As the website is explicit about induction criteria, I must ask - in which language is Genesis to be taken literally? Scholars have been arguing for centuries about shifts in meaning produced by translations, and I haven't read of any significant agreement. Some of these differences relate directly to the mission.

For the longest time I thought I was alone in my theories.
Just a voice crying out in the wilderness.
I now realize that we as a society have fallen pray to a giant manipulation.
For some twisted reason our Governments which mandate our Universities have come to the conclusion that scientist cannot do productive research if they accept the facts of an intelligent designer as the origin of the universe and life.
It is our responsibility to point out the obvious fact that the USSR which started this atheist challenge in science has collapsed.
Nations that have followed the atheist philosophy are doing the same.

Could it be possible that God created us through evolution? The Bible may be considered God's word, but it is written by man, and man is flawed. Though some parts of the Bible are true, others can be seen as stories, opinions, or tales in an attempt to explain God. Neither Jesus nor God himself wrote the bible. I personally think that God did create us through evolution, not just in 7 days. If he created us in 7 days, it would be that there are too many unexplained things around that to be plausible. I fail to see how evolution could not be even partly true if God did create us. There's just too much evidence, and if it is true, why is evolution happening even now?

I got lost in all of the schools. What was your point in all this...?

If this entire universe would be created by time and space to be guided by Intelligent Design, it would turn up that God was not the creator. The reason is simply time and space had turned up to be the main sources to act as creators of this universe and yet God had turned up to act as an assistant for the progress. This is not biblical since Isaiah 45:8 mentions God was the creator instead of merely the assistant for the creation.

Similarly, there is no reason to assume all living creatures would be formed through natural selection to be guided by intelligent design. The reason is simply natural selection had turned up to be the creator instead of God. God had eventually turned up to stand beside to assist the creator, i.e. natural selection, in the evolution.

Isaiah 45:8, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”

Do you have ANY academic experience in geology? I marvel at how adamant you were in insisting that scientists define a word in ways they do not, even while ignoring my pleas that you consult a textbook to find out the truth. Are you still going to insist that I'm the ONLY person who insists on the correct definition of a word used by scientists today? Do you honestly think I was the only professor on the planet teaching a definition which agrees with every geology book on the planet?

>I might accept your definition.

Again, it is NOT my definition. I didn't coin the term and I'm simply telling you what any science professor (or Dept of History & Philosophy of Science professor) at any university would explain to you about the actual meaning of the term! (This should also serve as yet another warning to the wise that "creation science" claims should be taken with a huge grain of salt, even in matters of correct terminology.)

>But I cannot accept it as the proof-of-a-negative against the Flood

My post said nothing about the Flood---so I'm not sure why you are changing topics. But if you verify that you are accepting the evidence and acknowledging your need to CORRECT the misuses of the term, then I would be happy to move on to a discussion of a new topic. (However, I will caution you and all other readers that I care about what God in his scriptures and his creation has revealed to us about the flood while caring very little about what man-made TRADITIONS have claimed about the flood. I am far more interested in the claims of the Biblical TEXT than about the claims of TRADITIONS about the Biblical text.)

> that Hutton and Lyell used it as.

Why is ANYONE obsessed with what James Hutton thought? Modern day geologists (as the Wikipedia article and every modern geology textbook on the planet explain) do NOT ascribe to James Hutton's PHILOSOPHY of Uniformitarianism. (Don't confuse the natural philosophy which preceded the age of modern science and the scientific method with the science in our textbooks today! I see constant confusion about the differences between the two among the non-scientist Christian leaders who try to pontificate on science which they know nothing about.) Notice how the Wikipedia article carefully explains the errors and flaws in Hutton's views of science and the world.

Of course, it shouldn't surprise anyone that nobody relies upon Hutton for the modern definition of Uniformitarianism! James Hutton was born in 1726 and died in 1797. Does it seem likely that today, in the year 2015, scientists would be depending upon a guy who gave his grand presentation in 1785, some 235 years ago, and continue to ignore the many catastrophic geologic events they've observed in the centuries since? Does it?

>The way they used it, it means exactly what Ms. Cooper and I have said it means.

So, in other words, you are complaining about a wrong PHILOSOPHY from 1785 which nobody in the science academy has cared about in many many years because NOBODY thinks that everything in geology is explained by gradual processes. Thus, if you are retracting your original statements and admitting that you are only opposing a very old philosophy that no scientist today accepts, that's great! Mission accomplished.

I hope you now understand why every geologist in the world who understands the word "Uniformitarianism" uses the 20th century science definition and NOT the philosophy definition from 1785 which James Hutton presented at an academic conference. You are running about 235 years behind.

Again, read the Wikipedia article. After reading about early uses of the word by Hutton and Lyell, move on down the page and read about how modern science rejected the concept and pay special attention to the "Twentieth Century" heading. From there, skim down to the section titled:

"Modern Uniformitarianism includes periodic catastrophes"

Do you understand now why real scientists shake their heads in face-palm disbelief when they hear various origins ministry entrepreneurs making this same uniformitarianism Straw Man Argument which you are making? Non-believers laugh at us when they see Christian origins ministries making huge science gaffes which could be cured by reading any first semester geology textbook.

However, that's not the only harm of such propaganda antics when people don't do their basic science homework. I've had young people from good fundamentalist Christian church backgrounds come to my campus office to lament: "I'm finding that so much of what I was told about science in my church and Sunday School was not only false. We were even taught wrong definitions of science terms! Why should I trust ANYTHING they taught me now that I'm checking the textbooks and the evidence for myself and finding I was lied to?" What would YOU tell them?

The biggest problem facing the local church today is NOT "atheists" and "atheism". No, far greater damage is done WITHIN the church when the scripture's emphasis upon TRUTH is abandoned and false TRADITIONS are substituted for what God has revealed through his scriptures and his creation.

I've made this post detailed and complete because I've noticed the two-edge sword of denialist ministries when they resort to two contradictory complaints: (1) "You never dealt with issues X, Y, and Z"----yet when every detail is covered, the complaint is (2) "That's far too long for me to read and respond to." (Yes, many who love the Gish Gallop hold to double-standards.)

One of my students of long ago alerted me to your kind offer:

>"Let me get in touch with Walter T. Brown, and you and he can arrange to have the Written Debate he has been eager to have for decades."
>

That would be wonderful! I so appreciate your offer. I've been trying to get Walt Brown to debate me for many years now. The last time I accepted Brown's supposed "challenge", his excuse was that because my doctorate was not in science, I wasn't qualified. I pointed out that even though my doctorate was in another field, I had been a faculty member of science departments at two major universities during the 1970's and 1980's and served as Department Chairman and Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences---until I changed universities in order to become a seminary professor. Yet, Walt was adamant that my Biblical Studies PhD "didn't qualify" me as a "real professional scientist" even though I had been a science professor and had published my scientific research in peer-reviewed science journals. (Thus, by any legitimate standard, I'm a retired scientist.)

Of course, if you have actually investigated Brown's challenge, you discovered that I'm far from the only person who was unable to arrange a debate with Brown. Even the CONSERVAPEDIA article on Walt Brown tells of his dodging a debate with Fergus Mason, and shares details of Brown's unethical behavior.

>"If you’re so smart, I now pass along to you the Walter T. Brown Written Debate Challenge."
>

It sounds like you are entirely unaware that Brown's so-called "Debate Challenge" is just about as legitimate as Kent Hovind's comical "evolution debate challenge" where he promises $250,000 to anyone who can convince some judge who is a friend of Hovind (LOL!) that they have "proven the general theory of evolution." At least Hovind is actually willing to schedule a debate---when he's not serving time in federal prison for 55 criminal felony counts for fraud. But Brown has a long history of refusing people who have signed up for his debate challenge. Even Ken Ham and AIG's ANSWERS JOURNAL got fed up with Brown's excuses for refusing to defend his hydroplate theory even after being allocated more pages than any prior article's allotment. It surprises me that you are a fan of Brown's pseudoscience when so many of the Young Earth Creationist honored by your webpage have criticized both his alleged "theory" as well as his behavior.

Brown lacks the confidence to defend his rubbish in a debate because he knows that it fails basic physics, especially the heat calculations. Perhaps you could explain why YOU think it merits consideration. Do you believe that the many Young Earth Creationists who have debunked Brown's nonsense are being unfair to him? Or do they know something you don't? And can you explain why no Bible-affirming, born-again Christian physicists affirm Brown's theory? I can: Brown's "research" is only supported by non-scientists who don't know any better.

>"You think you can disprove it?"

Yes, I do. But you've got things backwards. The burden of proof is on Walt Brown to present his own SOLID EVIDENCE for his alleged "theory". He also must explain how his theory is subject to falsification testing and what predictions it successfully makes. Until he does, it is every bit the mindless rubbish that both Christians and non-Christians have noticed it to be.

>"Let me get in touch with Walter T. Brown, and you and he can arrange to have the Written Debate he has been eager to have for decades."
>

That's a great idea! Perhaps you can succeed in getting him to come out of hiding. Perhaps you could also ask him why he lacks the courage to defend his ideas before any of the many scientists and Biblical scholars who have accepted his "debate challenge." (Yes, the real challenge is getting Brown to come out of hiding and debate anyone at all!)

>"Maybe I don’t have a background in geology. But let me dispose of one issue right now. When you ask me about my academic background, what you really are saying, in flowery language, is that I ought to shut up."
>

No. Your paranoia is getting the better of you. I asked about your geology background because I wondered if you had gotten your strange geology definitions from the discontinued California school run by the Institute for Creation Research during the 1980's. Your definitions sounded vaguely familiar to theirs.

> "I won’t shut up."

I certainly hope you don't. Everything you say is actually extremely useful and gives Christ-followers a clear choice. Meanwhile, why not encourage Walt Brown to submit his "Hydroplate Theory" to a peer-reviewed academic journal and demonstrate that he has the evidence and analysis to win over the academy. That's what REAL scientists do and that's how real science works. Other born-again Christians in the sciences do it all the time. Why not Brown? Or is everybody just supposed to take his word for it? If he can't defend his ideas, perhaps he needs to---as you put it---get over himself. Debate challenges aren't worth much, especially when he never follows through. And the only "debates" which matter in the science academy are those which take place in peer-review. Brown wasn't even able to convince a book publisher. He is self-published. No surprise there.

Meanwhile, how about a progress report on how much of the Hall of Fame building project funding has been raised?

I've often seen atheists and anti-theists post this famous urban legend on Christian websites. They think it's funny to see Christians respond to the story as if it were true. Some Christian websites even have automated filters which block the prank and others like it before they appear.

Readers here no doubt spotted the popular urban legend Indeed, I've been receiving email spam copies of it for years, ever since the Internet began. Folklore scholars have traced it back centuries (long before Albert Einstein) and a wide-variety of "evil professors" and "brilliant students" have played the iconic roles of this and related tales, which also has been set in various times of history.

In the Internet versions of the legend, "Albert Einstein" has been (in my experience) the most common "punch-line" but I've had Christian friends and colleagues send me other variations as to the identification of the student and they are set in a variety of periods of history: Isaac Newton (creationist Christian), Carl Linnaeus (the creationist Christian who developed the taxonomy system biologists still use), George Washington Carver (a creationist who really knew how to use all sorts of wonderful things in God's marvelous creation to bless the farmers who were struggling to make a living through a variety of crops best suited to their particular soil type!), and even Martin Luther King.

I've even seen a Roman Catholic version of the legend, where various later-to-be Popes played the role of the student.

Of course, I"m sure I speak for many when I say that I've always found the legend insulting to whoever the famous person appearing as the "punchline". After all, the failed "logic" of the legend is the dependence upon lame word-games. Obviously, cold DOES exist just as darkness DOES exist. Indeed, the Bible talks about darkness a lot. And I wince when the "student" says: “Sir, Evil does not exist." Of course EVIL EXISTS! The Bible could not be more clear about that. Any "student" making such ridiculously absurd arguments in a classroom would be laughed into silence by other students (especially if they know their Bibles) and a real-life university professor would never allow such time-wasting, failed pedantics to proceed past its first absurd claim about "cold."

Of course "After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn’t answer back." is as absurd as it is imaginary. Why would any professor "bow his head" and remain silent--unless he was pondering how he ever made the career decision to teach at a university with such low-caliber students!

It would be wonderful if Christians could re-establish Christian Science. Unfortunately a 'denomination' by that name is still in operation to this day, and I'm sure causes a fair amount of confusion. Time to reclaim the term.

The Creation Adventurer wrote:
>".....‘uniformitarianism’ and the logic creation scientists provide can be traced to James Hutton’s books."
>

The term "uniformitarianism" does trace back to Hutton but, as I pointed out, the definition supplied by most "creation scientists" is NOT the definition one would find in any university science textbook today. (I would encourage readers to investigate this for themselves by looking up the word in such a textbook and making the comparison.) As The Creation Adventurer pointed out in her post, the anachronistic definition comes from another era of a prior century and so Unformitarianism in science textbooks today is not at all the same concept and definition as that described in most creation science discourse. (And that is yet another reason why the two "sides" are talking past each other and why readers will find themselves baffled by the "logic" of it. I've had many young students come to me over the years trying to make sense of the contradiction. It is yet another equivocation fallacy that complicates the topic.)

No science or philosophy of science textbook used in any major university today defines "Uniformitarianism" as unchanging rates of physical processes, nor as "gradual change versus catastrophic change." All sorts of rates of processes take place at different speeds, from how fast an ice cube melts in various environments to the varying rates of increasing carbon levels in the earth's atmosphere, just as some vast geologic structures form quickly and some very slowly. No scientists denies anything so obvious as those many examples of varying rates of physical processes! Scientists are neither blind nor asleep. hey publish thousands of scientific journal articles per year describing changing rates of countless processes. (Students of science should not confuse changes in rates of processes with physical constants and mathematical constants like c, G, and e!) Of course, most of us in our daily lives refer to this uniformitarian aspect of God's creation more casually: we call it "common sense"!

Uniformitarianism (when CORRECTLY defined) is simply the idea that one can understand the past by means of evidence collected in the present---and that we can expect the laws of physics to apply here and a million light years away from here (as well as last week, today, and next Tuesday) to behave consistently. Otherwise science couldn't know much about anything! Indeed, that valid kind of uniformitarianism is what Dr. Jason Lisle often declares in his lectures and writings as the "rationality" and "consistent logic" of creation---and he thereby designates it to be "the ultimate proof of God."

[Whether the hyperbole of "the ultimate proof of God" is appropriate is a matter for debate. Many would say that the ultimate proof of God is Our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh, appearing among men, living out the will of the father in sinless perfection during the kenosis on earth, and offering himself as the ultimate sacrifice for sin on the cross, and then rising from the dead so as to bring the offer of eternal life to all sinners who will repent and look to him as Lord of their lives. But I'm not so sure that we necessarily gain a whole lot from trying to rank and label what is the most "ultimate" of that which shows us the reality of God our Creator. In any case, what I just summarized about Jesus Christ is carefully described in the scriptures----while Lisle's so-called "ultimate proof" (based on uniformitarian consistency of the laws of physics) is not so easily apparent within the Biblical text. The Great Commission makes clear to us what our Gospel message should be, so the ranking of "proofs" isn't much of an issue.]

Clarification: Dr. Lisle doesn't usually mention the term "uniformitarianism" when writing about that very consistent, observable attribute of God's creation---but that is the logical basis of his "ultimate proof of God" argument which he describes in the book of that title. Unfortunately, there are some creation science authors who praise that same observed consistency of the Laws of Physics within God's creation but then turn right around and condemn uniformitarianism! What an incredible self-contradiction based upon an equivocation fallacy! As The Creation Adventurer pointed out, it is because so many of them misunderstand the word "uniformitarianism" as based upon wrong ideas from a small number of researcher-naturalists of long ago, such as Hutton.