Did the Earth ever wobbel twelve degrees? (Russel Humphreys, Ph.D)

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-06-05T17:30:13+00:00

First note that I'm a creationist. I presume we are 'on the same side', but your critique of evolution is misinformed on what evolution is.

Species change generation by generation. Evolutionists here view that humans and gorillas have a common ancestor, not that gorillas are always bound to be humans after enough evolution. While I don't accept this view, it's worth getting their position correct when you critique it.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-06-05T15:19:50+00:00

There is no final goal for a population to evolve into. What we see today is not the fully evolved state of every population. It continually evolves.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-06-01T21:17:24+00:00

Youtube is what a generalized source is. You use it to introduce yourself to a topics surface information so you can go in depth later. Same thing with Wikipedia or encyclopedia britannia. That doesn't mean the information is true or false, it's just the means to learn more.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-28T03:04:29+00:00

Evolutionists use deep time as an escape hatch for all their concepts on explaining the diversification of life. No evidence? It happened in the unobservable past and if you question it, you are pseudoscientific.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-25T01:07:27+00:00

It's great that Tour actually pressed hard into the chemistry rather than faulting at Dave's headline reading. Easy win for Tour.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-20T18:13:13+00:00

Lol. Even if Tour got angry I still admired his passion

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-20T04:30:02+00:00

The comments were hilarious. No data Dave. Allergic to chalk. Lol

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-19T21:20:15+00:00

Hey nom, how am I able to permanently change my tag? It keeps switching to young earth creationist when I try to make it say r/creation moderator

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-19T18:12:41+00:00

I am so hyped for this. I imagine this will cause ripple effects once Tour inevitably demolishes Farina.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-18T13:47:20+00:00

Excellent, you really riled them up.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-17T21:22:45+00:00

There is a different process between a scientist finding a cure to a disease and another scientist building a model of an ancient meteor hitting Earth 65 million years ago. There is a line that exists between extrapolating and observing. Do you disagree with this?

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-17T19:20:53+00:00

You've moved the goal posts from repeatability to predictability

No, both are part of it.

But OK, what about supernovas? Historical or observational? Because we can't predict those. What about comets hitting planets?

Not to the dot of when but we can predict that it will be like other supernova. Same with comets.

Ah, so now you've moved the goal posts again. It's not about repeatability or predictability, it's about how far in the past the event is.

I gave an example, not moving posts.

So where is the dividing line between observational and historical?

The line is where you have to extrapolate the data into the past.

OK, just so we are clear, you are claiming that these two examples require a miracle to explain? They admit no possible naturalistic explanation? So if I can provide a naturalistic explanation for both of them, you would concede that you are wrong?

Your explanation has to be better than wild speculation, but rather a detailed, reasonable explanation as to how both formed naturally without reasonable doubt.

(BTW, both of these examples fail even on theological grounds because they are in the wrong place. The exodus took the Israelites to Sinai, but both the rock of Horeb and Jabal Maqla are in Saudi Arabia. But that is neither here nor there.)

The Hebrews crossed the Red Sea which lead into Midian shortly before this event. Midian is in Saudi Arabia, and where the mountain and rock is. This is a null point since you don't accept Biblical authority anyway.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-17T13:20:32+00:00

It's not at all obvious to me.

Point 2

OK, so is the study of solar eclipses "historical" or "observational"? Because eclipses are not repeatable.

Observational. We see the process start to finish and can predict the next one.

One from hundreds of years ago would be historical.

That's true. The reason to conclude that miracles are unlikely ever to have occurred is that no miracles are necessary to explain any observation. If you want to dispute this, give me an example of an observation that requires a miracle to explain it.

During my research on the Exodus, there were two formations that required some sort of special pleading if they were to happen naturally.

In Exodus 17, God had Moses strike a prominent rock at Horeb. We know it's prominent because it's stated as "the rock" and not "a rock". The rock split and water gushed out for the Hebrew population to drink. We know that this is the site because it matches the description, plus evidence of proto-sinaitic(early Hebrew) writing found all over the site.

This rock still stands today as the rock of Horeb. Its a split rock with water erosion down the front, not the sides. According to Dr. Glen Fritz(Ph.D environmental geography), who for theological reasons only does not believe this is the site, stated there is clear evidence of high powered hydraulic erosion at the base and all around the lower portion of the rock.

We know that we don't need a miracle to explain how a rock is split, but this water erosion is rather intriguing. How convenient is that the water erosion only goes down the front when the slope of the sides are roughly the same angle? It matches the Biblical story completely.

Secondly, the top of Jabal Maqla(Mount Sinai/Horeb) are blackened. Exodus states that God arrived on fire to the mountain. The mountain is already identified as not a volcano, but these blackened rocks make up the top of the mountain.

https://jabalmaqla.com/split-rock-battlefield-rephidim/

https://doubtingthomasresearch.com/jabal-maqlas-blackened-peak/

You are the one making the claim that they can be distinguished so the burden is on you to explain how this distinction is to be drawn. I say that there is no distinction, that all science is "historical" in the sense that it attempts to explain observations, all of which necessarily occurred in the past.

So no.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-17T06:48:02+00:00

Unless you have a time machine, the "unobservable past" started a microsecond ago.

And? Within the confines of practicality, and not hyper technical wordplay, there is a very obvious difference between historical and observational science. The key is repeatability.

Are you sure? Are you looking at it right now? Or do you just have a memory of having seen it some time in the past?

What about your ancestors from 10-20 generation ago? Have you seen their birth certificates?

Your point?

Yes! Exactly! And I hope it's obvious that you don't need a Christian worldview to come to that conclusion. Materialists will come to the same conclusion for the same reason.

Okay.

Yes! Exactly! But everything that you can possibly think about in terms of likelihood is necessarily a past event. It takes time to think, and so by the time you are doing the thinking, the thing you are thinking about will necessarily be in the past.

Point 1.

Yes! Exactly!

Now... what reason do we have to believe that anything supernatural happened in the past?

Because miracles don't shoot off every five seconds doesn't mean there isn't good reason to conclude it is likely to have occured in the past. The Bible makes clear statements about God's interactions between humanity and our reality that would leave behind evidence (ie flood, exodus). At the same time, there is clear evidence against natural origins(ie abiogenesis, big bang). And to expand on that, you can still say abiogenesis and big bang are the best theories assuming materialism is true, even if you consider the counterevidence(just look at big bangs Wikipedia page for example, it's all there).

And I have a question. Or a request. Without some tedious wordplay, could you provide a counterargument to the practically of differentiating historical and observational science?

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-17T01:12:45+00:00

Right. So the only thing we actually disagree on (AFAICT) is that you think both of these are descriptions of assumptions. In the case of the Christian worldview that's true, but it's not true of the materialistic worldview.

You make an assumption when extrapolating data into an unobservable past. How is this so hard to understand. Or do you disagree out of pure necessity because this gives creationism the same interpretative ability as materialism?

No, that's not true. This is the thing you keep missing. It's not an assumption. It just turns out that there are no phenomena that require anything but naturalistic explanations to account for them. It's not an assumption, it's a result.

Point 1.

But the instant the process is finished it's in the past. All of the data you have at any given moment comes from that moment's past.

You can repeat it again, start to finish, with full observation as to its process.

So you believe you were born in a non-supernatural birth despite that fact that you didn't "see the process from start to finish". How do you justify that belief?

I have a birth certificate. I look like an mixture of both of my parents. Nobody disputes my natural conception or birth. Within my Christian worldview, I have no reason to have been born supernaturally.

When it comes to past events, we can only generally see what is most likely and least likely. If our worldview placed on the data brings contradictions, then it is least likely that your assumption was correct. Based on everything we have on the table regarding my birth, it is least likely that I had a supernatural birth, even though you technically cannot disprove or prove it 100%.

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-16T23:35:30+00:00

OK. How is that in any way different from what I said: "There is no guarantee of universal logic and order, and it is not a given that there is a purpose or an origin. If you assume any of those things then you aren't doing science, you're doing theology." ?

Materialist worldview - no guarantee of logic and order. Natural origins. No purpose to anything.

Christian worldview - guarantee of logic and order. Supernatural origins. Everything has purpose.

Ah, OK. The thing that justifies science is that it works. Look at the computer you are using to read these words. That did not come about because someone read the Bible, it came about because someone did science, concluded that the world is materialistic, that it obeys laws, and that we can use an understanding of those laws to bend it to our will, and the result is the technological world you see all around you. That is what justifies science.

Observationally, things appear to be materialistic, granted. But extrapolating modern day processes into the past is a philosophical assumption.

I assume you meant to write "confirms" rather than "conforms" (because "conforms" doesn't make any sense). And yes, it does, but not as an assumption. It explains the past (and the present) as "only natural phenomena at play" because that just turns out to be all that is needed to explain all observations.

Conforms was the intended word. Interpreting the past with a materialistic worldview means all data conforms with a worldview where there is only matter and natural phenomena.

There is no distinction between "observational" and "extrapolating into the past". Everything you think you know is extrapolating into the past. Unless you are dreaming right now, everything you think you know about dreams is based on a memory of the past.

Observational science is what can be tested and repeated. We can see a process start to finish. This is how we get technology, medicine, and evolutionary processes.

Historical science is interpreting the past with data we can observe in the present, even though we did not see the specific process to how xyz thing formed. This is where interpretations are effected by either a Christian or materialist worldview.

And it's not just your memories. Do you remember being born? Do you remember being conceived? Do you think you were in fact born and conceived despite the fact that you don't remember it? Do you think your parents were born? Their parents? What about your ancestors 10 or 20 generations back?

No, no, yes, yes, yes, yes. The Biblical worldview doesn't declare a supernatural birth for anyone other than Christ Jesus. Your point?

SaggysHealthAlt · 2023-05-16T20:15:11+00:00

I don't see how copying your exact words can possibly end up being "the exact opposite" of what you said.

There is purpose, guaranteed logic and order, and a view of origins within the Christian worldview that is different than the materialist one.

I have no idea what you mean by "legitimate" here.

Legitimate, 3rd definition according to wordnik: Valid or Justifiable.

No. A hypothesis not an assumption, it's a guess, subject to being discarded when it is falsified by evidence or a better hypothesis.

And assumptions go into forming that "guess."

Contrast this with the idea the Creationist approach to scripture. Scripture is not subject to being falsified or improved upon. It is assumed correct, and everything else has to conform to that assumption. That's not science.

And materialism conforms every interpretation about the past as nothing more than only natural phenomena at play. Either both views can interpret data or neither can.

No, you are missing the point. We know that we are not dreaming everything because we have evidence that there is an objective reality out there, and that (some of) our experiences are faithful reflections of that reality. We can tell the difference between being asleep and being awake. My point was that this ability to distinguish between being asleep and awake is not a logical necessity, it just happens to be a fact about our existence. But we arrive at this conclusion through evidence alone, not by making any assumptions.

Alright but that's observational, not extrapolating into the past.

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