From a personal point of view, when I thought that this article was merely on line and not in print, then I thought we could tolerate his article, but when I just saw it in print, going to every innocent household, I realized the implications were much greater, and this has passed the point of being charitable and patient. (with friends like this in our church, who needs enemies?)
For those who want to avoid the real work of the church, discussing the Belhar would be a good way to do this. By now, it is easy to see that we could affirm the intent of the Belhar, and receive it for information as a statement by another denomination in another space and time. It could easily be regarded in a similar position to the Westminster Confession and other confessions and statements that we do not need to "adopt" in any official manner. Getting back to scripture would be better, rather than adding confessions and statements that will not be given even the declining amount of attention presently given to our existing confessions.
A much simpler and more pertinent statement would be that all people of all languages and nations are called to serve and praise God, and that we should help one another to do so by loving one another as Christ loved us. (read the epistle of I John)
Naturally, John K, you are entitled to your opinion. But is "entitlement" really the issue? Entitled by whom? Human beings are "entitled" to be unbelievers, but of what use is it? Why do we focus so often on "entitlement"?
The real issue is not "entitlement", but being true to scripture, and true to your faith. I agree with Calvin that some people are inclined to reject what they do not know or understand. I also agree with Calvin, that we should not forbid scientists from working because we are afraid of some new knowledge. But you have not drawn a connection between this statement and our present discussion... what I mean is that no one is saying that we should not do science. So I think this is a red herring. What some of us are saying is that perhaps science is not being done well; that conclusions are being drawn which do not have substantive proof.
Furthermore, are you implying that Calvin would agree with Walhout? That there is no original sin; that no original Adam and Eve existed; that God did not declare everything good? That God did not make a promise to Adam and Eve that their seed would crush the head of the serpent? What exactly are you implying?
When you state that things that Paul stated went way over the head of Peter, did you get that idea from scripture? Is that really what he said?
When you say that all you need to know is that Christ is your saviour, what is it you are being saved from? your sin? your sinful nature? But what if your "sin" is merely an outworking of the supposed "natural" evolutionistic tendencies to survival? Why would you be redeemed from that? And you say that Christ redeems the whole creation... but why does the creation need to be redeemed? what's wrong with it? How do you know? What makes your beliefs different from someone who says that man is "naturally good"?
It is my view that these views are fundamental, not peripheral. They are basic to our understanding of ourselves, of creation, and of the creator/redeemer. Does that mean that people should not be investigating fossils, and starlight, and planets, and genetics, and different types of rock, or the sequences they are found in? No, all investigation is legitimate, but our interpretation is colored by our assumptions, and we do not serve the greek or roman gods, but we serve the true God. We know the true God through scripture, not thru the imaginations of our minds, nor thru the wistful desires of our heart. And we know God thru the majesty and order and magnificence of creation, not thru the supposed random accidentalness and ferocious survival instinct and desperation to survive, which if it was the dominating principle certainly would make it useless and meaningless to love God and our neighbor, wouldn't it.
I think this issue is well worth discussing. We need to know how to defend against such statements as Walhout makes. The problem is that Walhout proposed it and gave it the appearance of a valid christian approach, which is highly, highly questionable, and certainly should not have been given the imprimatur of the banner podium in the way that it did.
Richard, I sense also a bit of an emotional reaction to some of these discussions. Maybe like, "do we really have to get all so wrung out about this debate?" I sense you want peace (which is a good thing) and not strife. You want people's faith to hold together, and not be sidetracked by empirical arguments. You also want a focus on spirit, as opposed to "facts", a spiritual/emotional connection with a good God, instead of a concentration and focus on cold facts and truths.
I understand all of this, and I empathize with it. But I also believe that we are to worship God in Spirit, and in Truth. If we neglect truth under the guise of spirit, we will eventually discover that we have lost the spirit, and gained a false spirit. I know this from discussions with buddhists and with bahai and with moslems. It is the spirit of truth that is given to us, not the spirit of falsehood. Annanias and Sapphira died for no other reason than that they followed the spirit of falsehood; they lied about the empirical facts.
It is absolutely important and essential to know and believe and sense/feel that God is good, and God is love. This should become part of the blood flowing in our veins. It should be the essence of every word coming from our mouths. But it is the truth of this statement as found in scripture, that helps us to understand that God is good even when we do not feel that God is good in our personal lives, or in the lives of our friends or in the lives of strangers.
It is falsehood and evil that wants us to put truth on the back shelf compared to the goodness of God. But it is a false dichotomy (I am speaking more broadly than just Genesis 1, but the principle applies).
If God is good, how can he allow evil? If God is good, how can he allow the flood? If God is good, how can He allow eternal punishment?
But God must be true to Himself. If we understand that, then we can understand God's goodness.
Rinse and hang dry - is that really your name? My previous post is out of sequence because you added three other posts. In response to your accusation of me not reading the entire article, you are mistaken, I had already read it and I referred to it too. You should read this statement matson made, "Some of the geologic periods may be missing, either because they were never laid down at that location or because they have since eroded away. "
Another youtube which demonstrates in support of Helder's statement that evolution does not explain everything. In this youtube it actually shows how evolutionary theory has hindered scientific pursuit by making the wrong assumptions.
I thought I would check your link on a critique of Humphreys (who I don't know, but have watched one video from him on starlight, expansion of the universe and found it lacking in detail, but interesting...). Your link author, DE Thoomas, discredited himself in my eyes very rapidly by using a very poor inappropriate example: "It's like looking at three estimates of the "maximum" distance from Albuquerque to Los Angeles: a thousand miles, 100 miles, and 10 feet. By Humphreys' logic, the smallest "maximum" distance (10 feet) is the best, most accurate value, because it "fits comfortably within the maximum possible" values! " This example reveals a very poor understanding of the process of measuring age, and it reveals a poor understanding of what Humphreys and others are trying to do. A much better example would be using travel time vs eyesight vs a measuring tape vs anecdotes to measure distance. So for example if you said it took ten hours to travel from one city to another, you would need to know the method of travel. If it was by air, you would need to know the speed and direction of the wind, the speed of travel, whether it was a straight route or circuitous. If you merely estimated distance from the air or from a mountain top by eyesight, or if you based distance on stories of settlers who travelled by covered wagon, you might get different distances. Humphreys is merely making arguments about what type of measurements are the most verifiable and the most accurate. And measuring time backwards is not nearly as simple or conclusive as measuring distance. Using one radioactive decay rate to verify another, would seem to open to the possibility of initial conditions being inaccurately assumed for all methods, or that all decay rates were more or less similarly affected by some external conditions. It would seem to be better to verify these methods by other unrelated non-radioactive decay methods which involved different mechanisms entirely. I think that is what Humphreys is trying to do.
Thomas mentions that C14 cannot be used to measure ages more than 50,000 years. Yet they can measure a 16 fold increase in atmospheric carbon that supposedly existed 440 million years ago. But they have no idea whether C14 ratios were similar or not at that time? They seem to miss the whole point of Humphreys argument that when ratios change, this affects the assumed or apparent age. We already know that nuclear explosions in the 1940s and 1950s have required adjustments in the way C14 is used to determine age. But we know about those effects. How do we eliminate the possibility of similar or larger events which may have happened in the past , which we do not have a record of?
Your DE Thomas also makes claims that Humphreys example of salt accumulation in the ocean as a way of measuring earth age is faulty, but uses an inappropriate example again. He gives no indication of how the ocean could lose salt on a regular basis, other than a mere presumption, so his comparison to snow fall is invalid.
In any case, I have no doubt that Humphreys has made and will make hpothesis that will fall short, and that will need to be changed. But I find that he has an open mind to possibilities that evolutionists are inherently reluctant to consider. So I wish him well.
In any case, no matter how you look at this whole debate, from a scientific point of view it certainly stimulates questions, opens possibilities, and forces a concentration questioning assumptions. From a faith perspective, it forces us to consider how God created things, and reveals the possibility that even materialistic science can be used as a tool to divert us from God. I appreciate your challenges of the YEC; they need to maintain integrity as much as they challenge the evolutionists to defend theirs.
Norman, now you are at least addressing some discussable points, rather than vague generalities and ad hominems. Thankyou for that. When Jesus said, in the beginning (of time) it was not so, for God created them male and female, and the two shall become one, he was refering to the Genesis event, right? In the beginning. Yes, the entire week of creation was part of that beginning, the beginning of how the earth operates and is maintained. You could argue that the beginning was before the week of creation, but then you are misappropriating the meaning of the word in order to argue with Jesus, right? And you would seem to be using the word very specifically not to refer to the creation week at all, which does not make much sense in the context. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Then we get a description of how that happened. We get the beginning of everything, of separation of earth and water, of light, of stars, plants, animals, fish, and humans. All of that week was a beginning, according to scripture.
The other point was made in Rom 5:12, "as by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin ..." You must admit it is difficult to reconcile this with a whole bunch of animal or human death before the fall of man.
Your other example about what Paul said about marriage... yes, Paul did intend, by the Spirit of God, a mutual submission of all of us to each other under the grace of God. But he also intended to recognize a difference between men and women, which was explicitly explained in the difference between the instructions to respect vs love, and also in the example he used of Eve falling into disobedience first, and in men loving wives as Christ loved the church, and wives respecting their husband as the church submits to Christ. Mutual love does not rule out specific roles, but puts those roles into perspective, as Paul pointed out.
You say that Jesus knowledge was limited, including about the process of creation. But this contradicts what John 1 says about Jesus being there in the beginning, with God. That Jesus himself was the Word by which the creation happened. Now yes, Jesus did indicate sometimes that somethings related to judgement and his own return were known to the Father only. But this doesn't mean that therefore He had to forget what He was involved in before.
You can speculate on things, but the weight of the evidence seems to lean in a different direction. I would say that Ian Juby is entitled to disagree with Pat Robertson, and he raises many valid points about fossils, rock layers, and rock dating, that Pat Robertson might be interested in thinking about.
Jeremy, strip mining does seem a bit drastic, but it will be reclaimed... and still be more productive than some natural canadian shield rock scapes. I was even wondering whether we could grow crops on some of the reclaimed areas... just wondering. yes, the north american fleet is relatively inefficient, but that's probably because we like bigger cars to carry stuff, and we have sleepers on most long haul trucks, and we don't use buses like they do in Europe cities. Double deckers everywhere in Dublin and London, for example. More buses than cars almost, it seems. But most homes are brick row housing there also, packed like sardines into streets, without yards, or with postage sized front yards, mostly. Some larger homes, with tall stone fences around them... and garages large enough to accomodate two bicycles, side by side...
Most of the open pit oilsands is already in operation now. From now on it will be insitu bitument, with still a large footprint because of all the injection wells and extraction wells, but without surface mining, and so a much smaller footprint. New technology being discovered all the time, including alternatives to steam injection. Yes, it will be nice to have more alternatives to fossil fuels, but it will still take fossil fuels to create many of those alternatives. In the meantime, we ought to make the transport of these fuels as energy efficient as possible, thus reducing ghg.
It seems to me that education is a greater gift than teashirts. An education that is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. And of course, faith. What a gift that is. Of course, God has to give it. But he can use us to deliver it.
Sorry to put in three posts here in a row.... but I came across an excellent expose of evolutionary paleotology, put together by Street Church Adelaide. Youtube - "Evolution - A Crumbling Theory ( StreetChurch Adelaide )
Facts are not always facts, even when it comes to empirical science. Evil and falsehood not only wants to pervert scriptural truths, but it perverts scientific and "natural" evidence as well, if the motivation is there.
In regards to radio-active dating methods you should check out these two sites, highlighting that sometimes methods have an error range of millions and hundreds of millions of years. " youtube.com/watch?v=3wMV8Hw99yg&feature=relm fu" on C14
or: youtube.com/watch?v=bGB-PfFSV2w&feature=relm fu on other rock dating methods. (you have to get past a bit of humour first).
Posted in: Disciplining a Retired Pastor
From a personal point of view, when I thought that this article was merely on line and not in print, then I thought we could tolerate his article, but when I just saw it in print, going to every innocent household, I realized the implications were much greater, and this has passed the point of being charitable and patient. (with friends like this in our church, who needs enemies?)
Posted in: Affirm the Belhar? Yes, but Not as a Doctrinal Standard
For those who want to avoid the real work of the church, discussing the Belhar would be a good way to do this. By now, it is easy to see that we could affirm the intent of the Belhar, and receive it for information as a statement by another denomination in another space and time. It could easily be regarded in a similar position to the Westminster Confession and other confessions and statements that we do not need to "adopt" in any official manner. Getting back to scripture would be better, rather than adding confessions and statements that will not be given even the declining amount of attention presently given to our existing confessions.
A much simpler and more pertinent statement would be that all people of all languages and nations are called to serve and praise God, and that we should help one another to do so by loving one another as Christ loved us. (read the epistle of I John)
Posted in: Disciplining a Retired Pastor
Naturally, John K, you are entitled to your opinion. But is "entitlement" really the issue? Entitled by whom? Human beings are "entitled" to be unbelievers, but of what use is it? Why do we focus so often on "entitlement"?
The real issue is not "entitlement", but being true to scripture, and true to your faith. I agree with Calvin that some people are inclined to reject what they do not know or understand. I also agree with Calvin, that we should not forbid scientists from working because we are afraid of some new knowledge. But you have not drawn a connection between this statement and our present discussion... what I mean is that no one is saying that we should not do science. So I think this is a red herring. What some of us are saying is that perhaps science is not being done well; that conclusions are being drawn which do not have substantive proof.
Furthermore, are you implying that Calvin would agree with Walhout? That there is no original sin; that no original Adam and Eve existed; that God did not declare everything good? That God did not make a promise to Adam and Eve that their seed would crush the head of the serpent? What exactly are you implying?
When you state that things that Paul stated went way over the head of Peter, did you get that idea from scripture? Is that really what he said?
When you say that all you need to know is that Christ is your saviour, what is it you are being saved from? your sin? your sinful nature? But what if your "sin" is merely an outworking of the supposed "natural" evolutionistic tendencies to survival? Why would you be redeemed from that? And you say that Christ redeems the whole creation... but why does the creation need to be redeemed? what's wrong with it? How do you know? What makes your beliefs different from someone who says that man is "naturally good"?
It is my view that these views are fundamental, not peripheral. They are basic to our understanding of ourselves, of creation, and of the creator/redeemer. Does that mean that people should not be investigating fossils, and starlight, and planets, and genetics, and different types of rock, or the sequences they are found in? No, all investigation is legitimate, but our interpretation is colored by our assumptions, and we do not serve the greek or roman gods, but we serve the true God. We know the true God through scripture, not thru the imaginations of our minds, nor thru the wistful desires of our heart. And we know God thru the majesty and order and magnificence of creation, not thru the supposed random accidentalness and ferocious survival instinct and desperation to survive, which if it was the dominating principle certainly would make it useless and meaningless to love God and our neighbor, wouldn't it.
I think this issue is well worth discussing. We need to know how to defend against such statements as Walhout makes. The problem is that Walhout proposed it and gave it the appearance of a valid christian approach, which is highly, highly questionable, and certainly should not have been given the imprimatur of the banner podium in the way that it did.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Richard, I sense also a bit of an emotional reaction to some of these discussions. Maybe like, "do we really have to get all so wrung out about this debate?" I sense you want peace (which is a good thing) and not strife. You want people's faith to hold together, and not be sidetracked by empirical arguments. You also want a focus on spirit, as opposed to "facts", a spiritual/emotional connection with a good God, instead of a concentration and focus on cold facts and truths.
I understand all of this, and I empathize with it. But I also believe that we are to worship God in Spirit, and in Truth. If we neglect truth under the guise of spirit, we will eventually discover that we have lost the spirit, and gained a false spirit. I know this from discussions with buddhists and with bahai and with moslems. It is the spirit of truth that is given to us, not the spirit of falsehood. Annanias and Sapphira died for no other reason than that they followed the spirit of falsehood; they lied about the empirical facts.
It is absolutely important and essential to know and believe and sense/feel that God is good, and God is love. This should become part of the blood flowing in our veins. It should be the essence of every word coming from our mouths. But it is the truth of this statement as found in scripture, that helps us to understand that God is good even when we do not feel that God is good in our personal lives, or in the lives of our friends or in the lives of strangers.
It is falsehood and evil that wants us to put truth on the back shelf compared to the goodness of God. But it is a false dichotomy (I am speaking more broadly than just Genesis 1, but the principle applies).
If God is good, how can he allow evil? If God is good, how can he allow the flood? If God is good, how can He allow eternal punishment?
But God must be true to Himself. If we understand that, then we can understand God's goodness.
And we must be true to God.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Rinse and hang dry - is that really your name? My previous post is out of sequence because you added three other posts. In response to your accusation of me not reading the entire article, you are mistaken, I had already read it and I referred to it too. You should read this statement matson made, "Some of the geologic periods may be missing, either because they were never laid down at that location or because they have since eroded away. "
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Another youtube which demonstrates in support of Helder's statement that evolution does not explain everything. In this youtube it actually shows how evolutionary theory has hindered scientific pursuit by making the wrong assumptions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUlLp0xmsZ0&feature=relmfu
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
I thought I would check your link on a critique of Humphreys (who I don't know, but have watched one video from him on starlight, expansion of the universe and found it lacking in detail, but interesting...). Your link author, DE Thoomas, discredited himself in my eyes very rapidly by using a very poor inappropriate example: "It's like looking at three estimates of the "maximum" distance from Albuquerque to Los Angeles: a thousand miles, 100 miles, and 10 feet. By Humphreys' logic, the smallest "maximum" distance (10 feet) is the best, most accurate value, because it "fits comfortably within the maximum possible" values! " This example reveals a very poor understanding of the process of measuring age, and it reveals a poor understanding of what Humphreys and others are trying to do. A much better example would be using travel time vs eyesight vs a measuring tape vs anecdotes to measure distance. So for example if you said it took ten hours to travel from one city to another, you would need to know the method of travel. If it was by air, you would need to know the speed and direction of the wind, the speed of travel, whether it was a straight route or circuitous. If you merely estimated distance from the air or from a mountain top by eyesight, or if you based distance on stories of settlers who travelled by covered wagon, you might get different distances. Humphreys is merely making arguments about what type of measurements are the most verifiable and the most accurate. And measuring time backwards is not nearly as simple or conclusive as measuring distance. Using one radioactive decay rate to verify another, would seem to open to the possibility of initial conditions being inaccurately assumed for all methods, or that all decay rates were more or less similarly affected by some external conditions. It would seem to be better to verify these methods by other unrelated non-radioactive decay methods which involved different mechanisms entirely. I think that is what Humphreys is trying to do.
Thomas mentions that C14 cannot be used to measure ages more than 50,000 years. Yet they can measure a 16 fold increase in atmospheric carbon that supposedly existed 440 million years ago. But they have no idea whether C14 ratios were similar or not at that time? They seem to miss the whole point of Humphreys argument that when ratios change, this affects the assumed or apparent age. We already know that nuclear explosions in the 1940s and 1950s have required adjustments in the way C14 is used to determine age. But we know about those effects. How do we eliminate the possibility of similar or larger events which may have happened in the past , which we do not have a record of?
Your DE Thomas also makes claims that Humphreys example of salt accumulation in the ocean as a way of measuring earth age is faulty, but uses an inappropriate example again. He gives no indication of how the ocean could lose salt on a regular basis, other than a mere presumption, so his comparison to snow fall is invalid.
In any case, I have no doubt that Humphreys has made and will make hpothesis that will fall short, and that will need to be changed. But I find that he has an open mind to possibilities that evolutionists are inherently reluctant to consider. So I wish him well.
In any case, no matter how you look at this whole debate, from a scientific point of view it certainly stimulates questions, opens possibilities, and forces a concentration questioning assumptions. From a faith perspective, it forces us to consider how God created things, and reveals the possibility that even materialistic science can be used as a tool to divert us from God. I appreciate your challenges of the YEC; they need to maintain integrity as much as they challenge the evolutionists to defend theirs.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Norman, now you are at least addressing some discussable points, rather than vague generalities and ad hominems. Thankyou for that. When Jesus said, in the beginning (of time) it was not so, for God created them male and female, and the two shall become one, he was refering to the Genesis event, right? In the beginning. Yes, the entire week of creation was part of that beginning, the beginning of how the earth operates and is maintained. You could argue that the beginning was before the week of creation, but then you are misappropriating the meaning of the word in order to argue with Jesus, right? And you would seem to be using the word very specifically not to refer to the creation week at all, which does not make much sense in the context. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Then we get a description of how that happened. We get the beginning of everything, of separation of earth and water, of light, of stars, plants, animals, fish, and humans. All of that week was a beginning, according to scripture.
The other point was made in Rom 5:12, "as by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin ..." You must admit it is difficult to reconcile this with a whole bunch of animal or human death before the fall of man.
Your other example about what Paul said about marriage... yes, Paul did intend, by the Spirit of God, a mutual submission of all of us to each other under the grace of God. But he also intended to recognize a difference between men and women, which was explicitly explained in the difference between the instructions to respect vs love, and also in the example he used of Eve falling into disobedience first, and in men loving wives as Christ loved the church, and wives respecting their husband as the church submits to Christ. Mutual love does not rule out specific roles, but puts those roles into perspective, as Paul pointed out.
You say that Jesus knowledge was limited, including about the process of creation. But this contradicts what John 1 says about Jesus being there in the beginning, with God. That Jesus himself was the Word by which the creation happened. Now yes, Jesus did indicate sometimes that somethings related to judgement and his own return were known to the Father only. But this doesn't mean that therefore He had to forget what He was involved in before.
You can speculate on things, but the weight of the evidence seems to lean in a different direction. I would say that Ian Juby is entitled to disagree with Pat Robertson, and he raises many valid points about fossils, rock layers, and rock dating, that Pat Robertson might be interested in thinking about.
Posted in: Climate Change - Wither Now?
Jeremy, strip mining does seem a bit drastic, but it will be reclaimed... and still be more productive than some natural canadian shield rock scapes. I was even wondering whether we could grow crops on some of the reclaimed areas... just wondering. yes, the north american fleet is relatively inefficient, but that's probably because we like bigger cars to carry stuff, and we have sleepers on most long haul trucks, and we don't use buses like they do in Europe cities. Double deckers everywhere in Dublin and London, for example. More buses than cars almost, it seems. But most homes are brick row housing there also, packed like sardines into streets, without yards, or with postage sized front yards, mostly. Some larger homes, with tall stone fences around them... and garages large enough to accomodate two bicycles, side by side...
Most of the open pit oilsands is already in operation now. From now on it will be insitu bitument, with still a large footprint because of all the injection wells and extraction wells, but without surface mining, and so a much smaller footprint. New technology being discovered all the time, including alternatives to steam injection. Yes, it will be nice to have more alternatives to fossil fuels, but it will still take fossil fuels to create many of those alternatives. In the meantime, we ought to make the transport of these fuels as energy efficient as possible, thus reducing ghg.
Posted in: Great Article: Is Foreign Aid Bad for Africa?
It seems to me that education is a greater gift than teashirts. An education that is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. And of course, faith. What a gift that is. Of course, God has to give it. But he can use us to deliver it.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Sorry to put in three posts here in a row.... but I came across an excellent expose of evolutionary paleotology, put together by Street Church Adelaide. Youtube - "Evolution - A Crumbling Theory ( StreetChurch Adelaide )
Facts are not always facts, even when it comes to empirical science. Evil and falsehood not only wants to pervert scriptural truths, but it perverts scientific and "natural" evidence as well, if the motivation is there.
" ""
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
In regards to radio-active dating methods you should check out these two sites, highlighting that sometimes methods have an error range of millions and hundreds of millions of years. " youtube.com/watch?v=3wMV8Hw99yg&feature=relm fu" on C14
or: youtube.com/watch?v=bGB-PfFSV2w&feature=relm fu on other rock dating methods. (you have to get past a bit of humour first).