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BH

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But I have a friend who is a literal six day Creationist. He is honest to a fault and won't deny that experiments with carbon 14 result in ages of artifacts much older than 6000 years and radiometric dating shows ages of rocks to be much older than that too.

His concern is the devil.

From the Book of Job, he says God can give the devil the power to manipulate nature. The example being creating a strong wind that destroyed the home Job's children were in.

Also, what Satan is allowed to manipulate in nature may be arbitrarily restricted by God. Satan can wipe out Job's family and give him diseases but cannot kill him. And he wasn't given permission, to say, give Job's friends Job's disease when they came to visit him.

My friends concern is that God allowed the devil working with demons to manipulate nature in such a way carbon 14 and radiometric dating would give false age results. Same problem with time and astronomical differences, ect. God allows this as a way to test people's faith.

How would those of you very scientifically educated and inclined answer this concern?
 
BH said:
My friends concern is that God allowed the devil working with demons to manipulate nature in such a way carbon 14 and radiometric dating would give false age results. Same problem with time and astronomical differences, ect. God allows this as a way to test people's faith.
Click to expand...
Then God is evil. Yes? If he's working for the demons, rather than the other way around? If God serves Satan to the point of making nearly all of the natural properties of the natural world according to Satan's will rather than his own, then it seems to me he's an employee of Hell not an antidote to it. More like the Demiurge of old than the Orthodox God. And why would Satan want to lie about the age of the Earth anyway? Or create simulacra of millions of years' worth of beautiful, now extinct ecosystems?
 
He's too far down the rabbit hole for me. How do you even converse with someone who "thinks" this way? There's a paranoia here that levels everything in its path. Also, he's inventing scenarios of Satanic endeavors, which is pretty much like writing his own Bible out of nothing.
And if Satan can pull all these devious deceptions, how does he know Satan isn't behind the writing of the Bible? How does he know Satan isn't giving him that feeling of connectivity he gets from prayer? Couldn't Satan have pulled off the 'miracles' at Lourdes, the finding of the Shroud of Turin, the appearance of Jesus' face on a slice of toast? Satan could be in his coffee maker, hair dryer, and toilet. It's probably time to move into a cave.
 
BH said:
But I have a friend who is a literal six day Creationist. He is honest to a fault and won't deny that experiments with carbon 14 result in ages of artifacts much older than 6000 years and radiometric dating shows ages of rocks to be much older than that too.

His concern is the devil.

From the Book of Job, he says God can give the devil the power to manipulate nature. The example being creating a strong wind that destroyed the home Job's children were in.

Also, what Satan is allowed to manipulate in nature may be arbitrarily restricted by God. Satan can wipe out Job's family and give him diseases but cannot kill him. And he wasn't given permission, to say, give Job's friends Job's disease when they came to visit him.

My friends concern is that God allowed the devil working with demons to manipulate nature in such a way carbon 14 and radiometric dating would give false age results. Same problem with time and astronomical differences, ect. God allows this as a way to test people's faith.

How would those of you very scientifically educated and inclined answer this concern?
Click to expand...

God is supposedly good. According to the Bible, God is merciful, compassionate and just. And we are told in the Bible Satan and devils are evil beings that tempt mankind and cause evil. If God is all powerful and good, God could change the nature of Satan and devils to be good and helpful to mankind beings. If God could do that and does not, God then is the cause of all evil instigated by these beings. Contradiction. God is not just, merciful, or compassionate. Making God a liar if God's revelation claims these attributes.

Satan and devils make no sense with the existence of a good and perfect God. My standard argument for those Christians blabbering and jabbering about that bad, old Satan and his devils.

Matthew 25
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
 
From my experience with people and my time on the forum deeply held beliefs with maybe rare exceptions are not going to be affected by debate and science facts.

Christian a[apologetics is about spinning interpretation of scripture to account for inconvenient fact.

From what I read about Islam in the 17th or 18th century there was a battle between Muslim rationalists and Muslim conservatives, ad the rationalists lost. Rekgion trumped science.

I might say you are welcome to your beliefs and not be troubled or bothered by his or her beliefs. Outside of politicians and people attempting to force religion on us in the law and public space someone's beliefs are not something that concern me.

I think the last pope proclaimed given the evidence evolution my be part of god;s plan. When I looked at other denomination there was similar thinking in some.
 
BH said:
My friends concern is that God allowed the devil working with demons to manipulate nature in such a way carbon 14 and radiometric dating would give false age results. Same problem with time and astronomical differences, ect. God allows this as a way to test people's faith.

How would those of you ... answer this concern?
Click to expand...
"Science works, ergo it's not wrong."
 
Your friend sounds like he might need a psych eval or perhaps a more moderate or liberal Christian pastor could reason with him. I doubt you could talk any sense into him. People like him can't be reasoned with, any more than a member of the Trump cult. This sort of reminds me of the church lady from Saturday Night Live, a character that Dana Karvey developed. I'm not saying your friend is as judgmental as the church lady, but he does sound insanely obsessed with the concept of SATAN!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_Lady
 
BH said:
But I have a friend who is a literal six day Creationist. He is honest to a fault and won't deny that experiments with carbon 14 result in ages of artifacts much older than 6000 years and radiometric dating shows ages of rocks to be much older than that too.

His concern is the devil.

From the Book of Job, he says God can give the devil the power to manipulate nature. The example being creating a strong wind that destroyed the home Job's children were in.

Also, what Satan is allowed to manipulate in nature may be arbitrarily restricted by God. Satan can wipe out Job's family and give him diseases but cannot kill him. And he wasn't given permission, to say, give Job's friends Job's disease when they came to visit him.

My friends concern is that God allowed the devil working with demons to manipulate nature in such a way carbon 14 and radiometric dating would give false age results. Same problem with time and astronomical differences, ect. God allows this as a way to test people's faith.

How would those of you very scientifically educated and inclined answer this concern?
Click to expand...
I would ask how they know what's God's doing and what's Satan's.
 
Science works in that for a given theory the results of an experiment are repeatable.

That an experiment is repeatable does not make it an absolute truth.

Up through the 18th century Newtonian mechanics and time were considered immutable absolute truths. Along cane pesky quantum mechanics and relativity,

Some scientists believed that scientific inquiry was over, nothing left to discover.
 
ideologyhunter said:
He's too far down the rabbit hole for me. How do you even converse with someone who "thinks" this way? There's a paranoia here that levels everything in its path. Also, he's inventing scenarios of Satanic endeavors, which is pretty much like writing his own Bible out of nothing.
And if Satan can pull all these devious deceptions, how does he know Satan isn't behind the writing of the Bible? How does he know Satan isn't giving him that feeling of connectivity he gets from prayer? Couldn't Satan have pulled off the 'miracles' at Lourdes, the finding of the Shroud of Turin, the appearance of Jesus' face on a slice of toast? Satan could be in his coffee maker, hair dryer, and toilet. It's probably time to move into a cave.
Click to expand...
One, I think there is some merit to the concern at least if you are looking at things from his perspective. II Thessalonians 2 does say God would send a strong delusion to deceive those who are wicked. And God did do something like this in the Old Testament himself a few times. Once he made a foreign army not know where they really were and led them right into Samaria to be captured. He also did something similar by scaring off an army with noise by making them think an even more powerful army was coming to help the Judeans.

Two, there may be variables not known in a scientific experiment that will affect the results.
 
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