With respect, I think Dick had a good comment. Focusing only on the idea
that the creation of the universe took place in 6 days, my understanding of
ICR's position is that there is sufficient extra-Biblical evidence to
support this idea - i.e. that if one looks at the geological and
paleontological record with open eyes, it is clear that the record supports
a universe that came into being (whatever the cause may have been) in a six
day time period and also fairly recently (6K years, 10K years??). So, that
being the case, one would indeed expect to see researhers from other faith
traditions - Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, animist, whatever - reach
the same conclusion, based, as you've done, on the scientific evidence.
Now, for all I know that may well be the case - and I do not know how
prevalent such studies are in China or India or countries outside the
Judeo-Christian worldview - and I think this is what Dick is asking. The
question, I think, is are there researchers outside the Judeo-Christian
tradition, who have reviewed the geological evidence and have independently
reached the conclusion that the universe or the earth came into being only
a short period of time ago. If there are, then they should have published
someplace, or at least stated their conclusions. And it may well be that
this is an unanswerable challenge - perhaps such studies are not that
prevalent in countries outside of our European heritage - which is actually
an interesting question in itself. Or it may be that such studies never get
published and so again the question is unanswerable - but I would still say
it is a fair question. If the evidence is as convincing as you know it to
be, then it should be convincing even to someone who doesn't come to the
question with a Christian background.
And to make no pretence - I'm an engineer - mechanical engineer/materials
science and I would argue that yes, engineers are trained in the scientific
method - we just do different things with the data - and are, generally,
far less interested in perfection and more interested applications - which
is good for shipping product, maybe not so hot for basic research. That's
why we need scientists. And so the scientists know - engineers do argue
amongst themselves - the EE's I know regard ME's as one step down from auto
mechanics (we're less useful) and we think EE's are just making it all up
as they go along.
Janet Rice
512-338-3266
rice@mcc.com