Mike Coslo wrote:
Frank Gilliland wrote:
On 4 Sep 2005 16:44:42 -0700, wrote in
.com:
Mike Coslo wrote:
snip
That being said, there is no doubt in my mind that
the world was *not*
created in seven days starting on Sunday, the 23rd of October
in 4004 BC
as determined by Ussher - and put in print in one of my bibles at home.
Actually, Genesis says it took six days - because the Creator
rested on the seventh day.
Rush job, too. Left a lot of holes....
LOL!!!
That's from Time Bandits as well.
snip
I highly doubt that it was created by
a supreme being.
Why? Couldn't the Supreme Being have set it all
in motion, and the Bang was just the method?
I get a kick out of some of these discussions.
I find them somewhat interesting and somewhat dismaying.
The dismaying part is that the deeper meanings of the
Bible stories are missed because folks are too busy
taking them literally.
For example, take the two contradictory creation
stories in Genesis. First off, you find that relatively
few have actually read them well enough to see the
contradictions.
But those contradictions only exist if the interpretation
is literal. If you see the stories as parables, the contradictions
don't matter.
Or take the part about all of us being punished because
of Adam eating the apple. Doesn't make any sense at first - you
don't send a son to jail because his father robbed a bank!
OTOH, the mistakes of one generation (like pollution) *can*
affect following generations. (Why the heck did anyone
ever decide to build a major city on ground that is *below*
sea level and right next to three major bodies of water? And
in a hurricane zone?!)
Especially regarding
evolution. These "Christians" are constantly
trying to poke holes in
the theory, yet are too short-sighted
to consider that 'evolution'
(even with all it's holes) might be one of
God's creations. If so,
then they are effectively attacking their own faith.
I've asked them that (one time I was trapped in a car
on a 4 hour drive
with a couple fundies- arrrgh) We had a grand old time.
I used to keep
me yap shut because it doesn't do much good, but
after the second hour
of them trying to save my soul, I unleashed the dogs on them.
When did logic and reason become "the dogs"?
Turns out
they did not know where the water came from or went to, and
didn't know
why the kangaroos had to swim from Australia to the middle east in order not to drown.
Oh yes, the deluge. Lots of good stuff in there. Here's some mo
The Book tells us how big the ark was and how many of each
animal were taken aboard.
Now since evolution supposedly doesn't happen, all of the land mammals
and birds we see must have been on the ark, since otherwise they'd
drown. The Book specifically mentions Noah
sending out a bird, too.
Not just the animals and birds themselves were on the ark but food and
water for them.
Look around for all the different species of land animals and birds
around today. Then figure out how much space they'd all take up.
Unless the ark was actually a tardis, it wasn't near big enough for all
the different types of deer, bison, antelope, giraffe, elephant,
cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goat, emu, ostrich, eland, moose, horse,
zebra, bear, lion, tiger, panther, caribou, etc., etc., etc.
Even my more serious questions were troublesome
for them,
especially since they were engineers. They really hated my
thoughts on
how if they were correct about the young universe
and Earth were fact,
some of the "facts" that they tried to use to
disprove Evolution, such
as dating anomalies, could not be true because
the basic nuclear decay
rates (or is that nukular?) were wrong to begin with.
The basic explanation they use for all that is that it
was made that way. Even down to the light from the stars more
distant than 6000 light years. Just popped into being.
Of course if someone accepts that "popped into being"
explanation, the universe could only be an hour old...
I think the real attraction of the "young universe" idea
is that it's comforting and reduces people's
environmental responsibility. Global warming? Resource
depletion? Species extinction? No problems, because
the Earth isn't old enough for there to be enough data.
But if the Earth is billions of years old, the situation is very
different.
If someone wants to believe the Earth is a bit more than 6000
years old, that's fine with me. Just as if they want to believe
that pi is equal to 3, that the earth is flat or the moon is
made of cheese.
Just don't try to pass off those beliefs as "science", because
they simply don't stand up to the scientific method.
When people insist that their religious beliefs be considered
"scientific" even though they fall apart under scientific
scrutiny, what they're really trying to do is destroy the
scientific method.
Not a new thing. Look at what happened to Galileo. How many years did
it take for the Vatican to admit they were wrong?
73 de Jim, N2EY