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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[TD1]

All hail everybody's favourite atheistic theist!

[origamiscienceguy]

Well, for example the sun couldn't have stood still over Gideon because it's the earth that's moving

Are you joking?   

[Helgoland]

No, that's the original argument against the geocentric model... Go read Brecht's Life of Galilei, it's a great play and very informative about this issue.

[Bohandas]

That is not accurate. There are several theories about the earth and universe that completely fit with what the bible describe.

...But contradict what can be observed about the earth.

In what way?

I know this will be annoying for you, but "Because God made it that way." Will probably be the answer to most of these.

He fossil record and geological strata for one thing; they contradict young-earth creationism and/or notions of mankind being a special creation at any rate (though I suppose it doesn't contradict the deist conception of a god who initiates the big bang and then leaves)

Young Earth and miraculous human origins cannot, at any rate, be simultaneously squared with the fossil/geological evidence AND the idea that God isn't dishonest (even if you do assume that "God made it that way")

[origamiscienceguy]

The bible was written from the perspective of humans, who at the time thought that the sun went up and down in the sky. We now understand that the earth must have stopped moving but the people back then would have perceived it as the sun stopping.

PS. It was Joshua, not Gideon

[TD1]

The bible was written from the perspective of humans, who at the time thought that the sun went up and down in the sky. We now understand that the earth must have stopped moving but the people back then would have perceived it as the sun stopping.

PS. It was Joshua, not Gideon

Such a changeful nature only supports the elusive God of the Gaps....

[Helgoland]

Sorry, sorry, it's Gibeon, not Gideon.

But now you've acknowledged that not everything in the bible is true literally... So why should the creation story not be told as perceived/understandable by people back then? It's not like they could imagine the big bang if they didn't even have the heliocentric model...

[TD1]

 

[Helgoland]

You know, I really don't get why you do this all the time, Dwarfy. Sure, it's fun once or twice, but it gets old really fast...

E: And technically it also stood still over Joshua, I guess, but that's beside the point.

[TD1]

I do it all the time because I can, because I'm interested, because it's educational, and because it hones my own beliefs.

How many times must I repeat that? :/

[origamiscienceguy]

That is not accurate. There are several theories about the earth and universe that completely fit with what the bible describe.

...But contradict what can be observed about the earth.

In what way?

I know this will be annoying for you, but "Because God made it that way." Will probably be the answer to most of these.

He fossil record and geological strata for one thing; they contradict young-earth creationism and/or notions of mankind being a special creation at any rate (though I suppose it doesn't contradict the deist conception of a god who initiates the big bang and then leaves)

Young Earth and miraculous human origins cannot, at any rate, be simultaneously squared with the fossil/geological evidence AND the idea that God isn't dishonest (even if you do assume that "God made it that way")

Young Earth Creationists have made theories regarding the fossil records. I do not know much about it, but it has to do with Noah's flood depositing lots of sediments which quickly hardened into layers after the earth dried, burying the bones deeply. Regardless, The creation museum certainly isn't afraid of fossils

I don't want to argue creation vs. evolution here because it never leads anywhere. I am just showing that with the same evidence, different theories are possible. Some with God in them, and some without.

[Orange Wizard]

They're not afraid of fossils, but they're also not afraid to lather it in dogma:

Dr. Snelling added that the intact skeleton of this allosaur is a testimony to an extremely rapid burial, which is confirmation of the global catastrophe of a Flood a few thousand years ago.

Michael Peroutka, one of the board members of the Foundation, says that this fossil is a testimony to the creative power of God and also lends evidence to the truth of a worldwide catastrophic flooding of the earth about 4,500 years ago as described in the Bible.

Ken Ham stated, “While evolutionists use dinosaurs more than anything to promote their worldview, especially to young students, our museum uses dinosaurs to help tell the account of history according to the Bible.”

[origamiscienceguy]

They're not afraid of fossils, but they're also not afraid to lather it in dogma:

Dr. Snelling added that the intact skeleton of this allosaur is a testimony to an extremely rapid burial, which is confirmation of the global catastrophe of a Flood a few thousand years ago.

Michael Peroutka, one of the board members of the Foundation, says that this fossil is a testimony to the creative power of God and also lends evidence to the truth of a worldwide catastrophic flooding of the earth about 4,500 years ago as described in the Bible.

Ken Ham stated, “While evolutionists use dinosaurs more than anything to promote their worldview, especially to young students, our museum uses dinosaurs to help tell the account of history according to the Bible.”

True. I am not saying that this is not the only explanation for fossils being so close together. It could be that the earth was very calm as the bones became fossilized, or God just made it that way. Interpretation will change the theory for different people.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Plus there's the whole Scientific Method, where you make hypothesises and test them against observable evidence to see whether they work or not. 'God made it that way' is not testable, since there's no way to determine whether it's true or not (or people will move the goal posts and say that God made things that way too) and thus you can't use it as a theory/hypothesis since you can't predict or use it in any constructive way. 'There was a giant flood that made all of the fossils' is a better hypothesis since it is actually testable and provides a prediction about how the world works. The only problem is that that hypothesis doesn't fit in with established evidence. If a global flood did exist, then we should see a single band of fossils with all different types of animals mixed in it. Instead we have seperate bands of fossils enclosed in different types of rocks, and fossils are clearly seperated from each other by which band they appear in. Which means that either the global flood didn't happen, or the hypothesis needs to be changed to fit with what we observe.

What I'm trying to say is that different interpetations of evidence are fine, but if those interpetations don't match the evidence or can't be tested then they aren't following the scientific method and thus aren't acceptable as scientific theories. And if they aren't proper scientific theories then you can't use them to make predictions to learn more about thexworld around you, and instead just admire them from afar as pleasing but unapplyable theories.

...

Or something. That probably turned out more condensing then I meant it to be. Sorry about that.

EDIT: I guess that a better way of saying all of that would be, that just because different interpetations of data exist does not mean that all of the interpetations are valid. Instead they must be weeded out using the scientific method, until you have the one that fits the data the best.