Vernon -- you wrote:
"...For example, man pretends that his knowledge of the
inner workings of the atom is so complete that he is justified in
believing radioactive decay rates to remain constant over deep time.
Surely, such an article of faith - for it is scarcely anything less -
cannot be allowed to dictate the manner by which we read and understand
the Word of God! ..."
I think that is not quite it. First of all, we do not "pretend" that
our knowledge is anywhere complete, or even that it represents
"truth" in the ultimate sense. What we do is observe that current
theories of radioactive decay seem to (in the mathematical sense
at least) hold together -- what E. O. Wilson calles "Consillience."
And that any assumption that those rates may have been
substantially differerent in the past leads to incoherence
in physics.
All in all, there does not appear ANY reason at all -- not
even an assumption of an inerrant Bilble -- to suspect that
these rates are anything less than "constant over deep time."
Well -- yes -- there is one reason -- if one makes a certain
(unjustified IMHO) assumption about haw to interpret
early Genesis, as you apparently have.
When you make that assumption, Vernon, you necessarily have
to throw out a great deal -- 90%? -- of what we know works
in science and replace it with incoherence.
One must, in the last analysis, choose one's position on
what makes the most sense. It boggles my mind to think that
anyone scientifically trained can choose a YEC position.
Burgy
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 09 2001 - 13:06:56 EST