The Faith - Chapter 2 part 1

Anything I cite from the book is used under Fair Use Copyright Laws within the US.

Been busy and I haven't had a chance to write this in awhile, but I am getting back to it finally.

Chapter 2 - God Is

This chapter starts with Colson quoting Sam Harris' book Letter to a Christian Nation and the talk of Hurricane Katrina. Colson compares the lose that so many suffered, good christian people that prayed all their life like Harris said, to his son having cancer and Colson having to wait through an 11 hour surgery before he got they good news that his son would be fine and shortly after his daughter is diagnosed with minor skin cancer which is successfully removed also. So yes, losing your everything you own, your town, loved ones and friends is equivalent to Colson having to sit through an 11 hour surgery. What an arrogant prick.

Colson then gives several straw men of worldviews that oppose his own. Describing evolution as mere chance and believers in Spinoza's God as tree hugging hippies who "join environmental groups and even flock to mountain tops to experience the 'harmonic convergence' of natural forces." He also claims that people who worship Spinoza's God, he includes Einstein as an example, are strict determinists "they don't believe people make their own decisions." Yes, Einstein who showed why determinism can't possibly be correct on the quantum level.

He takes these straw men even further claiming they are the only 3 major ideas of the origin of the Universe. He lists them as a purely Materialistic Godless Universe, a Universal Mind/God is present in all things (Spinoza's God) and a Personal God. Sorry my deistic friends that believe in an impersonal God that started the universe and let it evolve on its own is right out. So already Colson has committed the logical fallacy of false dichotomy or in this case trichotomy.

The first option is "A Godless Material Universe". Colson explains it as the idea "that the material universe is the sum and substance of all that exists and that it has either always existed or it came into existence without a cause. Therefore, natural explanations suffice to answer all questions about the nature and origin of the universe and of life." Colson proceeds to do one of Ray Comfort's standard canards of everything came from nothing. He then compounds it by saying that it is mere chance that stars were formed and intelligent life came about. These are two different claims and are both straw men.

First the idea that everything came from nothing. This is because we know the universe had a beginning, the Big Bang. So what happened before the Big Bang? To some extent that is an absurd question as time did not exist before the Big Bang, but we can still call it before even if there technically was no before. So what was there? Was it nothing or was it something? The answer is yes. It was nothing and something at the same time. This is a very complicated topic and it is best left to physicists, of which I am not, so here is Lawrence Krauss. This video is an hour long but well worth the watch.



The idea that it is mere chance is also wrong, unless he thinks the laws of physics are mere chance. What created the stars was gravity. Here are two articles from space.com on the subject:

First Star in the Universe Born With the Help of Dark Matter

The First Star: Things Heated up Quickly

This is not mere chance. There are certain ways that matter and energy react with one another. It is those reactions that create the universe. When it comes to the complexity of life, it is based off of those reactions and environmental pressures (aka natural selection). Mutations are random, but selection for mutations is not. Colson continues with an argument from personal incredulity added to the straw man of evolution he created.

Option number two is "God Is an Intelligent Presence in All Things, a Universal Mind". He starts this section by continuing to beat on his straw man of the first option:

"Our universe has an intelligible character for which the material theory cannot account. It can be investigated, reasoned about, and its phenomena translated into elegant mathematical expressions, like Einstein's E=MC^2. How can the intelligible, the predictable, and the uniform emerge out of pure chance?"

Not just wrong but fractally wrong, that is it is wrong in the whole and wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution (one exception Einstein did come up with the equation E=MC^2). What this has to do with the a universal mind, absolutely nothing. Colson is just beating his dead straw man further.

The next claim is that "many of the greatest scientists have concluded that an ultimate intelligence must be present in all things, if not behind them." Besides this being the logical fallacy an appeal to authority, he doesn't list the scientists or provide any evidence for this claim or what constitutes "the greatest scientists" except for making a claim as to what Einstein believed. No other scientists are mentioned. I personally get the feeling that Colson doesn't care about backing up any of his claims but actually thinks an appeal to random unmentioned authority is a valid argument.

Colson goes on to compare Einstein's Spinoza's God to Eastern religions, whatever that means and I think Hindus would like to talk to him about their Gods especially since Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world, and New Age spiritualism as all the same thing. Claiming that they are strict determinists. A claim that he yet again provides no evidence for. Yet he goes to demonize all these groups through the idea of strict determinism saying that Einstein "thought human beings were no more responsible for their own actions than a chicken laying an egg." I don't know where Colson pulled this idea out of but I have a clue. If you are really interested in learning about Einstein's religious views click here, they are varied and interesting. You will notice that Einstein spoke out against theological determinism, which is a Christian idea.

Finally, Colson presents his third theory, a personal god. His reason, again if you have visited Ray Comfort's site you will have heard this before, is look at nature, look at the trees and look at the mountains. He claims that because we can find beauty in the world then it must mean that God exists and the beauty is an expression of this love. He actually writes look at the trees, mentioning apple blossoms in particular. Colson can not think of any reason for flowers to be pretty other than God. This again shows the shallow thinking of Chuck Colson. He either does not, can not or will not look at the evolutionary biological reasons for colorful flowers. Here are a couple of articles from Science Daily and Wikipedia on the evolution of flowers and why they are colorful (1 2 3), hint it is to attract pollinators. This claim is also just one large logical fallacy, argument from personal incredulity, just because Colson can't understand the biological reasons for plants ("The scientist may look at the white clouds of apple blossoms as nothing more than an adaptive response, but if only an adaptive response were required, then why this dazzling display? And why should the ingenious cooperation of the blossoms and bees be called for?") does not mean that it can't be understood.

This is the only evidence Colson provides, beauty in nature followed by a scripture in the Bible. Does that mean anything ugly or abhorrent found in nature, like worms that can only live by mating in the eyes of certain primates (humans and baboons mainly) or parasites that can only live by atrophying the tongues of other animals and replacing it with themselves, proves that there is no God? He does not consider the question in his book, but I would guess the answer to be no. The blame of such things is laid down to a "fallen world full of sin". This makes the hypothesis of beauty reveling God completely unfalsifiable and worthless for science or the philosophy of science.

I am stopping my review of this chapter for now and will continue more later. Colson continues to build on these straw men and does some quote mining too.

tUPoC Chapter 1 Section 5

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Worldviews - the heart and soul of Lisle's argument and consequently AiG's argument

"Most people today have not given much thought to their own worldview. In fact, many people do not even realize they have a worldview. Such people tend to think that all knowledge is acquired by unbiased observation of the evidence around us. This view is called “empiricism” and is itself a kind of worldview. We cannot help but have some beliefs about how the world works, how we attain knowledge, and how we should live. Even if we believe that we have no such beliefs — this is itself a belief. So there’s no escaping it. A worldview is inevitable. A rational worldview is not."

Because I never trust a liar even when they tell me what day it is, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from sense experience. So observing the world and trying to understand it by observation is a worldview.

So what is a worldview? Lisle actually defines it: "Worldview: a network of our most basic beliefs about reality in light of which all observations are interpreted." These are also called presuppositions. In the sake of argument, I will grant Lisle that everyone has a worldview and that some knowledge is derived from this worldview. I will also grant him that not all worldviews are rational. His semantic game with belief is just that semantics. He is trying to set up a 'see all scientists believe in it that makes it a religion therefor creationism should be taught in school also'. I plan to show why this won't stand.

"Our worldview is a bit like mental glasses. It affects the way we view things. In the same way that a person wearing red glasses sees red everywhere, a person wearing “evolution” glasses sees evolution everywhere. The world is not really red everywhere, nor is there evolution everywhere, but glasses do affect our perception of the world and the conclusions we draw. We will find in this book that the Bible is a bit like corrective lenses. Without “biblical glasses,” the world appears fuzzy and unclear. But when our thinking is based on the Bible, the world snaps into focus: it makes sense."

This is just Ken Ham's regular garbage and you can see him say the same thing countless times on any number of videos on YouTube.

The idea of seeing evolution everywhere because of one's worldview is completely wrong. If we only interpreted everything through a worldview then evolution would have never existed, the world would be flat, the sun would travel around the Earth and Gods throwing lightning would all still be widely held beliefs. You see something happened. Someone started to investigate things and found real facts. These facts went against what that person knew or against their worldview. Instead of trying to explain away these facts, they followed them to find out real truth.

Copernicus and Galileo both grew up knowing that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the sun, moon and all the stars orbited around the Earth. That was the worldview. Yet they both discovered facts that proved their worldview wrong. Instead of hiding these facts away, they looked into it more. What they both discovered was that the Earth orbited the sun. The solar system was not geocentric but heliocentric.

In the same way, Charles Darwin joined the crew of the Beagle as a naturalist to study the geology of South America. He collected many samples and started to notice things that did not fit with special creation or Lamarckian evolution. Things like animals on islands more closely resemble animals from the mainland they are closest too rather than animals on other similar islands. It seemed as if the island animals and plants descended from the mainland animals and plants. This amongst his many other discoveries caused Darwin to doubt special creation and helped him to develop the first Theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection.

I could show even more examples through out the history of science all the way to modern day examples of Albert Einstein and Relativity. None of these men started off thinking that their worldview was 100% correct. Instead each of them found facts that went against their worldview and they adjusted what they thought according to the facts, not the other way around. What Lisle is implying is that everyone just changes the facts to fit their worldview. He is projecting, because that is exactly what he and all creationists and Intelligent Design advocates do. This is also just a giant straw man and he knows it to be so. I can say that because Lisle has a PhD in astrophysics from a reputable school. There is no way he could have gone through his degree without learning this. He is a charlatan and con artist in the name of religion. He joins a long line of charlatans for religion including his boss Ken Ham.

"Just as a person wearing red glasses perceives the world differently than a person wearing clear, prescription lenses, so evolutionists “see” the world differently than creationists. We have the same facts. But what we make of those facts is colored by our worldview. Thus, creationists and evolutionists interpret the same facts differently. This point cannot be overstated. Much of the frustration in arguments over origins stems from a failure to recognize that creationists and evolutionists must interpret the same data differently due to their different worldviews."

This is a lie. How did evolution start, Lisle? Did Darwin go out and say, "Hey I have this idea of evolution. Now I just need to find evidence to prove it." OF course he didn't. Everything I said earlier, which can easily be backed up by facts, shows that worldviews do not shape evidence, unless you let them. In the case of creationists, they insist on not only reinterpreting data, but cherry picking the data that fits their ideas best. Ignoring or trying to invalidate radiometric dating, physics all together and geological strata to name a few things. These things were not built upon presuppositions or worldviews but on cold hard facts that Lisle and his ilk choose to continually ignore.

"Many people do not want to accept the fact that all evidence must be interpreted in light of prior beliefs — a faith commitment of some kind. Many believe that evidence should be approached in a neutral and unbiased fashion — without any previous beliefs. However, this is impossible. For this view is itself a belief about how evidence should be interpreted."

This is utter bullshit. Then how are new ideas brought about? If we can only interpret things from the point of view of our worldview then how did these worldviews diverge? Historically it can be shown that there was no "evolution worldview", so where did it come from if "all evidence must be interpreted in light of prior beliefs"? He has no answer except to possible say that the Devil did it. Invoking some sort of supernatural occurrence, because according to his definition, someone cannot change their mind from looking at facts. Reread if you think I am misinterpreting him, he said "all evidence must be interpreted in light of prior beliefs" and "We have the same facts. But what we make of those facts is colored by our worldview." So Lisle explain how men who started with one worldview and changed to a different and new worldview. Explain why I started with a Biblical literalistic worldview but after studying the facts myself, changed my mind to what you call an evolutionist worldview. How does that happen if I only interpret evidence according to my worldview? He has no answer for this.

"Moreover, in order for our observations of evidence to be meaningful, we would have to already believe that our senses are basically reliable. It would do no good to observe some piece of evidence if we did not believe our observations are real and reliable."

Actually no we don't. Most people understand that our senses are not perfect or entirely reliable. We are fooled all the time by magicians, optical illusions, psychological phenomena like pareidolia, confirmation bias and many more that I can't begin to list them all here. (As a side note, confirmation bias is what Lisle is talking about when he says we interpret evidence by our worldview.) This is why science relies on peer review. A single person can draw conclusions based on their own observations, but to determine if those conclusions are correct it is not left to any one single person. Instead it is tested over and over again, to make sure that the conclusion holds. Even after holding for several years, it will continually be tested until it fails or is replaced by something that better fits the data and explains why the previous explanation held so well. Scientists do not make a name for themselves by upholding current Theories, instead they make a name by replacing old Theories with new and improved ones. The incentive is for scientists to overturn Theories.

"We cannot avoid wearing “mental glasses” — having a worldview — but it is crucial to wear the right glasses. In the same way that a person wearing red glasses might erroneously conclude that everything in the world is red, so a person with a wrong worldview will draw incorrect conclusions about the universe. But a correct worldview can prevent us from drawing the wrong conclusions and can improve our understanding of the world."

Look up the definition of hubris and will find a picture of Lisle with this statement next to it. He is not only claiming that his worldview is correct but because of that he will never draw a wrong conclusion about the universe because of it. Not once will you see any science make the claim they are 100% right 100% of the time. This is a level of arrogance that only the devoutly religious can claim.

"For example, when I observe a magician cut a person in half, I conclude that it’s a trick — no one was really cut in half, regardless of what I thought I saw. I draw this conclusion not because of the evidence, but because my worldview prevents me from drawing the wrong conclusion."

Wrong. You draw the conclusion because of evidence. You know it is illegal to kill someone. You know that when someone is cut in half they will die. You know that someone would have to have a mental problem or an accident to occur for them to advertise and cut a person in half before a crowd. You know you are there expecting to be fooled, only a few performing magicians claim or do not refute to have real powers (though none will submit to the JREF million dollar challenge).

Now if Lisle was going off of his worldview, then he could not know if it was a trick or not. Considering that his worldview allows for miracles and the Bible states that others will come doing miracles but not be of God (2 Thessolonians 2:9). So are miracles possible or not? Instead Lisle is using facts not his worldview to come to the conclusion it is a trick. This completely refutes his own example.

"For example, suppose that your neighbor tells you that she saw a UFO last night. Your worldview will immediately kick in and help you process and interpret this evidence. As your neighbor provides additional details, you will begin forming hypotheses based on your worldview. Perhaps she saw an alien spaceship. Perhaps it was a top secret government experimental aircraft. Maybe she had been drinking again last night. Or perhaps she merely saw the planet Venus. The conclusion you draw will be influenced not only by the evidence, but also by your general understanding of the universe. If you are convinced that extraterrestrial life does not exist, then clearly you will not draw the conclusion that your neighbor saw an alien spacecraft. Your worldview constrains and guides your interpretation of the evidence. This is true of every aspect of life. From UFOs or magic tricks to fossils and DNA, our worldview tells us what to make of the evidence."

Actually, I know of someone that claims to have seen a UFO. She thinks it was an alien ship. I have no basis to think she was lying, nor do I have anyway of refuting her claim. Personally, without any evidence but her own eye witness account, I don't think she saw an alien aircraft. I don't know what she saw. Why did I come to the conclusion that she didn't see an alien spacecraft? Evidence. I believe that there is alien life in the universe. There very well could be an alien race that is more advanced than we are. I have just seen no evidence of any contact by aliens to our planet. I am not saying that it could not happen, but that I find it very unlikely to have happened without any hard evidence. An eye witness is not always reliable, here we are getting back to our senses and their reliability. If more convergent evidence came out showing that we have been or are being visited by aliens then I will change my opinion.

"At this point, we have not yet made an argument that Christianity is the correct worldview — that it alone provides the correct way to interpret evidence in regard to origins (or any other issue). But by now it should at least be very clear that everyone interprets evidence in light of his or her worldview. And it is clear that creationists and evolutionists have different worldviews, and as a result, they interpret the same evidence differently. For this reason, evidence by itself will not cause a person to reconsider his worldview. Any scientific evidence can be interpreted in such a way as to fit into any given worldview."

Yet more projection. This is not how science works, this is how Lisle does "science". Lisle has yet to explain how a new worldview can come into being if all evidence is is interpreted based on one's worldview. The history of science shows it happening all the time. It is because science goes where the facts and evidence lead, it does not cherry pick and force facts into a predetermined view. This is even before going into falsifiability.

"A creationist looking at comets concludes that the solar system is young. An evolutionist looking at comets concludes that there must be an Oort cloud. A creationist examining the information in DNA concludes that there is a Creator. An evolutionist looking at the same information concludes that mutations or some unknown mechanism has generated such information. An evolutionist looking at the similarities in the genetic code of various organisms concludes that they must have a common ancestor. A creationist looking at those same similarities concludes that those organisms must have a common Creator."

An "evolutionist" then goes looking for evidence that will either prove them right or wrong and if wrong redetermines what the evidence is pointing towards even if it goes against their personal bias or, as Lisle calls it, worldview. A creationist just sits back and says "God did it" and never looks again. The creationist will also cherry pick quotes and findings of scientists and claim it fits creationism.

"We all interpret the facts in light of our worldview. Any evidence that seems to challenge our worldview can always be explained by invoking a rescuing device. Many debates on origins are not very effective because the opposing parties do not understand the nature of worldviews, evidence, and rescuing devices. Creationists can be frustrated that evolutionists are not persuaded by the evidence; but evolutionists feel the same way about creationists. Such frustration stems from a failure to consider the real issue: people always interpret evidence in a way that is compatible with their worldview. Thus, evidence by itself will never settle the debate."

Except scientists don't use rescuing devices, instead they have hypotheses that they test over and over again until they fail. At that point they reevaluate the evidence and let the evidence point to what is happening. Then that is tested over and over again until it fails. The testing never stops. Creationists never test and never continue beyond "God did it".

Lisle has some closing remarks about the next chapter. As I refuse to buy the book, I am not going on here. I think I am just going to go over Charles Colsen's book "The Faith" as my mom is insistent that I read it. This is another clue that my parents know of my atheism and yet don't want to talk about it.

Physics - Bruce Malone Is Doing It Wrong

Creation Science Evangelism is the company started by convicted felon Kent Hovind. It is currently being run by Kent's son Eric Hovind. One of the current articles, on the web site, is "Physics Show That Six Day Creation is Possible" by Bruce Malone. In this article Bruce makes some pretty amazing claims on the Theory of Relativity. In particular, the idea of Time Dilation.

Before I continue, I want it to be known that I am copying this article under Fair Use and abiding by all the laws thereof. It is sad I have to state that but Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) has attempted to silence its critics in the past.

Exodus 20:11 makes one of the most unbelievable statements of the Bible: "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day." It is hard to imagine a clearer statement defining how long God took in creating the entire universe. However, this simple statement has presented a seemingly impossible dilemma for Christians. On one hand, modern cosmology teaches that the universe has taken billions of years to form. On the other hand, if this clear and straightforward statement of the Bible can not be trusted to mean what it says, how can we know that any statement of the Bible can be trusted to mean what it says?

Well that is not the only place in the Bible where it makes that claim. Most people reference Genesis Chapter 1 and the first few verses of Chapter 2. It also really isn't that seemingly impossible dilemma for Christians, just for those that believe in an errant Bible and special creation.

Also there is the assumption that the word ~wy or yowm means a 24 hour period. In reality it can mean day, time, or year. This is the word used in Genesis and Exodus when describing creation.

This is all just scratching the surface of what is wrong with the first creation story presented in Genesis. Things like light being created before the sun. The earth being created before the sun. Birds being created before land animals. Water being above the sky. Water not being created just God suddenly dividing it, where did it come from? None of that is covered in this article, so continuing on.

This was the dilemma which Dr. Russell Humphreys (physicist at Sandia National Laboratory) set out to solve as he studied what the Bible had to say about the formation of our universe. Most people have been taught that the universe is the result of a gigantic explosion called the "Big Bang".

Sorry, I am stopping him here. He has just created a straw man. No one who understands the Big Bang Theory claim the universe is the result of a gigantic explosion. What the real belief is that the universe experienced rapid expansion, like when you blow up a balloon. There was no explosion. As a matter of fact, with the right instruments we can still observe the expansion of the universe to this day as it is ongoing.

During this explosive expansion, all the matter of the universe supposedly expanded outward from a tiny pinpoint. All modern cosmological models start with the assumption that the universe has neither a center nor an edge. When these assumptions are plugged into Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the result is an expanding universe which is billions of years old at every location.

Again, it was not an explosion. Pinpoint is too big, it was far smaller than that. Yes, there is no center of the Universe. To go back to the balloon analogy, the universe would be more akin to the skin of the balloon. It is expanding but where does the expansion start for the skin of the balloon? For a more detailed explanation you can read the Usenet Physics FAQ by Don Koks with this particular article being written by Philip Gibbs in 1997. To claim that there is a center to the Universe is absurd and shows a complete lack of understanding in Cosmology and Physics. The edge of the Universe is similar. There is no physical edge, but gravity creates a type of edge. According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which is supposedly what this article is about, gravity curves space. It is possible that there is so much mass in the Universe that gravity curves the Universe around back onto itself. Again like the balloon analogy, find the edge of the balloon. You can't, it just goes around and around (ignoring where you blow the balloon up at). What the article is asking you to do is to find the edge of the Earth, and then claiming because you can't the Earth must be infinite in size. Again a basic misunderstanding of Cosmology and Relativity. As you can see from the University of Michigan's website Windows to the Universe this question is asked by a 9, 12 and 13 year old. One would think a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory would understand the universe a bit better.

Rather than start with these arbitrary assumptions (a universe having no center and no edge), Dr. Humphreys decided to take the most apparent meaning of the Biblical text and see what model of the universe developed. He reasoned that if the Bible was inspired by God, as it claims to be, it should not have to be twisted to be understood. It should have the same straight forward meaning for a "man on the street", a brilliant physicist, or a theologian.

Again, these are not arbitrary assumptions, these are observable facts. This is just another straw man.

So, Dr. Humphreys decides to throw out facts and starts to build an imaginary universe based on the Bible. The rest of it, I could not agree more with. If the Bible was inspired by a creator god, then it should be accurate in every detail of that creation. It is just those pesky facts keep getting in the way. Things like the Earth revolves around the Sun, the Moon is not a source of light, sunlight couldn't exist without the Sun, you know things like that.

The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center-perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out". Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center.

Okay, now we have something that is testable. This so far looks like good science. If any of these things is not true then the Bible is wrong about the Universe and about creation. Which, according to Bruce at the beginning of this article, means that we cannot trust anything the Bible says. ("...if this clear and straightforward statement of the Bible can not be trusted to mean what it says, how can we know that any statement of the Bible can be trusted to mean what it says?")

Well, as I pointed out earlier there is no center of the Universe. In fact quoting the article by Philip Gibbs that I posted earlier.

In 1929 Edwin Hubble announced that he had measured the speed of galaxies at different distances from us, and had discovered that the farther they were, the faster they were receding. This might suggest that we are at the centre of the expanding universe, but in fact if the universe is expanding uniformly according to Hubble's law, then it will appear to do so from any vantage point.

If we see a galaxy B receding from us at 10,000 km/s, an alien in galaxy B will see our galaxy A receding from it at 10,000 km/s in the opposite direction. Another galaxy C twice as far away in the same direction as B will be seen by us as receding at 20,000 km/s. The alien will see it receding at 10,000 km/s:

A B C
From A 0 km/s 10,000 km/s 20,000 km/s
From B -10,000 km/s 0 km/s 10,000 km/s


So from the point of view of the alien at B, everything is expanding away from it, whichever direction it looks in, just the same as it does for us.

The universe is expanding at a uniform rate and observation from any point will seem like that point is the center, because there is no center. Find the center of the skin on a balloon or find the center of the surface of the earth. These things are nonsensical. Point 1 is wrong and the Bible cannot be trusted because of this according to Bruce Malone.

Point 2 is partially correct. The Universe is expanding, but matter is not. That would mean that everyone and everything was expanding, this is just a weird silly statement and I don't know where it comes from. The Usenet Physics FAQ covers this idea of Expanding Atoms originally written by Michael Weiss (yes it is out of date, but the article admits that and the basic concepts are right). Analysis, part of Point 2 is incorrect and thus the Bible is untrustworthy.

Point 3 is wrong. Find the boundary of the surface of the Earth or the skin of a balloon. Obviously both are finite, yet neither have a boundary. The same goes for the Universe. Something can be finite and yet have no boundary. Why is this so hard to grasp for someone who is a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory. Point 3 is wrong and so the Bible is untrustworthy.

Well there you have it, Dr. Russell Humphreys gave us three testable ideas for the trustworthiness of the Bible and failed in 2.5 of them. So the Bible is untrustworthy. Thank you Creation Science Evangelism for pointing this out. Oh, they have more.

If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location.

What? This sentence is in English, yet I can't parse it. Okay, so they take the three assumptions, that are proven wrong, and add them to physics, which is descriptions of the real world and how it works. Then they do some sort of undefined math and voila clocks run at different times. Huh? How does this come close to making any kind of sense?

Physics is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the world and universe behave. If you take made up stuff and throw it into formulas based on real observations, you end up with made up stuff. This is like trying to take comic book heroes and use physics to explain how they do their things. In the end you still have make believe. It can be used to gain an interest in physics, as with the popular Science of the Watchmen, but what you derive from it is completely useless.

After this abysmal attempt at science, now Bruce is going to try and explain what Time Dilation is and how it matters to his argument.

Furthermore, the time dilation effect would be magnified tremendously as the universe was originally expanding. As the universe expanded, there was a point at which time was moving very rapidly at the outer edge and essentially stopped near the center. At this point in the expansion of the universe, only days were passing near the center, while billions of years were passing in the heavens. This is the inevitable conclusion based on our current knowledge of physics and starting with Biblical assumptions instead of arbitrary ones.

First that is not how Time Dilation or the Universe works. Time dilation is the phenomenon whereby an observer finds that another's clock, which is physically identical to their own, is ticking at a slower rate as measured by their own clock. This is often interpreted as time "slowing down" for the other clock, but that is only true in the context of the observer's frame of reference. Locally (i.e., from the perspective of any observer within the same frame of reference, without reference to another frame of reference), time always passes at the same rate. Time dilation is affected by speed and gravity. Since the Universe is expanding at the same constant rate at all points, there would be no time dilation due to speed.

Second, let me say this loudly as he seems not to understand, THERE IS NO CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!

Third, making up arbitrary assumptions is what Dr. Humphreys did, not what cosmologists do. Instead cosmologists look at the facts and determine what is happening according to the facts, not the other way around. Dr. Humphreys instead made assumptions and then shoehorned physics into agreeing with him.

Albert Einstein rejected the idea that the Bible could be literally true. He wrote that, "Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the convictions that many of the stories in the Bible could not be true." How ironic that the most ridiculed Biblical story (about a recent, literal, six day creation of the universe) is exactly the story which Albert Einstein’s work has shown to be entirely possible. A comprehensive explanation of Dr. Humphreys work, can be found in his book.

Well I am thankful they didn't quote mine Einstein into looking like a believer, like some other creationists. *coughRayComfortcough* It is not ironic because Bruce and Dr. Humphreys have failed miserably to show that it is "entirely possible". All they did was take make believe plug into to formulas based on the real world. Then claimed that those answers, which are still make believe, prove the original make believe is possible. Which it would be if we lived in the make believe world they started with. Never let facts get in the way of your make believe world.

Addendum: I knew I was missing something on Time Dilation and my friend Stan, from the blog Cabbagery, pointed it out. Dr. Humphreys has Time Dilation backwards. If Earth was the slower moving object and the "outer edge" (which is still meaningless) was moving faster. Then time would appear to slow down for the outer edge if your point of reference was the Earth.