Walt Hicks wrote (amongst other points):
> The argument about "apparent age" and God lying is nothing more than
> debatemenship. The universe is exactly the same either way. The dead stars
> are
> really there every bit as much as if the first 15 billion years existed. The
> results of science are the same and Glenn Morton can use his science
> find to oil
> in either case.
>
Yes, I agree that Glenn can find his oil either way. He
can treat all that he learned in stratigraphy, petrology,
paleontology, etc. as a mere artifice for succeeding in
his quest. Likewise, astronomers will still "see" their dead
stars and calculate distances from distant galaxies
just as before. Just like using complex numbers to solve
a circuit problem as though this is natural, life goes on.
What it comes down to is what Howard Van Till describes as
the "intelligibility" of our universe. Science is the study
of this intelligibility. It may not be explicit, but all
the passionate pleas of the prophets -- that blocks of wood and
stone don't carry you, but the Lord can carry you -- all speak
to evidence: first from ones own experience, but also from appeals
to what happened in history (the Exodus, the creation, etc.).
This way of thinking does violence to any thought of intelligibility.
We are confronted with a remarkable seamless boundary condition,
where one mere femtosecond before we must call our observations
an "artifice", and one mere femtosecond afterward, we can call
it "history". Yet there is no discernible difference between
events on one side and the other of that boundary.
The heavens and the earth speak to the Glory of
God, but only if your observations are greater than or equal
6006.53458278924671630912361 years (at the sound of the beep
corrected for the propagation of sound in air at 0 altitude).
We can keep some numbers fans busy trying to find the precise
time coefficient to 150 decimal places (corrected for Jerusalem
standard time I suppose) so we can be sure that we can continue
to do good science.
If someone needs to believe this to prop up their faith,
I know I have my problems too, but as far as persuading
me to adopt _their_ way of thinking, may they be happy and
blessed, but right or wrong, I cannot agree with it.
Surely, if believing in a 6000 year old earth was so
important to the Lord, God would have left a "finger
print" somewhere. Where is it? We would just like to
know.....
by Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
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