DINOSAURS! Noah's Flood & other awesome questions.

[Armoured]

Romans 1:18-23

Back atcha.

 

[Luke17:37]

Potassium-argon dating puts the history of the earth millions of years earlier than the Biblical genealogies in Genesis. Plate tectonics has caused mountains to rise an inch per year (Himalayas) and S. Pacific islands to sink an inch per year. New crust is formed in areas of sea floor spreading, such as at the mid-Atlantic ridge in Iceland. Some plates sink under other plates, such as along the Pacific rim. The layers of the earth are in motion. The motion is slow. Overtime lithified marine strata were thrust upon other strata as mountains formed. Lithified sediments were folded, faulted and in some cases overturned. It did not happen in a day.

I also believe an omnipotent God who knows when a sparrow falls from the sky exists. For me intelligent design is such that God improved upon the animals that were created first, but this took hundreds of millions of years and was not done overnight. I do not believe the devil has creative power to make animals or fossils.

The Noah's Ark display in Kentucky is purely speculative. You do not find dinosaur fossils in the same strata as hominid fossils. Geologists use their knowledge to locate precious mineral deposits and define the history of creation as recorded in text books of paleontology. They cannot afford to guess. Knowledge of tiny marine fossils was used while prospecting for strata that might contain petroleum. Since science requires knowledge of the truth, some Christians may seek knowledge. Jesus said he was the truth. He got that from his father.

Millions of years is purely speculative. Bible-believing Christians don't know everything, but they have the word of God, who does know everything, and they can examine the world and do research just like a scientist who believes in the god of naturalism can. They can also speculate within the confines of what the word of God says. There's no harm in that, and studying science is part of subduing the earth.

Bill Nye went to Ark, even though he didn't agree with things. And he's an atheist. I challenge you, who represent yourself as a Christian, to go, too.

Do you realize that potassium argon dating (or any radioactive dating methods) are dependent on multiple assumptions, such as knowing the amount of radioactive material at the start, it being a closed system (how can you guarantee that?), and that the rate of decay is constant?

Have you ever read/seen what happened after Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980? "Millions of years" of activity was compressed into a short time, forming rock layers, canyons, fossils (such as upright trees) etc., and rocks that are dated at millions of years old. http://www.icr.org/article/a-30-years-later-lessons-mount-st-helens/

 

[Vicomte13]

If those were present, why don't we have them depicted a they were in the Middle East the place in which God mentioned them to Job?

There is one of them in the door carvings on the Angkor Wat, actually.
Some are on rock paintings in the desert Southwest.
And there's a therapod-looking creature in some of the cave paintings in Western Europe.
These beasts, if they overlapped with humans, were not common.

 

[Vicomte13]

There is no such thing as pre-Flood (air breathing) dinosaurs surviving the Flood unless they were preserved on the ark (which, two of each kind were):

Unless the dinosaurs were nephilim, which would mean they were among the things INTENDED to be drowned, and the post-Flood nephilim would be the NEW product of fallen angels and women, post-Flood dragons, and of course the Jentilak who partly became the Basque. (need smiley face here to avoid yet another brutal row).

 

[Luke17:37]

Not taking Genesis literally has been around for as long as Christianity has been around.

People don't realize that Genesis provides the foundation for the gospel, telling us about God, man, sin, sin's penalty, sin's effects, God's promise to provide a Savior, and the need for a blood sacrifice.

Just because you can find loads of people who reject Genesis as true history doesn't mean they aren't foolish for doing so.

 

[Speedwell]

Right, the Garden story is an etiology and it does those things even if it is not 100% accurate literal history.

 

[JackRT]

It doesn't matter how much you believe there is evidence of a global flood, if there was, geology would have found it. There is no evidence for it. There's no conspiracy, the scientific community isn't ignoring it, it's just not there. On the other hand, the Theory of Evolution is one of the most evidenced and well-supported theories in science. It's not "polluting our youth", many Christians around the world accept the theory.

There may be several grains of truth to the flood mythology of Noah and similar mythologies from elsewhere in the ancient Middle East. About 25 years ago it was discovered (" Noah's Flood" by Ryan and Pitman) that in antiquity the Black Sea was a freshwater lake with a water level at least 155 meters (510 feet) below its present level. It was cut off from the Mediterranean Sea by a silt plug in the Straits of Bosporus. This plug broke through about 5600 BC due primarily to the dramatic rise in sea levels caused by the melting that ended the last ice age.. It created an immense waterfall whose sound was most likely audible for 100 or more miles. The Black Sea basin filled to its present level over a period of several weeks. It is estimated that the shore line advanced at the rate of a mile or more per day. For the people living around the lake it was a catastrophe of immense magnitude. It was likely the single most memorable flood in all of human history. The racial memory of this event probably inspired the Gilgamesh epic which in turn inspired the Noah narrative in the Bible. The evidence for this flood is scientifically solid. This prompted the National Geographic Society to finance an underwater search along the ancient shoreline for evidence of pre-flood human habitation. This search has been successful! A settlement has been found at a depth of 90 meters approximately 12 miles off the coast of Turkey. It is in a remarkable state of preservation because it is located in an area of the Black Sea where the water is completely devoid of oxygen with the effect that biological decomposition does not take place. This means that wooden artifacts such as tools, planks, housing beams etc are preserved intact. What is also quite amazing is that while there is solid scientific evidence for this local flood some 7600 YBP, there is no evidence at all for a worldwide flood just 4300 YBP. One would think that a more recent, more catastrophic event would have wiped out evidence of the earlier Black Sea event. There is also evidence for a similar event causing the flooding of the Gulf of Arabia about 10,000 YBP.

 

[Luke17:37]

Yes.



If you can show me God saying otherwise then you might have something, otherwise this is a false dichotomy.

If your only evidence is Genesis 1 and 2 then let me pre-emptively respond: I don't accept the creation stories in Genesis to be literal, historical accounts. Which isn't the same thing as not believing them, I believe Genesis 1 and 2, I just don't believe they were ever intended to be taken literally. And, yes, I am familiar with Jesus and St. Paul referring to Adam, and no I don't believe that referring to Adam means that I have to take the creation stories literally. And, yes, one can believe in a not literal Genesis 1 and 2 and still believe that Scripture is the divinely inspired and written word God.

But allow me to present this: Besides the overwhelming evidence for a very old universe, a very old earth, and the theory of evolution; and besides the highly convincing exegeses concerning Genesis 1 with which I am familiar; besides these the most important reason I'm not a young earth creationist is because I can't believe God is a liar and a deceiver. I could not know what I know about the natural universe and also believe what I believe about God at the same time and be a young earth creationist: because it would require that I believe that God actively deceives us.

What do I mean? Well, here's just one example;

Distant stars and galaxies. We can see them. If the universe were between 6,000 and 10,000 years old then the most distant objects we should be able to see would have to be between 6,000 and 10,000 light years away. But we can see much more distant objects than that, we can see galaxies which are billions of light years away. The only solution to that problem is to say that God purposely made the universe look older than it really is, it would mean that the galaxy we see which is a few million light years away didn't actually produce the light that we see. It means that the universe was created in a state of ancientness while being young; this is like producing a fully grown person in a lab and implanting a lifetime of memories which never actually happened. That's deceitful. To be a young earth creationist I would have to believe that God is deceitful and created a young universe imbedded with billions of years of cosmic memory, nebulae produced by exploding stars that never existed and never exploded, photons from distant galaxies that never originated there, the remains of dead stars that never lived. Every piece of evidence we have points to an old universe, and if God is, indeed, the God of all creation then either the universe is very old or it is very young and God is deceiving us by making it look very old. I can't believe the latter, I cannot believe that the God who makes Himself known in the history and narratives of Scripture and who makes Himself fully known in the Person of Jesus Christ, the very Word made flesh, is a God of anything other than truth.

So, on the contrary: I can't be a young earth creationist because I refuse to believe that God is a liar. Perhaps you are able to reconcile these things and still be a young earth creationist, I cannot. To do so would require that I discard Scripture, violate my conscience, and throw away my faith.

-CryptoLutheran

Exodus 20:11 confirms the entire creation (heavens, earth, sea, and all that is in them) took God only six days.

Jesus regards Genesis as true history, as do the apostles.

God is not deceiving us just because some men came along who theorized a universe created out of nothing by nothing over billions of years and then declared their godless theory to be the truth.

Here's a video on the distant starlight issue: https://answersingenesis.org/media/video/science/distant-starlight/

If you legimately want answers about how you can believe in a young earth creation, you can find them. It sounds like you just want to give excuses to not believe God's Word in this area. You have to decide if God's Word and God's authority is really important to you or if you'd rather be wise in the eyes of men and go right along with their millions of years assumptions.

 

[Hieronymus]

It doesn't matter how much you believe there is evidence of a global flood, if there was, geology would have found it. There is no evidence for it.

Maybe you should actually have a look for the evidence in stead of just stating it isn't there.

There's no conspiracy, the scientific community isn't ignoring it, it's just not there.

That's just plain ignorance.

On the other hand, the Theory of Evolution is one of the most evidenced and well-supported theories in science. It's not "polluting our youth", many Christians around the world accept the theory.

You're just repeating the mantras they brainwashed you with.

 

[Vicomte13]

There may be several grains of truth to the flood mythology of Noah and similar mythologies from elsewhere in the ancient Middle East. About 25 years ago it was discovered (" Noah's Flood" by Ryan and Pitman) that in antiquity the Black Sea was a freshwater lake with a water level at least 155 meters (510 feet) below its present level. It was cut off from the Mediterranean Sea by a silt plug in the Straits of Bosporus. This plug broke through about 5600 BC due primarily to the dramatic rise in sea levels caused by the melting that ended the last ice age.. It created an immense waterfall whose sound was most likely audible for 100 or more miles. The Black Sea basin filled to its present level over a period of several weeks. It is estimated that the shore line advanced at the rate of a mile or more per day. For the people living around the lake it was a catastrophe of immense magnitude. It was likely the single most memorable flood in all of human history. The racial memory of this event probably inspired the Gilgamesh epic which in turn inspired the Noah narrative in the Bible. The evidence for this flood is scientifically solid. This prompted the National Geographic Society to finance an underwater search along the ancient shoreline for evidence of pre-flood human habitation. This search has been successful! A settlement has been found at a depth of 90 meters approximately 12 miles off the coast of Turkey. It is in a remarkable state of preservation because it is located in an area of the Black Sea where the water is completely devoid of oxygen with the effect that biological decomposition does not take place. This means that wooden artifacts such as tools, planks, housing beams etc are preserved intact. What is also quite amazing is that while there is solid scientific evidence for this local flood some 7600 YBP, there is no evidence at all for a worldwide flood just 4300 YBP. One would think that a more recent, more catastrophic event would have wiped out evidence of the earlier Black Sea event. There is also evidence for a similar event causing the flooding of the Gulf of Arabia about 10,000 YBP.

The 3 Fires People - the Anishinabe - (known to us as Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawotamie) - originally came from the shores of the Long Island Sound, which was once a lake. Their legends say that one day the water came over the end of the lake, the "dam broke" as it were, and the flooding of the whole lake was rapid. The people fled inland, to higher ground, but of course their habitat was the marshlands of the Sound, and they were not accustomed to living in mountains, didn't know the foods, etc. So they migrated up the rivers and along the rivers, following a prophesy that they would stop when the found the waters growing with rice.

When they followed the Outauais River valley and came to Lake Huron by what became Sault Ste Marie, they found vast marshlands growing with wild rice. They spread out along all of these shores, eventually populating all of the land amidst the Big Lakes (michi gamma or ganna), where all of the land is interlocking lakes and marshes where the wild rice - the native staple - and also the cranberry grow abundantly among many fish (though the shellfish of the old land are mostly absent). And that is how the Three Fires people came to fill up Michi-ganna - Michigan - the Great Lakes - because of a great flood that drove them inland and up the rivers until they found another habitat similar to the one from which the flood chased them.

 

[TaiKamiya720]

This has always fascinated me, dinosaurs that is. Many christians have told me satan put those (fossils) there to confuse us. I disagree, I believe satan is only at fault for the doubt of the timeline and of the divine existence of the Lord in general. I also believe the Dino's walked among us and must've been one awesome sight to see.

The global flood, many skeptics say to me "Where did the waters go?" and "Why did God kill all humanity except Noah's family?" and "That can't be what caused all the millions of years of erosion and what created the strata layers." I myself believe there is scientific evidence that supports the global flood, but the scientific community doesn't even consider this evidence at all. Why is that I ask, isn't this a big hypocritical mess? Why is the Theory of Evolution assumed as fact (when its just not, it may have supporting evidence, but that doesn't make it fact) and taught in our school system polluting our youth into thinking in one direction?

Not all fundies believe that Satan put dinosaur fossils to confuse us, which I find that saying to be stupid. In fact, there are some fundies who say that fossils disprove the theory of evolution, Like this fundy's car:

 

[Hieronymus]

Not all fundies believe that Satan put dinosaur fossils to confuse us, which I find that saying to be stupid. In fact, there are some fundies who say that fossils disprove the theory of evolution, Like this fundy's car:

No, it's the fossils that say no.

 

[TaiKamiya720]

No, it's the fossils that say no.

That means that fundies like him believe that fossils in fact debunk evolution.

 

[TaiKamiya720]

As for me, I don't narrow mind my views to the bible when it comes to science. I believe in what is called theistic evolution. I specifically believe that God had intervened during the whole entire process, and made us, human begins, the crown of his creation with His absolute rules for us. Though I recognize modern scientific evidence that we have evolved, He was there on Earth the whole entire time of evolution and creation. Like it or not, there is plenty of scientific evidence from genetics and fossils that we have evolved from apes.

 

[Vicomte13]

As far as the worldwide flood, what probably really happened is this:

The world was originally smaller, and the water that became the oceans was severely compressed beneath its crust. There were no oceans, just a mostly flat globe. Take the "Pangea" of middle school geology fame and note that the continental shelves also fit together in the Pacific. There's no geological pre-Pangea ever shown in any diagram with THOSE pieces fit together, but they DO fit together just like the Atlantic.
Fit them all together and you have an earthy crust over a smaller planet, without oceans.

In the Flood, the "fountains of the great deep" broke open, and the compressed water below, salty from the earth's crust, spewed up like a fountain. Under great pressure, this ripped open a tear that girdled the world, and that can still be see at the top of all of the mid-oceanic ridges. Look at a National Geographic ocean bottoms map, and you will see that the characteristic crack that is in the middle of the Mid-Atlantic ridge links up with the mid-oceanic ridges all around the world, as one great world-girdling crack.

The mid-oceanic mountain ranges do not look like terrestrial mountains. They are all on either side of this great world-girdling crack, whence the water that flooded the world, and made the oceans, exploded forth.

Now, the water driving upwards broke the continents apart, but what caused them to spread apart and open up the flat, young, abyssal plains of all of the oceans at the same time was the upward-driving hydraulic pressure of the compressed water. It vented through the cracks, but once the structural integrity of the earth's crust was broken, the compressed water beneath drove the pieces of the crust upward and outwards quite rapidly, spreading the ocean bottoms and puffing up the world like a soufflé.

So, the world got bigger from that water pressure. By the time it stabilized, the continents were in their present, expanded positions, with fresh new basaltic-spread bottoms of all of the oceans, driven from below.

The process took about a year. That was "Noah's Flood", and it was worldwide. Everything was underwater. Layers of sediment were laid, as the lunar pull created a tidal standing wave that circled the globe daily, acting as a sort of hydraulic hammer on the shallow ocean bottom below, pressing the dead creatures into the sediment and laying down strata and fossils.

That is why there are incongruous things such as trees spanning several "geological ages", or birds at lower strata than expected.

And radioactive isotope dating? The speed of light, "c", has measuredly slowed in the 400 years since we've been calculating it. "C" is a root of all energic problems, including radioactive decay. When c was faster, so was radioactive decay (and the pressure on living things to mutate often, giving rise to a lot of speciation in quick time on a smaller planet.

This slowing of the speed of light is visible. It is the source of the measurable and quantum "Great Red Shift" of all of the distant starlight.

 

[Vicomte13]

That means that fundies like him believe that fossils in fact debunk evolution.

I think it means that he thinks fossils TALK!

 

[Vicomte13]

The only solution to that problem is to say that God purposely made the universe look older than it really is,

There is another solution: That light has dramatically slowed down, but we think it is constant and thus measure things linearly.

 

[Speedwell]

There is another solution: That light has dramatically slowed down, but we think it is constant and thus measure things linearly.

The problem is, that if the speed of light had changed sufficiently to shrink the apparent age of the universe down to 6000 years there would be ample evidence of it.

BTW, "red shift" does not represent a change in the speed of light. It occurs because the speed of light does not change, so the frequency of the light has to change instead--per Einstein's theory.

 

[Luke17:37]

As for me, I don't narrow mind my views to the bible when it comes to science. I believe in what is called theistic evolution. I specifically believe that God had intervened during the whole entire process, and made us, human begins, the crown of his creation with His absolute rules for us. Though I recognize modern scientific evidence that we have evolved, He was there on Earth the whole entire time of evolution and creation. Like it or not, there is plenty of scientific evidence from genetics and fossils that we have evolved from apes.

You've been a Christian for less than a year and you're only 21 years old. Is there is a chance you have something to learn from God's Word? That maybe don't know everything yet? That maybe God wants to change your heart and mind about some things?

Maybe you're a theistic evolutionist because you believe in God yet you haven't stopped to question what's been fed to you since you were 2 years old. It's time to do that. The first book I recommend to you is "The Lie: Evolution and Millions of Years": https://answersingenesis.org/store/product/lie-25th-anniversary-edition/?sku=10-2-418&

Millions of years is not biblical. It puts death and suffering before mankind and thus, before sin. It also suggests God called death and suffering "very good." But the gospel says death and suffering was the result of sin, and that a perfect blood sacrifice (death) was needed to cover sin (Leviticus 17:11, Hebrews 9:22). He promised a Savior immediately (Genesis 3:15) - and Jesus is the promised Savior--the Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, the perfect Passover Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world by His shed blood on the cross (Genesis 3:15, Genesis 22, Exodus 12, John 1:29, 1 Corinthians 5:7, Romans 5). God's solution to mankind's sin problem doesn't even make sense at all if death preceeded sin. And you might argue, well, that's human death, not animal death. But Romans 8:20-22 says sin corrupted the entire creation. One effect not explicitly given in Genesis 3 but that we can see is that the animals aren't all vegetarians today, as they were when God originally created them (Genesis 1:30). And, when Jesus reigns on the earth after He returns, He's going to be systematically dismantling the effects of the curse (see Isaiah 11 and 65), including returning animals to their Edenic dispositions and diets.

This is far more important than you realize. Please humble yourself and seek to understand the world from a Biblical perspective, instead being content to understand the Bible from a worldly perspective.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Exodus 20:11 confirms the entire creation (heavens, earth, sea, and all that is in them) took God only six days.

Exodus refers back to the six day narrative of Genesis 1. Yes.

Jesus regards Genesis as true history, as do the apostles.

Did they say so, or are you assuming they did because they reference things in Genesis?

God is not deceiving us just because some men came along who theorized a universe created out of nothing by nothing over billions of years and then declared their godless theory to be the truth.

And evolution isn't false simply because a handful of Christians insist on taking the ancient Hebrew creation stories literally and declaring their interpretation to be the truth.

Here's a video on the distant starlight issue: https://answersingenesis.org/media/video/science/distant-starlight/

I'll try and offer my thoughts as I watch the video:

1. First problem: From the outset a conclusion has been made and now an argument must be established to reach the conclusion. That's a pretty big red flag because what follows will not be an examination of evidence and allowing the conclusion to be reached based on the evidence, but instead will be an argument constructed solely in order to establish the conclusion. The reason why distant light can't be an argument against a young universe is ultimately because it disagrees with the interpretation of AIG concerning a literal reading of Genesis 1 and a young universe. Bad start, but let's continue.

2. Well at least he doesn't try to use the Omphalos Argument. My prediction now is that he's going to argue that the constant has changed and so light used to travel much faster, which is the usual alternative to the Omphalos Argument used by young earth creationists. Let's see if my prediction comes true.

3. Seems like he's not too married to the idea that the constant has changed, so that's nice. Time to see where he goes next.

4. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE412.html

5. I'm halfway through, and by and large I'm noticing a theme that I suspect will continue that gets us back to my first problem. This has largely been about ways to respond to the "distant starlight problem", maybe this or maybe that, also you can't really trust science, you have to trust [our interpretation of] the Bible and that's the most important thing. I may decide to return to watching the video later, but likely won't. Not unless there's something in the second half of the video that you think I really need to watch, otherwise I suspect it will keep going as it has.

So short answer from AIG: Don't trust science, trust our interpretation of the Bible, and make vague appeals to possible solutions that lack any evidentiary support or backing but use them anyway.

If you legimately want answers about how you can believe in a young earth creation, you can find them. It sounds like you just want to give excuses to not believe God's Word in this area.

My problem isn't with Scripture, my problem is with this particular interpretation of Scripture. And, for what it's worth, I used to be a young earth creationist. My question to you: Do you legitimately want to understand the science behind the theory of evolution and the reason why Christians such as myself don't take Genesis 1 literally? If so, might I recommend BioLogos, Dr. Francis Collins' website.

http://biologos.org/

You have to decide if God's Word and God's authority is really important to you or if you'd rather be wise in the eyes of men and go right along with their millions of years assumptions.

Again, my problem isn't with Scripture, you can pretend that it is in order so that you can tell yourself that I'm just deceived or whatever, but that's on you. My faith in Christ and love for Holy Scripture is just fine.

-CryptoLutheran