Why Tim Jones would lose his faith if a six-day creation were proved

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Why Tim Jones would lose his faith if a six-day creation were proved

Posted by Tim Jones on 2000-03-04
>I'm sure most creationists would agree with you. The point of
>contention is the interpretation of the data currently available. A
>six literal 24 hour creation seems unlikely but scripture does not
>state that conclusively. The implausible for creationists is that my
>great, great great.... grandpappy was an amoeba or something.

But *why* is that implausible?   And why replace it with something a
lot more implausible?   ISTM the main obstacle is an insufficient
grasp of the immensity of the timescales invoved [1], and various
misunderstandings about how the process works - e.g. the idea that
life has to begin from a single cell spontaneously arranging itself
from a random collection of atoms, rather than working up gradually
from self-replicating molecules.   There's also the depressing
tendency to wheel out the same discredited arguments and "examples"
against evolution over and over again as if nothing had happened since
they were first aired - see the talk.origins FAQ for examples.   Poor
quality data are seized on because they conflict with the overwhelming
weight of all the rest.

>AFAICT,
>none of the presently available data conflicts with a broad
>creationist position. Before you go off at a tangent, I accept the
>point about it being an ongoing creativity.

Depends what you mean by "broad creationist" - if you mean God as
creator, I'm a creationist.   If you mean anti-evolutionist...

The point is that the *only* data that point to 6-day creation are
words in the Bible, and th evidence we have about the background of
the Bible does not suggest that we should treat it as telling us the
literal answer on this one.   None of the scientific data points in
anywhere near that direction - the idea of evolution comes from
observing the data and trying to account for them in the most
convincing way;  reconciling the data with a literal version of
Genesis 1 involves imposing an interpretation which is in no way
suggested by the data.

Genesis 1 was written by people who, like us, were trying to make
sense of the evidence - however, we have a lot more evidence to go on
than they did, it's not clear that the stories were ever intended to
be taken literally anyway, and what they *do* tell us is about the
relationship between God and us - which was (and is) surely the main
area of interest.

It is possible to reconcile the data (television broadcasts and so on)
with the idea that the moon landings never happened but were an
elaborate hoax.   It is not however sensible to - and I think that
making the huge quantity of scientific data match the "creationist"
POV is comparable.   It amounts to saying that we mustn't trust the
evidence of our own eyes about anything.

I think the nearest it's possible to come to a sensible reconciliation
of the two is to believe in special creation of each species over a
period of hundreds of millions of years, but done in such a way that
the DNA of present-day species gives the impression that they are
related even though they are not.   (If it were merely the useful DNA
that matched, i.e. expressed genes, that would be one thing - "well
they're similar creatures so the DNA is similar" - but unfortunately
AIUI the "garbage" DNA - the part that doesn't produce actual genes -
also shows the same behaviour.   To deny evolution one actually has to
deny that a lot of the work done by molecular biologists is even
possible.   I'm afraid I agree wholeheartedly with the cross-poster
who said it was like a flat-earther telling a satellite engineer at
NASA that the work they did every day was impossible.

And that kind of thing is why proof of 6-day creation would be a
severe if not terminal blow to my Christian faith - such proof would
be proof of the meaninglessness and arbitrariness of existence, and
strong evidence against the faithfulness and honesty of God.   It
would mean the earth was actually created by a deceiver, not by a God
of Truth.   (Sorry if that's a tangent.)

Tim.

[1] It's impossible to imagine a million years, let alone a hundred
million or a thousand million.   "have you comprehended the expanse of
the earth?" (Somewhere around Job 38) - I don't think it's even
possible to do that properly.   Go down to a deserted beach and look
at the horizon, perhaps a couple of miles away (depends how high up
you are).   The horizon is there because the earth has curved down a
few feet, just enough to cut off your view.   Imagine it curving still
further, until the part 4,000 miles in front of you is vertical
relative to you... it's unimaginable.