On Creationism

These verses from Isaiah 9 are often taken as a prophecy of Jesus' birth. Isaiah 9:66 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. However, another possibility is that they refer to the birth of King Hezekiah, a child of King Ahaz, and a contemporary of Isaiah. Note the tenses used in this version; the child has already been born when Isaiah is speaking, but has yet to be made king. That cannot be Jesus. But what of all those titles? How can a mere mortal be called "The mighty God"? These are not titles, but names. Most names have a meaning, and...

Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God. -C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity, p 32. We can formalise Lewis' argument like this: Lewis cannot imagine how we can reason unless we were designed by God We can reason Therefore we were designed by God P...

A common justification for the Biblical genocides is that God, as the creator of mankind, has the right to take life if he wants. William L Craig seems to be the most vocal proponent of this idea, for example here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/slaughter-of-the-canaanites The command to kill all the Canaanite peoples is jarring precisely because it seems so at odds with the portrait of Yahweh, Israel’s God, which is painted in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Contrary to the vituperative rhetoric of someone like Richard Dawkins, the God of the Hebrew Bible is a God of justice, long-suffering, and compassion.  ... According to the version of divine command ethics which I’ve defended, our moral duties are constituted by the commands of a holy and loving God.  Since God doesn’t issue commands to Himself,  He has no moral duties to fulfill.  He is certainly not subject to the same moral obligations and prohibitions that we are.  For example, I have no right to t...

There are plenty of sites on the internet that proudly proclaim how Jesus satisfied various numbers of prophecies. This one for example, claims 360 of them!: http://www.bibleprobe.com/300great.htm "Over 360 prophecies foretold Jesus/Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah (Mashiach ben David) " However, this web page cites ten, which is a more manageable number to start from: http://theresurgence.com/2012/12/24/10-prophecies-about-jesus-birth There are a number of features a prophecy requires to be considered valid. Firstly, it must be made before the event. All these are OT prophecies of Jesus, so no problem there. Secondly they must make a specific claim. Prophesying that a man will walk through a door is not going to cut it. Thirdly,  we must have some evidence the prophecy was fulfilled. In my view, the supposed prophecies are either twisting the text to fit the story, or twisting the story to fit the prophecy. Or both!  The Jews of Jesus time were not waiting for a crucifie...

Where did all the water come from to make the flood? One creationist theory is that it came from a comet. When you pick a rock off the ground you have to expend energy to lift it, and the rock gains gravitational potential energy (GPE). Let go of the rock, and it falls; it loses GPE, but gains kinetic energy because it is moving. It will also warm up due to air resistence. The First Law of Thermodynamics tells us energy is conserved, so as the rock drops and loses GPE, all that energy must be converted to kinetic energy and heat, and when the rock lands ultimately all the kinetic energy will be converted to heat too. GPE can be calculated from: GPE = m x g x h ... where m is the mass, g is the acceleration due to gravity and h is the height. If the rock weighs 1 kg (m=1), and falls 1 m (h=1), and at the Earth's surface the acceleration due to gravity is approximately 10 m/s/s (g=10) then it must lose this much energy: GPE = m x g x h = 1 x 1 x 10 = 10 kJ Ultim...

This is something I have never seen creationists address. For science, the geological column represents a progression over deep time. Fossils found at the bottom will be older than those at the top, and evolution explains how those fossils are different. It is worth noting that the geological column is to some degree a construct of man. It is a synthesis of numerous partial columns across the world. However, there is a consistency to them that allows them to be merged into one complete geological column. Many creationists accept this and provide various rationales for the sorting of fossils, for example here , here and here - usually based on gross simplifications of what fossils are there, and ignoring that plant fossils are seen all through the column, for example. However, what this page is about is how isotopes are distributed. Scientists use radiometric dating to determine the age of rocks, one such method uses potassium-40, which decays to argon-40. When the rock is fo...

Isaiah 52 and 53 involve a lengthy passage about the "suffering servant". Christianity considers this a prophesy about Jesus, but could it instead refer to the nation of Israel? It should be noted that Christians are not alone in seeing the text as a prophesy for a messiah; this was a popular belief among Jews around the time of Jesus. However, that does not prove that Isaiah considered it to be a prophesy. So let us consider two completing scenarios. In the first scenario, Isaiah is prophesying the arrival and crucifixion of Jesus. In the second, Isaiah is bemoaning the fate of Israel. Later, his words are re-interpreted as a prophesy of a messiah, and later still Jesus' life is remodelled to fit that text. Isaiah 41 When Isaiah has God talking about his servant in earlier chapters, is that referring to Jesus or to the nation of Israel? Let us see: Isaiah 41:8 ‘But you, Israel, my servant,     Jacob, whom I have chosen,     you descendants o...

Jesus had a lot to say about wealth, and many Christians today ignore it. I can understand that, I would not want to give up my house, my car, my phone, etc. either. Luke 12:22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: they do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life[b]? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? 27 ‘Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you - yo...

This is about the Logical Problem of Evil, and Plantinga's "Free Will Defence". I am drawing largely from this web page, and quotes come from there: http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/ Logical Problem of Evil The page kind of summarises the Logical Problem of Evil in this claim: (18) It is not morally permissible for God to allow evil and suffering to occur unless he has a morally sufficient reason for doing so. The issue then is that either there is some such reason or God cannot exist, and Plantinga invokes free will as that reason. Morally Significant Free Will Plantinga holds that people have a morally significant free will - that is, they can choose good actions and they can choose bad actions (which, incidentally God cannot, so by this argument God does not have morally significant free will). I am not sure where I stand on the free will issue, but I certainly cannot show Plantinga is wrong, and all Plantinga needs is the possibility he is right, so I will ...

Christians on internet fora will often make a big deal about Christian morality, which is odd, when Christian morality is such a vague thing. Christian morality is a Smörgåsbord morality (apologies to any Swedish-speakers; this blog software does not seem to allow accented characters in titles) , it picks what it wants from the Bible, and ignores what is inconvenient. Taken from the Bible Okay, Christian morality says murder and stealing are wrong, but cultures have been saying that for thousands of years; there is nothing unique to Christianity there, and it is no surprise that Christians want these laws in place. Taken despite the Bible Christian morality says that child rape and slavery is wrong, but these are not prohibited in the Bible. Our society has decided that things things are wrong (in the case of slavery, despite what it says in the Bible), and Christianity has adopted them. Ignored despite the Bible There are a lot of rules in the Bible that Christians just ...

Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. What does this mean? Jesus is going to fulfil the law? Most Christians claim that this means that they are free to break the numerous commands on the Old Testament, such as eating shellfish. But Jesus is quite clear that he is not abolishing the law. The Law and the Prophets He also says he has not come to abolish the prophets. But the prophets were all dead by this time, what did he mean? Jesus is refering to part of the Hebrew Bible, the Nevi'im , consisting of the writings of the nineteen prophets. The "Prophets" is the second part of the Hebrew Bible. The first part, the Five Books of Moses, contains Gods commands to his people, his laws. This is what J...