My comments are pretty much based on what I read in this message. Hard for me to compile what was said elsewhere
All this thread is aimed at is DEFINING the premises, not ARGUING for or against them.
The YEC premise is that God's word is above science. The EvC/Evolutionist premise is Science, or the idea that scientific evidence is above God's word.
I think you are going a bit too far in equating your views of the YEC premises, with those of YEC's in general. I would state the above as "My premise is that God's word is above science". BUT you have an even more fundamental premise, which is that the Bible is truly the word of God. Thus the above can be stated as "My premise is that the content of the Bible is above science". But many, Christians included, would argue that significant portions of the Bible ARE NOT truly the record of the words and actions of God, or at least ARE NOT adequate records of the words and actions of God.
Also, it seems that at least some YEC's expect that ultimately science will confirm what is said in the Bible.
The Christian scientific premise (call it the creation by evolution viewpoint), as I see it, is that the evidence of process contained within the creation (the universe, and everything of the universe) trumps the content of the Bible.
The choice is between -
1) Accepting the limited scope descriptions of a printed volume which, regardless of what God's original input was, has passed through thousands of years of man's influences. How do you support the premise that the Bible is indeed the accurate (and sufficiently detailed) recording of God's word?
or
2) Accepting what can be learned by studying the creation (universe et all) itself.
Automobile analogy - If you wanted to learn in detail what an automobile is made up of, how it was constructed, and how it works, would you read and truly believe a 1 page pamphlet, or would you study the automobile itself?
The direction to go from here is not into debating the merits of these premises, but into trying to understand why the scientific debates at EvC go the way they do, why they are so frustrating, why they make real debate impossible here if they do (and I think they do), understanding what kinds of thinking follow from these premises, what different things we are trying to accomplish, etc. etc. etc.
Debating creationism vs. evolution does not make sense, if the fundamental creationist premise is that their understanding of the content of the Bible is "the ultimate truth", and anything that disagrees with that understanding is, by definition, wrong. And that is what I understand to be your debate position.
Well, I don't know if this was on topic or not. It will probably be my only posting in this topic.
Moose
Note by edit - This topic was at message 109 when I started preparing this message.
This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 11-22-2005 12:51 PM