Well now that I'm done refinishing the plow for my new 4x4 (business before pleasure) I have some time to research this further.
Gonna have it installed tomorrow.
We've got another foot of snow coming after last weeks 2 feet.
I find that there are many Creationisms out there and not just
the young earth creationism we are arguing about here.
I thought foss you would have mentioned some of these old earth creationists in dismissing my 6000 year contention.
Therefore I think some definitions and background is in order before further discussion.
Here's a few things I've gathered up from various sites that are pertinent:
Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being. However, the term is more commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of certain biological processes, in particular much of evolution, as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis creation narrative. At this time those holding that species had been separately created were generally called "advocates of creation" but they were occasionally called "creationists" in private correspondence between Charles Darwin and his friends. As the creation–evolution controversy developed, the term "anti-evolutionists" became more common, then in 1929 in the United States the term "creationism" first became specifically associated with Christian fundamentalist opposition to human evolution and belief in a young Earth, though its usage was contested by other groups who believed in various concepts of creation.
Since the 1920s, creationism in America has contested scientific theories, such as that of evolution which derive from natural observations of the universe and life. Strict creationists believe that evolution cannot adequately account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on Earth. Strict creationists of the Christian faith usually base their belief on a literal reading of the Genesis creation narrative.Other religions have different deity-led creation myths while different members of individual faiths vary in their acceptance of scientific findings. In contrast to the strict creationists, evolutionary creationists maintain that, although evolution accounts for the nature of the biosphere, evolution itself is cosmologically attributable to a Creator deity.
When mainstream scientific research produces theoretical conclusions which contradict a strict creationist interpretation of scripture, creationists often reject the conclusions of the researchor its underlying scientific theories or its methodology.The rejection of scientific findings has sparked political and theological controversy.Two offshoots of creationism—creation science and intelligent design—have been characterized as pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific community. The most notable disputes concern the evolution of living organisms, the idea of common descent, the geological history of the Earth, the formation of the solar system and the origin of the universe.
The history of creationism relates to the history of thought based on a premise that the natural universe had a beginning, and came into being supernaturally. The term creationism in its broad sense covers a wide range of views and interpretations, and was not in common use before the late 19th century.
Throughout recorded history, many people have viewed the universe as a created entity. Many ancient historical accounts from around the world refer to or imply a creation of the earth (and also the universe). Although specific historical understandings of creationism have used varying degrees of empirical, spiritual and/or philosophical investigations, they are all based on the view that the universe was created, as opposed to not being created. This is essentially a cosmological premise in metaphysics, however popularity for and theories of creationism are related to the history of religions.
The most influential force on more recent history of creationism has been the Genesis creation narrative, which was accepted as a historical account until the advent of modern geology. It has provided a basic framework for Jewish, Christian and Islamic epistemological understandings of how the universe came into being - through the supernatural intervention of God, Yahweh, or Allah. Historically, literal interpretations of this narrative have been more dominant than allegorical interpretations of Genesis
Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism that asserts the Heavens, Earth, and all life were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between c. 5,700and 10,000 years ago.Its adherents are those Christians and Jews who believe that God created the Earth in six 24-hour days, taking a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a basis for their beliefs and include around 10-45% of American adults, depending on various polls.
Old Earth creationism (OEC) is an umbrella term for a number of types of creationism, including Gap creationism and Progressive creationism. Their worldview is typically more compatible with mainstream scientific thought on the issues of geology, cosmology and the age of the Earth, in comparison to Young Earth creationism; however, they still generally take the accounts of creation in Genesis more literally than theistic evolution (also known as evolutionary creationism) in that OEC rejects evolution by purely natural means.
Gap creationism (also known as Ruin-Restoration creationism, Restoration creationism, or "The Gap Theory"), is a form of Old Earth creationism that posits that the six-day creation, as described in the Book of Genesis, involved literal 24-hour days, but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, explaining many scientific observations, including the age of the Earth. In this it differs from Day-Age creationism, which posits that the 'days' of creation were much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years), and from Young Earth creationism, which although it agrees concerning the six literal 24-hour days of creation, does not posit any gap of time.
Day-Age creationism, a type of Old Earth creationism, is an interpretation of the creation accounts found in Genesis. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not ordinary 24-hour days, but rather are much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years). The Genesis account is then interpreted as an account of the process of cosmic evolution, providing a broad base on which any number of theories and interpretations are built. Proponents of the Day-Age Theory can be found among both theistic evolutionists (who accept the scientific consensus on evolution) and progressive creationists (who reject it). The theories are said to be built on the understanding that the Hebrew word yom is used to refer to a time period, with a beginning and an end, and not necessarily that of a 24 hour day.
The differences between the Young-Earth interpretation of Genesis and modern scientific theories such as Big Bang, abiogenesis, and common descent are significant: the Young-Earth interpretation says that everything in the universe and on Earth was created in six 24-hour days (with a seventh day of rest), estimated by them to have occurred some 6,000 years ago; whereas recent mainstream scientific theories put the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years and that of the Earth at 4.6 billion years, with various forms of life, including humans, being formed continually thereafter.
The Day-Age Theory tries to reconcile these views by arguing that the Creation "days" were not ordinary 24-hour days, but actually lasted for long periods of time—or as the theory's name implies: the "days" each lasted an age. According to this view, the sequence and duration of the Creation "days" is representative or symbolic of the sequence and duration of events that scientists theorize to have happened, such that Genesis can be read as a summary of modern science, simplified for the benefit of pre-scientific humans.
Progressive creationism is the religious belief that God created new forms of life gradually, over a period of hundreds of millions of years. As a form of Old Earth creationism, it accepts mainstream geological and cosmological estimates for the age of the Earth, but posits that the new "kinds" of plants and animals that have appeared successively over the planet's history represent instances of God directly intervening to create those new types by means outside the realm of science. Progressive creationists generally reject macroevolution because they believe it to be biologically untenable and not supported by the fossil record, and they generally reject the concept of universal descent from a last universal ancestor.
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but one which deliberately avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer. Its leading proponents—all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank believe the designer to be the God of Christianity.
Intelligent design was developed by a group of American creationists who revised their argument in the creation–evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science.Proponents argue that intelligent design is a scientific theory.In so doing, they seek to fundamentally redefine science to include supernatural explanations.The overwhelming consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science, and indeed is pseudoscience.
Intelligent design originated in response to the United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard ruling, which barred the teaching of "creation science" in public schools as breaching the separation of church and state.The first significant published use of intelligent design was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes.From the mid-1990s, intelligent design proponents were supported by the Discovery Institute which, together with its Center for Science and Culture, planned and funded the "intelligent design movement". They advocated inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula, leading to the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, where U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and that the school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Neo-creationism is a movement whose goal is to restate creationism in terms more likely to be well received by the public, policy makers, educators, and the scientific community. It aims to re-frame the debate over the origins of life in non-religious terms and without appeals to scripture. This comes in response to the 1987 ruling by the United States Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard that creationism is an inherently religious concept and that advocating it as correct or accurate in public school curricula violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
One of its principal claims is that ostensibly objective orthodox science, with a foundation in naturalism, is actually a dogmatically atheistic religion. Its proponents argue that the scientific method excludes certain explanations of phenomena, particularly where they point towards supernatural elements, thus effectively excluding religious insight from contributing to understanding the universe. This leads to an open and often hostile opposition to what they term "Darwinism", which generally is meant to refer to evolution, but may be extended to include such concepts as abiogenesis, stellar evolution and the Big Bang theory.
Various neo-creationist groups claim to run scientific enterprises that conduct legitimate scientific research. Notable examples are the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture. Neo-creationists have yet to establish a recognized line of legitimate scientific research and thus far lack scientific and academic legitimacy, even among many academics of evangelical Christian colleges who are presumed to be their natural constituency. Neo-creationism is considered by Eugenie C. Scott and other critics as the most successful form of irrationalism.
The main form of neo-creationism is intelligent design.A second form, abrupt appearance theory,claims that first life and the universe appeared abruptly and that plants and animals appeared abruptly in complex form, has occasionally been postulated.
Do Creationists think Creationism is science?
Even prominent creationists like Henry Morris and Duane Gish (who pretty much created scientific creationism) admit that creationism is not scientific in creationist literature. In Biblical Cosmology and Modern Science, Morris, while discussing catastrophism and the Noachic flood, says:
“We cannot verify this experimentally, of course, any more than any of the various other theories of catastrophism [e.g. Velikovsky], but we do not need experimental verification; God has recorded it in His Word, and that should be sufficient.”
This is a statement of religious faith, not a statement of scientific discovery.
Even more revealing, Duane Gish in Evolution? The Fossils Say No! writes:
“We do not know how the Creator created, [or] what processes He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. This is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator.”
So, even leading creationists basically admit that creationism is not testable and clearly state that biblical revelation is the source (and “verification”) of their ideas. If Creationism is not considered scientific by the movement’s own leading figures, then how can anyone else be expected to take it seriously as a science?
Is Creationism logically consistent?
Creationism is usually internally consistent and logical within the religious framework in which it operates. The major problem with its consistency is that creationism has no defined boundaries: there is no clear way to say that any particular piece of data is relevant or not to the task verifying or falsifying creationism. When you deal with the non-understood supernatural, anything is possible; one consequence of this is that no tests for creationism can really be said to matter.
Is Creationism parsimonious?
No. Creationism fails the test of Occam’s razor because adding supernatural entities to the equation when they are not strictly necessary to explain events violates the principle of parsimony. This principle is important because it is so easy for extraneous ideas to slip into theories, ultimately confusing the issue. The simplest explanation may not always be the most accurate, but it is preferable unless very good reasons are offered.
Is Creationism empirically testable?
No, creationism is not testable because creationism violates a basic premise of science, naturalism. Creationism relies on supernatural entities which are not only not testable, but are not even describable. Creationism provides no model that can be used for making predictions, it provides no scientific problems for scientists to work on, and does not provide a paradigm for solving other problems unless you consider “God did it” to be a satisfactory explanation for everything.
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The most interesting premise is that the universe was not created as opposed to created meaning that it always was and will always be.
