the age of the earth for the enlightenment of YEC's

[magellan004]

The movement towards a natural explanation has been very gradual as new discoveries have been made.

What on Earth are you babbling about? 'The Movement' - Sounds like a dreadful 1960 hippy movie.

Magellan

[rogue06]

This discussion between rogue06 and Cerebrum123 reminds me very strongly of the hilarious book The Pooh Perplex, which (tongue-in-cheek) takes a simple story aimed at 5-year-olds and layers on a mountain of pseudo-lliterary analysis and critique, from the perspectives of different philosophies.

This discussion provides a wonderful example of the skewering critics get in that book. We take a simpleminded creation tale, told to stone age children, and extract implications, hidden meanings, inconsistencies, and profound intentions behind EVERY WORD. Fascinating!

Theological discussions are like an itchy wool sweater to phank

[phank]

Theological discussions are like an itchy wool sweater to phank

This is probably true. Especially when I can't relate the theological discussion to the topic of the thread. And in this forum, it's like the discussion concerns maintaning sewing machines, but within a few pages is bound to devolove into arguments about how many angels can dance on pinheads. Or to beat another metaphor into the ground, theology is like a hammer, and those equipped with it think every topic is a nail. If the Natural Science forum can't keep the theological underbrush down, we have problems.

[Tiggy]

Theological discussions are like an itchy wool sweater to phank

Hey now, give Phank a break. It's tough for him being a self-proclaimed expert on every single topic, especially the ones he's never even heard of before.

- T

[rogue06]

This is probably true. Especially when I can't relate the theological discussion to the topic of the thread. And in this forum, it's like the discussion concerns maintaning sewing machines, but within a few pages is bound to devolove into arguments about how many angels can dance on pinheads. Or to beat another metaphor into the ground, theology is like a hammer, and those equipped with it think every topic is a nail. If the Natural Science forum can't keep the theological underbrush down, we have problems.

If you really ever want to hear a discussion devolve into quibbling over esoteric minutiae then listen to a group of Constitution law students get into a debate.

Actually, come to think about it, any group of lawyers on just about any legal topic

[phank]

Hey now, give Phank a break. It's tough for him being a self-proclaimed expert on every single topic, especially the ones he's never even heard of before.

- T

And especially since I've never made such a claim. But why be honest when it undermines a good (if unjustified) attack?

[phank]

If you really ever want to hear a discussion devolve into quibbling over esoteric minutiae then listen to a group of Constitution law students get into a debate.

Actually, come to think about it, any group of lawyers on just about any legal topic

I've taken enough law courses to get the gist of why this is. Laws are written to try to cover as many fact situations as possible (making them general), but only one aspect of each situation. In Real Life, fact situations tend to be extensive and messy, which means that a good many laws overlap at least some of the fact situation. And of course, since no two fact situations are precisely the same, you can fairly easily find dozens of decided cases where the facts were ALMOST the same. And some of them went one way, some the other, so a good lawyer learns to "distinguish". Which comes down to splitting split hairs ever-finer.

And, as any student of the US Supreme Court can tell you, it means you can find plenty of rigorous legal justification for deciding every case along party lines.

[magellan004]

If you really ever want to hear a discussion devolve into quibbling over esoteric minutiae then listen to a group of Constitution law students get into a debate.

Actually, come to think about it, any group of lawyers on just about any legal topic

Discussions about evolution and species often remind me of Law - the absurd notion that an issue can only be settled by examining the evidence, without having any general principle apply beforehand. So for example without telling the jury/public what the criteria for accepting/weighing up evidence will be - the learned judge hears the evidence first then works out whether there is a reason to accept/reject it.

Same happens over and over with 'species'. We get flooded with evidence for speciation and species but the criteria are invariably hidden.

Just getting my beef with 'law' off my chest.

Magellan

[rogue06]

Discussions about evolution and species often remind me of Law - the absurd notion that an issue can only be settled by examining the evidence, without having any general principle apply beforehand.

In science you follow the evidence wherever it may lead including into areas that may make you feel uneasy. As Thomas Huxley put it: "Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."

From what I understand of the way you use "general principle" here it sounds like a filter. Filters tend to select the bits and pieces you agree with. You don't cherry pick data taking only the bits you like and ignore the rest. Continuing with law as an analogy, you don't go with, in the words of Lewis Carroll's Red Queen, "Sentence first - verdict afterwards."

[oxmixmudd]

rogue, I wasn't making the argument that there was no rain before the flood, but that things may have been different at that time, since rain didn't start at least until after the FALL, not until after the flood. I have read those pages before, and I was specifically trying to avoid saying that there was absolutely no rain before the flood itself. My only point is that things may have been somewhat different back then( I do think that it is a possibility that there wasn't rain until the time of the flood, but that is entirely an assumption on my part, and I did use the word maybe, along with trying to be very clear that I was not 100% in support that that is how it happened). Also remember that there have been thousands of years since the flood(if we are looking at this from a YEC perspective, which I am), and there has been plenty of time for earthquakes and other activity to significantly change the global landscape). At this time we don't know with exact detail which sediment was pre-flood, during the flood, or post-flood, so that makes things a little more difficult.
Also if evolution (common descent, and a few other aspects of evolutionary theory) is true, then it also makes God out to be a deceiver, because it is explicitly taught that ALL animals were vegetarian before the fall(not the flood mind you, but the fall, just so you don't think that I believe it is impossible for carnivory to have started before the flood). The exact same words are used, and in the exact same context to describe human diet, and later God gives permission for animals to be eaten.

The problem with 'things different back then' is that since there is so much in the geological record that is clearly made though the action of natural processes, the more different things are 'back then', the more has to happen between the flood and the present or the fall and the present. Critters are buried in rock and fossilized (normal, 'flood to present' physics and chemistry) in MILES of sediments. And they are arranged in ways that simply can't be accounted for in terms of any single water flood event. To do what we see in 5000 years or less would require purposed miraculous action on Gods part to create in opposition to natural forces what we see. They could not be the 'accidental' product of any of miracles mentioned from the fall to the present, including the flood.


Jim

[Mat Hunt]

I made a thread entitled "radioactive decay" which gave a derivation (under simple assumptions) that showed that the half-life was constant, no one had any real comeback from that.