Should all christians believe in the 6 days creation?

[Soothfish]

why would god use evolution to bring us about when he can just create us?

He could but he didn't. Genesis is a very short chapter that says what it needs to say and no more. We can speculate that Adam and Eve are references to the first civilized humans and not the first hominids. God says that Adam was made to "til the soil" but agricultural implements did not magically spawn into existence. They were invented during the era of agricultural civilization. The 6th 'day' (yowm) was this era.

there is a lot of evidence of a young earth. like dinosaurs. scientists has every convinced that dinosaurs are billion of years old. the only problem with that is in 1995 a christian scientists found soft tissue with cells in it on a dinosaur fossil. every one knows that soft tissue can't last that long.

Prehistoric soft tissue is frequently discovered in glacial and low heat, low humidity environments. In the best cases, the soft tissue is preserved by mats of microbes which eventually seal the deceased body off from the environment. You can find this sort of thing at your local city museum.

also there is no proof evolution in the fossil records and there should be millions.

I don't understand what you mean. Please clarify.

there is a lot more than that but that is what comes to my mind right now.

the words wisdom is foolishness to god. meaning science thinks thay have it all figured out but there not even close.

If they had it all figured out then every scientist would be out of a job. There wouldn't be anything left to figure out! There are plenty of arrogant scientists but there are many more who are just there to do a job.

also the second law of thermodynamics the stars and the sun would have barnt out by now

The "heat death" hypothesis was almost universally accepted back in the 1850s. It is not universally accepted now due to a great many discoveries in gravitation, relativity, electromagnetism, stellar physics, chemistry, and even the periodic table! There isn't any theory yet. Just hypotheses.

If you have actually solved the problem then you should publish the findings immediately.

 

[Cotjones]

Here we go again. Young earth is absolutely 100% not even close to supported by ANY unbiased scientific research. In fact, if you want rock solid proof that the earth isn't young, go outside tonight and look up. In your view of the night sky you will see objects (stars) that are over 15 million light years away.

Conclusively that means that those things have existed for a minimum of 15 million years. There are things detectable by satellite instruments that are estimated to be over 13 billion light years away. Again meaning that the universe is at least that old. Most "unbiased" studies point to the age of the earth as just under 5 billion years.

For some reason Christians tend to want to bash radiometric dating, but within is margins of error the earth is at least 4.5 billion years old.

And for you to suggest that dinosaurs existed in the last 6000 or so years is quite frankly preposterous. The fact that you would even make a claim like that suggests that you have absolutely no experience or knowledge in the field and are simply repeating what you've heard others say. Others who are probably just as knowledgeable as you.

In the fossil records there are clear timelines which show clearly the development of new traits. There are no fossils of the modern domesticated dog along side T-rex fossils in date. Most things that are alive today are no where to be found in the distant fossil records. Now why do you think that is? There are actually very few species alive today which appear as a closely related species in fossil records, such as Echidnas and Coelacanths. From looking at fossil records we see that over 99% of all species that ever lived are now extinct. Why is this? Flood? let me save you the trouble, NO. There are periods of mass extinction which are millions of years apart in the fossil records, each showing VERY distinct different organisms.

As far as there not being evidence in fossil record, the only 2 ways I can see you coming to that conclusion are 1 you are blind, 2 you have no knowledge of fossil records and are repeating what others have said. There are early mammals that lay eggs, there are reptiles that are very like mammals. There are squirrel like primates with opposable thumbs, there are amphibious fish. Furthermore there are consistent dateing record of fossils that sho that there were no records of primates until a certain time, go back farther and there are no placental mammals, go back farther and there are no marsupials, go back farther and there are no synapsids, go back farther and there are no reptiles.

There is quite simply nothing but evidence for evolution, that and lose conjecture based on shoddy aberrations in biased and unreliable research.

 

[joecass]

from what i read about the fossil record there are no half breed animals. meaning animals evolving from one to the other there are ether full bird, dog, cat and so on

 

[JHM]

The s-c-i-e-n-t-i-s-t is right when he points out that both the universe as a whole, and the earth are much older than what some believers think, but he is wrong to believe in "Evolution", as I have previously pointed out. The fact is GOD created life on earth, it didn't just happen, or we would see it on Mars and the Moon. There are so many "Missing Links" in the theory of "Evolution" it is a joke, and he would be hard put to produce any existing links. One wonders why people with such beliefs bother to post at sites like this; when they obviously don't believe in the Bible.

 

[holyrokker]

It is clear from observation that evolution occurs within species, but the evidence of Evolution from one species into a new one is inconclusive.

 

[Cotjones]

from what i read about the fossil record there are no half breed animals. meaning animals evolving from one to the other there are ether full bird, dog, cat and so on

Because that's not how evolution works.

Did you know that squid can fly? Oh yes, very well actually. Ever heard of a flying fish?

the traits are what evolve.

No one is saying that there should be a half dog half cat. But there is a common mammal ancestor to dogs and cats. That ancestor probably looked nothing like either a dog or a cat.

Another thing we are forgetting here is that very few things get fossilized. In fact probably no humans have been fossilized in your lifetime. A million years from now it may look like humans were very scarce from examination of the fossil records.

You don't understand Evolution and yet you argue against it. There are no differences between changes from early wolves to dogs or from dinosaurs to birds. The only difference in these is the complexity of changes and amount of time the processes changes. All living things are coded for by the same 4 chemicals. Random changes in these chemicals are capable of changing anything into anything else given enough time and selective pressure.

 

[thesunisout]

Here we go again. Young earth is absolutely 100% not even close to supported by ANY unbiased scientific research. In fact, if you want rock solid proof that the earth isn't young, go outside tonight and look up. In your view of the night sky you will see objects (stars) that are over 15 million light years away.

Conclusively that means that those things have existed for a minimum of 15 million years. There are things detectable by satellite instruments that are estimated to be over 13 billion light years away. Again meaning that the universe is at least that old. Most "unbiased" studies point to the age of the earth as just under 5 billion years.

Apparently you've never heard of the horizon problem. When you solve that problem, and a host of others the big bang theory has, then you can say that "conclusively that means that those things have existed for a minimum of X years". It is statements like this, spoken authoritatively, and as being absolutely factual, that delude people into believing the theory of deep time is proven. If the textbook says it, it must be true, right? What isn't mentioned is that these theories are founded on unproven assumptions, themselves supported by weak, circumstantial evidence. When you heap a bunch of circumstantial evidence together, it looks very weighty, but in actuality is not much more than metaphysics. True science is based on empirical testing, and you cannot empirically test this theory.

I'll show you what Max Planck thought of your "unbiased" studies:

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"

Are you somehow unaware that this is a fallen world ruled by sin, and that there is nothing man is involved in that isn't biased?

For some reason Christians tend to want to bash radiometric dating, but within is margins of error the earth is at least 4.5 billion years old.

Within margins of error? Yes, if your margin of error is billions of years, which it often is. This we know because the different methods do not agree with eachother. If each method gives a different date, which one is right? How do you get "accurate" measurements when you have at least 3 unprovable assumptions to do any kind of dating? One, that the initial condition of the rock is known. Two, that the amount of parent and daughter elements hasnt been changed. Three, that the decay rate is constant. Why is it that when we measure rocks that we do know the ages of, they don't give accurate measurements?

And for you to suggest that dinosaurs existed in the last 6000 or so years is quite frankly preposterous. The fact that you would even make a claim like that suggests that you have absolutely no experience or knowledge in the field and are simply repeating what you've heard others say. Others who are probably just as knowledgeable as you.

It this sort of mocking and scoffing that atheists use when we tell them the word of God. This is exactly what people do who want to stifle a free exchange of ideas. Ridicule them until they shut up. Well, that's not how brothers in Christ treat one another. That isn't the way Jesus taught us to act. If you would open your ears and listen there is quite a bit of evidence that Dinosaurs did exist recently.

In the fossil records there are clear timelines which show clearly the development of new traits. There are no fossils of the modern domesticated dog along side T-rex fossils in date. Most things that are alive today are no where to be found in the distant fossil records. Now why do you think that is? There are actually very few species alive today which appear as a closely related species in fossil records, such as Echidnas and Coelacanths. From looking at fossil records we see that over 99% of all species that ever lived are now extinct. Why is this? Flood? let me save you the trouble, NO. There are periods of mass extinction which are millions of years apart in the fossil records, each showing VERY distinct different organisms.

Matthew 24:38-39

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Are you saying God lied to us? There most definitely was a flood. This is what the word of God says about it:

Genesis 7:23

Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark

Yes, everything was wiped out, except for what Noah took with him in the Ark. This is why most of the species are extinct. The word of God also says this:

2 Peter 3:3-7

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

It says the world has deliberately forgotten that God once judged this world by water, just as He will judge it by fire in the tribulation to come.

The geologic column is not sorted by massive epochs of time, it is sorted by the rate by which organisms died in the flood. The flood was an extended event, taking over 1 year to reach peak elevation. The dieoffs by the various species which occurred were based on many factors, such as their mobility, intelligence, elevation, and environmental tolerances. This is why the bottom dwellers went first, then the free swimming forms, followed by the cold and then warm blooded creatures, and finally human beings.

Of course not everything was neatly sorted, which is why we find anomalous fossils and living fossils, which again completely contradict the evolutionary timeline.

As far as there not being evidence in fossil record, the only 2 ways I can see you coming to that conclusion are 1 you are blind, 2 you have no knowledge of fossil records and are repeating what others have said. There are early mammals that lay eggs, there are reptiles that are very like mammals. There are squirrel like primates with opposable thumbs, there are amphibious fish. Furthermore there are consistent dateing record of fossils that sho that there were no records of primates until a certain time, go back farther and there are no placental mammals, go back farther and there are no marsupials, go back farther and there are no synapsids, go back farther and there are no reptiles.

You're joking, right? Anyone who has studied this subject at any length knows how weak the evidence from the fossil record actually is for evolution. There is far more evidence against it than for it. This is why evolutionists always try to turn the subject away from the fossil record and attempt to prove it through phylogeny. The fossil record is not your friend.

The fact is, you have almost no ancestors for any phyla, you have less transitional series than you did in darwins day, you have every prediction of the theory being overturned by the cambrian explosion; you have a record of stasis, not change. You have a record of sudden appearance of diversity and complexity, which is why you have the theory of punctuated equillibrium:

In fact, most published commentary on punctuated equilibria has been favorable. We are especially pleased that several paleontologists now state with pride and biological confidence a conclusion that had been previously been simply embarrassing; 'all these years of work and I haven't found any evolution.'

Gould & Eldredge
Paleobiology v.3 p.136

This is a theory which tries to explain why there is no evidence of macro evolution in the fossil record (it happened too fast). If it wasn't such a serious issue I would laugh, but people actually believe this, and it keeps them away from the truth.

There is quite simply nothing but evidence for evolution, that and lose conjecture based on shoddy aberrations in biased and unreliable research.

a lot of people just do not know what evidence the theory of evolution stands upon. They think the main evidence is the gradual descent of one species from another in the fossil record.

In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.

New Scientist 6/81 p. 831
Mark Ridley Oxford

 

[thesunisout]

Prehistoric soft tissue is frequently discovered in glacial and low heat, low humidity environments. In the best cases, the soft tissue is preserved by mats of microbes which eventually seal the deceased body off from the environment. You can find this sort of thing at your local city museum.

Even under the most ideal conditions, you're talking about thousands of years, not millions. It is absolutely impossible to have soft tissue survive intact for millions of years. This is evidence for a young earth and a recent existence for the dinosaurs.

 

[tackattack]

The s-c-i-e-n-t-i-s-t is right when he points out that both the universe as a whole, and the earth are much older than what some believers think, but he is wrong to believe in "Evolution", as I have previously pointed out. The fact is GOD created life on earth, it didn't just happen, or we would see it on Mars and the Moon. There are so many "Missing Links" in the theory of "Evolution" it is a joke, and he would be hard put to produce any existing links. One wonders why people with such beliefs bother to post at sites like this; when they obviously don't believe in the Bible.

I personally find this attitude abbhorent. I beleive in the whole Bible, and live it to the best of my ability every single day. I love God and am gratefull for everday I can pray for people with hearts like the one you show here. I won't go further and assume you're being intentionally that way in your tone and posts, just that you didn't pray or think before your typed.

Evolution is a change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. There are no "missing links" or breaks in a chain of evidence, unless you first assume that each species is unique and a seperate link in a chain. It's a theory, but it's predictive power and evidence points to it being correct. Enjoy this if you like What evidence is there for evolution? . This doesn't negate God or the Bible, just your god and your interpretaion of the Bible.

Even under the most ideal conditions, you're talking about thousands of years, not millions. It is absolutely impossible to have soft tissue survive intact for millions of years. This is evidence for a young earth and a recent existence for the dinosaurs.

PLoS ONE: Dinosaur Peptides Suggest Mechanisms of Protein Survival

If any proteins could surive, the ones they found would be the ones to survive. However if you believe that the Earth is not millions of years old, I could see how this would be hard to accept.

 

[Soothfish]

And for you to suggest that dinosaurs existed in the last 6000 or so years is quite frankly preposterous.

I suppose the city of Uruk was besieged by hungry Theropods XD

 

[Cotjones]

Apparently you've never heard of the horizon problem. When you solve that problem, and a host of others the big bang theory has, then you can say that "conclusively that means that those things have existed for a minimum of X years". It is statements like this, spoken authoritatively, and as being absolutely factual, that delude people into believing the theory of deep time is proven. If the textbook says it, it must be true, right? What isn't mentioned is that these theories are founded on unproven assumptions, themselves supported by weak, circumstantial evidence. When you heap a bunch of circumstantial evidence together, it looks very weighty, but in actuality is not much more than metaphysics. True science is based on empirical testing, and you cannot empirically test this theory.

And now you incorrectly use astrophysics. The expansion of the universe exponentially in the time immediately after the big bang does likely account for some distance between galaxies, but the formation of stars wasn't accomplished until WAAAAY after that. It takes time for gas clouds to collapse and nuclear reactions to form. The time of expansion we are talking about is a tiny tiny tiny tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second. I won't pretend that I believe that dating the Universe this way will give you an accurate estimate even withing a Billion years. I will contend that the Universe is many billions of years old and most certainly not young.

I'll show you what Max Planck thought of your "unbiased" studies:

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"

Interesting that you'd quote this. Are you telling me that you don't fit this description if Evolution is indeed true? I find this to often be the case. That's why I don't make it my life's work to convince others of evolution, but I argue it on my spare time. I believe that you are like those that persecuted Galileo, and that it may be unlikely, but possible that you see a new perspective in your lifetime.

Are you somehow unaware that this is a fallen world ruled by sin, and that there is nothing man is involved in that isn't biased?

Bias can be controlled. When you try to discredit your hypothesis and go to others who oppose your view you are fighting your personal bias.

Within margins of error? Yes, if your margin of error is billions of years, which it often is. This we know because the different methods do not agree with eachother. If each method gives a different date, which one is right? How do you get "accurate" measurements when you have at least 3 unprovable assumptions to do any kind of dating? One, that the initial condition of the rock is known. Two, that the amount of parent and daughter elements hasnt been changed. Three, that the decay rate is constant. Why is it that when we measure rocks that we do know the ages of, they don't give accurate measurements?

You sound like an answers in genesis seminar, which I have attended. You refer to the experiments of Steve Austin's team in their use of potassium40-argon40 on the dacite samples from Mt. St. Helens. This is one piece of research creationists seem to cling to despite the fact that it hasn't been looked at as credible research in decades. But as I said before, you are part of a large group that know enough to misconstrue information but not to portray an accurate conclusion from the state of the field so i'll bite.

Of all the methods of radiocarbon dating, Potassium-Argon is suited to extremely old samples. This is in part due to the half life of potassium 40 being 1.3 billion years. This particular method is relatively useless under 2 million years because the amount of Argon would be extremely small.

Knowing this, it's interesting that a openly young earth creationist would pick this specific method to date new rock. Its even more interesting that he would attempt to date samples using this method that are known to be particularly difficult to date radio metrically due to the difficultly of separating the constituent parts of minerals. I personally have sent E-mails to Dr. Austin before asking about details of his research and never received responses.

It this sort of mocking and scoffing that atheists use when we tell them the word of God. This is exactly what people do who want to stifle a free exchange of ideas. Ridicule them until they shut up. Well, that's not how brothers in Christ treat one another. That isn't the way Jesus taught us to act. If you would open your ears and listen there is quite a bit of evidence that Dinosaurs did exist recently.

While I don't appreciate the fact that you continually equate me to an atheist as though that makes your argument valid, I'll let it go. I do not mock, I simply react. The fact is that if you are a Doctor and you hear someone speak in public about the dangers of a vaccine that saves millions of lives based on rumors and superstition, you get very angry. It's one thing to not be knowledgeable, it's another entirely to you rhetoric to spread views having no appropriate knowledge to back your claims. It angers me because there are those who are highly impressionable who will cling to false facts just because someone else said them. Aristotle warned about this function of rhetoric and it was for this reason that the sophists were discredited by the proper academic world for centuries. In general, the public has a low standard of evidence. They are likely to accept arguments that fall in line with their personal values and desires and never test these ideas. I don't mind if you have a fact to debate but to spread lose conjecture is unethical, and that's a fact that we as a culture pay far too little attention to.


Matthew 24:38-39

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Are you saying God lied to us? There most definitely was a flood. This is what the word of God says about it:

Genesis 7:23

Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark

Yes, e

No I didn't say that there was no flood. I said that it is impossible that a single flood account for the the entirety of the extinctions in the fossil record. It is actually perfectly possible that some very large scale flood was one of the mass extinction events we study in the fossil records. However what is also true is that even though in some cases the margins of error in radio dating are as much as 2 million years per 2.5 billion years, the dating methods clearly show that not even close to all of the extinct species became extinct at the same time. A great deal did, yes. But not all, there were apparently 5 very large mass extinction events accounted for in the fossil record.

verything was wiped out, except for what Noah took with him in the Ark. This is why most of the species are extinct. The word of God also says this:

2 Peter 3:3-7

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

It says the world has deliberately forgotten that God once judged this world by water, just as He will judge it by fire in the tribulation to come.

The geologic column is not sorted by massive epochs of time, it is sorted by the rate by which organisms died in the flood. The flood was an extended event, taking over 1 year to reach peak elevation. The dieoffs by the various species which occurred were based on many factors, such as their mobility, intelligence, elevation, and environmental tolerances. This is why the bottom dwellers went first, then the free swimming forms, followed by the cold and then warm blooded creatures, and finally human beings.

Of course not everything was neatly sorted, which is why we find anomalous fossils and living fossils, which again completely contradict the evolutionary timeline.

What you are conjecturing is quite frankly absurd. You pose that the dates of all extinct organisms which are found in most cases to be millions of years apart are instead only days apart as the result of inaccurate dating? The interesting thing is that there is absolutely no data to support that gross conjecture. Radiometric dating of fossils clearly falls in line with the rough timeline we expect for evolution. And you are trying to say that all of these species died at the same time in a period of a year? It's literally impossible that the earth could have supported the amount of organisms the fossil record suggests have existed in all time in a 6000 year period.



I'll respond to the rest later, gotta go to my next class.

You're joking, right? Anyone who has studied this subject at any length knows how weak the evidence from the fossil record actually is for evolution. There is far more evidence against it than for it. This is why evolutionists always try to turn the subject away from the fossil record and attempt to prove it through phylogeny. The fossil record is not your friend.

The fact is, you have almost no ancestors for any phyla, you have less transitional series than you did in darwins day, you have every prediction of the theory being overturned by the cambrian explosion; you have a record of stasis, not change. You have a record of sudden appearance of diversity and complexity, which is why you have the theory of punctuated equillibrium:

In fact, most published commentary on punctuated equilibria has been favorable. We are especially pleased that several paleontologists now state with pride and biological confidence a conclusion that had been previously been simply embarrassing; 'all these years of work and I haven't found any evolution.'

Gould & Eldredge
Paleobiology v.3 p.136

This is a theory which tries to explain why there is no evidence of macro evolution in the fossil record (it happened too fast). If it wasn't such a serious issue I would laugh, but people actually believe this, and it keeps them away from the truth.



a lot of people just do not know what evidence the theory of evolution stands upon. They think the main evidence is the gradual descent of one species from another in the fossil record.

In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.

New Scientist 6/81 p. 831
Mark Ridley Oxford

[/QUOTE]

 

[thesunisout]

And now you incorrectly use astrophysics. The expansion of the universe exponentially in the time immediately after the big bang does likely account for some distance between galaxies, but the formation of stars wasn't accomplished until WAAAAY after that. It takes time for gas clouds to collapse and nuclear reactions to form. The time of expansion we are talking about is a tiny tiny tiny tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second. I won't pretend that I believe that dating the Universe this way will give you an accurate estimate even withing a Billion years. I will contend that the Universe is many billions of years old and most certainly not young.

You do realize that the expansion of the Universe is just a fudge factor, right? There is absolutely no evidence at all that this actually happened. I have to conclude at this point that you know very little about the big bang theory and are just repeating what you've read in a textbook or on a website. This again is exactly how people are fooled into believing these ideas, when people authoratively state them as absolutely proven facts, when they are based on nothing more than mere conjective. Here is another quote for you:

the big bang theory can boast no predictions that have been validated by observation. claimed successes consist of retrospectively making observations fit by adding adjustable parameters.

bucking the big bang, new scientist may 22 2004

Interesting that you'd quote this. Are you telling me that you don't fit this description if Evolution is indeed true? I find this to often be the case. That's why I don't make it my life's work to convince others of evolution, but I argue it on my spare time. I believe that you are like those that persecuted Galileo, and that it may be unlikely, but possible that you see a new perspective in your lifetime.

It's more interesting how you directly avoided responding to it and tried to turn it around me, while contrasting me to the catholic church.

Bias can be controlled. When you try to discredit your hypothesis and go to others who oppose your view you are fighting your personal bias.

Sin cannot be controlled except by the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. Those without the Spirit are deceived and they bring this darkness into everything they do. Only by the light of God do we see the truth.

You sound like an answers in genesis seminar, which I have attended. You refer to the experiments of Steve Austin's team in their use of potassium40-argon40 on the dacite samples from Mt. St. Helens. This is one piece of research creationists seem to cling to despite the fact that it hasn't been looked at as credible research in decades. But as I said before, you are part of a large group that know enough to misconstrue information but not to portray an accurate conclusion from the state of the field so i'll bite.

Of all the methods of radiocarbon dating, Potassium-Argon is suited to extremely old samples. This is in part due to the half life of potassium 40 being 1.3 billion years. This particular method is relatively useless under 2 million years because the amount of Argon would be extremely small.
Knowing this, it's interesting that a openly young earth creationist would pick this specific method to date new rock. Its even more interesting that he would attempt to date samples using this method that are known to be particularly difficult to date radio metrically due to the difficultly of separating the constituent parts of minerals. I personally have sent E-mails to Dr. Austin before asking about details of his research and never received responses

Again, your response is notable for the fact that it failed to address any of the questions I have asked. I can only presume you have no answers. You simply focused on something you thought you could attack, but your presumption is wrong. I did not base my question about the trustworthiness of radiometric dating based on the inaccurate dating solely on the work of Steve Austin. The correct result for that, by the way, would have been zero argon found in the rock. It gave 5 different readings from the same rock. It shows that the clocks do not reset on the solidification of magma.

This research was not limited to Mount Saint Helens. It was also done on the Hualalai basalt, Mt. Etna basalt, the Mt. Lassen plagioclase and the Sunset Crater basalt. Further research was conducted on Cardenas Basalt using the rubidium-strontium isochron method. All of these experiments yieled incorrect ages. There is also the issue of carbon dating, that fossils contain carbon that should have disappeared long ago. Contamination, right? Well, if that's the case, then we can't trust any of the assumptions of radiometric dating, since contamination is so widespread.

While I don't appreciate the fact that you continually equate me to an atheist as though that makes your argument valid, I'll let it go. I do not mock, I simply react. The fact is that if you are a Doctor and you hear someone speak in public about the dangers of a vaccine that saves millions of lives based on rumors and superstition, you get very angry. It's one thing to not be knowledgeable, it's another entirely to you rhetoric to spread views having no appropriate knowledge to back your claims. It angers me because there are those who are highly impressionable who will cling to false facts just because someone else said them. Aristotle warned about this function of rhetoric and it was for this reason that the sophists were discredited by the proper academic world for centuries. In general, the public has a low standard of evidence. They are likely to accept arguments that fall in line with their personal values and desires and never test these ideas. I don't mind if you have a fact to debate but to spread lose conjecture is unethical, and that's a fact that we as a culture pay far too little attention to.

This is nothing but a strawman argument. The rhertoric is coming from your side; you ridiculed the idea of dinosaurs and man co-existing, and the function of ridicule is to stifle debate. Regardless of whether you like the comparison or not, it is true. This is typically how atheists debate Christians; mock and ridicule their position at every turn, question their intelligence, their ability to rationalize, their ability to evaluate evidence etc. I see a lot of similarity in your style of debate. I am not saying you are an atheist, but am I saying you debate like one.

No I didn't say that there was no flood. I said that it is impossible that a single flood account for the the entirety of the extinctions in the fossil record. It is actually perfectly possible that some very large scale flood was one of the mass extinction events we study in the fossil records. However what is also true is that even though in some cases the margins of error in radio dating are as much as 2 million years per 2.5 billion years, the dating methods clearly show that not even close to all of the extinct species became extinct at the same time. A great deal did, yes. But not all, there were apparently 5 very large mass extinction events accounted for in the fossil record.

The dating methods, as I have explained above, are not even accurate for things we know the ages of. They don't clearly show anything; they all disagree with eachother, even in the same sample. It is not impossible that the flood accounted for all the extinction events; that is what scripture says happened. If you can acknowledge a flood, you can acknowledge that it can account for the entire record.

What you are conjecturing is quite frankly absurd. You pose that the dates of all extinct organisms which are found in most cases to be millions of years apart are instead only days apart as the result of inaccurate dating? The interesting thing is that there is absolutely no data to support that gross conjecture. Radiometric dating of fossils clearly falls in line with the rough timeline we expect for evolution. And you are trying to say that all of these species died at the same time in a period of a year? It's literally impossible that the earth could have supported the amount of organisms the fossil record suggests have existed in all time in a 6000 year period.

To say that the dates support evolutionary timeframes is absurd, since the rocks date the fossils and the fossils date the rocks. You are simply employing circular reasoning. Neither is it "literally impossible" that the biosphere could have supported all that life. The hypothesis is that there was a greater atmospheric pressure and oxygen content pre-flood, which could support many times the number of creatures we have today.
　
　
　

 

[Soothfish]

The hypothesis is that there was a greater atmospheric pressure and oxygen content pre-flood, which could support many times the number of creatures we have today.

If this was true then it would actually kill a large number of species...

Forget the flood! If what you say is true then those animals died from oxygen toxicity!

animals need a specific percentage of oxygen and nitrogen for healthy respiration. This is also why oxygen has to be mixed when scuba divers use their supply. Breathing molecular O2 at elevated partial pressure can lead to oxygen toxicity. There are also many lifeforms which thrive in certain altitudes (which means certain atmospheric pressure).

 

[thesunisout]

If this was true then it would actually kill a large number of species...

Forget the flood! If what you say is true then those animals died from oxygen toxicity!

animals need a specific percentage of oxygen and nitrogen for healthy respiration. This is also why oxygen has to be mixed when scuba divers use their supply. Breathing molecular O2 at elevated partial pressure can lead to oxygen toxicity. There are also many lifeforms which thrive in certain altitudes (which means certain atmospheric pressure).

The difference is that the entire Earth is theorized to have been temperate, due to the increase of carbon dioxide. These also would have been the original conditions of what the atmosphere was like. What we have today is something we adapted to, and neither is it such a delicate thing. If it was then hyperbolic chambers would be deadly, but people can stay in them for months at a time. We also have some confirmation from mainstream science:

. Robert Berner of Yale and Gary Landis of the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed air bubbles that are believed to have been trapped in amber some 80 million years ago. “The researchers clamped the amber into a vacuum chamber of a quadrupole mass spectrometer, a device that identifies the chemical composition of a substance. As the machine slowly crushed the sample, the microscopic bubbles were released, exhaling up to 100 billion molecules. These breaths disclosed some surprising evidence: the ancient air contained 50 percent more oxygen than the air today.” Landis believes that the reduction in oxygen could have led to the dinosaur’s demise. (Discover, February, 1988, p. 12.) “One implication is that the atmospheric pressure of the Earth would have been much greater during the Cretaceous era, when the bubbles formed in the resin. A dense atmosphere could also explain how the ungainly pterosaur, with its stubby body and wing span of up to 11 meters, could have stayed airborne, he said.” (Anderson, Ian, “Dinosaurs Breathed Air Rich in Oxygen,” New Scientist, vol. 116, 1987, p. 25.)

In October 2006 Science Daily publicized a study led by Arizona State University staff entitled “Giant Insects Might Reign If Only There Was More Oxygen In The Air.” The article claims, “The delicate lady bug in your garden could be frighteningly large if only there was a greater concentration of oxygen in the air, a new study concludes. The study adds support to the theory that some insects were much larger during the late Paleozoic period because they had a much richer oxygen supply, said the study’s lead author Alexander Kaiser. The Paleozoic period…was a time of huge and abundant plant life and rather large insects — dragonflies had two-and-a-half-foot wing spans, for example. The air’s oxygen content was 35% during this period, compared to the 21% we breathe now, Kaiser said.” This research concurs with the biblical model of the early earth. In 2010 researchers at Arizona State University presented the results of experiments raising insects in various levels of atmospheric oxygen. Ten out of twelve varieties of insects studied decreased in size with lower oxygen. Some, like dragonflies, grew faster and became bigger in an enriched oxygen atmosphere (Science Daily, October 30, 2010.).

When Dr Kei Mori simulated these conditions on a tomato plant, the plant grew to be over 30 feet tall and produced 15000 cherry tomatoes the size of golf balls. There are other experiments showing gigantism in fish under these conditions. It also explains why we had so many giant creatures and fauna in the past.

 

[Soothfish]

The difference is that the entire Earth is theorized to have been temperate, due to the increase of carbon dioxide. These also would have been the original conditions of what the atmosphere was like. What we have today is something we adapted to, and neither is it such a delicate thing. If it was then hyperbolic chambers would be deadly, but people can stay in them for months at a time. We also have some confirmation from mainstream science:

. Robert Berner of Yale and Gary Landis of the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed air bubbles that are believed to have been trapped in amber some 80 million years ago. “The researchers clamped the amber into a vacuum chamber of a quadrupole mass spectrometer, a device that identifies the chemical composition of a substance. As the machine slowly crushed the sample, the microscopic bubbles were released, exhaling up to 100 billion molecules. These breaths disclosed some surprising evidence: the ancient air contained 50 percent more oxygen than the air today.” Landis believes that the reduction in oxygen could have led to the dinosaur’s demise. (Discover, February, 1988, p. 12.) “One implication is that the atmospheric pressure of the Earth would have been much greater during the Cretaceous era, when the bubbles formed in the resin. A dense atmosphere could also explain how the ungainly pterosaur, with its stubby body and wing span of up to 11 meters, could have stayed airborne, he said.” (Anderson, Ian, “Dinosaurs Breathed Air Rich in Oxygen,” New Scientist, vol. 116, 1987, p. 25.)

In October 2006 Science Daily publicized a study led by Arizona State University staff entitled “Giant Insects Might Reign If Only There Was More Oxygen In The Air.” The article claims, “The delicate lady bug in your garden could be frighteningly large if only there was a greater concentration of oxygen in the air, a new study concludes. The study adds support to the theory that some insects were much larger during the late Paleozoic period because they had a much richer oxygen supply, said the study’s lead author Alexander Kaiser. The Paleozoic period…was a time of huge and abundant plant life and rather large insects — dragonflies had two-and-a-half-foot wing spans, for example. The air’s oxygen content was 35% during this period, compared to the 21% we breathe now, Kaiser said.” This research concurs with the biblical model of the early earth. In 2010 researchers at Arizona State University presented the results of experiments raising insects in various levels of atmospheric oxygen. Ten out of twelve varieties of insects studied decreased in size with lower oxygen. Some, like dragonflies, grew faster and became bigger in an enriched oxygen atmosphere (Science Daily, October 30, 2010.).

When Dr Kei Mori simulated these conditions on a tomato plant, the plant grew to be over 30 feet tall and produced 15000 cherry tomatoes the size of golf balls. There are other experiments showing gigantism in fish under these conditions. It also explains why we had so many giant creatures and fauna in the past.

and yet that increased oxygen would be very unhealthy for many organisms living today. Not all but many.

 

[thesunisout]

and yet that increased oxygen would be very unhealthy for many organisms living today. Not all but many.

Yeah, but the environment changed after the flood. When the world was being repopulated, the creatures adapted to this environment.

 

[tackattack]

I can see we fundamentally disagree here, but that's okay. Note, that I am very matter of fact in my argumentation, so please don't take it the wrong way. You are my cherished brother in Christ, end of story. That said, I'll present my argument:

Jesus is the foundation of our faith, but Jesus doesn't exist in a vacuum. The very reason Jesus came to Earth is because of what happened in Genesis. If you want to say that what happened in Genesis isn't true, then the purpose of His ministry, death and resurrection isn't true either. To make it work you have to gut Genesis and compromise quite a bit of scripture.

I speak to a lot of atheists as well and they all tell me the same thing. They don't believe the bible is true because evolution explains everything, and many of them are ex-christians. Consider this testimony:


You made the initial claim of cognitive dissonance, so I will ask you to support it too. Specifically, what the biblical mandate is to interpret scripture by the opinions of fallen men and the philosophies of the world system.

All I can find are scriptures which say we should do exactly the opposite. To let God be true and every man a liar:

1 Timothy 6:20

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:

1 Corinthians 1:20

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

I would also ask you this question: If you lived just a few decades previous, would you have agreed with the prevailing scientific theory that the Universe was eternal and had no beginning? Would you have reinterpreted the beginning out of Genesis because scientists said it didn't happen?

I will also give you two scriptures which flatly contradict theistic evolution:

Genesis 2:22

And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man

If theistic evolution is true, it cannot be true that God put Adam to sleep and then took one of his ribs and used it to fashion Eve.

Mark 10:6

But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female'

If theistic evolution is true, God did not make Adam and Eve at the beginning. Do you believe Jesus was unaware of how the Father created the world?

Scripture makes it clear that Adam and Eve were historical people, and that death entered the world through their sin.

Romans 5:12

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

1 Timothy 2:14

For Adam was first formed, then Eve And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Theistic evolution denies their historicity, and it says that God actually used death to create everything. Scripture says death is the enemy:

1 Corinthians 15:26

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death

It also says Satan is the one who held the power of death:

Hebrews 2:14

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil

Did God use the power of Satan to create the world? How did Satan get this power if it wasn't by the sin of man?

Essentially, for these and other reasons, I believe theistic evolution compromises scripture to the point that it is incompatible with it. That no matter how much you spiritualize or poeticize Genesis and other passages, you can't make it work without unacceptable compromises. Neither do I believe that evolution from common descent is a credible theory.

I’m not taking anything you say personally as you too are also beloved of me and I know how great each of us love God our father and I deeply enjoy our discussions and fellowship.
1-Take a look at these verses Peter 3:8 and Psalms 90:4. The Bible uses non-literal metaphors and illustrations. Was Paul’s thorn in his flesh literal? Was Mary actually pierced with a sword? Did the Torah actually exist prior to it being written? Obviously, the Bible is not completely literal. Even if it’s not literal 100% of the time, that does not deny its truth, accuracy or inspiration from God. Could we agree on that?
2-I don’t attempt to justify the Bible through science anymore than I justify math with the Bible. They’re not about the same thing. The Bible is the Word of God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness about Spiritual things. Things that are far more important than evolution. I see evolution as useful like I see a calculator or pi. I don’t remember learning about the big bang until junior high or middle school. In grade school I’m fairly certain that I was taught (or at least understood was the perception) the universe was eternal and I disbelieved it then. So, to answer your question, No I don’t believe I would change my beliefs in religion to suit science.

3- I agree that [FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Genesis 2:22, 1 Timothy and Mark 10 taken literally would invalidate the known process of micro evolution. I do agree that God created the first man and woman. I do agree that they were made from the same material, set apart from the rest of creation, and given a purpose through direct revelation from God. I do agree that God provided for them the Garden of Eden where we were given everything of sustenance we needed without taking shelter, eating meat or clothing ourselves. I agree that mankind introduced sin into the world and prevented us from having everlasting life in God’s presence due to your expulsion. I don’t feel any of these things are in direct contradiction to my understanding of evolution.[/font]


4- I’m not sure why Satan being the author of sin and holder of death is brought into the conversation. [FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Did God use the power of Satan to create the world? No, God created good and evil, with His omnipotent Holy power, which by definition is not evil or of satan. Satan was created good and just with God knowing full well what He would use satan for in the future of this universe. How did Satan get this power if it wasn't by the sin of man? Sin is setting your will over the will of God. God granted satan his power, but through Isaiah 14 we see that Satan chose to usurp the will of God thus creating sin, prior to man even existing. Eve introduced humankind to sin by listening to satan. I think if God had mandated “don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of get a mild rash” satan would have convinced us to eat of that one. It’s wasn’t the tree that corrupted mankind it was, and is, allowing satan and ourselves to usurp God’s will in us.[/font]

I will conclude with this. If there is any compromise that had to happen it would be a scientific theory I compromised on not God's word. I however feel no conviction and see no evidence that a literal approach to Genesis is necessary, or that it disagrees with scientific theory. I agree that we shouldn't rely on man's wisdom for spiritual things. However God did give us reasoning, logic and the rest of our brain and it would be a waste not for me to use it. I don't believe God wants blind faith, just faith. As it stands now science actually agrees with my faith, which strengthens my faith, but doesn't support it. My faith is supported by Christ alone.

 

[Soothfish]

It is clear from observation that evolution occurs within species, but the evidence of Evolution from one species into a new one is inconclusive.

Evolution occurs at the genetic level and only for populations. It is always incorrect to say that individuals within a species "evolve". They can mutate but evolution covers the entire species. Also, our eyes deceive us when we look at many lifeforms. There really isn't that much difference between them when it comes to the nitty gritty. It takes a whole book to properly explain this so please don't ask for it! >_<

On a more humorous note, the existence of wild leftists is definitive proof of evolution.

 

[Cotjones]

Again, your response is notable for the fact that it failed to address any of the questions I have asked. I can only presume you have no answers. You simply focused on something you thought you could attack, but your presumption is wrong. I did not base my question about the trustworthiness of radiometric dating based on the inaccurate dating solely on the work of Steve Austin. The correct result for that, by the way, would have been zero argon found in the rock. It gave 5 different readings from the same rock. It shows that the clocks do not reset on the solidification of magma.

I'm short on time so i'll reply more later but I wanted to illustrate well known reason your young earth scientists came up with incorrect results, and subsequently used their incorrect results to formulate works that in effect would may the layman y.e. creationist believe he has rational evidence to retain his belief against the overwhelming knowledge of science. These works were looked at as a joke by most professionals but common man doesn't know any better.

1. Most labs won't allow the reading of extremely young samples because previous readings can contaminate readings in amounts which wouldn't be significant in older samples but will significantly change results in young samples.

2. The critical issue with these samples is that they will contain chunks of older material in them (xenocrysts and phenocrysts) which are often functionally impossible to remove from the volcanic silicates. In specific, all of the types of samples in the studies you mentioned are known to be particularly difficult to separate, in most cases being composed of more than 45% materials other than new silicates.

3. This culminates in the problem. Carbon dating will in certain instances prove an ineffective method. Just as it's not appropriate to use a bathroom scale to measure the weight of a fluid. However, these deliberate efforts to get fudged results don't detract from the relatively extremely consistent results all around the world. In fact, almost every time methods such as carbon14 have been used on known dated objects such as tree rings or even the dead sea scrolls and come up with extremely accurate results.

You can't say that it's just sampling error or method inaccuracies that date every specimen of tyrannosaurus Rex to be 64-67 million years old. Well you can but that would be pretty unwise. You look at results that show 5 different readings from the same sample. What does that tell you? It tells me that the sample wasn't prepared properly.

What science does is look at it as generalizations. GENERALLY we can be confident that our results are significant. What your young earth creationists are doing is looking for examples when there are speculated inaccuracy and saying that this is relevant to discredit every radio-metrically determined date ever obtained. (trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater.)

What's more you are doing this with the corroborative evidence of the age of the earth. There is no foreseeable scenario in which a star which is 12 million light years away would be visible in 6000 years. Horizon problem or any other imaginary concept you could pull up. You are arguing with very basic laws of physics. And it's not a matter of sustaining these creatures with food, it's space. As I said, over 99% of all species (NOT INDIVIDUALS) are extinct. Which means that under current circumstances the species and enormous diversity we see is less than 1 percent. Multiply that with the number of individuals present in each species population and you would have a number so great that you wouldn't be able to see 1 square inch of earth through all the living things if all this life was squeezed into 6000 years. It just doesn't make any sense.

 

[Cotjones]

Statistical inference always deals with outliers. We don't trash our results of 1000 specimens because we have 3 outliers.

Specifically, when we see that these outliers are observed in all very similar circumstances, we should look harshly at what causes these results so significantly different than expected. What you are doing is not examining the results and concluding that the outliers are the result of the method being ineffective.