Today was a good day for honesty in science!

[rogue06]

I must conclude that you get some kind of 'kick' making me hyperventilate.

No, Christ does not say that the world was created on 4004 BC and is, therefore,
about 6,000 years old" (which would be silly since the age of the Earth depends
on the year one is reading Scripture).

Good thing I never said "about 6,000 years old" then but rather "a few thousand years old" which if it were true would therefore be an accurate statement then.

But I'm glad that you finally admit that Christ never made such a statement so now perhaps you can drop this load of codswallop that disagreeing with YEC dogma is "disregard[ing]" or "chang[ing]" or "giving what others say a higher priority or a higher authority than what Christ says?" since you now agree that Christ never said a single word in regard to this matter.

To continue claiming otherwise is nothing short of altering the Gospel message and putting "an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way" as they seek to find Christ.

But God's Word DOES provide sufficient details to allow us to get a "ballpark"
figure. I personally am not overly dogmatic about any date in the 9,000 +/-
4,000 year time frame. My personal choice is the same as the Jewish Year.
Anyone can figure this out - you just have to trust in the Scriptures.

It is far more accurate to say that a particular interpretation of the Bible apparently provides "sufficient details to allow us to get a "ballpark" figure." But that calculation belies every examination of God's creation both here on earth and the rest of the universe that clearly shows over and over that it was not created a few thousand years ago.

As William Henry Green wrote in "Primeval Chronology" for "Bibliotheca Sacra" in refutation of Ussher's calculations:

“We conclude that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham; and that the Mosaic records do not fix and were not intended to fix the precise date either of the Flood or of the creation of the world.”

The similarly conservative theologian and great apologist of biblical inerrancy Benjamin B. Warfield reached the same conclusion in "On The Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race", commenting that "it is precarious in the highest degree to draw chronological inferences from genealogical tables." Warfield also noted that, "it is to theology, as such, a matter of entire indifference how long man has existed on earth."

Or to put it more succinctly, in the words of "Scotland's greatest nineteenth-century churchman," Thomas Chalmers, "The writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe.”

The fact of the matter is as far as any “official” position of early Christian fundamentalism can be ascertained, an OEC approach is compatible with the text of Genesis as can be seen in James Orr's article “The Bible and Science” for “The Fundamentals” in 1910. So this view is well attested for in the conservative Christian tradition.

And that's the point - you people do NOT trust the Scriptures.

You continue to confuse and conflate the YEC interpretation of what the Scriptures say with what is actually written. Those Christians who disagree with YEC dogma trust what the Bible states, we just don't think that your (i.e., YEC) reading of them is the correct one.

You et al.
have been performing Post-Modern Revisionism on the Bible that would
have made Josef Stalin proud.

This supposed "Post-Modern Revisionism on the Bible" dates back to the earliest days of Christianity with the ECFs is wide disagreement over how to understand what the days mentioned in Genesis 1 meant.

A telling sign is this : this Revisionism
makes the Bible "fit" with Evolution. I stopped believing in Santa Claus
and in coincidences like this by the time I was 7 years old.

As I noted above this so-called "Post-Modern Revisionism" actually dates back to the ECFs so unless you think that folks like Cyprian of Carthage, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil of Caesarea, Methodius, Victorinus, Augustine, Hilary (of Poitiers not Hillary Clinton ) were all Revisionists...

Trusting God's Word WITHOUT distorting it or making it
subordinate to man's decrees - is THAT a Salvation issue?

You define "distorting" as daring to disagree with YEC dogma. This leads you to once again fail to differentiate between a particular, incredibly narrow dare I say (yes, I dare) woodenly literal interpreatation of what Scripture says and what is actually written. You may in your confusion think that they are one and the same thing but most assuredly they are not.

But thanks for once again demonstrating that how we interpret Genesis is what you think our salvation depends upon rather than Christ's sacrifice and offer of redemption. And you think non-YECs are the ones who have issues concerning "Trusting God's Word"

Don't have the time to respond to that other than to say that it displays
extremely poor Christian theology. How can anyone possibly make
God's Holy Word subordinate to interpretations of a fallen creation by
fallen men who we know (coz God tells us) see things "as through a
dark glass"? It's beyond mind-boggling!

Jorge

The concept that God reveals through both Scripture and Nature is "poor Christian theology"?

That would come to quite a shock to Tertullian, Irenaeus, Basil of Caesarea, Anthony the Great, Athanasius, Origen, Gennadius, Augustine, John of Damascus, John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas, John Scotus Eriugena, Benedict Pereira, Nicholas of Kues (Cusa), John Calvin, Martin Luther, Melanchthon, Francis Bacon, Jacob Heerbrand and Charles Hodge.

[Roy]

So there you have it, it is proof positive that Tiggsy-Pooh does indeed
believe that he possesses "scientific knowledge and understanding"
making him "superior" to lowly people like myself who lack such things.

He's right, too.

Roy

[Tiggy]

Another win for science and honesty. From the NCSE:

"Intelligent design" legislation in Texas dies

"Texas's House Bill 285 died in the House Committee on Higher Education on May 6, 2013, when the deadline for House committees to pass House bills expired. If enacted, HB 285 would have amended Texas's education code to provide that "[a]n institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member's or student's conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms." The bill's sole sponsor was Bill Zedler (R-District 96), who introduced the identical HB 2454 in 2011; he told the Houston Chronicle (January 7, 2013) that he was inspired by the movie Expelled."

Looks like Louisiana may still get the dubious distinction of being the only state to allow the teaching of IDC nonsense in science classes.

- T

[OmniSkeptical]

I don't think it is that simple. ID if it has any contributions to biology or medicine can be taught beside darwinian biology. And intelligent design as abstraction is very much part of biological textbooks and wikipedia articles, so ID is more of an abstract entity. I do not believe any serious beginning biology actually spends more than 10% of its text on Darwinism. I doubt that further textbooks would do anything other than describe how life evolves when it reproduces, which is very useful in medicine, and biochemistry. In other words, there are alot of facts open to interpretation.

[Tiggy]

ID if it has any contributions to biology or medicine can be taught beside darwinian biology. .

That's the big problem right there. The next contribution ID has to our understanding of biology or medicine will be its first.

- T