Creation vs. Evolution

[Caino]

Have you tried reading Genesis 1 but replacing the word god with the word gravity?

It doesn't make sense when gravity is naming stuff, but the rest of it works quite well.

And it actually explains things that way, too, unlike that quote from your book of plagiarism.

Stuart

Hi grumpy, Genesis was a creation of the Hebrew priest class for wholesale public consumption. It was intended to provide a comprehensive story for the average Israelite to understand their place. Regardless of how it sounds to us today, It worked, it held the people together in hope of the promise which came.

Not a single claimant from any individual or any representative of any estate of any author has ever come forward and made any claim of plagiarism against the UB. You are just frightened that your pet Atheism in which you put the fate of your soul is unnerved by the truths of the UB which are being validated as the years go by.

But I do sympathize with you in your pessimism of old beliefs, which in the arena of evolved religion are the scaffolding for revealed religion. How long will you deny the very God whose mind is the source of your mind?

 

[Cross Reference]

Am I?

Stuart

Yeah. So correct me. I'll apologize if wrong.

 

[Cross Reference]

It's not really like me to say "Something created from nothing, by no one, is easier to believe than something created out of nothing by, someone"

I'm not really interested in what is easier to believe.

Or were you thinking I was doing something different?

Stuart

Easier, huh? Really?? So much for rational thinking..

 

[6days]

Have you tried reading Genesis 1 but replacing the word god with the word gravity?

It doesn't make sense when gravity is naming stuff, but the rest of it works quite well.

And it actually explains things that way, too, unlike that quote from your book of plagiarism.

Stuart

One of the many problems you have in rejecting an intelligent cause is that you seem to still believe in a cause that existed eternally. Or did gravity magically come into existence from nothing to create everything?

The most logical and scientific explanation....In the beginning, God created.

 

[Rosenritter]

That’s interesting, since every age they measured was obviously far before the Genesis Flood story. Yet I don’t see the authors even hinting that the ages they keep presenting are actually far greater than the real ages.

I just reread the entire article yet one more time, and I fail to see where it disputes the ages nearly as much as you seem to.

If the ages in the article (all of them over 20,000 years) are in fact really all less than 7000 years, then the article was horribly misleading throughout when it spoke of the ages it did.

Here are relevant quotes from the article:

--Carbon-14 (C-14) dating of multiple samples of bone from 8 dinosaurs found in Texas, Alaska, Colorado, and Montana revealed that they are only 22,000 to 39,000 years old.

--C-14 has a half-life of 5730 years. The maximum theoretical detection limit is about 100,000 years, but radiocarbon dating is only reliable up to 55,000 years with the best equipment.

--The accuracy of carbon dates depends on whether the ratio of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12 was the same in the past as it is today. Even with reliable results there is always a degree of uncertainty, and dates are usually given as +or- so many years.

--Carbon-14 is considered to be a highly reliable dating technique. It's accuracy has been verified by using C-14 to date artifacts whose age is known historically. The fluctuation of the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere over time adds a small uncertainty, but contamination by "modern carbon" such as decayed organic matter from soils poses a greater possibility for error.​

Now if you can find any place in the article where they even suggest that the real ages are as dramatically different from the C-14 ages as you are suggesting, then I would like you to point it out.



Since you seem to know what the authors failed to make even remotely clear, perhaps you should contact them and see if they agree that the article was massively deficient in leaving the impression that the C-14 ages and the real ages were comparable, when in fact they are, according to you, inflated by a factor of 5 or more.

What the article didn't bother to tell you was they were still speaking in "Atheist years" because the humanist isn't smart enough to understand real years yet. Here, I'll explain it in Logic terms. It's called "assuming the premise for sake of argument." Never had a higher mathematics class? I'll break it down for you.

First, when dealing with a faulty conclusion (like old earth evolution atheism) you start off by ASSUMING their premise. Then running from the assumptions that they require, you create contradiction. You should try this method some time, it's actually a fair argument style.

So, we start with the assumption, Carbon Dating in this case. Claimed that it is scientific and proves things are old. Claimed that useless to use on so many things because anything millions of years old would not even REGISTER on the measurement.

Then you disprove the assumption. You take a second statement/conclusion of the old earth atheist, "Dinosaurs did not exist before millions of years ago" and you apply Carbon dating to soft remains. Because you can't carbon date rock fossils. And it shows up young. That is, anything less than 50,000 years is "young" because that means it shows up AT ALL on Carbon Dating.

Which is enough to show that the Old Earth Atheist Evolution theory is full of holes, with a mistaken assumption at the beginning. That's your problem, since you seem to fall down at its feet and offer it sacrifices.

Now, if you had intellectual integrity, you would say "Well, what is your theory?" And would proceed the same way. You ask my assumptions, and follow it through with our conclusions. If you can disprove the assumption or follow the conclusions into contradiction, then you've done the same thing to me as I've just done to you. As that article did for you.

It doesn't go too much further because it's already too much for you to handle. If you can't deal with that fairly there's no sense dealing with more science, such as why a young earth would have less radiation than equilibrium, why a different environment as described in Genesis would shield the earth from much influx of radioactive carbon, etc.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I'm a little annoyed that it seems like you're pretending to be objective then swinging back to belligerent. The fact REMAINS that dinosaurs lived less than 50,000 years ago even allowing the most favorable standards for "Old" results for carbon dating.

Allowing the Genesis model and assumptions they fit within the last 6,000 years. If you want to discuss science for that, be my guest. If you want to try to cast diversions by demanding that it have been explained in the last article you read, then you deserve some mocking.

 

[gcthomas]

View attachment 24651

This chondritic meteorite has been dated by multiple radiodating methods, and they all agree at 4.6 billion years old. Are they all wrong by the same amount?

Large ingeous intrusions that form the Andes, for example, take hundreds of thousands years minimum to cool, as evidence by the very large crystal sizes. How come they are cool now if they are only 5000 years old?

 

[radind]

I find the discussions of ASA to be useful. They cover a wide range of views on creation.

http://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis...of-the-american-scientific-affiliation-part-3
… "There was little objection, in principle, to evolution as a biological theory. A serious problem that remained for many was how the biblical account of Adam and Eve could be reconciled with the evolutionary story. Since ASA members believed in a Creator who could operate miraculously and supernaturally, they could freely acknowledge that biological evolution might not explain everything. For sure, some members continued to critique evolution on scientific grounds. Mostly identifying themselves as old earth creationists (OEC), they would link arms later with Hugh Ross’s science-based ministry, Reasons to Believe, and/or the Intelligent Design (ID) movement as it gained momentum in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In 1978, a special issue of JASA devoted to origins issues was published. Entitled “Origins and Change: Selected Readings from the JASA,” it was edited by Oregon State biologist David L. Willis and reprinted several key articles from the JASA that fully represented the spectrum of ASA members’ views. While the issue included voices unsympathetic to evolutionary biology, the overall impression given is that old-earth geology, biological evolution, and Christianity can coexist.

As noted earlier the ASA has always been willing to foster discussion of controversial questions about science, providing a forum for their discussion within the larger Christian community.”…

 

[Jose Fly]

C14 dating of soft dino tissue...That is the science.
You are arguing about how to interpret evidence.

This is an interesting creationist argument.

Basically, we have lots of fossilized dinosaur remains...we've had them for centuries. Starting over 200 years ago, just by looking at the geological characteristics of the areas the fossils were found in, geologists and paleontologists concluded that dinosaurs existed very long times ago. Then about 100 years later scientists discovered radiometric dating, which not only confirmed the ancient ages for the fossils, but allowed scientists to put approximate dates on the fossils, which in turn allowed scientists to uncover a surprising amount of detail about dinosaurs, e.g., their evolution, their life history, and their demise. All of the available data supported the general narrative of dinosaurs living tens of millions of years ago and dying out around 65 million years ago.

So what does that mean for the C-14 results on dinosaur remains? It means those results are extreme outliers. We also know that C-14 dating isn't useful for objects that are over ~45,000 years old. We also know of mechanisms by which C-14 can find its way into old objects (it's been tested and demonstrated in the lab).

Put that all together and you see the situation. The creationists are arguing that the outlier results, generated by misused methodology, should overrule all the other congruent results from all the other fields of science.

That leads to an obvious question....why? Why should scientists throw out centuries of congruent results from multiple fields of science, and go with outlier results derived by a misused methodology?

 

[Jose Fly]

What the article didn't bother to tell you was they were still speaking in "Atheist years"

I love to see Christians concede so much of science to atheism. :thumb:

 

[Jose Fly]

I also have one more question for the creationists here: Do you guys have anything new?

I ask this because....well, let's be honest here....pretty much all the creationists arguments that have been posted here aren't all that new and many of them are quite old. That's important because as anyone can tell just by looking around, none of those old creationist arguments have had any impact on science at all. In fact, rather than even nudge science more towards creationism, the trend is, has been, and continues to be in the opposite direction.

So if none of these old arguments have had any impact on science whatsoever over the last say....100 years, what makes the creationists think they will now?

It's like creationists are saying "I know this moon recession young-earth argument hasn't gone anywhere or accomplished anything in at least 50 years, but maybe if I repeat it here at ToL it will!!"

And if that's not what your mindset is, then why are you rehashing old ineffective creationist arguments? Shouldn't you be working on coming up with something new?

 

[Rosenritter]

This is an interesting creationist argument.

Basically, we have lots of fossilized dinosaur remains...we've had them for centuries. Starting over 200 years ago, just by looking at the geological characteristics of the areas the fossils were found in, geologists and paleontologists concluded that dinosaurs existed very long times ago. Then about 100 years later scientists discovered radiometric dating, which not only confirmed the ancient ages for the fossils, but allowed scientists to put approximate dates on the fossils, which in turn allowed scientists to uncover a surprising amount of detail about dinosaurs, e.g., their evolution, their life history, and their demise. All of the available data supported the general narrative of dinosaurs living tens of millions of years ago and dying out around 65 million years ago.

So what does that mean for the C-14 results on dinosaur remains? It means those results are extreme outliers. We also know that C-14 dating isn't useful for objects that are over ~45,000 years old. We also know of mechanisms by which C-14 can find its way into old objects (it's been tested and demonstrated in the lab).

Put that all together and you see the situation. The creationists are arguing that the outlier results, generated by misused methodology, should overrule all the other congruent results from all the other fields of science.

That leads to an obvious question....why? Why should scientists throw out centuries of congruent results from multiple fields of science, and go with outlier results derived by a misused methodology?

Other than your reasoning there is circular logic (and otherwise flawed) from the start? Try again. Honestly, if you have that in you.

 

[Cross Reference]

I also have one more question for the creationists here: Do you guys have anything new?

I ask this because....well, let's be honest here....pretty much all the creationists arguments that have been posted here aren't all that new and many of them are quite old. That's important because as anyone can tell just by looking around, none of those old creationist arguments have had any impact on science at all. In fact, rather than even nudge science more towards creationism, the trend is, has been, and continues to be in the opposite direction.

So if none of these old arguments have had any impact on science whatsoever over the last say....100 years, what makes the creationists think they will now?

It's like creationists are saying "I know this moon recession young-earth argument hasn't gone anywhere or accomplished anything in at least 50 years, but maybe if I repeat it here at ToL it will!!"

And if that's not what your mindset is, then why are you rehashing old ineffective creationist arguments? Shouldn't you be working on coming up with something new?

Do you believe the world actually came into existence from nothing and when I say nothing I mean, NOTHING?

 

[gcthomas]

Do you believe the world actually came into existence from nothing? And when I say nothing I mean, NOTHING?

Cosmologists don't think that the world came from absolutely nothing. So everyone agrees here.

 

[Cross Reference]

Cosmologists don't think that the world came from absolutely nothing. So everyone agrees here.

Then you have to define, "nothing" as being more than it meaning, "nothing" and then explain where that brand of "nothing" originated that it was able to become more than, "nothing" and reproduce itself to begin to become to be what we have in the order of things we have experienced for at least the last 6k yrs.?

 

[Jose Fly]

Other than your reasoning there is circular logic (and otherwise flawed) from the start?

That's not a coherent sentence.

Try again. Honestly, if you have that in you.

I suggest you first "try again" at forming a coherent sentence.

 

[Jose Fly]

Do you believe the world actually came into existence from nothing and when I say nothing I mean, NOTHING?

That's irrelevant to the point I made about whether creationists here have anything new to offer.

 

[Rosenritter]

That's not a coherent sentence.



I suggest you first "try again" at forming a coherent sentence.

How about this: you either are as stupid as you sound or you are being intellectually dishonest.

 

[gcthomas]

Then you have to define, "nothing" as being more than it meaning, "nothing" and then explain where that brand of "nothing" originated that it was able to become more than, "nothing" and reproduce itself to begin to become to be what we have in the order of things we have experienced for at least the last 6k yrs.?

Tell you what. If you give a possible origin for God as you believe it, then I'll do the same for the universe.

 

[redfern]

What the article didn't bother to tell you was they were still speaking in "Atheist years" because the humanist isn't smart enough to understand real years yet.

Wow. Now you are really getting original in saying things the article didn’t even intimate. Atheists now have their own years, and somehow humanists are involved, and both the atheists and humanists are just plain dumb about what years really are.

I’m not sure that I am interested in a discussion that degenerates into this level of silliness. My interest has been on the scientific question of the C-14 age of dinosaur bones. You know as well as I do that a huge number of faithful Christian scientists (does Christian mean they are not inherently dumb?) have no problems with long dinosaur ages (see above post from radind in which he mentions ASA). Same goes for the followers of a whole variety of religious traditions. For now I will attribute your need to stoop to this level of dialogue as an excusable mental lapse.

If you think you have the self-control, then let’s talk science. Then if the answers from science align with your literal Genesis, I will agree with that.

First, when dealing with a faulty conclusion (like old earth evolution atheism) you start off by ASSUMING their premise.

Point of clarification. Though dinosaurs fit within the evolutionary timeline, evolution is not dependent on the validity of dinosaur ages, and if evolution were falsified, that would not cause a mass adjustment to the dates dinosaurs are believed to have lived. We are talking C-14 dating, not evolution. Can we stick to that?

So, we start with the assumption, Carbon Dating in this case. Claimed that it is scientific and proves things are old. Claimed that useless to use on so many things because anything millions of years old would not even REGISTER on the measurement.

Then you disprove the assumption.

Since you seem anxious to engage this C-14 issue, I am going to assume that you know the counterarguments to what you just said. No?

That's your problem, since you seem to fall down at its (science’s) feet and offer it sacrifices.

Projecting again? “Fall(ing) down at its feet and offering it sacrifices” is far more descriptive of religion than of science. I am appreciative of science, and feel I have a moderate understanding of some aspects of it. Don’t you?

Now, if you had intellectual integrity, you would say "Well, what is your theory?" And would proceed the same way. You ask my assumptions, and follow it through with our conclusions. If you can disprove the assumption or follow the conclusions into contradiction, then you've done the same thing to me as I've just done to you. As that article did for you.

I thought that had already been covered. We touched on the Genesis timeline (< 7000 years) earlier. And repeating the opening claim from the article:

Carbon-14 (C-14) dating of 8 dinosaurs found in Texas, Alaska, Colorado, and Montana revealed that they are only 22,000 to 39,000 years old.​

Note they say they were dated using Carbon 14, but they explicitly say they are “22,000 to 39,000 years old”, not atheist years, or Carbon years or any other goofy type of years you want to claim. Any normal person reading that opening statement in that article would conclude they meant 22,000 regular, ordinary, earth-go-around-sun, fall-winter-spring-summer years. Maybe in your world 7000 lies somewhere between 22,000 and 39,000. Doesn’t look like the article jibes with you timeline.

It doesn't go too much further because it's already too much for you to handle. If you can't deal with that fairly there's no sense dealing with more science, such as why a young earth would have less radiation than equilibrium, why a different environment as described in Genesis would shield the earth from much influx of radioactive carbon, etc.

Hey, if you want to call me stupid, then feel free, and put me on ignore. But if you dare, how about a (more polite, please) examination of these factors you mention?

Allowing the Genesis model and assumptions they fit within the last 6,000 years. If you want to discuss science for that, be my guest. If you want to try to cast diversions by demanding that it have been explained in the last article you read,

You guys are the one that pointed to that article. If you have a better article, why didn’t you use it instead?

then you deserve some mocking.

Knock yourself out, mock away, if that is the best you have. That says more about you than it does about me.

 

[Jose Fly]

How about this: you either are as stupid as you sound or you are being intellectually dishonest.

How about this....what was this supposed to mean?

"Other than your reasoning there is circular logic (and otherwise flawed) from the start?"

Or are childish insults all you have left?