Sorry for the long delay folks, I've been very busy and also wanted to give a proper response to Lucien's critique of my views. I apologize in advance for the length of my reply, I have tried to counter that factor by hopefully making it more entertaining than usual. I would like to get everyone to think and reply to my tough questions below to see where it leads us.
I am not sure why Lucien wrote such a lengthy reply to my first issue with his view relating to the scientific process. I enjoyed reading it because it gives me a good perspective on his distrust of science and his apparent dislike of scientists as he believes they are flawed and distort the truth. I, on the other hand, believe science as a noble effort ordained by The Father for His flawed children to discover and learn His ingenious set of fixed laws that He uses to deterministically control this universe.
I feel a duty to also remind the YEs that flawed children can also misinterpret the Bible as well as data about nature in support of a flawed YE view. The early view by Christian theologians that everything revolved around the earth resulted in their persecution of Galileo due to their strongly held beliefs that were based on Bible passages such as Ecclesiastes 1:5
'The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises...'
This was also supported by
1 Chronicles 16:30
'tremble before him, all earth; yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.'
And,
Psalms 93:1
...Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Yet, after seeing the earth from space while standing on the moon can leave no doubt to the moveable status of the earth even to the most steadfast YE fundamentalist.
The inferiority of women to men is a strongly supported view to this day from:
"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)
"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9).
These examples are but two of many misinterpretations of the symbolism of the Bible being interpreted literally and incorrectly to support flawed views. The day age debate rages on here as another example of flawed men misinterpreting the Bible. Eventually, I hope YEs will be convinced that God's days can also be different than 24 hours based on what Peter, prophets, and other Christians have told them...
At present, it looks like we may never agree on the value of science so I will thank Lucien for providing his views and move on to the next topic.
I wish that Lucien would have tried to answer more thoroughly my tough questions in 2) thru 4). I sincerely doubt he is able to provide a rationale answer to these after his first attempt, since several key points and questions were ignored or misunderstood. These attempts did not adequately address my issues or questions, so I am left wanting a reasonable and rational response. Maybe if I repeat them again here and open the dialogue up to all YEs, I can get the response I was looking for. I will try to clarify my questions as I go. Additions are included in {...}. By the way, if anyone has a good answer or response for my issues and questions below, please post it. I am not trying to lay all of this heavy burden on Lucien, it is quite a heavy load. If no one can provide a reasonable response, I will have to assume that these are valid issues with the YE creationist position.
[Excerpt From My Previous Post]-
2) The notion of speaking things {animal in particular} into existance in six 24 hour days is neither Biblically founded nor scientifically credible. {i.e. Which specific Bible passages support this view, if any? I have never seen any passages that support this view; the one in your earlier reply and repeated again below didn't even hint at this method of creation} If God brought all of the species {in groups/kinds} into existance by this magic, then why did He stop? {There is no evidence of this happening in the modern era or during the history of mankind. If you think that God brings new and different creatures into the world in this manner, w}hy aren't we all brought into existance this way since we are all unique and God could have made the laws anyway He wanted?
Even God himself had Mary as His mother through natural birth. If ever there was a time that this special technique of popping a being into existance was called for, it would have been for Jesus. But no, God showed us that He could manipulate genetic code in Mary's womb and make himself there. So if God himself is capable of birthing himself through natural means and splicing in his own code genetically to make Jesus, why won't the YEs permit God to make all of the species using this same methodology of natural birth via male and female gene splicing. {Do you think that God is incapable of creating other species using the same methodology He used this natural process to recreate himself in the form of a man? Lucien didn't even acknowledge this point in his reply, let alone address it, so I would like to open this up to all anti-evolutionists to try and answer or at least think about. I really don't think anyone could have a satisfying answer to this question. It will be interesting to hear some of your fantastic responses though to be sure.}
... fixed laws of physics will not allow a bunny to pop into existance out of nothing on the sixth day. Neither has anyone pointed out to me where the Bible states this methodology for bringing species into existance. {Lucien's only response on this was: 'God is omnipotent. I believe He could have created everything in one day, or even an hour, or even a split second!'.
If He is so capable as we both believe, then why can't He use the Natural processes we observe today?} This seems to be pure imagination at work by the YEs due in part by what seems to be a preference for miracles and magic over natural laws. {I am not implying that miracles don't happen here, just that God uses the natural laws to accomplish them. While the YE approach prefers totally revised laws to accomplish the miracles. Please explain why God's natural laws as we know them can't be used, YEs (and other versions of Creationists) are inventing new laws that are not required and excess to God's laws that He states are fixed and that He created at the beginning.}
3) There is no Biblical justification for changing the physical laws after the sixth 'day'. He would have had to change them, since in their present state they won't allow any of the steps mentioned in Genesis 1 to occur in a 24 hour period. Long time periods are needed to bring about the Genesis 1 steps within the existing laws. There is no mention of changing the fixed laws of heaven and earth in Genesis or anywhere else in the Bible for that matter. This is another stretch of the imagination as far as I can see. God made a covenant with the physical laws that He would not break according to Jeremiah in 33:25 and Job 38:33. Scientists study the universe and it's laws because they believe the laws are fixed. It they were not fixed then why would anyone bother. If they can change at a whim, we would live in a universe of magic and irrationality. Very strange things would be happening that violate our physical laws on a continuous basis. Things would pop in and out of existance without reason. Fortunately the universe is rational and its laws are fixed in the real world. {Lucien's only response here was incomplete, unclear, and off target:
Lucien- Allow me to state agin, that if we have to accept Lee’s views and that laws are fixed (as we know it) and not be to be “overruled” (what I think Lee thinks is overruling) then what is the point of prayer?
My response: God answers prayer through natural laws, He incorporated controls into the fixed laws (physical equations) like general relativity and adjusts spacetime and energy at anytime throughout history including the initial conditions of the universe to get what He wants. He sometimes answers our prayers but He foreknew we would ask these prayers so He foreknew how He would handle each and every one. In this way the world is predestined to follow a preplanned path and one that is deterministic. He has control of all things and in Him all things are held together, He just uses natural laws to accomplish them. If you don't think this is true, please give me an example of a miracle which didn't include natural forces, or animals, or humans to accomplish them. e.g. parting of the Red Sea by a strong East wind, or Jesus walking on water (possibly by locally curving spacetime according to the laws of general relativity; for those of you unaware of this there is a free independent term in this tensor equation that God could use to control spacetime and energy in the universe). There is a known physical law cause for every miracle listed in the Bible, I don't recall popping a bunny into existance as being one of them, so this concept is not Biblical but imagined from God's omnipotence}
4) The claim that evil was not in the world until the original sin is unfounded since Satan was the one tempting Eve. So evil was already present before the Fall. That means that death, decay, destruction, and entropy were all around the garden just waiting for Adam and Eve to be thrown out. Even God's Garden had {deceptive talking} snakes {filled} with Evil before the first sin was committed. Consequently, there was no need to change the physical laws after the first sin occured, all God had to do was to remove His presence and protection from Adam and Eve.
[End of Previous Post]
Lucien's response to my issue 4) simply regurgitated YE dogma:
[Lucien]- Neither was there any evil in the universe BEFORE the first week was over. So Lucifer must have fallen after the creation week (Lucifer and the other angels were created beings too (Ezek.28)). Otherwise God would not have called it “very good” and “blessed and sanctified the seventh day”.
I think that it would be wholly possible to hold that Adam and Eve could have lived forever in a sinless world. Although this is speculation, you could defend it Biblically:[end of Lucien's response]
Biblically Lucien has no defense, here is what the Bible states right before Adam and Eve disobey God in Genesis 3: 4 The serpent said to the woman, "Surely you will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil."
Words like 'die', and 'evil' already had meaning to the women even though you claim they didn't exist yet on earth. Add this to the presence of a deceptive talking snake tempting Eve to be disobedient and you know that Satan must be nearby getting a chuckle from the trick he pulled on the first humans. I can't believe Lucien doesn't think evil started the events that led to the Fall. Do I also need to mention that there was evil in Heaven when Satan led the rebellion against God. Evil was here and in Heaven long before humans. I would consider both Heaven and earth very good with the exception of those beings that are disobedient to God's will. Evil is a condition of the mind (not the place or it's laws): selfishness and self-centered behavior occurs as a result.
Evil has nothing to do with physics. It has everything to do with the condition of the human mind. This part of us is informational and beyond the influence of physical laws which provides the foundation your information is built on. This is why the body dies but your spirit can move on when this world is gone. Do you think that God modified physical laws to allow evil after the Fall to punish all the creatures in this world because of human disobedience. That's quite a vendetta that the YEs have accused God of. YEs, please explain why God would punish innocent animals for something that humans did. Of course, the YEs have no rational reply for this.
I would like to also address some of the other comments made in Lucien's post for those avid readers that are still with me.
[Lucien]- Is that picture of yours taken at Torrey Pines by any chance? It looks familiar to me.
[My Response]- the picture was taken on the bluffs between Dana Point and Laguna Beach. How about posting us a picture of yourself?
[Lucien]- 1)The only way we can know about the past if we weren’t there and we already said we cannot repeat is... Revelation, or written records.
[My Response]- since God has told us that the physical laws are fixed, we can also use them to determine what happened throughout history. Starlight gives us a good historical account all the way back to the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Read Psalm 19 if you doubt this information is reliable or provides knowledge. This reluable information not only tells us what else is out there in the universe but also its history. By the way, since light has a constant speed we can now see the history of the cosmos all the way back to the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago with the latest telescopes coming on line. Physical laws being fixed also demand that radioactive decay rates must also be constant over time which give us reliable dating methods for biological and rock samples when they are prepared and stored properly.
[Lucien]- Before I give you the answer, let me make Lee happy by saying how he is right, before I have to tell you where he is wrong.
Empirical science is neutral, because science is not a person. Just like that money is not the root of all evil. But the love of money can lead to all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10).
[My Response]-I thank Lucien for agreeing with me on at least one point, I will savor this moment.
[Lucien]- But hang on. Lucien, you just said we could measure the amount C-14 in relation to C-12. True, and...
Well, does Carbon-14 not prove that things are millions of years old?
Nope. C-14 dating can actually only (theoretically) indicate up till about 100,000 years. For longer (supposed) ages you need uranium-lead or rubidium-strontium radioactive decay. The fact that we find C-14 in alleged very old things is an indication they may not be as old as some think, but I am starting to digress.
[My Response]-I found this interesting that Lucien is seemingly unaware that fresh C14 is being made constantly by cosmic rays hitting atoms in the upper atmosphere and a thermal neutron combining with a nitrogen nucleus. This is why they find C14 in old samples because some of it will contaminate ancient samples if not adequately protected. Here is a small exerpt from wikipedia since this concept may be new to some of the YEs:
Carbon-14 is produced in the upper layers of the troposphere and the stratosphere by thermal neutrons absorbed by nitrogen atoms. When cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they undergo various transformations, including the production of neutrons. The resulting neutrons (1n) participate in the following reaction:
1n + 14N → 14C + 1H
YEs shouldn't use the fact that there is still C14 around to make their point on a young earth. This fact of new C14 production destroys the argument you just made and any confidence that your readers or listeners might have had in you if they are educated.
[Lucien]- I am biased.
[My Response]- I couldn't agree with Lucien more, it's the second thing we agree on.
Of course , I am too, and based on the information I've received and accepted as truth in my lifetime. Everyone is this way. Fortunately, God has permitted me to receive more real truth in my lifetime about His Creation than the YEs and that is why I am arguing these points with the YEs.
[Lucien]- Lee’s view is like that of a uniformitarianist. “The present is the key to the past”. I think that the (Revealed) past is the key to the present.
[My Response]- this is the third time we agree, a new record. I am a uniformitarian when it comes to the physical laws, the same from the beginning to the end, just like God said they are. Lucien seems to be ignoring what God said on this point in Je 33:25 to support his YE view. I wonder if Lucien has conveniently reinterpreted God's claim to fixed laws. We definitely disagree on our views in this area: Lucien disagrees with God's own statement and believes that He changes the physical laws whenever He answers a prayer or whenever He is inclined to change them without notice. It seems that Lucirn's belief that the laws are not fixed makes God into a magician and inconsistent between His statements and His actions. It seems He could be in trouble on this point, it's not good to disagree with the Father or make him out to be inconsistent.
[Lucien]- Lee might say “a little bit of water and a lot of time carved the Grand Canyon”. I would say “a lot of water and a little bit of time carved the Grand Canyon”. What are the facts? Well, the Grand Canyon is there, and at the bottom there is the Colorado river.
We can also agree that we see billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water all over the Grand Canyon (and even all over the world).
[My Response]- unfortunately for the YEs, a lot of water and a little time won't give the Grand Canyon it's shape. The water would just spread out and take the top soil an loose rock with it on the surface of a large plain. To get a really deep winding canyon through sandstone and other types of harder rock on a plateau, it takes a lot of time. A narrow river, lots of time, and gravity are the only natural way to cut rock to get a deep wide curving canyon. Lucien should check his applied physics on this.
[Lucien]- On the other hand, I would try to establish if the current decay is constant (which for C-14 it is not) and reason it may have been different in the past. Well, since it is changing today, why not in the past?
[My Response]- the cosmic Ray flux in the vicinity of earth throughout it's long history is one source of the variation. This is a function of nearby supernova and black hole ingestion of nearby matter. There are natural phenomena that produce this variation in C14. Radioactivity rates have also declined over the billions of years since the earth was created but are still providing neutrons wherever these isotopes occur (especially in areas of high radioactivity). Free neutrons from any source of local radioactive decay can also cause this variation as well since the ratio of C14 to other isotopes of carbon is at a very low concentration of about a trillion to one.
One has to be careful when analyzing radiocarbon dating due to the above factors. Under the right conditions reliable results are measured. YE attempts to undermine this industry's credibility intentionally to promote their ideology are always found to be fraudulent. YE claims of time constant changes have always been discovered to be erroneou based on bad sampling techniques, handling of samples, or the intentional use of the wrong dating processs to validate their claims. In short, the fraudulent claim that radiometric time constants of the elements have changed over time is pure imagination at best or an outright lie at worst. The reader can decide for themself, which they prefer to think of the YE. C14 variability in production by cosmic rays and local sources radioactive decay does not mean that the laws of physics are constantly changing!
[Lucien]- Unfortunately Lee let’s science determine how to interpret Scripture, instead of Scripture.
[My Response]- that was particularly deceptive of Lucien in that he is trying to discredit my view by alleging that I interpret the Bible primarily from an external scientific perspective. A more accurate and truthful way to state my perspective is to portray me as someone who loves God's Word in the Bible and treats it with the highest respect. Only when the Bible is not clear, symbolic, or can be interpreted in more than one way by serious review from many Biblical scholars, I turn to external sources for additional information to interpret scripture. There are very few areas that supplemental knowledge (like nature and it's physics) is required. This debate on evolution and age of the eath are two of those cases. The Bible is not a book written by man about nature but a book written about the nature of man and what his nature should be instead. Therefore, we must turn to God's other book, Nature, that He also spoke into existance to learn how the universe works. This we learn through science and experiment, testing everything; not speculating with wild imagination that anything you want can happen. God made laws on how nature operates and has made a covenent with them wherin He works his miracles.
Lucien is making claims about how God controls nature which simply are not factual or Biblically supportable. As a child of God, I must do what I can to correct his distortions or fantasies regarding Our Father's Creation.
[Lucien]- Piltdown man stood for almost 40 years, a lot of people believed (atheistic) evolution because of this fraud.
“God's fixed laws”
[My Response]- Lucien has just provided good evidence for my claim that all frauds are exposed in time. Unfortunately, this one took longer than I would have hoped and I agree that he is right that Darwinism has led to many an atheist view. However, evolution isn't the enemy, it's Darwin's process that leaves out God. The mistake that Lucien and other Creationists have made is believing that God can't be involved in evolution as if Darwin's method of random chance is the only way that changes in genetic code can occur. Hopefully YEs will begin to believe someday that God creates every new being, including Jesus from Mary according to His perfect plan and natural birth from an existing being.
After two hundred years of research into the age of the earth and evolution, the false claim that the earth is only six solar days old has been exposed as a fraud by science. Still it is put forth by the YEs and tenaciously clung to by unenlightened Christians. It is time for the YEs to suck up their pride, admit defeat and stop ruining Christian credibility. God wants His children to stop spreading distortions of the truth and deceptions to promote flawed views. There is no reason to pursue this course anymore with a better option that give God glory: theistic evolution.
[Lucien]- Lee said in an earlier post he reckons we have discovered 99.9999% of the natural laws. These state that matter/energy cannot be created, only transferred one into the other, and there is never a gain of matter/energy. God must have broken this law in the beginning. Or maybe it was in the remaining 0.0001%?
[My Response]- the Big Bang was the initial Creation event where He 'spoke'/ created the universe (matter and energy) into existence including His laws at the same time: Ge 1:1. Lucien disagrees with this. Why does he disagree that the physical laws and energy appeared at the same moment in time? What Bible verse makes him think so? I can't find one! To support my view, I stand on Ge 1:1 'In the beginning, God created the heavens..' I doubt that Lucien can find as good a verse to support animals popping into existance, maybe Lucien should think about conservation of energy and it's effect on popping 'kinds' into existance from nothing while God is working within the fixed laws that He has a covenant with.
[Lucien]- Here it is so clear that you use the present to interpret the past. Could God create the big bang into existence? If so, how is that different? Technically, I believe could have done both. Biblically, He only did one, create the rabiit-kind on day 6.
[My Response]-the difference between our two different creation events is a totally different set of physical laws. One set we have tested and know quite well. Lucien's set seems to exist outside of our universe in a mystical place like Wonderland.
Using the existing laws of physics, if the real bunny kind popped into existance by some miracle according to God's perfect plan, there would also be an anti-bunny kind resulting from the same event. This would be a very difficult situation for the bunnies and God. If God didn't remove them within a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second they would begin to react with the real matter surrounding them on earth and their mass would annihilate the surrounding local area of earth including the real bunnies. So God would have had to put them down the rabbit hole into Wonderland where this whole idea of popping species into existance belongs. The YE imagined method of species creation is just not workable within physical laws, it is contrived from their imagination since they don't believe that God can work through the natural laws already in place and because they don't understand them as well. If the YEs want me to show them how He uses these laws to accomplish miracles, I will be glad to, but Lucien needs to stop the smack-down approach He is playing and just ask me kindly. Instead of constantly insulting and undermining others that know something about God's laws, Lucien and other YEs might try to learn something from us.
One would think that the laws that God created and that sustain us are worthy of learning in great detail, evidently the YEs don't believe in them or think that they are worth much.
[Lucien]- In your explanation the original sin had no affect whatsoever on Adam and Eve, then what was God removing, and more importantly, why did Jesus have to suffer and die on the cross?
[My Response]- I think Lucien misunderstood what I was stating. Of course there was an impact to Adam and Eve. When God forced them from the garden they were in a tough world that was full of evil and without God's protection and provision. They had to work for their food and learn all about evil through experiences with it and each other. God accomplished this by simply removing His protection that He gave them while together with them in the garden and forced them out of it where they would have to provide for themselves from nature.
Jesus had to pay for this disobediance to reconcile mankind from the Spiritual death that Adam and Eve suffered on that day: separation from God due to spiritual disobedience. There is no reason to create new laws as a result of mankind's disobedience.
[Lucien]- This verse [Je 33] is a bit better to bolster Lee’s standpoint, but has Lee got the same knowledge about the covenant God made with the laws (that He Himself set up to begin with, see Job verse)? And if so, what is Lee’s source of revelation?
[My Response]- God was clear in Job as well as Jeremiah that the laws are fixed and no one but Him knows the laws completely or how to use them. I certainly won't pretend to know everything. But what He has shown me thus far is very impressive and worthy of learning. Lucien seems to take a radically different approach to learning about how the universe operates, in that he doesn't believe that mankind can learn much if anything about God's laws and the physical laws are not fixed as God stated, but changed often at God's discretion. It seems he believes that it is a useless or almost useless endeavor to learn physics and engineering since it can change at any time.
[Lucien]- ... it would serve you better to trust in the Lord’s Word than in the ideas of fallible man, who don’t know everything, who weren’t there and are hindered by sin.
[My Response]-first of all we are dealing here with only a few verses out of the entire Bible where there is disagreement. I believe I have shown many reasons from a Biblical perspective why I have reached the viewpoint that I presently have. The fact that Lucien has reached a conflicting viewpoint with mine seems to be related to plain bad Biblical exegesis on the YEs part.
I have been and always will take the Bible very seriously, so Lucien can stop this insinuation that I don't believe or trust God's Holy Word right now! It is very insulting to me. It seems like we both study God's word with great intensity. Unfortunately, for a man of God, he lets his strong YE bias overinfluence his interpretation of certain key Bible verses which I have shown unconvincingly to him.
[Lucien]- 2) I have already said that God did not create species, but He created the various kinds, as is said 10 times in Genesis 1. From now on, I think you should be aware there is a difference.
Why did He stop. Well, I agree with you that the natural laws are the norm, but miracles still happen all around the world, thank God! Good thing that miracles happen.
[My Response]-this is interesting that Lucien continues to ignore God's Word when He said let the 'water bring forth' or let the 'earth bring forth' and reword these phrases by saying 'God created the various kinds'. 'bara' was not used in the phrasing here related to God or the kinds. I thought Lucien took the words in the Bible seriously and literally. Why does he reword the verses except to distort God's word to sell His biased position.
[Lucien]- Science won’t give you a virgin birth. Science won’t raise someone from the dead on day 3. Science won’t feed four- or five thousand from a few loaves and fish...
[My Response]- of course not, science is not an intelligent being. I think Lucien meant to say natural laws instead of science. This is another example of Lucien's contempt for scientists it seems to me. Science is a process used by intelligent humans to discover what is true about the universe as opposed to wild speculation and the disregard of facts which the YEs seem to promote. How did the YEs get to be so anti-science? Christian governments and churches heavily invested in the scientific process hundreds of years ago in the middle ages because they wanted to know and understand God's design. Now after finding out so much about the universe that supports this design view, the YEs are now trying to trash talk and undermine science. What is going on in their minds? It seems to me that Satan has played another cruel trick on a fairly large segment of Christisns in getting them to believe that science is evil and the universe isn't designed with a perfect set of laws that He uses to control His Creation.
I want to compliment Lucien on one thing though, it is a great verse that he selected to show that the Trinity Created this universe, one of my favorites and a wonderful verse to end with.
Colossians 1:
16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Brother Lee
PS If you are still reading this and still with me, may God bless you.
