If your sense of virtue and truth is based on the Bible, how can you start with something so hard to believe…that God created the heavens and the Earth in six days.
Bill Whittle asks, if God created everything in a week, why did he embed in His creation discoverable evidence that ‘creation’ took much longer? Is God trying to trick us? And if the Bible is not true, why should we base our ideas, morals and life on it?
The Virtue Signal — with Bill Whittle and Zo Rachel — examines the great ideas that underpin our existence and our debates on modern issues in the news. Our Members and donors fund it.
34 replies on “Two Domains: If Truth is Absolute, How Can Virtue Stand on an Unbelievable Creation Story”
Zoe’s breakdown of the first sentences of Genesis are very similar to my own. I don’t have the gift of reading in Hebrew. I have to resort to numerous translations to get the gist of the underlying meaning.
To me, there was always light in the beginning, but that darkness and chaos after the war in heaven was what obscured the stars. God separated the light from the darkness and gathered the water in, revealing the stars and their light otherwise they would have remained obscured and appear as light under water.
Did you know there’s compressed water deep in the ocean, heavier that that above it? Yet ‘fountains of the deep’ appears in the flood account.
And I didn’t know that space was expanding at an accelerated rate. Last time I checked, the rate of expansion had slowed down and shade was cast on past measurements.
Hmm. Maybe whatever is holding all this in has gotten thinner.
Finally got to listen to this one! Thank you guys for all of it. My 2 cents on the cosmic timeline: Given that we measure time by planetary motion, (Einstein’s Theory of) Relativity says that we *can* have it both ways.
Stipulating a ‘Big Bang’, starting with all of the matter & energy of the universe at a singularity, then matter/energy transitions from potential to kinetic energy. If ever there was a scenario justifying the assumption of relativistic effects (velocities approaching the speed of light, hence matter & energy transition between states), that’s it.
Now, consider an asymptotic graph of energy expended over time, like any explosion, and that our place on that timeline is now so far to the right that the resulting energy state/timeline appears flat and we’re essentially ‘coasting.’ Based on our timeline (energy state) we assume by observation that the stars & planets have always been going these same *relative* speeds. But as we look leftward on the graph, it suddenly gets very steep, back at say, 8000 years ago and relativistic effects become plausible – hence the definition of time itself changes and increasingly more physical events occur(ed) faster as the curve diverges from our steady timeline assumption. As the curve gets steeper, well:
“…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” – – 2 Peter 3:8
Ref: “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” (Zukav, 1984) for a very readable description of quantum physics and relativistic timelines, without the heavy math (sic).
FUN!
I support this show with my membership because I want your message to get out to others.
This time, I feel like the message was for me. Thank you both so much for all that you do, and hopefully my little monthly contribution helps y’all keep stuff like this coming.
Non- overlapping magisteria
It’s not that I don’t believe the big bang. I kind of do, in some form or another. But as a scientist, and I was trained in a science (atmospheric science) I know that the big bang is something WE THINK happened, based on extrapolating evidence that exists today, back into time. It’s an educated guess, and nothing more. So we have to be careful when we talk about it as established fact. It’s a model that we’ve created, created to be consistent with what we know … and probably some of what we THINK we know but don’t completely understand, either. Our understanding of the things that are here and now around us every day changes over time — and in the last, say, 200 years, rather quickly and accelerating.
In other words, we often can’t even take what we observe first hand as hard established fact (though our understanding of most of it has to be pretty good or we couldn’t have bridges and radios and computers and space ships).
Extrapolating what we think happened over time to a point in time where things could not have been anything like what we observe around us today introduces all KINDS of potential problems.
Re: Dark Matter…
As far as I can tell, dark matter is a theory made up to explain why there doesn’t appear to be as much matter in the universe as we think there should be based on our current understanding of physics and what we observe in the Universe. And I think that includes going back to the big bang. That right there should tell you something. What it tells me is that we don’t have the big bang right. Because it’s not even really consistent with the physics we know. So we made up some nebulous physics about something that we have zero understanding of to fill in the blanks.
It’s like a physics problem my oldest brother was working in some college homework and he kept coming up with an answer that was double what the answer in the back of the book was, and he was pulling his hair out trying to figure out where he went wrong.
My youngest brother, who was in about 4th grade at the time piped up and said “well why don’t you just divide by two?”
We can’t “see” dark matter. We’ve never observed it. We flat out made it up. All we can see is an effect we can’t explain … that would, under our understanding of the physics of the universe, be explained by more matter — that we can’t otherwise detect. So … we just “divided by two”. We said “it MUST be there”. But not necessarily. It is completely possible, and actually quite probable — that our physical explanation of the Universe isn’t completely accurate.
Which doesn’t make it useless. Not by a long shot. But there are limitations to what we can explain with it — especially at scales smaller and larger (in both time and space) than we are able to accurately observe.
Constraints.
Seriously, if you haven’t taken the time, and admittedly, it’s a LOT of time – like “Apollo” series time … to watch or listen to Jordan Peterson’s Genesis Biblical series and how he explains it … and he DOES talk about two domains … if you’re not convinced that his view is correct, you have to at least admit he gave you a lot to think about and a way to think about it.
Glancing at the comments I am impressed that most of them are cordial.
If we assume that were were “made in God’s image,” that, among many other things, suggests that God has a sense of what makes good art, and a desire for his work to qualify as such.
This suggests the Darwinian Pool Room hypothesis:
https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/sffaudio-usa/mp3s/DarwinianPoolRoomByIsaacAsimov.pdf
If we also assume that the entity that created the universe and everything in it, including every human that ever existed, was smart enough to understand what humans would be like, that also suggests that 1) He knew we’d bollox it up, and 2) He knew whatever explanation we came up with would not only be subject to the limits of our understanding, but also to the limits imposed by our media of communication.
This suggests How It Happened:
http://www.sumware.com/creation.html
And in fact (while I’m no Biblical scholar by any stretch) I think the Bible says quite plainly that no matter what we think we understand, we’re basically guaranteed to have misunderstood it, and gives many examples of people we revere as among the best of humanity (the Apostles) being told over and over, “No, that’s not what I was trying to tell you at all…”
One of my favorite “Creation myths” was done by one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett. The wizards of Unseen University created Roundworld by accident. They got a blob of continuum and stirred it up as an experiment. The Dean stuck his finger in it just to see what would happen. It was actually quite a small bang from the outside. But the nice part is that every major religion in the world actually got one thing right: The Universe really was created by an old man with a beard.
I call myself an agnostic. It might be too strong to say I don’t believe in God. I just think that if, among my postulates, “the Creator” is capable of not only making an entire universe from scratch, packing it all into a “cosmic egg,” lighting it off and knowing down to fine details what the results are going to be over 14 billion years later… well that guy is so far beyond me that any attempt I make to understand where he’s coming from is guaranteed to be way, WAY off the mark. I should no more be surprised by this than be surprised that a concussed duckling can’t do differential calculus in its head, and the number and quality of textbooks or other learning materials you provide for the duckling is completely beside the point.
Also keep in mind that the presumed “inspiration from God” comes from an entity that knew in advance that the result would have to inspire and motivate Judean shepherds, AND educated and knowledgeable people in modern Western culture.
Think about it, that’s a tall order all by itself. Maybe not of the same order as creating universes, but well beyond what you or I could be expected to do. And given that constraint, to expect modern Americans to be able to spot an illustrative metaphor when they see one does not seem unreasonable.
Christianity and Judaism are both about truth. The Catholic church promoted science as a way of understanding God’s creation. I think science as we know it (Karl Popper’s logical positivism) would not have come into existence without it. God is supernatural; he exists outside of time and space. Certainly, our understanding of the universe, past and present is much more consistent with the existence of God than not.
I can think of two books that could help here:
About 14 billion years, why do you think that number is anywhere near accurate? It is based on theories from long ago that have been changed, tweaked and adjusted because they weren’t right.
Let me use an story. An alien comes down from space. He examines a human teenager. He discovers the human is growing at one inch every year currently. The alien measures the human at 56 inches and concludes the human is 56 years old. How rational does that sound? Especially when he can talk to the humans father who witnessed his son’s birth 13 years ago.
Just because someone with a degree in bad science believes in uniformity that says what is happening today has always happened and at the same rate, doesn’t make it true. Reference: Mount St Helen’s erupted in 1980. People know that for a fact. Below the mountain is Spirit Lake. Following the eruption, the lake was clogged with trees, ash and soil from the mountain. The outlet from the lake was clogged, increasing the depth of the lake. By tidal effects the ash and soil shifted back and forth creating layers. The trees became water logged and sunk. Sometimes roots down. Sometimes branches down. Eventually a trickle of water came from the lake. The trickle erodes and widens until it gushes out.
The result is a deep canyon with a trickle at the bottom, multiple layers of sorted sandstone (and I do mean ‘stone’) and trees that have been petrified. Looks like the Grand Canyon. But not millions of years like the scientists say.
This is not an isolated incident. One only has to look around with an open mind and question.
Thank you for your time and musings.
Theistic evolution verses Atheistic evolution is doomed to fail every time. Both the creationist and the evolutionists reject theistic evolution arguments. The error comes in the use of Hebrew Alfonso has been taught. If your taught to use the 2nd century BC meaning of the word for a 2nd millennium BC use of the same word then you can’t read any language. What was the meaning of the word מַיִם mayim to Adam and Eve. Its just water not waste. Likewise rāḏâ dominion would be ‘take’, the simplest meaning of that primitive root verb. All the later meanings are derivative.
This is like seeing the word Bullet in a Latin text and assuming it means the Romans had guns, machine guns or cannon. Bullet in 20 BC meant a cast lead sling ‘stone’. With genesis you must look for the simplest first use meaning of a word. the prime root noun or verb not political and historical derivatives that would have come later.
You both made some good points, but being someone cut from much the same cloth as Bill, I believe that God *wants* us to try to discover how he pulled it off. And, perhaps in another few billion years (or whatever) we’ll have a pretty decent understanding of all but the all important nuances of this miracle we call the Universe. If we somehow manage to survive that long!
I love you guys and I too am sorry to see you both struggle with this. It’s quite clear in Genesis God created the heavens and earth in six literal days. There is no evidence for evolution, zero! Carbon dating is not accurate. They’ve come up with wide varying dates taken from different parts of the same animal.And how do you explain fossils of sea creatures being found in the mountains? It’s because there was a world wide flood. I would refer you as well to Answers in Genesis and Dr. Kent Hovind and his debates with atheists and gap theorists.
Zo I would also question your definition of hovering. In this context of Genesis 1:2 according to Strong’s concordance in Hebrew hovering means to grow soft, relax, to hover. Not angry. And if you read in Genesis 1:2″ the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep”. There was nothing there then for God to be angry with. It doesn’t make any sense. And just read through Gen 1: 1-31. It’s very clear God created the heavens and the earth during those six days. It is not a story of restoration, it is a story of creation, God says it Himself.
I’ve taken issue with you on a couple other false teachings. You seem to mix martial arts with Christianity. Jesus told Pontius Pilate if His kingdom were of this world His followers would come to His defense. All of His first twelve disciples went to their deaths in horrible ways. One was beheaded, another was skinned alive, another dragged behind a horse. Peter hung on a cross upside down.
Read Genesis again guys without thinking about it, without any preconceived ideas
Genesis 1
New King James Version
The History of Creation1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness [a]was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. [b]So the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 Then God said, “Let there be a [c]firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great [d]lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living [e]creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the [f]firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over [g]all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that [h]moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is [i]life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
That’s a long explanation to a longer issue.
Carbon 14 is an interesting theory that shows over a thousand year old difference between a creature and is self-grown shell. A root problem is that the dating system presupposes millions of years have past already and the rate of decades already balanced. If one sets the beginning decay rates at zero 7,000 years ago, the evidence is closer to accurate.
Flowers start as a tiny bud, and then they open into perfectly designed beauty that looks not much like the bud. So did the universe. There wasn’t any explosive disorganized bang. The universe simply opened and everything slid into place, just like a bud opens into a flower. Or perhaps the universe is still sliding into place.
Science. Don’t get confused with observational science and the ‘scientific’ interpretations of the observation. “The carbon 14 shows this, and so it must mean that.” Not all fossils are even hundreds of years old. Science is so much more interesting when there isn’t a pre-supposed conclusion before we start. Evolutionists tend to think everything supports evolution. It’s much more fun when we come at this with “Look at that! What did God do here?”
Thanks for the debate.
Bill I am a published young earth creationist and can instantly see all the assumptions you were taught, and your teacher was taught, in all the fields you mention. I’m an early member and supporter. I know where you are coming from and can answer all those questions. Jeremy Boreing’s answer is interesting but has been ruled out by creationist theologians millennia ago. The Bible is clear on that point. Jesus is clear on that point. We are given an account of creation in a specific impossible order and with a date that is calculatable specifically to deal with the atheist theories. Atheism is taught and mandated by all leftists and all dictatorships. That should be a clue that something is wrong. I am available to talk publicly or privately to both of you. I can do it on camera if needed.
Organizations like “Answers In Genesis” and “Institute for Creation Research” give extensive scientific explanations for why evolution and the billions of years myths are absurdly impossible. Faith is not blind. Evolution is a religion, also. Nobody can scientifically prove it unless you change the definition of “science.”
I’m in a creationist organization. CMI creation.com I even have a paper published in their peer review journal. CMI and Answers in Genesis was once the same organization until someone tried to sabotage it and we split for safety. Too many eggs in the same basket. There are several other organizations and creationist magazines/ journals across several languages. Its sad to see Bill and Alfonso make the mistake of debating something nether of them have been taught.
Amen. It’s tragic that secular conservatives and secularized Christian conservatives respect the communications skills of our Founding Fathers more than they respect God’s communications skills. Words mean things. God’s Words mean MORE. These people would never think of treating our Constitution with the contempt that they treat the Bible.
I spent over half of my life sworn to preserve, protect, and defend our amazing Constitution, and believe it to be the greatest writings in history, except for the Bible. That said, they don’t hold a candle to the Creator of the Universe. Whenever you hear somebody disparaging the literal meanings of God’s historical Word, you can bet that person also has something in their life that God’s moral Word calls out.
I always find it interesting that we have a God who teaches in parables… yet people insist on taking every word literally – especially when describing things that mankind didn’t have any framework of understanding in a scientific way. God explained things to people in the way they could comprehend.
Kind of like pi=3. Well… for a society that didn’t have decimals or positional notation, that’s about as good as you can get.
As for evolution, I believe God evolved our bodies… but MAN was created when God revealed Himself to Adam.
I believe faith, needs no proof.
I’m a young earth creationist and we don’t buy that. God made it testable. Assumptions drive evolutionism.
Got a definite feeling of “well smell me” on the closing remarks. Happy birthday, anyway .. young man.
We are still on day 7. My simple way of putting it: If we ever totally figure it out will we have a reason for living?
God is the Creator. Not the magician.
check out starlight and time:
https://www.amazon.com/Starlight-Time-Russell-Humphreys-Ph-D/dp/0890512027
The theory presented suggests earth was created within a white hole and the event horizon passed the earth.. hence time dilation
He also points out that Hawking invented an entriley nedw dimension for 3d space to be distributed over just so he could explain the background radiation is the same no matter what direction we look. We would expect one place of the sky to be” hotter” because that is where the big bang happened. An alternate explanation is simply that – we are near the origin point of the universe… it IS the simplest explanation for that.
Just noticed that if you don’t press “read more” you can’t see the links.
If you look for God, you will find Him.
Astrophysicist Sara Saviander has a great web site called SixDayScience.com “Faith in science, science in faith.” Read how science led her from atheism to Christianity.
Brainiac Stephan Myer did a fantastic interview on the Babylon Bee recently that was good enough to watch a couple of times. He not only discusses the possibilities of the abiogenesis, but Anthropic Cosmic Principle (the idea that the universe if finely tuned for life). So life forming by itself from the primordial soup? Nope. The earth being a fluke of the universe capable of supporting human life? Nope.
Science is increasingly supporting the notion of God.
Still listening to this one; but, it occurs to me to ask Bill how he might create something; anything, a ham-sandwich… Would you create it without order; would you stand across the room and throw the fix’ns at a plate?
I would not begin to say that I KNOW anything, let alone explain how or why God might do something; but…
As you said at the beginning, God can do whatever, whenever…
However, I would postulate, whatever God made, it would always have order. To make a worm… you need a place for it, and something for it to eat (et al.) i.e. dirt and decay. So, worm life – day 1 – decayed matter is necessary.
Move to the universe. If you want to make a planet right here… You need matter, gravity… if you want it to stay here you need (gravitational) forces from other (heavenly) bodies – stars, planets…
At what point would you expect to see the strings, glue… to show a start point/date…?
Back to the ham sandwich:
We need grains that came from dirt that came from… that took time. A pig that needs slop, dirt, water, and it came from… that takes time too. Lettuce needs dirt, water… and time.
Imagine yourself as God wanting a ham sandwich. You CAN create ALL of EVERYTHING with a thought; you know what’s needed. BANG! You make a sandwich. You eat and…
Now someone comes along and see’s what you created (as precursors to the fix’ns). Why does it look like it’s been there so long?
Is the Bible the exact word of God or does it “contain” the word of God? Might I suggest that it was “transcribed” such that we can understand!?
Love the HOW and WHY discussion.
This is great! The insight and interplay between you causes many others to see truth that has escaped them. That breaking down of confusion can open many hearts to meet their Savior in a powerful way. Thank you.
The best answer I ever heard on Evolution was in my Freshman biology class in high school, taught by a Catholic nun who was somewhere between 60 and 100 years old (is there any other kind?). When the question of Evolution came up, she had a simple answer:
“The Bible says that that the world was created in seven days. The Bible also does not say how long those days were.”
She then proceeded to teach evolution in a manner that would thrill every secularist out there. I found that quote works wonders in shutting up Left Wing Extremists (is there any other kind?) trying to crow over Conservatives beung “anti-science”
The nun had a point. The word “Day” there had multiple meanings. Like it does now. Day. 24 HR day, or day as opposed to night? Which are you talking about? Given that the sun happened in “day” 4, its pretty clear we are not talking about our 24 HR day. The word can easily be translated to “time period”. Context is the key.