October 23, 2004

Britain strikes a mighty blow against young-earth creationism

British geologists, at a conference to mark some of the "fakes, frauds and hoaxes that have plagued geological and palaeontological research for centuries," are planning to celebrate the universe's 6,000th birthday today.

At 6pm tonight at the Geological Society of London, scientists will raise their glasses to James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, who in 1650 used the chronology of the Bible to calculate the precise date and moment of creation.

Working from the book of Genesis, and risking some speculation on the Hebrew calendar, he calculated that it began at 6pm on Saturday October 22, 4004 BC.

Apparently Ussher skipped I Timothy 1:4 which says, "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do."

Some might say that this verse doesn't apply to this situation; I ask you then what situation it does apply to?

Also, according to Strong's concordance, the word "questions" is the Greek word zetesis, which means "a subject of questioning or debate, a matter of controversy." So to "minister questions" means to stir up controversy, which is exactly what has happened as a result of giving heed to the geneologies all the way back to Creation.

Anyways, lest we think that Britain's geologists are accusing young-earth creationists of lying, we get this quote:

"It's not that we think Archbishop Ussher's date was a fraud," said Ted Nield, the society's communications officer. "It's just that it was spectacularly wrong."

I think that situations like this show that preachers need to stick to "godly edifying which is in faith." Regardless of the scientific accuracy of the Bible, which is not only up for debate but one of the primary causes of flamewars on message boards everywhere, it does teach a pretty good system of ethics and morality. (Surely everyone can agree on that, can we not?)

(Via Ramblings' Journal)

Posted by Blog Jones at October 23, 2004 11:12 AM | Category: Religion

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