re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design

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Of course you are, and in doing so you deny observations of "the work of his hands." In doing so, you're not supporting a Biblical position. You're supporting your own misdrawn position relative to it.

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I believe you are misapplying that verse. It's merely drawing attention to the magnificence and beauty of creation as an evidence of the creator who created it. It isn't an umbrella to justify all contra-biblical interpretations made under the guise of "science".

It seems rather clear to me that you take "the work of his hands" in creation to be a supreme authority over the direct revelation of God in His word, interpreting the clear (or clearer) words of God by the less clear and fallible interpretations of man's reasoning.

This is also quite the slippery slope, as it can be--and often times is--used by those who want to force their own beliefs into the Bible to have the Bible justify their sin and misunderstandings rather than their thinking being conformed to God's thoughts, as clearly laid out in the Scriptures.

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Heliocentrism was regarded as heretical until the last 200 years or so. After all, the Bible plainly states "The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved." (Psalm 93:1), "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved."(Psalm 104:5), "The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved." (1 Chronicles 16:30).

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Yes, man can wrongly interpret or apply the Bible. I believe those verses indicate a wrong application in regards to geocentrism, as the context of all of those verses do not have the earth as the object of the establishment, but of God's sovereign power.

Psalm 93:1 is speaking to God's sovereign power over all creation, so that nothing can be moved (it's referring to change or destruction apart from God's sovereign decree) without God's allowance. The verse starts speaking of God's sovereign reign, and speaks to the powerful waves and flood waters as being under His control. In the middle of it, it speaks to the "world" as being unmovable due to its being established by God. While I can see why some would interpret this as speaking to the place of the earth in the solar system and universe, this poetic language (the Psalms are poetry, which is different from historical narrative of Genesis) is speaking to God's upholding all creation by His power, as many other verses speak to.

Likewise with Psalm 104:5. The language is poetic. The prior verses provide poetic language, as well. Verse 3 says, "He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind". There is no evidence that the Hebrews or Christians that followed believed that God laid literal beams of a literal house or room on the waters of the earth, for instance. God is a spirit and doesn't reside in places made with hands, nor was there ever a temple created on the waters in or around Israel. The Scriptures use phenomenological language to describe God, and this is another instance. Yes, people can and have interpreted this literally, but that wasn't the point of the passage, whereas the creation story in Genesis was historical, chronological narrative, not poetry, by its very style.

1 Chronicles 16 is also poetic language by its very style. Immediately following the verse you cited, David speaks of the heavens being glad, the earth rejoicing, the sea roaring, the field exulting, and the trees singing for joy. This song of David is giving glory to God in His strength and majesty, like the two other Psalms you provided, and used poetic language to describe God's greatness and power. The earth being established and not moving again speaks to its being upheld by the power of God. David uses similar language throughout the Psalms, like how in Psalm 16, he says, "I shall not be moved". He wasn't talking about being physical moved there.

So no, it's not necessary to interpret those scriptures as teaching geocentrism, because the text, itself, does not lend itself to such a necessary interpretation. You can clearly see the context isn't talking about the physical attributes of the earth, but is speaking to the world being created and governed by the sovereign hand of God.

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In the Biblical account of the Gibeon affair, Joshua ordered the sun to stand still. Galileo narrowly avoided being burned at the stake by "admitting" that if heliocentrism was accurate, Joshua would have ordered the Earth to stand still, not the sun. So he "recanted" his questions as to geocentrism. The clerics who would have lit Galileo on fire interpreted the Bible EXACTLY as it is written, even if that interpretation was at demonstrable variance with "the work of his hands." It was a mistake then. It is a mistake now.

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What you are referring to is a mistake of humans in their own misunderstanding, not in the word of God. God uses phenomenological language regularly to speak to man's perspective. Whether the sun stood still or the earth, the result is that God extended the daylight in a miraculous way for Joshua and the people of Israel, and even if it only appeared that the sun stood still. The God who created the sun and earth could temporarily stop the spinning of the earth and halt the inertial force and all other effects of doing so, or even stop the light from the sun in some way to make it appear the sun stood still. Regardless, the account was that a miracle was performed to give Israel extra light for a short time, and how God precisely did it is only known to Him, just like God creating the earth in a short time is His knowledge to keep.

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Issac Newton, who was first a phenom in Biblical scholarship (most folks don't know that), was pushed to science in part d/t his interest in Jeremiah's "fixed laws of heaven and earth." By definition, fixed laws of heaven and earth meant the universe was designed by a rational mind, it could be understood through rational study.

Francis Bacon, another man steeped in Biblical study, viewed science much as I do. It is a tool to fulfill providence and alleviate human suffering. For Bacon, studying nature was a religious duty. It complemented the Bible. "Test all things; hold fast what is good," (1 Thessalonians 5:21) was foundational to his construct of the Scientific Method.

God gives us the ability to observe, and further our understanding of existence and creation. Reliance on that ability is actually critical to Biblical understanding, not contradictory to it.

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I agree with all of this. I don't have a problem with science per se, as it is just a tool used by humans to understand God's creation. However, I realize that all knowledge comes from God ultimately, and is granted and governed by Him. Our understanding of nature is not perfect and our study of the universe is not infallible, so we must make sure our assumptions are grounded in the infallible truth of Scripture, not make science separate and equal "revelation" that governs God's word.

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For you, I'd point out again the Bible addresses the inconsequence of time as a thing with God -- a day is as a thousand years, a thousand years ia as a day. There could be but one witness to creation. That account could be related by but one source. It is a source unconcerned with limits or definitions of time, and then related to man who is time-obsessed d/t mortality.

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You left off the second half of that verse. The full verse is: "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day". I know you are being selective with this verse, because you don't apply that to any other usage of the word "day" in the Bible. When the language is clearly poetic, you can interpret the word as the text requires, but God went out of His way in Genesis 1 to give all the markers of a literal 24-hour day.