This is a discussion on Can science and religion coexist peacefully? within the General Discussion forums, part of the General category; Originally Posted by WhiskeyandGunpowder Well just to be cheeky, a falling away within the church is a sign of the ...
Re: Can science and religion coexist peacefully? Excellent, Whiskey! So are we all going to have a final proof for these religious beliefs and, if not, how long before we can say that your god is non-existent. After all, if he is coming back soon and people are falling away from churches in droves, he had better hurry up before there are no church people at all.Originally Posted by WhiskeyandGunpowder
Re: Can science and religion coexist peacefully? Not provocative science either - more like creationist claptrap:
If the hypothesis had been proposed as a way to explain incongruous observations it might be interesting but the only incongruity was between reality and scripture. The author himself made it quite clear that his goal was to reconcile "the observational problems of astronomy and Genesis creation ...". That's not science, that's just cherry-picking data to support a preconceived conclusion.Setterfield's hypothesis, while initially embraced by the majority of the creationist community, received heavy criticism from the scientific establishment for several years since its introduction in 1981, and was finally rejected by the creationists themselves after it became such a major embarrassment that even the San Diego-based Institute for Creation Research rejected it (Acts and Facts , May 1988, G. Aardsma).
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool." -- Richard Feynman
Re: Can science and religion coexist peacefully? The same techniques are used in the Bible that astrologists use when making horoscopes. They make very general statements that could be interpreted a variety of different ways and would be true regardless of what person read the horoscope. There are never any specifics (what is the date of this supposed 'end times'?). The rest is all self fulfilling prophecies like the one in Daniel 8 which has frequently been used to justify the war in the Middle East (between the 'east' and the 'west'). These prophecies give the illusion of being very specific: predicting what will happen after this other thing happens, but they fail to be specific in the areas that really matter. Daniel 11- if so much is known about what will happen, why can't the names of the King of the North and King of the South be mentioned? As a result, these prophecies can be stretched and interpreted many different ways and still be 'right'.
Re: Can science and religion coexist peacefully? Of course, the careful reader will be able to distinguish the parts of Daniel that are older then the others. The Court Tales about Daniel could well be quite old but the later parts is clearly referring to the Maccabean revolt in 165BCE. One only has to watch the language move fr4om the vague - the old part - to the very specific the part written, probably in 165 -160CE to realise that this was just a veiled description of the revolt couched to show the power of the supposed god as well as putting the 'right' people in power afterwards.
This illustrates the problem rather neatly with biblical prophecy. In one part, people do not understand the meaning of the word, 'prophecy' meaning to speak out whilst no one bothers to look at the texts carefully and in context to find out what was intended. I can't remember where in the OT, though, but there is one quite specific prophecy that the land of Egypt will be desolate without inhabitant for 40 years. People don't mention that one as it is obviously wrong!
As for anything in the NT, well Jesus tells people that not even he but only the father knows the time and date of the end of times. Everything else in the text is random and so non-specific that even a fortune teller would be embarrassed with it.
Re: Can science and religion coexist peacefully? 1. Carbon dating is not the only method of dating. All dating methods generally concur that the earth is more than a few thousand years old. Aside from that, the theory you presented is not only untested and unproven, it is disproved in every model it is applied to, not to mention the "researcher" in question has a decided bias and was actually looking for a way to prove the young earth model. Time and again when creationists start with the answer and work to prove what they believe they already know they are later shown to be completely wrong. Working off the numbers I found on this stating that the speed of light was as much as 7% faster in the 1700s I come up with a nearly .25% decline per decade, which would be easily measurable and would have been noticed in modern data. One would not need to look back 300 years to find a slow of nearly 1% per 4 decades. This is total garbage science until it is proven otherwise.
2. Okay, you're assuming ultraviolet light turns rocks into dust. Perhaps that is true. I don't know. However, once dust accumulated on the surface, ultraviolet light would no longer get to the rocks. I would think it would take far less than an inch of dust to stop light. They landed on a flat plain, as in, no very tall mountains nearby for dust to roll off from, exposing more rock to turn into more dust. Even if ultraviolet light does break down rocks, why would it break down rocks protected by a layer of dust which prevents the light from getting to them? Wishful thinking.
3. If you study the geology of recently formed islands I think you will find that you are completely unfamiliar with the nature of molten rock. In fact, flowing lava does not make "spongy rock". That happens when it flies through the air. Now, if the earth cooled over time 6,000 years ago, it would be a very different landscape. However, it was billions of years ago. Go to any cemetery over 100 years old and you can see firsthand what happens to even granite over time from the forces of nature. It's pretty straight forward. Look at the 150 year old stones. Look at the plant life slowly eating them. Try to read the names and dates. Or go to Egypt and have a look at the pyramids. It fascinates me that in one cop out you wonder why the rocks on the moon aren't broken down more and in the next you wonder why the rocks on the earth are broken down as much as they are.
None of this is evidence "for" a young earth. It's all "anti-science" propaganda. Carbon dating is wrong, geology is wrong, physics is wrong...doesn't it amaze you how the only sciences which are wrong are the ones which don't agree with your dogma? Every other science is just fine. Only the ones you don't like are wrong. Only with them is there some conspiracy to hide the truth or prevent scientific inquiry. That doesn't get you thinking at all? No little twinge where you say, "Wait a minute"?
You can get your science from your own head and whatever nutcase you want to listen to, but I'll continue getting my science from the scientific majority. If you know anything at all about science then you know that scientists willingly admit when they have been proven wrong. They have no choice, when the data shows it. Yes, you may have a single scientist holding on to his own theory, but when the data turns against him, so do all the other scientists. Nobody wants to back a loser. And THAT is the REAL reason creation "science" is unpopular. It's bad science. Data and methods are bent to back the conclusion they reached before they started rather than the conclusion being reached after evaluation of the data. If any of your concerns were real they would be raised by real scientists, not people with an agenda.
Re: Can science and religion coexist peacefully? Good points, Widdershins! The thing that bothers me about this poster and many others, as well as the self-appointed experts such as the Intelligent Design Network :: Seeking Objectivity in Origins Science is that they do all their work at their desk and computers and never come up with anything that can be tested properly. After all, if the world is only 6,000 years old we ought to be able to check things out, according to the hypothesis that it is and find the hypothesis true or false.
Our OP has idea about geology and about the effects of ultra-violet rays but hasn't even bothered to search seriously on-line, never mind in a library, to see if what he says has any truth in it. Mind you, there is only embarrassment in finding out the answers!
I seriously suggest our OP get started on the Internet and find out something for himself - even Wikipedia would do and it has a good list of reading.
Re: Can science and religion coexist peacefully? I just had another thought which bears mentioning. Without exception, every single person who believes the earth is less than 10,000 years old is a creationist. NOT ONE scientist who believes in a young earth model is not also a creationist. This is very telling, indeed. If there really is credible science behind these claims, why don't credible scientists see it? Why would only scientists biased by religion be able to see this so called "evidence"? The answer is clear. They are seeing what they want to see. They are matching the data to the conclusion. They are throwing out any results which do not match their conclusion. Even the ones with some legitimate experiments to back them are doing nothing more than "anomaly fishing"; finding that ONE experiment in tens of millions which supports their dogma and throwing out TENS OF MILLIONS of experiments which do not support their dogma. They ALWAYS run with the initial anomalous results, NEVER re-testing to make sure the data is accurate and the test was not somehow flawed. Without exception these people ALWAYS choose the anomaly over the preponderance of data. For every anomaly they point out there must be at least tens of millions of other tests which show exactly the opposite of what they claim. That's why you keep hearing the same arguments over and over. There aren't that many anomalies.
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