Alan. This society is becoming so enamoured with the lifestyles of the gay and shameless that merely to answer "yes" to questions such as "Are you against SSM?" or "Should homosexuality be discouraged?" or "Can homosexuals become heterosexuals?", marks you as an absurd bigot that no-one should take any notice of. They don't even have to mount an argument against you. They merely get you to answer the question and let your own words condemn you. And that's only possible in a society whose moral compass points south. Welcome to backwards world.

Yes, as I have always maintained in the face of these claims that words can mean whatever we want them to... Many words describe actual things. For example, if you want to start calling two-dimensional round objects "squares" instead of "circles", then by all means, but now we need a new word to describe two-dimensional objects with four equal sides. Or as philosopher Francis Beckwith says, "Just because you can eat an ashtray doesn't make it food.

Similarly then, if we want to start calling the union of same-sex couples "marriage", then we need a new word to describe the natural institution that arises only between members of the opposite sex. Marriage is itself grounded in the very nature of mankind. It is, according to one recent paper, "the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together." http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155

This is not to say that same-sex couple cannot make long term monogamous commitments in a public ceremony (albeit a rare thing amongst that particular community). But it's not a marriage. And circles will never be squares, no matter what semantic games you play with the words.

A friend and I were recently involved in an online discussion on this very topic; a discussion that took a very odd turn, not unlike the question posed by Bob to Nigel about sibling marriage. My friend writes about the discussion on our site and I commend it to you. http://aristophrenium.com/mathew/why-cant-the-gay-brothers-be-wed/

It didn't come across as any of those things, Joe. But thanks for the concern. :)

[Part Two]

”Scientific progress is then made when someone *can't* be proven wrong.”

Yes, well, if only that was the case. The late Thomas Kuhn, wrote a book first published in 1962 (I’m currently reading the third edition, published in 1996) called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Here he coins the terms ‘paradigm’ and goes on to explain the necessity of paradigms for providing a framework in which science to move forward (so to speak), even when the paradigm is wrong! My favourite excerpt from the book comes from page 151 and I think goes to show there is nothing new under the sun, even in the gamesmanship of science.

“Darwin, in a particularly perceptive passage at the end of his Origin of Species, wrote: “Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume..., I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. ... [B]ut I look with confidence to the future,-to young and rising naturalists, who be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality.” And Max Planck, surveying his own career in his Scientific Biography, sadly remarked that “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

”They even explained a process incorrectly and gave the wrong age window for C-14.”

CMI constantly receive feedback by others who believe corrections are warranted. In some cases (I know this because I read their publications) they will publish the corrections when they think they are warranted. If you believe they are in error, write to them about your specific concerns. I am curious as to the response.

Finally, regarding your links;
I would like to respond more thoroughly, but I am sacrificing quite a lot just to get this out as it is. It may interest you to note though, that Tas Walker already responded point-by-point to Wiens article quite some time ago. The irony of this, is that in Walker’s article, the very same point Adam made earlier to you pops up again – yet in response to Wiens! It’s as if you didn’t take on board anything Adam said about the apriori assumptions one must make with regard to the trustworthiness of radioactive dating and trotted out Wiens anyway (see for example, the text box on page 14 of Walker’s response). At least, that's how it looks to me?

Regarding the C14 dating of the Shroud, I’ve been doing some thinking on this lately actually, and you may want to look into problems with that a little more. I suggest Gary Habermas. And you might want to re-think the lagerstatten defense, if it requires that one accepts the dating of the rocks the organisms are found in to begin with, as it has also been cited as “evidence of catastrophic mass mortality,” such as one might expect from a global catastrophic flood? Just sayin’. If not, then I may need to take a closer look.

I’ll allow Adam to deal with anything I may have missed. I just wanted to include my two cents for a bit of clarity (I hope?) and posterity. Thanks for an interesting discussion and allowing me a brief interlude.

P.S. You might want to provide more info about your discrepancies between Gen 2 and Day 6. But just on a general reading, in Gen 2 God is still creating things, yet He rested on Day 7, having completed all his work that took place on days one to six - Gen 2:1-3. How can that be? Well perhaps, Gen 2 is a more specific recount of Day 6 and perhaps some of the earlier days also? (e.g. the birds - Gen 2:19, created on Day 5 - Gen 1:20-21). Not possible to have a comprehensive discussion about that here, but maybe you could cite some discrepancies for us to consider?

[end Part Two]

[Part One]

G'day Joe,

Sorry for the interruption. It was not my intention to enter into this discussion (for various reasons), but I just want to clear up a couple of things (some of which may address some points in other posts, even though it was not my intention to continue on this topic for now.)

If it was your aim to present the views of CMI in the least charitable light, you have come pretty close. To say they do “bad science” is one thing. But as someone who is quite familiar with the views of CMI, I would be quite surprised if they have said anything implying that you are “some heathen infidel bent on destroying all of Christianity” simply because you “believe that God created the Earth some 4 billion years ago.” Instead, their view is that a belief that the earth is 4 billion years old, where evolutionary (or evolution-like) processes take place prior to the creation or fall of mankind, undermines (“destroys”) the message of the Gospel (which presents death as the enemy), as it presents suffering, disease and death before the creation and fall of mankind. Similarly, they would hold that one can be a thorough-going evolutionist, but as long as they place their trust in Christ, they can be called brothers. And they place the importance of the gospel above that of the age-of-the-earth debate. You can disagree with their theology. But to construe this point as a personal attack on old-earthers is neither accurate nor charitable, in my humble opinion.

“... I could come up with a dozen websites at this moment that publish their findings and raw data, and I'm talking about hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages of tedium that would make your eyes bleed.”

Ha! Well, you win then...
I am surprised that you would think that producing copious amounts of findings and raw data should be a good reason to trust such findings. You still need to look at their reasons and understand the framework from which they are working. But one should not be surprised at the amount of data “out there” given that billions of taxpayer dollars are provided to fund research that ministries like CMI or ICR could not hope to afford. Despite this, they still do a limited amount of their own field work, and writing up findings as money permits, such as the RATE Project. And actually, even in the RATE project there was a decision made to let an independent lab do the “work” to allay accusations of bias. It’s like running the gauntlet. There is very little charity offered and I agree with you that arrogance and pride may indeed be part of that.

But if they don’t produce the data themselves, yet as scientists, are able to access the data of others for the opportunity to assess it for themselves, what’s wrong with that? You’re going to disqualify them because they didn’t produce the data themselves?

”But part of the scientific process is letting someone else review your work.”

Yes, you’re speaking of peer review, right? Andrew Kulikovsky has a good article on this that you should read. It is a real eye opener from someone who has experienced the peer review crapshoot first hand. The short of it is that, while peer review has potential advantages in theory, it also has many shortcomings in practice, including rejecting top research while admitting fraud, as well as the role it plays in protecting one’s paradigm. This is why creationists have started their own journals, (such Journal of Creation and Creation Research Quarterly), where some of the articles are quite heavy on the science and would likewise “make your eyes bleed.” Despite this, many creationists are highly qualified in their respective field and still published in main stream secular journals also. But they are not permitted to publish their creationist ideas in such journals because “the evolutionary worldview has a stranglehold on scientific publishing.” (as those in the ID movement - largely old-earthers to boot - have likewise discovered. Though the winds of change are certainly on the move from what I can tell... YAY!)

[end Part One]

Yes.
Or as Professor of Systematic Theology, Dr. Douglas Kelly, has pointed out, “The Bible itself never makes any distinction between historical or natural facts, and spiritual or religious facts.” - Dr. Douglas Kelly, What the Genesis Text Really Says About Creation, AiG 2003 Creation Conference presentation on CD, Time index – Approx 48min

Sorry, just further to the expositional analysis.

When God said "let the dry land appear," in verse 9, where were all the land creatures living before this? Or does "appear" mean something other than the obvious. I'm not trying to be a wise guy. I understand the careful exegetical nuances that we need to observe. But this is why I am asking the question in the first place. I'm trying to understand Walton's view at each step. To which you might respond, "Well, buy the book." And fair enough. :)

Hello again David,

When you say:

Thus it is hardly surprising that “the people who lived in the first few centuries after Christ lacked the recently recovered knowledge” which now enables us to enter the culture and language of the text to exegete it with authentic accuracy.

Other than our recent escapades into archaeology, what other reasons do we have to think that people who lived 2000 years ago would not be better placed to understand what Genesis was saying than we are? Are the archaeological discoveries somehow meant to imply that people who lived in Jesus' time were less capable of accurately exegeting Genesis 1 than people who live in the 21st century? Are we certain that these more recent archaelogical discoveries revealed things to us that people in the first few centuries could not possibly have known?

This goes back to one of my questions in my original post. Exactly when did this knowledge become "lost"? And I'm not talking about when it was buried. I'm talking about evidence that the knowledge itself was lost to the generations of the first, second and third century Christians, and continued to be lost until recently.

Hey David,

Does Walton do a line-by-line exposition of Genesis 1, by chance?

For example, does he think that the earth being "formless and void" (or "empty") is an allusion to the function-less creation?

And say, in verse 3. God says, "Let there be light." Does this mean there was no light for vast ages prior? Did all created life (including pre-Adamites, dinosaurs, whatever...), live in the dark? Or, if Genesis 1 is only assignment of function, and light already existed, why does he say "Let there be light"?

I'd be interested in his expositional approach to the whole chapter.

And does he deal with citations from the NT about creation and exegete those directly? Or are the citations from the NT assumed to carry the same meaning by implication, due to the exegetical work in the OT? (e.g. Col 1:16; John 1:1-3,10; Matt 19:4; Rom 1:20; Acts 4:24; Acts 7:50).

John 1 for example, seems to be a reference back to a material creation event. But if Genesis 1 is not the "beginning" mentioned in John 1, then what is the proper relationship between John 1 and Gen 1?

Many more questions to come. But thanks for your patience.