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Credit where credit’s due: P. Z. Myers vs. Daniel Friedmann on Genesis

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I’d like to confess two things up-front. First, I know next to nothing about Kabbalah (an ancient Jewish mystical tradition which forms an integral part of the Oral tradition of Judaism). Second, I’m not a big fan of the “day-age” interpretation of Genesis, having been turned off it at the age of twelve, when I learned that birds appeared only 150 million years ago, long after the appearance of land animals (or even mammals, for that matter) – in other words, the reverse of the order in Genesis. But I’d be the first to admit that my own personal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 might well be wrong – in fact, I’m quite sure that it is wrong, in places. (The only question is: how wrong?) So if someone were to argue that when the events narrated in Genesis 1 are properly understood, the “day-age” interpretation turns out to be right after all, then I’d at least hear them out. Who knows? They might be right.

Daniel Friedmann is CEO of MDA Corp. aerospace company in Canada, specializing in robotics used on the international space station. He has a master’s degree in engineering physics and 30 years’ experience in the space industry. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed scientific papers on space industry topics. He is also a longtime student of cosmology and religion, and he believes that science and Genesis can be reconciled. He holds to a “day-age” interpretation of Genesis 1, which he expounds in a recent book titled, The Genesis One Code.

Friedmann’s Three Great Interventions

Readers may be curious as to where Friedman stands on Intelligent Design. According to his interpretation of Genesis, everything that took place in the first chapter of Genesis happened according to standard scientific laws of cause and effect, except for three big events that required Divine intervention: the origin of the universe itself; the origin of complex life; and the origin of the human soul.

 

UPDATE

Mr. Friedmann has kindly drawn my attention to the following passage in his book, in which he contrasts acts of formation with acts of creation:

“Most acts in Genesis are something from something else and all within nature. Thus science can describe what is happening. BUT there are exceptions – ex nihilo (out of nothing) creations which science may not decipher.”

Mr. Friedmann nowhere states in his book that the acts which science can describe happened naturally, via an undirected process. Rather, what he says is that we can understand them via the scientific method. Nevertheless, his book makes it quite clear that these acts are caused by God.

END UPDATE

In a recent interview with Antonia Zerbisias, of The Star of Toronto, titled, Ideacity: Has Daniel Friedmann found ‘biblical clock’ and key to creation (14 June 2013), Daniel Friedmann explained why he regarded those three events as inexplicable according to the laws of cause and effect:

The most famous one is the beginning. If you look at the Big Bang theory, it explains absolutely everything from the beginning until today very nicely but it has no idea how the beginning came about.

The next most famous one is what the Bible calls the human soul. The Bible says the bodies of humans were made just like the bodies of animals. In some cases science recognizes the soul, in some cases it says there is no soul, we’re just super-intelligent. The key thing is, what does a soul bring to a human that it doesn’t bring to anyone else? The ability to speak and the ability to envision the future. We’re the only species according to science that can do that. That leads to painting and art and things that in an evolutionary context are completely useless. The Bible tells us that these behaviours come from the soul, the divine soul, from the outside. Science agrees that these behaviours are completely unique to humans but they don’t have an explanation for where they come from.

The third thing is the appearance of sea creatures during what science calls the Cambrian explosion. What happened then came out outside of the scientific natural process. God interfered and did something miraculous.

Those are the only three times that something was happening that was not just cause and effect within the normal laws of nature.

In short: Friedmann could be fairly described as a front-loader.

Friedmann’s time scale for matching Genesis and science

Friedmann argues that while science and Genesis might offer different slants on how the world originated, they should at least agree on what happened, and when. Consequently, chronology is of vital importance to Friedmann’s interpretation of Genesis.

The first question that needs to be addressed is: if each day in Genesis represents an age, then how long are the ages? In other words, what time-scale does Genesis 1 use? Friedmann explained how he derived his time-scale in an interview with Ginny Grimsley in Marketwire (April 18, 2012) titled, Physics Engineer Daniel Friedmann’s Formula Provides Key to Biblical Clock:

In “Genesis One Code,” Friedmann explains how he developed the formula – 1,000 X 365 X 7,000 — from references in religious texts.
“The formula is simple,” says the CEO of the Canadian aerospace company known for creating the robotics used on the international space station.

“The Bible tells us in Psalms that one day for God is 1,000 years for us. We know that 365 days is our solar year, and from other studies of the scriptures we can conclude that one creation day in Genesis equals 7,000 God years.

“Multiply those numbers and you find that in years as we know them, each creation day is an epoch of 2.56 billion years,” Friedmann says. The age of the universe, when calculated using the formula, is 13.74 billion years. Science puts it at 13.75 billion, plus or minus 0.13 billion.

In fact, Friedmann’s estimate is even more precise than that: he holds that the universe is 13.742 million years old.

Where does Friedmann get his “days” from?

In his book, The Genesis One Code, Friedmann emphasizes that his interpretation of Genesis is not a novel one, but one that goes back no less than 800 years, in Jewish thinking:

This is not a modern concept. Isaac ben Samuel of Acre (fl.13th-14th century), a Kabbalist who lived in the land of Israel 800 years ago, was the first to state that the universe is actually billions of years old, at a time when the prevalent thought was that the universe was thousands of years old. Isaac arrived at this conclusion by distinguishing between time as experienced by humans and time as experienced by God, herein described as Human Time and Divine Time, respectively. However, his work was only brought to light recently in English by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (1979).

Scientist Rich Deem helpfully clarifies the reasoning underlying Friedmann’s chronology in an online review of Friedmann’s book, The Genesis One Code:

Friedmann goes on to say that a “creation day” is 7,000 “divine years.” How this number was arrived at is not explained in the text, but in a very long appendix. Having read the appendix carefully, I could still not figure out exactly how that number was arrived at, other than having to do with 7 cycles of 7 and the universe existing for 49,000 years (not sure where that number came from and how it relates to the universe’s real age of 13.8 billion years). So, according to Friedmann, a “creation day” is equivalent to 2.56 billion years (365,250 years/divine year X 7,000 divine years/creation day)…

Actually, the 7,000 “divine years” are derived from the Sefer ha-Temunah, an ancient Kabbalistic work attributed to the first-century tanna, Rabbi Nehunya ben ha-Kanah. Jewish scholar Aryeh Kaplan explains the teaching in his book, Immortality, resurrection, and the age of the universe: A Kabbalistic view (Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, Ktav Publishing House, 1993, ISBN 978-0-88125-345-0), adding that this teaching about Sabbatical cycles was by no means universally accepted among Jewish authorities, and that a diversity of opinions existed on the subject:

The Sefer ha-Temunah speaks about Sabbatical cycles (shemitol). This is based on the Talmudic teaching that “the world will exist for six thousand years, and in the seven-thousandth year, it will be destroyed.” The Sefer ha-Temunah states that this seven-thousand-year cycle is merely one Sabbatical cycle. However, since there are seven Sabbatical cycles in a Jubilee, the world is destined to exist for forty-nine thousand years. (p. 6)

How Friedmann derives a 13.74 billion-year-old universe from Genesis

In his online review of The Genesis One Code, Rich Deem spells out the logic behind Friedmann’s Biblical calculation of 13.74 billion years for the age of the universe:

When one multiplies 2.56 billion by 6 creation days, one ends up with over 15 billion years, which is somewhat over the value determined by science. However, Friedmann has an answer for that — like human beings, God only works during the daytime. Since the creation days begin at sunset, God takes off the first 12 hours of creation day 1. In addition, the creation ends on the 21st hour of the sixth day, since Kabbalistic sources put Adam and Eve’s sin at that time. So, in reality, the God’s creative days are only 5.375 days long. When multiplied by 2.56 billion years, we end up with 13.74 billion years for the age of the universe (in human time). At the time of the writing of The Genesis One Code, this was nearly the exact value given by the results of the WMAP satellite (13.73 billion years). However, since that time, the Planck satellite has come in with a new value that is much more accurate, but slightly older at 13.82 billion years. Maybe Friedmann can find a few more minutes to add to the sixth creation day. (Emphases mine – VJT.)

According to Friedmann, the darkness in Genesis 1:3 corresponds to the Dark Ages in the early history of the universe, before the stars were formed; then came the first generation of stars, which were very large and bright, and which lit up the entire universe. This was the light on the first day. Friedmann argues that the “waters” on the second day are actually hydrogen; and the separation of the waters refers to the formation (from hydrogen) of the current generation of stars, which are generally much smaller. The appearance of dry land on the third day is said to refer to the creation of nitrogen and the formation of the Milky Way’s galactic disk. (Friedmann also holds that the Earth was formed on this day, about 7.5 to 8 billion years ago, before the solar system, and that it was subsequently captured by the Sun, about 3 billion years later.) The Sun, moon and solar system were completed by the end of day 4. Life starts on the morning of day 5, 3.52 billion years ago, and complex animals appear at the end of hour 4 on Day 6, or 532 million years ago.

Friedmann’s singular prediction: a 7.5 billion-year-old Earth

There’s one date in Friedmann’s chronology which doesn’t square with current scientific theory: he estimates that the Earth is 7.5 to 8 billion years old.

In the following excerpt from The Genesis Code, Friedmann explains how he reconciles his postulated age of 7.5 to 8 billion years for the Earth with the 4.5 billion year age of the solar system:

Meteorites, which are fragments of asteroids (small celestial bodies composed of rock and metal that move around the sun) that fall to earth, date back to about 4.5 BY ago.[29] Scientists have theorized that the earth formed at the same time as the rest of the solar system, including the asteroids. Thus, scientists take the age of the meteorites found on earth to be the same as the age of the earth.

However, cosmologists have discovered planets that have been ejected from star systems, potentially by a supernova (a very large stellar explosion).[30] Some scientists have postulated that the earth itself was ejected by an earlier solar system.[31] It is also known that nucleosynthesis in stars created enough elements to constitute earth-like planets approximately 8 billion years ago. Thus, the earth could have formed much earlier somewhere in the disk of our galaxy, passed through the clouds of molecular hydrogen and other material from which the solar system was being formed, and been trapped by the gravity of the solar system’s material as the system formed 4.5 BY ago. Then, over time asteroids dating back to the formation of the solar system have fallen to earth and in so doing produced the meteorites that we now date. This scenario, which does not contradict the scientific measurement of the age of the earth’s rocks (but does contradict the currently accepted theory that the earth formed with the solar system), is consistent with Genesis wherein the planet earth is formed in Day 3 (one day earlier than the sun and moon), some 7.5 to 8 BY ago.

Friedmann’s astonishing claim: Twenty matches between science and his account of Genesis!

In a recent talk entitled, Daniel Friedmann on the Story and Science of Creation, given at the IDEACity 2013, Koerner Hall, Toronto, June 19-21, 2013, Friedmann displayed a slide showing what he described as “a very good match” between Genesis and science. The table below (which is based on his slide) illustrates how well Friedmann’s interpretation matches up with the chronology uncovered by scientists.

Event Creation Time Human Time Time [Science]
Age of the Universe 5.375 creation days 13.74 BY 13.75 +-0.13 BY
Sun and Moon End of day 4, Moon < 2/3 hour later 4.79 BYa, [Moon] < 70 MY later 4.57 +-0.11 BYa, [Moon] ~ 50 MY later
Beginning of life Beginning of day 5, in water 3.52 BYa ~3.5 BYa
Complex animals End hour 4, Day 6 532 Ma 530 Ma, Cambrian explosion
Adam names the animals Hour 6, day 6 426-320 Ma 4-legged animals 397 Ma, Herbivores 369 Ma, All ancestors of current animals 310 Ma
Land plants Eden planted hour 6-8, day 6 426-106 Ma First plants 420 Ma, First trees 280 Ma, Flowers 130 Ma

In the table, BY denotes billion years, BYa denotes billion years ago, MY denotes million years, and Ma denotes million years ago.

Friedmann only showed a few of the matches here. But there are about 20 altogether more, according to a recent book review in the Sonoran News of Arizona titled, Physics Engineer’s Formula Provides Key to Biblical Clock:

The age of the universe, when calculated using the formula [developed by Friedmann], is 13.74 billion years. Science puts it at 13.75 billion, plus or minus 0.13 billion.

Friedmann’s formula produced 20 other Bible/science matches for events described in Genesis. They include:

* According to the Bible, the sun appeared to mark days, seasons and years on Day 4 of creation. Calculating from the end of the fourth day, Friedmann puts the “creation time age” at just under 4.79 billion years ago. Science says the sun is 4.57 billion years old, plus or minus 0.11 billion years.

* Science has determined the simplest form of life first appeared on Earth 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. Using Friedmann’s formula, calculating from the beginning of Day 5, life appeared 3.52 billion years ago.

* Complex life – most of the major animal phyla – appeared in a fairly rapid “Cambrian explosion” about 530 million years ago, give or take 5 million years, according to fossil records. That was four hours into Day 6, according to Friedmann, 532 million years ago.

* Day 6 was when “God planted the garden in Eden,” according to the Bible. Friedmann calculates plant life appearing a little later in the “day,” starting 426 million years ago and concluding 106 million years ago. The fossil record indicates that the first primitive macroscopic plants appeared about 420 million years ago, with seed plants and conifers diversifying 280 million years ago and flowering plants showing up 130 million years ago.

For those who may be wondering: the other events that Friedmann claims to find matches for in Genesis include major extinction events in the Earth’s history. Let me say that I have not examined Friedmann’s claims in detail, as I haven’t yet read his book; but what I will say is that in my opinion, any theory, no matter where it comes from and no matter how bizarre it may be, merits serious scientific evaluation, if it makes a large enough number of striking scientific predictions which turn out to be unexpectedly accurate. At the moment, many of the Genesis dates tabled by Friedmann (see his slide above) appear to be slightly at variance with the scientific chronology. For my part, I’m rather skeptical of Friedmann’s Genesis chronology. But if science were subsequently to vindicate Friedmann’s dates, that would prompt me to reconsider his “day-age” theory of Genesis. In the end, the ability to make predictions trumps everything, when judging a scientific theory.

Problems with Friedmann’s chronology: The Third and Fourth Days

Friedmann’s chronology is not without its problems, however, as Rich Deem points out in his online review of Friedmann’s book:

Friedmann interprets the appearance of dry land on the third day as the creation of nitrogen and the assembly of the Milky Way’s galactic disk. The verses from the third day that refer to the creation of green plants and trees (Genesis 1:11-12) are conveniently ignored. However, they are sneaked into the sixth day as having been created on the third day, but not having sprouted until the sixth day.

Deem then goes on to accuse Friedmann of inconsistency here, on the grounds that according to Friedmann’s timescale, the earth would not have been created until the very end of the fourth day, but as we have seen, this is incorrect: Friedmann actually holds that the Earth was created on the third day, about 7.5 to 8 billion years ago.

The Fifth and Sixth Days: The creation of complex life and of man

However, as Deem points out, it is on the fifth and sixth days that Friedmann’s chronology faces its most severe test. On a straightforward reading of Genesis 1:21-24, fish and birds appear on the fifth day, while land animals do not appear until the sixth. Friedmann is therefore compelled to reject this reading, since on his interpretation, complex life does not appear until the end of hour 4 on the sixth day.

In his online review, The Genesis One Code by Daniel Friedmann, scientist Rich Deem (who is also a Christian apologist) points out that Friedmann’s chronology comes unstuck when he comes to the creation of man:

Since God does not work in the dark, He didn’t start working to create Adam until hour 13, which is still about 1 billion years ago. With each step in the process taking 107 million years, Adam was not completed until 430 million years ago. At that point, Adam spent 107 million years naming all the animals (even though most of them had not yet been created, according to science)…. Friedmann explains that both Adam and Eve were created outside the garden [of Eden], [and] had children Cain and Abel hundreds of millions of years before they sinned. The fossil record is also clear that modern humans appeared less than a million years ago.

In all fairness, I should point out that in his latest book, The Broken Gift (Inspired Books, 2013), Friedmann defends the biblical claim that human beings were created 6,000 years ago – a claim that he endeavors to reconcile with the scientific claim that modern-looking humans appeared 200,000 years ago. Be that as it may, I am sure that many readers will be puzzled by Friedmann’s claim, in the media kit accompanying his latest book, that “Adam was a divine being, very different physically and spiritually from us but his descendants, post sin, were like us in every way – agreeing with science,” and that “Eve existed but she was a divine being and very different from us.”

P. Z. Myers’ criticisms of Friedmann’s harmony between science and Genesis

In a recent post titled, The KEY to understanding Genesis! (June 16, 2013), Professor P. Z. Myers (photographed above, courtesy of Wikipedia and Larry Moran) was dismissive of Friedmann’s book, The Genesis One Code, as the following comments show. I’ll let readers judge for themselves whether Myers has made a proper effort to understand Friedmann’s work:

Multiplying 6 god days by 2.56 billion years per god day, doesn’t give you a number that’s even close to the scientifically measured age of the universe, and the dates don’t line up in even an approximation for the origin of life…

The currently known age of the universe is 13.8 billion years; the earth is 4.5 billion years old…

[Day 5]
5 billion years ago, the solar nebula was condensing from clouds of interstellar gas. “Fish”, loosely speaking, evolved in the Cambrian, half a billion years ago; his dates are off by an order of magnitude. Birds evolved in the Mesozoic, and whales in the Cenozoic, so he’s off even further there…

[Day 6]
The capabilities of humans are a product of their material brain, no soul (which kooks like Friedmann can neither define nor measure) required. And if we have no idea what initiated the Big Bang, neither does Friedmann — “God did it” is not an explanation.

I’d like to make a few brief comments in response:

1. If Professor Myers had taken the time to acquaint himself with the claims made in Daniel Friedmann’s book, The Genesis One Code, and in his online talk entitled, Daniel Friedmann on the Story and Science of Creation, he would have realized that according to Friedmann’s chronology (which he bases on the 800-year-old writings of the Kabbalah), the events described in Genesis 1 cover 5.375 creation days, not six days. That’s why he contends that the age of the universe is 13.742 billion years, rather than 15.36 billion years.

2. As we saw above, it is a striking (and scientifically falsifiable) prediction of Friedmann’s interpretation of Genesis that the Earth should be 7.5 to 8 billion years old. Friedmann holds that the Earth was captured by the solar system at the time of its formation, which he dates to about 4.79 billion years ago (compared to the current scientifically accepted date of 4.567 billion years ago). One would think that a scientist like Professor Myers would welcome Friedmann’s falsifiable predictions, and encourage scientists to test them.

3. Friedmann is fully aware that complex life (including fish) appeared much later than the Earth. That’s why he dates the emergence of complex life (the “Cambrian explosion”) to the end of hour 4 on day 6, which would be 532 million years ago on a scientific time-scale. (Some complex life-forms would have appeared later.) I’ll leave it to Friedmann to explain how he squares his exegesis with Genesis 1:21, which seems to declare quite plainly that fish and birds were made on day five. But at least Myers cannot fault Friedmann’s chronology for its scientific inaccuracy on this point.

4. Myers’ claim that “the capabilities of humans are a product of their material brain” betrays a conceptual confusion on his part. It is a fact of life that humans are capable of formulating abstract, purely formal concepts such as “true,” “false,” “prime” and “set”. Material processes are no more capable of explaining our ability to formulate formal concepts than a material like wood is capable of explaining the abstract property of roundness. The attempt to explain the formal in terms of the material is a category mistake, pure and simple. All the correlations in the world between mental events and brain processes can’t get around that fact. And if correlation between two sets of processes does not imply causation, it certainly does not imply identity, as Myers would have us believe in the case of mental states and neural processes.

5. Professor Myers contends that “God did it” is not a proper explanation. But “Some Intelligence did it” certainly is. If I say that at least some of the structures in the underwater Japanese Yonaguni monument (such as “The Turtle,” pictured below, courtesy of Wikipedia and Masahiro Kaji) should be explained, not as a product of unguided natural processes, but as the work of some intelligence (be it human or alien), then I have certainly said something meaningful and genuinely informative, regardless of whether my assertion turns out to be true or not. My claim, if correct, surely has explanatory power.

I conclude (with regret) that Professor Myers’ post is marred by a failure to engage with the arguments advanced by a person whose world-view is radically different from his own.

Friedmann and Intelligent Design

I’d now like to address The Genesis One Code from an Intelligent Design perspective.

As we have seen, Daniel Friedmann posits three and only three occasions in the history of the cosmos (prior to the Fall of man) where the intervening hand of God was necessary to steer the course of events: the origin of the universe; the origin of complex life; and the origin of the human soul. All other events in the history of life, Friedmann contends, can be accounted for in terms of the laws of cause and effect that scientists routinely invoke.

As I see it, there are two problems with this view. The first is that the laws of Nature are conceptually inadequate to explain the emergence of life. As Professor Michael Behe succinctly put it in a review (First Things 94, June-July 1999, pp. 42-45) of physicist Paul Davies’ best-seller, The Fifth Miracle (Simon & Schuster, 1999):

laws cannot contain the recipe for life because laws are “information-poor” while life is “information-rich.”

The second major problem with Friedmann’s “minimal intervention” scenario is that it fails to address the origin of singleton proteins and genes, which appears to be beyond the reach of unguided natural processes, for reasons discussed by Dr. Branko Kozulic in his 2011 paper, Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species:

Each unique gene, and accordingly each novel functional protein encoded by that gene, however, represents a major problem for evolutionary theory because unique proteins are as unrelated as the proteins of random sequences – and among random sequences functional proteins are exceedingly rare. Experimental data reviewed here suggest that at most one functional protein can be found among 10^20 proteins of random sequences. Hence every discovery of a novel functional protein (singleton) represents a testimony for successful overcoming of the probability barrier of one against at least 10^20, the probability defined here as a “macromolecular miracle”. More than one million of such “macromolecular miracles” are present in the genomes of about two thousand species sequenced thus far. Assuming that this correlation will hold with the rest of about 10 million different species that live on Earth [157], the total number of “macromolecular miracles” in all genomes could reach 10 billion. These 10^10 unique proteins would still represent a tiny fraction of the 10^470 possible proteins of the median eukaryotic size.

If just 200 unique proteins are present in each species, the probability of their simultaneous appearance is one against at least 10^4,000. Probabilistic resources of our universe are much, much smaller; they allow for a maximum of 10^149 events [158] and thus could account for a one-time simultaneous appearance of at most 7 unique proteins. The alternative, a sequential appearance of singletons, would require that the descendants of one family live through hundreds of “macromolecular miracles” to become a new species – again a scenario of exceedingly low probability. Therefore, now one can say that each species is a result of a Biological Big Bang; to reserve that term just for the first living organism [21] is not justified anymore…

Evolutionary biologists of earlier generations have not anticipated [164, 165] the challenge that singletons pose to contemporary biologists. By discovering millions of unique genes biologists have run into brick walls similar to those hit by physicists with the discovery of quantum phenomena. The predominant viewpoint in biology has become untenable: we are witnessing a scientific revolution of unprecedented proportions.

At the very least, intelligently guided evolution seems to be required here. Laws on their own are not up to the task of overcoming probabilistic hurdles such as these.

Have any viewers read Daniel Friedmann’s The Genesis One Code? If so, what did you think of the book? Comments are welcome.

Comments
JLAfan writes,
1) Number 5 should have read 4. Oops. This answer doesn’t really address the point I made being that science shows marine life can before plant life not the other way around. We have simpler lifeforms that originated in the oceans before the plants showed up. Please address this with other than “prove it”.
What science says happened is quite different from what actually happened. Go back to what I posted earlier. What were the animals eating if not vegetation, and before you say “each other” remember that not all animals are carnivores. The first link you provided with respect to bird evolution shows a table of dinosaur to bird evolution, but it makes an error when it calls Archaeopteryx an intermediate form. Please note that a number of critical aspects are ignored. Reptiles are cold-blooded and often sluggish, whereas birds are warm-blooded and are among the most active creatures on earth. Flight depends upon many coordinated factors being present at one time. It is noteworthy that Archaeopteryx already had fully developed wings perfectly feathered (not scales half developed into feathers), and had special feet equipped for perching. The relative proportions of the head and brain case are those of a bird and are quite different from those of reptiles. So, Archaeopteryx did not evolve from a reptile to a bird. Its fossilized remains reveal perfectly formed feathers on aerodynamically designed wings capable of flight. Its wing and leg bones were thin and hollow. Its supposed reptilian features are found in birds today. And it does not predate birds, because fossils of other birds have been found in rocks of the same period as Archaeopteryx. (Science, “Feathers of Archaeopteryx: Asymmetric Vanes Indicate Aerodynamic Function”, Alan Feduccia and Harrison Tordoff, March 9, 1979, pages 1021-1022). What you read on the Internet is misleading and false.
3) “Whales were not created with other sea life but evolved form a land animal. Again, where is your proof for this? Baseless assertions mean nothing.” http://evolution.berkeley.edu/.....vograms_03 http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/ http://www.amnh.org/exhibition.....-evolution
And again, not everything you read on the Internet is true. Evolution teaches that humans evolved from a fish-like ancestor and walked out of the ocean, but a terrestrial animal somehow walked into the ocean and evolved into a whale. Yeah, makes perfect sense. Your error is listening to only one side of the argument and not the other. This is intellectual dishonesty.
I’m not even going to dignify this with a response. I have mentioned the evidence for this a few times and you refuse to acknowledge it.
What about the evidence I posted? Did you bother to read it, or did you simply ignore it?
I would suggest that you take a look at this article starting with the Adam & Eve section. Francis Collins, a Christian, explains why a first couple isn’t likely. Excerpt: Even more controversial than theistic evolution is Collins’ belief that Adam and Eve were not the only people on Earth. Looking at today’s genetic variations, there must have been an ancestral gene pool larger than that of just Adam (Eve, based on a literal reading of Genesis, came from Adam’s ribs and therefore would have the same DNA as Adam), somewhere in the range of 10,000 people. http://www.christianpost.com/n.....lem-51416/
Some believe that the account of Adam and Eve is merely allergory. I disagree with this position. Note what others have stated about humanity’s ancestry: “Science now corroborates what most great religions have long been preaching: Human beings of all races are . . . descended from the same first man.”—Heredity in Humans (Philadelphia and New York, 1972), Amram Scheinfeld, p. 238. “The Bible story of Adam and Eve, father and mother of the whole human race, told centuries ago the same truth that science has shown today: that all the peoples of the earth are a single family and have a common origin.”—The Races of Mankind (New York, 1978), Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, p. 3. In 1988, Newsweek magazine presented those findings in a report entitled “The Search for Adam and Eve.” Those studies were based on a type of mitochondrial DNA, genetic material passed on only by the female. Reports in 1995 about research on male DNA point to the same conclusion—that “there was an ancestral ‘Adam,’ whose genetic material on the [Y] chromosome is common to every man now on earth,” as Time magazine put it. Whether those findings are accurate in every detail or not, they illustrate that the history we find in Genesis is highly credible, being authored by One who was on the scene at the time.
How do you explain teeth in tyrannosaurus Rex and the velociraptors for starters? Are they a fabricated evolutionist plot or did God give them teeth to crunch through coconuts and pineapples like the creationist explanation? There is evidence of predation in the fossil record.
And you are taking the fossil record as though it is gospel truth. “It’s a big surprise for scientists” to discover that “dinosaurs ate grass,” says an Associated Press report. The discovery was made when fossilized sauropod dung found in India was analyzed. Why the surprise? It was thought that “grasses didn’t emerge until long after the dinosaurs died off,” explains the report. It was also believed that sauropods “didn’t have the special kind of teeth needed to grind up abrasive blades.” Paleobotanist Caroline Stromberg, leader of the team that made the discovery, says: “Most people would not have fathomed that [sauropods] would eat grasses.”(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176052,00.html; http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-13903254.html) Please note the sentence that appears in the second link with respect to the above quote: “It's a big surprise for scientists, who had never really looked for evidence of grass in dino diets before.” In other words, the scientists had an a priori assumption of what dinosaurs ate and never bothered to look at (or for) the evidence. And these are the people that claim advanced intelligence, the ones who don’t bother to do the research. I have no problem with science or scientific progress. I do have a problem when someone claims that science knows everything when it obviously does not. Barb
JFLAN You invoke the supernatural all the time, by believing that matter crashing into matter became alive, you see if that statement was true life would spontaneously generate all the time, you know after all its a natural event...... It's not not now not yesterday not last week. The material origin is the fairytale. Andre
@JLAFan2001, Its irrelevant whether deism is "worthless". Atheism is quite worthless as well. That doesn't determine its truth or falsity. It remains fallacious to say things like,"the bible is wrong, therefore atheism". Admit it. kuartus
Kuartus I know what deism and atheism is. Deism says that there is a god but he doesn’t get involved in human affairs. It he doesn’t get involved then you can live your life any way you want making it virtually the same as atheism. What would the difference be between an atheist and a deist in terms of how they live their life? Would a deist go to church, pray or read scripture? Why would he? He can sin any way he wants without reproach from the god he believes in. Worthless. Barb I’ve noticed that you have these explanations when it suits you. When you don’t have an explanation, you turn the tables and say “prove it”. OK. 1) Number 5 should have read 4. Oops. This answer doesn’t really address the point I made being that science shows marine life can before plant life not the other way around. We have simpler lifeforms that originated in the oceans before the plants showed up. Please address this with other than “prove it”. 2) “Where is your proof for bird evolution? The Genesis account reports that sea life and flying creatures were the first animal life on earth.” http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_06 http://www.dino-web.com/birds.html http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/dinosaur-institute/dinosaurs/birds-late-evolution-dinosaurs Saying that the “bible says it, so it’s true” is not a valid argument. BTW, VJTorley supports the dinosaurs to birds evolution. Why not give him some flak too? 3) “Whales were not created with other sea life but evolved form a land animal. Again, where is your proof for this? Baseless assertions mean nothing.” http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03 http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/ http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/whales-giants-of-the-deep/whale-evolution 4) “Man was not made form the dust of the ground but evolved from an ape like ancestor Again, your proof?” I’m not even going to dignify this with a response. I have mentioned the evidence for this a few times and you refuse to acknowledge it. 5) As to creating the woman by using a rib from the man, where is the difficulty in that? God could have used other means, but his manner of making the woman had beautiful significance. He wanted the man and the woman to marry and to form a close bond, as if they were “one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) I would suggest that you take a look at this article starting with the Adam & Eve section. Francis Collins, a Christian, explains why a first couple isn’t likely. Excerpt: Even more controversial than theistic evolution is Collins’ belief that Adam and Eve were not the only people on Earth. Looking at today’s genetic variations, there must have been an ancestral gene pool larger than that of just Adam (Eve, based on a literal reading of Genesis, came from Adam’s ribs and therefore would have the same DNA as Adam), somewhere in the range of 10,000 people. http://www.christianpost.com/news/francis-collins-atheist-richard-dawkins-admits-universes-preciseness-a-problem-51416/ 6) “Again, your proof for this statement? Gorillas have sharp teeth but they eat vegetation. Your only argument boils down to the fact that you unequivocally accept evolution and deny any biblical authenticity. That is simply prejudice, and it is easily dismissed.” How do you explain teeth in tyrannosaurus Rex and the velociraptors for starters? Are they a fabricated evolutionist plot or did God give them teeth to crunch through coconuts and pineapples like the creationist explanation? There is evidence of predation in the fossil record. Prove these points wrong using mainstream science not twisted creationist agendas. Oh, BA77 please don't bombard me with links for the 100th time that I won't read. (I bet he'll do it anyway cause the neurons in his brain continue to compel him. He can't help himself. OCD, I guess.) Axel I admit that I don’t know enough of the subject that you mention to contribute properly. Sorry. Lifepsy The problem with your first paragraph is that modern geology has proven it all WRONG!!! There is no mass plot to discredit the bible in science. That’s all just creationist indoctrination and propaganda. The rest is just nonsense. I can’t understand why you tell me that I believe in fairytales because of abiogenesis and you believe that man appeared out of nowhere is reality. I have some working experiments in that we have managed to show amino acids, nucleotides and ribosomes appearing in the lab. I know that this is a long way off from first life but it’s something. Please show me the experiment that demonstrated a man appearing out of nothing. We may not be able to explain the appearance of first life but that would be easier than explaining the sudden appearance of all life. If abiogenesis and common descent didn’t happen then you would have to invoke a supernatural cause. That’s the real fairytale. JLAfan2001
@JLAfan2001
If the fossils didn’t evolve form one another, where did all the life come from. All the fossils would have to have appeared out of nowhere which would be a lot harder to explain that molecules to man, don’t you think? One minute no man, the next day man just shows up just like that. The same goes for all life. you can’t do science that way.
Life reproduced/speciated after their original created kinds(original gene pools) for roughly a thousands years from creation until the global flood, leaving us with overwhelming evidence of mass extinctions due to drowning/suffocation, rapid sedimentation, polystrata fossils, clams on top of the highest mountains, etc. The funny thing about mainstream geology is that it seems to be an institution of explaining why so much phenomena that could rationally be explained by a massive global flood, and rapid laying of strata, must have some other explanation that doesn't point to the truth of the Bible. Yes there was no man, and then man (just like all other major kinds of life) was created by God. We are purposefully designed with consciousness. It is obvious. All of the biological sciences unanimously confirm the law of biogenesis, yet you, or the Darwinian Mystics in general, still maintain this superstitious religious faith in a spontaneous abiogenesis event, and thereafter billions of superstitious events where culled genetic accidents created highly functional body plans. No evidence, you just believe apparent design in nature must be an accident. You can't do science that way. lifepsy
I mean, 'dragged it after him always at its absolute speed.' Axel
In order for light to hit an observer, all observers, travelling in the same direction at a constant speed - unless you hold light to be a spiritual-physical continuum, as I do - then there must be an exogenous agency adjusting the speed of those photons (since, on the basis of their being completely physical, they cannot think, adjust control, govern their own speed), in order for the photons always to be travelling at their absolute speed, when measured by the observer they as they hit him. The speed of light as measured by an observer on the cusp of the earth, revolving at its speed of rotation, would remain the same, as measured by him, if the earth were suddenly to rotate at just 10 mph. Almost as if he were harnessed to that light and dragged it after him. I regret playing around, using the word, 'gibbering', as it is too seminal and crucial a matter to make light of. No pun intended. Just spotted it. Axel
There is so much wrong with Friedmann's 'theory' I don't know where to begin. I think its clear that what hes doing is retrofitting the scientifically determined dates to an ancient text in the same way that followers of Nostradamus do. He took 14.5 billion and picked whatever numbers he needed from the text to get to his desired outcome, and since the details of the science and story of Genesis are rich and complex he had plenty of opportunity to shave off a little here and add a little there to get a perfect fit. Should we expect anything else? The ancient Hebrews had absolutely no way of knowing how old the earth was or any of the other dates...any more then the ancient Hindus or ancient Chinese. I think this 'day age' notion is clearly retrofitting. The word 'day' has a clear meaning: its a light/dark cycle caused by the rotation of the earth relative to the sun. ( I assume the ancient Hebrew equivalent was the same) It makes no sense to describe a 2 billion year old day...or a "day" from Gods perspective for that matter. Does God live on a supernatural planet?? The fact that he was so ridiculously off with some of his key predictions despite all his finagling shows it was a hopeless endeavor. Here's another problem. The Bible describes the 6 day creation and says that God rested on the 7th day. Rested, past tense. According to Friedmann God just finished the creation and he will rest for the next 2.56 billion years. This is not a trivial mistake. He may have tried the calculations with 7 days at first but found it didn't work. vjtorley, you say
In the end, the ability to make predictions trumps everything, when judging a scientific theory.
Very true, but in no way, shape or form does biblical exegesis count as scientific theory. VJ, I was interested to see you mention the Yonaguni monument. I've always thought it would be interesting to have a post that described it in detail along with the arguments for and against it being a natural phenomenon. It would illustrate very well how ID advocates and scientists think about complexity, purpose, design, evidence etc. I think it would be amusing for all of us if prominent opinion broke down in ways that didn't correlate with ID...so say...PZ Meyers, L Moran, Dembski and bornagain77 would think it was man-made and Coyne, Dawkins, Meyer and Behe would think it natural...as an example RodW
Well, JLAfan2001, which phrases of that little post of mine did you not understand. If you didn't understand any of it, start with my first sentence. Which phrases do you not understand, obviously convinced, myself, that they all make sense, in case that sounds bumptious. I assume you are familiar with the 'car-headlights' illustration they use in encyclopaedias, to demonstrate the way in which, the speed of light is absolute, and not relative to our space-time reference frame, even while interacting with it. If anyone else understands what I'm gibbering about, and disagrees and you want to chip in, please feel free to explain to me where my reasoning went astray. Axel
I think I may have touched on these points before, but here is a rebuttal: 1) The days are not 24 hours which we have mentioned. Yes, this has been discussed before. The Hebrew word can be defined as meaning a longer period of time than a 24-hour day. This is fully in harmony with scientific fact. Even the English language uses the word “day” to mean a period of time longer than 24 hours (“my father’s day”, “back in my day”). This is a non-issue. It does not prove the Bible wrong. 2) The light, which usually implied is the big bang, came after the earth was without form and void. The light in Genesis generally means the light from the sun, not the Big Bang. “The heavens” that included the luminaries were created long before the “first day” even began. But their light did not reach the surface of the earth. On the first day, “there came to be light” because diffused light penetrated the cloud layers and became visible on the earth. The rotating earth thus began to have alternating day and night. (Genesis 1:1-3, 5) The sources of that light still remained invisible from the earth. During the fourth creative period, however, a notable change took place. The sun, the moon, and the stars were now made “to shine upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:17) “God proceeded to make” them in that they could now be seen from the earth. In the description of what happened on the first “day,” the Hebrew word used for light is ?ohr, light in a general sense; but concerning the fourth “day,” the word used is ma•?ohr?, which refers to the source of light. 3) The firmament was believed to be a dome which we know is not the case “‘Let an expanse come to be in between the waters and let a dividing occur between the waters and the waters.’ Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse. And it came to be so. And God began to call the expanse Heaven.”—Genesis 1:6-8. Some translations use the word “firmament” instead of “expanse.” From this the argument is made that the Genesis account borrowed from creation myths that represent this “firmament” as a metal dome. But even the King James Version Bible, which uses “firmament,” says in the margin, “expansion.” This is because the Hebrew word ra•qi?a?, translated “expanse,” means to stretch out or spread out or expand. Again, the Bible does not contradict science. Because someone believed it was a dome when it was not does not disprove the Bible’s account, and it should be noted that this position is illogical and silly. 5) Marine life began before plant life not the other way around. Wait, 1,2,3,5? Learn how to count. Perhaps using geologic forces that are still moving the plates of the earth, God seems to have pushed ocean ridges up to form continents. This would produce dry land above the surface and deep ocean valleys below. After dry ground had been formed, another marvelous development occurred. We read: “God went on to say: ‘Let the earth cause grass to shoot forth, vegetation bearing seed, fruit trees yielding fruit according to their kinds, the seed of which is in it, upon the earth.’ And it came to be so.”—Genesis 1:11. We know that photosynthesis is essential for plants. A green plant cell has a number of smaller parts called chloroplasts, which obtain energy from sunlight. “These microscopic factories,” explains the book Planet Earth, “manufacture sugars and starches . . . No human has ever designed a factory more efficient, or whose products are more in demand, than a chloroplast.” Indeed, later animal life would depend upon chloroplasts for survival. Also, without green vegetation, earth’s atmosphere would be overly rich in carbon dioxide, and we would die from heat and lack of oxygen. The appearance of new varieties of plant life may not have ended on the third creative “day.” It could even have been going on into the sixth “day,” when the Creator “planted a garden in Eden” and “made to grow out of the ground every tree desirable to one’s sight and good for food.” (Genesis 2:8, 9) And, as mentioned, the earth’s atmosphere must have cleared on “day” four, so that more light from the sun and other heavenly bodies reached planet Earth. The fifth creative day was marked by the creation of the first nonhuman souls on earth. Not just one creature purposed by God to evolve into other forms, but literally swarms of living souls were then brought forth by divine power. It is stated: “God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul that moves about, which the waters swarmed forth according to their kinds, and every winged flying creature according to its kind.” I note that you provide no evidence to the contrary; you simply submit assertions without verifying their accuracy. 6) The sun and moon was not formed after the earth. The Genesis account relates that during the fourth creative “day,” God caused luminaries to “come to be in the expanse of the heavens.” (Ge 1:14, 19) This does not indicate the coming into existence of light (Heb., ?ohr) itself, since this is shown to have existed previously. (Ge 1:3) Nor does it state that the sun, moon, and stars were created at this point. The initial verse of the Bible states: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Ge 1:1) Thus the heavens with their celestial bodies, including the sun, existed for an undetermined period of time prior to the processes and events stated as occurring during the six creative periods described in the following verses of the first chapter of Genesis. On the fourth “day” things changed. The statement that “God put them in the expanse of the heavens” on that day expresses the fact that God caused the sources of light (Heb., ma•?ohr?), namely, the sun, moon, and stars, to become discernible in the expanse. 7) Birds were not created when sea life was they evolved from the dinosaurs much later. Where is your proof for bird evolution? The Genesis account reports that sea life and flying creatures were the first animal life on earth. 8) Whales were not created with other sea life but evolved form a land animal. Again, where is your proof for this? Baseless assertions mean nothing. 9) Man was not made form the dust of the ground but evolved from an ape like ancestor Again, your proof? Modern science has confirmed that the human body is composed of various elements—such as hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon—all of which are found in the earth’s crust. Many scientists theorize that life arose on its own, starting with very simple forms that gradually, over millions of years, became more and more complex. However, the term “simple” can be misleading, for all living things—even microscopic single-celled organisms—are incredibly complex. There is no proof that any kind of life has ever arisen by chance or ever could. Rather, all living things bear unmistakable evidence of design by an intelligence far greater than our own.—Romans 1:20. 10) Woman was not made from the rib of a man As to creating the woman by using a rib from the man, where is the difficulty in that? God could have used other means, but his manner of making the woman had beautiful significance. He wanted the man and the woman to marry and to form a close bond, as if they were “one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) 11) Animals didn’t just eat plants and vegetation but each other Again, your proof for this statement? Gorillas have sharp teeth but they eat vegetation. Your only argument boils down to the fact that you unequivocally accept evolution and deny any biblical authenticity. That is simply prejudice, and it is easily dismissed. 12) Genesis 2 creation contradicts Genesis 1 The Genesis account opens with the simple, powerful statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) Bible scholars agree that this verse describes an action separate from the creative days recounted from verse 3 onward. The implication is profound. According to the Bible’s opening statement, the universe, including our planet Earth, was in existence for an indefinite time before the creative days began. Geologists estimate that the earth is approximately 4 billion years old, and astronomers calculate that the universe may be as much as 15 billion years old. Do these findings—or their potential future refinements—contradict Genesis 1:1? No. Genesis (Gen 1:1-2:3) provides an outline of further creative activities on the earth. Chapter 2 of Genesis, from verse 5 onward, is a parallel account that takes up at a point in the third “day,” after dry land appeared but before land plants were created. It supplies details not furnished in the broad outline found in Genesis chapter 1. The inspired Record tells of six creative periods called “days,” and of a seventh period or “seventh day” in which time God desisted from earthly creative works and proceeded to rest. (Ge 2:1-3) In conclusion, science does not disprove the Biblical text. Your supposed "refutation" of Genesis is nothing of the sort, merely the tired repetition of atheistic thinking that has been answered repeatedly by theists since Aristotle walked the earth. Get some new material. Barb
"There is a reason why I said “other than the big bang”." Yeah, but it is not the reason you think it is! :) bornagain77
@JlAfan2001, "Deism is a worthless position. One might as well be an atheist for all the difference it makes. Deism is the hybridization of atheism and theism with a commitment to neither" Atheism says there is no God. Deism says there is a God. You cant be an atheist while being a deist. Its a contradiction. kuartus
BA77 There is a reason why I said "other than the big bang". I knew that this was going to be the theist fall back position. There are other creation accounts that show that there was a beginning too. Maybe they are they are God's other "true" words. VJT I know about the metaphorical days too but this is not the only other problems with the account. I can learn to take the days at metaphor or revelation but there are too many errors which I will explain below. Axel@34 Excuse my ignorance but I'm not clear on what you are saying here. Kuartus Deism is a worthless position. One might as well be an atheist for all the difference it makes. Deism is the hybridization of atheism and theism with a commitment to neither. Barb I have shown the errors in another thread but here it goes again. 1) The days are not 24 hours which we have mentioned. 2) The light, which usually implied is the big bang, came after the earth was without form and void. 3) The firmament was believed to be a dome which we know is not the case 5) Marine life began before plant life not the other way around. 6) The sun and moon was not formed after the earth. 7) Birds were not created when sea life was they evolved from the dinosaurs much later. 8) Whales were not created with other sea life but evolved form a land animal. 9) Man was not made form the dust of the ground but evolved from an ape like ancestor 10) Woman was not made from the rib of a man 11) Animals didn't just eat plants and vegetation but each other 12) Genesis 2 creation contradicts Genesis 1 There is an abundance of evidence to show this. I can't believe you would say I have no proof. The literature is out there and you know it. To say I don' have direct proof is akin to Ken Ham's "were you there?" crap. BTW, I have emailed you twice to have a discussion and so far you have ignored me. Lifespy See above for the Genesis refutation. Also, the amount of evidence that supports the flood is from a YEC point of view which distorts facts. try reading the mainstream literature and then tell me there is an abundance. The age of the earth does not rest on assumptions but on multiple independant evidence. If one line was wrong, I could say it was an assumption. It's less likely when they all converge on the same answer. OK. If the fossils didn't evolve form one another, where did all the life come from. All the fossils would have to have appeared out of nowhere which would be a lot harder to explain that molecules to man, don't you think? One minute no man, the next day man just shows up just like that. The same goes for all life. you can't do science that way. As I said, prove this all wrong and I'll convert back. Of course, all of you can say "we don't care if you convert back" as a way of dodging the challenge. JLAfan2001
JLAfan2001,
And yet you continue to believe it even though science has shown it to be false using multiple lines of evidence.
Not true at all. There is no empirical evidence that disproves any part of Genesis. In fact, massive amounts of evidence in geology and the fossil record support the Genesis flood and a young earth. Old-Earth / Deep-time rests on faulty assumptions, and is protected as a sacred paradigm in that it's an absolute requirement for the religion of evolution to be true. Anyways, I'm assuming you're one of those special people that believe fish can morph into people with enough time and enough genetic accidents, so forgive me if I don't put much stock into your opinion on what "science" has shown to be false. lifepsy
I think I'll hold onto my Christian faith for a while longer; after all, JLAfan2001 has provided not one shred of evidence that Genesis is wrong. Nor has he shown that atheism is the correct philosophical position to take (in lieu of Christianity). I note that many scientists including Galileo and Newton had no problem reconciling science and religion, so maybe the problem is with JLAfan2001's worldview or at least his views of science and religion. My religion has lasted for almost two millenia without any real problems with science or history. Think about that, JLAfan2001. Your arrogance does you no favors here. Barb
@JLAfan2001, Dude, you really need to brush up on your logic. If the bible and christianity were false, it does not follow that atheism is true. One could still hold to deism. And no, the bible is not the only evidence for God. kuartus
Hi KeithS, Thank you for your post. You write:
It would be a huge waste of time and money if scientists investigated every crackpot idea that somebody like Friedmann came up with. There is nothing to recommend Friedmann's idea as being worth the expenditure of limited scientific resources. We have no reason to expect the Genesis account to match reality, and, as you yourself mentioned in the OP, it doesn’t.
Your dismissal of some ideas as "crackpot" presupposes that you have some sort of yardstick for measuring how likely an idea is to be true in the first place. I put it to you that given the counter-intuitive nature of modern science (multiverses, 11 dimensions of space-time, a universe that was once the size of a baseball, and what have you), no idea can be dismissed out of hand because of its inherent unlikelihood. Your only remaining yardstick is a relative one: does the idea comport well with the rest of modern science? On this score, I freely acknowledge that when it comes to allocating scarce monetary resources for research, one might rationally give preference to ideas that don't sound too far out of left-field. However, if these far-fetched hypotheses made striking predictions that were subsequently confirmed by science, that would reverse the situation: it would then be worthwhile paying them more attention. Does Friedmann's reconstruction of Genesis fall into this category? That really depends on how many dates he gets right, and by what margin, as well as how many he gets wrong. I commend Rob Sheldon's post above for a fair-minded discussion of the issues. vjtorley
@Robert Byers, Serious question, Do you think triceratops and rhinoceroses are the same kind of animal? I head somewhere that's what you believed. kuartus
Or do you have an alternative explanation, JLAfan2001? Axel
@VJTorley, What is your position on Noah's flood? I recall you saying that the story is a telescoping and combination of two distinct events separated by millions of years. Is that correct? kuartus
'AN irrefutable proof', I should have said. Axel
Re '... other than the Big Bang', the personalization of the speed of light, so that it remains its same, absolute speed as it hits Observer, travelling at a constant speed in the same direction, irrespective of the speed of the Observer. There has to be an omniscient, omnipotent, PERSONAL agency to gauge the requirement and calibrate the speed of the light accordingly. The only alternative, I believe, seems to the quantum conclusion that everything we see is an emanation from our mind, so that we ourselves, somehow, produce the light that hits us, or are the medium of its production, presumably, somehow, though unwittingly adjusting its speed. As if we are dragging the light behind us. But that could all be nonsense, ensuing from my own incomprehension. However, the first and second paragraphs are irrefutable proofs of theism. Axel
JLAFan2001, As one of the people urged to dump my Christian faith before it's too late, I would like to respond. You write:
I've said it before and I’ll say it again. Science has shown Genesis to be COMPLETELY WRONG!!!! in every way. The fact that so many people have to "reconcile" the two shows this. If Genesis was indeed a fact, there would be no need to reconcile anything. Science would have proved its truthfulness but instead it has proved the opposite. Now people like BioLogos has to scramble to save the creation account by saying it was all metaphor to begin with. "No we never really took it literally. Honest." What a load. The new testament writers and the patriarchs sure took it literally.
I for one don't think the Genesis account was "all metaphor." Nor do I think it was all literal. What I find, when I look at the New Testament, is that it repeatedly refers to a literal Adam and to a literal Flood, from which Noah and his family were saved by building an ark. However, the New Testament says nothing about the age of the Earth, the antiquity of the human race or the time when the Flood occurred. And while we are told that "the world at that time was destroyed" by the Flood, we are not told that it covered the whole globe: all we know is that it wiped out nearly all of the human race. That gives Christians a fair degree of latitude. I might also mention that even in the time of Jesus, there were authorities who took the second chapter of Genesis somewhat metaphorically. Thus Josephus, in Book I, chapter 1 of his Antiquities of the Jews, after describing the work of creation over six days, writes in paragraph 2 that "Moses, after the seventh day was over begins to talk philosophically...", suggesting that he understood the rest of the second and the third chapters in some allegorical or philosophical sense. Regarding the days of Genesis 1, you might also like to read a short post by Dr. Jay Wile entitled, Clement of Alexandria on the Days of Genesis. Highlights:
...[T]hree very influential church fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine) did not see the Genesis days as 24-hour days. In fact, they were not the only ones. There were many very influential people in the early church who did not believe that the Genesis days were 24-hour days... ...[T]he "instantaneous creation" view... was actually a fairly popular view in the early church. Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 293 -373 AD), Augustine (354-330), and Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – 368 AD) all believed it. Why was it popular in the early Church? Because a Jewish theologian who was a contemporary of Christ believed it. Philo Judaeus (20 BC – 50 AD) ... says that the days in Genesis are not days; they are just a means of ARRANGING the creation. Now don’t get me wrong, here. These guys were not old-earthers. They believed in a young earth, because they thought the creation happened instantaneously. ... The point, however, is that none of them thought the days in Genesis were strict, 24-hour days. Why, then, do young-earth creationists insist that the early church was virtually unanimous on this point? It clearly was not. Since the early church was not unanimous in taking the days of Genesis as 24-hour days, I fail to see why the modern church should be. Indeed, given the fact that many in the early church viewed the days of Genesis to be something other than 24-hour days, I think the modern church is free to believe that as well.
Regarding the credibility of Adam and Eve, I'll have more to say in an upcoming post. All I'll say for now is that I don't think it requires us to postulate any genetic miracles. What I'd like to point out, however, is that your own position on origins requires you to believe in far more miracles than any young-earth creationist believes in. Think I'm joking? I'm not. Allow me to quote from a 2011 paper by Dr. Branko Kozulic, who has authored 30 scientific papers to date and invented (or co-invented) around 20 patents, titled, Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species:
Each unique gene, and accordingly each novel functional protein encoded by that gene, however, represents a major problem for evolutionary theory because unique proteins are as unrelated as the proteins of random sequences – and among random sequences functional proteins are exceedingly rare. Experimental data reviewed here suggest that at most one functional protein can be found among 10^20 proteins of random sequences. Hence every discovery of a novel functional protein (singleton) represents a testimony for successful overcoming of the probability barrier of one against at least 10^20, the probability defined here as a "macromolecular miracle". More than one million of such "macromolecular miracles" are present in the genomes of about two thousand species sequenced thus far... If just 200 unique proteins are present in each species, the probability of their simultaneous appearance is one against at least 10^4,000. [The] Probabilistic resources of our universe are much, much smaller; they allow for a maximum of 10^149 events [158] and thus could account for a one-time simultaneous appearance of at most 7 unique proteins. The alternative, a sequential appearance of singletons, would require that the descendants of one family live through hundreds of "macromolecular miracles" to become a new species – again a scenario of exceedingly low probability. Therefore, now one can say that each species is a result of a Biological Big Bang; to reserve that term just for the first living organism [21] is not justified anymore. (p. 21)
Funny. I seem to recall a saying about people living in glass houses... vjtorley
The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole. Dr. Arno Penzias, Nobel Laureate in Physics - co-discoverer of the Cosmic Background Radiation - as stated to the New York Times on March 12, 1978 “Certainly there was something that set it all off,,, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match Genesis” Robert Wilson – Nobel laureate – co-discover Cosmic Background Radiation http://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/index.php?option=com_custom_content&task=view&id=3594 “There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.” George Smoot – Nobel laureate in 2006 for his work on COBE "Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy." Robert Jastrow – Founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute – Pg.15 ‘God and the Astronomers’ ,,, 'And if you're curious about how Genesis 1, in particular, fairs. Hey, we look at the Days in Genesis as being long time periods, which is what they must be if you read the Bible consistently, and the Bible scores 4 for 4 in Initial Conditions and 10 for 10 on the Creation Events' Hugh Ross - Evidence For Intelligent Design Is Everywhere; video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4347236 "I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite intelligence. I believe that the universe's intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science." Anthony Flew - world's leading intellectual atheist for most of his adult life until a few years shortly before his death The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel (Nov. 25, 2012) - video http://www.saddleback.com/mc/m/ee32d/ The 'Big Bang' is really a wrong word picture for capturing what went on at the creation event of the universe, for the creation of the universe was certainly not anything like we would normally envision an ordinary explosion to be like: "The Big Bang represents an immensely powerful, yet carefully planned and controlled release of matter, energy, space and time. All this is accomplished within the strict confines of very carefully fine-tuned physical constants and laws. The power and care this explosion reveals exceeds human mental capacity by multiple orders of magnitude." Prof. Henry F. Schaefer - closing statement of the following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=901f7oC_Pik&feature=player_detailpage#t=360s Here’s a radio recording of Fred Hoyle, around 1950, disparagingly naming the creation event of the universe as ‘The Big Bang’: (He personally favored the ‘steady state' model for the universe) History of the Big Bang - Simon Singh, PhD - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7UTpGKbkS2g#t=2340s bornagain77
"other than the big bang" LOL bornagain77
Mapou You show me where this "ancient religious metaphorical text containing disruptive scientific knowledge that changes the world overnight" is in the creation account of Genesis(other than the big bang) and I will convert back to christianity. Now I admit that Genesis "seems" to have got that right but 1 out 10 isn't a pass. After all, a broken clock is right twice a day. A clock that'a right all day is reliable. JLAfan2001
JLAfan2001:
I would hunmbly suggest that people like BA77, TJguy, Scordova, VJtorley, Barb, JDH, Eric Anderson, StephenB and all the rest dump your christian faith before science finally deals it the death blow which is coming. For me, the death blow was the fact that Genesis is wrong on so many levels. If this is wrong, so is the rest of the bible which means no god. Just accept it, guys.
I suppose you will try to commit suicide if it turns out that some ancient religious metaphorical texts contained disruptive scientific knowledge that changes the world overnight. Mapou
Lifespy And yet you continue to believe it even though science has shown it to be false using multiple lines of evidence. What utter madness!!! Atheists are right when they say christians believe things without evidence or even contrary to evidence. Christain apologists are fooling themselves if they think otherwise. This is why christianity is not taken seriously on the world stage. JLAfan2001
Genesis is fairly straightforward about Creation being made in literal days. There's no substantial reason to think otherwise. All the deep-time interpretations seem to be based on a desire to compromise and appear wise to a foolish world. Kabbalism is rooted in the earliest Babylonian mystery religions and is founded on lies and twisting of God's Word. lifepsy
Eric I wasn't stating that you advocate any version of Genesis and have advocated anything on UD other than belief in God. I'm just telling you that you should drop that belief because it is false. I will try to break down my logic. You yourself said in the second paragraph that the word "day" is dubious because of a translation of a translation of a translation. This shows (among other examples) that the bible is unrelaible and untrustworthy. The bible is the only source of God's revelation that we know of. If it wasn't written, there would be no evidence of his existence. We wouldn't blink an eye at the age of the universe, the fine-tuning, evolution, mind/brain problem. etc. We would just accept it all as scientific. We challenge the science because it challenges the bible which makes us uncomfortable. Genesis was meant to be read literally as Jesus and Paul shows with the mention of Adam & Eve alone. The metaphor version is a fall back because of h errors that the account has been shown to have. There are at least 10 errors which I have mentioned in another thread so if you think science and the account are compatible, I would like to see this presented. Actually, I challenge you to show me that the creation account is compatible with the science. If the bible is the inerrant word of God then Genesis would have been correct. If it has errors because it was written by men then it is not to be trusted. No bible, No God. You have flawed logic if you believe in something that has errors which is not suppose to have any. The atheists and creationists are both right in the sense that the account is either right or wrong. There is no middle ground. Genesis is the jewish version of pagan creation myths. They didn't want to be outdone by the other cultures and made up a story of an even more powerful God than the others. JLAfan2001
JLAfan2001: Interesting diatribe. Where have you ever seen me use Genesis as the basis for any arguments about the age of the Earth or the age of the universe? I think your " COMPLETELY WRONG!!!! in every way" statement is way overblown, but no matter, because I have no interest in trying to reconcile some dubious interpretation of "day" (an English word, that was translated from Hebrew (or Latin and then Hebrew, depending on the source), which may have been translated from something else) with current scientific understanding of the age of the Earth and the universe. Personally, I think Friedmann is way out in left field on this one, and I don't put one bit of stock in his attempted calculations. Finally, I hope you realize that your last sentence is simply not logical:
If this is wrong, so is the rest of the bible which means no god. Just accept it, guys.
Where, pray tell, does Genesis or any other part of the Bible for that matter, claim to be a detailed scientific exposition of things? There are ways to interpret Genesis that are perfectly consistent with current scientific "consensus." Furthermore, even if Genesis is wrong (which you certainly have not demonstrated), it does not follow that everything else in the Bible is false. And it certainly does not follow that there is no God. As I write this, I'm wondering if you forgot the /sarc tag. There are so many logical errors in your post. If you were meaning to be sarcastic, then I apologize and withdraw my comment. If, however, you weren't being sarcastic, then you have some real work to do on your logic. Eric Anderson
Deafening silence from grandiose Gray. Brutal evisceration! That's a good one. Myers couldn't eviscerate a supermarket chicken with its entrails all neatly wrapped up inside it. Myers is a simpleton, but an unusually unpleasant one, judging from his dishonest pandering to the atheist, teeny-bopper undergraduates in the audience, when sneering at his young questioner in the audience, instead of answering him intelligently. Such a disgusting performance I'm surprised even YouTube, which is pretty liberal, accepted it. Axel
I've said it before and I'll say it agian. Science has shown Genesis to be COMPLETELY WRONG!!!! in every way. The fact that so many people have to "reconile" the two shows this. If Genesis was indeed a fact, there would be no need to reconcile anyhting. Science would have proved it's truthfullness but instead it has proved the opposite. Now people like BioLogos has to scramble to save the creation account by sayiing it was all metaphor to begin with. "No we never really took it literally. Honest." What a load. The new testament writers and the patriarchs sure took it literally. I would hunmbly suggest that people like BA77, TJguy, Scordova, VJtorley, Barb, JDH, Eric Anderson, StephenB and all the rest dump your christian faith before science finally deals it the death blow which is coming. For me, the death blow was the fact that Genesis is wrong on so many levels. If this is wrong, so is the rest of the bible which means no god. Just accept it, guys. JLAfan2001
The movie was supposed to be "Pi" but apparently the character didn't translate. There's even Kaballah in it. tragic mishap
... Um... Really vj? Really? Kaballah? You've got to be kidding me. Besides I wouldn't count an arbitrary time point within a 1.3 billion year day as a very accurate prediction. And the earth creation theory is not a prediction, it's a fudge factor, like claiming that transitional fossils don't exist because, well, they just didn't fossilize. This reminds me of the movie "?". tragic mishap
BA No worries, how does the saying go, the more the merrier! Andre
Sorry Andre, I did not see you had already posted Casey's article. bornagain77
Graham2, before you, with the apparent unbridled enthusiasm of a excited teen-age girl, endorse Matzke's 'no-view' of Dr. Meyer's book 'Darwin's Doubt', I suggest that you might read Casey Luskin's article on his apparent 'no-view'.,,
Rush to Judgment: Nick Matzke's Hasty Review of Darwin's Doubt Makes Bogus Charges of Errors and Ignorance - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/rush_to_judgmen073791.html#sthash.4cjOJXHy.dpuf
Graham2, If you truly do endorse this type of blatant intellectual dishonesty on Matzke's part, where he inaccurately criticizes a book he clearly has not read, then of what use is your personal opinion anyway?,, You clearly, like Matzke, have no real integrity. bornagain77
Graham2 It's false friend, Nick has put his foot into it this time and on a scale much bigger than UD's comment section. Read the rebuttal of his review.... Andre
I dont know about the dates, but judging from the ammount of detail Matzke quotes from the book, he seems to have covered a fair bit of it. He admits the review was rushed, but it still looks pretty extensive. Graham2
Hi Graham2 And Nick Matzke's bluff has been called, if truth means anything to you have a look.... http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/rush_to_judgmen073791.html Andre
Robert: I dont want to appear rude, but was that meant to make sense ? Graham2
Oh brother. Jewish mysticism is a rejection of christianity and christianity rejects it as worthless and unmodern. Its silly gibberish. Yes Genesis is right and peoples ideas about the past are wrong. no one saw anything happen. So its based on revelation or the evidence of nature. All the great stuff from YEC creationists and its a obscure person with wild ideas about origins that gets the print. Its just because he runs a robot company. Robot research is not origin research. It helps to have a robot guy say evolution is wrongish and the bible is right but sheesh. The robots would do better then the kabbala dudes. Robert Byers
As BA77 is wont to say: 'slightly OT': Over at Pandas Thumb, Nick Matzke has a fairly brutal evisceration of Meyers latest: Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. Not pretty. Graham2
LoL! There definitely isn't any reason to consider materialism yet we waste tons of money forcing that failed philosophy on our unsuspecting youth. Joe
Hi VJ, Nice to debate you again. You wrote:
Friedmann holds that the Earth was captured by the solar system at the time of its formation, which he dates to about 4.79 billion years ago (compared to the current scientifically accepted date of 4.567 billion years ago). One would think that a scientist like Professor Myers would welcome Friedmann’s falsifiable predictions, and encourage scientists to test them.
It would be a huge waste of time and money if scientists investigated every crackpot idea that somebody like Friedmann came up with. There is nothing to recommend Friedmann's idea as being worth the expenditure of limited scientific resources. We have no reason to expect the Genesis account to match reality, and, as you yourself mentioned in the OP, it doesn't. keiths
Mapou - I agree - how did they know so much? The claim is they were simpletons. Perhaps they were told, ala, Revelation. We should remember though Adam and Eve had preternatural gifts including the donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.) buffalo
Genesis 1 seems to be written from God's perspective. Imagine a rolled up tape measure 7 loops, God sees all the layers rolled up. We live on the tape and have to look back past the graduations. buffalo
Fascinating stuff. It's obvious that, no matter how we juggle the timing of the ages, Genesis 1 does not completely agree with the scientific chronology. The fish problem remains a real thorny issue. But then again, it's always possible that the Biblical texts, as we have them today, are not exactly as they were when they were first written. Things do change over the millenia. Still, it is remarkable that the age/day hypothesis comes even close to agreeing with science. After all, why should a creation myth invented at a time when people were ignorant about science get so close to the real thing? None of the other creation myths come that close, not by a long shot. Mapou
I really like his 3 points of front loading. The three point all need information to drive them from the get go. This fits nicely with IDvolution.org - God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act. This accounts for the diversity of life we see. The core makeup shared by all living things have the necessary complex information built in that facilitates rapid and responsive adaptation of features and variation while being able to preserve the “kind” that they began as. Life has been created with the creativity built in ready to respond to triggering events. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth have the same core, it is virtually certain that living organisms have been thought of AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator endowed with the super language we know as DNA that switched on the formation of the various kinds, the cattle, the swimming creatures, the flying creatures, etc.. in a pristine harmonious state and superb adaptability and responsiveness to their environment for the purpose of populating the earth that became subject to the ravages of corruption by the sin of one man (deleterious mutations). IDvolution considers the latest science and is consistent with the continuous teaching of the Church. buffalo
Gerald Schroeder's book Genesis and the Big Bang is right on point. He is a theoretical particle physicist and an Orthodox Jew who has been deeply into bible study for 40 years. I've been at one of his talks.The ancient Hebrew has a tiny vocabulary of on close to 3,000 base words with prefixes and suffixes making up about 10,000 word meanings. The word used in the KJV for day comes from Yom, as in Yom Kippur. However yom means any amount of time, the length implied from the context of the passage. As another example of this 'Yam', is the ancient Hebrew word for any sized body of water. In Israel Lake Kinneret or Yam Kinneret in the KJV is the Sea of Galilee. It is a 5 by 13 mile fresh water lake. The problem is the current acceptance of the original translations which are not at all correct. Accepting the latitude in meanings allows for Schroeder and others to make 7 days into 7 eons. turell
Wow. I was working on my own Genesis harmonization, not to mention Hugh Ross', and now it looks like a crowded field! Unlike Vjtorley, Ross, Friedman and me are all "day-age" people. However, I think it is a mistake to assume a conversion constant for the "god-year". Or to put it another way, Friedman's model has a number of adjustments: the "one day is like a 1000 years" gives 1000x365 is understandable, but the 7000 is a stretch, which is to say, an adjustable variable. Likewise for the "daytime union rules" that limit a day to 12 hours. He adds another variable when he ends the 6th day at the time of the Fall, or when defines hydrogen as "water" and nitrogen as "dry land". In the theory of "hypothesis testing", each freely adjustable parameter subtracts from the number of "fits", so for example if Friedman has 5 variables and 20 matches, then he has really only matched 15. But now we have a 2nd problem with Friedman's model, and that is "cherry-picking". We can't throw out data that doesn't match to improve our batting average. As Vjtorley points out, Friedman's model glosses over the bad matches, but if we include them, it subtracts from the good ones. The right way to do this is to weight the data and fit and do a regression analysis, but for this blog, lets just say that a bad match neutralizes a good match. Now Friedman's batting average drops rapidly, with vjtorley listing several failed matches, and PZ Myer a few more. Friedman says that 20 matches is mathematically impossible, but depending on how you count his variables and misses, it looks to me that he has matched somewhere between 3 and 8 events. Eight might be interesting, though hardly impossible, but 3 is pretty much par for a first try. When particle physicists were looking for the Higgs boson, they knew that they were biassed and tried to compensate by insisting that the statistics were "five sigma" above the noise, or a "1:2,000,000" chance that it was just noise. After compensating for all the fudge factors, my feeling is that Friedman hardly makes it to a 2-sigma result. Does this eliminate day-age theories from consideration? No, I tried to do this like a physicist, fitting 19 data points from Wikipedia evolutionary timeline to Genesis 1, implementing Excel's regression analysis. Using a linear relationship between Wikipedia-day and Genesis-day just as Friedman did, gave correlations of R^2=0.67 (slope =2292791169= 6.2my/day w/day 4). If I decided that Day 4 of Genesis was out-of-order, as many day-age people claim, then I had the correlation R^2=0.69 (slope= 2347429848=6.4my/day w/o day 4). But perhaps Friedman is too conservative, perhaps a god-year is not linear with man-year, but some other function. Using Excel's ability to fit logarithms, I got: Wikipedia-day = 7649812835* ln(Genesis-day) + 13157928177 with a R^2 correlation coefficient of 0.82 or eliminating day 4, Wiki-day = -8056991410*ln(Gen-day) + 13153206701 with R^2 = 0.87 In my field of experimental physics, those are quite respectable correlation coefficients! You will notice that I have 2 variables in my formula and 19 data points, so this is a valid fit. Something is lining up, even if it isn't quite as magical as Friedman says. And who knows, maybe the magic formula is waiting for someone to find it. So clearly there is a relationship, but I think Friedman overdoes his "matches". Robert Sheldon
I'd like to read this book. I also found Gerald Schroeder's book on Genesis to be fascinating reading. My understanding of the Genesis account is as follows: Moses wrote his account in Hebrew, and he wrote it from the perspective of a person standing on the surface of the earth. These two facts combined with the knowledge that the universe existed before the beginning of the creative periods, or days, help to defuse much of the controversy surrounding the creation account. A careful consideration of the Genesis account reveals that events starting during one “day” continued into one or more of the following “days.” For example, before the first creative “day” started, light from the already existing sun was somehow prevented from reaching the earth’s surface, possibly by thick clouds. (Job 38:9) During the first “day,” this barrier began to clear, allowing diffused light to penetrate the atmosphere. On the second “day,” the atmosphere evidently continued to clear, creating a space between the thick clouds above and the ocean below. On the fourth “day,” the atmosphere gradually cleared to such an extent that the sun and the moon were made to appear “in the expanse of the heavens.” (Genesis 1:14-16) In other words, from the perspective of a person on earth, the sun and moon began to be discernible. These events happened gradually. The Genesis account also relates that as the atmosphere continued to clear, flying creatures—including insects and membrane-winged creatures—started to appear on the fifth “day.” The Bible’s narrative allows for the possibility that some major events during each day, or creative period, occurred gradually rather than instantly, perhaps some of them even lasting into the following creative days. The record clearly states that God created all the basic “kinds” of plant and animal life. (Genesis 1:11, 12, 20-25) Were these original “kinds” of plants and animals programmed with the ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions? What defines the boundary of a “kind”? The Bible does not say. However, it does state that living creatures “swarmed forth according to their kinds.” (Genesis 1:21) This statement implies that there is a limit to the amount of variation that can occur within a “kind.” Both the fossil record and modern research support the idea that the fundamental categories of plants and animals have changed little over vast periods of time. Barb
This attempt sort of reminds me of Dr. Gerald Schroeder's attempt at reconciling Genesis and Scientific dating a few decades ago,,, The Science of God - Dr. Gerald Schroeder Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG0xWAModSg&list=PL76FC4C65BB699FCA&feature=player_detailpage#t=290s ,,, And like Daniel Friedmann, Dr. Gerald Schroeder had some amazing points of congruence, though I forget exactly how many,, but ultimately, if I recall correctly, the starting point Dr. Gerald Schroeder had calculated was shown to be off by 2 billion years. bornagain77
Disclaimer: I haven't read the book. However, I have to agree with Rich Deem's evaluation of the book and say that biblically speaking, it does not work. The whole thing is built on the idea of his time scale which comes from an extra-biblical source - a mystical religion called Kaballah. I think Madonna is/was a follower of Kaballah, right? Here is something I learned from the CARM website about Kaballah:
"Kabbalah is difficult to categorize because it is a subjective non-falsifiable belief system. In other words, it rests in non-verifiable philosophy, not in historic fact. Nevertheless, kaballah is a mystical and esoteric system of observing and interpreting the universe and mankind that tree of life also seeks to reveal the true relationship between God, man, and the universe. It teaches that there is a divine being, neither male nor female, that has 10 primary aspects called sephirot which are represented in the Tree of Life. Kabbalah teaches that the supreme being created the universe through a series of those 10 aspects that descended through various levels until creation was fully realized. .... Kaballah is the way of viewing reality based upon subjective, experiential interpretations of the world, life, death, creation, meaning, purpose, etc. It is an inner-contemplative movement and is considered to be a way of life. Kabbalah relies heavily on mystical interpretations of the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) as well as the rest of the Old Testament. . Its premises are that there are secret and hidden meanings in the biblical text that can be discovered by examining the shape of Hebrew letters, the gematria of words (mathematical values), and how these word values relate to each other. <b . The problem is that this method often draws conclusions that are in contradiction to the plain teaching of the text that it examines. Thus, Kabbalah can have a variety of disjointed beliefs."
So, for those who think this type of interpretation can lead you to the truth, check it out. It certainly allows you a lot of leeway in interpretation it seems - not sure what that means for the reliability of it's conclusions, but anyway... Personally, I find it difficult to believe that the true interpretation of Scripture is locked up in the mystical disjointed beliefs/interpretations of Kaballah. I will say it is remarkable that such an interpretation can be as accurate as it is, but one reason is again it's flexibility. Here is one example of that flexibility:
Complex life – most of the major animal phyla – appeared in a fairly rapid “Cambrian explosion” about 530 million years ago, give or take 5 million years, according to fossil records. That was four hours into Day 6, according to Friedmann, 532 million years ago.
Besides the fact that the Bible never uses the term "complex life", notice how he says it was created 4 hours into day 6. How does he know this? Probably because that is when current scientific theory says it happened. So he has 12 hours of day 6 to play with in order to make it line up. In other words, if current scientific theory said it appeared a few million years earlier or later, he could easily switch the creation time from hour 4 to hour 10 or whatever to keep it in line. . There is also the danger of tying Scriptural interpretation into current scientific theory which changes so often. One example is the recent addition of millions of years to the age of the universe. VJ, you assume he believes in front loading, but who knows? Maybe he just thinks the rest could actually happen by chance. Of course, I agree that is highly unlikely, but we really don't know what he believes. Still, I give him credit for working hard to try and come up with an answer on this issue. I personally think that biblically speaking, his interpretation is way off, but I will admit that his fit with current day scientific theory is amazingly accurate(70-80%?) for for such an interpretation. tjguy

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