Part of the series on Creationism

History of creationism Creation in Genesis Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the Abrahamic belief; creationism can also refer to origin beliefs in general or, centuries earlier, to an alternative to traducianism. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The history of creationism is tied to the history of religions. ... Jump to: navigation, search Creation according to Genesis refers to the description of the creation of the heavens and the earth by God, as described in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. ...

Types of creationism: Young Earth creationism Jump to: navigation, search Created in Gods image, complete with navel. ... Creation science Creation biology Flood geology Creationist cosmologies Old Earth creationism Omphalos creationism Evolutionary creationism Neo-Creationism Intelligent design Jump to: navigation, search Creation science is a part of the creationist movement that claims to offer scientific evidence compatible with creation according to Genesis. ... Jump to: navigation, search Creation biology is the attempt by certain creationists to study biology from a young earth creationist perspective. ... Flood geology, creation geology and diluvial geology are terms used by creationists to describe the study of geologic phenomena with reference to the purported events of the Great Flood as described in Genesis. ... Jump to: navigation, search Creationist cosmologies are pseudoscientific arguments by various creationists that a significant portion of the observable universe is a few thousands of years old, and as such, run contrary to the Big Bang Theory, which states that all of the universe is billions of years old. ... Old Earth creationism is a variant of the creationist view of the origin of the universe and life on Earth. ... Theistic evolution, or the less common term, Evolutionary Creationism, is the general belief that some or all classical religious teachings about God and creation are compatible with some or all of the scientific theory of evolution. ... Jump to: navigation, search Neo-Creationism is a movement whose goal is to restate creationism in terms more likely to be well-received by the public, policy makers and the scientific community. ... Jump to: navigation, search Intelligent Design (sometimes abbreviated ID) is the controversial assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things exhibit the characteristics of a product resulting from an intelligent cause or agent, not an unguided process such as natural selection. ... Intelligent design movement Modern geocentrism Jump to: navigation, search The Intelligent Design movement, which began in the early 1990s, is an organized campaign promoting a religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering around intelligent design in the public sphere, primarily in the United States. ... Jump to: navigation, search The term modern geocentrism refers to a belief currently held by certain groups that the Earth is the center of the universe and does not move. ...

Controversy: Creation vs. evolution ... in public education Teach the Controversy Flying Spaghetti Monsterism Jump to: navigation, search The creation-evolution controversy (also termed the creation vs. ... The legal status of creation and evolution in public education is the subject of a great deal of debate in legal and religious circles, mainly in the United States. ... Teach the Controversy is a controversial political-action campaign originating from the Discovery Institute that seeks to advance an education policy for US public schools that introduces intelligent design to public-school science curricula and seeks to redefine science to allow for supernatural explanations. ... Jump to: navigation, search Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (FSM) is a satirical parody religion created to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to allow intelligent design to be taught in science classes alongside evolution. ...

The omphalos hypothesis was named after the title of an 1857 book by Philip Henry Gosse in which he argued that in order for the world to be "functional", God must have created the Earth with mountains, canyons, trees with growth rings, Adam and Eve with hair, fingernails, and navels (omphalos is Greek for "navel"), and that therefore no evidence we can see of the presumed age of the earth and universe can be taken as reliable. The idea has seen some revival in the twentieth century by modern creationists, who have extended the argument to light that appears to originate in far-off stars and galaxies, although most creationists reject this explanation[1] (and also believe that Adam and Eve had no navels[2]). 1857 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Philip Henry Gosse (April 6, 1810 – August 23, 1888) was an English naturalist and science popularizer, now best known for his attempt to reconcile biblical literalism with uniformitarianism, his invention of the sea-water aquarium and marine biology studies. ... Jump to: navigation, search Earth, also known as the Earth, Terra, and (mostly in the 19th century) Tellus, is the third-closest planet to the Sun. ... The Omphalos in Delphi An omphalos is a religious stone artifact in the ancient world. ... The age of the Earth is estimated to be 4. ... The age of the Universe is defined as the largest possible value of proper time integrated along a timelike curve from the Earth at the present epoch back to the Big Bang. ... Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the Abrahamic belief; creationism can also refer to origin beliefs in general or, centuries earlier, to an alternative to traducianism. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Pleiades star cluster A star is a massive body of plasma in outer space that is currently producing or has produced energy through nuclear fusion. ... NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 56,000 light years in diameter and approximately 60 million light years distant. ...

Bertrand Russell, influenced by Gosse, discussed the ramifications of such a theory in his 1921 work, The Analysis of Mind, stating: Jump to: navigation, search Bertrand Russell The Right Honourable Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was an influential British logician, philosopher, and mathematician, working mostly in the 20th century. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.^[3]

Jorge Luis Borges, in his 1940 work, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, describes a fictional world in which some essentially follow as a religious belief a philosophy much like Russell's discussion on the logical extreme of Gosse's theory: Jump to: navigation, search Jorge Luis Borges (, bôr′hÄ•s) (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986) was an Argentine writer who is considered to be one of the foremost writers of the 20th century. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1940 was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jorge Luis Borges short story has been widely translated. ...

"One of the schools of Tlön goes so far as to negate time: it reasons that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality other than as a present memory."[4]

Borges was also familiar with Gosse, having written an essay, "The Creation and P. H. Gosse" that explored the rejection of Gosse's Omphalos. Borges argued that its unpopularity stemmed from Gosse's explicit (if inadvertent) outlining of the what Borges claimed were absurdities in the Genesis story.

The Omphalos hypothesis contains a powerful philosophic problem, one that troubles even those who have applied it in recent times. Since the hypothesis is based on the idea that apparent age is an illusion, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that world was created mere minutes ago. Any memories you have of times before this were created in situ, in exactly the same fashion that the fossils were. This idea is sometimes called "Last Thursdayism" by its opponents, as in "the world might as well have been created last Thursday." Jump to: navigation, search Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. ... In situ (in place in Latin), a term used in: biology, where it means to examine the phenomenon exactly in place where it occurs (without removing it in some special medium etc. ... Last Thursdayism (sometimes Last Tuesdayism or Last Wednesdayism) is a humorous version of omphalism. ...

This view is not popular for various reasons:

1. It is unverifiable and unfalsifiable through any currently available scientific method;
2. It can be interpreted as God having 'created a fake', which does not sit well with most benevolent theistic theologies;
3. This philosophical approach, extended to other areas, has serious negative implications for science as a whole.

This conception has therefore drawn harsh rebuke from some theologians. Reverend Canon Brian Hebblethwaite, for example, preached that Russell's projection of Gosse's concept to such a recent creation, "like much of what Russell wrote and said, is nonsense. 'Human beings', posited in being five minutes ago with built-in 'memory' traces, would not be human beings. The suggestion is logically incoherent."[5] The basis for Hebblethwaite's objection, however, is the presumption of a God that would not deceive us about our very humanity - an unprovable presumption that the omphalos hypothesis rejects at the outset. This page discusses how a theory or assertion is falsifiable (disprovable opp: verifiable), rather than the non-philosophical use of falsification, meaning counterfeiting. ...

Many Jewish answers to the age of the Universe delve slightly into the Omphalos hypothesis. Jump to: navigation, search The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי) is used in many ways, but generally refers to a follower of Judaism, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity; and often a combination of these attributes. ... Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the Abrahamic belief; creationism can also refer to origin beliefs in general or, centuries earlier, to an alternative to traducianism. ...

See also

• Simulated reality
• Last Thursdayism

Jump to: navigation, search Simulated reality describes a hypothetical environment that, although experienced as real, is actually a highly detailed simulation of reality. ... Last Thursdayism (sometimes Last Tuesdayism or Last Wednesdayism) is a humorous version of omphalism. ...

External link

• Essay entitled The Rejection of "Omphalos"

Notes

• ^  Russell, The Analysis of Mind, 1921, page 159.