Millions and billions of years

AV1611VET

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I don't believe it has a significant probability, but still, the swoon theory persists. Here is a lengthy article on it.

Jesus Christ did not Die on the Cross – A Cardiologist’s Perspective - The Review of Religions

Most apologists, even atheists, are rather hesitant to accept it though.
The swoon theory is a PRATT.

When the persecutions started, the disciples would have just produced Jesus for them, and that would have put an end to it.

Or at least, admitted that they had lied.
 
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Subduction Zone

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The swoon theory is a PRATT.

When the persecutions started, the disciples would have just produced Jesus for them, and that would have put an end to it.

Or at least, admitted that they had lied.

Not if they believed in him.

Don't project your flaws upon others.

Never underestimate the power of denial. You should know, creationists are champions of it.
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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General Apologetics was closed a number of years ago. This is the forum for discussing Creationism and Evolution. The topic for this thread is deep time.

The Resurrection is off topic for this thread and subforum.
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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Really? Tree ring dating only goes back a maximum (and I mean the upper, upper limit) is 11,000 years. That is assuming normal growth patterns for those trees in all those thousands of years.

The Bristlecone Pine is the oldest living tree I believe at only 5,063 years old, so where they come up with the 11,000, I don't know.

Tree rings are matched up with events that cause regional or global environmental conditions that effect tree growth that particular year. Those rings are matched between overlapping rings in living and preserved trees going back to about 12,000 years.

It's not exactly rocket science.
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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The assumption is the earth was formed by magma/lava/volcanoes, but according to the Bible, God made the firmament (the crust) the dry land and the seas. If God did make the firmament, then every dating method being used to date the crust goes out the window.

The implication here is that the proportions of lead to uranium etc. in the crust have always been what they are ever since the Creation.

:confused: The earth wasn't formed from volcanos, and the firmament is a solid dome above the earth that held up the "waters above".
 
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lasthero

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The Bristlecone Pine is the oldest living tree I believe at only 5,063 years old, so where they come up with the 11,000, I don't know.

Did it ever occur to you to look it up? I mean, there has to be some reason for 11,000; it's not like they just made that number up out of thin air - though, knowing you, that's probably what you think.

I'm curious, though - you accept that the oldest tree is over 5,000 years old, which would mean it would have to survive Noah's Flood. How would it do that? Being covered under miles of water, with no sunlight, for the better part of a year isn't exactly a good environment for terrestrial tree growth.
 
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USincognito

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They say adding iron and sand is all it takes to preserve organic material for 65+ million years. If that were true, where is all the innovation? Red Cross blood banks, the food industry, and just about everything that has a shelf life could benefit from that, IF it was true. Just the background radiation in the ground over millions of years would destroy any tissue. Some people just don't like to go where some facts lead.

The process that is being suggested is iron from hemoglobin helping to preserve the soft tissues. What you're suggesting is adding iron filings to beef to make jerky.

:doh:
 
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lesliedellow

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Finding soft tissue on dinosaurs, extracting an entire genome from a 700,000 year old horse while DNA has a half-like of 521 years and now this lead me to believe in a young Earth:

DNA isn't radioactive, and it hasn't got a half life.

It had simply been taken for granted that soft tissue couldn't survive in fossilised form for millions of years, until, much to their surprise, somebody found out otherwise.
 
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essentialsaltes

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See, I think he actually knows a lot of this stuff, he's just wilfully ignoring it. ... I just think he may be so rooted in his faith that nothing could supplant it

That's certainly the problem, and the reason why forums like this never lead anywhere.

I suppose I could try pointing out dendochronology, but I do expect to get a 'god works in mysterious ways' type answer - or 'how do you know?' once again.

Possibly, you can try another tack. For a long time, it was a very standard view within Christendom that God wrote two books -- the special revelation of the Bible, and the general revelation of the world.

People of good will, of all faiths, who have studied the world have come to the conclusion that it is old.

In the 19th century, this was, as far as I know, totally unobjectionable.

Even at the time of the Scopes Trial in 1925, William Jennings Bryan was not dogmatic that the days of Genesis were 24 hour days. He thought they could have been 24 hours, or they could have been millions of years, and more importantly, "I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other."

The existence of young earth creationism is itself a very young idea. And especially the idea that a young earth is somehow fundamental to Christianity.

What did earlier great thinkers of the Church feel about the evidence of the general revelation in nature? There is an amazing quote from Saint Augustine in his work on the literal meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram) (#39):

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. 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.”"

Augustine recognizes that people (even non-Christians!) can gain true knowledge about the earth. And that they gain this through "experience and the light of reason" -- science, in other words. And "reckless and incompetent" Christians may foolishly contradict this knowledge with their improper reading of Scripture.

The modern YEC position, which has only existed for a few decades, is exactly the sort of thing that Augustine warned against.
 
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lifepsyop

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Tree rings are matched up with events that cause regional or global environmental conditions that effect tree growth that particular year. Those rings are matched between overlapping rings in living and preserved trees going back to about 12,000 years.

It's not exactly rocket science.

That's the beauty of interpreting things about the past and claiming them as facts. Nothing will break down or blow up if you're wrong. If discrepancies arise then it's just a matter of deciding which weakest links will be discarded as anomalies in order to preserve the dating model.
 
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Seipai

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That's the beauty of interpreting things about the past and claiming them as facts. Nothing will break down or blow up if you're wrong. If discrepancies arise then it's just a matter of deciding which weakest links will be discarded as anomalies in order to preserve the dating model.

There is always some degree of interpretation no matter what people do. Complaining that facts have to be interpreted is not a valid complaint. Look at all of the thousands of different sects of Christianity. They all interpret the Bible a bit different from each other. You can go all the way from the Trinity denying Jehovah's Witnesses to Seventh Day Adventists, to Mormons to Universalists. There is a wide wide range of Christian belief.

In science sometimes the date of an object is not clear. Or the original estimate may be wrong. Why complain when a clearer date is found?
 
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And-U-Say

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General Apologetics was closed a number of years ago. This is the forum for discussing Creationism and Evolution. The topic for this thread is deep time.

The Resurrection is off topic for this thread and subforum.

And why was it closed. Having posted more than a few times in there, my impression was that the christians were constantly losing.
 
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AV1611VET

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And why was it closed. Having posted more than a few times in there, my impression was that the christians were constantly losing.
I remember about a week before it was closed, Jesus was called something I wouldn't let my wife read.
 
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