Grey Thoughts
22.1.07
 
Science and The Bible
There is much heat in the debate about science versus religion. Most of the historical 'cases' that highlight this clash are plain old false, but I won't go into these as the real point of this post is to look at the 3 options you have when science seems to clash with what the bible says.

1) Our scientific hypothesis about the observed facts is wrong
2) Our interpretation of what the bible says is wrong
3) The bible is wrong

Atheists go for option 3. Theistic/Old age Evolutionists take option number 2. Young earth creationists take number 1 or 2, depending upon how clear the bible is.

An example of option 2 would be when people complained that turtles didn't have voices, yet the KJV in Songs of Solomon 2:12, talks about the voice of the turtle. Yet when you look into the more recent, better translations, the word the KJV translates as 'turtle' is actually turtledove.

Whilst consistent Christian's are not able to choose option 3, the problem with the current approach of long age theistic evolutionists is that the inherent imperfection of written communication allows for a tiny amount of wiggle room. As such, any hypothetical scientific observation or theory could be found to be 'consistent' with the bible by reinterpreting the normal or straight forward meaning of the text.

If you take this approach however, especially on the basis of 'new' observations or theories, you have no firm foundation for believing anything the bible says. I.e. What you believe the bible says today could be considered wrong tomorrow based on some new scientific finding. Worse, what the original receivers of the text believed was wrong, because they didn't have the new knowledge to 'correct' their faulty interpretation. Worse still again, science continually changes, sometimes radically, it's theories. Reinterpreting the Bible to match a theory which itself will change in 10 years leaves us with no confidence in any interpretation.

A second issue is that this makes the bible unfalsifiable and stops investigation. Any apparent conflict with the bible is resolved by changing what we think the bible means, not investigation of the evidence to see if another theory which agrees with the bible could equally or better explain the evidence.

To be serious about the Bible and science, you need to accept the text of the bible is true, based on the knowledge of the original audience.
Comments:
uknehkfI solved the problem to option #1 in 1999, with a usable theory that does not deny evolution, yet provides an hypothesis for Christians to use while the YEC's fix the problem, if they ever wake up and admit there is a problem.

It's called Presuppositional Creationism, and I am the author who has published and worked with YEC's closely from 1979 to the late 90's. Once their friend when I published their work, they claimed they knew me not when I started calling into question their lying and their lack of editing outdated info out of their publications and arguments. YEC is nothing more than a cottage industry to raise money for the authors and speakers, and for the rest of the public it is a closely held myth, a sin of omission.

An Oxford expert on history of creationist thought declared my work "original." But I was marginalized, eventually physically disabled, and fell into obscurity before it was given a chance to change the thinking of millions of YEC's in this country. Too bad they will be left to mimic such easily disproven drivel.

I still believe the traditional Biblical paradigm, I just don't have to deny evolution to hold my opinion. I don't think there's another YEC on the planet that can make that statement hold up. That fact alone keeps me from killing the other ones. LOL.

Darrell E. "Sonny" Craig
sonnyc44@myway.com
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

Powered by Blogger Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com