Evidence

MorkandMindy · #1 27th October 2009, 07:41 AM

If a few thousand years ago someone spilt a cup of water somewhere it would not be surprising if no geological record of the event had been found

A second cup of water would not make it a geological event either, nor a third

And whether this water came from within the water cycle or came in to it from a volcano or a comet would also leave no evidence

Just because we have no evidence the flood didn’t occur doesn’t prove it didn’t

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Dark_Lite · #2 27th October 2009, 10:06 AM

This is probably a poe... but anyway.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, you are correct.

The problem with the flood is that the evidence that is present disproves that the flood could've happened. So... that's a problem.

jayem · #3 27th October 2009, 12:17 PM

But a supposed world-wide flood, as a single event, with water levels covering even the highest mountains, and nearly extincting all land animals, would be expected to leave geological evidence.

Dark_Lite · #4 27th October 2009, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by jayem

But a supposed world-wide flood, as a single event, with water levels covering even the highest mountains, and nearly extincting all land animals, would be expected to leave geological evidence.

Well, there is geological evidence. But the problem is that the geological evidence there is does not point to a global flood.

AV1611VET · #5 27th October 2009, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by Dark_Lite

The problem with the flood is that the evidence that is present disproves that the flood could've happened. So... that's a problem.

No, it's not.

Evidence can be interpreted.

And even though it can be correlated with different types of evidence from different sources, all that shows is an ability to correlate.

In addition, it's not the evidence that matters, it's the weight of the evidence --- (someone correct me if I'm wrong, please).

If you have an ice core sample, showing a 7000-year period of manufacture, alongside of a tree core sample from the same vicinity showing a 7000-year period of growth, I would still go with the weight of God's Word over the weight of those two correlated objects; even if every artifact on earth was correlated.

Let God be true, and every man a liar (including me), if that's what it has to come down to.

Wiccan_Child · #6 27th October 2009, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by MorkandMindy

If a few thousand years ago someone spilt a cup of water somewhere it would not be surprising if no geological record of the event had been found

A second cup of water would not make it a geological event either, nor a third

And whether this water came from within the water cycle or came in to it from a volcano or a comet would also leave no evidence

Just because we have no evidence the flood didn’t occur doesn’t prove it didn’t

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

It doesn't prove it didn't occur, but it makes it very unlikely. So, in that regard, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence (albeit indirect).

MorkandMindy · #7 27th October 2009, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by AV1611VET

...

If you have an ice core sample, showing a 7000-year period of manufacture, alongside of a tree core sample from the same vicinity showing a 7000-year period of growth
...

Sorry to snip it, but you're in good company - it happens to the Bible too!

I remember reading C.S. Lewis who stated that even if the first trees had been made in a moment, they could still have contained rings and therefore had an apparent age.

But the rings in the trees are not even, they show evidence of some good years and some bad ones... and this pattern matches in all of the trees except in some trees the pattern is followed further out and others further in indicating older and younger trees... and in another forest the pattern is similar but different, again through all the trees

so just accidentally leaving rings that could have been interpreted as age starts to look more like a deliberate act of deception

plindboe · #8 27th October 2009, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by MorkandMindy

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Not necessarily true. If I search through my pocket for money and I can't find any, that's evidence that there's no money in my pocket.

Peter

AV1611VET · #9 27th October 2009, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by plindboe

Not necessarily true.

Interesting word choice.

Just because a principle doesn't apply to a given situation, doesn't make it 'untrue'.

It makes it, 'not applicable'.

MorkandMindy · #10 27th October 2009, 10:23 PM

The accident / deception debate continues into all other forms of dating.

Radio carbon has a half life of 5730 years so is useful for the events within the last 26,000 years and overlaps with tree ring dating, which is used to improve the accuracy of C14 dating. There are many forms of radio isotope dating, most with fewer problems than C14 dating, which in some cases go back billions of years, and agree where they overlap, with each other.

And there are non-isotope forms of dating such as racemization of amino acids

In 1900 an estimate based on the rate the oceans are gaining salt, gave a figure of 80 to 100 million years, but these are minimum values because salt is also lost from the oceans.

In my own personal life I looked at what appeared to be annual sediment lines in the rocks along my grandmother’s long gravel drive, over a kilometre with lines averaging 2 mm thick came out at ½ million years.

For a YEC this was not a comforting thought, and I never did work out if or why God chose in so many ways to deceive so many people