Name just one....

[philadiddle]

YECs, please name your best evidence outside of the bible that supports a young earth and instantaneous creation. Please, just stick to one, if anyone cuts and pastes a list from a YEC site I'll only take the time to respond to the first one. Be prepared to back it up since I will have questions about it for you to respond to.

Also, please don't vaguely allude to the existence of evidence, ie "strata formations in the grand canyon prove a young earth". Take the time to explain specifically what the evidence is and how it can only be interpretted to fit your cosmogony.

I'm willing to discuss any field of science related to the age of the earth or the origins of species. Just make sure it's your best argument.

Thanks!

 

[juvenissun]

YECs, please name your best evidence outside of the bible that supports a young earth and instantaneous creation. Please, just stick to one, if anyone cuts and pastes a list from a YEC site I'll only take the time to respond to the first one. Be prepared to back it up since I will have questions about it for you to respond to.

Also, please don't vaguely allude to the existence of evidence, ie "strata formations in the grand canyon prove a young earth". Take the time to explain specifically what the evidence is and how it can only be interpretted to fit your cosmogony.

I'm willing to discuss any field of science related to the age of the earth or the origins of species. Just make sure it's your best argument.

Thanks!

If you do not use radiometric dating as an argument, then it is very easy to show that the earth is young.

 

[philadiddle]

If you do not use radiometric dating as an argument, then it is very easy to show that the earth is young.

Go ahead, show me the earth is young.

 

[miamited]

hi philadiddle,

I understand your challenge, but as a born again believer the only argument I need is God's word. I can very easily say, without any proof to the contrary, that any supposed scientific finding that contradicts God's word is somehow in error. Do I know what the error in the hypothesis and proof is? No! I just know that God's word is the truth and I rest fully, firmly and confidently that despite whatever the world might throw at me as 'proof', if it is not in agreement with God's word, that it is a 'proof' founded in error.

Yes, I know, your argument is going to be, "Well, science answers the 'unclear' explanation of the Scriptures. Well, again, according to Jesus' words, when we are born again the job of the Holy Spirit in the born again believer's life is to lead him into all truth. I don't find any 'unclear' teaching in the Scriptures. As regards the creation account, God not only caused the Holy Spirit to write 'yom', which may be unclear, but then further defined 'yom' in context as an evening and a morning. Still to this day, two halves of a twenty-four hour day. He then listed the geneologies so that we could count back to the day that Adam was created. Well, maybe not the day, but certainly, within a couple of hundred years, the general number of years the creation has existed. There is no 'unclearness'. There is no ambiguity. For me, it is clear as crystal and so, when I hear of 'scientific' proofs that negate the truth that I know to be true, then there is only one option. The 'scientific' proof is somehow mistaken.

How is it mistaken? I don't know. I just know that it is. The day will come that I will know, or maybe not, but it ultimately doesn't matter. I was not created to agree with man, but to agree with my Creator. Now, you may call me dumb, stupid, ignorant, blind, hard-headed, foolish or any other identifier that you feel is appropriate to describe someone who doesn't believe the basic proven truths of science. It's ok with me. I won't hold it against you. I forgive you. I love you. But I'm not here to agree with you or believe you. I'm here to believe and agree with God. My purpose for which I was created is to sing His praises and give Him glory for the most miraculous miracles that He as done that I might have life.

I know, yes, I know that about 6,000 years ago, as we account time, that there wasn't a single physical body in the entire blackness of space that surrounds us and that God spoke all that is in this realm of existence, just as He did when He created the realm of the angels, He merely spoke and suddenly the earth just appeared out of nothing and He built it into a home for a creature that He was creating to sing His praises and glory by merely speaking all the land and water and plants and creatures and heavenly bodies into existence in the span of six days that comprised of an evening and morning just as a day is made up today. Nothing different. That is the power, glory, majesty, wisdom and love of my Creator. He's an awesome God.

And because I have such a basic understanding of all that He has done for nothing more than the sole purpose of giving me life and that I have a huge planet of land and water and oxygen spinning relentlessly and eternally through space so that I might live the life that He created me to enjoy. I love Him. I understand the awesome and, obviously to you, unbelievable things that He has done that I might live. He is an awesome God!

He has given you and me a sound and thoroughly explained cause and effect of why we are here. The earth was created before any of the stars that you might look up into the night sky and see. It was created before any of the galaxies that we believe are out there. God's word says that He created the earth first and built it into a home for man and then peppered all the stars and other heavenly bodies in the universe so that we might know and set times and seasons. It was all created for us. Everything in this entire realm of existence was created by a God who loves and provides for us all that we need to enjoy the existence that He created us to enjoy.

Now, we are working out the finer details of who is going to believe Him and who isn't. The day will come when all the unbelieving, liars, adulterers and fornicators will be cast out into the darkness. That's the plan. He created near instantaneously this entire realm of existence and He set in motion a plan that would provide redemption and salvation for all those who would believe and rejection of all those who won't. That's the plan. It hasn't evolved over millions or billions of years. It started some short 6,000 years ago and will probably culminate in the next hundred or so, although I can't be sure of the time that He has set for the day of judgment.

But the signs are there and we see more and more as mere decades pass. It's going to wind down and God is going to judge all that He created and His judgment will be just and true. Praise Him! He is an awesome God!

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[philadiddle]

So Ted, you believe that your interpretation of the bible is true and I'm not going to argue that in this thread. All I'm asking for is for you to show me anything that you see in the natural world that fits your worldview of origins. Are you saying that there is not a single thing in nature that can be used as evidence that the earth is young and that we didn't evolve? Is everything we see in nature somehow misunderstood, and it is your interpretation of genesis that is actually true?

Seriously, there must be something in nature that you can see as evidence for a young earth. Please let me know what it is.

 

[miamited]

hi philadiddle,

Let me ask you. Do you believe that God parted a sea and allowed thousands of His people to pass through and then within mere moments caused it to close up and drown the pursuing Egyptian army?

No, not everything in nature is misunderstood. Certainly the things that we can replicate in the here and now explain how the here and now operates. But once we take 'proofs' determined in the here and now and try to categorically claim that these 'proofs' prove something in the past that was unobserved, then there is always the problem of knowing for certain that everything then operated as everything does now.

For example: Many claim that because of what may very well be real differences in the atmosphere then and now, that the rate of decay of many of the things that we use to measure past time has not always been constant. There isn't even any way of knowing whether it is or isn't true and so how can we be 'proof positive' that the dates and calculations that we have today fairly and accurately apply to unobserved times? Yes, I am saying that there is not a single thing in nature that we can absolutely categorically claim as 'proof' of the age of the earth.

Why? Well, answer my first question and we'll continue.

No, there is nothing in nature that I can claim as 'proof positive' for either a young earth or an old earth. I believe that God's explanation to all of mankind in His writing by His Holy Spirit the days and times clearly delineated in the first 5 or 6 chapters of Genesis is the truth of the days of creation.

And I believe, which I have espoused previously on other threads, that God's 'purpose', yes His very intention for causing His Spirit when writing the Scripture account of the days of creation did specifically and intentionally define for us the word 'yom' as an evening and a morning because He knew, yes He knew before the creation ever came into existence that one day people like you would disagree with people like me, that the days were 6 literal days of roughly 24 hour periods of real time. He knew, knew well before He ever spoke the first, "Let there be...", that men would one day come along and declare the 'proof' of natural science over the testimony of His word. He knew all this wonderful future knowledge that was going to come to mankind and that this wonderful future knowledge of the natural world would turn people away from His truth. So He caused the Holy Spirit to define each day as an evening and a morning and there has never been, so far as I know in the history of mankind, a period of time defined as and evening and a morning, but a regular roughly 24 hour day. Do you understand what that means. God defined the day, the word 'yom', because He knew that the Hebrew word could, could mean different periods of time and so He further caused His Spirit to give a contextual defination for future readers of the account of the creation. God did that!!!! Specifially for us to understand when this argument would come over the word 'yom', and He knew it would come, that in this instance the word 'yom' specifically referred to the definition of 'yom' that is a roughly 24 hour day. Friend, God is wise.

Paul, wrote to Timothy, and if we believe Paul's explanation of the Scriptures, that they come not from the wisdom of man, but from the knowledge of the truth which God's Spirit knows, that one day men would not put up with sound doctrine, but rather they would gather around them a great number, a great number, read that carefully a great number of teachers to tell them what their itching ears want to hear.

Now, let's look at this doctrine of the creation. You have me and maybe a dozen or so others on these boards that agree with the literal creation account as explained in the Scriptures. Then you have a great number of teachers who are working their level best to teach the contrarian position. Do you have any idea what 'myths' Paul was referring to? And yes, he writes 'myths', so don't think there is just one false teaching that believers are going to be confronted with.

I pray that you seriouly study this warning that Paul wrote to Timothy. It is a warning written with even more application for us today.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.

Is that not exactly what is happening here? I don't say this to condemn or make judgment, but merely to ask you to stop and weigh the evidence of this discussion. Your intent here is to 'prove' that there is no way, no way in all of God's creation, that the account of Genesis taken literally as written and described is possible. That, my friend, is what a scoffer does. They wave there arm and declare, "Oh, there's no way that some position or idea can possibly be the truth."

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge,

Hmmmm, opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge. Does not your idea oppose the literal understanding of the explanation of the creation given in Genesis? Is not your opposing idea based on what is called knowledge? Do you not believe that the knowledge and wisdom of science has well disproved any attempt to understand the account of the creation as a literal explanation? hmmmmm.


So, do you believe the account of the parting of the sea?

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[juvenissun]

Go ahead, show me the earth is young.

Everything you see may take much shorter time to make if you do not use a radiometric dating as a reference.

For example, the Rocky Mountain could be lifted up in just a few million years ago rather than 60+ million years ago. Or, a cave could be made in a few thousands of years rather than a few million years.

In other words, any feature on the earth, if you dated it with age dating methods, you may get an very old age. However, if we only look at the process of formation, the time needed is usually tens to thousands of times shorter.

This may be very true to the alleged evolution process. The time needed to change a Paleocene horse to a Pleistocene horse could be much much shorter than 60 million years. So from this point of view, the evolution process was not active for most of the time.

 

[abysmul]

I've seen no evidence that tells me my knowledge of the age of the Earth (galaxy... universe... whatever) is something that my eternal salvation depends on.

 

[mark kennedy]

YECs, please name your best evidence outside of the bible that supports a young earth and instantaneous creation. Please, just stick to one, if anyone cuts and pastes a list from a YEC site I'll only take the time to respond to the first one. Be prepared to back it up since I will have questions about it for you to respond to.

Also, please don't vaguely allude to the existence of evidence, ie "strata formations in the grand canyon prove a young earth". Take the time to explain specifically what the evidence is and how it can only be interpretted to fit your cosmogony.

I'm willing to discuss any field of science related to the age of the earth or the origins of species. Just make sure it's your best argument.

Thanks!

The age of the earth has never been an issue for me, there is a length of time between the first verse of Genesis and the first day of creation. Now as far as the origin of species my interest in evolution is due to the fact that regardless of the age of the earth there are several thousand parental forms that give rise to all mammals, reptiles and birds on earth in all it's vast array.

You are probably aware that I am convinced there is neither the time nor the means for the human brain to have evolved from apes. Traits can change but highly conserved genes involved in vital organs play by a whole other set of rules, one mistake and the subject is dead. I never understood the allure for creationists to geography and radiometric dating, it seems like an awful waste of time since nothing empirical is ever offered as proof. They will just tell you the properties and what the ratios means, not once will they tell you why.

Genetics is different, there are living systems being researched and explored constantly. I honestly don't care how old the earth is but I remain YEC by default. Species seem to evolve more in response to external conditions then anything else. There are genomic mechanisms that know when it's time to adapt and most species can on a vast array.

 

[philadiddle]

For example: Many claim that because of what may very well be real differences in the atmosphere then and now, that the rate of decay of many of the things that we use to measure past time has not always been constant.

I'm not aware of any evidence that suggests the rate of decay has changed. Can you show me what it is?

There isn't even any way of knowing whether it is or isn't true and so how can we be 'proof positive' that the dates and calculations that we have today fairly and accurately apply to unobserved times? Yes, I am saying that there is not a single thing in nature that we can absolutely categorically claim as 'proof' of the age of the earth.

Yes, we can verify dating techniques with other dating methods, and even use markers to see if they are right (such as volcanic ash in varves or ice cores).

No, there is nothing in nature that I can claim as 'proof positive' for either a young earth or an old earth.

I have seen lots of evidence for an old earth, but I'll keep your admission in mind that there is no evidence for a young earth.

And I believe, which I have espoused previously on other threads, that God's 'purpose', yes His very intention for causing His Spirit when writing the Scripture account of the days of creation did specifically and intentionally define for us the word 'yom' as an evening and a morning because He knew, yes He knew before the creation ever came into existence that one day people like you would disagree with people like me, that the days were 6 literal days of roughly 24 hour periods of real time. He knew, knew well before He ever spoke the first, "Let there be...", that men would one day come along and declare the 'proof' of natural science over the testimony of His word. He knew all this wonderful future knowledge that was going to come to mankind and that this wonderful future knowledge of the natural world would turn people away from His truth. So He caused the Holy Spirit to define each day as an evening and a morning and there has never been, so far as I know in the history of mankind, a period of time defined as and evening and a morning, but a regular roughly 24 hour day. Do you understand what that means. God defined the day, the word 'yom', because He knew that the Hebrew word could, could mean different periods of time and so He further caused His Spirit to give a contextual defination for future readers of the account of the creation. God did that!!!! Specifially for us to understand when this argument would come over the word 'yom', and He knew it would come, that in this instance the word 'yom' specifically referred to the definition of 'yom' that is a roughly 24 hour day. Friend, God is wise.

This is a very interesting appeal to emotion. I agree that 'yom' literally means 'day' but that doesn't mean it has to be an historical account. (I can sense that we are starting to get sidetracked from the question, it seems YECs always pull away from science and go to theology.)

Paul, wrote to Timothy, and if we believe Paul's explanation of the Scriptures, that they come not from the wisdom of man, but from the knowledge of the truth which God's Spirit knows, that one day men would not put up with sound doctrine, but rather they would gather around them a great number, a great number, read that carefully a great number of teachers to tell them what their itching ears want to hear.

Now, let's look at this doctrine of the creation. You have me and maybe a dozen or so others on these boards that agree with the literal creation account as explained in the Scriptures. Then you have a great number of teachers who are working their level best to teach the contrarian position. Do you have any idea what 'myths' Paul was referring to? And yes, he writes 'myths', so don't think there is just one false teaching that believers are going to be confronted with.

Again, this is a very interesting appeal to emotion.

I pray that you seriouly study this warning that Paul wrote to Timothy. It is a warning written with even more application for us today.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.

You might want to consider that if evolution is God's design, then it is the creationists that are the scoffers.

Is that not exactly what is happening here? I don't say this to condemn or make judgment, but merely to ask you to stop and weigh the evidence of this discussion.

Alright let's weigh the evidence. On one hand we have an interpretation of the bible that is rich with meaning and explains proper theology to us. This is the way it has been understood for a long time. That interpretation is done by understanding it in it's context and not trying to read it as a science book, but rather as an apologetic to the creation myths of that time. This is perfectly compatible with the historical resurrection of Jesus and many Christians believe it and will go to heaven because they are saved through the grace of Christ. We also have every field of science (which is God's creation) independently confirming an old earth and life through evolution.

On the other hand we have a literal approach to scripture where much of the intended meaning is lost. We also have to throw out everything we know about the natural world because it doesn't fit. Even though our processes are good enough to study things we can observe now, for some reason we can't use those same techniques for anything that happened before we were born.

To conclude, I should tell you that when I started on this board in 2004 I was a YEC. It was a thread that asked me to name my best evidence that made me realise "Hey wait, I know they can refute all my arguments". It seems that you've had the same realization but instead of studying God's creation you've just decided to throw it all out the window in favor of you interpretation of Genesis.

Please don't miss out on learning about what God has done in nature, it's amazing stuff.

 

[philadiddle]

Everything you see may take much shorter time to make if you do not use a radiometric dating as a reference.

For example, the Rocky Mountain could be lifted up in just a few million years ago rather than 60+ million years ago. Or, a cave could be made in a few thousands of years rather than a few million years.

In other words, any feature on the earth, if you dated it with age dating methods, you may get an very old age. However, if we only look at the process of formation, the time needed is usually tens to thousands of times shorter.

This may be very true to the alleged evolution process. The time needed to change a Paleocene horse to a Pleistocene horse could be much much shorter than 60 million years. So from this point of view, the evolution process was not active for most of the time.

I honestly don't understand what point you're trying to make. You're saying things can be younger than we think, but why should we think they are? Are you saying the earth is hundreds of millions of years old instead of billions? I'm just not sure what evidence you're trying to point to and what conclusion it has brought you to. Please clarify so we can have a meaningful discussion.

 

[philadiddle]

The age of the earth has never been an issue for me, there is a length of time between the first verse of Genesis and the first day of creation. Now as far as the origin of species my interest in evolution is due to the fact that regardless of the age of the earth there are several thousand parental forms that give rise to all mammals, reptiles and birds on earth in all it's vast array.

You are probably aware that I am convinced there is neither the time nor the means for the human brain to have evolved from apes. Traits can change but highly conserved genes involved in vital organs play by a whole other set of rules, one mistake and the subject is dead. I never understood the allure for creationists to geography and radiometric dating, it seems like an awful waste of time since nothing empirical is ever offered as proof. They will just tell you the properties and what the ratios means, not once will they tell you why.

Genetics is different, there are living systems being researched and explored constantly. I honestly don't care how old the earth is but I remain YEC by default. Species seem to evolve more in response to external conditions then anything else. There are genomic mechanisms that know when it's time to adapt and most species can on a vast array.

When do you think humans were created? And in what part of the world were they put in?

 

[juvenissun]

I honestly don't understand what point you're trying to make. You're saying things can be younger than we think, but why should we think they are? Are you saying the earth is hundreds of millions of years old instead of billions? I'm just not sure what evidence you're trying to point to and what conclusion it has brought you to. Please clarify so we can have a meaningful discussion.

If an identified process goes 1% per year, then it only take 100 years to make something happen. It does not have to take 100,000 years.

So, according to the rate of all known processes, the earth does not need 4.5 b.y. to have everything she has.

So, it has to be a young earth.

 

[juvenissun]

I've seen no evidence that tells me my knowledge of the age of the Earth (galaxy... universe... whatever) is something that my eternal salvation depends on.

It does not. But it may affect your understanding to God. In turn, it may affect your ...

 

[juvenissun]

When do you think humans were created? And in what part of the world were they put in?

Day Six. If you do not know when was that, then take it as the last day of creation.

Adam were put in the "Garden", which may well be a place in another time dimension.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

If an identified process goes 1% per year, then it only take 100 years to make something happen. It does not have to take 100,000 years.

So, according to the rate of all known processes, the earth does not need 4.5 b.y. to have everything she has.

Ok, I could buy this, provided that radiometric dates are discounted. It would be unlikely, given the rates of processes as we observe them today, but possible.

So, it has to be a young earth.

Woah, woah, what? This is an absurd leap of logic. Because it's possible that the Earth isn't exactly 4.5 billion years old, it must automatically be a young Earth? What if rates were slower in the past? Couldn't it just as easily be an older Earth?

 

[philadiddle]

If an identified process goes 1% per year, then it only take 100 years to make something happen. It does not have to take 100,000 years.

So, according to the rate of all known processes, the earth does not need 4.5 b.y. to have everything she has.

So, it has to be a young earth.

What is it that you are specifically thinking of? Chalk cliffs? Varves? You are saying that it is possible for everything to have formed in a shorter time. What time frame are you thinking of? 6,000 years or 600,000,000 years? You aren't really making an argument here, just making the vague assertion that "well, it's possible it's all younger than science says". Why do you think that though? Please provide specific examples.

 

[philadiddle]

Adam were put in the "Garden", which may well be a place in another time dimension.

Is there even a way to have a meaningful conversation about this?

 

[Assyrian]

If an identified process goes 1% per year, then it only take 100 years to make something happen. It does not have to take 100,000 years.

So, according to the rate of all known processes, the earth does not need 4.5 b.y. to have everything she has.

So, it has to be a young earth.

Ooh... big jump there is the last line What sort of age do you get if you track back plate tectonics through all the different super continents in earth's history?

 

[Mikecpking]

There is not one piece of evidence for recent creationism presented by any of the posters in this thread yet. Why? Because there in not one shred of evidence for a young earth. Even Kent Hovind admits this.