So you can find articles for the flaws in Radiometric dating but no research articles on your scientifically sound explanation of how the universe was created? Come on man, I'm still waiting here.

Naturalism is the philosphical position that everything that exists or happens can be explained by natural processes (e.g., is reducible to physics). It is sometimes also referred to as physicalism or philosophical materialism. It is a strictly stronger assertion than atheism ("there is nothing except the physical universe" vs "there is no god")


It sounds like you're espousing some form of dualism here, which in philosophy of mind is the belief that there is a fundamental distinction between mental processes and physical ones. This is essentially incompatible with naturalism, and there are very few intellectually serious atheists who espouse it (essentially Searle and Nagel, plus probably some number of academic Buddhists if you could pin them down on anything). The naturalist camp is Dawkins/Dennett, et. al.


My question is then: why do you believe happiness is a meaningful thing to try and optimize for as a system of morality? Are you asserting that happiness is in some way metaphysical and therefore a superior end to physical aims? Or is it purely a chemical process that you happen to enjoy?


It sounds like you're opposed more to religion as a reaction against negative ways that you've seen it practiced rather than out of some philosophical objection to God or metaphysics.


If your justifications are Biblical, why did you not respond to my scriptural analysis?


Carbon-dating is quite effective, but it's not relevant on the time scales in question, which would require K-Ar dating. However K-Ar dating is still effective.


It's a shame that Jason Lisle is wasting his intellect in this fashion. Anisotropic synchronization conventions make Maxwell's equations unworkably complex, rather than objects of mathematical beauty. Moreover it doesn't get you out of the fact that evolution is observable in action, and works, and creates new information in the process, contrary to all sorts of YECy propaganda. Moreover we can backtrack transposons to create phylogenetic trees and give pretty precise dates of species divergence.


How's that? We have fossils of all sorts of transitionary forms, including feathered dinosaurs

The first site is a student's personal site. Not credible.
The second site is Ken Ham. Religious bias out the wazoo. Not credible.
The third is sketchy as you mentioned. Not credible.
The last one is a site about new earth. Religious bias out the wazoo. Not credible.

Calculations have an accuracy beyond faith, I'm afraid. It's math. Physics. In calculus textbooks. It's proven fact. Look at the sig figs. That tells you the accuracy, not biased sources or sources without citations.

I think I will be limiting my posts here for the following reasons:
I have been pushed to cite source after source, each one dismissed because it doesn't agree with the "accepted" "science" that has become commonplace today. It seems that the only sources that will not be dismissed as "religiously biased" are those of a secular science society, which of coursed will be biased in that manner. I, contrary to the rest, have not been pushing the secularists on this topic to cite Christian references that I won't dismiss as "religiously biased" since the source of the post does not agree with my worldview. It seems that the people on this thread already have unchangeable bias to the point where they won't accept a scientific study if it does not meet their requirements. In addition, as mentioned before, this type of discussion is not the focus of this forum, and unfortunately I have been spending much more time here than any other part of the site. As a challenge to illustrate my point, however, I would like a secularist/atheist to cite a Young Earth Creationist source that agrees with your worldview, then I will attempt to cite a secular site that agrees with Young Earth Creation. Farewell, I do appreciate the thoughts and challenges this conversation has provoked, and I will take my leave with no bitter feelings. God bless.

I want to be super clear, as one Christian to another. Hopefully this helps someone, since you've now ignored twice my earlier remarks on scriptural interpretation.

There is no "secular bias" involved in rejecting Young Earth Creationism, there's only "reality bias".

• St. Augustine refuted your position on scriptural grounds in the 4th century A.D., long before evolution was even an issue under consideration.
  
• The ASA, which is the professional society for Christians in science in the U.S., has been airing both sides of the issue in PSCF for the last 65 years, and for the entire span of that history the consensus among professional Christian scientists has been that YEC is pseudoscience at best and actively detrimental to the spread of the gospel message at worst.
  
  
  • http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1997/PSCF12-97Miller2.html
    
  • http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Fischer.pdf
    
  • http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1950/JASA3-50Kulp.html
    
  • http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1969/JASA9-69vandeFliert.html
    
  
  
• I'm going to repeat my earlier recommendation for The Language of God more strongly: if you're a Christian speaking on issues of creation and you aren't at least science-literate to the standard established by that work, you probably need to shut your mouth/step away from the keyboard, because otherwise you're actively engaged in undermining the gospel.
  

I won't try to debate you guys on a logical level because I'm a presuppositionalist. Everyone has presuppositions: mine is that there is a God. Beyond that, as elfprince said, noone can prove God using logic, so good luck convincing any Christian to do that. You guys make presuppositions the same as me, but being a presuppositionalist just means I grant it and you refuse to.

Therefore, I won't try to debate atheists anymore. It's totally fruitless, not to mention they're using "quantum mechanics" as a god to say "quantum mechanics" created everything billions of years ago and we can never understand it fully is no different from saying God created everything thousands of years ago and we can't understand it (as it pertains to the ORIGINAL creation of the world). To say a big explosion came out of nowhere - quantumly so it's scientificy - and when the dust settled we had everything in it's place is very stupid.

And I'm not going to debate elfprince as a "old-earth-creationist" Christian. I see from what I read in your posts you believe the Bible is untrue, and a Christian who doesn't believe the Bible isn't a Christian at all. You are the one undermining the gospel by stating part of the bible is needed to be heard for salvation and part of it needs to be ignored because it doesn't agree with current popular views.

Lastly, what you are doing is dismissing sources of information because they support YEC. In essence you are saying "we cannot get information from this article because of what it contains", which touches on a genetic fallacy, Ad hominem fallacy, and sounds somewhat like circular reasoning!

Are you implying that saying that Genesis is not a Historical account makes you not a Christian? If so you are saying the Catholic church, the Pope and St Augustine are not Christian?

Do you also not realize that implying Quantum Mechanics isn't real also means you don't believe modern Processors or even GPS work as well as we can visibly see them work, because they rely on bit of quantum mechanics based knowledge and technology. GPS would not be anywhere near as accurate as it is if Einstein hadn't been right about relativity.

Well, that's for the person to decide for themselves. "What is my opinion on the Bible, do I really think it's the word of God?" They could be a Christian, but a confused one who has more to learn about believing God, or they could be just claiming to be a Christian but actually not caring what God says, which attitude is wrong.

Bear in mind St. Augustine did not believe in "old-earth-creation", and did believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. As he says here:

The Catholic church I decline to discuss.

I'm not saying Quantum Mechanics "is not real". I'm saying your trying to use it as a explanation for the beginning of matter is a cop-out. It's not actually a logical cause at all, as this article points out: Beginning of the Universe - Beginning of Time

The reformed abuse of presuppositionalism is terrible. Having differing presuppositions doesn't mean "give up on arguing" it means "recurse to a lower base-case until you can agree on something and work up from there". You'll notice that's pretty much what I'm doing with probing questions here.



"Theistic evolution" please. I'm not a day-age/progressive creationist, which is what is usually meant by old-earth-creationism.


You should read them more carefully then (or just read this essay).


This statement is incorrect on at least 4 counts: I'm not advocating that we ignore anything, nor that we do so because it doesn't agree with current popular views, nor are the views with which it conflicts particularly recent/current. Moreover it is completely correct, if somewhat simple, to say that only part of the bible is necessary for salvation, even though that's not at all what I'm arguing for.


There are YECs who I can have a friendly conversation with. My rejection of AIG/Ken Ham has more to do with Acts 8:18-25



I considered not posting the following, because it's really personal, and kind of ugly, but I decided to post it anyway in the hopes that shock-value will accomplish what being polite could not. If you're not up for that, I recommend not enlarging the font.

This is the sort of arrogant wrong-headed condescension that has completely destroyed our generation's interest in Christianity. As someone who has seen dozens of young Christ-loving scientists driven out of the church, and struggled to help a few of them feel welcome, like the little dutch boy with his finger in the dike, I'm going to be completely honest and say that if you said that to me in person I would have a hard time not punching your face in on behalf of all of the young Christians who've had their faith destroyed by people with your attitude, but I'm reminded that God will take care of it. If you're going to be a YEC, fine, whatever, but keep it to yourself instead of spreading the poison around. And just to be super extra clear, you're currently being told off by an evangelical Baptist, not some theological liberal who only goes to church for the music and the coffee.


Yep, but his reasons for rejecting the 6-day narrative as literal historiography are still sound. Calvin, Wesley, and Aquinas all fall into this camp as well.


"Inerrancy" is not the same as "literalism". This seems to be a distinction that you (and many others) struggle with.

This sounds like something I can relate to, I'll have to read into this a bit more.



I don't think there can be a distinction between mental & physical processes, as I learn to either reproduce or not to reproduce actions based on previous results, when I encounter a situation I am not familiar with I draw upon past experiences and determine the best and/or most moral thing to do.



I don't think we should optimize a system for happiness, I find happiness to be a form of Euphoria where it lasts and eventually fades and always trying to be happy will require more and more stimulation to stay happy. I'm sitting in my chair now and I'm not happy but I'm not sad. I am not trying to be happy; happiness is, for an example, going out with friends and having a laugh at one another over dinner - happiness is having a good time.

I'm not exactly sure how to answer that middle question just yet but I find happiness to be the product of chemical processes.



I can't say that's true, as all my direct experiences have been positive. However few that may be.



I'm not looking for sources. I'm looking for research studies and research articles. You said, again, that there is no scientifically sound explanation for the creation of the universe. You can't say something is scientifically proven if there aren't any scientific articles; your inability to link to any is concerning. The article can even say "We tested this specimen and it matched what the bible said" as long as the author includes the scientific research that went into it.

I've said it above, and it should be quire clear, I'm not educated in religion at all. I don't have the capabilties to dismiss anything. I'm trying to understand why you say there is no other scientifically sound explanation but I'm having immense trouble getting research that backs up the claim you made. I'm starting to think there aren't any proper research articles and studies and that you're just repeating what others have told you.

Hmmm, I think, based on your phrasing, that you might have misunderstood my question. Certainly your mental processes are informed by your experience of physical processes, the question I'm getting at is if you believe everything that you experience / everything that happens in your mental processes can be explained (in principle) purely in terms of physics and chemistry, or if you believe that there is some "spark of consciousness" which can't (even in principle) be described by physics. (And maybe that's what you were answering, and I'm just misreading you).

Either way, my point is that if you believe something more than physics is required to explain consciousness, that suggests that some form of religious/supernatural beliefs must be valid, and if you don't your use of words like "best" and "most moral" are ill-grounded. How can a set of particle trajectories be moral or in any objective sense "better" than another set of particle trajectories? What class of function is maximized by your ideal system of morality?


If you think these ideas are interesting, I would recommend doing some light reading in metaphysics/epistemology/ethics to get a feel for some of the different schools of thought. It's hard to converse about some of these things if you don't have a decent map of the territory.


Fair enough, that was just my impression based on how you were describing your view of the relation between science and religion. It sounded like you were more bothered by how specific interpretations of religion led to specific problematic understandings of science than by anything about religion in general.