Oh, I don't know, I can see a difference. Mr. snake has got to crawl, with his nose and mouth in the dirt. At least the other critters have got legs to walk on, to keep them off the ground. I am reminded of a boast we used to make when street racing: "Son, you gonna eat my dust!"

Genesis 4:10 seems a little more hard to understand than a snake eating dust. If the snake was a winged animal (or had legs), the verse makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately the Short-Age Creationists do not have a coherent testable explanation of why almost any of the evidences for a long-age earth are wrong.

In the past I have used the White Cliffs of Dover as an instance of this. There is simply no credible detailed short-age explanation for these megatons of dead animals.

We can conclude the Short-Age creationists don't understand the evidence, for the simple reason that their theory is incompatible with it and they have no credible way of making it compatible.

If they want respect, they need to start actually doing science.

/Bevin

It makes as much sense as the next verse that says "he will crush your head and you will strike his heel." Verse 14 doesn't mean the snake will literally eat a diet of dust any more than v. 15 means God will literally put hatred between the serpent's offspring and those of the woman or that the woman's seed will crush the head of the serpent and that the serpent will strike the seed's heel.

The first is saying that as a result of Adam's Fall, the serpent will crawl on its belly instead of flying through the air and thus will also experience a kind of Fall. The second is saying that in the battle between Christ and Satan, God will allow Satan to bring serious harm to Christ and to Christ's followers but that Christ will ultimately destroy him.

In both cases the metaphors make good sense if we use them right and don't try to push their meaning to extremes.

But it's clear, bevin, that the philosophical system Shane is describing is hermetically sealed and impervious to empirical evidence. When your basic assumption is supernaturalism, *anything* can be explained away as miraculous. There is no way to challenge or change the model using empirical evidence of any kind, since the Bible (or, more precisely, a particular recieved interpretation of the Bible) by definition always trumps empirical evidence.

Right - but within this system the theological question


"Why did God create a world that APPEARS to have had large life-forms on it for millions of years?"


is very unsettling because it gets around the "how was it done" barrier - it was done by a miracle.

You will notice that they try the "God made the world look mature - Adam looked old, right!" argument immediately, and then, when I again reiterate that the issue is the appear of DEATH on Earth for millions of years, the issue is so uncomfortable that they simply avoid the issue - usually by changing the subject.

/Bevin

Again, an illustration of not understanding the creationist philosophy.



As I recall, a workable explanation was given for the White Cliffs of Dover but those that think they know everything have have nothing to learn. I believe Bevin personally insulted the highly esteemed Dr. Elene Kennedy (who at one time was an old-earth evolutionist) and I certainly hope he has personally called or written to her to apologize for his conduct here. Real people have real feelings that really get hurt and she was one of them. Cyber bullies need to be held responsible for their reprehensible behavior online.

Those that are unwilling to let go of their naturalist assumptions will never be able to grasp the creationist philosophy. Since they cannot grasp it, they are in no position to criticize it. I, on the other hand, can step back and say, OK let's say there was no God, and look at the world as a naturalist sees it.



What is being said here is that creationists cannot prove the Bible is divinely inspired, which is their base assumption. That is true. However, naturalists can no less prove their assumptions are correct. Both sides are on the same ground. Origins is a philosophical issue. It is not operational science.

One of bevin's points was that if God created trees with more than one tree ring when they were only a day old, that makes God a liar. How dare God make a tree look 50 years old when it is only a day! Those that understand the creationist philosophy are obviously going to chuckle at such a concern.

This statement, "*anything* can be explained away as miraculous." Makes it sound like creationists are claiming God created rocks with fossils already in them. That simply isn't so. Creationist arguments are within the realm of how we see God working in the Bible.

For example, we see that God cursed creation after the Fall. As a result some of the animals that were vegetarians became carnivores and some plants began to grown thorns. That gives us an idea of how the curse impacted creation.

Creationists could claim that when God created the stars, He also created the light from the starts already in motion and that is why people on a young earth can see distant star light. That might fall into the "*anything* can be explained away as miraculous." However most young-earth creationists reject that explanation.

Like most things under criticism, I think most that criticize young-earth creationism do not understand it. They do not receive creationist journals in the mail. They do not watch creationist programs on TV. They do not read creationist books. They do not attend creationist seminars.

On the other hand, most creationists do watch naturalist programs on TV (PBS, Discovery, Science Channel). They do read naturalist periodicals and have been educated in schools that used naturalist textbooks.

So as a rule, creationists have a better understanding of what is being taught by naturalists than naturalists understand about creationism. I got the term "pseudo-science" from a naturalist describing the study of origins. Some naturalists are willing to concede their theories are based on assumptions that cannot be proven - most are not.

Creationists do not avoid that issue at all. There is obviously a lack of understanding of the creationist philosophy on this forum.

I should note that 'anything can be explained away' might have been better phrased as 'anything can be explained'. I did not mean to make any sort of value judgement of the creationist philosophy in trying to describe it. I simply saw an on-going argument that was in principle insoluble and tried to bring a little clarity.

(incidentally, since under general relativity space-time and matter-energy are so tightly intermingled, it doesn't make sense to think of God creating 'empty space' and then having light propagate through it. The universe would be created already filled with light and gravity. So there's actually no need for a supernaturalist to resile from what the text explicitly says, which is that God created the stars during creation week)