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Title: No Room for Compromise 14 Scholars Speak Out on the Book of Genesis
Source:
Answers In Genesis
URL Source: http://www.answersingenesis.org/art ... 9/02/04/no-room-for-compromise
Published: Feb 5, 2009
Author: AIG
Post Date: 2009-02-05 12:07:38 by Old Friend
Keywords: None
Views: 484
Comments: 36
In the just-published scholarly book, Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth, fourteen evangelical theologians bring together the most rigorous, up-to-date biblical and historical arguments in favor of reading Genesis chapters 1–11 as factual history. No one who accepts the idea of millions of years or says that the age of the earth doesn’t matter can ignore the careful arguments that Coming to Grips with Genesis presents in favor of a six-day creation, the global Flood, and a young earth. It will also strengthen the convictions of those who do believe Genesis. The question of the age of the creation is not just a debate about science, but more importantly about Scripture. Are God’s words our final authority? Can they really be interpreted in a way that accommodates millions of years? Book chapters include: * Analysis of the Hebrew verbs in Genesis 1 to assess the historicity of the chapter * Arguments for taking the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 as complete chronologies * Theological implications of accepting natural evil and death before Adam’s sin * Discussion of Jesus’ and the apostles’ teachings regarding a young earth * The Flood account in Genesis 6–8 and its geological implications * . . . and much more No serious article on the subject of evolution and the age of the earth will be complete without consideration of this landmark reference work. And while it is a scholarly book for use in seminary and Bible college courses, the editors and authors worked hard to make it accessible to serious-minded lay readers. Early feedback has confirmed that it is. The editors, Drs.Terry Mortenson and Thane Hutcherson Ury, have lectured in many countries on this subject and are members of the Evangelical Theological Society. The forewords are by renowned Bible teacher Dr. John MacArthur (pastor and president of The Master’s Seminary), and the late Dr. Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research. The debate about Genesis and the age of the earth will not go away, as long as the integrity of God's Word is at stake. Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, November 2008), 460 pages. Editors: Terry Mortenson (M.Div., Ph.D. in history of geology, Coventry University, England) was a missionary with Campus Crusade for Christ for 26 years before joining Answers in Genesis in 2001 as a speaker, writer, and researcher. Answers in Genesis, founded and led by Ken Ham, is well known for its new high-tech Creation Museum and its stand on “upholding the authority of the Bible from the very first verse.” Thane Hutcherson Ury (Ph.D., Systematic Theology, Andrews University) was a professor of theology and philosophy for fifteen years at Bethel College, Indiana, before joining the faculty at the United Wesleyan Graduate Institute, Hong Kong, in 2006. For review copies or for interviews with the editors (above), contact: Stacey Drake, Publicity Dept. New Leaf Publishing/Master Books Stacey[at]newleafpress.net 1-800-999-3777 Editor’s note: One of the appendices of Coming to Grips with Genesis is the document “Affirmations and Denials Essential to a Consistent Christian (Biblical) Worldview,” which is meant to be a supplement to the affirmations and denials in the statements on biblical inerrancy and biblical hermeneutics by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy published in the early 1980s. As helpful as those documents were for the church’s understanding of Scripture, the authors of Coming to Grips with Genesis believe that the statements related to creation, evolution, and the age of the earth were inadequate and opened the door to false ideas in the church. We invite others who are theologically trained and agree with us to add their names to the list of signatories and to do all they can to encourage Christians in their sphere of influence to embrace, teach, and defend these additional affirmations and denials. To add your name to this list of signatories, please follow the instructions on this form. Please be sure to make other potentially interested candidates that you know aware of this document by giving them the web address AnswersInGenesis.org/go/affirmations.
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#1. To: Old Friend (#0)
Uh huh. What's that, Hagee and 13 of his disciples?
A book, written by theologians. Wonderful. I wonder how they pulled that off without strangling each other. I dont understand how anyone can believe the "young earth" nonsense.
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files Really. How big would the sun have been a billion years ago. Earth couldn't have sustained life with a sun that big. Where are all the dead bodies if the earth is millions of years old? Go to the creation museum in KY and learn. You are capable of learning the truth. Unlike a couple of people on here.
It's not either/or. Does faith in scripture depend on a young earth? Not IMO it doesn't. Science doesn't support a young earth. Science is neutral, it doesn't have an agenda. Some scientists might have an agenda. I've found arrowheads that are older than the supposed "6000 year old" earth. Go looking thru a promising field and you can find them too. OTOH there are some anomalous discoveries out there, like Click for Privacy and Preparedness files Bronze age nuttery.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Yes scripture depends on a young earth. If you take Gods word for what it says. Otherwise you have contradictions. Such as 6 day creation. If that isn't true that maybe Adam isn't true. Then what is the purpose of Jesus if there was no Adam. There isn't any scientific evidence that supports millions of years. There is much to favor a young earth. A very young earth. True science is neutral but evolution isn't true science. It may have been a valid theory at one time. But it has been disproven multitudes of times.
OK, let's talk science. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, give or take a few MPS. www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/nebclust.html shows stars within 10,000 light years Hubble shows formations millions of light years away. Now if the universe was created in 6 literal days, and that includes Earth and everything on it 6000 years ago, how is this possible? Something else is going on here. What it is, I dont understand it. I really haven't even looked into it yet. But there is an answer.
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files Old Friend will simply stamp his feet and say that is impossible, and that scientists don't know what they are talking about.
Now if the universe was created in 6 literal days, and that includes Earth and everything on it 6000 years ago, how is this possible? The earth and universe was created in working order. It is not that complicated. Seriously though. How big would the sun have been a billion or a million years ago? Big enough to turn earth into charcoal?
I dont understand how anyone can believe the "young earth" nonsense. While by no legitimate use of the word am I an atheist nevertheless the "Young Earth" is hooey. One goes where the evidence leads and the evidence suggests that the earth is billions of years old and is a relatively young planet. This does not disprove the existence of a Universal "Creator". It is however theologically inconvenient for some of the "High Priests". Neither can there be support for "unique creation" as given the apparent age of the Universe, which gets older each year, their is abundant suggestion that not only is life on earth not unique, beyond the reality that we are each distinct individual unique from each other, but the rule rather than the exception throughout the known cosmos. However, for those with a control agenda the "young earth" along with "Darwin's THEORY", are useful tools for befuddling, confusing, and controlling. The major Fundamentalists/Televangelists all appear to be under the firm control of Intelligence Agencies and thus their function is not to preach the gospel but to preach the PsyOps.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
Old Friend will simply stamp his feet and say that is impossible, and that scientists don't know what they are talking about. God put them there just to fool us. /snicker
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
If the earth is so old. Why aren't we all talking like we just breathed in a helium baloon? http://www.trueorigin.org/helium01.asp The Evidence Henke Wants to Hide Figure 1. Microscopic zircons. Photo by R. V. Gentry. I’ll try to keep this simple, so for the scientific details, please consult the two most relevant publications, which are also archived on the Internet. I’ll call them ICC 2003[6] and CRSQ 2004.[7] Decades ago, Robert Gentry analyzed tiny zircon (zirconium silicate) crystals recovered from hot Precambrian (over 545 million years old according to the geologic timescale) “basement” rock in New Mexico.[8] Figure 1 shows some of the zircons he analyzed, between 50 and 75 microns (millionths of a meter) long. Enough of the uranium in the zircons had decayed to lead to give them a radioisotope (radioactive element) age of “1.5 billion” years. But Gentry found that up to 58% of the helium that the nuclear decay would deposit in the zircons was still in them. This was surprising, because helium diffuses (leaks) rapidly out of most minerals. Not knowing how fast helium leaks from zircon, I estimated what the leak rates would be when we measured them. In essence (of course the math is more complicated), all I did to get the estimates was to divide the amount of helium lost from the crystal by the time (assumed by each model) during which it had been lost. That gives us the leak rates for each of the two models. The “1.5 billion year” model has rates over 100,000 times slower than the “6,000 year” model, because the former has to retain the helium for a much longer time. Then in the year 2000, the RATE group published the estimates as numerical predictions for those two models.[9] Figure 2. Model-predicted (red and magenta diamonds) and measured (blue dots) helium leak rates of zircons. The data fit the 6,000-year prediction very well. Figure 2 shows the predictions as red and magenta diamond symbols. The bottom axis shows the temperature (in °C) of each sample in situ, that is, while it was in the granitic rock unit. (I have reversed the direction of temperature from what is traditional in such “Arrhenius” plots.) The vertical axis shows “diffusivity”, which is a measure of how fast helium leaks from a material. The vertical axis is tremendously compressed, representing a factor of one trillion increase in leakage rates from bottom to top. The black numbers under the diamonds are the percentages of helium retained in each sample. The red and magenta vertical lines through the diamonds are the “two-sigma error bars”. These statistical error bounds were implicit in our reports, but we had not shown them explicitly in our graphs before now. The bars essentially show the 95% confidence limits I estimate for the accuracy of the predictions. The forthcoming RATE “results” book gives details on how I estimated the error bounds. In 2001 we commissioned one of the world’s most respected experimenters in this field to measure the diffusivity of helium in the same-size zircons from the same borehole in the same rock formation. We used an existing mining company as an intermediary, and we asked it to not tell the experimenter about us or our goals. The experimenter, being a uniformitarian (believer in long ages) and not having read our prediction, had no idea what results we were hoping for. It was a truly “blind” experiment, and we (the RATE team) were eagerly awaiting the data. Figure 2 shows the experimental results as blue dots with blue “2-sigma error bars” going vertically through them. If we repeated the experiments hundreds of times, we estimate the data points would remain within the caps on the error bars over 95% of the time. Again, the RATE “results” book (which has now passed through extensive peer review and is being proofread) will have the details on the error estimates. To our great delight, the data fell right on the “6,000 year” prediction! This alignment validates the young-age model even for readers who are not experts in this field, because the probability of such a lineup by accident is small. The data resoundingly reject the “1.5 billion year” model. The experimenter, whose name is in one of our articles, stands by his data, even though as a uniformitarian he does not like our interpretation of them. (Even after several years, he has not offered an alternative interpretation.) This sequence of events places the burden of disproof on the critics, because they must explain how, if there is no truth to our model, the data “accidentally by sheer coincidence just happened by blind chance” to fall right on the predictions of our model.
And if the Universe was created billions of years ago (at least 12 billion as per the furthest galaxies seen from Hubble), then how does that fit into your 6 day schedule?
How does it not. God created it.
Explain this so called evidence.
That, or there must be demons inside that space telescope making us see things that aren't there just to lead us astray... /sarc
You're saying the Universe is 6000 years old. That is impossible. So now what?
One can take "1" anomalous datum, fit it to ones preconcetions, and then gleefully shout "seeeeeeeeeeeeee" without anything haven been proved. Anomalous data pops up all the time in honest science. What is done with the data is then an indicator as to the intellectual integrity of the researcher. When the researcher has no good explanation for the data the honest conclusion is that the data is "unexplained" by the current level of knowledge. It is like Archaeologists looking at artifacts of advanced technology being unable to comprehend what they were looking at because the KNOWN level of current technology, at their time, was well below the evidenced level of technology. Nineteenth century Archaeologists had no knowledge of aircraft, earth moving equipment, compound radial saws for stone, etc, .... If fell into the category of one of the late Arthur C. Clarke's comments: Because something is unexplained proves nothing more than it is unexplained. To attempt to fit a datum, out of context, to a preconception is intellectually dishonest. There is abundant geological evidence giving approximate ages to different strata which have been arrived at through verifiable science. As a Catastrophist I do not always agree with the Uniformitarians, but in the broad the mechanisims of geological formation, erosion, and weathering are known and provable mechanisms.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
That is the point. The age of the earth cannot be scientifically proven. They weren't there. It is not verifiable. No way to check their answer. Not science.
Sophistry. No, an absolute date cannot be established with our current level of knowledge. However, the absence of an absolute is not proof of your position.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
"There's no way to prove that a murder took place, your honor, because the prosecutor wasn't there. I demand that you throw out the fingerprint and DNA evidence and remove all charges against my client!" According to the "reasoning" of Bible Thumpers, we should then free all criminals who were convicted based on anything other than eye witness accounts. Physical evidence doesn't count because "you weren't there." Religious nuts should stay away from science, it's embarassing to read some of the nonsense they come up with. The concept of inferring past events from current evidence is foreign to a mind that says "All I need to know is in the Good Book!"
I don't know most things, I admit. I DO know that the Biblical prophecies that have come to pass only confirm my faith in Jesus/The Word. I just want the truth and to walk in it. That's always been my wish and I've not always held up my end of it very well. Each day is a new opportunity I suppose. Thank God for His love, grace, mercy, long suffering, tenderness, stern correction, et al that is good !
4um Traitor It wouldn't surprise me if some young Earth creationists haven't tried that line. I once came across a Bible Thumper webpage saying that God deliberately planted fossils as fake evidence to test people's faith. The same site also said that stars billions of light years away were created with beams of light already reaching the Earth.
4um Traitor Even more interesting is that the Egyptian Scribes, in the time of Solon as reported by Plato in his Dialogues (Tinnaeus and Critias), had documentary records going back 100,000 years. The reality is that, however poetic, we do not know the true age of the original texts of the Bible. That is an item glossed over, and frequently unknown or ignored, by the "Young Earth" crowd. I am not a scholar in the area, and make no pretense of it, but have heard at least one scholar postulate that the first texts of the Old Testament are truly verrrrry old - dating back into those same Egyptian Archives mentioned by Solon and reported by Plato, destroyed by ignorant Barbarians - both Christian and Muslim, the origins of which are lost in the sands of time.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
You can always tell if a particular religion is earnestly speaking truth or not by their need to destroy ancient manuscripts and artifacts. If they burn down libraries and archives, then there must have been something there that seriously undermined their dogma. The Roman Catholic Church was infamous for it's persecution of those who disagreed with them, and Rome was quite happy to burn down any historical evidence of anything that contradicted their new found religion.
Seriously though. How big would the sun have been a billion or a million years ago? Big enough to turn earth into charcoal? It's not that complicated? LMAO! I suppose you have some scripture to back that up? If so, could you share it? Somewhere in there, God must say something like "I know what I'll do, I'll create physical laws regarding the speed of light and the motion of objects in space, and I will violate those laws to fool people into thinking that the Earth is 6000 years old. Not that there is a point to all of this, but I just like fooling people". About the size of the sun: I don't know. I dont know how much bigger is was, or how much mass it loses per million years or so. But if I find that info and it makes your argument look bad, will you also ignore that?
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files The Israelites borrowed so much from Babylonian mythology and from the Persians, they'd have a vested interest in keeping these older religions under wraps.
I would have liked to have seen what was contained in the Library of Alexandria...
Obviously not. As the Earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, then the Sun would have to have been roughly the same size. In fact, as stars age they get BIGGER, not smaller, so if anything it would have been SMALLER than it is today...
No no no... you either bow before the same 'god' they do, say the same magic words, believe the same way and pray the same way as they do... or else you are an evil atheist who is going to spend eternity burning in HELL. Because 'god' loves you. He loves you and he needs money! So get to it now before you end up burning in Hellfire for eternity, crying and screaming and writhing in eternal torture next to the child molesters and the mass murderers and the scum of humanity, all because you didn't pick the right religion and say the right magic words. Yep, that sure makes a lot of sense, don't it? No worries. I'm sure the resident Deacons of this forum will have fifty million articles to post "proving" how right they are.
In the just-published scholarly book, Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth, fourteen evangelical theologians bring together the most rigorous, up-to-date biblical and historical arguments in favor of reading Genesis chapters 1–11 as factual history.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#2. To: Old Friend (#0)
#3. To: PSUSA (#2)
I dont understand how anyone can believe the "young earth" nonsense.
#4. To: Old Friend (#3)
#5. To: Old Friend (#0)
#6. To: PSUSA (#4)
It's not either/or. Does faith in scripture depend on a young earth? Not IMO it doesn't. Science doesn't support a young earth. Science is neutral, it doesn't have an agenda. Some scientists might have an agenda.
#7. To: Old Friend (#6)
(Edited)
#8. To: PSUSA, Old Friend (#7)
Hubble shows formations millions of light years away.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#9. To: PSUSA (#7)
Hubble shows formations millions of light years away.
#10. To: PSUSA (#2)
A book, written by theologians. Wonderful. I wonder how they pulled that off without strangling each other.
#11. To: FormerLurker (#8)
Hubble shows formations millions of light years away.
#12. To: Original_Intent (#10)
#13. To: Old Friend, PSUSA (#9)
The earth and universe was created in working order. It is not that complicated.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#14. To: FormerLurker (#13)
And if the Universe was created billions of years ago (at least 12 billion as per the furthest galaxies seen from Hubble), then how does that fit into your 6 day schedule?
#15. To: Original_Intent (#10)
One goes where the evidence leads and the evidence suggests that the earth is billions of years old
#16. To: Original_Intent (#11)
God put them there just to fool us. /snicker
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#17. To: Old Friend (#14)
How does it not. God created it.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#18. To: Old Friend (#12)
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic."
#19. To: Original_Intent (#18)
through verifiable science.
#20. To: Old Friend (#19)
That is the point. The age of the earth cannot be scientifically proven. They weren't there. It is not verifiable.
#21. To: Old Friend, Original_Intent (#19)
(Edited)
The age of the earth cannot be scientifically proven. They weren't there.
#22. To: Original_Intent, Old Friend (#20)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#23. To: FormerLurker (#16)
That, or there must be demons inside that space telescope making us see things that aren't there just to lead us astray... /sarc
#24. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#21)
God bless you too !
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#25. To: Rupert_Pupkin, FormerLurker, Old Friend (#21)
#26. To: Original_Intent, Rupert_Pupkin, Old Friend (#25)
I am not a scholar in the area, and make no pretense of it, but have heard at least one scholar postulate that the first texts of the Old Testament are truly verrrrry old - dating back into those same Egyptian Archives mentioned by Solon and reported by Plato, destroyed by ignorant Barbarians - both Christian and Muslim, the origins of which are lost in the sands of time.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#27. To: Old Friend (#9)
The earth and universe was created in working order. It is not that complicated.
#28. To: FormerLurker (#26)
You can always tell if a particular religion is earnestly speaking truth or not by their need to destroy ancient manuscripts and artifacts.
#29. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#28)
The Israelites borrowed so much from Babylonian mythology and from the Persians, they'd have a vested interest in keeping these older religions under wraps.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#30. To: Old Friend, PSUSA (#9)
How big would the sun have been a billion or a million years ago? Big enough to turn earth into charcoal?
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#31. To: Original_Intent (#10)
While by no legitimate use of the word am I an atheist nevertheless the "Young Earth" is hooey.
 | Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings. |
#32. To: FormerLurker (#30) (Edited)
Stars are fairly stable in size until they start to run out of fuel. Then they begin to expand into red giants when the non-reacting core collapses. So the size of the sun would have been roughly the same billions of years ago to what it is now. I really wish that Bible literalists would try to educate themselves with something other than their creationist websites before making ridiculous claims.
In fact, as stars age they get BIGGER, not smaller, so if anything it would have been SMALLER than it is today...
#33. To: FormerLurker (#26)
You can always tell if a particular religion is earnestly speaking truth or not by their need to destroy ancient manuscripts and artifacts. If they burn down libraries and archives, then there must have been something there that seriously undermined their dogma. The Roman Catholic Church was infamous for it's persecution of those who disagreed with them, and Rome was quite happy to burn down any historical evidence of anything that contradicted their new found religion. The Roman Archives are, by rumour, reported to contain manuscripts, in their entirety, of verrrrry great antiquity. However, because it would undercut Church Dogma they are available to only a very very very few.
I am not a scholar in the area, and make no pretense of it, but have heard at least one scholar postulate that the first texts of the Old Testament are truly verrrrry old - dating back into those same Egyptian Archives mentioned by Solon and reported by Plato, destroyed by ignorant Barbarians - both Christian and Muslim, the origins of which are lost in the sands of time.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
#34. To: Rotara, Original_Intent, Old Friend, All (#22)
You're not alone. We all fall on out faces. I am especially klutzy. Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. It's not a "religion vs science" argument. They are not incompatible. Science is used to search out these things.
I just want the truth and to walk in it. That's always been my wish and I've not always held up my end of it very well.
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files
#35. To: FormerLurker (#30)
You're right. They do get bigger then smaller as gravity forces a collapse.
Obviously not. As the Earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, then the Sun would have to have been roughly the same size. In fact, as stars age they get BIGGER, not smaller, so if anything it would have been SMALLER than it is today...
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files
#36. To: FormerLurker (#26)
There are two kinds of Religionists who burn texts: Those who find the current status quo to their benefit and thus do not want it questioned because it would upset the status quo and hence their authority. Those who, in their ignorance, lash out at anything which might upset their comfortable unthinking mindset. I would disparage no man's beliefs as it is a matter of intellectual freedom to grant others that which I claim for myself - the right to think and speak freely as dictated by thought and conscience. That does not mean I defend the right of someone to lie about someone's beliefs, but that I defend, as a principle of freedom the right to speak and the right to counter.
If they burn down libraries and archives, then there must have been something there that seriously undermined their dogma.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
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