Question about Fossils

[DrBubbaLove]

Wow, so the Church will simply "update" its beliefs if proven by science beyond reasonable doubt!

Doesn't that make the Church seem like a cloud without rain blown along by the wind? Like wild waves of the sea foaming up in shame (when disproven by science)??

Jude 1:12-13
.....They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.





It already did, just not yet published

Not what I said and not at all what happened though it is a common and popular myth.

It is not an update of "truth", just a different way of looking at what it means to defend truth as it pertains to what God has revealed to mankind in Scripture. From the beginning what was false was the incorrect notion that the Bible supported/revealed the earth was the center of the universe with everything revolving around it. Is that notion the Church is eventually forced to explain was never the intended message/understanding from God.

Did people believe the earth was the center? Yes, so until man could start to correctly theorize, assume and eventually prove otherwise (a process that took a long time before proven beyond doubt), it would be natural for such people to assume and even write as if that was true. And that holds for the ancient writers of the OT, who would write with just such an assumption. And because that assumption was always false, even though for a long time not known to be false, it obviously can NEVER have been God's intent to reveal a falsehood to mankind.
So when Christian people first begin to hear that science has a really good theory that it is NOT true, the immediate doubt creeps in - what else does the Bible say that is NOT true - along with the idea that is science vs religion or maybe more precisely Church vs science. The Church MUST and did defend against such thoughts. Just because the assumption about the Bible saying to us that it was true was wrong from the beginning, the Church in defending "truth" does not need to be seen as opposed to science.

It was the assumption that was in error, not the Bible. It is also easy for us to forget that during the time when a good contrary theory to the generally accepted earth-centric notion first arose, all "scientist" in question were part of the Church and were educated in science at the hands of the Church. Also easy to forget what is knowledge or as Pilate put it to Jesus, what is truth? His reply - "I am truth" and indeed God is. He has Perfect Knowledge.

And what is science if not the search for truth? Making science as a collective pursuit of truth and an actively building body of knowledge, which is just the natural outcome of a creature given the intelligence and reason to seek truth. What is truth and the search for it but a natural desire to know God, even if the person seeking is unaware or very skeptical that or in denial there is a God. As soon as we say God is Truth and has Perfect Knowledge, then the pursuit of truth can only be seen as seeking to know God. Religion then cannot be the enemy of science as both seek to help mankind find the same thing - Truth.

And am not sure whether your reference to a soul is a theory that is proposed that everything we are (that makes you you and me me), is simply a collection of bio-electric 1s and 0s that form in our head to create what some philosphers would call a soul. So if we could collect that "data" and replicate it perfectly in some form, we could essentially create a duplicate of ourselves. While it makes for nice movie plots, Transcendence for one, I think and those same philosophers would support, that notion of a "digital" soul from hard science is flawed.

As to science addressing the existence of a soul, philosophers even pagan ones gave proof of a soul long ago. But even today some scientist refuse to see philosophy as a true science. And I suspect most of those scientist that do so need to because in their view the search they are on is not for God, so they must deny any truth that suggests otherwise.

 

[timewerx]

Not what I said and not at all what happened though it is a common and popular myth.

It is not an update of "truth", just a different way of looking at what it means to defend truth as it pertains to what God has revealed to mankind in Scripture.

I know, I just don't like the way the church does it.

It was the assumption that was in error, not the Bible.

This is also evidence that Christianity in most regards is not guided by the Holy Spirit.

And what is science if not the search for truth? Making science as a collective pursuit of truth and an actively building body of knowledge, which is just the natural outcome of a creature given the intelligence and reason to seek truth. What is truth and the search for it but a natural desire to know God, even if the person seeking is unaware or very skeptical that or in denial there is a God. As soon as we say God is Truth and has Perfect Knowledge, then the pursuit of truth can only be seen as seeking to know God. Religion then cannot be the enemy of science as both seek to help mankind find the same thing - Truth.

Albert Einstein himself said that science and religion must work together. Unfortunately, Albert Einstein did not push the matter further because of the fears of losing his credibility as a scientist.

In many respects that I will not discuss here, he got so many things right about God that many Christians are not even aware of.

And am not sure whether your reference to a soul is a theory that is proposed that everything we are (that makes you you and me me), is simply a collection of bio-electric 1s and 0s that form in our head to create what some philosphers would call a soul. So if we could collect that "data" and replicate it perfectly in some form, we could essentially create a duplicate of ourselves. While it makes for nice movie plots, Transcendence for one, I think and those same philosophers would support, that notion of a "digital" soul from hard science is flawed.

It's not how I came to know about the soul. Horror, not sci-fi is more suitable plot for the soul... In such regards, I am not in liberty to discuss more about it. Even Christ was incredibly cryptic about it. The plan to publish this info is a joke, to actually do it is a reckless thing to do.

 

[robycop3]

I know, I just don't like the way the church does it.




This is also evidence that Christianity in most regards is not guided by the Holy Spirit.




Albert Einstein himself said that science and religion must work together. Unfortunately, Albert Einstein did not push the matter further because of the fears of losing his credibility as a scientist.

In many respects that I will not discuss here, he got so many things right about God that many Christians are not even aware of.




It's not how I came to know about the soul. Horror, not sci-fi is more suitable plot for the soul... In such regards, I am not in liberty to discuss more about it. Even Christ was incredibly cryptic about it. The plan to publish this info is a joke, to actually do it is a reckless thing to do.

I have heard (unconfirmed) that Einstein became a Christian shortly before he died when he realized the existence of anything at all calls for a Creator.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

I know, I just don't like the way the church does it.




This is also evidence that Christianity in most regards is not guided by the Holy Spirit.




Albert Einstein himself said that science and religion must work together. Unfortunately, Albert Einstein did not push the matter further because of the fears of losing his credibility as a scientist.

In many respects that I will not discuss here, he got so many things right about God that many Christians are not even aware of.




It's not how I came to know about the soul. Horror, not sci-fi is more suitable plot for the soul... In such regards, I am not in liberty to discuss more about it. Even Christ was incredibly cryptic about it. The plan to publish this info is a joke, to actually do it is a reckless thing to do.

Am not sure how one could view people being wrong about what the Bible means on a matter of science makes "Christianity in most regards" misguided. The only thing misguided is overstating and assuming the Bible says something that it was not only never meant to be part of the message from God (earth is flat, earth is center of everything, everything created was made in 144 hours, dance with serpents to prove one's faith....etc) but it represents things that are not even part of reasonable set of knowledge necessary to know God. The Bible is not a collection of everything we need to know or even of everything that is true.

People have reached some pretty odd views of our souls, including a popular one here revived from ages long past, that the soul is actually what we are and this body is currently our prison. Very little new in these regards, people just repackage it and claim it is a modern invention.

 

[-57]

Actually, the same layers are on either side of the canyon itself. A flow of water large enough to have created the GC in a short time woulda washed away everything, not simply created a channel.

Many believe there was a giant lake named the Hopi and Grand lakes. At the red circle water suddenly released from Grand Lake...and created the Grand canyon. In this instance the water would not have washed away everything as you suggest.

 

[Dave-W]

People have reached some pretty odd views of our souls, including a popular one here revived from ages long past, that the soul is actually what we are and this body is currently our prison. Very little new in these regards, people just repackage it and claim it is a modern invention.

Indeed. The classic heresy of gnosticism.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

I know, I just don't like the way the church does it.

I could accept someone does not like reality or the result of it, but if they know something to be true and suggest otherwise, that is a lie. It is also unbecoming and not typical of your otherwise thoughtful, expressive and often humorous posts.

Sometime I think we allow the bias of others to cloud our views of history. Galileo was buddies with the Pope for instance. After being asked to present his thoughts as what they were at that time, a theory - even if a really good one, essentially to help the Church do damage control against those who were already using the theory to wrongly claim it "proves" the Bible is false and thus the Church lies, Galileo responded by writing a tract. In that work he presented two main characters talking about the Copernican theory (planets orbit sun), the one opposed Galileo named Simplicio - which am told in the native tongue meant what it sounds like, which was rather a slap in the face to his buddy. The Pope responded with house arrest for his friend, which while restrictive of movement by standards of those days could hardly be viewed as anything approaching "prison" or "jail". He died nine years later at the ripe old age of 77 (allowed to be buried on sacred ground), and during his "house arrest" was actually allowed travel for medical treatment during those nine years. His heresy was not promoting a scientific theory, but in being seen (probably overly exaggerated by Pope advisers in this particular issue - "he called you Simplicio!") as not supporting the Church. Which it was believed to be true not because the Church held up an opposing view than that theory, but because the Church leaders feared the manner in which the Copernican theory was being hailed as proving the Bible false - which obviously saying the Bible is false is a heresy. What was actually false all along is people saying the Bible was meant to be understood as God saying everything orbited the earth.

Heresy and being labeled a heretic has never meant the Church thinks someone is not Christian or going to Hell. Heresy used to be greatly feared and the response to it showed that fear. Properly feared as it should be (not inordinate) because promoting a heresy can lead people away from God, which is opposed to the purpose of the Church. Put another way it is destructive to holding to Christian beliefs - which is why Universal Reconciliation is considered a heresy for instance and that is why the Church must take a stand against such things.

 

[1213]

Jus wondering how you guys respond to people when "New Discoveries" of fossils come out and they are said to be 100,000s of years old when Earth is only 6000 years old.

My respond is, I don’t believe those ages are correct and I don’t think world is necessary 6000 years old.

It is said for example that modern human has existed over 200 000 years. If that would be true, how we have developed things only about 6000 years? And how we have so little evidence about those people? If we consider how fast people reproduce, for example in Africa, I think we should see much more evidence about humans, it we have existed as long as it is said.

 

[Marius27]

Jus wondering how you guys respond to people when "New Discoveries" of fossils come out and they are said to be 100,000s of years old when Earth is only 6000 years old.

Easy, the Earth isn't 6000 years old. It's roughly 4.54 billion years old.

 

[timewerx]

I could accept someone does not like reality or the result of it, but if they know something to be true and suggest otherwise, that is a lie. It is also unbecoming and not typical of your otherwise thoughtful, expressive and often humorous posts.

In case you haven't known before, I don't regard the thebook as inerrant.

Previously, I regarded the thebook as inerrant for 20 years. Perhaps, when I took a wsearch as data analyst, I became quite sensitive to inconsistencies. And I did find them despite no one telling me and despite my biased assumption that the thebook is perfect. One day, it went clear, that assumption is wrong. The thousands of denominations is here to prove that fact.

I only have few fears in life. Dying and losing my salvation is certainly not one of those, but large and leggy spiders are certainly in that list! I think this is what made me see the thebook for what it is, with nothing blocking my eyes, no fear to cloud my reasoning.

Nevertheless, the thebook still has some truth in it. But to assume it is 100% inerrant, one will never arrive at the truthful interpretation and will miss big on knowledge.

Pope's current tolerance of homossleepuals and atheists means he is ignoring certain teachings in the thebook. Although some parts of the thebooks does and imply homossleepuals and atheist will be saved even if they never come to awareness of MM. The thebook itself is divided on the matter, a full-on 180 degrees twist without some clever explaining.

If the Bible is speaking the truth, no defense or an "expert" explaining is required for the Bible would be able to defend itself against scrutiny even from the opposition.

 

[-57]

Easy, the Earth isn't 6000 years old. It's roughly 4.54 billion years old.

Why do some fossils carbon date?
Why is there soft dino tissue found?

 

[DrBubbaLove]

In case you haven't known before, I don't regard the thebook as inerrant.

Previously, I regarded the thebook as inerrant for 20 years. Perhaps, when I took a wsearch as data analyst, I became quite sensitive to inconsistencies. And I did find them despite no one telling me and despite my biased assumption that the thebook is perfect. One day, it went clear, that assumption is wrong. The thousands of denominations is here to prove that fact.

I only have few fears in life. Dying and losing my salvation is certainly not one of those, but large and leggy spiders are certainly in that list! I think this is what made me see the thebook for what it is, with nothing blocking my eyes, no fear to cloud my reasoning.

Nevertheless, the thebook still has some truth in it. But to assume it is 100% inerrant, one will never arrive at the truthful interpretation and will miss big on knowledge.

Pope's current tolerance of homossleepuals and atheists means he is ignoring certain teachings in the thebook. Although some parts of the thebooks does and imply homossleepuals and atheist will be saved even if they never come to awareness of MM. The thebook itself is divided on the matter, a full-on 180 degrees twist without some clever explaining.

If the Bible is speaking the truth, no defense or an "expert" explaining is required for the Bible would be able to defend itself against scrutiny even from the opposition.

I see, but I do not think you understand what the Church means by "inerrant" and instead refer to a typical very fundamentalist view of some Protestant faiths. Misrepresenting what the Pope says or does not say seems popular these days, even among Catholics. Somehow I doubt you get that either.

 

[missguidedsheep]

Not anymore. Scientists are now finding soft tissue, in many dinosaur bones that's been lying around for a long time since they dug them up.

They simply didn't have the technology (and the open-mindedness) back then so they didn't bothered to look for soft tissue.

Also the fact that Carbon-14 is found many dinosaur bones simply means dinosaurs couldn't have been extinct more than 40,000 years ago.

Where did the millions of years come from? Simply from miscalculation. It would be impossible to find soft tissue in dinosaur bones if they died millions of years ago.[/QU

 

[timewerx]

Where did the millions of years come from? Simply from miscalculation. It would be impossible to find soft tissue in dinosaur bones if they died millions of years ago.

While the dinosaurs may have only died out tens of thousands of years ago, the Earth and the Universe may still be billions of years old.

Of course, it's also possible we got that detail wrong.

 

[KimT]

I'm an old earth creationist. I see no conflict between Genesis and the earth being much older than 7,000 years. With God all things are possible. I believe that God created all science and allows us to make new discoveries as part of our humanity. God doesn't operate in time. He created it for us and our simple minds.

 

[robycop3]

Then there's the fact that God allowed man to discover the speeda light, and to find that light cannot be sped up. God also allowed men to discover how to measure the approximate distances to many stars and interstellar objects, galaxies, etc.

The parts of the Milky Way we see with our unaided eye are so distant it takes their light about 30K years to reach us. And the farthest objest we can see with the unaided eye, the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 10 times the size of the Milky Way, is so distent it takes its light over a MILLION years to reach us.

I believe GOD allowed us to discover these facts to teach us.

 

[-57]

Then there's the fact that God allowed man to discover the speeda light, and to find that light cannot be sped up. God also allowed men to discover how to measure the approximate distances to many stars and interstellar objects, galaxies, etc.

The parts of the Milky Way we see with our unaided eye are so distant it takes their light about 30K years to reach us. And the farthest objest we can see with the unaided eye, the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 10 times the size of the Milky Way, is so distent it takes its light over a MILLION years to reach us.

I believe GOD allowed us to discover these facts to teach us.

Have you ever heard of white hole cosmology? It's bibically based.
Russ Humphrey ...Starlight and Time. The question is answered.

 

[robycop3]

Have you ever heard of white hole cosmology? It's bibically based.
Russ Humphrey ...Starlight and Time. The question is answered.

Yerp-phony as a Ford Corvette!

 

[Job8]

Jus wondering how you guys respond to people when "New Discoveries" of fossils come out and they are said to be 100,000s of years old when Earth is only 6000 years old.

What if the entire system of dating is seriously flawed? I believe we can safely say that God's account of creation must be THE MOST RELIABLE account. After all, it was just the Creator who was present at His creation. Fossils are interesting, but the dating itself could be seriously in error. All fossil dating is very indirect, but the Bible account is direct, and the genealogies are there to guide us.

New Findings Show Flaws In Old-Earth Dating Methods
by Kyle Butt, M.A.

For decades the general population has been informed that numerous “scientific” evidences prove beyond all doubt that the age of the Earth should be measured in billions of years instead of thousands. We have been told that dating methods, such as the rates of decay of radioactive elements, force an honest observer to an old-Earth conclusion. The problems with this “evidence” are many (see DeYoung, 2005). One of the most glaring problems with such reasoning is that it is based on assumptions that have proven to be incorrect.

For instance, in order for the old-Earth clocks that are based on radioactive elements to be accurate, it must be taken as a fact that the decay rates of the elements are constant, and have been for the last several “billion years” (not that there ever really has been such time). For years, that assumption has been shown to have serious problems (DeYoung), and recent findings have made that assumption even more glaringly false.

On August 23, Dan Stober wrote an article for the Stanford Report titled “The Strange Case of Solar Flares and Radioactive Elements.” He reported on findings from researchers at Stanford and Purdue universities that suggest that the decay rates of radioactive elements can vary based on the activity of solar flares. The implications of such a discovery are profound. As Stober wrote: “The story begins, in a sense, in classrooms around the world, where students are taught that the rate of decay of a specific radioactive material is a constant. This concept is relied upon, for example, when anthropologists use carbon-14 to date ancient artifacts” (2010, emp. added). Stober’s implication is that if the decay rates are not constant, as we have been taught by the evolutionary community for decades, then their dating methods cannot be reliable, since they “rely” on a constant rate of decay.

Stober further commented that the constant-rate-of-decay assumption “was challenged” by Ephraim Fischbach, a Purdue researcher, who found disagreement in measured decay rates of certain radioactive isotopes, “odd for supposed physical constants” (Stober, 2010). What was more, upon assessing further data, researchers noticed seasonal decay rate differences in certain isotopes, “the decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer” (2010). Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics Peter Sturrock stated: “Everyone thought it must be due to experimental mistakes, because we’re all brought up to believe that decay rates are constant” (2010).

Further research, however, suggested that the information was not an experimental mistake. In December of 2006, Jere Jenkins, a nuclear engineer at Purdue University, noticed that the decay rate of manganese-54 dropped slightly just before and during a solar flare. Jenkins and Fischbach argue that this variation in decay rates is caused by interaction between solar neutrinos and the radioactive elements being observed. Stober quoted Fischbach as saying that all the evidence assessed by Sturrock, Fischbach, and Jenkins “points toward a conclusion that the sun is ‘communicating’ with radioactive isotopes on Earth” (2010).

Strober admitted that no one knows how neutrinos could possibly ‘communicate’ with radioactive elements on Earth. Fischbach acknowledged that “it doesn’t make any sense according to conventional ideas.” Sturrock stated, “It’s an effect that no one yet understands…. But that’s what the evidence points to. It’s a challenge for the physicists and a challenge for the solar people too.” More than that, though, it is a challenge for the dogmatic evolutionists who insist that their deep-time dating methods are accurate. This latest research brings to light the glaring flaw of such dating methods, showing that the core assumptions are not only questionable, they are verifiably false.

The suggestion that decay rates may be affected by neutrinos is nothing new. The TalkOrigins Web site cites a reference to Henry Morris mentioning the possibility as early as 1974 and Davis Young discussing it in 1988 (“Claim CD004,” 2004). The responses given by TalkOrigins do not include the new data from the latest research, and cannot dismiss the fact that the rates of radioactive elements are measurably variable, even though the neutrino interaction with them is little understood (2004). Since we can prove that certain radioactive elements have a rate that varies in the winter or summer, or during solar flares, then the assumption that decay rates are constant cannot honestly be maintained.

CONCLUSION
It has long been taught in classrooms across the world that the constancy of radioactive decay rates is a core assumption upon which old-Earth conclusions are based. Yet this assumption has been proven false, based on the fact that decay rates have been shown to vary. This information, according to scientists from Purdue and Stanford, goes against what has been “taught in classrooms” and against “what we’re all brought up to believe.” Does our society never tire of discovering that the “evidence” for old-Earth assumptions continues to disintegrate as more data is assessed? How long will it be, and how many more core evolutionary assumptions must be debunked, before those who insist on an Earth measured in billions of years acquiesce to the truth of a young Earth measured in thousands of years? Once again we see accurate scientific evidence in complete agreement with a straightforward reading of biblical history (Butt, 2002).

REFERENCES
Butt, Kyle (2002), “The Bible Says the Earth is Young,” http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1757.

“Claim CD004,” (2004), http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD004.html.

DeYoung, Don (2005), Thousands...Not Billions (Green Forest, AR: Master Books).

Stober, David (2010), “The Strange Case of Solar Flares and Radioactive Elements,” http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/bre...ase-of-solar-flares-and-radioactive-elements/.



Copyright © 2010 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

[dad]

I believe GOD is telling us something by preserving fossils. I believe God made earth LONG ago, and that He made the present arrangement from an already-existing earth. After all, His spirit moved over the face of THE DEEP, berfore he made anything else in the present world..

So He put us on a used world?