Tag Archives: Creationism

Podcasts

William Dembski answers the top 3 objections to intelligent design

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New podcast from the ID the Future podcast. (RSS feed)

The MP3 file is here.

Here are the objections he addressed:

  1. Just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean that it was designed because improbable things occur all the time.
  2. You can’t infer design if the object is sub-optimally designed, or exhibits evil
  3. But intelligent design is just re-packaged creationism

I worry about Dr. Dembski because he takes a lot of heat from these evolutionists, who are not fit to shine his shoes. But he sounds very happy and comfortable in this podcast, so I was very happy.

William Dembski’s new book

OK, everybody knows that I am an old-earth creationist and a strong supporter of intelligent design. Whenever some tries to tell me that the doctrine of the Fall explains all the evil in the world, I just roll my eyes and fold my arms. Because that’s just young-earth stuff, right? WRONG!

Check out the endorsements for Bill’s new book “The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World”. Bill accepts the standard dating, as do I, but he obviously does not accept evolution, and neither do I.

Well, I went straight to the endorsements. Everybody who is anybody is raving about this book, including some real heavy hitters like Don Page at the University of Alberta.

Here are a few of the endorsers:

  • Frank Turek
  • Hank Hanegraaff
  • Douglas Groothuis
  • Michael Licona
  • Gary R. Habermas
  • Peter S. Williams
  • Chuck Colson
  • Norman Geisler
  • John A. Bloom
  • Steve Fuller
  • Henry F. Schaefer III
  • Josh and Sean McDowell
  • Stephen T. Davis
  • Don Page
  • J. P. Moreland

I noticed he’s got TWO peer-reviewed papers on intelligent design that will be in print shortly. Here’s the first one and here’s the second one.

Ken Ham says that I am right about how to fix the church

Oh, I get a lot of flack from mean young-earth people who tell me that I am wrong to emphasize apologetics, and that I should really be focusing on praise songs and worship instead. (I am kidding!) But Ken Ham did some surveys of young people and he says that singing is dead last in the list of things that young people want in church. And he also says that apologetics is the answer for curing the the mass exodus of young people from the church.

The MP3 file is here. (35 minutes, 14 megs)

Listen to the last 10 minutes, especially.

Well, I agree with Ken Ham on that much, at least! Bet you’d never thought I would agree with him on anything!

(By the way, I know how kids think. I used to be a volunteer camp counselor, volunteer swimming instructor, volunteer athletic supervisor, volunteer apologetics instructor, paid math teacher, and paid math tutor)

Commentary

Different perspectives on the days of Genesis

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Over at Tough Questions Answered, they survey different views on the days of creation described in Genesis. Basically, there are two views: the young-earth creationist view, the old-earth creationist view. (Theistic evolution is nothing but atheism).

As my bio describes, I favor the old-earth view. I believe in micro-evolution (adaption to environment within different body plans), but I don’t believe that macro-evolution has been demonstrated in the fossil record or in the lab or in mathematical models of likely mutations and development parthways.

Christians are delighted to that the Bible is in agreement with what scientists have discovered about the origin of the universe, and it’s careful design to support the minimal requirements for complex life of any conceivable kind (given our physical laws and chemical diversity). But there is still one apparent disagreement between the Bible and science.

The apparent disagreement is that the book of Genesis describes the creation (asah, bara) of the earth as taking place in a series of days (yom). But there seems to be a tension between 6 24-hour days and a 4 billion year old earth. Are we stuck with a contradiction between science and Scripture here?

Here’s what TQA says:

The word yom can mean several things in Hebrew.  It can refer to a 24-hour period or it can refer to longer periods of time.  Which is the correct interpretation in Genesis 1?

In fact, Genesis 2:4 uses the word yom to describe the entire week of creation. And, St. Augustine, writing in the 5th century, interpreted the yoms of Genesis to be long periods of time, not 24-hour days. (And he also predicted the beginning of time at the creation).

For a solid scientific treatment that explains the possible meanings of yom and tries to reconcile it with what science tells us about the age of the earth, take a look at this paper by Dr. Walter Bradley of Baylor University.

Here is an excerpt that explains what the paper is about:

In this paper we would like to focus on the interpretation of the Hebrew words “yom” and “bara/asah” as they are used in the early chapters of Genesis to describe the time frame and mechanism of creation. A careful examination of both biblical and scientific data will be summarized. A critique of the current models based on this data will be made leading to our summary of how at present we think one may best harmonize all of the available information.

I think there are solid young-earth creationists out there, like Paul Nelson and Marcus Ross, but I agree with Bradley and Augustine on this question.

One last thing – the dividing line between Christian and non-Christian views on this issue depends on how you answer this question: “Does nature, including the realm of biology, show signs of having being created and designed by an intelligent agent – signs that are independent of the religious beliefs of observers”.

Both young earth and old earth creationists answer “yes”. Yes, the universe shows signs of being programmed by an Engineer. Atheists and “theistic evolutionists” answer no, there universe was not programmed by an Engineer. Intelligent design people also answer “yes”, but their theory is strictly mathematics (probability theory). What Genesis says is not relevant to intelligent design.