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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Bearing in mind I'm no scientist, some creationist aguments query whether C 14 would have been produced in the biological system prior to the flood because they postulate that a vapour canopy would have shielded it from cosmic rays. This of course would give pre flood fossils the impression of infinite age when dated by this method.

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OK, I'll try and explain in a way accessible to a non-scientist. We'll start with 14C dating, as you raised it, even though it's irrelevant to dating fossils. 14C is mostly* produced by reactions with cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere. Atmospheric circulation then brings it down to the surface where it is absorbed by plants, and then animals as they eat the plants. For a 'vapour canopy' to prevent 14C production it would need to exist above the atmosphere, which would be physically impossible, and to be so dense that it would significantly restrict sunlight reaching the surface. Such a canopy would certainly obscure the stars and moon far more effectively than a cloudy night. Perhaps it's your idea of Paradise, but I can't imagine Eden being a perpetual twilight of heavily filtered diffuse sunlight and very little warmth.

The half life of 14C, about 5730y, makes it an ideal method of dating modern stuff less than about 50000 years old (it's a bit of a problem for really modern stuff from the last few centuries because human activity has dumped low 14C carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and then added a load of additional 14C from nuclear power and bombs).

There are a whole load of additional dating methods that cover different time scales that are largely independent of cosmic rays. Dating methods based on the decay of primodial radioactive materials (ie: stuff that was incorporated into the earth when the planet formed) can stretch dating back billions of years - that's basically using the uranium series, thorium series and 40K decays. It's these methods that are used to date fossil beds.

Luminescence methods, which use electrons trapped in excited states in quartz or feldspar crystals, can date materials upto a few hundred thousand years old. They're no good for dating fossils, but can provide an independent cross-check on 14C dates and extend chronologies back from them. Events that leave annual or seasonal records can also produce dating evidence. This would include tree-rings with one ring each year (and variations on ring size depending on the environmental conditions each year) which with trees giving overlapping dates can take us back in time a few millenia. Similar patterns in glaciers (reflecting seasonal influxes of fresh snow) or lake sediments can do the same. Again, no good for dating fossils but further independent verification of 14C dates (actually, generally they can provide absolute dates as counting rings/layers gives a precise age, and so are often used as a calibration on 14C to adjust for changes in cosmic ray flux and anthropogenic influences).

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Now, my point is not to argue the toss about this but just to point out that the argument comes down to dating and that not everyone accepts the dating process based on radio active decay.

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It's clearly the case that not everyone accepts dating methods based on radioactive decay. But, to reject that dating method you need to reject a large chunk of nuclear and quantum physics. And, usually that goes hand in hand with rejecting the scientific disciplines of geology (which had determined that the earth is old long before there was an absolute method of dating the past), and biology (because, again, the evidence of biology for evolution over long periods is consistent with the dating methods). And, because the fields of biology, geology and physics are basically outworkings of the scientific method, presumably they think there's something deeply flawed about the scientific method as it's failed to 'correct' the findings of these fields of investigation.

As I said, some people perversely reject practically the whole of the scientific enterprise.


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* Most 14C is formed in the atmosphere, a very small proportion is formed at the surface. This doesn't affect the argument against a 'vapour canopy' because it's such a small contribution to the total. It can be an important contribution to some dating methods though. In particular surface-exposure dating which uses cosmogenic isotopes, including 14C, formed in exposed rock surfaces by the action of the very small fraction of cosmic rays that reach the surface.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The half life of 14C, about 5730y, makes it an ideal method of dating modern stuff less than about 50000 years old (it's a bit of a problem for really modern stuff from the last few centuries because human activity has dumped low 14C carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and then added a load of additional 14C from nuclear power and bombs).

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I've not generally got a problem with carbon-dating, but when I read this I feel like there's a step missing. If there's been a dump of 14C in the last few centuries, why would that only be a problem for dating modern things?

Can you clarify, please? I take it that one reason is that ancient things aren't incorporating any further atmospheric carbon. However, I would have thought that there'd also be a problem in assuming what the base value for 14C was, if we've been altering it since before we actually had the know-how to calculate it.

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Plants take up carbon through photosynthesis, converting atmospheric CO2 to sugars and other long-chain carbon molecules, in proportion to the isotopic abundances of 12C, 13C and 14C at the time. When a plant dies, that exchange of carbon stops, and the carbon in the plant becomes fixed until the plant decays (or, is eaten). Even decayed plant matter (eg: peat) doesn't significantly exchange carbon with the atmosphere in a manner that would alter the isotopic composition. A sample of wood from a tree that died 1000y ago would have the carbon-isotope ratio of the atmosphere 1000y ago, less the 14C that has decayed. A sample of wood from a tree that died 10y ago would have the carbon-isotope ratio of the atmosphere 10y ago. The complication with modern samples is that the significant swings in atmospheric carbon isotope concentrations create concentration ratios in the samples that are consistent with older (or, newer) samples as well. There are natural variations in atmospheric concentrations, following changes in cosmic ray flux, which also create problematic results (as an extreme example, if the production rate over a 100y period slowed at a rate equivalent to the decay rate of 14C then samples from plants that died throughout that century would have the same carbon isotope ratio and the same apparent age). Which is why we use a calibration curve, and produce results that show the probability of different ages based on the observed isotope ratio. Often you'd need other data to determine which age is most likely to be true (eg: if your sample was from a building that was known to exist in 1800 and one of your possible dates is 1850 you can reasonably exclude that one).

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Thank you for this explanation which is very accessible to this non scientist. If it is not too much of an imposition could you explain briefly if Uranium and Thorium dating work on the same principle as 14C?

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The main difference between 14C and other dating techniques is that for 14C we start with a known intitial 14C content* and determine the age from the current 14C content. For other dating methods, the initial concentration of the parent is largely unknown but we know the concentration of the decay products is initially zero. ie: for 14C we determine the age from the parent isotope concentration, and for other methods from the daughter isotope concentrations.

Uranium dating measures the ratios of 238U:206Pb (4.5 billion year half life) and 235U:207Pb (700 million year half life) in minerals such as zircons which incorporate small quantities of uranium when they form but exclude lead. All the lead in the sample has thus been produced by the decay of trapped uranium. The cross check between the two uranium isotopes provides a means of accounting for any potential loss of lead from the mineral.

Potassium-Argon dating measures the concentration of 40Ar in potassium rich minerals such as feldspars, formed from the decay of 40K (1.3 billion year half life). Any argon in the mineral is lost if the mineral is heated to >100°C or so, and the date given is thus the last time the rock was that hot.

There are several other radioactive decay dating methods.

The reason 14C isn't used on fossils is that samples >60,000 years old have 14C concentrations below detection limits (and, that's for a good lab). Fossils are generally much, much older than that. And, often you can only date them indirectly (the conditions that reset the dating clocks for K-Ar or U-Pb etc - mainly high temperatures) will usually destroy the fossils. So we'll look for datable materials above and below the fossil beds.


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* Note for orfeo. Early 14C dating assumed an initial concentration ratio consistent with contemporary cosmogenic 14C production rates and atmospheric carbon concentrations. Calibration accounts for the effects of small changes in 14C production rates and carbon sequestration and release from reservoirs, both of which change the equilibrium 14C concentration in the atmosphere. The calibration shifts ages by, at most, 15% ... though can also introduce significant uncertainty in the determined age.

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Originally posted by ken:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

... whether all lead was previously uranium?

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No. Is only specific isotopes that decay into specific isotopes of lead. The whole chain is very complex involving dozens of different isotopes and I don't know much about it. Though I expect Alan might.

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Why is 14C not useful in dating fossils?

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Because they are mostly so old that almost all the 14C had reverted to C12

The point about C14/12 is that C14 is continuously regenerated in the atmosphere and incorporated into plants (and from them into animals that eat the plants) Once the plant or animal dies and stops breathing no new C14 gets added but some of it gets converted to C12. So the more C14 in a dead creature, the more recent it is likely to be. But fossils are far too old for that. Also (as no doubt your creationist handbooks will tell you) the very definition of a fossil is that the original tissue has been fully or partially replaced by inorganic minerals - so you don't expect to find much organic carbon. But there some non-fossilised organic remains that are old enough to have lost all their measurable 14C.

Not that all "fossils" are in fact fossilised. Sometimes parts of the actual body of a long-dead creature is preserved. Teeth, for example, are pretty well mineralised in life and there's not much there to rot or be replaced, so if one is buried in mud it can survive an awful long time. I remember holding an Allosaurus tooth in the Natural History Museum and asking how it was fossilised and being told that no, it was the actual material that had been in the animal's mouth. It was still sharp.

There are other cool things we can do with carbon isotopes on recently dead animals. I mean geologically recent, the last ten thousand years or so. The ratio between C13 and C12 can give clues as to what kind of plant fixed the CO2 into sugar to make the protein that the animal eats. Different plants use different biochemical pathways to convert the products of photosynthesis into sugar (the most common ones are called C3, C4, and CAM) and they trap the different carbon isotopes with different efficiencies. So you can tell what kind of a plant a dead animal used to eat by looking at the rations of stable isotopes of carbon. Also the lighter atoms are lost more easily each time some protein is eaten so heavier isotopes are concentrated as you go up the food chain. So you can tell whether a mummified corpse was a vegan or not. There are also clues to that from the ratio of stable isotopes of nitrogen to each other. And we can use sulphur isotopes in protein. Nitrogen isotope ratios are also slightly different in marine plants and land plants. And sulphur isotope ratios are very different in most marine creatures proteins from most terrestrial ones. So by comparing the ratio of stable isotopes of all three of those chemicals to each other you can work out whether a dead body ate lots of seafood or not.

That difference in uptake of heavier isotopes applies to uptake of 14C as well. The proportion of carbon 14 in a plant will depend on what kind of photosynthesis it uses and whether it is in air or sea. But its only a tiny difference that is outweighed by the loss due to radioactive decay. So over decades or centuries the signal due to age is much stronger than the noise due to diet. So you can't carbon-date a recent corpse. But you can carbon-date vintage wine.

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
SEONAID

Here are a few (with references) for you to savage in the meantime:-

As The Science of Evolution explains: "Several methods have been devised for estimating the age of the earth and its layers of rocks. These methods rely heavily on the assumption of uniformitarianism, i.e., natural processes have proceeded at relatively constant rates throughout the earth's history . . . It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological 'clock'" (William Stansfield, 1977, pp. 80, 84).

The potassium-argon [K-Ar] dating method, used to date lava flows, also has problems—as shown by studies of Mount St. Helens. "The conventional K-Ar dating method was applied to the 1986 dacite flow from the new lava dome at Mount St. Helens, Washington. Porphyritic dacite which solidified on the surface of the lava dome in 1986 gives a whole rock K-Ar 'age' of 0.35 + OR - 0.05 million years (Ma). Mineral concentrates from this same dacite give K-Ar 'ages' from 0.35 + OR - .06 Ma to 2.8 + OR - 0.6 Ma. These 'ages' are, of course, preposterous [since we know the rock formed recently]. The fundamental dating assumption ('no radiogenic argon was present when the rock formed') is questioned by these data.

"Instead, data from this Mount St. Helens dacite argue that significant 'excess argon' was present when the lava solidified in 1986 . . . This study of Mount St. Helens dacite causes the more fundamental question to be asked—how accurate are K-Ar 'ages' from the many other phenocryst-containing lava flows worldwide?" (Stephen Austin, "Excess Argon within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano," Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1996, pp. 335-344).

In layman's terms, these volcanic rocks that we know were formed in 1986—less than 20 years ago—were "scientifically" dated to between 290,000 and 3.4 million years old!

Such examples serve to illustrate the fallibility of the dating methods on which many modern scientists rely so heavily. GN (Good News).

Snow even here in Cardiff today (dated at 3.45 hours and one layer, so will reply as much as able). Take care people

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Originally posted by Hawk:

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
In layman's terms, these volcanic rocks that we know were formed in 1986—less than 20 years ago—were "scientifically" dated to between 290,000 and 3.4 million years old!

Such examples serve to illustrate the fallibility of the dating methods on which many modern scientists rely so heavily. GN (Good News).

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Others have already pointed out the flaws in the claims of 'Good News', whoever they are. (NB. please link to your sources rather than just mentioning who they are - otherwise we can't see the context and we have no idea how reputable the source is unless we see where you've pulled it from). But I thought I'd also mention that this is a very unconvincing attempt to disparage the dating methods.

KR-AR dating is already well known by scientists to have problems with potentially flawed results and so necessitates the strictest methods of sample collection preconditions to ensure the results are viable. Even Wikipedia gives this information with a long list of preconditions that NEED to be observed for any reputable scientist to publish the results as evidence for the age of a site.

For this creationist to purposely fail to meet these preconditions and then claim the results are wrong is not proof of anything except what scientists are already aware of. The test results are just test results, they need to be added to the context and scientific interpretation before you can even start making wild generalisations that 'Science says x, x is wrong, therefore Science is wrong!!!'.

I love how creationists like to point out the difficulties in the dating methods as though they've uncovered some conspiracy, while scientists are all well aware of these difficulties, and are totally open about them, and have long since accomodated for them in their results. Science is incredibly critically self-aware. That's the foundation I think of what most creationists misunderstand. They imagine a conspiracy of silence and no scientists daring to disturb the party-line status quo - which is about as far from the truth as its possible to get!

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Sorry, I've not had time to read your link Barney.

But, perhaps I can comment anyway. There's a big question to ask, that is "why would anyone attempt to K-Ar date a recent eruption?". I'm pretty sure the data was collected by reputable scientists and not Creation Scientists (generally, Creation Science doesn't have the resources to fund that sort of measurement). I actually had a similar run-in re: 14C dating with the author of a different article in the TJ, in that case it was about 14C measurements of coal.

There is, actually, a very good reason to run K-Ar analysis of modern lava. And, there are very good reasons for making 14C measurements of coal.

It's a question of analytical accuracy and data quality. One of the big questions for K-Ar dating is how good the assumption of zero Ar at formation is. An easy way to do that is measure the K-Ar ratio of modern lavas, and assume that ancient lavas behaved the same. What you find is that for modern lavas there are very small residual Ar concentrations, which if you wanted to use those to determine an "age" would be equivalent to a few 100k years to a million or so; of course that isn't the age of the rock and no-one in their right mind would claim that it is. What you do now have, however, is a better estimate of the initial Ar content of the lava which allows for more accurate and precise measurements of the ages of ancient lavas.

With the 14C and coal, what you do is run the coal as a blank standard to determine the instrument background. If you took those numbers as "dates" then for a good AMS machine you'd get an "age" for the coal of 50k years or so. The author of the TJ article I mentioned (and it's such a load of dross I'm not even going to attempt to find it again for a link) then claimed on that basis that therefore coal beds were actually only a few thousand years old. He didn't seem to understand the concept of measurement of instrumental background, nor why an article in a scientific journal would give that data as part of a report on commissioning a new facility. The editor of TJ was also distinctly uninterested in issuing a retraction for the article in question nor allowing any sort of rebuttal to be published.

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Originally posted by pjkirk:

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
"Instead, data from this Mount St. Helens dacite argue that significant 'excess argon' was present when the lava solidified in 1986 . . . This study of Mount St. Helens dacite causes the more fundamental question to be asked—how accurate are K-Ar 'ages' from the many other phenocryst-containing lava flows worldwide?" (Stephen Austin, "Excess Argon within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano," Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1996, pp. 335-344).

In layman's terms, these volcanic rocks that we know were formed in 1986—less than 20 years ago—were "scientifically" dated to between 290,000 and 3.4 million years old!

Such examples serve to illustrate the fallibility of the dating methods on which many modern scientists rely so heavily. GN (Good News).

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Such examples rather serve to illustrate just how biased these 'journals' are. K-Ar dating should not be used on 20 year old samples. Even Wikipedia provides more valid information than your example.

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As the simulation of the processing of potassium-argon samples showed, the standard deviations for K-Ar dates are so large that resolution higher than about a million years is almost impossible to achieve. By comparison, radiocarbon dates seem almost as precise as a cesium clock! Potassium-argon dating is accurate from 4.3 billion years (the age of the Earth) to about 100,000 years before the present. At 100,000 years, only 0.0053% of the potassium-40 in a rock would have decayed to argon-40, pushing the limits of present detection devices. Eventually, potassium-argon dating may be able to provide dates as recent as 20,000 years before present

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See here.

Do you have any other less easily refuted pieces of 'evidence'?

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Leaving aside terrestrial dating methods for a moment, there's also the fact that the rest of the Universe looks a lot older than the 10,000 years or less typically cited by Young Earth Creationists. Because light has a finite speed, looking out into the Universe is necessarily looking backwards through time. When we observe somthing two and a half million light years away we're seeing it as it existed two and a half million years ago. This is at variance with an account of all the stars being made at the same time on the fourth day of creation roughly six thousand years ago.

In short, if the YEC model of the Universe is correct, it should have an observable radius of about six to ten thousand light years. That's not big enough to see most of the Milky Way, much less anything outside it.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
In short, if the YEC model of the Universe is correct, it should have an observable radius of about six to ten thousand light years. That's not big enough to see most of the Milky Way, much less anything outside it.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Two ways of achieving the YEC desired result.

1. The way sanityman argues

2. This way.

You'll see that the lobbyist for this viewpoint is ....Chuck Missler, the UFO and fertile angels man.

As a curio, here is a link which links to Setterfield's work and produces a pretty obvious critique.

Folks are not short of ingenuity if the motivation is strong.

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The Canadian mathematician, Alan Montgomery, has reported a computer analysis supporting the Setterfield/Norman results. His model indicates that the decay of velocity of light closely follows a cosecant-squared curve, and has been asymptotic since 1958. If he is correct, the speed of light was 10-30% faster in the time of Christ; twice as fast in the days of Solomon; four times as fast in the days of Abraham, and perhaps more than 10 million times faster prior to 3000 B.C.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I thought this link provided by my earlier link was fascinating.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
My question involves the word 'estimate'. While I agree that we have no choice but to rely on these methods I'm slightly wary the way they are occasionally used with precision. Normally one would calibrate an instrument using verifiable data. Obviously these methods can only be calibrated against each other.

...

Does Alan (or anyone else) have any comments on the way we talk about these dating methods compared to other scientific measurements?

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Once it was recogised that many sedimentary rocks contain fossils all the way though, and that those fossils had once been living things, it became obvious that the rocks must have been gradually built up during a period when those creatures were alive.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
[QUOTE] ]OK, so why didn't they rot or become prey?

Anyone seen a body that doesn't?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
OK, so why didn't they rot or become prey?

Anyone seen a body that doesn't?

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Originally posted by mousethief:
A practical joker who made things in a way to intentionally deceive us. That's not a practical joker, that's a liar.

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Originally posted by ken:
A leaf falls into a pool, and down to the mud at the bottom. It starts to rot. Later it is covered with other mud. The rotting material is slowly replaced with other material, maybe living bacteria at first and the mineralised traces of the remains of the plant; later perhaps some fine silt or chemically slightly different mud. When its buried deep enough the mud is compressed to some kind of mudstone, maybe later it becomes shale or slate. The shape of the leaf is still visible - but the organic molecules that used to make it up have long since been recycled and taken away.

So, out of the countless trillions of these little creatures that once lived, most were long ago eaten by something else, or rotted away. A few, a tiny number, not even one in a million, probably far less than that, leave us their teeth as fossils. But that is enough to make them one of the most common fossils in the world. As I said, there are places you can collect tons of these things.

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Ah - so it turns out that there is a force that's more powerful than us mere mortals, and it's true that this force does determine that a few of us should last for ever, whereas the rest of us will not. Good to know.
 

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Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 

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So, out of the countless trillions of these little creatures that once lived, most were long ago eaten by something else, or rotted away. A few, a tiny number, not even one in a million, probably far less than that, leave us their teeth as fossils. But that is enough to make them one of the most common fossils in the world. As I said, there are places you can collect tons of these things.

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Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
But then I realised - if God lies, then we can't tell whether or not the stuff he's said about the future is true or not. Oh well. So I guess we have to go back to our crystal balls then. After all, we absolutely have to know the future, don't we? And if the Bible won't tell us, then the crystal balls will, won't they? Yes they will.

It wouldn't do to believe that the ultimate sovereign is so powerful, he's even able to hold stuff that's going to happen in the future secret from us. Oh no, that wouldn't do at all.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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So, out of the countless trillions of these little creatures that once lived, most were long ago eaten by something else, or rotted away. A few, a tiny number, not even one in a million, probably far less than that, leave us their teeth as fossils. But that is enough to make them one of the most common fossils in the world. As I said, there are places you can collect tons of these things.

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So, why is it unreasonable to think that, of these millions in one place, that they were not, en masse, overcome and entombed in the deluge?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
So, why is it unreasonable to think that, of these millions in one place, that they were not, en masse, overcome and entombed in the deluge?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
So, why is it unreasonable to think that, of these millions in one place, that they were not, en masse, overcome and entombed in the deluge?

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Originally posted by ken:
Because the amount of bones and teeth in some fossil beds would imply seas made up not of water but of gigantic mile-thick piles of writhing animals.

Because chalk organisms needed light to live. If more than a tiny fraction of the extant shells them were in the sea at once they'd block their own light.

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Originally posted by ken:

And yet the soft parts of the animal - well, no w we think we have between ten and twenty fossil impressions of them. Not one soft-body fossil for a billion teeth.

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Originally posted by Gee D:
Thank you Barnabas 62 - I have done quite a bit of reading on the calculation of distance/time, and understand not the complexities, but the extent of them. My comment was to the effect that it was the presence of minute amounts of matter in "deep space" which assisted in the calculations. Is this so, and where is there a real vacuum?

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Originally posted by Gee D:
though I like ++ Usher

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Chapter One

Current theories on the creation of the Universe state that, if it was created at all and didn't just start, as it were, unoffi cially, it came into being between ten and twenty thousand million years ago. By the same token the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old.

These dates are incorrect.

Medieval Jewish scholars put the date of the Creation at 3760 B.C. Greek Orthodox theologians put Creation as far back as 5508 B.C.

These suggestions are also incorrect.

Archbishop James Usher (1580–1656) published Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti in 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the Earth were created in 4004 B.C. One of his aides took the calculation further, and was able to announce triumphantly that the Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., because God liked to get work done early in the morning while he was feeling fresh.

This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour.

The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur skeletons was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet.

This proves two things:

Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infi nite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Secondly, the Earth's a Libra.

*i.e. everyone else

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Usher was primarily a scholar, who used what at the time were state-of-the-art scholastic tools of textual analysis to attempt to understand the Scriptures to the best of his ability. I often think he would be appalled that those who still support a recent Creation treat him as some sort of spiritual grandfather, they just don't show anything like the sort of scholastic integrity and determination to truly understand Scripture that he had. If his "spiritual descendants" followed his scholastic approach they'd be firmly grasping the results of modern scientific dating methods.

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If his "spiritual descendants" followed his scholastic approach they'd be firmly grasping the results of modern scientific dating methods.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Do you really think that the 'new' revelation of Science is that secure? Consider how its continual revisions have altered over the last half century.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Do you really think that the 'new' revelation of Science is that secure? Consider how its continual revisions have altered over the last half century.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

Do you really think that the 'new' revelation of Science is that secure? Consider how its continual revisions have altered over the last half century.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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If his "spiritual descendants" followed his scholastic approach they'd be firmly grasping the results of modern scientific dating methods.

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And turning their backs of God's revelation?

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Originally posted by ken:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

Do you really think that the 'new' revelation of Science is that secure? Consider how its continual revisions have altered over the last half century.

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Such as?

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If the state of the art scholastic methods available to Ussher included more recent understanding of geological sequences, let alone assorted dating methods, he would have probably come up with a different interpretation of Scripture.

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Originally posted by ken:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

Do you really think that the 'new' revelation of Science is that secure? Consider how its continual revisions have altered over the last half century.

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Such as?

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Originally, the Big Bang theory had the universe expanding to point X, then contracting to a BIg Crunch. The latest theories, good enough now to be recognised by a Nobel Prize, have the expansion continuing without end, but the universe growing colder and colder as this expansion continues, ending up in the paradox of being dead but still expanding.

BTW, if the ++ Usher theory was correct, did not the preliminary work on the creation occur on the Sabbath?

[ 19. August 2012, 10:44: Message edited by: Gee D ]
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
(I was looking at the top threads on the boards, and I wondered what a discussion on Christian Mingle and eHarmony was doing in Dead Horses. Oh. )
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
If that's the reason i keep getting that horrid Christian Mingle ad, i'm going to be very cross. The guy in the ad looks like a pimp and she appears to be nude. Just
 

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Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Do you really think that the 'new' revelation of Science is that secure? Consider how its continual revisions have altered over the last half century.

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Such as?

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Steady state theory of universe?

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Despite the common refrain that "science is always changing its mind", there is virtually no bedrock scientific theory (e.g. relativity, Maxwellian electrodynamics, descent with modification, the atomic nature of matter, etc.) that has been overturned in the last hundred years. Part of this can be attributed the vernacular overuse of the term "theory". In the example cited the steady state universe was more an hypothesis than a theory, and was never universally accepted, even in its heyday.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


'To me that is the Bible.'

Yes, on matters of faith and doctrine. It is not a scientific text-book. The Creation story in Genesis was never intended that way.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Steady state theory of universe?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You deal in terms of what you are sure of. To me that is the Bible. The jury is out on dating methods.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
[QUOTE] You deal in terms of what you are sure of. To me that is the Bible. The jury is out on dating methods.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You deal in terms of what you are sure of. To me that is the Bible. The jury is out on dating methods.

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The Bible is not self-interpreting. What you have is your interpretation of the Bible, which you cannot be sure of. When the clear and plain facts of nature point against your interpretation of the Bible, then you need to adjust your interpretation, not play fast and loose with the facts. And your anti-science interpretations are really less than 200 years old, so you don't even have the unbroken tradition of the church to back you up.

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quote:

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When the clear and plain facts of nature point against your interpretation of the Bible, then you need to adjust your interpretation,

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Maybe better stated thus:

When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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quote:

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One example of how Science(so called) has in fact changed is that Darwinism has become 'Neo Darwinism'. The gaps in the progression have been 'explained' by the concept of 'punctuated' changes.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Maybe better stated thus:

When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
No, no, no. The Bible is not wrong.

The interpretation of the Bible that says the opening chapters of Genesis are an objective account of the precise of the creation of the world, akin to a science or history text book, is wrong.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
(I was looking at the top threads on the boards, and I wondered what a discussion on Christian Mingle and eHarmony was doing in Dead Horses. Oh. )

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quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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There are no clear plain facts of the Bible.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The Bible is also wrong in the order that things were created according to Genesis - the stars and moon come much later than they should do in the order ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Maybe better stated thus:

When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

---

Jamat, this is ridiculous, I'm sorry. There is more than one way of interpreting the Bible. Dafyd has already mentioned that the moon is described as a light in Genesis 1. We Christians have to deal with the clear plain fact that the moon is not a light, i.e. the Bible is, in a sense, wrong on this specific point.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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There are no clear plain facts of the Bible.

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In your exalted opinion perhaps. How about this one?

Romans 3:23. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

If there is one indisputable fact of human existence it is that we are terribly flawed. It is a scriptural fact that is undeniable in our experience.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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There are no clear plain facts of the Bible.

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In your exalted opinion perhaps. How about this one?

Romans 3:23. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

If there is one indisputable fact of human existence it is that we are terribly flawed. It is a scriptural fact that is undeniable in our experience.

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Did Jesus sin?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I do not deny metaphor or sybbolism. However if anyone wants to be precise, Lights are things that give light but not necessarily things that self generate that light the give. The sun and moon both , in a practical sense function as lights, One is self generating, one is not.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I do not deny metaphor or sybbolism.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I do not deny metaphor or sybbolism. However if anyone wants to be precise, Lights are things that give light but not necessarily things that self generate that light the give. The sun and moon both , in a practical sense function as lights, One is self generating, one is not.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
When the clear plain facts of the Bible point against your interpretation of nature, then you need to adjust..

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There are no clear plain facts of the Bible.

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In your exalted opinion perhaps. How about this one?

Romans 3:23. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

If there is one indisputable fact of human existence it is that we are terribly flawed. It is a scriptural fact that is undeniable in our experience.

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Did Jesus sin?

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No

Maybe a look at the context of Romans 3:23 would answer that one. All are justified through the redemption that is in Christ.

The interesting fact that he wrestled with the sin nature and overcame it after being born into all the weakness of our humanity makes him an exception. One could argue he experienced sin without sinning as sin was laid upon him.

He is unique; WE are flawed. So do you really think that cheap shot makes your point?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
If you say so, it is only from unawareness of interpretive principles. one such 'law' is called the "Law of recurrence". It says that in some passages of scripture there exists the recording of an event followed by a second recording of the same eventgiving more details than the first.

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quote:

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Gen 1:1-2,3 records the creation in chronological sequence. Gen 2:4-25, goes back to the 6th day to provide details of the manner by which Adam and Eve were created.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I happen to agree with Jamat that "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" is a good example of something that Scripture is clear about.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
However if anyone wants to be precise, Lights are things that give light but not necessarily things that self generate that light the give. The sun and moon both , in a practical sense function as lights, One is self generating, one is not.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
<snip>

Gen 1:1-2,3 records the creation in chronological sequence. Gen 2:4-25, goes back to the 6th day to provide details of the manner by which Adam and Eve were created.

<snip>

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Gen 1:1-2,3 records the creation in chronological sequence.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I do not deny metaphor or sybbolism.

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But you do. That is exactly what you're doing when you treat a poetic and mythical creation narrative as a historical document. What you really mean is that you accept, out of necessity, that there are some passages where the Bible doesn't mean what the words literally say, but you want to set yourself up as the arbiter of exactly when it's acceptable to treat an account as metaphorical or symbolic.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Not at all. You do not perhaps recognise what metaphor actually is. It is the presentation of a reality in a figurative way by using contrast. We live and breathe metaphor in the communication of our literal realities. viz: Searing heat: heat that damages etc etc. And so does the Bible. Metaphor does not equate to myth which is a different genre.

Symbol in the Bible is self interpreting. The Dragon of Rev 12 is Satan as the text says so. Stars are angels. The issue here is the kinds of meaning created by these devices.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
That meaning is no less real meaning than a blunt statement like: 'The dog ate its dinner.'

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Nope, no possible metaphor there!
 

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Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Not at all. You do not perhaps recognise what metaphor actually is. It is the presentation of a reality in a figurative way by using contrast. We live and breathe metaphor in the communication of our literal realities. viz: Searing heat: heat that damages etc etc. And so does the Bible. Metaphor does not equate to myth which is a different genre.

Symbol in the Bible is self interpreting. The Dragon of Rev 12 is Satan as the text says so. Stars are angels. The issue here is the kinds of meaning created by these devices.

---

So the Bible's multiple references to God's storehouses of rain, hail, and snow reflect the literal existence of such weather storehouses, but they're also used to illustrate a wider point? Where exactly are these storehouses located? Somewhere near the "floodgates of heaven"? (Or is that "windows of heaven"?

I'm even more curious about your take on the immobility of the Earth, for obvious historical reasons.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
That meaning is no less real meaning than a blunt statement like: 'The dog ate its dinner.'

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Nope, no possible metaphor there!

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code:

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Here
 

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Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :
 
So let's see if I've got this right: mirror is another word for light, stars are angels, the asteroid belt is God's storehouse of snow and ice, and Genesis happened exactly as described.

And am I the only on who thinks that a self-interpreting symbol is an oxymoron?
 

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Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
I do not deny metaphor or sybbolism.

---

But you do. That is exactly what you're doing when you treat a poetic and mythical creation narrative as a historical document. What you really mean is that you accept, out of necessity, that there are some passages where the Bible doesn't mean what the words literally say, but you want to set yourself up as the arbiter of exactly when it's acceptable to treat an account as metaphorical or symbolic.

---

Not at all. You do not perhaps recognise what metaphor actually is. It is the presentation of a reality in a figurative way by using contrast. We live and breathe metaphor in the communication of our literal realities. viz: Searing heat: heat that damages etc etc. And so does the Bible. Metaphor does not equate to myth which is a different genre.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Gen 1:1-2,3 records the creation in chronological sequence.

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Says who? Lots of people read it and did not think it was a chronological sequence.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
You do not perhaps recognise what metaphor actually is. It is the presentation of a reality in a figurative way by using contrast. We live and breathe metaphor in the communication of our literal realities. viz: Searing heat: heat that damages etc etc. And so does the Bible. Metaphor does not equate to myth which is a different genre.

---

quote:

---

Symbol in the Bible is self interpreting. The Dragon of Rev 12 is Satan as the text says so.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You don't actually get what figurative langage does. It reflects a reality that is literal. In this case that God originates and controls weather and seasons. On the question of literal storehoses you might try the asteroid belt.
Here

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Most people would interpret "The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season" to be describing rainfall. You seem to think it describes asteroid bombardment, and all that scientific mumbo jumbo about evaporation and the water cycle is just godlessness. Ditto snow and hail, which apparently selectively falls on battlefields. Given how many panzers were disabled at Stalingrad by asteroid strike . . .
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Did Jesus sin?

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No

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I happen to agree with Jamat that "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" is a good example of something that Scripture is clear about.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Unborn infants? Or do they not count in the "all"? Again, this is not clear and plain. Something that needs the interpretive framework this requires cannot possibly said to be "clear and plain."

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quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Did Jesus sin?

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No

---

Hawk took care of this bit of inanity. And note: counter-examples to outrageous false claims aren't "cheap shots." Learn to argue rationally. Learn what a counter-example is, and how to deal with it without sarcasm. You put me in mind of Tundra Barbie and her "gotcha questions" which means questions she is unable to answer.

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I happen to agree with Jamat that "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" is a good example of something that Scripture is clear about.

---

Unborn infants? Or do they not count in the "all"? Again, this is not clear and plain. Something that needs the interpretive framework this requires cannot possibly said to be "clear and plain."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

Here's an unequivocal fact for you.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth." Gen 1:1
The Earth was formed by God out of water and between the waters. 2Pet 3:5.
His eternal power and divinity have been made intelligible and clearly discernible through the things that have been made Ro 1:20

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth." Gen 1:1
The Earth was formed by God out of water and between the waters. 2Pet 3:5.
His eternal power and divinity have been made intelligible and clearly discernible through the things that have been made Ro 1:20

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Also, are the bits of chemistry that say that you can't make rocks out of water, because they're composed of different elements, now also part of the godless materialist conspiracy?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Unborn infants? Or do they not count in the "all"? Again, this is not clear and plain. Something that needs the interpretive framework this requires cannot possibly said to be "clear and plain."

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Unborn infants? Roman Catholic and Reformed theology would say yes they are. Orthodox would say no.

The answer, as with so many things, depends on your interpretive framework.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
The issue of infants doesn't have any bearing on the issue either. Paul states that 'all are sold under sin.' The innocence of infants is in terms of action (they have not actively sinned yet) rather than in terms of nature (Their tendency towards sinfulness)

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quote:

---

Rather than ignoring or totally denying their testimony.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Your 'faith' in radiometric dating depends on the amount of particular elements originally present in samples. You know that really there is no way of knowing that. How can you then say the dates are accurate and not 'best guesses.'

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
If I found I was wrong at the end of the day then I hope I would admit it. If that happened, I would be an atheist as if I were convinced the universe occurred by natural processes, I would see no benefit in having faith in a creator.

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quote:

---

Why are planetary orbits so varied in angle and direction?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
I recognise that "In the beginning" is not a precise phrase. It is nevertheless true that human records date only fom 6K years.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
I recognise that "In the beginning" is not a precise phrase. It is nevertheless true that human records date only fom 6K years.

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Do you mean that human written records are no more than 6,000 years old? That is true but I don't see how it is relevant to the age of humanity. Records of human existence - bones, remains of buildings, debris of human activities - go back much longer than 6,000 years.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
And we don't need to look back into far antiquity to see that the existence of written records, or even the ability to write, is not a determinant of human presence. None of the pre-Roman tribes in Britain wrote, but there is very clear evidence of their existence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Your 'faith' in radiometric dating depends on the amount of particular elements originally present in samples. You know that really there is no way of knowing that. How can you then say the dates are accurate and not 'best guesses.'

---

When zirconium crystals are formed they will incorporate uranium but strongly reject lead. Hence the assumption that initial lead content is either zero or close enough to zero that it makes no difference. Is that something you'd care to deny and, if so, do you have any grounds other than "it would be inconvenient for my argument"?

Following from this fact, any lead found in the crystal is thus taken to be the end product of the uranium decay chain. It is therefore possible to know the age of the crystal by determining the ratio of these two elements.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:

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Why are planetary orbits so varied in angle and direction?

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Umm, they aren't. All the planets move round the sun in the same direction, and together with the asteroids and a few other minor bodies are in much the same plane. Even though Mercury has an inclination somewhat greater than most, and Pluto, which is probably a member of a group of objects with more in common with comets, has a much steeper inclination, the orbits are close to what would be expected from a disc of material rotating round a forming star.

You'd have to look for much odder evidence than that to justify a special creation of the Solar System. Not to say there isn't any to be found, but what you cite isn't it. Computer programmes have produced many similar arrangements in simulations based on various postulated starting conditions.

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quote:

---

What is your problem with all of them?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
You are sure of all that? See here

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quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I believe I shall initiate a petition for a face-palm emoticon.

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I find this one tends to be appropriate at times like this.

 

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Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
And we don't need to look back into far antiquity to see that the existence of written records, or even the ability to write, is not a determinant of human presence. None of the pre-Roman tribes in Britain wrote, but there is very clear evidence of their existence.

---

I think you're overlooking the obvious solution, which is that Britain was created sometime in the fourth century BC, around the time Greek merchants first made reference the island in written records. Before that there was nothing but empty ocean and sea serpents.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
Some of that is confidently dated at at least 40,000 years ago.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
When zirconium crystals are formed they will incorporate uranium but strongly reject lead. Hence the assumption that initial lead content is either zero or close enough to zero that it makes no difference. Is that something you'd care to deny and, if so, do you have any grounds other than "it would be inconvenient for my argument"?

Following from this fact, any lead found in the crystal is thus taken to be the end product of the uranium decay chain. It is therefore possible to know the age of the crystal by determining the ratio of these two elements.

---

You are sure of all that? See here

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:

---

Why are planetary orbits so varied in angle and direction?

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Umm, they aren't. All the planets move round the sun in the same direction, and together with the asteroids and a few other minor bodies are in much the same plane. Even though Mercury has an inclination somewhat greater than most, and Pluto, which is probably a member of a group of objects with more in common with comets, has a much steeper inclination, the orbits are close to what would be expected from a disc of material rotating round a forming star.

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What about axial tilt variations? Venus 3degrees, Earth 23.5 degrees and mars about 25 degrees? here

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:

---

Why are planetary orbits so varied in angle and direction?

---

Umm, they aren't. All the planets move round the sun in the same direction, and together with the asteroids and a few other minor bodies are in much the same plane. Even though Mercury has an inclination somewhat greater than most, and Pluto, which is probably a member of a group of objects with more in common with comets, has a much steeper inclination, the orbits are close to what would be expected from a disc of material rotating round a forming star.

You'd have to look for much odder evidence than that to justify a special creation of the Solar System. Not to say there isn't any to be found, but what you cite isn't it. Computer programmes have produced many similar arrangements in simulations based on various postulated starting conditions.

---

What about axial tilt variations? Venus 3degrees, Earth 23.5 degrees and mars about 25 degrees? here

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
So, because you interpret the opening chapters of Genesis in a novel way (ie: teaching a creation over 6 24h periods within the last 10,000 years) you immediately consider anything else to be wrong. I'm assuming you would consider yourself to be evangelical, and likely within that strand of evangelicalism that would include the "Fundamentals" series of books written at the start of the 20th century as part of your tradition. If so, why do you want to step so far outside the fundamental, evangelical tradition you are a part of?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Novel interpretation? Novel because I do not think it has to be explained away I suppose?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You believe that scripture is God-breathed or you don't. If it is and you ignore it then you place yourself in the path of those who refuse to have ears.

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quote:

---

If There was no flood, why did every Biblical writer who touches on the subject believe there was? It is a given in the prophets, in the Psalms, in Job, in the Gospels and in Peter's epistles.

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quote:

---

There is no doubt that all of the NT writers trusted the veracity of Genesis and indeed, the whole Pentacheuch. I've written it before but Jesus himself referred to the flood. To deny it you have to cherry pick the gospels for the real versus the mythical. This exercise lacks integrity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
There is no doubt that all of the NT writers trusted the veracity of Genesis and indeed, the whole Pentacheuch. I've written it before but Jesus himself referred to the flood. To deny it you have to cherry pick the gospels for the real versus the mythical. This exercise lacks integrity.

<snip>

And by the way Penny S do you not feel that a God who has a planet rotate in the opposite way to all the otheres is saying something through the fact? He is saying, Here, explain this another way.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
If There was no flood, why did every Biblical writer who touches on the subject believe there was? It is a given in the prophets, in the Psalms, in Job, in the Gospels and in Peter's epistles.

---

If there was no Ebenezer Scrooge, why do we refer to him so much at Christmas? If there was no such person as John Bull or Uncle Sam, why do people refer to them instead of the UK or USA? If animals don't talk and never challenge each other to races, why do we talk knowingly of the tortoise and the hare?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
If There was no flood, why did every Biblical writer who touches on the subject believe there was? It is a given in the prophets, in the Psalms, in Job, in the Gospels and in Peter's epistles.

---

If there was no Ebenezer Scrooge, why do we refer to him so much at Christmas? If there was no such person as John Bull or Uncle Sam, why do people refer to them instead of the UK or USA? If animals don't talk and never challenge each other to races, why do we talk knowingly of the tortoise and the hare?

---

I'm very much on the Alan Creswell / Great Gumby side of this argument as a whole, but I think Jamat has a point here. Jesus and all the Biblical writers do seem to refer to the flood as an actual occurrence, don't they?

I'm personally not bothered by this - they were all writing and speaking from within their culture - but I don't think The Great Gumby's analogy holds. Everyone knows 'Uncle Sam' means the USA and 'Ebeneezer Scrooge' is a fictional character so ISTM these aren't the same kind of thing as Biblical writers referring to the flood, Adam and Eve, and so on as factual.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Everyone knows" - exactly. When was the last time you heard someone using one of these analogies and explicitly stating that they're fictions, fables, myths, archetypes or whatever else? They don't, because everyone knows.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
or it didn't matter to them, or something else entirely.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
So, because you interpret the opening chapters of Genesis in a novel way (ie: teaching a creation over 6 24h periods within the last 10,000 years) you immediately consider anything else to be wrong. I'm assuming you would consider yourself to be evangelical, and likely within that strand of evangelicalism that would include the "Fundamentals" series of books written at the start of the 20th century as part of your tradition. If so, why do you want to step so far outside the fundamental, evangelical tradition you are a part of?

---

Novel interpretation? Novel because I do not think it has to be explained away I suppose? It simply says what it means and means what it says. And to believe that, to you is novel? I find THAT novel. I find it extraordinary.

There seems to be some problem here with the concept of interpretation. Of course we interpret and we all have a lens that is a bit unique. One brings all one's preconceptions and world view and experience to a text. I suppose that Levi-Strauss and co showed us the folly of thinking that textual meaning could be objective.

Yet, God has, nevertheless, chosen text to communicate with us, his creation; in fact he has done so through a library of texts which contain internal markers of consistency. The concept of covenantal relationship is one such marker, the concept of sin is another, the concept of monotheism is another. the concept of prophecy is another, the assumption of a world beyond our sight that impacts on ours is another.

These markers exist through the sacred texts, through the 66 books and the 40 authors. What we have in this library is really an integrated message system for any one with a heart to discover it.

One concept that seems apposite here is the repetition of of the gospel phrase "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Obviously, not all have the ability to grasp what the divine author is saying.

regarding the 'novel' interpretation of Genesis. This reveals only your lens. To me it is a narrative, To me it is history, To me it is revelation. It doesn't tell us what we want to know. It tells us what we need to know.

There is no doubt that all of the NT writers trusted the veracity of Genesis and indeed, the whole Pentacheuch. I've written it before but Jesus himself referred to the flood. To deny it you have to cherry pick the gospels for the real versus the mythical. This exercise lacks integrity.

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You believe that scripture is God-breathed or you don't. If it is and you ignore it then you place yourself in the path of those who refuse to have ears.

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And by the way Penny S do you not feel that a God who has a planet rotate in the opposite way to all the otheres is saying something through the fact? He is saying, Here, explain this another way.

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This latter point seems in particular to follow from the astonishing relation which the known six planets observe in their distances from the Sun. Let the distance from the Sun to Saturn be taken as 100, then Mercury is separated by 4 such parts from the Sun. Venus is 4+3=7. The Earth 4+6=10. Mars 4+12=16. Now comes a gap in this so orderly progression. After Mars there follows a space of 4+24=28 parts, in which no planet has yet been seen. Can one believe that the Founder of the universe had left this space empty? Certainly not. From here we come to the distance of Jupiter by 4+48=52 parts, and finally to that of Saturn by 4+96=100 parts.

When originally published, the law was approximately satisfied by all the known planets — Mercury through Saturn — with a gap between the fourth and fifth planets. It was regarded as interesting, but of no great importance until the discovery of Uranus in 1781 which happens to fit neatly into the series. Based on this discovery, Bode urged a search for a fifth planet. Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, was found at Bode's predicted position in 1801. Bode's law was then widely accepted until Neptune was discovered in 1846 and found not to satisfy Bode's law. Simultaneously, the large number of known asteroids in the belt resulted in Ceres no longer being considered a planet at that time. Bode's law was discussed as an example of fallacious reasoning by the astronomer and logician Charles Sanders Peirce in 1898.[3]

The discovery of Pluto in 1930 confounded the issue still further. While nowhere near its position as predicted by Bode's law, it was roughly at the position the law had predicted for Neptune. However, the subsequent discovery of the Kuiper belt, and in particular of the object Eris, which is larger than Pluto yet does not fit Bode's law, have further discredited the formula.[4] (Wikipedia)

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Originally posted by Jamat:
... To me it is a narrative, To me it is history, To me it is revelation. It doesn't tell us what we want to know. It tells us what we need to know. ...

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Or if all the asteroids lined up into bar code pattern that spelled out in binary code the first words of Torah in Hebrew.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

Your 'faith' in radiometric dating depends on the amount of particular elements originally present in samples.

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It is nevertheless true that human records date only fom 6K years.

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The solar system alone works so strangely that it defies naturalistic explanations.

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Originally posted by ken:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jamat:
[qb]
Your 'faith' in radiometric dating depends on the amount of particular elements originally present in samples.

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It is nevertheless true that human records date only fom 6K years.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Really?

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You know that website is shite, right? World Book Encyclopedia (1966) and an article in Reader's Digest (1984)? Those are your references? Really? Others have already pointed out that writing and language are not the only forms of human records, or evidence of human activity. Tools, culturally modified trees, remains of butchered animals, petroglyphs, middens ...

Examples of techologies based on the scientific understanding of radioactivity include not just dating methods, but cancer treatment, medical imaging, food sterilization, and luminous watch dials. All those technologies depend on knowing the rate of decay of specific isotopes, and they seem to work pretty reliably and reproducibly for us. One could try to argue against radioactive dating by claiming that isotopes decayed at significatly different rates a few thousand years ago than they do today. (And the nuclear reactions of the sun would also have to be different.) Any suggestions on how that might have happened and how it could be proved to have happened?
 

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Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Soror Magna:
One could try to argue against radioactive dating by claiming that isotopes decayed at significatly different rates a few thousand years ago than they do today. (And the nuclear reactions of the sun would also have to be different.) Any suggestions on how that might have happened and how it could be proved to have happened?

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Novel interpretation? Novel because I do not think it has to be explained away I suppose?

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No, novel as in "new". In the two millenia of Christian history, and the millenia of Jewish history before that, your interpretation has never been especially common. Even before we had evidence indicating that the earth is ancient Christian scholars dismissed the YEC interpretation based on internal evidence of the text. By the turn of the 20th century, with the exception of a very small strand of Lutherism and a few sects such as some 7th Day Adventists, all Christian scholars accepted that the earth is ancient

The YEC interpretation you appear to accept is an approach to Scripture that dates from the 1950s (with the publication of The Genesis Flood, in which Morris and Whitcombe popularised the obscure ideas of some 7th Day Adventists). It is 'novel' because it is an approach that is only 60 years old.

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Jamat: your Wiki article does seem to show lots of support from antiquity for a young earth.

Assuming (for the sake of argument -- I'm not qualified to judge the accuracy of the Wiki claims or whether all those ancient supporters amount to anything) the prevalence of such support, um, so what?[/QB]

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Originally posted by Jamat:
A huge array of ancient authorities believed in a young earth.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I do not deny my own agenda either. If I found I was wrong at the end of the day then I hope I would admit it. If that happened, I would be an atheist as if I were convinced the universe occurred by natural processes, I would see no benefit in having faith in a creator... if the root cannot support the branch, the tree falls

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I came to understand, through much soul searching, that my faith in God my Father should not and could not rest on the root of my understanding of special supernatural creation, but on God Himself.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
But who is Your God? if he is divorced from the Bible he is probably the child of your mind..who you think he should be rather than who he is.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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I came to understand, through much soul searching, that my faith in God my Father should not and could not rest on the root of my understanding of special supernatural creation, but on God Himself.

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But who is Your God? if he is divorced from the Bible he is probably the child of your mind..who you think he should be rather than who he is.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Coming back to dating. There is the distant starlight issue creationsts have and the answer to that cannot be naturalistic unless the the speed of light is not or was not a constant..

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Originally posted by Jamat:
It states that the siz e of the universe precludes the sharing of light or energy between the most distant parts of the universe. Consequently the universe should not be the same tempreture in relative terms. Yet it is. This is a problem for the big bang.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Coming back to dating. There is the distant starlight issue creationsts have and the answer to that cannot be naturalistic unless the the speed of light is not or was not a constant..

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Heck, I'm still waiting for an explanation of how you reconcile heliocentrism with a strictly literal reading of the Bible. Complications arising from the finite speed of light seem secondary to the Bible's assertion that the Earth is immobile.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Ps 96:10? The Earth is established so that it cannot be moved?
Well I guess, since we know the Earh orbits the sun and rotates on its axis that this suggests that these things are established by God for it. Is this some kind of refutation of scripture?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
... Well I guess, since we know the Earh orbits the sun and rotates on its axis that this suggests that these things are established by God for it. Is this some kind of refutation of scripture? ...

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And how do you know that the Earth orbits the sun? Humans were able to figure out that the earth orbited around the sun long before spaceflight. Heliocentrism replaced other concepts (such as the Ptolemaic spheres, flat earth, hollow earth, etc.) because it explained and predicted the movements of the planets and other bodies in our sky BETTER THAN OTHER MODELS. In the same way, evolution is generally accepted as a better model to explain the diversity of life rather than God extracting ribs, hiding dinosaur carcasses, and mucking about with the laws of physics to mislead us. (Remember also that the theory of evolution says nothing about the origins of the universe or how the earliest life forms came into existence.)

I'll say it again: using the Bible as a scientific textbook makes about as much sense as looking for moral guidance in the instructions for my bread machine.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

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Originally posted by Soror Magna:
makes about as much sense as looking for moral guidance in the instructions for my bread machine.

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"Since we know the earth is billions of years old"

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• God creates things that are good
• Physical evolution of the universe and biological evolution on earth over billions of years requires the destruction of previous forms
• That would require the destruction of something good, since creation is good
• To destroy, or allow to be destroyed, something that is good is monsterous
• God is not a monster, therefore something good cannot be destroyed by God, nor can God let it be destroyed (unless he is impotent to prevent it)

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK, so I'll grant that the destruction of the good wasn't the end. After the Flood the world was repopulated by plants nd animals. Job was restored to new wealth. Jesus was raised to new life. But, that's precisely the point; the old was destroyed making way for something new. Exactly like evolution.

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He kept making creatures very similar to the creatures that He had just destroyed..."

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Originally posted by Jamat:

But what of the horizon problem which I have never seen discussed here?

It states that the siz e of the universe precludes the sharing of light or energy between the most distant parts of the universe. Consequently the universe should not be the same tempreture in relative terms. Yet it is. This is a problem for the big bang.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
...He lacked the sovereign power to control His creation so that it did not destroy most of His previous work...

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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"Since we know the earth is billions of years old"

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"If millions of years of death and extinction and disease really occurred, then God is like the wicked man of Proverbs 12:10 and He was doing exactly the opposite of what He told the Jews to do. The acceptance of millions of years is an assault on the character of Almighty God.
...Such a cruel, bumbling, and weak God could not be trusted and would not be worthy of our worship." Terry Mortensen.

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The acceptance of Terry Mortensen’s argument is an assault on the character of Almighty God.

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Fossils tell a creationist a different story than they do an evolutionist. The issue is the world view that dictates the premises you start with, not the evidence.

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The first people to look at the story of the fossils did not have a world view that demanded evolution, as the only world history they would have been familiar with was the Biblical one.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
But.. no fossils are being created today right?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
But.. no fossils are being created today right? They required an aqueous ctastrophe such as the Biblical deluge.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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The first people to look at the story of the fossils did not have a world view that demanded evolution, as the only world history they would have been familiar with was the Biblical one.

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This is irrelevant to the point..viz they had a world view.

By the way is it Neptune that spins horizontally?

I wouldn't use the fossils to support a creationist view specifically. Creation cannot be proved in that manner. But.. no fossils are being created today right? They required an aqueous ctastrophe such as the Biblical deluge.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
... By the way is it Neptune that spins horizontally? ...

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Originally posted by Jamat:
[Romans 9 in the passage where Paul says "who are you O man to answer back to God" Ro 9;20 would suggest that the argument put forward here was not unfamiliar to him.

To Paul though, the answer was not to 'justify' God or to impugn his character but to recognise the limitation of the created one's insight into the creator's motives.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
[Romans 9 in the passage where Paul says "who are you O man to answer back to God" Ro 9;20 would suggest that the argument put forward here was not unfamiliar to him.

To Paul though, the answer was not to 'justify' God or to impugn his character but to recognise the limitation of the created one's insight into the creator's motives.

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So why do you call God a 'wicked man', say that God is 'not intelligent' or 'not powerful enough' to make the world in a way that suits you?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I am not sure what you are saying.

Well, are there any naturally occuring fossils happening these days that I don't know about? Even if there were, it is surely not on any scale of what we find happened in the past.

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

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A very large percentage of all fossils are found in rocks which are formed today only in very shallow seas (and not in any way associated with floods). That alone should tell you either a) the world is old or b) this God you believe in is a liar and is messing with your mind.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
[Romans 9 in the passage where Paul says "who are you O man to answer back to God" Ro 9;20 would suggest that the argument put forward here was not unfamiliar to him.

To Paul though, the answer was not to 'justify' God or to impugn his character but to recognise the limitation of the created one's insight into the creator's motives.

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So why do you call God a 'wicked man', say that God is 'not intelligent' or 'not powerful enough' to make the world in a way that suits you?

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I am not sure what you are saying.

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If millions of years of death and extinction and disease really occurred, then God is like the wicked man of Proverbs 12:10 and He was doing exactly the opposite of what He told the Jews to do. The acceptance of millions of years is an assault on the character of Almighty God.

If God created over those millions of years, then He clearly was not intelligent enough and powerful enough to create a world right in the first place.

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Well, are there any naturally occuring fossils happening these days that I don't know about? Even if there were, it is surely not on any scale of what we find happened in the past.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

Genesis Flood Insights More Relevant Today than Ever
by Frank Sherwin, M.A., & Brian Thomas, M.S. *
Scientific observations made in the seminal book The Genesis Flood are even more scientifically valid today than when they were first written. Although subsequent research has shown a few to be inaccurate, most of the perspectives that were laid out by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris in their 1961 publication have been verified beyond reasonable doubt by ongoing observations.

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This is amazing, considering how geologic interpretation has changed since the 1950s. For example, plate tectonics has become a core model and catastrophic floods are now invoked to explain most sedimentary rock. Below are some Genesis Flood insights that science has clearly validated.

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Catastrophic Sedimentary Deposits

Drs. Whitcomb and Morris noted agreement between some basic implications of a world-destroying Flood and large-scale observations from the earth’s surface. For example, since “almost all of the sedimentary rocks of the earth…have been laid down by moving waters,” it is legitimate to consider flooding as the primary cause.1

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The bulk of mountains and continents are comprised of sedimentary mudstones of some type. When The Genesis Flood was written, mainstream geologists believed that certain mudstones could only form by slow accumulation of sediments in the bottom of calm, shallow water bodies. But in 1980, layered mudstones resulted from the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption. Then in 2009, a paper in Science caught up with Whitcomb and Morris, saying, “Mudstones can be deposited under more energetic conditions than widely assumed, requiring a reappraisal of many geologic records.”2

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Morris' work with John C. Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood, has been criticized for taking quotes out of context and misquoting sources. For example, in one instance, a source which read "the sea which vanished so many million years ago" was quoted as "the sea which vanished so many years ago." Geologist John G. Solum has criticized the work for being inaccurate. Solum noted "Whitcomb and Morris are mistaken about the nature of the rocks associated with thrust faults. Their claim about fossils is based on a YEC misunderstanding of how rocks are dated relative to each other, and how the geologic column was constructed." In fact Solum noted, "Morris' explanation of relative dating is not 'somewhat oversimplified' it is entirely incorrect."

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Well, are there any naturally occuring fossils happening these days that I don't know about? Even if there were, it is surely not on any scale of what we find happened in the past.

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Originally posted by Eliab:
I recall a similar point being argued here a few years ago and the point being made (I think by ken)...

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Well, are there any naturally occuring fossils happening these days that I don't know about? Even if there were, it is surely not on any scale of what we find happened in the past.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Well, are there any naturally occuring fossils happening these days that I don't know about? Even if there were, it is surely not on any scale of what we find happened in the past.

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If you mean "are there any fossils of modern-day creatures", then the answer is clearly "no" - because it takes tens of thousands of years for a fossil to form. You can't watch a fossil being created!

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You can't fool me, Marvin - the world isn't even ten thousand years old, so if you were right, there wouldn't be any fossils at all, Game, set and match creationism!

Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised to see an argument like that being advanced in this context, because contrary to earlier assertions, the only people who rigidly interpret everything according to their prior assumptions are the creationists. Those who believe in evolution and an old Earth are reaching a decision based on the evidence. In favour: Whole bodies of scientific research and discovery. Against: Inappropriately literal interpretations of an ancient creation myth and some dishonest and/or incompetent cranks.
 

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Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
Jamat, do you see what's going on here? Whenever you post something that, in your view, supports the creationist position, several people reply quickly with rebuttals. And most of these people would call themselves Christians; they believe in and follow Jesus Christ as God.

In order to maintain your viewpoint, aren't you forced to believe there is either a vast conspiracy or a collective ineptitude on the part of scientists across the world?

The overwhelming majority of scientists believe the earth was created billions of years ago and humans came about through evolution by natural selection. And the reason for why the Bible appears to teach something contrary to this is (IMO) viably explained by the creation myth argument, so you can let the creationist beliefs go without any risk to your faith, ISTM.
 

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Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
When I was in my first year of a geology degree, I sat down and read Morris' Genesis Flood, cover to cover.

My initial assessment of Morris as a veneer of scientific construction covering a pit of misunderstanding, half-truths and outright lies was reinforced by everything I learnt in the subsequent three years, and the three years of my PhD, and the two years of Post-doc research.

Scientists, bless them, are simply too disorganised, too honest, too curious, to keep up any sort of global conspiracy for more than a minute.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
I came here to post the very same thing as Doc Tor and SCK.

Not only for the reasons they mentioned, but publishing!
Can you imagine the book opportunities a verifiable alternate theory to mainstream geology (paleontology, biology, etc) would bring?
And of all the variety of people in the scientific community, if a young earth were plausible, wouldn't there be at least one Young Earth atheist?

And let's not forget the Buddhists, Hindus and the like who have no vested interest in the atheist or Christian "agendas."
Side question, why does Christianity, of all the major religions, feel so threatened by science?
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Sorry, there is a strong, if minority, creationist movement in Islam as well. Though, oddly, some of it is based upon the Institute of Creation Research.
 

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Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Side question, why does Christianity, of all the major religions, feel so threatened by science?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Well, are there any naturally occuring fossils happening these days that I don't know about?

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Even if there were, it is surely not on any scale of what we find happened in the past.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Side question, why does Christianity, of all the major religions, feel so threatened by science?

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I dunno, ken. According to this poll, 67% of Americans who claim to attend church weekly believe "God created humans in present form within the last 10,000 years."
...

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Originally posted by leo:
Also, the US seems to be made up largely of tiny rural communities - little challenge from outsiders.

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Not if we believe the CIA World Factbook. They reckon about 82% of Americans live in urban areas. Of course a lot of them are in low-density outer suburbs, but that's still a long way from being a "tiny, rural, community". And about half of all Americans live in cities of a million or more.

That's actually more than in the UK accordsing to some measures. And LA has a greater population density than New York... so much for stereotypes And yes you can work out those figures any way you want depending on how you choose the city boundaries, so another list has us at 90% urban.

But then Australia, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina are all among the world's most urbanised countries. Lots of wide open spaces - but most people don't live in them.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Buddhism is a bit more difficult to track, but there is nothing truly incompatible in it with science. Hinduism fares really well and is easier to track as the vast majority still live in the same region. There are fundamentalist Hindu's, yes, but hey seem far less influential.

BTW, Britain's numbers are better than America's, but they are not good.

More numbers, which shed a poor light on many countries.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
BTW, Britain's numbers are better than America's, but they are not good.

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Originally posted by ken:
As less than 10% of the population are Christians if it really was true that 22% of Brits were YEC most of them would not be Christians.

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

My initial assessment of Morris as a veneer of scientific construction covering a pit of misunderstanding, half-truths and outright lies

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Originally posted by Jamat:
'The mountains as we know them were uplifted in comparatively recent times geologically speaking but there are no processes operating today that explains how this happened.' paraphrase from The Genesis Flood P142 ch 5

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Originally posted by Jamat:
There must be quite a few of these that you can then put your finger on seeing you have a Ph.d and all.

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Does the following come to mind?

'The mountains as we know them were uplifted in comparatively recent times geologically speaking but there are no processes operating today that explains how this happened.' paraphrase from The Genesis Flood P142 ch 5

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He supports this by sources that date human remains from the Pliocene (though he states this is Pithecanthropus group Yet mountain chains date from the Pleistocene (after that). The issue is whether this is 'sapiens stock' ie us.

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"the geologic and paleontologic data seem to prove that man lived during the times when deposits were being laid down which are now found capping the mountains and thus that the mountain-making processes, with all their associated phenomena- the faults,folds rifts and thrusts etc-have been active within geologically very recent times.

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But they are not active now, at least not measurably so. And yet the processes associated with mountain building, and their results, are considered by all geophysicists and geomorphologists to be absolutely basisc to the interpretation of earth history.

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Here then is another extremely important gap in the range of applicability of the so called law of unifomity, whereby present processes are supposed to suffice to explain all geologic phenomena." The Genesis Flood Ch 5 P143 of the 1974 printing

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Originally posted by Jamat:
But they are not active now, at least not measurably so.

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

quote:

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Does the following come to mind?

'The mountains as we know them were uplifted in comparatively recent times geologically speaking but there are no processes operating today that explains how this happened.' paraphrase from The Genesis Flood P142 ch 5

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Why are you paraphrasing? I don't understand your rationale, if you want to discuss the point he is making, quote it. Otherwise how do you know you are accurately putting forward his argument?

There are so many things wrong with this phrase that it becomes a simple unreasoned assertion. Mountain building is not all comparatively recent, the processes are not unexplained nor missing. Simply wrong. The uplift of mountains is a measured phenomena.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

My initial assessment of Morris as a veneer of scientific construction covering a pit of misunderstanding, half-truths and outright lies

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There must be quite a few of these that you can then put your finger on seeing you have a Ph.d and all.

Does the following come to mind?

'The mountains as we know them were uplifted in comparatively recent times geologically speaking but there are no processes operating today that explains how this happened.' paraphrase from The Genesis Flood P142 ch 5

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

My initial assessment of Morris as a veneer of scientific construction covering a pit of misunderstanding, half-truths and outright lies

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There must be quite a few of these that you can then put your finger on seeing you have a Ph.d and all.

Does the following come to mind?

'The mountains as we know them were uplifted in comparatively recent times geologically speaking but there are no processes operating today that explains how this happened.' paraphrase from The Genesis Flood P142 ch 5 He supports this by sources that date human remains from the Pliocene (though he states this is Pithecanthropus group Yet mountain chains date from the Pleistocene (after that). The issue is whether this is 'sapiens stock' ie us.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
["the geologic and paleontologic data seem to prove that man lived during the times when deposits were being laid down which are now found capping the mountains and thus that the mountain-making processes, with all their associated phenomena- the faults,folds rifts and thrusts etc-have been active within geologically very recent times.

But they are not active now, at least not measurably so. And yet the processes associated with mountain building, and their results, are considered by all geophysicists and geomorphologists to be absolutely basisc to the interpretation of earth history.

Here then is another extremely important gap in the range of applicability of the so called law of unifomity, whereby present processes are supposed to suffice to explain all geologic phenomena." The Genesis Flood Ch 5 P143 of the 1974 printing

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Utter errant bollocks. The deposits laid down on which are now on top of the Himalayas are Mesozoic at best (>65Ma). Note that parts of the range are increasing in height by up to 1cm/y. Measurably.

Morris was wrong when he wrote the book. Everything that's gone on since has simply reinforced how wrong he was. He says, 'there are no mountains being made today', yet I can point at the Himalayas and could then and say 'what the fresh hell are they doing?'

x-posted with Marvin, who makes the same point, much more succinctly. Must. Stop. Frothing.

[ 18. September 2012, 09:16: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
 

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Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

My initial assessment of Morris as a veneer of scientific construction covering a pit of misunderstanding, half-truths and outright lies

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There must be quite a few of these that you can then put your finger on seeing you have a Ph.d and all.

Does the following come to mind?...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

He supports this by sources that date human remains from the Pliocene (though he states this is Pithecanthropus group Yet mountain chains date from the Pleistocene (after that).

"the geologic and paleontologic data seem to prove that man lived during the times when deposits were being laid down which are now found capping the mountains

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
Anyway, in real life in Britain YEC is very rare, inside or outside churches. And strongly argued YEC is vanishingly rare. In fact I can't remember when I last met anyone in real life (i.e. not on the Internet) who was into it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
Anyway, in real life in Britain YEC is very rare, inside or outside churches. And strongly argued YEC is vanishingly rare. In fact I can't remember when I last met anyone in real life (i.e. not on the Internet) who was into it.

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About twenty years ago in our conservative evangelical Christian Union I met one person who believed in creationism. Since then the only creationists I've met have been two imams at interfaith events.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
The OU student, when I asked her how she intended to get through the exams, said that it was OK to give the expected answers even though she didn't believe them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:
You live in bloody New Zealand! Did you sleep through the Christchurch earthquake - and the aftermath? Do you think such a release of energy is the result of an angry and capricious god?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I've not encountered a YECist yet that isn't a damnationist and isn't guilty of denying their full, personal need for the sacrifice of Christ by hiding behind Adam.

If that isn't the reason for Jamat's fear, then there is no other 'reason'.

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quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:

"the geologic and paleontologic data seem to prove that man lived during the times when deposits were being laid down which are now found capping the mountains
[/qb]

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I'd be very interested to know what data suggests that humans were around at the time of the initial uplift of the most recent mountain ranges such as the Andes, Rockies and Himalaya, let alone the eroded Variscan and Caledonian chains. Seashells, yes, left evidence on mountain tops, attracting the attention of ancient Greeks and medieval Muslims, one of whom made the leap from the idea that mountains had been uplifted seafloor to their being eroded to make new seafloor which was in turn uplifted to make new mountains, and so again (I'm not pleased with myself that I cannot recall his name).
No-one has published evidence of any fossilised human remains found in those sediments, have they? Pliocene and Pleistocene? Show us the data. I think it would have made the red-tops, let alone scientific journals.
So what is the data?
There are river gravels in Kent (UK) containing human remains dated to any earlier interglacial, now a few hundred feet above the current bed of the Thames, not overlain by any other deposits, and very poorly cemented, so any violent water movements would have scoured them away. Is that the sort of thing? Not exactly mountain tops.
Incidentally, Morris was a hydraulic engineer, and Whitcomb a theologian, neither qualified to discuss paleontology or geology at academic level. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:


Well Morris and Whitcomb wrote in 1961, so all sources they quote are before that. Incidentally, the aspersions cast on them for not being right about everything they said need to be mitigated in the light of that.

They do quote RF Flint as follows:
"In North America, late Pliocene or Pleistocene movements involving elevations of thousands of feet are recorded in Alaska and in the coast ranges of southern California.. In Europe the Scandanavian Mountains were created from areas of very moderate relief and altitude in "late tertiary" time.. the Alps were conspicuously uplifted in Pleistocene and and late pre-Pleistocene time. In Asia, there was great early Pleistocene uplift in Turkestan. Most of the vast uplift of the Himalayas is ascribed to the latest tertiary and Pleistocene..In South America the Peruvian Andes rose at least 5000 feet in post pliocene time..."
RF Flint Glacial Geology and the Pleistocene epoch. 1947.

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quote:

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Whitcomb and Morris conclude (quite reasonably I think) that:

'since Pliocene and Pleistocene are supposed to represent the most recent geological epochs, except that of the present, and since nearly all of the great mountain areas of the world have been found to have fossils from these times near their summits, there is no conclusion possible other than that the mountains have all been uplifted simultaneously and quite recently. Surely this fact accords well with the Biblical statements.'
The Genesis Flood" Ch 5 P128.

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quote:

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Now, as regards humans being around then. That is, of course, a different question. But they quote F E Zeuner as saying:

"We find the definitely human Pithecanthropus group in the lower Pleistocene.." F E Zeuner "Dating the Past " 1950.

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quote:

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I'm sure there have been advances since then.

The issue to me is and always has been the way one's world view dictates one's take on evidence.

Evidence interpreted in the light of continental drift requires the obligatory millions of years scenario. The diluvialist view can fit the evidence into a few thousand. Well he has to.

The thing is that the evidence doesn't speak, the world view speaks and since no one was there (because if the millions of years scenario is true that is a given and in the diluvialist scenario they were all drowned,) then we are left with contrary opinions that decide on a religious basis to look at it one way or the other. It kind of sticks in imy craw that one of these religious vies calls itself 'Science."

(Just winding you up guys.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
They do quote RF Flint as follows:
"In North America, late Pliocene or Pleistocene movements involving elevations of thousands of feet are recorded in Alaska and in the coast ranges of southern California.. In Europe the Scandanavian Mountains were created from areas of very moderate relief and altitude in "late tertiary" time.. the Alps were conspicuously uplifted in Pleistocene and and late pre-Pleistocene time. In Asia, there was great early Pleistocene uplift in Turkestan. Most of the vast uplift of the Himalayas is ascribed to the latest tertiary and Pleistocene..In South America the Peruvian Andes rose at least 5000 feet in post pliocene time..."
RF Flint Glacial Geology and the Pleistocene epoch. 1947.

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quote:

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Whitcomb and Morris conclude (quite reasonably I think) that:

'since Pliocene and Pleistocene are supposed to represent the most recent geological epochs, except that of the present, and since nearly all of the great mountain areas of the world have been found to have fossils from these times near their summits, there is no conclusion possible other than that the mountains have all been uplifted simultaneously and quite recently. Surely this fact accords well with the Biblical statements.'
The Genesis Flood" Ch 5 P128.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
The issue to me is and always has been the way one's world view dictates one's take on evidence.

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quote:

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Whitcomb and Morris conclude (quite reasonably I think) that:

'since Pliocene and Pleistocene are supposed to represent the most recent geological epochs, except that of the present, and since nearly all of the great mountain areas of the world have been found to have fossils from these times near their summits, there is no conclusion possible other than that the mountains have all been uplifted simultaneously and quite recently. Surely this fact accords well with the Biblical statements.'
The Genesis Flood" Ch 5 P128.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My bold. And their lie. This is simply not true, and wasn't then either.

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quote:

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You either examine the evidence and follow where it leads, or you distort it to fit your chosen conclusion.

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if there was a a flood, then in order to get the features we observe in the world today, there would have to have been in the past systems which are totally incomprehensible

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Such as what?

In a deluge of Biblical proportions over 150 days precipitated by vulcanism, tidal waves etc,you'd get burials and reburials of sediment, you'd get fossils, You'd get orogeny. Some sinking of seas is obvious. There is a city 2000feet under the Carribean off the western coast of Cuba. There are remains of a city 120feet under the Gulf of Cambay off western India.

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I've read here several times that there are 'discenible'order in layers of rock. Morris and Whitcomb question the overthrusting theory and I think again quite reasonably. They say there is no evidence for it except that the 'geological column' requires it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Whitcomb and Morris conclude (quite reasonably I think) that:

'since Pliocene and Pleistocene are supposed to represent the most recent geological epochs, except that of the present, and since nearly all of the great mountain areas of the world have been found to have fossils from these times near their summits, there is no conclusion possible other than that the mountains have all been uplifted simultaneously and quite recently. Surely this fact accords well with the Biblical statements.'
The Genesis Flood" Ch 5 P128.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My bold. And their lie. This is simply not true, and wasn't then either.

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Well the fossils are up there so that's true. Is it in dispute whether they are from the Pleistocene?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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You either examine the evidence and follow where it leads, or you distort it to fit your chosen conclusion.

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Evidence in istself doesn't lead anywhere. It is just information. You have to theorise to make it meaningful. If you theorise postulate, assume millions of years, evolution and continental drift then you get a different answer than if you theorise there was a deluge 4000 years ago.
Both sides do the same thing. It becomes a nmatter of who shouts loudest.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
How do YECcies explain the stratification of fossils? Were dinosaurs heavier than mammals? The small, primitive life forms, were they made of lead?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Whitcomb and Morris conclude (quite reasonably I think) that:

'since Pliocene and Pleistocene are supposed to represent the most recent geological epochs, except that of the present, and since nearly all of the great mountain areas of the world have been found to have fossils from these times near their summits, there is no conclusion possible other than that the mountains have all been uplifted simultaneously and quite recently. Surely this fact accords well with the Biblical statements.'
The Genesis Flood" Ch 5 P128.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My bold. And their lie. This is simply not true, and wasn't then either.

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Well the fossils are up there so that's true. Is it in dispute whether they are from the Pleistocene?

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How do YECcies explain the stratification of fossils? Were dinosaurs heavier than mammals? The small, primitive life forms, were they made of lead?

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:


"Ooopsy! We lost the male stegosaurus. Better just feed him to the other carnivores- especially the big cats. They've been looking peckish. And butcher his mate in a fortnight. That will open up space for the grizzlies. I like furry predators. The velociraptors give me the willies. But the smaller crocs are okay, I guess."

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Check your irony meter.

ETA: Or perhaps I need to check mine.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
In a deluge of Biblical proportions over 150 days precipitated by vulcanism, tidal waves etc,you'd get burials and reburials of sediment, you'd get fossils, You'd get orogeny. Some sinking of seas is obvious. There is a city 2000feet under the Carribean off the western coast of Cuba. There are remains of a city 120feet under the Gulf of Cambay off western India.

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Check your irony meter.

ETA: Or perhaps I need to check mine.

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Sorry, the 'ridiculous' wasn't directed at you. I hadn't contemplated this aspect of creationism before..

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Jamat: There is a city 2000feet under the Carribean off the western coast of Cuba.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
How do YECcies explain the stratification of fossils? Were dinosaurs heavier than mammals? The small, primitive life forms, were they made of lead?

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Creationists also say that there was an ark and they've found it.

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And even if they have found it, it changes nothing about the age of the earth. Even if there was a world-wide flood as deep as Ararat for a year or so the ancient rocks that took millions of years to make would still be there.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
The comment I liked best from those links was the creationist who said that because carbon dating is wrong, it's changed over the years, that's why we get the wrong dates from our assumptions of carbon dating that are all wrong, that can't possibly be an Ark because the wood readings aren't old enough.
 

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Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 
Ken, The turtles are all the way down also.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Whoo hoo hoo ...

I really can't get my head around what these guys are trying to achieve. It's such a non-issue ...

I think, though, contra-Ken's observations further up thread, that there is more of this stuff around in the UK than one might imagine - even in evangelical Anglican circles (although not with evangelical Anglican clergy).

I know people from a Pentecostal background who'd still firmly hold to a YEC position, although, in fairness, some of them have modified their viewpoint over the years - not to the point that they'd agree entirely with ken, South Coast Kevin and other non-YEC evangelicals here. But they've budged a bit ...
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Creationists also say that there was an ark and they've found it. That link is to the National Geographic,

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Originally posted by Penny S:
I've seen a thrust fault

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
I've seen a thrust fault

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Heh. Heh. You said 'thrust fault.'

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
On an entirely unrelated matter, can I ask you a hypothetical question? What would convince you that the Earth is billions of years old? Or what would convince you that it's more than a few thousand years old? It doesn't have to be anything that you think is likely to happen, but there must be something that would make you reconsider.

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• Fossils being found mixed up, with complex forms found alongside or below basic ones in the same formation
• Evidence of human life in ancient strata
• A message written in apparently ancient and long-buried rock
• Peer-reviewed evidence of wild inaccuracies in carbon dating, amounting to many orders of magnitude

quote:

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Fossils being found mixed up, with complex forms found alongside or below basic ones in lysame formation

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Gumby - there's no answer to that question, because the objection to mainstream science is not scientific but theological. Always has been. It must be wrong, whatever the evidence, because theology has primacy and his theology says it's wrong.

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Point taken, Dafyd - I was trying to deal in broad strokes, not a rigorous thesis, but in the context it's as well to be precise.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Gumby - there's no answer to that question, because the objection to mainstream science is not scientific but theological. Always has been. It must be wrong, whatever the evidence, because theology has primacy and his theology says it's wrong.

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Not disagreeing, but I'm hoping that Jamat will either come up with an answer or explicitly confirm that nothing would shake his worldview, rather than carefully avoiding the question.

The point is that Creationists often talk a good game about examining the evidence and finding it lacking, but unless they're prepared to say what it is they're looking for and haven't found, that's a meaningless statement. If we know what the perceived gap in the evidence is, then it can be addressed. Otherwise, if nothing could possibly change their minds, you can draw your own conclusions.

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Jamat: I previously did not consider your post worthy of comment

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:

The point is that Creationists often talk a good game about examining the evidence and finding it lacking, but unless they're prepared to say what it is they're looking for and haven't found, that's a meaningless statement. If we know what the perceived gap in the evidence is, then it can be addressed. Otherwise, if nothing could possibly change their minds, you can draw your own conclusions. [/QB]

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I often come across arguments around the [URL=]fragmentary nature [/URL] of the fossil record. Which gets us into the endless debate of how much evidence is enough to justify a case. There you go Gumby - something tangibe to disagree with
 

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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :
 
Let's try that [URL=www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/the_fragmented_062101.html ]link[/URL] again..... How ironic - seems to be a gap in the evidence....

This URL address cannot be handled by UBB code.
Try this instead.

Edited by TonyK

[ 25. September 2012, 22:18: Message edited by: TonyK ]
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
I often come across arguments around the fragmentary nature of the fossil record.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
I often come across arguments around the fragmentary nature of the fossil record.

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This reminds me of the quip that if a transitionary fossil between two known fossils is found, the creationist says, "Two new gaps found in fossil record!"

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What would convince you that the Earth is billions of years old?

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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What would convince you that the Earth is billions of years old?

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I just haven't had time really. Will get there..but..

Aren't you really enquiring if I've stopped beating my wife?

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Originally posted by Gee D:
Jamat , how do you explain the common ancestry of humans and apes. In your answer, bear in mind that only humans and apes are a vulnerable to the toxin in the bite of funnel web spiders.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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What would convince you that the Earth is billions of years old?

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I just haven't had time really. Will get there..but..

Aren't you really enquiring if I've stopped beating my wife?

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
I often come across arguments around the [URL=]fragmentary nature [/URL] of the fossil record. Which gets us into the endless debate of how much evidence is enough to justify a case.)

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Originally posted by Gee D:
Jamat , how do you explain the common ancestry of humans and apes. In your answer, bear in mind that only humans and apes are a vulnerable to the toxin in the bite of funnel web spiders.

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Originally posted by Penny S:
I assume these are Australian funnel web spiders.

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How is it known that apes are vulnerable? Has it been scientifically tested in laboratory conditions, with antidote available, or have there been some nasty zoo accidents?
Are you sure the vulnerability does not extend to monkeys, either Old or New World, and does it apply to all apes, including gibbons?.

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So why have a toxin which only affects creatures not indigenous to Australia?

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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So why have a toxin which only affects creatures not indigenous to Australia?

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That actually makes evolutionary sense. If our ancestors were never exposed to the toxin, there is no downside to us losing the bits of our immune system that might have helped us resist them if we had been exposed. [/QB]

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Delta atracotoxin produces potentially fatal neurotoxic symptoms in primates by slowing the inactivation of sodium ion channels in autonomic and motor neurons. In the spiders' intended insect prey, the toxin exerts this same activity upon potassium and calcium ion channels.[1]

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Point taken, Dafyd - I was trying to deal in broad strokes, not a rigorous thesis, but in the context it's as well to be precise.

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Gumby - there's no answer to that question, because the objection to mainstream science is not scientific but theological. Always has been. It must be wrong, whatever the evidence, because theology has primacy and his theology says it's wrong.

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Not disagreeing, but I'm hoping that Jamat will either come up with an answer or explicitly confirm that nothing would shake his worldview, rather than carefully avoiding the question.

The point is that Creationists often talk a good game about examining the evidence and finding it lacking, but unless they're prepared to say what it is they're looking for and haven't found, that's a meaningless statement. If we know what the perceived gap in the evidence is, then it can be addressed. Otherwise, if nothing could possibly change their minds, you can draw your own conclusions.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
To be honest I don't think you can convince me because to believe in the millions of years I'd have to believe God has lied.

Your comment about 'world view' is telling. You admit tactly that that is what this discussion is about.

IME worldviews are either empirical and based in natural understandings or spiritual. They predicate a reality that is unseen. To me the Bible is God's message from the unseen world and it is also our access to that world.

God could have created the universe in 7 minutes. He says he created the world we inhabit in 7 days. You say: "No, he didn't."

What would cause any sane person to believe you over him?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
To be honest I don't think you can convince me because to believe in the millions of years I'd have to believe God has lied.

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• God created everything in the recent past, exactly as recorded by a literal reading of Genesis. In which case the testimony of the rocks that the world is very much older and developed over time (the sequences of sedimentary layers, fossils, various chronometers based on radioactive decay and other processes) is a colosal lie. Those rocks were, Genesis tells us, created by God and are good ... in which case God intended to lie to us through his creation.
• The world really is billions of years old and developed over time, and Genesis is a literal description of how the world came to be and is a lie.
• The world really is billions of years old and developed over time, and Genesis was never intended as a literal description of how the world came to be. In which case no one is telling porkies.

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God could have created the universe in 7 minutes. He says he created the world we inhabit in 7 days.

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If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
To be honest I don't think you can convince me because to believe in the millions of years I'd have to believe God has lied.

Your comment about 'world view' is telling. You admit tactly that that is what this discussion is about.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
IME worldviews are either empirical and based in natural understandings or spiritual. They predicate a reality that is unseen. To me the Bible is God's message from the unseen world and it is also our access to that world.

God could have created the universe in 7 minutes. He says he created the world we inhabit in 7 days. You say: "No, he didn't."

What would cause any sane person to believe you over him?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not sure how you can conclude that accurately describing reality being different than the Bible means "God lied" in one case but not the other.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
... I don't think you can convince me because to believe in the millions of years I'd have to believe God has lied.

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quote:

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By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

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Originally posted by Penny S:
I'm glad Doc Tor used the Augustine quote - mind you, I did in another place and got told in no uncertain terms that I had no right to quote a saint of his standing in a cause which he would not agree with, and should be ashamed.

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Originally posted by Penny S:
I've tried to argue, in other places, as so many of you are doing, that to stick to the literal is to make the Earth and the cosmos great lies, but never succeeded in getting the point across.

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Originally posted by Gee D:
Jamat: Think of this. Whenever we look at an object, we see it as it was when the light we see left that object. We see the object as it was at a time in the past. For something in the same room, the time lapse is all but instantaneous. For the moon, it is not very long, but by the time we reach the sun, the time lapse is about 8 minutes. The light from the nearest star took 4 years to reach us. Do you agree so far?

Then consider our own Milky Way galaxy. Our star, the Sun, is in one of the spiral arms, and the light from the centre of the galaxy took around 25,000 years to reach here. Do you agree with this?

Move on to neighbouring galaxies, and the time for light from them to reach us has taken longer still. The most distant object discovered so far is so far away that the energy from that took well over 13 billion years to reach us. For all we know, there may be still more distant objects, with the energy from them yet to arrive, at least in a form which we may presently discern.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
Moveover, I'm not sure it is reasonable to expect Jamat or any Creationist (or anyone else) to know in detail the basis of all modern scientific theory.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rex Monday:
God made the rocks, men wrote the Bible. Who do you trust, Jamat?

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quote:

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Hopefully not, Jamat: why must we all believe, interpret, understand the bible like a three year old ?

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How can a scrap of poetry on the back of a fag packet edited throughout the entire bronze age be in conflict with science?

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How can science, i.e. what we KNOW using our God given senses and brains which have come up with sublime, abstract, perfect, theoretical and concretely REAL quantum mechanics; one of the foundations of creation (in which God had NO choice at all of course), how can that make God a liar ? How can God make God a liar ?

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The Word does not, cannot under any circumstances contradict the MERE word which is a HUMAN construct. An artefact. A multicultural 500 year span library from humanity's early-mid childhood. No matter that the humans concerned were in relationship with God. An APPARENT killer God. With their feet planted firmly in the mire.

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Terror of hell fire is common among those who sense the heat and sniff the smoke. As TS Eliot says: “Burning burning..”

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We haven't the faintest idea how FALLEN we are.

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It's obvious in other ways. You think, or rather feel or think experientially, as in how you cross the road, because you cannot analytically think about your thinking; you implicitly 'think' that if the Word contradicts the wooden word (a false dichotomy in the first place) - just like the Church confronted by Galileo - then the word is a lie and therefore the Word lies, therefore ... there is no Word. All is meaninglessness NOW and oblivion awaits NEX.....................................

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Even when God WENT WITH THEIR NARRATIVE (which was Indo-European and more, if not universal) and told the Israelites that He was the God who made the world in seven days, He did NOT lie even though it's taken Him 13.6 Ga so far.

Except to you in your arrested development.

And you WON'T see this. And it is NOTHING to do with my failure of communication, except at the most sublime level as some things, most things CANNOT be communicated to someone whose disposition is seared, crushed by fear. Psychotic.

Like me.

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quote:

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NOTHING can shake faith. Faith is, should be, AWASH with doubt, with humanity. Jesus' was.

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I'm a creationist. I'm not a Christian materialist as most of the cognoscenti here are. I do not believe that universes have always happened. I believe that God made this, first universe. I do not believe that life arose spontaneously not because it can't, but because it DIDN'T based on Fermi's EASILY falsifiable paradox - show me an exoplanet with more than trace atmospheric oxygen. I do not believe that mind can arise spontaneously, of itself, endogenously, emergently in life.

I COULD BE WRONG. All it will take is a whiff of oxygen.

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I don’t care either.

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Think of the goldilocks zone then. Why is the cat sat on the mat ‘wooden’…if it did?

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But the Bible cannot be. There’s the rub. You and me and the rest of us since Noah; we most certainly ARE wrong.

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The first 15 minutes of 2001 A Space Odyssey could be more right. Or I could be REALLY wrong, and through sexual selection we ended up as neotenous, bipedal, right angle central nervous systemed, opposable thumbed, naked, beautiful, face to face love making, talking apes with inevitable self awareness.

It certainly post-hoc materialistically looks like it.

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EXCEPT for Fermi's paradox. We creationists can ignore Christian materialism due to it being hoist with its own petard in that. Until we get a whiff of oxygen.

Yeah that will be scary. But I'm scared all the time any way. Of looming redundancy, unemployemnt, immobility, impotence, increasing mental illness (acute and chronic intrusive thinking) and cognitive dissonance and impairment.

But all will be well and all IS well because I'm IN God and He's with me in it. He doesn't make it go away, He CAN'T, dementia and death will, but He DOES create space around it all. He IS bigger than me.

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quote:

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He's bigger with you and your mental frailties, including YEC, too.

Love – Martin

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quote:

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If you are IN GOD, Martin then you shouldn’t be scared all the time.
Now I’m going to look up Fermi’s paradox.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:

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Originally posted by Rex Monday:
God made the rocks, men wrote the Bible. Who do you trust, Jamat?

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I think Jamat's answer would be that we only know about the rocks through the interpretations of men who set out to counteract the Bible, and the men who wrote that down were inspired by God to write the truth. This does not apply, in his world view, to the geologists.

Not that I agree with that, and think he should go out and look at some suitable exposures.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You are right Penny S in what I would say about geologists. They are certainly less inspired by the Holy Spirit that the authors of scripture.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You are right Penny S in what I would say about geologists. They are certainly less inspired by the Holy Spirit that the authors of scripture.

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Except you would be wrong even by your own lights, because the Bible disagrees with you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
It must be hard to be the arbiter of orthodoxy Doc tor. To which of the scriptures were you referring above?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
It must be hard to be the arbiter of orthodoxy Doc tor. To which of the scriptures were you referring above?

---

I am not the arbiter of orthodoxy. The Church has decided that there is no problem with an old earth, or evolution. The process started with Augustine, 1600 years ago - you, Jamat, are heterodox.

And all those scriptures saying that Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit? Are you so unaware of them?

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quote:

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Doc tor: My area of expertise is geology and geophysics, with a decent amount of cosmochemistry and astronomy (since my speciality was early solar system processes).

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
And while you are about it what do you make of the goldilocks zone? It is a great wonder to me that we are precisely where we are cosmically as we wouldn't survive anywhere else.

---

This question seems akin to asking why the holes we find puddles in are always exactly the same shape as the puddles they contain!

I'm sure the odds against that happening every single time must be pretty unlikely.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
While you are about it.. ancient high technology? They seem to have had majorly clever engineers and maybe even electrical power. But they didn't have oil.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
While you are about it.. ancient high technology? They seem to have had majorly clever engineers and maybe even electrical power. But they didn't have oil. Maybe as they hadn't discovered it or maybe because it wasn't there yet. All those fish hadn't been catastrophically entombed to create it?

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quote:

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trees are sometimes found straddling coal seams

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Because the alternative opens the floodgates for anything goes. It reduces Biblical understanding to the point where it is about as understandable as Nostradamus,

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quote:

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and finally because If, ‘the cat sat on the mat’ as someone saw it there and told you, and that someone was God, then the cat very probably sat on the mat.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

And while you are about it what do you make of the goldilocks zone? It is a great wonder to me that we are precisely where we are cosmically as we wouldn't survive anywhere else.

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quote:

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Alan Cresswell:The world really is billions of years old and developed over time, and Genesis was never intended as a literal description of how the world came to be. In which case no one is telling porkies.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
I think as I've stated before that the genre here is narrative. It has chronology, dates and names.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by TonyK:
Host Mode [ACTIVATE]

Jamat - I am referring to your post dated 30th September.

The quotes on this post are from one of Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard's posts on the Ooo, er, might I call Mark Betts to hell ? And Jamat ? Thread in Hell. Subsequent to this post, Martin PC not etc was given a temporary suspension by Rook.

Firstly, it is hardly fair to argue with a Shipmate when he/she cannot respond.

Equally reprehensible is the importation of quoted material from the Hell board (where the rules allow for more personal disagreement) to another Board, and certainly to do so without making this importation clear to those reading this DH thread.

Jamat, please:

a) use the Hell thread to respond material from that thread.

b) And in any case, on any of the Boards, cease and desist from arguing/debating with Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard until Rook (in his wisdom) lifts his suspension.

Host Mode [DEACTIVATE]

Yours aye ... TonyK
Host, Dead Horses

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:


But it is your world view that dictates a closed mind to the evidence. It is a vested interest in the billions of years that causes you to say the rocks tell the story of millions of years.

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quote:

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To me, the more I read, they tell the story of catastophism, of sudden sedimentation. There is a book by a lutheran minister Byron C Nelson called "The Deluge Story in Stone", that was published in 1929, (He died in 1972,) that I think documents scores of geological phenomena that are better explained by the deluge than by uniformitarianism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I think as I've stated before that the genre here is narrative. It has chronology, dates and names.

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What dates?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I think as I've stated before that the genre here is narrative. It has chronology, dates and names.

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What dates?

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Apologies. There are no specific dates. In the beginning implies a timeline.

---

Now we seem to have strayed off from geology and into biblical history. It seems to me to be a strange point to make - that the snake is not to be taken literally as a talking snake and yet the rest of the story cannot be taken as myth. And the reason it cannot be taken as myth is because it doesn't look like other myths.

I submit you're just saying the world must be the way you say so because you say so. The bible must mean what you say it means because you say so. Genesis must be metaphor and truth in exactly the points that you say so.

Or not. Nonsense.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I think as I've stated before that the genre here is narrative. It has chronology, dates and names.

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What dates?

---

Apologies. There are no specific dates. In the beginning implies a timeline.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
So it comes back to whether the Biblical creation story is myth, allegory or narrative.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Your comment about 'world view' is telling. You admit tactly that that is what this discussion is about.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You believe that scripture is God-breathed or you don't. If it is and you ignore it then you place yourself in the path of those who refuse to have ears.

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the problem, as others have pointed out to you, is that although you're imply that we ignore Scripture, that's not true. We're just ignoring (or dismissing) your interpretation of scripture, which is defined by a world-view - a systematic theology that requires a historic fall. That systematic theology is NOT the bible. It's an interpretation of the bible, and one that I believe is wrong.

It's your worldview that is colouring the way you read the bible, and the way you look at geological evidence.

The quote from Augustine is so apt. I remember getting fairly heavy on ByHisBlood in Hell (during his short time here) over this issue when it came up, maybe a bit harshly. But it's a big deal, because it pushes people away from Christ, not towards.

If we told the world that they could only become Christians if they believed that the sky is green with pink polka-dots, there wouldn't be any new Christians. Because they'd just have to look out their window to see that it's not true. That's what's happening here too. YECism pushes people away from Christ, not towards.

I'm no big fan of Augustine, but he understood the underlying principles on this issue really well. Given the knowledge at the time, (AFAIK) he settled on believing in a literal 6-day creation. Fair enough. But I have no doubt that had he lived now, he'd have been vehemently arguing alongside Alan and the rest here, with probably stronger words than they've used. Because he understood how our knowledge of the universe and scriptural and theological truth are meant to work together, and how an abuse of that is an insult to Christ.
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
goperryrevs
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
To be honest I don't think you can convince me because to believe in the millions of years I'd have to believe God has lied.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Doc tor: My area of expertise is geology and geophysics, with a decent amount of cosmochemistry and astronomy (since my speciality was early solar system processes).

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So, you are the one who should be able to explain why.. is it Neptune? orbits horizontally

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quote:

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and maybe why trees are sometimes found straddling coal seams in an upright position.

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quote:

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And while you are about it what do you make of the goldilocks zone? It is a great wonder to me that we are precisely where we are cosmically as we wouldn't survive anywhere else.

---

quote:

---

While you are about it.. ancient high technology? They seem to have had majorly clever engineers and maybe even electrical power. But they didn't have oil. Maybe as they hadn't discovered it or maybe because it wasn't there yet. All those fish hadn't been catastrophically entombed to create it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Alan Cresswell:The world really is billions of years old and developed over time, and Genesis was never intended as a literal description of how the world came to be. In which case no one is telling porkies.

---

So it comes back to whether the Biblical creation story is myth, allegory or narrative.

I guess you could look closely at interpretive principles here.

I think as I've stated before that the genre here is narrative. It has chronology, dates and names.

In support of myth, I suppose you've got the talking snake. But Rev 12 tells us that the snake is a metaphor for Satan. he is also called a dragon. So the symbolic name is traceable. He has a variety of nomenclaures in the Bible. Jesus referred to him as the prince of this world. He is also seen as a roaring lion. He is not human. Adam is. Because he is not human, he must be personified in terms of his qualities to be meaningful. He is a personal spiritual force. Consequently, I'd say he fits into the category of marrative.

If you look at genuine myth, Genesis stands well apart from say the phoebus myth or any other creation myth you can name.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
If you accept the literary genre as narrative and that metaphor is not non-literal but a way of presenting reality in terms of comparisons and contrast, then your issue becomes: "I can't see it as literal because I know it isn't true."

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quote:

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Evidently, ancient Near Easterners conceived of the sky as a transparent, glass-like shell. The sky-dome has set within it the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies. The dome also has windows or casements cut into it (for example, Gen. 7:11; 8:2; Isa. 24:18; Mal. 3:10) through which come rain, snow, hail, and wind, elements that have their own storehouses above the sky (Job 38:22; Ps. 135:7; Jer. 10:13; 51:16). Above the sky-dome is a vast ocean of water (for example, Ps. 148:4; see also 2 Esdras 4:7)... Although the majority of the references given above come from poetic sections of the Old Testament, a few derive from prose narratives such as Deuteronomy and the books of Samuel …So even though Old Testament descriptions of the physical cosmos occur mainly in poetic passages, they seem to be more than just figurative language. Of course we must take them as such, but they probably represent how the ancient Israelites actually conceived the physical make-up of the world….If we were to insist that the Bible gives an accurate picture of the physical cosmos, then to do so with integrity, we would have to believe that the earth is flat, immobile, and resting on pillars; that the sky is solid and has windows in it; that the sun, moon, and stars are set in the sky and move along it like light bulbs along a track; that the sun literally rises, moves, and sets; that there is an ocean of water surrounding the earth; and that beyond the waters above the sky is the very heaven of God. That’s what the Bible says.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I guess you could look closely at interpretive principles here.

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quote:

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The literary genre of Genesis 1 may be classified broadly as prose narrative. (Even the label narrative is potentially misleading, though, since Genesis 1 has no plot and no character development.) It is not written in Hebrew poetry, since it lacks parallelism, but it is not composed in typical Hebrew prose, either. Its syntax or sentence construction is different in degree if not in kind from what we find in normal narrative prose. It is marked by formulaic repetitions, tight symmetries, and an elevated style. There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, certainly not among Old Testament historical narratives. In its literary compactness, exalted tone and solemn contents, it most resembles passages such as Psalm 104, Job 38, and Proverbs 8––all of which are in Hebrew poetry.

When taken on its own terms and read in its own context, it shows itself not to be a historical narrative and certainly not a scientific one. On the one hand, Genesis 1 is too stylized, too repetitious, and too systematic to be historical writing. If we look for comparable passages elsewhere in the Bible, we will not find them in the historical narratives of the Old or New Testament but in the Psalms and in a passage like the prologue to the Gospel of John. On the other hand, Genesis 1 is too lapidary, too restricted to the bare essentials, and too contrary to empirical reality to be scientific writing.

I cannot think of any one label that characterizes the literary genre of Genesis 1 best. Just above I used the word credo. Other labels such as edict or proclamation or manifesto would be suitable. Genesis 1 tells us nothing factual about the age or size of the universe, about the physical processes by which either the earth or life on earth developed, or about the order in which different forms of life emerged on our planet. Instead, it affirms the sovereignty of God, the goodness of creation, and the dignity of humanity. These theological truths are timeless and normative for us, but the ancient cosmology that serves as their vehicle is not.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
the genre here is narrative. It has chronology, dates and names.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
If you accept the literary genre as narrative and that metaphor is not non-literal but a way of presenting reality in terms of comparisons and contrast, then your issue becomes: "I can't see it as literal because I know it isn't true."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rex Monday:
Seconded - thanks, Hawk.

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Hawk, Hart - it's an easy mistake to make... Sorry, Hawk!
 

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Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
I'm not going to play Creationist whack-a-mole with you, Jamat, where you say "well what about A?" and I give an explanation for A, followed immediately by "well okay, but what about B?".

You're simply, obviously and self-admittedly not interested in any scientific explanations whatsoever if they contradict a young Earth. Either you accept that the scientific method is mostly likely to arrive at a naturalistic explanation for natural phenomena, or you don't, whether it's phenomenon A or phenomenon Z, including so-called 'polystrate' fossils or the axial tilt of Uranus, or the evolution of the eye, or light from distant stars, or fossils on the tops of mountains, or whatever.

You've already accepted a heliocentric solar system, that stars are distant from Earth, and that the Earth is spherical, all of which contradicts scripture. Your levels of cognitive dissonance must be simply extraordinary.

This does not mean, of course, that I'm not a thoroughgoing supernaturalist. I am. I accept the death and resurrection of Jesus within time and space.
 

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Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :
 
What puzzles me, Jamat, is how you can construct a lose-lose proposition and cling to one of the "lose" positions so ferociously while somehow denying the "lose" inherent in the other.

If I understand you correctly, accepting as correct information which conforms to current understanding of scientific principles makes God out to be a liar, since it appears to you that science and scripture conflict, and you accept God as the author of scripture.

Is God not also the author of creation, and is not God therefore responsible for all these apparently much-older geologic structures (and other evidence) found by scientific investigators?

It seems to me that if God is not "lying" in scripture, then God has to be "lying" with the creation He fashioned; the two sets of evidence, if taken as Truth, simply don't agree on basic facts.

Efforts to deliberately mislead and deceive God's children, and lead them away from Truth -- isn't that lying? So if you take scripture as truth, God lies with creation; if you take the evidence we find in creation as truth, then God lies with scripture.

Seems to me much simpler all around, for a believer, to accept each set of evidence as true, but true in different ways and at different levels.
 

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Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 

quote:

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1. You got the wrong planet
2. You got the wrong feature
3. It's explanation does not require a special creation by God.

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quote:

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science and scripture conflict, and you accept God as the author of scripture.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
My point about the solar system is only its utter uniqueness. The checks and balances there defy the randomness explanation for mine.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I don't think Science and scripture conflict at all. I would contend that Science when it becomes speculative about the past isn't really Science as she is done in the present. Its not about Science at all but about differing interpretations of history using Scientific tools.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
My point about the solar system is only its utter uniqueness. The checks and balances there defy the randomness explanation for mine.

---

Uniqueness compared to what? Ours is the only solar system we've been able to thoroughly survey. As far as I know (and an expert should feel free to correct me) we don't even have a way to measure the axial rotation of exoplanets yet. When you're working with a sample size of one you can argue that your sample is both completely congruent with all observations and totally different from all the other samples (which don't exist). I'm guessing any answer you give (if one is forthcoming) will be both vague and massively incorrect on some crucial point.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
I don't think Science and scripture conflict at all. I would contend that Science when it becomes speculative about the past isn't really Science as she is done in the present. Its not about Science at all but about differing interpretations of history using Scientific tools.

---

So where does that put astronomical observations of distant galaxies? Given the finite speed of light this is, by definition, science being "speculative about the past". Are you postulating some mechanism that can speed up light so we can observe distant objects in real time? Because that would be a huge boon to the guys at NASA trying to maintain communications with distant probes. So lay it on us. What's the secret of FTL communication?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm guessing any answer you give (if one is forthcoming) will be both vague and massively incorrect on some crucial point.

<snip>

So where does that put astronomical observations of distant galaxies? Given the finite speed of light this is, by definition, science being "speculative about the past". Are you postulating some mechanism that can speed up light so we can observe distant objects in real time? Because that would be a huge boon to the guys at NASA trying to maintain communications with distant probes. So lay it on us. What's the secret of FTL communication?

---

Not at all. I know far less that you and others about such things. The explanation that I've heard that most suits the facts of stellar distances in conjunction with scripture is Einsteins discovery of 'space time.' The old 'one twin on a space ship' story. He goes away for a short time at light speed and when he comes back it is hundreds of years later for others but not for him.

By the way,is sarcasm necessary?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm guessing any answer you give (if one is forthcoming) will be both vague and massively incorrect on some crucial point.

<snip>

So where does that put astronomical observations of distant galaxies? Given the finite speed of light this is, by definition, science being "speculative about the past". Are you postulating some mechanism that can speed up light so we can observe distant objects in real time? Because that would be a huge boon to the guys at NASA trying to maintain communications with distant probes. So lay it on us. What's the secret of FTL communication?

---

Not at all. I know far less that you and others about such things. The explanation that I've heard that most suits the facts of stellar distances in conjunction with scripture is Einsteins discovery of 'space time.' The old 'one twin on a space ship' story. He goes away for a short time at light speed and when he comes back it is hundreds of years later for others but not for him.

By the way,is sarcasm necessary?

---

Obviously you know nothing at all about relativity. One of its foundational aspects is the premise that the speed of light is the same regardless of the relative motion of the observer. In other words, the one twin on a spaceship gedankenexperiment explicitly does not apply to light. Almost as key, time dilation does not apply to an observer within a single frame of reference, like someone observing photons emitted by various sources from the Earth's surface. So there we are: both vague and massively incorrect on some crucial point. Thanks for not disappointing.

And no, the sarcasm is not necessary. It's a service thrown in free of charge. The contempt, on the other hand, is something you've definitely earned. I wouldn't want to deprive you of that.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
My point about the solar system is only its utter uniqueness. The checks and balances there defy the randomness explanation for mine.

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quote:

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The frustration shown by some of the participants on this thread is due to your failure..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Obviously you know nothing at all about relativity. One of its foundational aspects is the premise that the speed of light is the same regardless of the relative motion of the observer. In other words, the one twin on a spaceship gedankenexperiment explicitly does not apply to light. Almost as key, time dilation does not apply to an observer within a single frame of reference, like someone observing photons emitted by various sources from the Earth's surface.

---

Wow! Thanks for putting me straight. I didn't understand a word of that

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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The frustration shown by some of the participants on this thread is due to your failure..

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Oh really? That is some sort of excuse for personal contempt?

There are rules of discussion nevertheless. There are manners. I may verge occasionally on sarcasm. I apologise if I transgress. I focus on issues. I do not disrespect others.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Oh really? That is some sort of excuse for personal contempt?

There are rules of discussion nevertheless. There are manners. I may verge occasionally on sarcasm. I apologise if I transgress. I focus on issues. I do not disrespect others.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
But when a 20 yr old rock from Mt St Helens gets dated at millions of years you have to ask some questions.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
I suppose for me the main problem is that Creationism points out some interesting points, but then extrapolates from those to ridiculous lengths.

It is interesting that the MS in the study above apparently was contaminated by previous samples. That actually is an interesting finding. And quite worrying in some ways.

But to extrapolate from that to the point which says all measurements must therefore be wrong (and by extension all aging systems are wrong - and not a bit wrong but by many many multiples) is not proven. In fact in any decent scientific investigation, you'd have to take account of the measurement errors implicit in a piece of machinery and anything else which might be causing the problem. And of course you'd have to repeat the experiment many times to see if you got the same result.

That isn't scientism, that is plainly obvious, I'd have thought.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I focus on issues.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Wow! Thanks for putting me straight. I didn't understand a word of that except the contempt. Do you by any chance masquerade occasionally as a Christian?

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quote:

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science and scripture conflict, and you accept God as the author of scripture.

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quote:

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I would contend that Science when it becomes speculative about the past isn't really Science as she is done in the present.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I know far less that you and others about such things.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I didn't understand a word of that

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
There are rules of discussion nevertheless.
<snick-snick> I focus on issues. I do not disrespect others.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Eliab:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
To be honest I don't think you can convince me because to believe in the millions of years I'd have to believe God has lied.

---

An admirably frank response.

Do I understand your position correctly that if (as has been asserted on this thread) there are simply far too many fossils and other remains for any plausible 6000 year natural history to account for them all, you would conclude not that the earth is old, but that it was created 6000 years ago with a 'back story' written into the rocks? There would have to be fossil remains of animals which never actually lived.

quote:

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Why is the number of fossils an issue? Given an antediluvian world of even climate, teaming with flora and fauna of all kinds which were then uprooted and buried suddenly in sediment by a cataclysmic barrage of water. The sediments probably were moved and redeposited over the year of the flood and the years of its aftermath. The issue is just how suddenly or otherwise it all happened.

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In the same way, wouldn't you need to say that light was created as if it had travelled from a distant star, but which in fact originated not in the star itself, but from God's creative act, to give the world an astronomical back story?

quote:

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The issue of starlight is a major problem for yecs. But then the 'horizon' problem is also a problem which required the positing of 'inflation.'

---

If so, why are you arguing against "scientific dating methods" at all? You can (and, I think, must) concede that there are at least some details which God made to look older than they are. You can argue that this need not make God "a liar", I think, but that then becomes the real point of contention.

quote:

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I know squat about anything to do with dating methods. My issue is the integrity of the Bible. I am totally aware that this is termed an interpretive issue. No one seems to get why one cannot just accept an allegorical reading. I think though, that that would put human knowledge above revelation. It would be convenient to do so but critics of yec are absolutely correct to say they start with scripture and work backwards and that is why they do it. To them human discoveries must be adjusted to the Bible, not vice versa..or their take on the Bible which is another discussion.

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It seems to me that if your position really is 'nothing would convince me', not even kilometre-thick deposits of more remains than could have existed in the vicinity over anything like 6000 years, you are necessarily committed to the argument that "what we see now isn't necessarily what really happened". Arguing the science on one or other specific dating method might delay the crisis point where you have to say that, but I think it's pretty clear that you have to say it eventually, and your case stands or falls on that being a respectable position. Are you prepared to defend it?

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quote:

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No yec sees any problem with the depth of deposits. The deluge combined with the contortions of the earths volcanoes that most yecs see as the 'opening of the fountains of the great deep' can account for that. I do not think God built a back story of age into something that wasn't old. What I think is that, as I keep saying, our take on facts is determined by our own back story, our preconceptions, what is acceptable to us, our world view. I am challenged to change mine here because from the stance of those on these boards, most of them, it is not credible.
If, however, you put your preconceptions on the table, everyting changes. Now the same charge can, of course, be levelled at me. Why don't I put mine on the table? Well as someone said upthread it is the need for a literal fall. You don't need forgiveness if you are not a sinner. To sum up, for me: no fall=no sin=no need for forgiveness=no gospel=no point.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Jamat, two things, is that final block meant to be a quotation? If so, where does it come from please?

Secondly, most of the people who made the discoveries that built into our current understanding were Christian. They had a belief system that was built on Christianity with Christian preconceptions and beliefs. What do you think happened to change their view to the back story you think they have?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
If, however, you put your preconceptions on the table, everyting changes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I presume you want me to say they were confronted by facts that demanded they adjust their world view? And then you can say 'Go and do thou likewise?'

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No yec sees any problem with the depth of deposits. The deluge combined with the contortions of the earths volcanoes that most yecs see as the 'opening of the fountains of the great deep' can account for that. I do not think God built a back story of age into something that wasn't old.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
If, however, you put your preconceptions on the table, everyting changes. Now the same charge can, of course, be levelled at me. Why don't I put mine on the table? Well as someone said upthread it is the need for a literal fall. You don't need forgiveness if you are not a sinner. To sum up, for me: no fall=no sin=no need for forgiveness=no gospel=no point.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
So where does that put astronomical observations of distant galaxies? Given the finite speed of light this is, by definition, science being "speculative about the past".

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Not at all. I know far less that you and others about such things. The explanation that I've heard that most suits the facts of stellar distances in conjunction with scripture is Einsteins discovery of 'space time. 'The old 'one twin on a space ship' story. He goes away for a short time at light speed and when he comes back it is hundreds of years later for others but not for him.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Do you by any chance masquerade occasionally as a Christian?

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Fairly straightforward, though at the end it boils down to not wanting to examine your preconceptions because they're your preconceptions and should (for some unexplained reason) be more privileged than anyone else's.

This kind of fragile belief system seems as if it cannot withstand any kind of contrary information and must be maintained by willful, deliberate ignorance. You seem to have taken it one step further and regard spewing whatever half-misunderstood bit of trivia you think will support your fragile beliefs with depraved indifference (to borrow a legal term of art) to the truth as a positive and unquestioned good. This kind of "lying for Jesus" is contemptible, hence the contempt

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Originally posted by Jamat:
As you point out and I admit, Einstein isn't my area.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Have a nice day.

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Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
Jamat... Are you actually saying that if there is no literal historical Fall, there can be no such thing as sin?

Wow...

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
As you point out and I admit, Einstein isn't my area.

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Which simply begs the question of why you cited Relativity as valid explanation for why the stars look so far away? Was it simply a case of "this is a big, famous science guy, so if I borrow his prestige and no one calls me on it I can score a point, even if I have no idea what I'm talking about"? This goes back to that "depraved indifference to the truth" thing I was talking about earlier.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Have a nice day.

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It is not daytime where I am.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
Jamat... Are you actually saying that if there is no literal historical Fall, there can be no such thing as sin?

Wow...

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Yes. The fall is the key to the whole deal IMV. What sense does it make for Jesus to die for sinners if they aren't really sinners?

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Originally posted by Penny S:
All that geology poses the appearance of age. If that appearance is not the truth, then that is a back story built into it.

As I don't imagine for one moment that anyone seriously believes that God would do that to us

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Originally posted by Jamat:
My issue is the integrity of the Bible. I am totally aware that this is termed an interpretive issue. No one seems to get why one cannot just accept an allegorical reading. I think though, that that would put human knowledge above revelation.

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The deluge combined with the contortions of the earths volcanoes that most yecs see as the 'opening of the fountains of the great deep' can account for that.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Well as someone said upthread it is the need for a literal fall. You don't need forgiveness if you are not a sinner.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Indeed. If Jamat is looking for Adam in all this, then a mirror is all that is required. Genesis 3 is about what I, he and thee do. Not about a putative ancestor, whose actions it's hard to imagine that I need saving from.

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I don't think Jamat's view on this is that unusual.

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I don't think Jamat's view on this is that unusual. It strikes me as strange, anachronistic and (quite honestly) a denial of the very plain fact that people are quite obviously not perfect. But he's not alone - andreas1984/Andrew/El Greco had exactly the same view, and when he concluded that there hadn't been a "real" Fall, he threw out the whole of the rest of his faith as well.

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