Navel-gazing, omphalism and speech

Ever since I discovered it in a book called "Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?" I have thought that omphalism is a great illustration of special pleading. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's "a special brand of young earth creationism that is generally referred to as “Omphalism”. Omphalism comes from the Greek word for the umbilicus, omphalos. In brief, it explains the signs and appearance of a very advanced age of the universe by stating that God created it fully-formed to appear as if it were much older. This nice little dodge allows omphalists to explain that data from things like the geological record, paleontology and ancient fossils, radiocarbon dating, and measurements to distant stars are phenomena fashioned by God as if the universe were billions of years old. The earth, then, is 6,000 or so years old (some generous young-earth sorts will allow up to 10,000 years) but made fully-developed as if a long history were true."
I actually mentioned it previously on this blog in relation to its linguistic reflex in that the original couple seemed not to have to learn language to speak with God, and possibly each other.

mayfly � Blog Archive � Navel-gazing: Htt Doug at Metacatholic.