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Originally Posted by skip spence
I'm really not more than very casually informed about creationism and its various forms and I'm not too interested either so I don't exactly know where you are coming from. But have you read the later volumes of the History of Middle Earth? If I remember correctly, the 10th one, Morgoth's Ring, includes an ambitious but ultimately futile attempt to rewrite the Silmarillion to be more in sync with scientific facts that were well known in the mid 20th century. Such as the vast timespan geological processes need to form the land, the unlikelihood of plant-life before the sun and not least the silliness of a flat earth.
Tolkien wanted the story to resonate true even to us modern people I believe, that we should be able to imagine the stories to really come out of a mythological past in our world. And that this would be hard if it ignored well known scientific facts such as the above mentioned and others.
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I will be reading morgoths ring [and other home]and full in the coming weeks and months and perhaps that will help me answer this question. As for your "scientific facts" those geological processes do not need millions of years, unless we accept uniformitarnism beliefs about the unobservable [ not replete able demonstrable, not science] past. Instead they can be understood within the young earth/global flood paradigm. Yes god made plants before the sun, there was however light gen 1 3-5. God is able to provide light and keep his creation without the sun witch is a part of creation and not god. In fact when the return of the true king happens it will be as it was before the sun
And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp,
neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
rev 22.5
Just for your info, the catholic church never taught a flat earth and the flat earth society today are evolutionist. But I also must wonder
what of the many scientific facts that refute evolution? why dont they count? maybe Tolkien rejected evolution as unscientific as i do. Maybe that is why his world was created. We modern people cannot both accept the discoveries of science and hold on to old and what should be passing away beliefs about the past such as evolution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by skip spence
The old stories where better and the rewrite-attempt was rightly scrapped but it should make it clear that Tolkien accepted the strong scientific evidence that the Earth was very very old and that the surrounding space is vast and even older. I'd suppose he did believe that God created Man in one way or another.
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Perhaps, any evidence tolkien had this view? what strong evidence persuaded him? was he aware of the faults in any claimed evidences and summations? was he aware of the counter arguments? I am unaware if he stated on either side. Maybe he understood creation had to be true or science could not be as his close friend Lewis often argued.
If Evolution Were True Would Science be Possible?
‘If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if*their*thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.’
-C.S. Lewis (1898–1963),*The Business of Heaven, Fount Paperbacks, U.K., p. 97, 1984.
Evolution undermines the preconditions necessary for rational thought, thereby destroying the very possibility of knowledge and science. Evolutionist say we are nothing but random matter and chemicals getting together for a survival advantage. They say we are the result of hydrogen gas, than rain on rocks, than millions of years of mutations. So why should i trust them that what they are telling me is true? If there just evolved slimeology how do i know they have the truth? Why should i aspect one accident [our brain] to understand another accident the world? Would i believe bacteria or chemicals if they taught a class on science? Were just higher animals there is no reason to trust them or to know for sure they are telling the truth. We could not know that we were even viewing the world properly. How do we know our eyes, ears, brain, and memory are getting the right information? There is no way to know. We could be in some matrix world or as evolutionist recently in scientific American said we could be like a fish in a bowl that is curved giving us a distorted view of reality.[P 70 the theory of everything scientific American oct 2010 ]
Science would be impossible unless our memories were giving accurate info as well as our senses such as our eyes and ears . Laws of logic are needed as well. How does matter produce a organism with memory? Or a consciousness. If this comes from mere machines [us] they why would not machines gain consciousnesses? Science needs us to be able to know our senses are giving us the correct information, our eyes ears memory etc how do we know we are correctly interpreting actual reality? Also regularity in time space-uniformity [not uniformitarism] is needed to do science and to have knowledge otherwise our experiments would be pointless, and we would not be able to make any predictions.
Yet the universe is understandable, we assume the universe is logical and orderly as it obeys mathematical laws. That is how we can make predictions. Freedom to chose and consider various options free will not deterministic “dance to the sound of our genes” as Richard Dawkins described it. In fact if evolution is true evolutionist only believe in evolution because the chemicals in there brain are making them believe that, they did not come to some objective decision but random mutations that gave a survival advantage make them. evolutionist say anyone should be rational with beliefs logic etc is inconstant with evolution after all were just evolved pond scum, it assumes we were created.
But if creation is true than i would expect us as created by a intelligent creator to be able to properly understand nature. I would expect to be able to know im getting the right information, that i can trust that we are in a orderly universe that follows laws that make science possible. so that we were able to do repeatable* lab experiments etc. That there would be things like laws of logic, reliability of our memory, reliability of our senses, that our eyes, ears are accurately giving us the correct information, information to be able to do science in the first place. If biblical creation were not true than we could not know anything if we were not created by god we would have no reason to trust our senses, and no way to prove or know for sure.
I would however
love to invite you to such a debate on the age of the earth. I have on many forums debated this very issue and would love to with you. PM me if you are inters ted and we can on another forum.