Debate Update
It went well. The two sides were equitable, loving, and most importantly… focused on Christ.
That being said, I couldn’t get past the marrying of the “First book” – e.g., Scripture, with the “second book” – e.g., Nature. I believe that this marriage is a good one, but when one imposes empiricism that has embedded itself within modern science, and thus how they view this “magisterium” (Gould). Saying that this “book” (“scientism”) should be wedded to Thee Book just because you (insert here Kenneth Samples) look at nature differently than most of the science/scientists do is, well, not very heartwarming to the followers of Thee Book.
There were lot of things running through my head, ocean pressure as well as inner earth pressures and the effect they have as you go deeper on uranium leakage, etc. So I figured I would ask a question about a book written by two atheists called Forbidden Archaeology. I explained that they have good evidence to show man lived during the many epochs of geological time. After mentioning man-made items found in the 2.8 billion year old layer, I stressed the point that I was a young earth creationist, how then should a Christian theist look at this evidence.
I was hoping that Dr. Reynolds would pick up on the fact that I didn’t support the 2.8 billion years old “factoid” I had just mentioned and he could have mentioned that a worldwide flood would be a better explanation of that type of evidence than that of a local flood.
You see, you have two models, one says that man-and-dinosaur were separate by millions of years, thus no evidence of man-and-dinosaur coexistence should be expected to be found. However, if the earth is young, this co-existence should be found. Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson shows this evidence to be quite dramatic. However, Cremo and Thompson do not believe in God or a young earth, thus challenging the empiricism imbedded in the naturalistic sciences, they – that is Cremo and Thompson – believe man (at least on earth) to be about 3-billion years old, but maybe even older than that.
I was hoping my quoting a 2.8 billion year old manmade item, and then saying I am a young earth creationist would spur a response outside of the Augustinian debate that ensued. That aside, many of the evidences for man’s “old-age” (really a young age when the assumptions behind the dating methods are realized) are rock solid. The man-made items coming from the mines in
Or the 1000[+]-yr-old carving in the Ta Prohm
I should have worded my question a bit different, but even then I doubt that would have dissuaded them from discussing the church fathers.
Dr. Reynolds had one heck of a finish when he started to talk about the animal issue (the “don’t slaughter an animal before you kill” it part). I would have liked to go over the audio on that so I could unpack it more. Very deep moral philosophy there, I loved it.
I think the only person who got my question was my fellow compatriot in the young earth faith,
Oh Well, I will have that question polished the next time I ask it. He probably got all the straw-men arguments as well, like the fossils being placed in the geological column by God rather than a world-wide flood/catastrophe.
