Creationists: Does the earth look old?

[Jet Black]

Thanks for the astronomy tip. I read through what they were talking about. It seems that parallax works well with nearby stars, but once the ratio of distance to the star and the diameter of the orbit of the earth gets too large, you have to make some basic assumptions. This gets you to the point where the truth is presumed and not experienced.

well given that you accept trig, that means the universe is at least 180,000 years old - since the largest trig verified optically determined distance that I know of anyway (I think they have determined longer distances using radio waves) is the distance to SN1987A. Then there are a number of other measurement types besides trig. For example the luminosity of a star decreases with the inverse square of he distance. we can tell how hot a star is and other things by looking at the spectrum and frome these we can also calculate distance. Cepheid variables also pulsate at a particular rate depending on their internal temperature and metallic content, and looking at the brightness of these and using the inverse square law, we can also determine the distance to these objects. note the inverse square law is a simple geometric argument and only really assumes that energy is conserved.

That's all I'm trying to say to you all. Every argument made for the case against YEC is based on evidence (albeit very thorough scientific evidence -- thanks for the pretty diagrams all of you) that still presumes truth but does not prove it. Therefore YEC is "declared false" not "proven false"

It doesn't have to presume truth. remember those 2 axioms

(1) the universe is 6-10,000 years (adjusted for your comment on dates)
(2) God does not decieve.

we can also add

(3) God created the universe pretty much as it is (with 6-10,000 years of development on top)

now if these are all true, then the evidence forces a contradirction between them, since the evidence shows a universe that is significantly older than 6-10,000 years.

Fossils came by death, death came by sin, sin came by Adam. Fossils could not precede Adam. So whether the earth is PROVEN young or old doesn't really matter. What matters is how death and sin entered into our world. And Jesus is the only answer to this one.

So why the fossil ages and orders then. remember the evidence contradicts your statements that fossils could not precede adam.

But God doesn't ask us to weigh the evidence and then agree with him on this issue, but to simply believe what Jesus has done for us.

yes, I agree

And to help assure that our belief is well founded, God raised Jesus from the ground and made Him a living being, much like He formed Adam from the ground and made him a living being. And the result of this event was witnessed by hundreds of people.

you mean the resurrection, fair enough, there is no evidence to contradict this, like there is evidence to contradict the entire human race emerging from one family 4000 years ago (Noah) or 2 people 6-10,000 years ago(Adam and Eve) again the evidence contradicts what you say.

If God's Word says to us: "I created you, I lost you, I redeemed you, I can make you whole, if you believe in the Name of Jesus" Then, don't you see how harmful it is to "Declare False" His claim to have made us special and separate from all the rest of creation?

But just accepting evolution does not mean anyone declares false his claim to have made us special. he could have picked us to be special like he did with the Jews. He didn't specifically create Jews from the dust, he just took them from what was present at the time and defined them as special. The same can be said for humanity as a whole - a declaration that a certain subset of his creation was special. remember, God is all powerful, he can do what he likes. He doesn't have to specifically make a species ex nihilo for it to be special.

 

[USincognito]

Reading over those sites again, I must say that those are really good. Mind if I use them?

Please bookmark them like I'll need to. It really was just luck of the Google that I found those sites. Sometimes the search peramiters can make all the difference. Not to mention how great it is that schools are placing so much documentation with their class synopses.

Hey MM, are you familiar with The Bad Astronomer? I've met him twice IRL, if you're not, reply to this thread and I'll provide a link to someone you might really enjoy.

 

[Mistermystery]

Please bookmark them like I'll need to. It really was just luck of the Google that I found those sites. Sometimes the search peramiters can make all the difference. Not to mention how great it is that schools are placing so much documentation with their class synopses.

Hey MM, are you familiar with The Bad Astronomer? I've met him twice IRL, if you're not, reply to this thread and I'll provide a link to someone you might really enjoy.

Are you kidding me? I love that guy! He was even featured on APOD a while ago (about eggs standing up on the equinox)... made me gleeh.

 

[michabo]

It seems that parallax works well with nearby stars, but once the ratio of distance to the star and the diameter of the orbit of the earth gets too large, you have to make some basic assumptions. This gets you to the point where the truth is presumed and not experienced.

Can you back this up? What assumptions do you think are being made, what is their impact, and why do you think these are invalid?

BTW: note that in the excellent articles MM provided, the math is not very complex. Apart from the "assumption" that the earth moves around the sun, I didn't notice many assumptions. Can you be more specific, or is your handwaving merely a twitch?

 

[Mistermystery]

Can you back this up? What assumptions do you think are being made, what is their impact, and why do you think these are invalid?

BTW: note that in the excellent articles MM provided, the math is not very complex. Apart from the "assumption" that the earth moves around the sun, I didn't notice many assumptions. Can you be more specific, or is your handwaving merely a twitch?

He has what to back up? that it only works for stars relativly close to Earth? He doesn't need to do that, I allready acknowledge that in my post:

So if þ=0.76 arc-seconds, B=1 AU, then d=1.3 parsecs. You can convert this then to 4.3 light-years, since 1 parsec = 3.26 light-years. Or you could use this.

Wikipedia has written a nice piece on it if you want to learn more.

This method only works with stars that are relativly close to Earth.

Stellar trig is something everyone can do with enough patience, and perhaps a little investment, so that's why I included it. My assumption that the earth rotates around the sun is something I *think* I can prove though.


Or are you talking about his second last line? yeah that got my mindboggeling as well. Because it implies that he thinks that the diameter of the Earth somehow changes very much, or that he thinks that Stellar parralax is the only possible way to detirmine the distance to a star.

Of course he's wrong on both assumptions, + the planet Earth is not the only possible place to use stellar trig.

 

[michabo]

He has what to back up? that it only works for stars relativly close to Earth? He doesn't need to do that, I allready acknowledge that in my post

"Relativly" is a relative term

With keck and the HST, we can get parallax measurements to a few thousand light years away, but these stars are still clearly within our galaxy, and are being measured against background stars, also within our galaxy. So we know that stars are more than a few thousand ly away. And thanks to Hubble (the man, not the scope), we have resolved stars within other galaxies which are clearly vastly more distant than any of the stars within our own galaxy.

There are other excellent arguments you raised which corroborate other measurements. So I'd like to know what assumptions specifically are being made, and why they should be so dubious as to allow for a young universe.

Under exactly what conditions or different assumptions can YEC be supported?

 

[Mistermystery]

"Relativly" is a relative term

With keck and the HST, we can get parallax measurements to a few thousand light years away, but these stars are still clearly within our galaxy, and are being measured against background stars, also within our galaxy. So we know that stars are more than a few thousand ly away. And thanks to Hubble (the man, not the scope), we have resolved stars within other galaxies which are clearly vastly more distant than any of the stars within our own galaxy.

Why does everyone forget Esa's Hipparcos-satelite ? It's the only satelite that didn't crashed into an other planet hehe just joking.

So I'd like to know what assumptions specifically are being made, and why they should be so dubious as to allow for a young universe.

For each diffrent independant mesuring method? That's a lot of work... I can safely say that no matter what method you use it will always end in numbers larger then 6000 light years. well.. if the star is 6000 light years away that is

Under exactly what conditions or different assumptions can YEC be supported?

Under the assumption that the earth is young, and under the condition that you close your eyes and don't look at God's creation?

 

[funyun]

Well, you can look up what earth means(it does not have to mean 3rd planet from the sun) and then you can look up what circle means too. And you should be able to infer that it does not have to mean "earth is round".

What the heck are you talking about?

 

[Mistermystery]

What the heck are you talking about?

Lonnie thinks that a circle

equals to a spherical form.

While she of courses ignores the fact that they knew the diffrence between the two. She then walks off to the dictionary because she thinks that's the arbitter of all knowledge. While of course none of the dictionaries say that it´s a 3d object...

Let me quote this again:

Re: Flat earth and the bible:

Job 26:10 is "He described a circle upon the face of the waters, until the day and night come to an end."

Isaiah 40:21-22 - "the circle of the Earth."

Revelations 7:1: "... things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the Earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the Earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. "

Job 38:13 "That it might take hold of the Ends of the Earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? "

Jeremiah 16:19 "O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the Ends of the Earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit."

Daniel 4:11 "The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the Ends of the Earth." (p.s. no tree could ever grow so tall that it was seen everywhere)

Matthew 4:8 "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." (p.s. one fixed point to see every kingdom in the world? sounds unpossible to me, eventhough this one can be discarted as a vision).


My personal favorite is job 38:14 though:" The earth takes shape like clay under a seal. "

Have you ever seen a spherical seal?

I thought not.

Some people who are using Isaiah 40, carefully ignore other verses of Isaiah. They point to the verse (To whom then will ye liken God? ....It is he that sitteth upon the circle (chuwg) of the earth) which they think shows that the Bible writers knew the earth was a sphere.

They believe that the word "circle" could actually mean "sphere," since both are round, but they ignore Isaiah's use of a different word in another verse where he speaks of a "ball." (He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a BALL (duwr) into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord's house. (Isaiah 22:18) )

Ball is closer to a sphere then a circle will ever be. If the Bible writer had meant for us to believe that "circle of the earth" meant that the earth was round, the writer would have used the Hebrew word for "ball," which is duwr. The fact that Isaiah didn't use duwr shows that he wasn't trying to tell us the earth was like a ball.

 

[awstar]

Can you back this up? What assumptions do you think are being made, what is their impact, and why do you think these are invalid?

BTW: note that in the excellent articles MM provided, the math is not very complex. Apart from the "assumption" that the earth moves around the sun, I didn't notice many assumptions. Can you be more specific, or is your handwaving merely a twitch?

Possible sources of error in determining distances of stars outside our galaxy.

1. the assumption that the universe is expanding from every point in the universe might be erroneous.

2. the assumption that ratio of size to luminosity of a star is consistent from galaxy to galaxy might be erroneous.

3. the assumptions made to allow for a constant speed of light through out the universe might be erroneous.

------

1. the assumption that the universe is expanding from every point in the universe is in error.

Hubble is a mortal. He might not have gotten it exactly right.

The Hubble constant, which is "currently believed to be somewhere between 50 km per sec per Mpc and 100 km per sec per Mpc." might be erroneous if assumptions about the recession velocities of galaxies are erroneous.

Specifically, if this assumption is an incorrect description of the mechanics of the universe, Hubble's constant would give erroneous distances.

4. We appear to be at the centre of the Universe with everything else flying away from us, but it would appear the same in any other place: there is no centre of the Universe.

What if there IS a centre of the Universe -- and what if it's earth (where the Lord of heaven and earth once set up His temple, and will come again to reign), just as it appears to the casual observer?

5. Hubble's Law implies that the Universe has a finite age. Running the clock backwards at constant expansion, suggests an age of about 15 billion years.

What if there is a finate age, and running the clock backwards as far as it goes backwards only goes only takes us back 6000 years. -- the moment of creation as recorded in the Bible? Then the universe couldn't be declared to be 15 billion years old, could it? The only reason the universe can be declared to be 15 billion years old is because the declarer ignores the possibility that it was created 6000 years ago and assumes it started in one spot. Hardly evidence that proves the theory of a young universe is false. It's more like declaring the theory of a young universe is false.

2. the assumption that ratio of size to luminosity is consistant across galaxies might be erroneous.

What if Stars in different galaxies don't have the same absolute size and luminosity relationship as stars in our galaxy? What if God has created different "kinds" of galaxies, just as He created diffent kinds of heavenly bodies.

1 Corinthians 15:41
The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

3. the assumptions made to allow for a constant speed of light might through out the universe might be erroneous.

What if the speed of light is not constant?

"Another assumption on the laws of physics made by the SI definition of the metre is that the theory of relativity is correct.* It is a basic postulate of the theory of relativity that the speed of light is constant.* This can be broken down into two parts:
• The speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer.
• The speed of light does not vary with time or place.

To state that the speed of light is independent of the velocity of the observer is very counterintuitive.* Some people even refuse to accept this as a logically consistent possibility, but in 1905 Einstein was able to show that it is perfectly consistent if you are prepared to give up assumptions about the absolute nature of space and time."

What if the assumptions that were made in place of those given up to allow for the theory of relativity resulted in unforseen errors in describing the universe. When a more accurate description of the nature of the universe is revealed by God, the speed of light through the universe might no longer be assumed constant. If the description of the nature of the universe became more accurate with Albert Einstein's imagination from how Newton imagined it, who's to say there isn't an even more accurate description of the nature of the universe. In fact, wouldn't it be a certainty that there is a more accurate description from what we know now?

 

[Mistermystery]

*checks* ... Nope my post haven't became invisible. I hope you haven't ignored them awstar. That would make me very sad.

Possible sources of error in determining distances of stars outside our galaxy.

1. the assumption that the universe is expanding from every point in the universe might be erroneous.

2. the assumption that ratio of size to luminosity of a star is consistent from galaxy to galaxy might be erroneous.

3. the assumptions made to allow for a constant speed of light through out the universe might be erroneous.

That's all nice and all that, but totally unbased. and I highly object to the word assumption you use, because through expierements we have for instance detirmined that the speed of light is constant. See one of my previous posts, I got a link for that in ( I think ) the first post.

Hubble is a mortal. He might not have gotten it exactly right.

The Hubble constant, which is "currently believed to be somewhere between 50 km per sec per Mpc and 100 km per sec per Mpc." might be erroneous if assumptions about the recession velocities of galaxies are erroneous.

Specifically, if this assumption is an incorrect description of the mechanics of the universe, Hubble's constant would give erroneous distances.

You offer no refutation of the hubble constant other then "I don't like it"

What if there IS a centre of the Universe -- and what if it's earth (where the Lord of heaven and earth once set up His temple, and will come again to reign), just as it appears to the casual observer?

But it's not. You offer no refutation for this other then "I don't like it"

What if there is a finate age, and running the clock backwards as far as it goes backwards only goes only takes us back 6000 years. -- the moment of creation as recorded in the Bible? Then the universe couldn't be declared to be 15 billion years old, could it? The only reason the universe can be declared to be 15 billion years old is because the declarer ignores the possibility that it was created 6000 years ago and assumes it started in one spot. Hardly evidence that proves the theory of a young universe is false. It's more like declaring the theory of a young universe is false.

Look we can play this all night long, but it's time for you to either give us a more reasonable alternative with nessecairy proof, or shut up. "what ifs" are not going to cut it.

 

[awstar]

Look we can play this all night long, but it's time for you to either give us a more reasonable alternative with nessecairy proof, or shut up. "what ifs" are not going to cut it.

The post I responded to didn't ask for proof, it asked:

"What assumptions do you think are being made, what is their impact, and why do you think these are invalid?"

I thought I did a pretty good job responding to your question. Don't I get some credit for effort?

 

[Mistermystery]

The post I responded to didn't ask for proof, it asked:

"What assumptions do you think are being made, what is their impact, and why do you think these are invalid?"

I credit you for your lively imagination. You have done a fabulous job making up random senarios, and your questioning of common knowledge (like the speed of light being constant in a vacuum) is entirely humourous.

I thought I did a pretty good job responding to your question. Don't I get some credit for effort?

Wait... I must have missed something....

You mean "the responding" by declaring yourself a winner before you actually started? Please, a debate does not end with 2 posts.

I Would strongly suggest that you read more then one post per thread and at least try to think about the stupidness that you are saying. I'm willing to learn about a young earth if the evidence is strong enough, but so far you can't even refute a couple of basic geology and cosmology questions.

I strongly sugest that you again read post 91, 89, and 88, because you are completly ignoring the refutations I brought up to your... ...."quasy-literal-interpretation"

 

[Freodin]

The post I responded to didn't ask for proof, it asked:

"What assumptions do you think are being made, what is their impact, and why do you think these are invalid?"

I thought I did a pretty good job responding to your question. Don't I get some credit for effort?

You left out the most important part of the question: why do you think these are invalid?

All you did was to state that you think they could be invalid - but this we know already. Now it would be interesting to hear why you think they could be wrong, in the face of all the observations that show them to be right.

 

[Moo]

If there was any scientific (non-biblical) evidence to support the Young-Earth theory, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume there would be some non-religious, Young-Earthers?
Does anyone know if there is?

(hi, I'm new!)

 

[Freodin]

If there was any scientific (non-biblical) evidence to support the Young-Earth theory, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume there would be some non-religious, Young-Earthers?
Does anyone know if there is?

(hi, I'm new!)

Hi, and welcome to this forum, Moo!

To answer your question: No, not as far as I know.

 

[michabo]

1. the assumption that the universe is expanding from every point in the universe might be erroneous.

That's not an assumption, that's a conclusion. The observation is that the further away a galaxy is, the greater the redshift. There are minor variations as would be expected, since we are a part of a galactic cluster which is gravitationally bound.

2. the assumption that ratio of size to luminosity of a star is consistent from galaxy to galaxy might be erroneous.

Is this a variation of the "the laws of physics might be different in other galaxies" argument? There are consequences to changing physical laws which we'd observe but have not.

3. the assumptions made to allow for a constant speed of light through out the universe might be erroneous.

Jet Black and others have discussed this before. The speed of light is not just an observation, it may be derived from other sources. For example, 'c' is used in E=mc^2. So if 'c' were to change, there would be enormous consequences such as stars failing to ignite, or burning much faster than elsewhere. There are other consequences which we can observe and so far nothing has been seen. The speed of light is a constant.

Hubble is a mortal. He might not have gotten it exactly right.

About what? He resolved individual stars in other galaxies, do you disagree with that? Even the simple measurement of the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy should show that the universe is more than 10,000 years old!

The Hubble constant, which is "currently believed to be somewhere between 50 km per sec per Mpc and 100 km per sec per Mpc." might be erroneous if assumptions about the recession velocities of galaxies are erroneous.

This is a derived value, hence the error bars. And notice that by changing it, you are only going to shift the age of the universe around a few billion years, from 10 to 20 perhaps, but you'll never get it down to 10,000!

What if there is a finate age, and running the clock backwards as far as it goes backwards only goes only takes us back 6000 years. -- the moment of creation as recorded in the Bible?

If so, creation would have had to create photons to fake an old universe, isotopes, fossils, craters, and mountains to fake an old earth, birds in mid-flight, and people in mid-life. You might as well ask if your bizarre click only goes back one hundred years and our memories of an earth past this are just an illusion meant to trick us.



All of your objections (except the ones patently ridiculous) can only hedge the date around a couple billion years. What problems in the "assumptions" That Mister Mystery made would make the universe 10,000 years old? Heck, I'd be impressed with 100,000 years old. So now you just have to shrink the date by five orders of magnitude or so.

 

[Mistermystery]

I dunno why I do it, but this is a bump for awstar specifically.

 

[Freodin]

I don´t have much hope we will see another meaningfull post by Creationists in this thread again.
It will drop silently off page - be forgotten by next week - and a new turn of the roundabout of "I believe in YEC, and I can prove it!" will begin.

I´m tired.

 

[Mistermystery]

Hey I predicted that back on page 9 or something like that.