. That is, he had other evidence.

Your latest post:

It certainly seems to make sense, doesn't it? A human is bigger and more complex than an amoeba; therefore, it should require more information. Strawman, albeit based partly on less-than-ideal wording on my part. I referred to going "from a single-celled organism such as a bacterium to the wide variety of life we see today". I was referring to something like the first, "simple", living cell, not, as you go on to mention, 'some "simple" organisms have genomes far larger than the human genome'. That is, I was referring to a (relatively) simple early cell, and you responded by talking about a complex single-celled creature. The other problem is that I wasn't referring merely to the amount of information, but to what information was there. Even a complex amoeba doesn't have the genetic information for, say, hair, muscles, livers, lungs, bones, eyes, etc. Even if the amoeba has a lot of information for things that humans don't have, which must have been lost if we evolved from such amoeba, my claim that massive amounts of information must have been gained is still correct.

Amoeba dubia, for example, has 200 times more DNA than a human. How to account for that? Now, you could argue that most of that extra DNA is junk DNA...but the existence of massive amounts of junk DNA is problematic for design arguments... I'm not going to argue for junk DNA—that's the evolutionists' argument. But your fallacy is in confusing information with the carrier of that information.

Evolutionists (or at least anti-creationists) often make this mistake. Suppose I sent you a message, advising you that a sale was on. That is, the message has information (knowledge or facts about someone or something). I could write that message out in the form of ink on paper (i.e. using a pen), in an e-mail, by sending you a telegraphic Morse Code message, by pressing little bumps into paper in a pattern conforming to Braille, or even, say, by tying knots in a cord whereby a single knot represents a Morse dot and two adjacent knots represent a Morse dash. Regardless of the medium, the information is the same. The medium carries the information, but is not the information. Further, I could, in principle, do this in English, French, German, Swahili, or any one of many other languages. Again, the information would be the same, regardless of the language.

If you wanted to, you could count the letters, dots and dashes, knots, bytes, or etc.) in the message. (In future, I'll refer to all of these as "letters".) Depending on the medium, the figures would be different. However, the total count is a count of letters, not a count of the information itself, which, as I have pointed out, is the same in each case. It would also be possible to compress the information in the message, reducing the number of letters (as zipping an electronic file does). But again, the information is the same, despite it having fewer letters.

Amoeba dubia, for example, has 200 times more DNA than a human. You are talking about DNA letters (or similar), not the amount of information. I'm not suggesting that the Amoeba dubia does have less information than humans; I'm saying that in making your claim of more information, you're not actually talking about information, but a statistic about the medium (DNA). Hypothetically, it could be that the Amoeba DNA is uncompressed information while the human DNA is compressed information.

...because when we zoom out to the big line, we find that no matter how many points we plot on that line, Creationists simply say "Those aren't valid points!" Nonsense.

Here's the problem, Philip: it's impossible to talk about how fast an organism can gain information unless we know what counts as a gain of information. It's also impossible to talk about what counts as a gain in information when you're talking about the number of letters, genes, or etc. rather than the information carried on those genes.

We've observed species that undergo changes that double the number of chromosomes they have, but Creationists typically say that that's not a gain in information, because it duplicates existing information and doesn't add anything new. First, this is still a case of counting the letters in the message rather than determining the information content. For this reason, the creationist response is completely valid. If I send you the same message twice, have I actually sent more information? No, I've merely sent the same information twice. It's the information content that matters, not the number of letters.

We've observed point mutations within that duplicated material, creating novel genetic material, but Creationists say THAT isn't a gain in information, because it modifies existing information. Wrong. They say that it isn't a gain in information because it's a loss in information. Again, you are referring to distinctive sequences of letters, not to information content. If my message to you that "there is a sale on tomorrow" has a point mutation that changes it to "there is a jale on tomorrow", there's a new sequence of letters, but no new information. Rather, the message is now garbled, which is a loss of information.

Generally, it seems like the only thing that would satisfy Creationists is for new information to suddenly appear out of nowhere--which doesn't happen... True. Ergo, evolution is impossible.

...and which evolutionary theory says is impossible... False. Evolution requires new information (such as the instructions for making blood cells) appear out of "nowhere". That is, the instructions for making blood vessels did not come from an intelligence (the source of all information), but from no intelligence (i.e. "nowhere"). Don't forget that we are talking about the information, not the "letters" (DNA) that carries the information. That doesn't appear from nowhere. Think of an old-style print shop with movable type. When the printer sets the type up to print a book, he is creating brand new information (ignoring, for the sake of this argument, that he would normally be doing this for someone else using a manuscript that they provided). He doesn't create any new type. He simply rearranges the existing type to create words, sentences, etc. which are assembled in such a way that new information is created. The question is not where the type came from, but where the information came from.

So what counts as a gain in information? I think it's a pretty critical question. New instructions. That is, instructions for something that didn't previously have instructions to construct it. To borrow an example, if Joe says that "Mary has a car", and Fred adds that "Mary has a red car", then Fred has added some information that Joe didn't provide: the colour of Mary's car. The new information in this case is small, but clearly novel, as Joe gave no indication of the car's colour.

Well, I have to raise an eyebrow at that; Answers in Genesis, for example, has always been pretty unequivocal in saying that mutations always represent a loss of information, in my experience. Maybe, but maybe it's just that it's so close to always that it's usually not worth mentioning the exceptions.

...as soon as you acknowledge that gains in information can take place, you next have to explain why only "trivial" gains can take place. Which has been done. It's essentially a probability argument. The number of meaningful (information-carrying) arrangements (of "letters", DNA or otherwise) is a tiny fraction of the total number of arrangements possible, which means that almost certainly any change to an information-carrying arrangement is going to be towards a non-information-carrying arrangement. As I understand Behe's argument, it's that most point mutations are information-losing ones, and to get a non-trivial information gain, you would have to have several point mutations that, together, constitute a gain. If the odds of a point-mutation producing a gain in information was, to pluck a figure from the air, 1 in 10,000, you would occasionally get one. But to get two such changes together would be 1 in 100,000,000 (1 in 10,000 x 1 in 10,000) and three would be 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000 (1 in 10,000 x 1 in 10,000 x 1 in 10,000). Hence non-trivial ones are ridiculously improbable.

...except that that's not how evolution works Hence it doesn't work.

Demanding that someone produce a new function that doesn't result from modification as proof of a theory that amounts to "common descent with modification" is demanding a square circle... I didn't say that the new function couldn't be the result of a modification of an existing function. If a fin is modified to the point that it becomes a leg, then the leg is new, as it's no longer a fin.

If I could show you a dog turning into a cat...or a new trait appearing from nowhere that didn't either duplicate or modify a previous trait...it would, in fact, disprove the theory of evolution. On the contrary, ignoring your specific examples, that is exactly what evolution claims. No, not a dog turning into a cat, but a fish into an amphibian, an amphibian into a reptile, a dinosaur into a bird, etc. If you demonstrated any of them, they most certainly would not disprove evolution, because they are exactly the things that evolution claims.

That's certainly been my experience. And yet you don't even seem to understand the distinction between information and the medium which carries it.

Oh, I'll cheerfully argue that we've observed and documented gains in information. We've seen increased volume of genetic information... Confusing the information with the medium carrying it, again.

By any reasonable definition of "gain in information," it's taken place, and it's observed and documented. Despite the fact that Dawkins was once asked to given an example of an observed mechanism for doing this, and was unable to.

How can I? Whether it's a gain or a loss depends entirely on what we mean by "gain" and "loss!" "Gain" and "loss" are ordinary English words. Are you saying that you don't understand them? See again my examples above about Joe and Fred and about the sale being on.

There's an assumption implicit in your argument, and I think it's at the heart of the issue. You're assuming that there's an ideal way that any given organism is SUPPOSED to work... It was not me who described the change in C. vulgaris as the failure of a pump. The point is that the "purpose" of the mechanism is clear: it is a pump, and it is one that has stopped pumping. Of course, an evolutionist will say that nobody intended it to be a pump, it just is a pump, but that's begging the question.

...and proceeding from that assumption, ANY change would be a "loss of information," because it would be a departure from that ideal. Not so. Your example of stronger bones could, in principle, qualify. In practice, because we were designed by God, it's unlikely to, as God did use an optimal design. I'd therefore speculate that there would also be a downside to such a change.

The truth is that I haven't the faintest idea of whether the change observed by Boraas in C. vulgaris is a "gain in information." So in order to make your point "that virtually anything can be conceptualized as a loss or change of information", you choose an example that could be, for all you know, an actual loss of information!

...you've already declared that because that change involved altering an existing function, it's a loss. Errr, no. It was you who said that, not me.

Again, we need a clear definition, because without it ANY change could be characterized either way. How could Fred's comment be construed as a loss of information?

Of course, that raises an interesting question: if a loss of information can result in a change so drastic that it represents a shift, not just in species, but in family...then why would we need a gain in information for evolution? Seriously? This just goes to show that you simply don't understand the words information, gain, and loss. Yes, a loss of information could be so drastic that it might constitute a new family, but this says nothing about how the information for the organisms arose in the first place. This is like arguing that by pulling enough pages out of an encyclopaedia you might turn it into a travel guide, and that this can explain how the encyclopaedia arose in the first place!!

We could just as easily see that amoeba with 200 times as much DNA as humans go through a series of "losses of information" that add major new functions. How can losses of information add something new? Alternatively, if the amoeba's DNA has all the information to make a human (e.g. information for kidney cells, white blood cells, red blood cells, skin cells, brain cells, muscle cells, etc.; just not expressed), then evolution has a vastly bigger job explaining how all this information arose (a) so early in evolution, and (b) contrary to the principles of natural selection that would select to eliminate unused information that cost energy to maintain.

Let's take a specific example: Apolipoprotein A1-Milano. By all reasonable standards, this is a gain in information. Not so. Your argument is selective, as it doesn't mention the negatives. See here for a response.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 09:39, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Part 5

Hi Philip,

Apologies for the delay in response; with Christmas coming and work, I haven't had a tremendous amount of time, and likely won't until around the new year. I haven't forgotten, I just want to do your post justice. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

--BRPierce (talk) 23:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)'

Okay, here we go. Again, very sorry for the delay in response; December was an extremely busy month.

No, I'm not asking you to; I was pointing out that you haven't.

Nor can I, any more than I can prove that any other piece of writing isn't the Word of God. Such negatives cannot be proven. Luckily, I don't need to. Creationists are the ones basing their entire position on the premise that Scripture is the Word of God; ergo, it falls to them to demonstrate that. They have not done so.

My position is that Scripture is inerrant. You claimed that the "Word of God" doesn't refer to Scripture, with the implication being that therefore Scripture is not inerrant. But that conclusion does not follow from the premise, and I didn't make any explicit claim, or at least base any argument on, that idea the "Word of God" was synonymous with Scripture.

Upon what basis could you conceivably make a case that Scripture is inerrant if it isn't the Word of God? What justification can you supply for your assertion that Scripture is inerrant, absent that premise?

Why not? It's logically possible to prove a negative. What I presume that you are alluding to is the impossibility of proving a universal negative.

Yes; I thought it went without saying. I assumed you understood that...which, obviously, you did.

Matthew Henry's doesn't.

I said "just about"--not "absolutely." Naturally, we're going to find exceptions--but, frankly, I think the weight of scholarship is strongly on my side on this one. I'm curious, though: on what basis do you determine that Matthew Henry is right, and all of the various commentaries I cited are wrong? Do you have a strong reason, apart from "Matthew Henry agrees with me?"

I said that v.26 is a reference to the days in v.14, not 17.

...but it isn't; it's a reference to indefinite future days, not to the specific days referenced in either verse 14 or verse 17.

The claim, I believe, is that every other reference to yom with an ordinal refers to a normal 24-hour day. I don't believe that the claim is that this is "clearly" the case in every single case.

If it's not clear, then wherefore the confidence that they're all normal 24-hour days?

Right where it was, with a possible dubious exception not disproving the rule.

Why not? If there's an exception to the rule that days plus ordinals always mean normal days, then there's no such rule.

You are missing or avoiding the point, that the time is not given as a basis for an instruction or principle, which is what Exodus 20:11 is about.

No, I'm disagreeing with the point, because I believe the time is given as a basis for many different instructions and principles. The seven "day" pattern forms the basis of numerous practices, from the keeping of the Sabbath to the seven-year planting cycle.

They are, and you've not shown otherwise.

Do you really want me to cite sources? I can, but these omnibus responses are getting pretty monstrous as it is; this one's up to about 35 pages on Microsoft Word. Is it critical to you to see sites where they talk about these theories?

Yes, they are explanations, not "compromises of the biblical text", which is what you claimed they were.

I believe that they are, in that they add information that's not there in an effort to (falsely) paint a picture where only one interpretation is possible. Since I believe it's the wrong interpretation, naturally, I see this as a compromise of the Biblical text.

For good reason.

Personally, I prefer to place my faith in God, not men.

Did it ever occur to me that they are fallible? Of course. But the onus is on the person disagreeing with them to point out the faults.

The problem is that those who have great faith in them aren't particularly likely to accept that they are faults. I don't think you will. For instance, I think you will see an absolute refusal to consider any theory that contradicts a literal reading of Genesis as a merit, rather than a fault. Certainly, Ken Ham sneers at those who would "compromise" on that point, as do many of his colleagues.

It doesn't need to be addressed in order to make the argument. The arguments for the copies needing to have errors uses reasoning which doesn't apply to the originals, hence the claimed inconsistency is addressed.

...which is irrelevant to the question we're dealing with. We agree that there are errors in the copies, and we would probably agree on the likely origin of many of those errors. Wonderful. The question before us is what reason we have to believe that the autographic copies were inerrant. God extended no special protection to the copies; clearly, He has not intervened supernaturally to ensure that man correctly transcribes His Word; why, then, should we assume that He EVER intervened supernaturally to ensure such a correct transcription?

Because he misused them, not because they were less authoritative, as shown by the fact that Jesus didn't dismiss the sources as wrong (or even questionable); instead, he implicitly questioned Satan's use of them.

That's your interpretation. Evidence, please? It's a rather large stretch from "Jesus didn't dismiss Scripture" to "Jesus accepted that Scripture had equal authority to His Word." The Sermon on the Mount largely amounts to a fairly lengthy list of "Scripture says X, but instead Y." Does "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy" have equal authority to "You shall love your neighbor as yourself?"

In other words, the answer is (a reluctant) "yes", we can tell the difference between narrative and parables (which is not the same as saying we always can).

No, the answer is "We can come reasonably close." If you're going to accuse me of employing strawmen, the least you can do is not to attempt to put words in my mouth.

Yet your earlier question, "So how do we know that many of the stories inerrantists claim are literal aren't parables used to illustrate points" doesn't make sense unless we can't tell the difference.

Nope; it makes perfect sense if we can't always tell the difference. Which we can't. If I'm a pharmacist who can tell the difference between medicine and poison 95% of the time, should my patients have confidence in my abilities? Or should they treat my claims with caution and seek other means of verification? Would you trust a pharmacist who said "I can tell the difference between medicine and poison with reasonable certainty?"

And I consider that at least some of the claims about the creation account are in that category, your attempts to sow doubt by highlighting the lack of absoluteness and ignoring the positive reasons notwithstanding.

Naturally you consider them certain; we've established your certainty already. The question is whether you're justified in your certainty, which I don't think you are.

I was asking if there was a reason why, if you can dismiss creation as a literal event, you shouldn't also dismiss other miracles.

And, of course, there is. I accept that miracles can take place; I have no evidence to suggest that those miracles did not take place; therefore, I have no reason to doubt that these miracles took place. Furthermore, whereas Creationists treat the Bible as one homogeneous document, I do not; the accounts of Christ's life, for example, were written in a different time and a different culture and a different language, and I therefore treat them differently. In general, I'm far more inclined to accept the New Testament (particularly the Gospels) as a historical account in the contemporary sense than the Old.

I was giving you an opportunity to argue that the slippery slope does not exist. You failed to do so. The implication of a slippery slope therefore seems to be supported, and consequently it would not be a fallacy to claim that one exists.

This is a fallacy in and of itself; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. As I have pointed out, I view the New Testament and the Old Testament in different ways. If I had reason to question my interpretation of the miracle accounts in the New Testament, then I would question it; I do not. And, once again, let's be clear here--this is all about interpretation. It's not "The absolute meaning of the text as properly understood by inerrantists" versus "the fallible interpretations of everyone else." Inerrantists are no better qualified to interpret the Bible than other Christians, and their faith in their heuristic is, I think, both misplaced and overblown...to the point where, in many cases, it verges on idolatry.

So you question your belief that creationists can't be certain that the creation account is narrative. Good. Why, then, are you arguing something that you question to be true?

Naturally, I question it. And when I question, I seek an answer. I attempt to test the assertion. In the case of Creationist certainty that the creation account is literal historical narrative, I have tested it repeatedly and found that certainty to be unjustified.

And, once again, let's correct the misrepresentation: I don't question the idea that Creationists can be and are absolutely certain that their beliefs are right. I have ample evidence that Creationists can be and are absolutely certain of their own self-evident and unquestionable rightness on a wide variety of topics. I just don't accept that their certainty is justified.

Why only spiritual truth? Is that bit the only bit that God could get right?

It's the purpose of the book. It's not a science book; it's not a history book; it's not a cookbook or a phone book or any other kind of book. It's a book about our spiritual relationship with God. In the parable of the talents, did God "get it wrong" because it wasn't literally true?

Wait... This is not "God's Word", is it? So the human authors got the spiritual bits right, but not the non-spiritual bits! Yeah, that makes sense!

Ham-handed sarcasm aside? Yep, sure does! God wasn't revealing truths about genetics and biochemistry and astrophysics; therefore, why would the Bible be an inerrant guide to those things?

I'm probably only disputing your choice of words, but something can't be both allegorical and literal. It can be both literal and have symbolic meaning, which I presume is what you mean.

No, I'm afraid I'm going to have to stand my ground on this one. It's entirely possible for something to be both literally and allegorically true. Where in the world did you get the impression that that couldn't be the case? In any case, given that Galatians 4:24 explicitly calls the story of Abraham allegory, your assertion leaves you with a problem. Is the story of Abraham allegory, or is it literal truth? Or is Galatians wrong in calling it allegory? Or are you wrong in saying that it cannot be both allegory and literal truth?

Inerrantists don't claim to have inerrant methods. Another straw-man.

...hence the term "de facto." They don't claim to have inerrant methods; they just proceed as if their methods were inerrant and their conclusions unquestionably correct.

Your argument is that because there exists disagreement (in places), nothing can be known with any certainty.

I argue that the certainty is unjustified, and based on an unwarranted faith in man.

I don't know of any wars fought over interpretations of Genesis.

...except for the one currently being fought between inerrantists and the scientific community at large. A figurative war, but a war nonetheless, and described as one by many Creationists.

When we start compromising with atheistic views on the age of the Earth, etc.

They're not atheistic views. Considerably more Christians hold those views than atheists. Sorry, Philip; Young Earth Creationist views are not the only Christian views, much as Ken Ham and his colleagues would have it so.

Yet apart from selective analogies and non-specific arguments, you've offered no good reason. That is, your argument has been a general one of not being able to be certain.

Well, no; I've offered a number of specific points calling the basis of your certainty into question. You've brushed most of them off as unimportant without really explaining why. Why are you justified in thinking that "yom" must mean a 24-hour day in Genesis, given that every "rule" cited in support has exceptions? Why are you justified in thinking that the chronologies in the Bible are accurate and complete, given that there are inconsistencies in those chronologies? Why are you justified in thinking that the phrase "kol erets" means "the planet" as opposed to "the local region," given that it's VERY seldom used in a sense that could mean "the planet" elsewhere in the Bible, and very frequently used to mean "the local region?"

Of course not. But I've yet to see convincing reason why I'm not right on this.

Are there reasons you would find convincing? Honest question.

I noticed how you switched the claim.

Pray tell; I don't think I did at all. I notice that you didn't answer the question.

You've not shown that they are predetermined. Rather, you seem to prefer to undermine the source than address the arguments.

Impeachment of a source is a perfectly valid tactic. As for showing that they're predetermined, that's easy enough; we simply need to look at their statement of faith, which stipulates that:

1. Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation.

2. The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.

3. The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.

4. The ‘gap’ theory has no basis in Scripture. Nor has the day-age idea (so-called ‘progressive creation’), or the Framework Hypothesis or theistic evolution.

5. The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of Biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious’, is rejected.

6. By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.

What more evidence do you need that they start from a predetermined belief in a young Earth and a literal 6-day creation than an outright statement of same? Are you seriously claiming that they don't, or are you just taking issue for the sake of taking issue?

Again, you've switched claims. We were talking about the ability of being certain, not of being infallible.

Complete certainty implies either infallibility or overconfidence. Incomplete certainty, of course, is not certainty at all.

Yet you conform to views of questioning inerrancy and the creation account as actual history.

Not really, no; my views are my own, albeit informed by other sources. I don't blindly agree with any source; for instance, many atheists disagree with the inerrancy of Scripture, but I certainly don't agree with everything they say. Likewise, you would likely find some overlap between my views and those of, say, Hugh Ross, but I certainly don't agree with Dr. Ross in all particulars.

It depends on what circles you move in or group you admire. It is not the popular view in the media or the scientific community, for example.

I was talking about "popular" in the strictest sense; the view of the people as a whole.

There's also a world of difference between those and "We can be confident that we have understood the original intent of the authors".

Actually, there's not much difference between my first statement and your statement at all. Tell me, what is the qualitative difference between you being "perfectly confident" and "confident?" What is the qualitative difference between "perfectly understanding the intent of the authors" and "understanding the intent of the authors?" How much error do you think there is in your understanding of the intent, if it's not a perfect understanding? Is your understanding of the Bible 10% in error? 5%? 1%? Less than that? If you're not perfectly confident, what do you think the odds are that you're wrong?

And that's my point, as much as anything: that you are acting as though we think we are infallible, and trying to counter that with arguments that say (or imply) that we can't know anything for sure.

Do you believe it's possible that you're wrong about the Bible in any significant way? I'm not trying to be rude, Philip--I'm honestly not--but in all the time that I've dealt with Creationists, although many of them have said "I don't consider myself infallible," almost none of them have seemed to actually think their reading of the Bible could possibly be wrong in any but the most trivial respects.

Ignoring that overstated "perfectly", because reasoned analysis of multiple texts leaves no reasonable doubt.

That's the justification? You're saying that you can be sure that your analysis is right because your analysis leaves no doubt? That's like saying "We can be sure that we're right because we're sure that we're right!"

Because you've spent your effort on saying that there are no reasons rather than asking for reasons.

I eagerly await the reasons. What are they?

You're confusing justification with attitude.

I don't think I am. Howso?

But I'm not claiming infallibility (perfect certainty), merely (reasonable) certainty.

How much practical difference is there between your reasonable certainty and perfect certainty? How much practical difference for inerrantists in general?

Arguably, they have, in the sense of witnessing enough information to draw that conclusion.

It's exactly the same kind of inference that biologists make about evolution. Why is one allowable in your eyes, while the other is not? Is it simply because one is based on a worldview which meets with your approval, and the other is not?

But that's probably beside the point, because I was talking about history, or, to put it another way, events. Something that happened, not something that is.

I think that's a nonexistent distinction. Everything that is is the result of things that happened.

Because of a lack of alternatives in the case of history, but not in the case of the present.

There's no lack of alternatives; you simply don't accept that they can be applied to history. Of course, the distinction isn't nearly as sharp as some Creationist sources like to paint it. Determining the orbit of Pluto is as much "historical science" as "operational science," and the same questions Creationists apply to evolution can just as easily be applied to orbital mechanics. ("How do you know Pluto has orbited the sun? Were you there? Did anyone see it orbit the sun?")

Perhaps I'll try another example: what other source could we have for Jesus walking on water except eyewitness testimony?

None. Of course, we're talking about a miracle of a sort that wouldn't reasonably be expected to leave behind any lasting physical evidence--something very different from a massive global Flood that supposedly altered most of the physical constants of the universe.

There are plenty of the former and not many of the latter. Seriously.

In my experience, there are far more of the latter than the former. Where does that leave us, other than with the understanding that people tend to see what they look for?

I've made clear my own views already, that I'll reject conclusion from people with an incompatible worldview that are based on that worldview, not "all evolutionary arguments categorically".

...except that you believe that the theory of evolution is an incompatible worldview, or at least a foundational part of an incompatible worldview. How in the world could there be an evolutionary argument that is NOT in the category of "a conclusion based on an incompatible worldview?"

Maybe, but I've seen too many cases of people rejecting the creationary view not because it's internally inconsistent or opposed to the evidence, but because it doesn't fit with their views. An example is very close to your question: I've had people argue that the flood didn't occur as recorded in the Bible because we know of civilisations, such as Egypt, that existed at the time of the flood. The problem is that they are trying to fit a biblical date for the flood with a secular date for Egypt, and rejecting the biblical date because it doesn't fit the secular date.

Philip, I find this argument staggeringly ironic, given that the methods used to calculate the "Biblical date" are the same methods used to calculate the "secular date!"

Even in that case, the non-existence of God is not an explanation, merely a factor.

How about "Why does God let bad things happen to good people?" I would suggest that "...because God doesn't exist." explains that. Again, it's not an explanation with which I agree, but it is an explanation.

Yeah, right.

Again, heavy-handed sarcasm aside: yeah, right.

That's a separate question, and it would depend on the particular worldview, and in some cases one probably never can, ultimately. What happens, for example, if part of your worldview is the rejection of reason?

Then I agree with you; you would never be able to evaluate whether your worldview was correct or not. Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?

It's not, but what do you propose instead? The point is that one's worldview is used to interpret the evidence, so seeing if the evidence supports it or not may not be useful.

One's worldview should also be subject to revision based on the evidence. I do not believe that this is the case for most inerrantists; certainly not for presuppositionalists. (And before you ask, yes, that's a belief based on my worldview--because I have seen considerable evidence validating the idea that it's a good thing to be self-reflective and willing to learn from errors and a bad thing to be so certain of one's own correctness that one rejects all contrary arguments out of hand.)

Another way, if your worldview includes logic, is to see if the worldview is internally consistent.

Internal consistency isn't enough. I can develop a worldview that's totally internally consistent, but that doesn't give any assurance that it's in any way right. For instance, I can develop a worldview which suggests that the entire world is a highly-sophisticated computer simulation, of which I am merely part, which has only been running for fifteen seconds--but which has generated a fictional "past" much longer than that. My worldview is totally internally consistent; it can explain all observable evidence; I can even make a strong mathematical case for its probable likelihood. Does that guarantee that it's right?

If I'm one of a small number of exceptions, then it would seem that the number of exceptions is too small to base much on.

...in which case, I'm left with the general rule. I have to remain with what the evidence of experience has shown me until I experience some evidence to the contrary.

Absolutely false.

Name a method of proof that you would accept.

Yes, I did point out the fallacy of that one, and you've not shown that I'm wrong in that.

How can I? It was unprovable conjecture on your part. I can say "I believe all of the Creationists at CMI are secretly atheists who are in it for a buck," and you can't show that I'm wrong. That doesn't mean the assertion has any merit.

A proper, blind, survey.

See if you can describe it. What method would you use to ensure that a representative sample of Creationists responded honestly? Suppose the blind survey returned roughly the same percentages. Would you accept that it was valid, or say that it must be wrong, since you KNOW the suppression is going on?

Not at all. A demand for proof is reasonable not on the grounds of the availability of the proof, but on the grounds of the claim. If expecting proof if not reasonable, it's not reasonable to make the claim.

There's a difference between "expecting proof" and "demanding proof when there is nothing you would possibly accept as proof."

Yes, and as long as you fail to provide evidence of those claims, I would be entitled to.

...except of course, that I've provided evidence; you've simply stated that you don't accept that evidence because you believe it's wrong. That's your prerogative, but to then claim that I haven't provided evidence would be dishonest in the extreme.

Nonsense. You presenting irrelevant evidence is no better than presenting no evidence, and in neither case do I have to present contrary evidence to reject your claim.

The evidence is completely relevant; you're just predisposed to reject it.

It's near enough.

No, it really isn't.

You were asking for evidence in support of my claim that "Many people have become convinced that the creationary view is correct once they've been exposed to that side." Every one of those scientists were at one time not creationists but became convinced that the creationary view is correct on the basis of scientific evidence. Yes, some were raised in Christian homes, but became evolutionists, until the evidence convinced them otherwise.

Nonsense. Many of them were NEVER "evolutionists." Questioning Creationist doctrine does not make one an "evolutionist."

Actually, I could have added more names to that list, but didn't because I was limiting myself to those for whom the scientific evidence was the main factor, as opposed to the biblical evidence.

With good reason; people who accept a Young Earth account because of the Biblical evidence would have been even more irrelevant than the examples you cited.

Regardless of how brief or otherwise, it was the scientific evidence that caused them to become creationists.

Again, not true; most of them were creationists of one sort or another from an early age. They didn't need convincing, and I'd argue that they were predisposed to accept a Creationist account and reject an evolutionary one.

To do that, you'd have to have some other evidence in order to know that it was misleading. Would misleading evidence by itself be better than no evidence? You've argued that thinking you're not certain is better than thinking you are certain (regardless of whether the certainty is justified). Surely knowing you don't know is better than wrongly thinking you do know.

Depends on the evidence, I would think. Symptoms of illness that pointed misleadingly to one disease when another was really taking place could cause problems, but would it be better if the disease caused no symptoms at all right up until it killed the person? Misleading evidence can cause you to SEEK other evidence that will be reliable.

That would be funny if it wasn't so serious. The creationist perspective is definitely not dominant in the media nor the education system, even in America.

I didn't say it was. I said it was dominant in the culture. As an aside, if you don't think it's dominant in certain media markets and education systems, you don't know the United States very well.

Simply because they are the majority (or close to it) in public opinion, but suppressed and persecuted in academia, the media, etc. Even in America, let alone the rest of the West.

How, exactly, has that managed to happen? Was it the result of some vast conspiracy, or simply that Creationists weren't very good at promoting their claims?

Nope, simply not true.

Yep, simply true. Base assertions don't get us very far, Philip.

How many school or university libraries? And although I have to admit that I'm not in America, so don't know that situation first hand, I am still very sceptical even of the bookshop claim.

I am in America, and have personally done so. In fact, I was in Barnes and Noble shortly before Christmas, where I found (close to the front) a couple of books by Lee Strobel, one by Grant Jeffrey that I'm likely to pick up at some point, an interesting collection of evangelical essays from Christianity Today, a book called Fatal Flaws: What Evolutionists Don't Want You To Know (the author escapes me at the moment,) and Scott Huse's The Collapse of Evolution. That was just on a casual perusal, and it doesn't even include pro-Intelligent Design books like Ann Coulter's Godless.

Okay, your claim was availability, not sales, but one of the best-selling creationist books (Safarti's Refuting Evoluition) has sold a bit over half a million copies, world-wide. Dawkin's The God Delusion has sold over 900,000 in North America alone.

Generally, when one book sells better than another, it's taken as a sign that that book is more popular--not as evidence that the other book has been suppressed. Perhaps Creationists simply lose out in the free marketplace of ideas because their ideas aren't really very good or very compelling to those not already predisposed to accept them. (Personally, I'd love to believe that lackluster sales were the result of suppression. Maybe then I could convince myself that my own books didn't sell well because jealous detractors were suppressing them, rather than because they just weren't all that popular! Sadly, I'm afraid it's the latter case.)

Government ones?

Nope. That's the nice thing thing about government schools; such requirements aren't permitted.

And far more on evolution, especially when you include the ones that implicitly assume it.

Again, vast conspiracy, or simply one idea doing better in the free market?

Read Slaughter of the Dissidents by Jerry Bergman.

I have. I found it profoundly unconvincing.

Nonsense. I'm not asking for something that's logically impossible.

It certainly seems like it. You want me to produce evidence that accounts for Creationists who may or may not exist.

More nonsense. Figures that only take publicly-known creationists into account, and assume the rest of the community are evolutionists are obviously no good, and the suppression just goes to underline how misleading they could be. But taking all creationists into account (even if by proxy of a small-but-sufficient sample) would not have this problem.

And how do you propose to do that?

Admit that your claim is without firm foundation and withdraw it.

To the contrary; if you think my claim is without firm foundation, please present some actual evidence to that effect. Until someone does so, I see no reason to discard a claim based on the best evidence available. Certainly, "Your evidence is obviously wrong, but I don't have to provide any contrary evidence" is staggeringly uncompelling.

(I'm thinking specifically of Cainan, here, since he does NOT appear in the Genesis chronology but DOES appear in Luke... Well, yes and no. See here.

That article is a splendid example of what I was talking about when I said that Creationists take it as a de facto reality that any misunderstandings they have are trivial, and their understanding of the Bible is (as a practical matter) without error.

"To put this into perspective, we have the original text to 99% accuracy in the Old Testament and >98% in the New Testament. Most of the variation in the remaining <2% is merely stylistic, and not a single doctrine of Christianity relies on a debatable text."

Essentially, he does precisely what I said--brushes aside the demonstrable presence of error as unimportant and asserts that we can be confident that the rest is accurate.

Except that you didn't "disagree", you misrepresented them. You claimed that "...he doesn't give any positive case for thinking that the Masoretic Text is any more trustworthy and inerrant than the others", when in fact he does. You might disagree with it, you might think it's weak, but a case it is, and obviously a positive, not a negative, one.

I think it's weak to the point of being bare assertion--which is no case at all.

More evidence that you are not familiar with his argument. That was not his argument. He argued that the Septuagint's chronologies are inflated because they contradict the Septuagint's date for the flood!

Mmmhmm. And where, precisely, does this date appear in the Septuagint? Please provide me with the relevant chapter and verse.

So you're not certain that the value of certainty is questionable.

No, as I pointed out, I am certain of it. Again, please don't claim that I'm using strawmen and then turn around and blatantly misrepresent what I said.

Hmmm. Sounds rather like the degree of certainty that you decry in inerrantists and misrepresent as "perfect certainty" and "perfectly confident".

Nope. Couldn't be farther from it. The key difference, of course, is that I'm willing to revise my current viewpoint based on new evidence, should such evidence become available--and I don't reject out of hand conclusions that are incompatible with my "worldview."

Rather, I'm holding up a mirror reflecting your own questioning of the level of certainty.

With respect, your mirror needs polishing; it's not offering a very accurate reflection.

But you're claiming that on the basis of generalisations, rather than on the basis of the merits of the particular cases.

Show me a particular case with merit, and I'll consider it. I haven't seen one from Creationists that was convincing yet.

Not those issues, as those issues were "resolved" back then.

So which issues are they calling councils comparable to the Council of Nicea for today?

Evidence that didn't rely on a worldview that was incompatible with the one I hold.

...so the evidence that you would accept as an indication that the geologic column closely corresponds with the Milankovich Cycle is evidence that isn't incompatible with your worldview, and therefore concludes that the Milankovich Cycle doesn't exist?

Probably, but it would depend on the particular circumstance.

Describe it, please. What evidence could I possibly show you that you would accept as valid evidence of, say, an old Earth? An old universe? Evolution?

It's not who produces them that is the issue, but whether they are providing facts or worldview-dependent conclusions.

The problem is that any evidence which doesn't support a Young Earth is immediately going to throw it into the category of "worldview-dependent conclusions" for you, as far as I can tell.

As we are talking about ice cores, if they actually count layers and there is no doubt that they are annual, that would be hard facts. But if they use, say, radiometric dating to work out how many "layers" there must be on the basis of how many inches of ice cover x number of carbon-dated years, then, because carbon-dating is partly worldview-dependent, that is a worldview-dependent conclusion, not a hard fact.

What about oxygen-ratio differentiation? Pollen concentration in the layers? There are MULTIPLE means of verifying an annual layer, but all a Creationist has to do is say "The Flood probably changed that" to discount ANY amount of evidence. Again, we're back to that Answers in Genesis standard: "

Yet it's simply a descriptive term, and one that is used by evolutionists themselves.

Certainly not in the way that most Creationists employ it. I always get a chuckle out of hearing about "The evolutionist theory of the Big Bang" and "the evolutionist geologic column." I'd personally like to refer to Creationists as "evolution denialists," since I don't feel they should have a monopoly on the term "Creationist."

"Evolution" is not restricted to biology.

Semantics. I could speak of the evolution of the English language; that doesn't mean that it's part of the "theory of evolution."

False. This is not a creationist assumption, but evolutionary teaching.

That's laughable. Produce a single "evolutionary source" that claims that everything must have taken long periods of time.

Because if the only difference between rapid deposition and slow deposition is the existence of polystrate fossils, the evidence for slow deposition disappears.

Then it's certainly fortunate that that's not the only difference.

Not off the top of my head...

Try "not at all."

, but one of the problems with evolution and deep time is the flexibility of the ideas. They are so flexible they cannot be disproved. Things took a long time. Except when they didn't.

...but, wait, I thought you said that it was "evolutionary teaching" that EVERYTHING took a long time!

Evolution happens slowly. Except when it happens in short bursts. Similarities (homologies) are due to common ancestry. Except when they are due to "convergent evolution" (i.e. no common ancestry).

Yeah, and why stop there? Trees falling down is due to natural causes--except when they're cut down. People dying is due to old age--except when they're killed by disease or mishap. Why, who could ever take such claims seriously?

Which are...? Obviously, polystrate fossils indicate quick processes. What indicates slow processes?

Layers of evaporates. Varves. Magnetostratigraphy. All of which, of course, can be havd-waved away with "The Flood probably changed things." That doesn't mean they should be.

And yet they already have.

Ah, pardon me; I should have said that they couldn't CREDIBLY explain it.

Goodness, you really are into exaggerating, aren't you? No, not all geologists went along with it, and I never said that they all agreed with it at once.

It's certainly not much of an exaggeration.

Why would they do that? Because it meant that they could ignore the biblical account.

So we're back to a vast atheist conspiracy again.

Why weren't the Creationist geologists able to defeat this little insurrection, given that (according to you) their position was stronger and better supported? Because such things are spiritual issues, not evidential ones.

...and again.

In a sense, yes, but much of the geological evidence for the Flood, and various explanations, such as catastrophic plate tectonics, did not exist then, so from a scientific model perspective, flood geology as we know it today didn't exist then.

So why haven't these explanations gained any traction? More conspiracy?

Yes, and in that sense it did exist, but not in the sense of the modern flood geology models.

...which aren't all that "modern," for the most part--and, no offense, are pretty far-fetched in many cases.

False. It was not the forces that they concentrated on. They did reject the existence of catastrophes that were unlike anything they had seen. Small, local "catastrophes" were not a problem, but large ones unlike they were familiar with were what was rejected.

Evidence, please. Present such geologists denying that global catastrophes could occur.

Simply that most of what I've read about them says that they are torn off.

Where did you read that?

Yet again, I have not, as long as they are talking about observations and not paradigm-based conclusions.

...but any observation that indicates an old Earth is "paradigm-based." So if they observe that there are six million varves in a given area, and that varves are generally deposited annually, and that no known force could lay down six million of them in a short period of time, is that an observation? Or is that "paradigm-based?"

Because it is.

"It is so because I say so!"

When I said that I've never heard of such a thing, I was including living counterparts in that. I never, by the way, denied their existence. But I also note that you quote one source, an off-line one. They must be very rare if there is only about one source discussing them, and if no on-line sources discuss living examples, then I would question how such things came to be (i.e. was it really partial burial, or something else; can we know for sure?).

The Internet, contrary to popular belief, is not an all-knowing oracle and repository of all worthwhile knowledge. Why would anyone have occasion to set up an online source dedicated to documenting living trees that have been partially buried and then put out a new set of roots?

I thought you indicated that you had read the paper? Into the rocks, which is what caused them to melt.

Oh, come on, Philip. Not even RATE claims that that would account for the excess heat.

No, no, no. This is an example of conclusions based on an evolutionary worldview, rather than an example of evidence.

No, no, no. This is an example of basic understanding of magnetism. Sorry, Philip, but you're confirming what I suspected: ANY observation that doesn't fit your worldview is, perforce, a "conclusion based on an evolutionary worldview."

The evolutionary worldview has the world being so old that any original magnetic field would long ago have decayed away, so they need some mechanism to keep it going. For this, they propose a liquid core acting as a dynamo. But if the world is only 6,000 years old, this additional mechanism is not required, and an originally-solid core would not be a problem.

And you know that how? Please provide evidence that a magnetic field would endure for 6,000 years without a mechanism for generating it.

I like, because I've just shown how it is such.

You've certainly shown why I'm justified in my skepticism when you claim to be open to "observations."

They are explanations nevertheless.

So is "It was made by invisible elves." That doesn't mean it's a good explanation.

As far as I know, it is not found in its entirety anywhere. What is found in a few places is all the major divisions in one place, but that's not the same as saying that it's found in its entirety.

...and by "entirety," here, I presume we're talking about Woodmorappe's decree that the layers must be of a certain unspecified thickness before they're acceptable to Creationists?

Yeah, perhaps it would have "more weight", but it's still valid nevertheless.

Nope. It's invalid. What you can assert without evidence, I can reject without evidence, Philip.

Chemistry.

Wrong.

Physics.

Wrong.

Mathematics (if you count that).

I don't.

Biology.

Laughably wrong.

Geology.

Just as funny.

Zoology.

You're deliberately choosing the worst possible examples, aren't you?

In fact, many of the fields were started by biblical creationists.

...which is rather like saying that the field of computers was started by Charles Babbage. Arguably true, but completely irrelevant to the field as it exists today.

The two are not the same, because I asked you to substantiate your claim, and you attempted to but failed to do so. You asked me to refute your claim, and I declined to do so on the grounds that the onus was not on me to do so. I have not failed to substantiate my position; I have rejected the need to as you have not substantiated your claim yet.

...which is a tiresomely commonplace tactic. "Prove that evolution takes place beyond the created kind." "Okay, provide a definition of created kind." "We don't need to do that, just give us your best examples."

If I sound overwhelmingly cynical about this, I am.

Ignoring that it's not a leading creationist source, this doesn't actually refute my claim at all. They have done what I said: shown that the age of Niagara Falls is not inconsistent with the biblical age of the Earth. Neither the 6,000 years age of the Earth nor the 4,400 years since the flood that they cite are, in the quote, based on the age of Niagara Falls. Rather, they show that the Age of Niagara Falls fits the biblical timescale.

You're reading selectively. They go on to claim that if the Earth were old, Niagara Falls would have moved much farther. Don't play games, please, Philip; you claimed that Creationists don't make such arguments, and I demonstrated that they have. Do all Creationists make those arguments? Of course not; ask three Creationists what the Bible "plainly" teaches, and you're likely to get four different answers.

More accurately, I'd say that the widespread acceptance of archaeological and palaeontological evidence consistent with all life radiating outward from there would convince you.

Well, ANY evidence would be nice.

My point is that I think that the evidence you mention probably does exist (well, probably not evidence of "all" life, as much of the evidence would be missing). From memory, various grain crops are traced back to the Middle East. This also applies to early civilisation.

You're offering up the fact that we can trace barley back to Mesopotamia as evidence that life radiated outward from Turkey or thereabouts? Seriously?

Of course evolutionists won't like too much evidence like this and will downplay it and highlight contrary evidence, such as proposing that man came out of Africa, although the "evidence" for this is various "ape-man" claims which don't withstand scrutiny.

I'm sorry, what's NOT going to convince me is conspiracy theories offered in place of evidence.

Not "supposed to", but could, and could at least acknowledge the possibility.

I acknowledge the possibility. Now show me some convincing evidence that it's likely. "Possible" isn't the same as "probable."

So you justify your rhetoric by engaging in more rhetoric! I won't acknowledge evidence of a difference because... I won't acknowledge that the difference exists, because...you say so?

Because I have seen no evidence that you will, and substantial evidence that you will not. Please, prove me wrong on this point.

From what I know or can tell, Todd Wood is the only one in that list that is a scientist, which I'm defining as having a PhD in a scientific field (my normal definition, so I don't have to convince anti-creationists that creationists without a PhD are scientsts). Further, some of those have had some association with leading creationist groups, including Todd Wood.

All of them refer to themselves as scientists. Are they liars? I appear to be more willing to take them at their word on this matter than you do.

Easy to say from your armchair.

Very true. I've never signed my name to something I believed to be false in order to further my career (or for any other reason.) Since when does the fact that it's sometimes hard to do the right thing justify doing the wrong thing?

And presumably he did agree with 99.99% of it, and the remaining 0.01% was not germane to the rest.

So how much false witness is okay?

Not necessarily if it's a minor point in an otherwise endorsed paper.

So if Richard Dawkins allowed himself to be credited as the co-author of a book which mentioned that the age of the Earth was 6,000 years, Creationists wouldn't quote that?

You've read the paper, have you?

Read it? No. I will admit that I have not read the whole paper. I'd very much like to, but I have not had the opportunity. Read the relevant part? Yes. Unfortunately, the source that quoted it has not been up in quite a number of years, now. I suppose it's possible that the excerpt they included was a fabrication, but again, "possible" and "probable" are two different things.

I have seen one source that claims that the paper mentions the ages, but if that's true, I don't understand Plimer not mentioning it.

So we have sources that say it does mention the ages; we have Plimer saying nothing about it; we have no sources that say the paper does NOT mention the ages.

On the basis of that, do you think it's reasonable to conclude that the paper doesn't mention the ages?

That was not the rationale; he was already, in other places, open about his views. It would be something closer to having a negative impact on his career by refusing to put his name to a paper that he was partly responsible for, that he had worked on as part of a team.

So if an "evolutionist" had done the same thing...say, for a paper which provided radiometric dates which he believed to be false...would you be as forgiving?

Since when does "presenting arguments" become "presenting a particular argument that you think they should have presented if they want to claim that they've presented arguments"? They presented arguments that he was justified in doing what he did.

Yes, I suppose anything can be rationalized, if you try hard enough. If someone said, "The government used their orbital mind-control lasers to force him to sign the paper," they, too, could claim that they had presented an argument that he was justified. I think you would agree with me, in that case, that it neither a good nor a credible argument.

The first is nonsense, given that anti-creationists don't need to (although I'm sure that examples abound, even if not well known)...

A remarkable percentage of your evidence seems to take forms similar to this, Philip.

...and both the first and second are distractions from my point that the log in the anti-creationist eye is the widespread suppression and discrimination.

...which you have yet to substantiate in any meaningful way. Look, I'm sorry, but not hiring someone who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old for a position as a geologist isn't "suppression and discrimination," any more than it would be "suppression and discrimination" not to hire someone who believes in phlogiston and the luminiferous aether as an astrophysicist.

No, it is NOT posited that the catastrophe didn't conform to the same natural laws in place today, at least in any sense that makes the entire thing unpredictable.

Oh, yes, indeed, it is. Radiometric decay? Unpredictable because the rates of decay were altered. Rates of deposition? Unpredictable because the rates were altered. Rates of volcanic formation? Unpredictable because the rates were altered. Dendrochronology? Unpredictable because the Flood altered the rate at which tree rings form. Fossil coral deposition? Unpredictable because the Flood altered the rate at which coral grows. Varves? Unpredictable. Ice layers? Unpredictable. And so on and so on...

You claim that deep time geology would allow a prediction of depth for a given time. What you don't deny is that, under deep time geology, oil could be predicted everywhere, as everywhere would have had the right conditions at some time. So although they might have to drill deeper in some places than others, they should be able to find oil everywhere.

Okay; I deny it. There's no reason to think that the right conditions would have existed everywhere at some point, and until you substantiate the claim that there is, it's yet another bare assertion.

See here. Most of the other factors (such as the time to pursue science) were also due to the Christian worldview.

Sorry, Philip; I don't consider quote-mines to be a particularly good resource under any circumstances, and particularly when half of them are from Creationists predisposed to make the claim. The time to pursue science was the result of advances in agriculture leading to a large enough food surplus to support a highly-specialized population.

And for reasons which have been explained and which are quite reasonable.

I can only say that you're more tolerant of false witness than I am--and that I suspect you would be rather less tolerant for any author who was not a Young Earth Creationist.

I'm not talking about inerrancy, but about (reasonable) certainty.

Again, how certain are you? What would you say is the likelihood that you are wrong?

So? I was talking about certainty vs. uncertainty, not correct certainty vs. incorrect certainty.

The fact that the odds favor incorrect certainty is completely relevant.

Not at all.

Which worldview do you think is justified in being certain, other than your own?

Would it be better for an engineer designing safety-critical systems to be certain or uncertain? What about a doctor doing surgery? Or a judge sentencing someone to death? Or a builder building a house?

I'd certainly hope that they had a degree of uncertainty. If they proceeded from the position of "I'm certain that I'm right, and will reject any arguments that suggest that I'm wrong," I'd be terrified of trusting their judgment. There's a reason doctors generally confer with their colleagues--would YOU want a surgeon who says "I'm certain we need to amputate that leg" and flatly ignores five other surgeons telling him that he's mistaken, and that a simple treatment that will not require amputation exists?

Uncertainty is not better than certainty, except in those cases where the certainty is misplaced, which means that it's not the existence of certainty that is the issue, but the grounds for the certainty.

So it's okay to be certain that you're right, as long as you're certain that you're right. What are the grounds for inerrantists' remarkable faith in the historical-grammatical heuristic, other than "The historical-grammatical heuristic is obviously the best way to achieve reliable results?" You assume the heuristic is valid, and therefore the results are reliable, and therefore the heuristic is valid, and therefore the results are reliable!

And I guess you can be certain of that, but I don't think certainty is justified when it comes to saying that creationists have insufficient reason to be certain.

Obviously. In my own case, I would be happy to be proven wrong. I don't have a dog in this hunt, Philip; if the literal reading of Genesis 1 were confirmed tomorrow, it would simply confirm my faith in God. But it hasn't been, and every time Creationists offer up "scientific evidence" that I'm capable of evaluating, it falls flat.

Why can't I say that I'm certain that Genesis is an accurate historical narrative because I have faith that it is?

You can. Is that why?

If I rephrase it to "I know I'm right (that you don't have reason to be certain about particular things in the Bible), end of sentence", then that is what you are saying.

No. It's not. Please don't try to paraphrase me, because you're not doing a good job of it. I don't think you have reason to be certain about those things in the Bible because I've never seen evidence to support your faith in the infallibility of the man-made historical-grammatical heuristic, and because I see a large double-standard in those who profess to follow it. For all the talk of inerrantists about "reading the Bible as it would have been read by the original audience," they don't. Did the original audience believe that slavery was wrong and condemned by God? No, of course not--yet it would be a VERY daring inerrantist today who would say "Slavery is an acceptable practice." Many will claim that the "plain and straightforward meaning" of the Bible is that God has always hated slavery and opposed it--and the contortions they'll go through to get to THAT reading put those you criticize for an old-earth reading to shame.

Ditto with the firmament. The original audience believed that the sky was a solid firmament. For many centuries, inerrantists had NO doubt that the "plain and straightforward meaning" of the Bible was that the sun, moon, and stars were fixed on a solid firmanent that moved around the Earth. It was evident to them; they were certain of it. They condemned the faulty human science that said otherwise. Of course, they were wrong--and, once they were proven wrong beyond all shadow of a doubt, suddenly, the "plain and straightforward reading" changed.

It's hard, but for reasons that you are probably not realising. Your suggestion is basically that I've made up my mind and won't accept any evidence. That, however, is wrong. Yes, I've made up my mind because of the evidence, so it is hard to imagine—given all that evidence—what could possibly dissuade me. However, an inability to think of persuasive evidence does not mean that I'm not open to considering such evidence if it appears.

It certainly doesn't mean that you are. If you can't conceive of any possible evidence that you would find convincing, that suggests that your position is pretty unmovable. The fact that I have NEVER...not once...encountered a Creationist who could clearly describe such evidence? I think that's telling.

That doesn't explain it. Faith is faith in something or someone. That is, if X tells you Y, you have faith that Y is correct. So if I ask you how you know Y is the case, it's not good enough to say that you have faith.

You're remarkably dismissive of the idea that I can know Christ through a personal relationship with Him.

Huh? If it's errant, it's not truth!

Really? So it's not true that, for instance, a body in motion tends to remain in motion?

But at least here you seem to answer my previous question: you know God can be trusted because the Bible tells you so.

No. That is the beginning of my faith. It is only the beginning--the map to the head of the path, as it were. I know God can be trusted because I have put my trust in Him, and He has validated it.

And on top of this, Jesus said "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

...of course, that's sort of problematic if Moses didn't write Genesis 1 and 2, now isn't it?

This could be loosely paraphrased as "But since you don't believe the history that Moses recorded, how are you going to believe the spiritual truths I tell you?".

VERY loosely paraphrased, and I don't think it's any better than the paraphrasing you've attempted of MY positions. Come, now, Philip, let's not go down the same path as the "Conservative Bible Project."

"By these waters also the world of that times was deluged and destroyed."

An interesting quote, that. So the planet was destroyed by water? Well, no, that doesn't make sense...so I wonder what "world" could possibly mean? Could it perhaps mean "the known world," as in "civilization," as it does in many other places in the Bible? As it does, in fact, in MOST of the Bible?

So if I said that I had personal communication from God that He created in six literal days around 6,000 years ago, you'd accept that I had good reason to be certain?

Nope. Because you're not God, and because I have had many experiences in which people claimed that God personally told them (often contradictory) things. I have no reason to accept your claim of personal revelation at face value without substantiation, any more than you have reason to accept MY claim of personal revelation at face value without substantiation. Of course, my claim of personal revelation concerns only my personal faith in God.

Not so.

This starts from the presupposition that faith is based on evidence and goes from there. I know there are people who believe that; so what?

Well, I don't think that God normally speaks to His children in structured sentences conveying unambiguous information. He might occasionally, and He does "speak" in other ways, such as opening or closing doors, but I believe that He has conveyed much of the information He wants us to know in the Bible, so why keep repeating it to every individual? But then are you really saying that, given that you've also said that you got some of your information from the Bible?

The key word there being "some." The Bible is not my Alpha and Omega; Inerrantists who pronounce themselves and their heuristics authoritative are not my Alpha and Omega. God is.

It's no re-invention.

It is.

Pure speculation on your part. The fact that the thief told the other criminal "this man has done nothing wrong." surely implies that he knew something of Jesus other than the fact that he was being crucified as a criminal. That is, he had other evidence.

...and you accuse me of speculation? My goodness!

That is, I was referring to a (relatively) simple early cell, and you responded by talking about a complex single-celled creature. The other problem is that I wasn't referring merely to the amount of information, but to what information was there. Even a complex amoeba doesn't have the genetic information for, say, hair, muscles, livers, lungs, bones, eyes, etc. Even if the amoeba has a lot of information for things that humans don't have, which must have been lost if we evolved from such amoeba, my claim that massive amounts of information must have been gained is still correct.

...except, of course, that Creationists brush off information that is changed. Not lost, not gained, but altered.

I'm not going to argue for junk DNA—that's the evolutionists' argument. But your fallacy is in confusing information with the carrier of that information. Evolutionists (or at least anti-creationists) often make this mistake.

...mostly because Creationists are as reluctant to commit to a testable definition of "information" as they are to commit to a testable definition of "created kind."

You are talking about DNA letters (or similar), not the amount of information. I'm not suggesting that the Amoeba dubia does have less information than humans; I'm saying that in making your claim of more information, you're not actually talking about information, but a statistic about the medium (DNA). Hypothetically, it could be that the Amoeba DNA is uncompressed information while the human DNA is compressed information.

So since the "information" apparently exists in a discernible and discreet form independent of the medium of DNA, please tell us how to measure it.

It's also impossible to talk about what counts as a gain in information when you're talking about the number of letters, genes, or etc. rather than the information carried on those genes.

Still waiting for a concise description of how we WOULD measure a "gain in information."

Wrong. They say that it isn't a gain in information because it's a loss in information. Again, you are referring to distinctive sequences of letters, not to information content. If my message to you that "there is a sale on tomorrow" has a point mutation that changes it to "there is a jale on tomorrow", there's a new sequence of letters, but no new information. Rather, the message is now garbled, which is a loss of information.

But, of course, if we change a few more letters, we get "There is a fair on tomorrow." Still a loss of information? Or is this new information that was previously undisclosed?

True. Ergo, evolution is impossible.

No. Ergo, Creationists demand a square circle. Evolution doesn't require information magically appearing out of nowhere.

False. Evolution requires new information (such as the instructions for making blood cells) appear out of "nowhere".

Rubbish.

That is, the instructions for making blood vessels did not come from an intelligence (the source of all information), but from no intelligence (i.e. "nowhere").

Ridiculous semantic games, Philip, as well as being patently untrue--again, you're promoting the false (but often-repeated) Creationist claim that evolution requires atheism.

Don't forget that we are talking about the information, not the "letters" (DNA) that carries the information.

...which I have yet to hear a Creationist explain how to detect, quantify, or measure.

Maybe, but maybe it's just that it's so close to always that it's usually not worth mentioning the exceptions.

That seems to be pretty standard with Creationist "absolutes." The exceptions are ALWAYS not worth mentioning...no matter HOW worth mentioning they actually are.

Which has been done. It's essentially a probability argument.

An exceedingly bad one.

The number of meaningful (information-carrying) arrangements (of "letters", DNA or otherwise) is a tiny fraction of the total number of arrangements possible, which means that almost certainly any change to an information-carrying arrangement is going to be towards a non-information-carrying arrangement. But to get two such changes together would be 1 in 100,000,000 (1 in 10,000 x 1 in 10,000) and three would be 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000 (1 in 10,000 x 1 in 10,000 x 1 in 10,000). Hence non-trivial ones are ridiculously improbable.

...an argument which completely fails to make the distinction between sequential changes and iterative changes filtered by selection, and which makes no allowance for the sheer number of iterations going on. Like all Creationist probability arguments, it's a lot of impressive sounding numbers that have absolutely no relevance.

Hence it doesn't work.

Hence Creationists are attacking a strawman.

I didn't say that the new function couldn't be the result of a modification of an existing function. If a fin is modified to the point that it becomes a leg, then the leg is new, as it's no longer a fin.

...but when we present the leg, then Creationists will say "That's clearly a leg! It's not a fin! It never was a fin! Show us half a leg!" And when we present the structure that's functioning as both a fin and a leg, they say "That's just a funny looking fin that happens to sometimes function as a leg! It's not transitional!" Catch-22, Philip: there's no point in the entire sequence that we could show that Creationists would accept.

On the contrary, ignoring your specific examples, that is exactly what evolution claims. No, not a dog turning into a cat, but a fish into an amphibian, an amphibian into a reptile, a dinosaur into a bird, etc. If you demonstrated any of them, they most certainly would not disprove evolution, because they are exactly the things that evolution claims.

The problem, of course, is that Creationists are still envisioning that as a line--that evolution starts with amoebas, and then progresses upward to fish, and then upward to amphibians, and so on and so forth. It's a fatal misunderstanding. Evolution radiates outward--not towards greater complexity, but towards lifeforms increasingly adapted to their environments, which is not the same thing. Today's amoeba is every bit as evolved as a human--just in a different direction.

And yet you don't even seem to understand the distinction between information and the medium which carries it.

Oh, I understand it; I just think it's yet another nonsensical Creationist distinction like "macro" and "micro" which sounds good as jargon but has no real meaning. The thing is that we can QUANTIFY the information transmitted by a written or spoken language, independent of the written letters or the spoken syllables; that's what linguistics and psycholinguistics exist for. So: please define and describe "genetic information" in a manner independent of the physical medium of genes, and explain how we detect and recognize it.

Confusing the information with the medium carrying it, again.

Nope. Merely observing that you have no meaningful definition of "information," in a genetic sense, and no way to discern it beyond "It creates complex things, so therefore it must be information from an intelligence!" Dembski's mathematical gymnastics aside, that's really about as far as intelligent design has gotten.

Despite the fact that Dawkins was once asked to given an example of an observed mechanism for doing this, and was unable to.

Well, if that were true--as opposed to rather remarkably-dishonest propaganda from the team who produced "Expelled," who I consider about as trustworthy as Michael Moore--then, yes. Despite that. The argument from authority fails; I'm not all that impressed by Richard Dawkins to begin with.

"Gain" and "loss" are ordinary English words. Are you saying that you don't understand them?

Certainly not once Creationists get through mutilating them. How would you test whether an observed change in morphology is a "gain" or "loss" of information?

See again my examples above about Joe and Fred and about the sale being on.

Why? It was a terrible analogy, and that's a big part of the problem: when pressed to discuss what they mean by "information" in a biological sense, Creationists ALWAYS resort to bad analogies involving written information. Such analogies contain a mountain of presuppositions and assumptions.

1. The presupposition that written information has an absolute "information" value. It does not; the information conveyed by a given piece of information is relative, and determined in part by the reader.

2. The presupposition that biological "information" is a direct analogue to written information, which is in itself a bundle of assumptions--the assumption that there is a specific and intended purpose to a given piece of biological "information," and that therefore any change is a deviation from that pre-ordained "purpose," the assumption that biological "information" is subject to the same rules and structures as written information, and so forth.

Not so. Your example of stronger bones could, in principle, qualify. In practice, because we were designed by God, it's unlikely to, as God did use an optimal design. I'd therefore speculate that there would also be a downside to such a change.

Which would prove what, exactly? Evolutionary theory doesn't predict universally-beneficial changes. "Oh, we're in a fallen world!" is a VERY convenient phrase for explaining away...well, just about anything that DOESN'T fit with the idea of an intelligent designer.

So in order to make your point "that virtually anything can be conceptualized as a loss or change of information", you choose an example that could be, for all you know, an actual loss of information!

Given that, as far as I can tell, no Creationist definition for "information" as it pertains to biology even exists, it could, for all I know, be the entire text to Moby Dick, David Copperfield, and Pride and Prejudice.

How could Fred's comment be construed as a loss of information?

We're not talking about Fred's comment; we're talking about genes. Please dispense with the bad analogies and focus on the subject at hand.

Seriously? This just goes to show that you simply don't understand the words information, gain, and loss.

Not when they're cloaked behind Creationist obfuscation, you're absolutely right. I'm merely a professional writer who teaches language for a living, with a background in English, psychology, and cultural anthropology, ALL of them focused on language. I cheerfully admit that that's insufficient to pin down Creationist language to one clear meaning.

Yes, a loss of information could be so drastic that it might constitute a new family, but this says nothing about how the information for the organisms arose in the first place. This is like arguing that by pulling enough pages out of an encyclopaedia you might turn it into a travel guide, and that this can explain how the encyclopaedia arose in the first place!!

More bad analogies. How about we talk about genetic material rather than books, just for once? You know...the stuff that can reproduce and alter itself, which an encyclopedia cannot do?

Really, I see the Creationist insistence on constantly attempting to employ analogies of books or written material as more than a little disingenuous--because it's a very sneaky way of trying to slip in the tacit assumption that a gene sequence is information produced by a conscious mind. That may be true; obviously, I think it is true. However, attempting to employ an analogy which ASSUMES it to be true won't wash.

How can losses of information add something new?

Y'know what? You've been beating me over the head with bad analogies for long enough that I think turnabout is fair play, so I will use one in this case.

We start with the following piece of information:

James is not at the supermarket on the corner of Fifth and Main.

Now: this information is not all that useful to us if we want to locate James. He could be just about anywhere.

We now lose a piece of information: the word "not." We are left with:

James is at the supermarket on the corner of Fifth and Main.

We are left with a much more specific piece of information definitively establishing James' location.

You will of course protest that this is a terrible analogy, and you'll be right: it's exactly as bad as ANY of the analogies Creationists employ attempting to compare the chemicals that make up a gene sequence to written material.

Not so. Your argument is selective, as it doesn't mention the negatives. See here for a response.

Well, to be honest, the response is exactly the sort of thing I've been talking about: an attempt to find some reason to claim that a given mutation isn't a gain of information without clearly defining what WOULD constitute a gain of information. If Creationists ever commit to a measurable, testable standard for "gain of information," I'll be happy to employ it; until then, I will remain politely (and very) skeptical of any and all arguments concerning "gain of information." By the standards they employ currently, I believe any conceivable mutation would be declared unacceptable--and I think that's precisely the idea.

—BRPierce

I like to put two spaces between sentences, although this is considered incorrect these days. I also like to put hyphens in some words with consecutive vowels in two different syllables, such as co-operate. These are a couple of my idiosyncrasies that I wouldn't expect others to follow.

However, there are also rules, customs, or standards that I believe are universal and which I think I have a right to expect others to follow. Some of these are:

• The onus to substantiate a claim is on the person making a claim.

For example if A says "America is the best country", and B responds with, "No, Australia is", both A and B have made claims. A is perfectly entitled to ask B to substantiate his claim. Instead of making a claim, B could have asked A to substantiate his claim, but he didn't do that, so the onus moves to B to substantiate his claim if A challenges him to.

• Modifying that previous point, the onus to substantiate a claim is on the person making the claim, assuming that he expects others to accept it. If he is happy for others to summarily reject his claim, then he doesn't need to substantiate it. This also covers comments such as "I believe that...", which indicates that it is his subjective belief and he doesn't expect others to agree with him.
• A corollary of this is that if a person is unable to substantiate a claim, they should not make it. It is simply not good enough to assert something to be the case, then excuse oneself from substantiating that claim on the grounds that it is unreasonable to expect him to provide any evidence. For example, as it's impossible to prove a universal negative, the universal negative should not be claimed in the first place.
• Instead of substantiating a claim, the claimant could choose to withdraw it, i.e. deem it to be as though he never made the claim in the first place.

In the example above, B might choose to withdraw his counter-claim that Australia is the best country, and then challenge A to substantiate his claim.

• Claims do not necessarily need to be substantiated at the same time they are made. In making a claim, you might assume that the other person is going to accept the claim, so you defer any substantiation until after waiting to see if they challenge it.
• To save time, claims that are likely to be challenged should be substantiated at the same time they are made. One reason to not do this, however, is if the claim is a complex one and you don't know which part will be challenged, or if you don't know in which way it will be challenged.
• Simple rejections of bald claims that are disputed (e.g. A: The world is millions of years old; B: No it's not) should be treated as challenges to substantiate the claim, not as justification or excuse to continue bald assertions.

If A says, "Fred is a liar", and B responds with "No he's not", A does not have the option of saying "yes he is". This has just descended into a silly back-and-forth. Instead, B's comment should be treated as a challenge to A to substantiate his claim, which means the onus is on A to do just that.

Nor can I, any more than I can prove that any other piece of writing isn't the Word of God. Such negatives cannot be proven. If they can't be proven, then you can't make the claims and expect to be taken seriously.

Luckily, I don't need to. Creationists are the ones basing their entire position on the premise that Scripture is the Word of God; ergo, it falls to them to demonstrate that. They have not done so. I've already answered this point, but to answer it again, YOU are making the claim that the creationists are wrong, so the onus is on YOU to support your claim. That you admit that you are unable to means that your claim fails. That doesn't mean that the creationist claim is right, but your claim that the creationists are wrong fails. Critics waste far too much time making claims that they can't substantiate, then deny that they have any onus to substantiate. If you want to question my claim, fine. But if you reject my claim with a counter-claim, then the onus is on you to substantiate that counter claim. You have not done so, have admitted that you are unable to do so, but are still trying to put the onus on me.

Upon what basis could you conceivably make a case that Scripture is inerrant if it isn't the Word of God? Okay, this is going to take a bit of explaining. I assume you are familiar with the basics of set theory? Let's say set A is, loosely, "All God has said". Let's also say that set A is divided into two non-overlapping subsets, which I'll refer to as S and W. Set S is Scripture. See the first column in the table below.

Many (most?) Christians would call set S, if not set A, "The Word of God" (Alternative views 1 and 2 in the table below). You are making a case that set W (and W only) is "The Word of God" ("Your view" in the table below), on the grounds that the term is never used of Scripture (set S). Assuming for the sake of argument that your view is correct, that the term "The Word of God" refers to set W only, my point is that it doesn't follow that set S (Scripture) is not also part of set A (All that God has said). Ergo, Scripture is inerrant because it is part of set A.

	Your view	Alternative view 1	Alternative view 2
Set A (all God has said) Set S (Scripture) Set W (non-Scripture)	Set A (all God has said) Set S (Scripture) Set W ("God's Word")	Set A (all God has said) Set S (Scripture) ("God's Word") Set W (non-Scripture)	Set A (all God has said) ("God's Word") Set S (Scripture) Set W (non-Scripture)

Yes; I thought it went without saying. I assumed you understood that...which, obviously, you did. Given that I've had critics who have not understood this, I didn't assume that you understood.

...but it isn't; it's a reference to indefinite future days, not to the specific days referenced in either verse 14 or verse 17. I'm going to skip replying to the bit about Matthew Henry, because I think that's an unnecessary tangent. I'm backing up to have a closer look at the verse. Now, I've never learnt ancient Hebrew, so bear with me if I have completely missed something. You said earlier (in part 3), I'm thinking specifically of Daniel 8:26, which is, as far as I know, the only verse outside of Genesis that employs the words ereb, boqer, and yom in the same sequence as Genesis--yet definitely refers to an indefinite period of time. Here's the verse, with the English transliteration and the alphabetised(?) Hebrew taken from here:

The vision of the evenings and mornings that has been given you is true, but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future.

the vision

of the evenings

and mornings

Which

has been told

is true

he

you

keep

the vision

for

days

to many

ū·mar·’êh

hā·‘e·reḇ

wə·hab·bō·qer

’ă·šer

ne·’ĕ·mar

’ĕ·meṯ

hū;

wə·’at·tāh

sə·ṯōm

he·ḥā·zō·wn,

kî

lə·yā·mîm

rab·bîm.

Now, you said that it "employs the words ereb, boqer, and yom in the same sequence as Genesis". Well, true, I guess. It has hā·‘e·reḇ, wə·hab·bō·qer, and lə·yā·mîm, which I presume are variants on those words. However, it is using the first two (hā·‘e·reḇ, wə·hab·bō·qer, evenings and mornings) in the context of the vision about them (i.e. a reference back to the literal days of the vision in verses 1 to 14, as I said), and the third (lə·yā·mîm, days) in the context of when the vision will come to pass. That is, contrary to your implication that the three words were being used in the same way as in Genesis, they are not being used in the same way, as the reference to 'days' is not being equated with "evenings and mornings".

If it's not clear, then wherefore the confidence that they're all normal 24-hour days? If most are clearly normal days, and one or two are questionable but still could be normal days, that is sufficient reason to have confidence.

Why not? If there's an exception to the rule that days plus ordinals always mean normal days, then there's no such rule. And I suppose that if there's an exception to the rule that i comes before e, then because there is an exception when it comes after c, then there is no such rule that i comes before e? In any case, I referred to a "possible dubious exception", not "an exception".

No, I'm disagreeing with the point, because I believe the time is given as a basis for many different instructions and principles. The seven "day" pattern forms the basis of numerous practices, from the keeping of the Sabbath to the seven-year planting cycle. That other periods of time include the number seven doesn't mean that they are based on creation week, and they aren't claimed to, unlike our week.

Do you really want me to cite sources? I can, but these omnibus responses are getting pretty monstrous as it is... Yes, I want you to cite sources. You don't have to do it when you first make a claim, but if I reject the claim, it's not good enough to simply assert that you are correct. You need to back it up.

I believe that they are [compromises of the biblical text], in that they add information that's not there in an effort to (falsely) paint a picture where only one interpretation is possible. Since I believe it's the wrong interpretation, naturally, I see this as a compromise of the Biblical text. Even granting that your question-begging assertion ("falsely") is true, I think that's a big stretch to call such detailing "compromises of the biblical text". Perhaps you need to elaborate on how such explanations do actually compromise the text (once you've shown that they genuinely are mainstream creationist explanations, of course).

Personally, I prefer to place my faith in God, not men. False dichotomy, in that I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

The problem is that those who have great faith in them aren't particularly likely to accept that they are faults. I don't think you will. No, the problem is with those who avoid substantiating their claims by hiding behind an unsubstantiated and offensive opinion that the person they are critical of won't consider their attempted substantiations.

For instance, I think you will see an absolute refusal to consider any theory that contradicts a literal reading of Genesis as a merit, rather than a fault. I'm considering what you are saying, aren't I? Or does my reasoned objections to your claims amount, in your mind, to a refusal to consider? I did wonder if you weren't talking about me here, but that doesn't make sense, because (a) you said "I don't think you will" (which may have been a double negative, but I took to mean that you don't think I will be likely to accept that they are faults), and (b) the context is you asking if it occurred to me that CMI is fallible.

...which is irrelevant to the question we're dealing with. No, not irrelevant at all. You were claiming that if God ensured that the originals were inerrant, it would be inconsistent to not ensure that the copies were also inerrant. The argument I linked to addressed the claimed inconsistently specifically. You now seem to be rephrasing your claim to downplay the inconsistency aspect, but it is still there, else you wouldn't need to refer to God not ensuring that the copies were inerrant.

why, then, should we assume that He EVER intervened supernaturally to ensure such a correct transcription? Because it was inspired by Him, because Jesus quoted from it as authoritative, etc. etc.

That's your interpretation. Evidence, please? It's a rather large stretch from "Jesus didn't dismiss Scripture" to "Jesus accepted that Scripture had equal authority to His Word." No, it's not a large stretch at all, in the context that Satan was quoting Scripture to Jesus, and He quoted Scripture back.

The Sermon on the Mount largely amounts to a fairly lengthy list of "Scripture says X, but instead Y." Err, no. The Sermon on the Mount runs to 107 verses. Of those, a 28-verse section says things like, "You have heard ... But I tell you". That's hardly justifies your description of "largely amounts to". Further, twelve of those 28 verses are not saying "You have heard... but I'm telling you ... instead". Rather, it's more like "You have heard... but I'm telling you ... as well". But even those remaining 16 verses can be seen as complementary to the Old Testament, not contradictory. The Old Testament Law was given to the Israelites to define what was appropriate for justice. Jesus is not changing what is just (which was by then the responsibility of the Roman government), but highlighting a better personal response. Just prior to the "You have heard... " section, Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ... Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven,..." So Jesus was, to His mind, hardly setting out to say something "instead".

Does "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy" have equal authority to "You shall love your neighbor as yourself?" Of course not, given that the bit about hating your enemy is not in the Bible! "Christ here abolishes the false teachings of the Scribes who had misinterpreted the Law and corrupted the original meaning of the Scriptures."[5]

No, the answer is "We can come reasonably close." Now what does that mean? How do you "come close" to telling whether something is narrative or parable? Do you mean that we get it right most of the time? That would be consistent with my answer that you rejected. Do you mean that we can "almost" tell, but can't actually tell? That would mean we never get it right. Really, what does "coming close" actually mean in this context?

... the least you can do is not to attempt to put words in my mouth How else am I to understand "Not with perfect reliability, no."? That implies that we can tell, most of the time. Which is effectively what I said, that you now reject. This is not a case of putting words in your mouth. This is a case of repeating your own comment back to you in different words to make the point clearer.

Nope; it makes perfect sense if we can't always tell the difference. Nonsense. Your analogy of being able to tell the difference 95% of the time implies that we have a way of determining that 95% of our attempts are correct and 5% are incorrect. With the poison/medicine analogy, the bit you left out is that we can tell 100% of the time after the patient takes it, which allows us to determine that only 95% of the predictions were correct. With distinguishing parables from narratives, how do we tell that it's only 95% unless we have some way of measuring that, without implying that we can tell 100%? You could be saying that 95% of the time we are convinced that we can determine the difference, and 5% of the time we don't believe that we can, but in that case your earlier question "how do we know that many of the stories inerrantists claim are literal aren't parables used to illustrate points" doesn't make sense unless you are claiming (which you've not hinted at) that all such inerrantist claims fall into that 5% (or whatever figure you put on it). Unless you are claiming that, then my previous point stands that your question makes no sense unless we can't tell the difference.

Would you trust a pharmacist who said "I can tell the difference between medicine and poison with reasonable certainty?" If that was the best choice I had, yes.

Naturally you consider them certain; we've established your certainty already. The question is whether you're justified in your certainty, which I don't think you are. Are you certain of that? And are you justified in your certainty of that?

And, of course, there is. I accept that miracles can take place; I have no evidence to suggest that those miracles did not take place... You don't? Try talking to almost any atheist! Such miracles are anti-scientific, by definition. We "know" from science that they can't happen. Just like we "know" that creation didn't occur in six days, because "science" says it didn't happen that way. But like you said, I'd rather trust God than man.

In general, I'm far more inclined to accept the New Testament (particularly the Gospels) as a historical account in the contemporary sense than the Old. Yet the New Testament writers and Jesus accepted the history of the Old.

This is a fallacy in and of itself Wrong, as I explained.

If I had reason to question my interpretation of the miracle accounts in the New Testament, then I would question it; I do not. I find it hard to believe that you've never encountered an atheist giving you reason to question the New Testament miracles.

And, once again, let's be clear here--this is all about interpretation. It is?

It's not "The absolute meaning of the text as properly understood by inerrantists" versus "the fallible interpretations of everyone else." No, it's exegesis versus eisegesis.

Inerrantists are no better qualified to interpret the Bible than other Christians, and their faith in their heuristic is, I think, both misplaced and overblown...to the point where, in many cases, it verges on idolatry. Non-inerrantists are no better qualified to interpret the Bible than other Christians, and their faith in their heuristic is, I think, both misplaced and overblown...to the point where, in many cases, it descends to ad hominem rather than discussing the arguments for and against particular understandings.

Naturally, I question it. And when I question, I seek an answer. I attempt to test the assertion. By "question the assertion", I take it you mean "see if the creationist can refute my assertion". But in doing so you are asserting as true something that you say you aren't certain is true. That sounds like what I know as lying.

In the case of Creationist certainty that the creation account is literal historical narrative, I have tested it repeatedly and found that certainty to be unjustified. In context, that appeared to be an example of you questioning your own certainty (that creationists are wrong). But the way you worded it, you were questioning creationist certainty. Can you tell the difference? Further, how have you tested the idea that the creation account is narrative? What tests did you do? Once you start answering those sorts of questions rather than maligning creationists we might be getting somewhere.

And, once again, let's correct the misrepresentation: I don't question the idea that Creationists can be and are absolutely certain that their beliefs are right That's not what I meant. When I asked whether "you question your belief that creationists can't be certain", what I meant by "can't" was "have no basis for [being certain]".

It's the purpose of the book. So? A novel's purpose is to tell a story. Does that mean that the publisher information can't be relied on as correct? That's a very loose analogy, but the point remains that your claim is a non-sequitur.

it's not a history book For something that's not a history book, it certainly has a lot of history!

It's a book about our spiritual relationship with God. True. And I'm not denying the spiritual purpose. But that spiritual purpose is, for the most part, communicated by relating facts of history. If Jesus didn't really, literally, die, He didn't really, literally, pay the price for our sins. Or as Paul puts it, our faith is in vain.

God wasn't revealing truths about genetics and biochemistry and astrophysics He wasn't? So when it says that He created the stars, He wasn't revealing anything that has anything to do with astrophysics?

...therefore, why would the Bible be an inerrant guide to those things? Because God doesn't tell lies. If He said that He created the stars after He created the Earth, then that must be what happened, the words of men notwithstanding.

No, I'm afraid I'm going to have to stand my ground on this one. It's entirely possible for something to be both literally and allegorically true. Where in the world did you get the impression that that couldn't be the case? Well, for one, on OneLook Dictionary that cites WordNet as saying that an allegory is "an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances" (my emphasis), and other dictionary definitions that are not as clear, but make no suggestion that something can be both literal and allegorical. An allegory is a representation of something else.

In any case, given that Galatians 4:24 explicitly calls the story of Abraham allegory, your assertion leaves you with a problem. Hmmm. Some translations do (NET, AV, NRSV), but others use words such as "figuratively" (NIV), "symbolic" (NKJV), and "illustration" (NLT). That the NKJV has changed the AV's "allegory" to "figurative" would suggest that the translators believe that "allegory" no longer conveys the intended meaning. And I did say that "It can be both literal and have symbolic meaning"; I merely disputed the use of the word "allegory" to convey that idea.

...hence the term "de facto." They don't claim to have inerrant methods; they just proceed as if their methods were inerrant and their conclusions unquestionably correct. In your opinion. I utterly reject that characterisation.

I argue that the certainty is unjustified, and based on an unwarranted faith in man. No, at the risk of putting words in your mouth, you argue that the certainty is unjustified based on an unwarranted faith that the Bible is God's revelation. That, not man, is what they are putting their faith in.

...except for the one currently being fought between inerrantists and the scientific community at large. A figurative war, but a war nonetheless, and described as one by many Creationists. Yes, a figurative war between inerrantists and atheists (and those who have swallowed some of that atheist thinking, such as long ages). But you mentioned wars in the context of Christians killing Christians, so I don't accept your cop-out.

They're not atheistic views. Oh yes they are. Long ages came about because people wanted to derive a history of the Earth that was not beholden to the Bible, and invented a principle that implicitly rejected biblical history.

Considerably more Christians hold those views than atheists. Which doesn't mean that they are not atheistic.

Sorry, Philip; Young Earth Creationist views are not the only Christian views, much as Ken Ham and his colleagues would have it so. The age of the Earth derived from the Bible and not from atheistic views is around 6,000 years. You derive an older age by rejecting ("reinterpreting") the biblical account.

Well, no; I've offered a number of specific points calling the basis of your certainty into question. You've brushed most of them off as unimportant without really explaining why. Nonsense.

Why are you justified in thinking that "yom" must mean a 24-hour day in Genesis, given that every "rule" cited in support has exceptions? First, I don't think you've established that "every" rule cited in support has exceptions. Second, as I've said (and supported), exceptions don't negate the rule.

Why are you justified in thinking that the chronologies in the Bible are accurate and complete, given that there are inconsistencies in those chronologies? What inconsistencies? There are a few vague points, but no clear inconsistencies that I can think of at the moment.

Why are you justified in thinking that the phrase "kol erets" means "the planet" as opposed to "the local region," given that it's VERY seldom used in a sense that could mean "the planet" elsewhere in the Bible, and very frequently used to mean "the local region?" Context, perhaps?

Are there reasons you would find convincing? Honest question. I'm sure there are, such as an overwhelming preponderance of evidence.

Pray tell; I don't think I did [switch the claim] at all. You earlier claim was that I'm "predisposed to accept 24-hour days.". I asked for evidence of that. You switched to asking me if I'm " not axiomatically predisposed to a literal reading of Genesis and the idea that the historical-grammatical method can positively determine the correct reading". No mention of 24-hour days there, and no mention of using the historical-grammatical method in the earlier comment.

I notice that you didn't answer the question. When you switch claims without acknowledging that the former claim was wrong, I don't see why I should pander to your every question.

Impeachment of a source is a perfectly valid tactic. Only if the claim is being based on the authority of the source. Otherwise it's an ad hominem fallacy.

... we simply need to look at their statement of faith ... What more evidence do you need that they start from a predetermined belief in a young Earth and a literal 6-day creation than an outright statement of same? Are you seriously claiming that they don't, or are you just taking issue for the sake of taking issue? I was asking you to be clear what you are talking about. Now I know. What you declare to be "a predetermined belief" is a conclusion that the people concerned have come to from studying the Bible. (P.S. 17-4-13: Jonathan Sarfati wrote here yesterday: "The “young” earth is actually a deduction from a number of biblical teachings, not a starting point. In particular, it follows from the biblical big picture that God created a perfect creation that fell because of sin. Without this “bad news”, the good news of the Gospel with the redemption from sin lacks any foundation, and dangles rootlessly in a vacuum.") That they have put their conclusion into their Statement of Faith doesn't mean that they started with that belief. In fact, the section you quote is introduced with the comment "The following are held by members of the Boards (Directors) of Creation Ministries International to be either consistent with Scripture or implied by Scripture:" That is, rather than this being a "predetermined belief", they are saying that they believe Scripture teaches this. In fact, the bit you emphasise explicitly says this: "Sripture teaches...", not "We start with the belief...". Also, have a look at the reply by Carl Wieland to kyle B here.

Complete certainty implies either infallibility or overconfidence. Incomplete certainty, of course, is not certainty at all. So justified certainty doesn't exist? Are you certain of that? In any case, I expect that's news to most of the world's population.

Not really, no; my views are my own, albeit informed by other sources. Okay.

I was talking about "popular" in the strictest sense; the view of the people as a whole. I understood that, but my point was that popularity in particular circles is more relevant.

Tell me, what is the qualitative difference between you being "perfectly confident" and "confident?" The former implies infallibility; the latter just normal, justifiable confidence.

What is the qualitative difference between "perfectly understanding the intent of the authors" and "understanding the intent of the authors?" Again, the former implies omniscience, the latter doesn't.

How much error do you think there is in your understanding of the intent, if it's not a perfect understanding? There's not necessarily any error. An imperfect understanding might be an incomplete one, not an erroneous one.

Do you believe it's possible that you're wrong about the Bible in any significant way? I think that's too broad a question. That could encompass everything from a view of what the Bible is to particular nuances of particular words. Well, perhaps not all that would be "significant", but then that word itself is too vague. And of course it would be silly of me to deny that it's possible.

That's the justification? You're saying that you can be sure that your analysis is right because your analysis leaves no doubt? That's like saying "We can be sure that we're right because we're sure that we're right!" No, it's not like that at all. It's like saying "we can be sure that we're right because we've studied it at length, and therefore have good reason to be sure that we're right".

I eagerly await the reasons. What are they? Well... let's see. What were we talking about? Oh, nothing in particular. But you did say if you can suggest a valid reason for the certain inerrantist to BE certain that HIS methods of exegesis are perfectly reliable, I'll consider it. I'll ignore the "perfectly" bit, as inerrantists are not claiming infallibility (that's just your false impression), and offer one bit of sample evidence (as opposed to a complete set of proofs). Creationists believe that Genesis is narrative partly because a detailed analysis of the verbs used show that it conforms to the style of Hebrew narrative, and is inconsistent with the style of poetry, etc. I could give you a reference if you like, but even without that it serves as an example of why inerrantists (or, in this case, creationists) can be confident of their conclusions.

I don't think I am. Howso? Because we were talking about justifiable certainty, not "justification" in the biblical sense of being make righteous. That depends on attitude (a right heart), not on justifying one's reasons for claiming something.

How much practical difference is there between your reasonable certainty and perfect certainty? How much practical difference for inerrantists in general? The difference between infallibility and fallible certainty.

It's exactly the same kind of inference that biologists make about evolution. No, inferences about evolution are not about witnessing evolution, but starting with the assumption of naturalism, which all but means starting with the assumption of evolution. Ergo, evolution is an assumption, not a reasonable inference from having witnessed evidence.

Is it simply because one is based on a worldview which meets with your approval, and the other is not? In this case no, at least not completely. One is based on a worldview, and the other on hard, albeit indirect, evidence. Yes, there is also a worldview aspect there that tells us that we can rely on our senses, reason, etc.

I think that's a nonexistent distinction. Then you need to think again. If you don't believe that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius in different parts of the word, you can run tests to see. If you don't believe that water has always boiled at 100 degrees Celsius throughout time, how do you test that? There is a BIG difference between the present and the past.

Everything that is is the result of things that happened. That may be so, but that doesn't meant that "everything there is" is synonymous with "things that happened". You are the result of your birth, but you are not your birth.

There's no lack of alternatives; you simply don't accept that they can be applied to history. In the present, you have the alternative of running scientific tests. You can't run scientific tests on the past. Your'e right: I don't accept that scientific tests can be applied to history. How do you run a scientific test on the ingredients of Moses' last meal?

Of course, the distinction isn't nearly as sharp as some Creationist sources like to paint it. Determining the orbit of Pluto is as much "historical science" as "operational science," I'm not suggesting that there isn't some overlap, but I'm not sure what you are referring to here regarding Pluto. How is the determination of Pluto's orbit derived by speculating, for example, on how Pluto formed? If anything, it goes the other way. Pluto's determined orbit might inform us about its past, but it's past doesn't inform us on its present orbit. (And how its present orbit came to be is a different question to what its present orbit is.)

the same questions Creationists apply to evolution can just as easily be applied to orbital mechanics. ("How do you know Pluto has orbited the sun? Were you there? Did anyone see it orbit the sun?") First, I don't believe that question is related to "orbital mechanics". Rather, it's related to the history of its orbit, as in whether or not it has completed a full orbit. And yes, in that case, the question could be asked. The difference in the case of that question is that nobody is asking the question; both sides agree that it has orbited at least once (and many more than that for that matter).

None. Of course, we're talking about a miracle of a sort that wouldn't reasonably be expected to leave behind any lasting physical evidence... And that's my point—eyewitness testimony is often the only available testimony, and also often the best testimony.

...--something very different from a massive global Flood that supposedly altered most of the physical constants of the universe. Except that NOBODY (I can't emphasise that enough) is claiming that the flood supposedly "altered most of the physical constants of the universe". That is a complete, utter, fabrication. When a critic misprepresents so appallingly, he's lost the right to be treated with respect.

In my experience, there are far more of the latter than the former. Where does that leave us, other than with the understanding that people tend to see what they look for? Or the understanding that some people tend to see what they look for, while others see things correctly.

...except that you believe that the theory of evolution is an incompatible worldview, or at least a foundational part of an incompatible worldview. How in the world could there be an evolutionary argument that is NOT in the category of "a conclusion based on an incompatible worldview?" How about an argument based on evidence? Ever heard of them?

Philip, I find this argument staggeringly ironic, given that the methods used to calculate the "Biblical date" are the same methods used to calculate the "secular date!" There's no irony there, even if I accept your claim that the methods are the same. My point was about the fallacy of rejecting the biblical date simply because it didn't fit with the secular date, not because of the particular methods used. To put it another way, if two people both use the same method on different sets of data, and come up with different results, it's fallacious to argue that the other result is wrong simply because it doesn't agree with your result. You need to actually show that yours is the better result before you reject the other one.

How about "Why does God let bad things happen to good people?" I would suggest that "...because God doesn't exist." explains that. Err, no. It challenges the presupposition in the question; it doesn't answer the question.

Again, heavy-handed sarcasm aside: yeah, right. You made the over-generalisation. I can dismiss such over-generalisation because you've provided no argument whatsoever.

Then I agree with you Good. At least we got somewhere on that point.

Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing? Obviously a bad thing.

One's worldview should also be subject to revision based on the evidence. I do not believe that this is the case for most inerrantists; certainly not for presuppositionalists. Perhaps not for certain types of presuppositionalists, but otherwise I reject your characterisation, and again point you to the link above with Carl Wieland replying to kyle B.

Internal consistency isn't enough. Maybe not, but ...

I can develop a worldview that's totally internally consistent, but that doesn't give any assurance that it's in any way right. I'm not convinced that it's possible to develop a worldview that is internally consistent yet wrong, unless it's described very vaguely. That is, the more detail there is, the more likely it will be internally inconsistent if it's not correct. If I asked lots of questions about your following example, would you infallibly answer them all in a way that you didn't contradict yourself at any point? Or would you instead, at some point, say something about your hypothetical worldview that contradicted something else you had said? My point, I guess, is that it's like a liar, who often has to cover a lie with another lie, and then that lie with yet another. Sooner or later, simply by virtue of the fact that they are lying, they will get caught out. Similar with an incorrect worldview. Sooner or later someone will find something that doesn't fit; that contradicts something else. Sure, it probably won't happen with a one-liner like your example, but a real (detailed) worldview is not likely to be internally consistent if it's not correct. So a test for internal consistency is a good way to test a worldview.

For instance, I can develop a worldview which suggests that the entire world is a highly-sophisticated computer simulation, of which I am merely part, which has only been running for fifteen seconds--but which has generated a fictional "past" much longer than that. My worldview is totally internally consistent; it can explain all observable evidence; I can even make a strong mathematical case for its probable likelihood. Does that guarantee that it's right? No, I'm not suggesting that it guarantees that it's right. Rather, it's analogous to science, which can't prove anything right, but can fail or succeed at proving things wrong. If it consistently fails to disprove a theory, we usually accept it as a correct theory. Similarly, testing for internally inconsistency, if the tests (multiple, as there are many points of potential inconsistency to test for) consistently pass, gives strong support to the validity of the worldview, and if the tests fail, invalidate the worldview.

Name a method of proof that you would accept. No, you made the claim, the onus is on you to substantiate it. You claimed that I "then proceeded to systematically disallow all possible methods of proof." I'm saying I did no such thing. You show that I did. I don't have to show that I didn't.

How can I? It was unprovable conjecture on your part. Nonsense. Pointing out a fallacy is not "unprovable conjecture". You made a claim about the number of creationists, and have consistently failed to support that claim that you made. Instead, you have repeatedly tried to put the onus on me to disprove your claim. You complained that I wouldn't allow a particular type of evidence, and I agreed that I wouldn't, and explained why. That was reason, not "unprovable conjecture". You have not refuted that reason, and have not provided evidence to support your claim.

I can say "I believe all of the Creationists at CMI are secretly atheists who are in it for a buck," and you can't show that I'm wrong. That doesn't mean the assertion has any merit. That is precisely the problem. You did make such a claim. Even if I can't (or don't) show that you are wrong, it doesn't mean that your claim has any merit. That is why I am calling you on your claim, and asking you to prove it. Instead, you are trying to get me to disprove it, just as if you asked me to disprove the claim that "all of the Creationists at CMI are secretly atheists who are in it for a buck".

See if you can describe it. Are you serious? Don't you know what a proper blind survey is? Polling organisations do them all the time.

Suppose the blind survey returned roughly the same percentages. Would you accept that it was valid, or say that it must be wrong, since you KNOW the suppression is going on? The point of a proper blind survey is that the suppression that exists is not going to skew the figures. Sure, it will not show the numbers who would be creationists if there wasn't suppression, but it should correctly show the numbers who are creationists. That is, if, hypothetically, the percentage of scientists who are creationists is 40%, it might be that low because of suppression. But suppression won't cause a proper blind survey to return the result that only 20% of scientists are creationists. However, a non-blind survey could give a figure of only 20% instead of the true (in this hypothetical) 40% because of suppression. If the survey is not blind, people might be reluctant to reveal their position. But if it is blind, they can safely record their position, so the results should be accurate.

I'm going to back up a bit here, summarise this part of the debate, and elaborate on a point.

• You claimed that 99-plus percent of biologists, geneticists, geologists, geophysicists, astrophysicists, and astronomers ... see overwhelming evidence for an ancient universe.
• I rejected that figure.
• You accused me of not providing evidence that the figure is wrong. You made reference to surveys that you were familiar with. After saying that the standard response is that YEC scientists keep their views secret, you said that I think it's prudent if we confine ourselves to what the evidence shows, rather than attempting to make a lack of evidence serve in PLACE of evidence.
• I pointed out that you had not provided any evidence, and you were therefore yourself arguing from a lack of evidence.
• You said that you've never seen a list of Creationist scientists that numbered significantly more than a thousand names--which is FAR less than one percent of the practicing scientists in the relevant fields. You also asked if I would like a list of the relevant studies and surveys?. I said that I would, but you never provided the list. All you did is make the argument that there are slightly over 3 million practicing biologists currently. One percent of that would be 30,000. One-tenth of one percent would be 3,000. Are there, in fact, reliable sources that list 3,000 practicing Creationist biologists?
• Despite me saying that I'd like the list, you wormed out of that with, If I simply cite studies claiming 99-point-whatever-percent, you're going to quite reasonably ask for justification of that figure; I figured we'd lay that groundwork first and THEN cite the figures.
• In the process of that, I argued that any lists of creationary scientists would not give the true figure, because of the suppression that exists (i.e. they would be incomplete).
• On that basis, you accused me of rejecting the evidence.
• I have said that you provided no relevant evidence.

Here's where I elaborate. Even to the extent that the lists of creationary scientists are evidence, they are very weak evidence.

You opined that I wouldn't accept results even of a proper blind survey if I didn't like the figures, despite me saying that a proper blind survey would be acceptable. Surveys and polls can range from very accurate to very inaccurate. Inaccuracy in polls can be due to a number of factors, including poor sampling, biased questions, an unwillingness to provide accurate answers, etc. The type of poll can be a significant contributing factor. A telephone poll will be biased against those who don't have telephones, which can matter if the results vary between those who have telephones and those who don't. People may be unwilling to reveal too much about private matters (such as their sex life) to a face-to-face interviewer, but more willing to a telephone interviewer, and be most willing in a written questionnaire where it is clear that they will remain anonymous. Polls such as often run by newspapers or television shows where the readers or listeners choose whether or not to respond can be very biased, both by who bothers to respond and by what type of reader/listener the newspaper or television show has. A list that asks scientists to publicly identify that they are creationary scientists (or even that they have problems with evolution) is not proper polling methodology, and because of the stigma attached, is clearly not going to be representative of the scientific community. The existence of overt suppression (as opposed to a mere stigma) only exacerbates this problem. You could hardly get a less accurate sample if you tried. This is why I reject such as any sort of reasonable evidence of a "99-plus percent" figure. On the other hand, a proper, blind, scientifically-conducted poll, should, in my opinion, give reasonable results.

There's a difference between "expecting proof" and "demanding proof when there is nothing you would possibly accept as proof." Avoiding the point by inventing my response. Not a good or valid argument.

...except of course, that I've provided evidence You have provided no evidence of that 99%, except for a back-of-envelope calculation that is manifestly inadequate because of it not being a proper blind survey, as I explained above.

you've simply stated that you don't accept that evidence because you believe it's wrong. No, I've said that I don't accept your claim because I believe it wrong. And as long as you don't provide proper evidence, I'm entitled to.

That's your prerogative, but to then claim that I haven't provided evidence would be dishonest in the extreme. That back-of-envelope calculation is not even good enough to qualify as evidence, in my opinion. But keep that comment of yours in mind. I will bring it back to haunt you.

The evidence is completely relevant; you're just predisposed to reject it. It is not relevant, because there is no good reason to think that the figure has any merit, as I've explained above.

Nonsense. Many of them were NEVER "evolutionists." Questioning Creationist doctrine does not make one an "evolutionist." First, the claim was not that they were evolutionists. My claim that you questioned was "Many people have become convinced that the creationary view is correct once they've been exposed to that side." They all fit that bill. Second, I believe that you are exaggerating to say "many" were never evolutionists.

With good reason; people who accept a Young Earth account because of the Biblical evidence would have been even more irrelevant than the examples you cited. Technically, not true. Again, my claim that you question was that "Many people have become convinced that the creationary view is correct once they've been exposed to that side." I didn't stipulate anything about being exposed to scientific evidence. If I had chosen to include those who were convinced by biblical evidence, they would have been legitimate examples.

Again, not true; most of them were creationists of one sort or another from an early age. They didn't need convincing... False.

...and I'd argue that they were predisposed to accept a Creationist account and reject an evolutionary one. And I'd argue that (in some cases) they were more simply open to accepting a creationist account more than is the average atheist-influenced scientist.

Symptoms of illness that pointed misleadingly to one disease when another was really taking place could cause problems, but would it be better if the disease caused no symptoms at all right up until it killed the person? Misleading evidence can cause you to SEEK other evidence that will be reliable. Boy, you come up with some exceptional scenarios! "Exceptional" in the sense that they are the exception, not typical. It's like arguing that telling the truth is not a good principle because of some unusual scenario where it's better to lie. Why would misleading evidence cause you to seek other (reliable) evidence unless you realised that it was misleading? And if you realised it, you could hardly call it misleading! Whereas no evidence is going to give you reason to look for evidence, assuming that you realise there is a need to find evidence, of course. Your scenario of a symptonless disease is not a typical scenario. Most diseases have symptoms. (Yes there may be some that don't, and I agree that you won't look for explanations if you don't know that you have a disease, but my point is that this is the exception, not the typical case.)

I didn't say it was. I said it was dominant in the culture. Yes, but I was pointing out that the media and the education system have more influence than the culture.

As an aside, if you don't think it's dominant in certain media markets and education systems, you don't know the United States very well. First, I said "even in America", not "only in America" nor "in America". Second, you've got to be kidding. Are you suggesting that creationism is dominant in American universities? You're surely kidding.

How, exactly, has that managed to happen? Was it the result of some vast conspiracy, or simply that Creationists weren't very good at promoting their claims? Neither, although perhaps a bit of both. To a fair extent, it is simply the way that the mainstream scientific paradigm has moved. But there is also evidence of humanists getting themselves into influential positions to influence what gets taught. How much this is co-ordinated planning and how much other factors I don't know. But for an analogy, a conservative political commentator here in Oz has documented how the journalism schools seem to be dominated by left-wing teachers, which would partly explain why so many journalists lean to the left. I heard many years ago about a survey that showed that 80% (I think the figure was) of the American population opposed abortion, but 80% of the journalists supported it. The point is that journalists (the media) have often been shown to be unrepresentative of the general population. That I may not be able to explain exactly how this has come about does not change that it is the case.

Yep, simply true. Base assertions don't get us very far, Philip. So stop making them and I'll stop responding with them.

I am in America, and have personally done so. In fact, I was in Barnes and Noble shortly before Christmas, where I found... Okay. Interesting. But some points and a question in response. 1) Do you think that this would be representative of all of America, or just some of it (especially given that I don't know which part you are in). 2) Part of your claim was that you could find creationist books "more easily than [you] can find books on evolution". Yet you've not documented how many books there were on evolution, so I can't do the comparison. 3) I said that I was sceptical of your claim regarding bookshops, but I also asked about school and university libraries. 4), You actually only mentioned two creationist books, plus a couple of other Christian authors. I'd grant ID books seeing evolutionists try to suppress them also, but just going by the title, is Godless about ID, or just assumes ID? 5) By way of counter-example, evolutionists tried to have removed from sale the only (as far as I know) creationist book on sale at the the official bookshop at the Grand Canyon, even though it was in the inspirational section, not the scientific section. It seems that the authorities didn't withdraw it mainly because it was selling so well. Admittedly that was a government bookshop, but it does provide another example of attempted suppression.

Generally, when one book sells better than another, it's taken as a sign that that book is more popular--not as evidence that the other book has been suppressed. I wasn't giving that as an example of suppression per se, but as an attempted partial rebuttal of your claim about the availability of creationist books in bookshops.

Nope. That's the nice thing thing about government schools; such requirements aren't permitted. Of course not. The requirement is that you have to be an evolutionist. Is that somehow better? No, it's not usually an official requirement, but it's frequently an effective requirement. And even where it's not required to believe in evolution, it is required to teach it, and to the exclusion of alternatives. Further, it is legitimate for Christians schools to be biased toward Christian things. It's not legitimate for government schools to be biased against Christian things. So my point is that your example of Christian schools is irrelevant. It's the government schools that are relevant to this argument.

Again, vast conspiracy, or simply one idea doing better in the free market? Neither. You don't need to invoke conspiracy to explain bias. But as for the supposed free market, it's my opinion that creationists are gaining ground, despite the suppression, given that creationism was all but dead 50 years ago, and today is alive and fighting.

I have. I found it profoundly unconvincing. Then your claim that you're "not seeing much EVIDENCE" was false. You have seen much evidence—he provides plenty—you simply reject it as unconvincing. Now what was it you said a little while back? Oh yes. I've provided evidence; you've simply stated that you don't accept that evidence because you believe it's wrong. That's your prerogative, but to then claim that I haven't provided evidence would be dishonest in the extreme. Yet here you denied having seen evidence that you now admit you've seen but rejected. Doesn't that make you dishonest in the extreme?

It certainly seems like it. You want me to produce evidence that accounts for Creationists who may or may not exist. No, I'm asking you for evidence for your 99% claim. Again, if you'd provided the evidence when I first asked, you wouldn't have forgotten what I was asking for.

And how do you propose to do that? As I've already said, by a proper blind survey.

To the contrary; if you think my claim is without firm foundation, please present some actual evidence to that effect. Yet again, trying to put the onus on me to refute your unsupported claim. I have presented evidence to that effect: All the evidence I need is to point out that you have not supported your claim, and I have done that already. To repeat, you made the claim; the onus is on you to support it.

Until someone does so, I see no reason to discard a claim based on the best evidence available. Apart from anything else, I reject that it is based on the best evidence available.

Certainly, "Your evidence is obviously wrong, but I don't have to provide any contrary evidence" is staggeringly uncompelling. Absolutely, utterly false. As I've repeated ad nauseum, if you make a claim, the onus is on you to support it.

That article is a splendid example of what I was talking about when I said that Creationists take it as a de facto reality that any misunderstandings they have are trivial, and their understanding of the Bible is (as a practical matter) without error. Or perhaps this provides a splendid example of how you simply wave away reasoned argument with ad hominem.

Essentially, he does precisely what I said--brushes aside the demonstrable presence of error as unimportant and asserts that we can be confident that the rest is accurate. You are misrepresenting him, in a couple of ways. First, this sort of claim is not confined to creationists, contrary to your implication. Second, the claim is about documented comparisons of manuscripts. It is hard evidence.

And that was the sum total of your response to that article. That is, absolutely no response to the main point and argument of the article, which was about the inclusion of Cainan in Luke's genealogy. Only red herrings. To recap:

• You asked What makes you confident that the Biblical chronologies are complete and correct...particularly given that the same chronologies in different parts of the Bible feature different numbers of names? (I'm thinking specifically of Cainan, here.
• I provide a link to answer the Cainan question.
• You completely ignore the argument about Cainan (and thereby quietly drop your only cited evidence that the chronologies are incomplete), instead jumping on something else (and get that wrong in the process).

I think it's weak to the point of being bare assertion--which is no case at all. Yet, unlike me and your very weak argument for the 99% figure, you've provided no reason to think that it is weak, merely baldly asserted that it is the case, and misrepresented that supposedly weak case as no case at all.

The table in the article provides the figures. According to the LXX, Methuselah had Lamech when he was 167 years old, and lived for another 802 years, which means that he died when he was 969 (agreeing on that point with the Masoretic text). Lamech had Noah when he was 188 years old, which means that Methuselah would have ben 355. The flood came when Noah was 600, which means that it came when Methuselah would have been 955. But he lived until he was 969. As Methuselah was not in the Ark manifest and nobody outside the ark survived, the Septuagint figures are obviously incorrect.

No, as I pointed out, I am certain of it. Ah, so you are certain that the value of certainty is questionable. And you are certain of it despite your claim that Complete certainty implies either infallibility or overconfidence. Incomplete certainty, of course, is not certainty at all. So is your certainty complete or not?

Nope. Couldn't be farther from it. The key difference, of course, is that I'm willing to revise my current viewpoint based on new evidence, should such evidence become available--and I don't reject out of hand conclusions that are incompatible with my "worldview." Ah, I see. Certainty in creationists is evidence that they reject out of hand conclusions that are incompatible with their worldview (if it's complete certainty, it implies infallibility or overconfidence, and if it's incomplete it's not actually certainty), but certainty in you is not such evidence, because, well, you're different, because you're fallible. Reminds me of the person who is proud of their humility.

With respect, your mirror needs polishing; it's not offering a very accurate reflection. Ot perhaps you simply don't recognise yourself in it, so you blame the mirror.

Show me a particular case with merit, and I'll consider it. I haven't seen one from Creationists that was convincing yet. Now, who was it who said you've simply stated that you don't accept that evidence because you believe it's wrong. That's your prerogative, but to then claim that I haven't provided evidence would be dishonest in the extreme. Oh yes, it was you. In any case, you've sidestepped the point that you are arguing on the basis of generalisations rather than on the merits or otherwise (happy now?) of the particular cases. That is, you are failing to actually address the arguments, with the excuse that they aren't good arguments. Good. If they aren't good arguments, you should have no troubles showing that. So why don't you?

So which issues are they calling councils comparable to the Council of Nicea for today? I'm not claiming any are.

...so the evidence that you would accept as an indication that the geologic column closely corresponds with the Milankovich Cycle is evidence that isn't incompatible with your worldview, and therefore concludes that the Milankovich Cycle doesn't exist? So you're saying that the only evidence is evidence that assumes that the Bible is wrong? Why would you even expect me to accept that?

Describe it, please. What evidence could I possibly show you that you would accept as valid evidence of, say, an old Earth? An old universe? Evolution? In the case of evolution, show one kind of creature evolving into another kind (which wouldn't prove that it happened in the past, but that would go a long way), and also show many thousands of indisputably transitional forms in the fossil record in the right sequence.

The problem is that any evidence which doesn't support a Young Earth is immediately going to throw it into the category of "worldview-dependent conclusions" for you, as far as I can tell. Why do you think that I would categorise evidence as worldview-dependent on the basis of what it supports instead of on the basis of whether or not it is worldview-dependent? Why do you, in effect, impugn my intellectual integrity? Why do you not accept that some evidence is worldview-dependent and simply accept that it is that evidence that I'm talking about? Why do you question my motives rather than my arguments?

What about oxygen-ratio differentiation? Pollen concentration in the layers? There are MULTIPLE means of verifying an annual layer, but all a Creationist has to do is say "The Flood probably changed that" to discount ANY amount of evidence. Again, we're back to that Answers in Genesis standard: " What about posing specific questions instead of vague ones backed by a bald claim and impugning the integrity of creationists? Sure, there are multiple potential methods of verifying an annual layer, but how realistic are they in all circumstances?

Certainly not in the way that most Creationists employ it. Evidence?

I always get a chuckle out of hearing about "The evolutionist theory of the Big Bang" and "the evolutionist geologic column." Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote: "Evolution comprises all the stages of the development of the universe: the cosmic, biological, and human or cultural developments. Attempts to restrict the concept of evolution to biology are gratuitous."

Semantics. I could speak of the evolution of the English language; that doesn't mean that it's part of the "theory of evolution." No, but then your (invented?) example of "The evolutionist theory of the Big Bang" and "the evolutionist geologic column." didn't use the exact phrase, the "theory of evolution", so what's your point?

That's laughable. Produce a single "evolutionary source" that claims that everything must have taken long periods of time. Perhaps I should ask you to provide an evolutionary source saying that anything can occur quickly. But we were talking about geological processes in particular, and the whole point of uniformitarian geology—and biological evolution for that matter—is that you have eons of time to play with.

Then it's certainly fortunate that that's not the only difference. Isn't it?

...but, wait, I thought you said that it was "evolutionary teaching" that EVERYTHING took a long time! I never claimed that evolutionary teaching was consistent. In fact I claimed the exact opposite.

Yeah, and why stop there? Trees falling down is due to natural causes--except when they're cut down. People dying is due to old age--except when they're killed by disease or mishap. Why, who could ever take such claims seriously? My point, of course, is that with the evolutionary teaching there is no way to tell the difference, except whichever fits the paradigm better.

Layers of evaporates. Varves. Magnetostratigraphy. Varves (or at least things that are called varves) can form quickly, and there is hard evidence of magnetic changes happening over weeks. I don't see why evaporates should be different.

All of which, of course, can be havd-waved away with "The Flood probably changed things." That doesn't mean they should be. Back to the straw-man arguments, pretending that creationists hand-wave things away with vague claims rather than specifics.

Ah, pardon me; I should have said that they couldn't CREDIBLY explain it. Ah yes, qualify it with a value judgement that can't be proved wrong because it's your opinion.

It's certainly not much of an exaggeration. Typical argument. First, speak as though scientists are of one mind on this issue. When called on it, play down the error as minor. And we are talking here about words that you tried putting into my mouth.

So we're back to a vast atheist conspiracy again. So you're back to making accusations that I've already rejected. I previous said, "The charge of claiming conspiracy is a straw-man invented by anticreationists because they can't mount a good honest argument. You demean yourself by repeating it." And now you repeat it again.

...and again. Ditto. More demeaning yourself with straw-man arguments. Do not you, as a Christian, accept the possibility, if not existence, of a spiritual battle? Do you not accept that it's even possible that people might reject the biblical account because they don't want to believe in God? If you do, then why reject that claim of mine with an already-rejected charge of "claiming conspiracy"? No better argument to make? Richard Dawkins said "I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally, hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."

So why haven't these explanations gained any traction? More conspiracy? No, more spiritual issues, as already explained and summarily rejected by you.

...which aren't all that "modern," for the most part You don't count plate tectonics (or runaway subduction) as "modern"? Nor the creationist explanation for the formation of petrified forests, based on the evidence from Mt. St. Helens?

--and, no offense, are pretty far-fetched in many cases. As far-fetched as life forming spontaneously despite no known mechanism for this to happen? As far-fetched as the complete lack of the millions of transitional forms? As far-fetched as nothing exploding and becoming everything for no reason? Sorry, I don't have enough faith to believe the atheistic view. It's far too far-fetched.

Evidence, please. Present such geologists denying that global catastrophes could occur. I'm surprised that you would challenge this. That global catastrophes (or even large sub-global catastrophes) would not occur was the whole point of uniformitarianism. Wikipedia, for example, says, "The dominant paradigm of modern geology is uniformitarianism (sometimes described as gradualism), in which slow incremental changes, such as erosion, create the Earth's appearance. This view holds that the present is the key to the past, and that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world. Recently a more inclusive and integrated view of geologic events has developed, changing the scientific consensus to accept some catastrophic events in the geologic past." (my emphases). This site says, "In the 1790s, Hutton had argued that the Earth was transformed not by unimaginable catastrophes but by imperceptibly slow changes, many of which we can see around us today. Rain erodes mountains, while molten rock pushes up to create new ones. ... These changes are tiny, but with enough time they could produce vast changes. ... Valleys were not the work of giant floods but the slow grinding force of wind and water.".

Where did you read that? I can't recall specifics.

...but any observation that indicates an old Earth is "paradigm-based." I'm glad you acknowledge that.

So if they observe that there are six million varves in a given area, and that varves are generally deposited annually, and that no known force could lay down six million of them in a short period of time, is that an observation? Or is that "paradigm-based?" Where in that are the observations that they are generally deposited annually (implying of course, that this has always been the case) and that no known force could lay down six million of them in a short period of time? The former is not an observation and the latter is an argument from a lack of knowledge. Only the figure of six million of them could be an actual observation.

"It is so because I say so!" No, because they have proved to be reliable.

The Internet, contrary to popular belief, is not an all-knowing oracle and repository of all worthwhile knowledge. Why would anyone have occasion to set up an online source dedicated to documenting living trees that have been partially buried and then put out a new set of roots? That sidesteps my comments. I agree that the Internet is not comprehensive, but my point was that if it's not on the Internet, it's unlikely to be common. Further, I never mentioned anything about someone specifically setting up a site "dedicated" to such things. Much of the information on the Internet is in sites that cover a range of information.

Oh, come on, Philip. Not even RATE claims that that would account for the excess heat. The paper I referred to was post-RATE, so that comment is irrelevant.

No, no, no. This is an example of basic understanding of magnetism. Sorry, Philip, but you're confirming what I suspected: ANY observation that doesn't fit your worldview is, perforce, a "conclusion based on an evolutionary worldview." You're confirming something about your own attitude: any claim that is based on an evolutionary worldview is, in your mind, an observation, not a conclusion. Apparently, believing that varves have only ever been laid annually is an observation, despite, in the evolutionary worldview, mankind not having been around for 99.9% of that time to observe it. In this case, you can't simply invoke "a basic understanding of magnetism" as the sole reason for concluding a molten core. You need to explain why a magnetic field couldn't exist with a solid core. Magnets can exist with solid metal (most magnets are), so you need more than "a basic understanding of magnetism".

Please provide evidence that a magnetic field would endure for 6,000 years without a mechanism for generating it. How long do you think it would last?

You've certainly shown why I'm justified in my skepticism when you claim to be open to "observations." Yet you've not provided any observations inconsistent with a biblical creation.

So is "It was made by invisible elves." That doesn't mean it's a good explanation. True, but instead of trying to show that it's not a good explanation, you instead chosen to deny that it is an explanation. That suggests that you chose the latter option because you couldn't do the former.

...and by "entirety," here, I presume we're talking about Woodmorappe's decree that the layers must be of a certain unspecified thickness before they're acceptable to Creationists? By "Woodmorappe's decree", I assume that you're talking about some reasonable criterion that evolutionists can't meet? See, I can indulge in that sort of spin too.

Nope. It's invalid. What you can assert without evidence, I can reject without evidence, Philip. So you can reject my assertion that I can reject your assertion on the grounds that you've provided no evidence? If you can validly do that, then I can too, which means your claim that "It's invalid" is contradicted by your own statement. I think this is called shooting yourself in the foot.

Wrong. ... Wrong. ... Laughably wrong. ... Just as funny. ...You're deliberately choosing the worst possible examples, aren't you? I notice that you've not even hinted at how any of those answers are wrong. I guess I'm just supposed to take your word for it? Look, I realise that these responses are long and time-consuming, but giving non-answers like that just wastes time.

...which is rather like saying that the field of computers was started by Charles Babbage. Arguably true, but completely irrelevant to the field as it exists today. Only if the fields have changed to be unrecognisable from their creationist foundations. But Linneaus' classification system is still used (albeit modified), we still Pasteurise milk, etc. The fields haven't changed that much.

...which is a tiresomely commonplace tactic. Since when is asking for evidence of a claim "a tiresomely commonplace tactic"? It seems instead that avoiding substantiating one's claim is a commonplace tactic of evolutionists. Along with the next one...

"Prove that evolution takes place beyond the created kind." "Okay, provide a definition of created kind." "We don't need to do that, just give us your best examples."... of using straw-man arguments.

If I sound overwhelmingly cynical about this, I am. Cynical of my attempts to get you to substantiate your claim? I'm starting to think that I should terminate this discussion on the grounds that you won't address the issues.

You're reading selectively. They go on to claim that if the Earth were old, Niagara Falls would have moved much farther. Don't play games, please, Philip; I'm not playing games. Your claim was that Creationists often cite the maximal age of Niagara Falls as evidence; again, this is not reliable, since there's no reason to think Niagara Falls is as old as the planet. I think in this case you've overreached on a valid argument. Yes, they do use Niagara Falls as evidence that the secular age is wrong. But no, they don't use it as evidence of the age of the Earth, because (a) calculations or erosion rates would put the age of the falls at 9,000 years (according to the article), but they are not saying that's how old it is, (b) they claim that the falls are as old as the flood, not the Earth, and they put that at about 4,400 years ago, and therefore (c) they imply that some of that calculated 9,000 years happened rapidly as a result of the flood, with the rest in the 4,400 years since. So, to summarise, they are not using the "maximal" age (9,000 years) as evidence of the age of the Earth (6,000 years), but as evidence that the secular age is wrong. Furthermore, they do not suggest that the falls should be as old as the planet in the secular view. They merely suggest that it is younger than the time required to reach Lake Erie.

you claimed that Creationists don't make such arguments, and I demonstrated that they have. I don't think you clearly stated exactly what argument you thought the creationists were making. You did specifically mention the age of the Earth, and your Niagara Falls example does not claim to be evidence of the 6,000 year age of the Earth, just evidence that is inconsistent with a much older age.

Well, ANY evidence would be nice. Any evidence of what? Of ALL life radiating out from there? So if there's good evidence of most life radiating out from there, but some evidence of some life from elsewhere, that wouldn't count? My point is that there is evidence, but probably not enough to satisfy you, and it's not widely-enough accepted to sway you.

You're offering up the fact that we can trace barley back to Mesopotamia as evidence that life radiated outward from Turkey or thereabouts? Seriously? Apart from repeating that sort of evidence over and over for all sorts of living things, what else would you want?

I'm sorry, what's NOT going to convince me is conspiracy theories offered in place of evidence. And I'm not going to be convinced by straw-man claims of us offering conspiracy theories.

I acknowledge the possibility. Now show me some convincing evidence that it's likely. "Possible" isn't the same as "probable." "Convincing" evidence? That depends on how hard you are to convince. In any case, I never claimed that it was proved nor provable.

Because I have seen no evidence that you will, and substantial evidence that you will not. Given your misrepresentation of creationist arguments and attitudes, I take this with a grain of salt.

All of them refer to themselves as scientists. Are they liars? If they do indeed all refer to themselves as scientists, then perhaps they are. Or perhaps they are using the term more loosely than I defined the term.

I appear to be more willing to take them at their word on this matter than you do. Well, it does suit your case. Also, you've ignored my other point about association with leading creationist groups.

So how much false witness is okay? Stick to the issue.

So if Richard Dawkins allowed himself to be credited as the co-author of a book which mentioned that the age of the Earth was 6,000 years, Creationists wouldn't quote that? No, I don't expect they would, if they had any reason to believe that his co-authorship was not an endorsement of that age.

Unfortunately, the source that quoted it has not been up in quite a number of years, now. I suppose it's possible that the excerpt they included was a fabrication, but again, "possible" and "probable" are two different things. The source I have seen is still up somewhere, but didn't actually quote the paper. I've seen enough misrepresentation by anti-creationists that I would not believe any of their claims (that I didn't already have reason to believe) without verifying them.

On the basis of that, do you think it's reasonable to conclude that the paper doesn't mention the ages? Given the biases of the sources, yes, I think that's a reasonable conclusion.

So if an "evolutionist" had done the same thing...say, for a paper which provided radiometric dates which he believed to be false...would you be as forgiving? I don't see how an evolutionist could do the same thing, given that the evolutionist is already on the majority side. That is, I think this inherently makes the circumstances different.

Yes, I suppose anything can be rationalized, if you try hard enough. Including evolution and deep time.

...which you have yet to substantiate in any meaningful way. When you won't accept detailed documentation by a careful researcher as being such substantiation, then I guess nothing would be meaningful for you.

Look, I'm sorry, but not hiring someone who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old for a position as a geologist isn't "suppression and discrimination," any more than it would be "suppression and discrimination" not to hire someone who believes in phlogiston and the luminiferous aether as an astrophysicist. Try turning the example around. When phlogiston was the accepted scientific explanation, would it have been suppression and discrimination to not hire someone who rejected phlogiston? In any case, you are comparing a testable idea in the present with an untestable past event, and treating them as equals. You are confusing empirical science with history. You are claiming that it's not discrimination to not hire someone who has a different view about history for a job in a field of science.

Oh, yes, indeed, it is. Radiometric decay? Unpredictable because the rates of decay were altered. Secular scientists have demonstrated that radiometric decay rates can change. Sure, not in the circumstances and by the amount required by RATE, but my point is that they did this without proposing a change in the natural laws. If one person shows that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, and another then shows that this is only true at sea-level atmospheric pressures, we do not claim that the latter is proposing that the natural laws have changed; only that we didn't fully understand them in the first place. This charge of creationists proposing that the laws of nature changed is simply an invented straw-man designed to malign.

Rates of deposition? Unpredictable because the rates were altered. Rates of deposition are known to vary within existing natural laws. Again, no change in the natural laws are required.

Unpredictable. And so on and so on... NONE of which require a change in the laws of nature.

Okay; I deny it. There's no reason to think that the right conditions would have existed everywhere at some point, and until you substantiate the claim that there is, it's yet another bare assertion. Okay, I withdraw the specific assertion. But you haven't adequately made your case either. I previously asked "What evolutionary assumptions do they use, that contribute to the success of finding oil?" Your answer was The assumption here, of course, is that oil, coal, and natural gas are formed by predictable, uniform processes, that those processes are predictable, and that, by making such predictions, likely locations for oil, coal, and natural gas can be ascertained. Such assumptions, for instance, led to oil exploration in the Gobi desert and Alaska--because deep-time models indicated that such areas were once far more fertile and home to the kinds of organic deposits which produce oil. My attempted rebuttal was that, yes, under deep time models, those places would have been more fertile. But, in my opinion (and I assumed yours), everywhere would have been fertile at some stage. However, I'll now attack this issue from a different angle. Please demonstrate that evolutionary views were a significant factor in finding oil in those places. By way of (general) counter-argument, I point you to here, which explains how gas is found, and it is by studying present conditions, such as rock formations, magnetic fields, etc. One approach which is not mentioned in this comprehensive article is the supposed evolutionary history of a location.

Sorry, Philip; I don't consider quote-mines to be a particularly good resource under any circumstances, and particularly when half of them are from Creationists predisposed to make the claim. Please explain what a "quote mine" is. I've researched this quite a bit, and it seems that it's merely a derogatory term for a creationist quoting an evolutionist. Alternatively, it's an alternative term for a creationist quoting an evolutionist out of context, but usually without any evidence that it's out of context. And most of those quotes are not by biblical creationists. It is quite legitimate to quote authorities to support a case, and this is a case of you waving away evidence that you don't like.

The time to pursue science was the result of advances in agriculture leading to a large enough food surplus to support a highly-specialized population. What advances in agriculture are you talking about? Irrigation? Mechanisation? Irrigation existed in some places well before science developed, without science following suit. Mechanisation—which really did give people time, but not just in agriculture—came out of, and because of, Christian Europe. So to the extent that the time to pursue science was a factor (and I agree that it was a factor), this is also attributable to Christianity, as I previously said.

I can only say that you're more tolerant of false witness than I am--and that I suspect you would be rather less tolerant for any author who was not a Young Earth Creationist. And I can only say that you are less tolerant of trivial matters than I am, and that I suspect that you would be rather more tolerant for any author who was not a biblical creationist.

Again, how certain are you? What would you say is the likelihood that you are wrong? Sufficiently certain (or are you expecting me to put a percentage on it? How would that be calculated?) Not much likelihood.

The fact that the odds favor incorrect certainty is completely relevant. What odds?

Which worldview do you think is justified in being certain, other than your own? We weren't talking about worldviews, but claims.

I'd certainly hope that they had a degree of uncertainty. If they proceeded from the position of "I'm certain that I'm right, and will reject any arguments that suggest that I'm wrong," I'd be terrified of trusting their judgment. I'm not talking bout "proceeding from the position of" i.e. starting with that assumption. I'm talking about being certain after they have made their judgement. Would you trust a decision by a judge who wasn't certain that he had made the right decision?

There's a reason doctors generally confer with their colleagues--would YOU want a surgeon who says "I'm certain we need to amputate that leg" and flatly ignores five other surgeons telling him that he's mistaken, and that a simple treatment that will not require amputation exists? We are discussing the validity of certainty (which you dispute), not how that certainty is reached. This is a red herring.

What are the grounds for inerrantists' remarkable faith in the historical-grammatical heuristic, other than "The historical-grammatical heuristic is obviously the best way to achieve reliable results?" You assume the heuristic is valid, and therefore the results are reliable, and therefore the heuristic is valid, and therefore the results are reliable! Another strawman. Yes, inerrantists believe that the historical-grammatical approach is obviously the best way to achieve reliable results. But where on earth do you get "therefore the heuristic is valid" from? You are turning a valid approach into a circular argument by simply inventing the circle! However, to answer the valid part of your question, "This method presupposes that human beings are rational creatures capable of linguistic communication, and that linguistic communication is meaningful and objective. Historical-grammatical exegesis involves a systematic approach to analyzing in detail the historical situation, events and circumstances surrounding the text, and the semantics and syntactical relationships of the words which comprise the text. In essence, it attempts to formalize what language speakers do automatically and unconsciously whenever they read a book, watch television or engage in conversation."[6]

In my own case, I would be happy to be proven wrong. I don't have a dog in this hunt, Philip; if the literal reading of Genesis 1 were confirmed tomorrow, it would simply confirm my faith in God. But it hasn't been, and every time Creationists offer up "scientific evidence" that I'm capable of evaluating, it falls flat. I don't see much evidence of that.

You can [say that you're certain that Genesis is an accurate historical narrative because you have faith that it is] Yet much of your argument here has been that I'm not justified in saying that!!

Is that why? Of course. I don't say it for no reason. I say it because I believe it to be true. That is, I have faith (which is based on evidence) that it is true.

No. It's not. Please don't try to paraphrase me, because you're not doing a good job of it. Yet you don't point out specifically where I'm wrong. Until you do (convincingly), I'll stick to that being what you are, in effect, saying (whether that's your intention or not).

I don't think you have reason to be certain about those things in the Bible because I've never seen evidence to support your faith in the infallibility of the man-made historical-grammatical heuristic,... First, nobody claims that the historical-grammatical approach will infallibly yield the correct results. That's another strawman. Second, your reference to a man-made heuristic seems to be an attempt to denigrate an approach without actually pointing out anything wrong with it.

For all the talk of inerrantists about "reading the Bible as it would have been read by the original audience," they don't. Did the original audience believe that slavery was wrong and condemned by God? No, of course not--yet it would be a VERY daring inerrantist today who would say "Slavery is an acceptable practice." First, you are conflating the indentured servitude of the Old Testament with the modern concept of slavery, and they are very different ideas. Second, you are equivocating, by switching from what the original audience would understand by the text to what modern readers think about a concept, not what they think the original audience would understand by the text.

Ditto with the firmament. The original audience believed that the sky was a solid firmament. They did? What is your evidence? Paul Seely tried to claim similar, but his "evidence" was that every other people group on Earth thought that the sky was solid, so surely the Hebrews would have also.[7] Surely if he had actual evidence that the Hebrews believed in an solid sky, he would have mentioned it.

For many centuries, inerrantists had NO doubt that the "plain and straightforward meaning" of the Bible was that the sun, moon, and stars were fixed on a solid firmanent that moved around the Earth. It was evident to them; they were certain of it. They condemned the faulty human science that said otherwise. On the contrary, this view was not derived from the Bible, but from Greek thought.

It certainly doesn't mean that you are [open to considering evidence]. No, it doesn't mean that, but I am.

If you can't conceive of any possible evidence that you would find convincing, that suggests that your position is pretty unmovable. Or that my imagination is limited. How about accepting that option?

You're remarkably dismissive of the idea that I can know Christ through a personal relationship with Him. That's not what I was saying, and you've not addressed what I said.

Really? So it's not true that, for instance, a body in motion tends to remain in motion? How does that follow from what I said?

...of course, that's sort of problematic if Moses didn't write Genesis 1 and 2, now isn't it? No, if for no other reason than we weren't talking specifically about those parts.

VERY loosely paraphrased, and I don't think it's any better than the paraphrasing you've attempted of MY positions. Yet you don't point out what's wrong with it.

An interesting quote, that. So the planet was destroyed by water? Well, no, that doesn't make sense...so I wonder what "world" could possibly mean? Could it perhaps mean "the known world," as in "civilization," as it does in many other places in the Bible? Even if you're correct (which I don't accept), (a) the point is the denial of the history of the Bible, (b) it begs the question of how far civilisation extended, and (c) it begs the question of how civilisation could be destroyed by a mountain-covering flood that lasted a year but which was contained to only part of the globe.

Nope. Because you're not God... Sorry, that doesn't make sense. I think you must have misunderstood. You said, Personal communion with God is my reason [for your confidence in what you hope for and assurance about what you do not see]. That is, your reason for your belief is personal communication from God. So I asked what if my beliefs were based on personal communication from God, would you accept that I had good reason for them (as opposed to basing them on the Bible). Your reply is as though I claimed to be God, which I clearly didn't. My point is, what if you claim to know something because God told you, and I claim to know something contradictory to that, because God told me, who is correct? (NB: I drafted that before you expanded your comment. But you left that opening bit in, so my reply is still applicable.)

I have no reason to accept your claim of personal revelation at face value without substantiation, any more than you have reason to accept MY claim of personal revelation at face value without substantiation. True, however...

Of course, my claim of personal revelation concerns only my personal faith in God. Errr, no. Your claim of personal revelation is the basis for some of your argument that you are expecting me to accept, without the substantiation that you correctly admit that you should provide.

This starts from the presupposition that faith is based on evidence and goes from there. I know there are people who believe that; so what? Typical tactics. Make an accusation, such as quote mining, selective quoting, or etc., but don't actually point out any error. And in this case, imply that the argument stands or falls on a presupposition, but don't show how. Sorry, not good enough, and more reason to terminate this conversion if you're not actually going to address the points I raise in any more than a hand-waving way.

The key word there being "some." And how do you decide which parts are true? Does God personally tell you which parts are true and which are not? And how does this fit with "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ..." How can it all be profitable for those things if parts are wrong?

It is. Because? You don't explain. Yes, my comment was a bald assertion (denial). But that's because your claim was bald assertion. You made a bald assertion, I rejected it, and your only response is to restate your original assertion without any reasoning, logic, or evidence. A waste of my time.

...and you accuse me of speculation? My goodness! Yes, because you provided no reasoning for your claim, while I did provide reasoning. You seem to have a predisposition to not backing up your claims.

...except, of course, that Creationists brush off information that is changed. Not lost, not gained, but altered. No, anti-creationists conflate two different ideas. If a recipe book has two recipes for pies and none for cakes, and someone changes one of the pie recipes into a cake recipe, are people going to call that a changed recipe or a new recipe (albeit replacing an old one)? What I am talking about is information (not molecules) (like a recipe is not synonymous with letters on a page) that didn't exist before. Information for hair is not something that bacteria has. It is new information, not modified information.

...mostly because Creationists are as reluctant to commit to a testable definition of "information" as they are to commit to a testable definition of "created kind." Nonsense, for two reasons. One, it has nothing to do with that, and two, creationists are not reluctant to commit to a testable definition of a created kind. Please show evidence to support your claim that they are. And note that any inability or uncertainty is not the same as reluctance.

In any case, how is this any different to the evolutionist definition of "species"? Species are, at the most basic, supposed to be groups that can interbreed. But often it's a rather arbitrary "if they interbreed in their natural environment". So two populations of squirrels (I think it was) that can interbreed, are classified as different species because their respective populations are separated by the Grand Canyon, so they can't interbreed in their natural environment! But that's not the worst of it. How do you test the ability to interbreed of a fossil? So evolutionists do not have a fully-testable definition of "species", but hypocritically dismiss creationists because they don't have a fully-testable definition of the created kind, or of information!

So since the "information" apparently exists in a discernible and discreet form independent of the medium of DNA, please tell us how to measure it. We probably don't yet know how to measure it, but that doesn't mean that it can't be discerned, nor that we can't detect an increase or decrease in it.

Still waiting for a concise description of how we WOULD measure a "gain in information." You're waiting for something you haven't asked for yet? More attempt to malign. If in sample A you have some information, and in sample B you have the same information plus some information that doesn't exist in sample A, then sample B has more information. See also here.

But, of course, if we change a few more letters, we get "There is a fair on tomorrow." Still a loss of information? Or is this new information that was previously undisclosed? That's new information (replacing old information, so not necessarily a gain nor a loss). However, the important point here is that this "mutation" involved intelligent design. You deliberately chose those letters so that there would be no loss of information. The problem with evolution is that it's supposed to be unintelligent. Here's the challenge. Take any randomly-chosen sentence (i.e. a real, proper sentence, but not one deliberately chosen to be amenable to information-gaining mutation, assuming you could even come up with one), and make random changes to it. How many attempts does it take to get a grammatically-correct, meaningful sentence? Especially one that is not a trivial change, like changing "The man bought a hat" to "The man bought a cat", but one that really does add new information, such as (without implying that the result needs to be predetermined), "The man bought a hat from the market". Note that success of a sort is not sufficient by itself, as you can't simply ignore all the failures.

No. Ergo, Creationists demand a square circle. Evolution doesn't require information magically appearing out of nowhere. Straw-man! No, it doesn't. But it does require new information to appear from somewhere, and the point is that it has no mechanism for doing this. Mutations simply don't work, and there's no other mechanism on offer.

Ridiculous semantic games, Philip, as well as being patently untrue--again, you're promoting the false (but often-repeated) Creationist claim that evolution requires atheism. Creationists don't claim that evolution requires atheism, rather that it is based on it. But ignoring that, you don't explain why it's ridiculous semantic games, nor why it's untrue. These are just bald assertions. And leading evolutionists specifically deny that there is any design involved with evolution.

...which I have yet to hear a Creationist explain how to detect, quantify, or measure. Try reading something from Werner Gitt. He explains in detail how to detect it.

An exceedingly bad one. Not at all.

...an argument which completely fails to make the distinction between sequential changes and iterative changes filtered by selection It doesn't make that distinction because it doesn't help. If the two changes are not close together, then until you get the second, the first is useless, and should be selected against.

...and which makes no allowance for the sheer number of iterations going on. Put figures on it. If, to use my figures, a three-point change has odds of one in 10,000,000,000,000,000, how many individuals would you need to go through those iterations? How many would be fatal? How many would survive? Humans are accumulating more harmful mutations than natural selection (or even artificial selection) is capable of removing. The populations to accommodate all the "experiments" (iterations) simply don't exist.

Like all Creationist probability arguments, it's a lot of impressive sounding numbers that have absolutely no relevance. Like a lot of anti-creationist arguments, this is hand-waving without actually showing that it's wrong. Makes you wonder why they avoid doing the sums.

...but when we present the leg, then Creationists will say "That's clearly a leg! It's not a fin! It never was a fin! Show us half a leg!" And when we present the structure that's functioning as both a fin and a leg, they say "That's just a funny looking fin that happens to sometimes function as a leg! It's not transitional!" Catch-22, Philip: there's no point in the entire sequence that we could show that Creationists would accept. First, you've just switched arguments. We were talking about what counts as a "new" function, and here you are talking about what counts as evidence of transitional forms. But (second), answering the new point you've raised, tou're probably right. There is no single point in the entire supposed sequence that you could show that creationists would accept. But if the evolutionary claim is true, you should be able to show a considerable sequence of points. You can't.

The problem, of course, is that Creationists are still envisioning that as a line--that evolution starts with amoebas, and then progresses upward to fish, and then upward to amphibians, and so on and so forth. It's a fatal misunderstanding. Incorrect. Creationists realise that there is not single line (in the evolutionary story), but a branching structure. But that's probably not the point you were trying to make...

Evolution radiates outward--not towards greater complexity, but towards lifeforms increasingly adapted to their environments, which is not the same thing. Today's amoeba is every bit as evolved as a human--just in a different direction. On the contrary, evolutionists frequently cite examples of organisms that haven't evolved. See here for one example. Second, even your phrase "increasingly adapted to their environments" implies following a line towards perfect adaptation. Third, going from a "simple" ameoba to man is, clearly, a direction of greater complexity. Sure, evolutionists like to claim everything is evolution, going backwards, forwards, around in circles (or at least repeated cycles), but that just shows that evolution is so plastic that it's scientifically meaningless.

Oh, I understand it; I just think it's yet another nonsensical Creationist distinction like "macro" and "micro" which sounds good as jargon but has no real meaning. First, macro and micro are not distinctions that creationists invented. Second, CMI and AiG at least prefer to avoid those terms anyway, for reasons along those lines: that the distinction is not clear. Third, the distinction between information and the medium that carries it is accepted by non-creationists.

The thing is that we can QUANTIFY the information transmitted by a written or spoken language, independent of the written letters or the spoken syllables Give me an example.

So: please define and describe "genetic information" in a manner independent of the physical medium of genes, and explain how we detect and recognize it. See above referencing Gitt.

Nope. Merely observing that you have no meaningful definition of "information," in a genetic sense, and no way to discern it beyond "It creates complex things, so therefore it must be information from an intelligence!" False, as already explained in this response.

Dembski's mathematical gymnastics aside... More denigration without an actual argument.

Well, if that were true--as opposed to rather remarkably-dishonest propaganda from the team who produced "Expelled," who I consider about as trustworthy as Michael Moore--then, yes. Despite that. The argument from authority fails; I'm not all that impressed by Richard Dawkins to begin with. It is true, Expelled was not "remarkably dishonest", and there's nothing wrong with an argument from authority if the person really is an authority, and nobody else has shown an increase in information other than from an intelligence (ignoring rare trivial disputable claims).

Certainly not once Creationists get through mutilating them. More maligning without making an argument. You know, I thought at the start of this discussion that you were being reasonably civil. I think you've only gone downhill from there.

Why? It was a terrible analogy... Yet you don't say what's terrible about it.

...and that's a big part of the problem: when pressed to discuss what they mean by "information" in a biological sense, Creationists ALWAYS resort to bad analogies involving written information Again, you don't say what's bad about them. And using analogies involving human-language sentences is something that professional geneticists do. But you're right that this represents a big part of the problem—the problem being yet more maligning and/or hand-waving rather than actual rebuttal.

The presupposition that written information has an absolute "information" value. It does not; the information conveyed by a given piece of information is relative, and determined in part by the reader. By accusing creationists of an "absolute" information value, I believe that you are constructing a straw-man. Please elaborate on what you mean here by "relative" and how it is determined in part by the reader. I might agree to that depending on what you mean. Perhaps I'll give you an example. A spy sends a message back to base: "The enemy has 14 missiles". In what way is the information in that message determined in part by the reader?

The presupposition that biological "information" is a direct analogue to written information... "Direct" analogue sounds to me like another straw-man.

...the assumption that there is a specific and intended purpose to a given piece of biological "information," and that therefore any change is a deviation from that pre-ordained "purpose,"... How is that an assumption? Why can't that be determined by examining the information? If a part of the genome has the instructions for making red blood cells, how is it improper to conclude that making red blood cells is the purpose of that part of the genome?

You're assuming that there's an ideal way that any given organism is SUPPOSED to work... What is wrong with that assumption? After all, if God created it, presumably He did design it work in a particular way. And I would point out that naturalism has the assumption that there is no design, contrary to the evidence of design. Jonathan Sarfati made the point that "Dawkins himself said in his famous book The Blind Watchmaker, ‘Biology is the study of extremely complicated things that look as if they were designed by a creator for a purpose.’ So it is perfectly logical to argue that if they look designed, then perhaps they were designed."

Which would prove what, exactly? Evolutionary theory doesn't predict universally-beneficial changes. Now your changing the subject. You claimed that a change could be characterised as either a gain or loss of genetic information. I disagreed, and pointed to your example of stronger bones as something that could, in principle, constitute a clear gain, but added, as an aside, that I didn't think such a change would be likely in practice without a downside, as God would have used an optimal design to start with. So now, instead of addressing (or accepting) the point at issue that it would be possible in principle to demonstrate a gain in genetic information, you have switched to questioning what my aside would prove. It was not intended to prove anything! It was an aside!

"Oh, we're in a fallen world!" is a VERY convenient phrase for explaining away...well, just about anything that DOESN'T fit with the idea of an intelligent designer. You mean like convergent evolution "is a VERY convenient phrase for explaining away...well, just about anything that DOESN'T fit with the idea of" common descent? Pot, meet kettle. Except that in the creationary case, the Fall was not an ad hoc explanation after the event, but always an integral part of the model.

Given that, as far as I can tell, no Creationist definition for "information" as it pertains to biology even exists... So you are unfamiliar with the literature, but deign to criticise and reject the idea anyway??

We're not talking about Fred's comment; we're talking about genes. Please dispense with the bad analogies and focus on the subject at hand. Given your repeated failure to address my points, that's rich! I've already said that you haven't explained how the analogies are bad, and using Fred's comment is focussing on the subject at hand.

Not when they're cloaked behind Creationist obfuscation, you're absolutely right. I'm merely a professional writer who teaches language for a living, with a background in English, psychology, and cultural anthropology, ALL of them focused on language. So what's your excuse for not understanding the ordinary meanings of the words?

I cheerfully admit that that's insufficient to pin down Creationist language to one clear meaning. Or perhaps you are reading the words in specialist instead of normal ways?

More bad analogies. No, good analogies that you refuse to address.

How about we talk about genetic material rather than books, just for once? You know...the stuff that can reproduce and alter itself, which an encyclopedia cannot do? Genetic material can't alter itself (well, for the most part). The changes that evolutionists invoke are mostly copying mistakes, not the living thing changing itself.

Really, I see the Creationist insistence on constantly attempting to employ analogies of books or written material as more than a little disingenuous--because it's a very sneaky way of trying to slip in the tacit assumption that a gene sequence is information produced by a conscious mind. And given that secular geneticists use such analogies, I see such objections as attempts to avoid addressing the points.

Y'know what? You've been beating me over the head with bad analogies for long enough that I think turnabout is fair play, so I will use one in this case. The difference being that you've not explained why my analogies are bad, yet I will explain why yours is bad. Well, if it is bad, of course.

You will of course protest that this is a terrible analogy, and you'll be right... Why would I be right? This illustrates a problem you have: making assertions but not explaining them. You haven't explained why this is supposedly a terrible analogy. You've simply deemed it to be, presumably because it uses human language. But using human language analogies are perfectly valid (depending on the particulars of the analogy, of course). You've used an analogy to make a point. If it does indeed make that point, how is it a bad analogy? Of course if it fails to make the point, then why use it? I don't really think your purpose was to make a bad analogy; your purpose was to use an analogy to make a point, which is the whole point of using analogies.

The problem with your analogy, however, is that you have not lost information. You have lost a word, but in doing so have gained information. Your analogy is actually useful for illustrating how a loss of letters (or a word, in this case) can lead to a gain of information (by being more specific). See, such analogies can be quite useful!

Well, to be honest, the response is exactly the sort of thing I've been talking about: an attempt to find some reason to claim that a given mutation isn't a gain of information without clearly defining what WOULD constitute a gain of information. Yet it refers to adding "new genetic information (specified complexity)" and "it would seem that the result of this mutation has been a net loss of specificity, or, in other words, information".

By the standards they employ currently, I believe any conceivable mutation would be declared unacceptable--and I think that's precisely the idea. Nonsense. The linked article gave you enough information to show that that charge is false.

Philip J. Rayment (talk) 12:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Part 6

Philip,

I've read your response, and will, of course, respond. However, I will not be responding for some time, for a number of reasons:

1. As you've no doubt noticed, our responses have gotten quite long; it would take me some time to compose a response in any event.

2. The upcoming month is by far my busiest time of year, and also the most stressful, which leads into point 3.

3. While I disagree with the large majority of what you've said, I will agree with one point: I've been needlessly caustic, for which I apologize. I would prefer to take a step back and attempt to avoid that in future responses, and I think attempting to formulate a response when I'm distracted and stressed-out by RL demands would be unlikely to facilitate that.

Have a blessed Easter.

Regards,

--BRPierce (talk) 20:16, 28 March 2013 (UTC)