Name just one....

[juvenissun]

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?

On this one, the rate of plate movement may change, which is a known fact. The rate depends on the property of the earth's interior and the conditions of earth's interior are constantly changing.

Also, we only established a few isolated records of supercontinents (and connect them together by blind assumptions). Except the most recent one, we have no control on the rate of movement of earlier supercontinents (except some isolated radiometric dates).

All the tectonic activities of all known supercontinents could be completed in a few tens of million years on a faster rate of movement. We could not tell the differences without radiometric dates.

 

[Assyrian]

On this one, the rate of plate movement may change, which is a known fact. The rate depends on the property of the earth's interior and the conditions of earth's interior are constantly changing.

Also, we only established a few isolated records of supercontinents (and connect them together by blind assumptions). Except the most recent one, we have no control on the rate of movement of earlier supercontinents (except some isolated radiometric dates).

All the tectonic activities of all known supercontinents could be completed in a few tens of million years on a faster rate of movement. We could not tell the differences without radiometric dates.

So given rates of plate movement we actually observe, and any plausible connection of supercontinents, they would take billions of years to form and reform? You didn't want to use radiometric dating whose rates of decay we can measure, now you don't want to use observed rates of plate movement, instead you have to make up superfast rates of movement we have never seen and there is no evidence for?

 

[Papias]

Juvi wrote:

(except some isolated radiometric dates).

Um, what? Do we not have literally thousands of confirmations of these dates, from various different radiometric methods, as well as paleomagnetic methods, from all around the world? How is that "some isolated" results? Aren't you the one who claimed to be a subscriber to the journal from Geological Society of America? Was that a truthful thing to claim?


Assyrian wrote:

You didn't want to use radiometric dating whose rates of decay we can measure, now you don't want to use observed rates of plate movement, instead you have to make up superfast rates of movement we have never seen and there is no evidence for?

Not to mention that movement like that would generate frictional heat to fry everything and created massive ammounts of lava. Even the ponderously slow movement today generates lava and volcanoes, so what would a rate literally millions of times faster do?

That's why creationists like baumgartner have literally stated that the whole physical laws must have changed, so friction no longer made heat, etc. Why not just cut to the chase, and resort to last thursdayism?

Papias

P.S. I find it amazing, yet somehow unsurprising, that simply asking for one evidence showing a young earth has resulted three pages with zero such requested evidence, only darts thrown at the well established evidence showing an old earth. It seems that YEC is not just built on shifting sands, but worse, is literally built on nothing.

 

[juvenissun]

So given rates of plate movement we actually observe, and any plausible connection of supercontinents, they would take billions of years to form and reform? You didn't want to use radiometric dating whose rates of decay we can measure, now you don't want to use observed rates of plate movement, instead you have to make up superfast rates of movement we have never seen and there is no evidence for?

We know the rate of tectonic movement is much faster in early earth. As I said, it is not a constant. And it could have frequent accidental fast movements. An example is the current model on the Himalaya Mountains.

The way we figured out earlier supercontinental tectonics is that we found rocks made by plate collision "and date the rocks". If we do not use radiometric data, then we could not tell 1 b.y. old supercontinent from a 0.25 b.y. supercontinent. Noticed that there is a 0.75 b.y. of time in between them. We just assume that amount of time must have existed.

 

[juvenissun]

Juvi wrote:


Um, what? Do we not have literally thousands of confirmations of these dates, from various different radiometric methods, as well as paleomagnetic methods, from all around the world? How is that "some isolated" results? Aren't you the one who claimed to be a subscriber to the journal from Geological Society of America? Was that a truthful thing to claim?


Assyrian wrote:


Not to mention that movement like that would generate frictional heat to fry everything and created massive ammounts of lava. Even the ponderously slow movement today generates lava and volcanoes, so what would a rate literally millions of times faster do?

That's why creationists like baumgartner have literally stated that the whole physical laws must have changed, so friction no longer made heat, etc. Why not just cut to the chase, and resort to last thursdayism?

Papias

P.S. I find it amazing, yet somehow unsurprising, that simply asking for one evidence showing a young earth has resulted three pages with zero such requested evidence, only darts thrown at the well established evidence showing an old earth. It seems that YEC is not just built on shifting sands, but worse, is literally built on nothing.

That is why I said IF we do not use radiometric date as the major argument. The whole old earth theory is built upon the radiometric dating. Without that, the old earth theory collapses. So goes with the theory of evolution.

That is why the earth has always been young until the early 20th Century.

 

[Papias]

Juvi wrote:

The whole old earth theory is built upon the radiometric dating. Without that, the old earth theory collapses.

Juvi, please study history a little. The reality of an old earth was established conclusively by Christian Geologists without any reliance on radioactive dating. Radioactive dating did provide much more precise numbers, but an old earth, at least hundreds of millions of years old (plenty for evolution) was established beyond a reasonable doubt before anyone had a clue that radioactivity even existed.

That is why the earth has always been young until the early 20th Century.

Again, your complete cluelessness about the history of geology is shocking. An old earth was established beyond a shadow of a doubt by 1850, even before the publication of the Origin of Species.

Papias

 

[philadiddle]

We know the rate of tectonic movement is much faster in early earth. As I said, it is not a constant. And it could have frequent accidental fast movements. An example is the current model on the Himalaya Mountains.

Since I was asking for specific evidence can you please explain this more? What were the faster rates and how do we know that those were the rates of movement? If we use those rates, how old does that make the earth?

The way we figured out earlier supercontinental tectonics is that we found rocks made by plate collision "and date the rocks". If we do not use radiometric data, then we could not tell 1 b.y. old supercontinent from a 0.25 b.y. supercontinent. Noticed that there is a 0.75 b.y. of time in between them. We just assume that amount of time must have existed.

The above paragraph of mine is the important questions in this post, but as a sidenote, if we ignore dating methods like radiometric dating couldn't we just as easily assign arbitrarily long ages to the history of the earth, like that it actually took 3 trillion years? Saying it could have gone faster is one thing, showing that it actually did go faster is another thing.

 

[Assyrian]

We know the rate of tectonic movement is much faster in early earth. As I said, it is not a constant. And it could have frequent accidental fast movements. An example is the current model on the Himalaya Mountains.

By how much was the rate in the early earth faster? A bit more because the continental crust was thinner and the mantle hotter, or the many orders of magnitude faster that Creationist superfast plate movement needs? If you speed up the magma would it push the continents faster, or melt holes in them like a magma plume? Like I said you are relying on superfast plate movement that there is no evidence for and every reason to think would melt the continents instead of move them faster.

The way we figured out earlier supercontinental tectonics is that we found rocks made by plate collision "and date the rocks". If we do not use radiometric data, then we could not tell 1 b.y. old supercontinent from a 0.25 b.y. supercontinent. Noticed that there is a 0.75 b.y. of time in between them. We just assume that amount of time must have existed.

Hardly 'assume' when we know about it from radiometric dating, but anyway, ignoring what we know from radiometric dating, and following your example there, just going on the sequence of supercontinents the age of the earth is at least 1 billion years old and there is nothing to suggest it isn't 4.5 billion years old?

 

[juvenissun]

Use an example people may understand:

According to geology, the Grand Canyon Series took 200 (?) million years to be made.

But if we count the rate of deposition and rate of cementation of each composition layer (plus a few short term unconformities), it may only take 10 million years to complete the whole construction. (consider the thickness of sediments in the Gulf Coast as a comparison)

The ONLY reason we think it took 200+ million years is because of the data of radiometric dating (which gives age reference to the fossil sequence).

That is an example of the argument.

 

[philadiddle]

Use an example people may understand:

According to geology, the Grand Canyon Series took 200 (?) million years to be made.

But if we count the rate of deposition and rate of cementation of each composition layer (plus a few short term unconformities), it may only take 10 million years to complete the whole construction. (consider the thickness of sediments in the Gulf Coast as a comparison)

The ONLY reason we think it took 200+ million years is because of the data of radiometric dating (which gives age reference to the fossil sequence).

That is an example of the argument.

As I said earlier, there is a difference between showing something is possible and showing that it actually happened. We could also work a model where the grand canyon took 200 billion years to form, but did it?

Even if we allow your model to stand at 10 million years to form the grand canyon, that's a far cry from a young earth. Tell me, how old do you think the earth is?

 

[Mikecpking]

Use an example people may understand:

According to geology, the Grand Canyon Series took 200 (?) million years to be made.

But if we count the rate of deposition and rate of cementation of each composition layer (plus a few short term unconformities), it may only take 10 million years to complete the whole construction. (consider the thickness of sediments in the Gulf Coast as a comparison)

The ONLY reason we think it took 200+ million years is because of the data of radiometric dating (which gives age reference to the fossil sequence).

That is an example of the argument.

Do you know what an unconformity implies? It is evidence of uplift, erosion and the rocks being submerged again. That extends the time much greater than you are suggesting. Not only that, there many differing rock types in the Grand Canyon which is evidence of deep water deposition (shale), limesstone, sandstone which could not of happened in just 10 million years.

You could learn a lot from this site:

The Geology of the Grand Canyon

 

[juvenissun]

As I said earlier, there is a difference between showing something is possible and showing that it actually happened. We could also work a model where the grand canyon took 200 billion years to form, but did it?

Even if we allow your model to stand at 10 million years to form the grand canyon, that's a far cry from a young earth. Tell me, how old do you think the earth is?

Much younger than 4500 million years.

 

[juvenissun]

Do you know what an unconformity implies? It is evidence of uplift, erosion and the rocks being submerged again. That extends the time much greater than you are suggesting. Not only that, there many differing rock types in the Grand Canyon which is evidence of deep water deposition (shale), limesstone, sandstone which could not of happened in just 10 million years.

You could learn a lot from this site:

The Geology of the Grand Canyon

An unconformity could represent a time gap as short as a few million years. Besides, there is a problem with the idea of so-called unconformity IF it is not supported by fossil gaps, which in turn, is supported by radiometric dating.

Sequential deposition and lithification are no problem as cementation could take place almost immediately after burial. The only thing you have to worry about is the rate of deposition, which is not very long for any sedimentary formation. Again, without the radiometric dating, we DO NOT know how fast or how slow the lithification of a formation really is.

 

[miamited]

hi phil,

I apologize for being so long in responding, but I've had to pray about how to answer some of your post in a manner of respect and love and truth.

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

It's out there and I'm sure you are smart enough to find it. Whether or not you are wise enough to believe it is the question. However, the foundational issue is that science can only 'prove' the here and now. We can, based on what we can 'prove' in the here and now, extrapolate the information and make 'guesses' about what 'may' have happened in the past, but it is all based on a foundation that all the variables that affect the information we have 'proven' in the 'here and now' have remained constant.

The next foundational issue regarding this specific claim of the Scriptures is that it was a miracle. By definition a miracle cannot be explained by natural scientific method. Jesus began his life in the womb of a young Jewish woman who had never had a man's penis or sperm introduced into her womb. I would ask you to find a single scientist who can then 'prove' to you how Jesus came to be born. So, if we believe the Scriptures we just take it on faith that God's word says he was born of a virgin, by golly, he was born of a virgin. Whether or not science can give us an explanation of how that could possibly happen through the natural scientific process.

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.

That's fine with me and quite frankly it would appear that you don't need my admission to bolster what you already believe, but be that as you desire it to be.


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.)

Well, yes, since it has already been admitted by me that science can't 'prove' miracles, there is no other basis on which one would believe God's word but by faith. Now you seem to be the one that has pulled away from the issue at hand. Your claim here is that now the entire passage is not a historical account. I'm sorry, I thought we both believed that it was a true historical account, but that the gulf between us was whether 'yom' meant a 24 hour day or some era or age. I guess I have misunderstood the differences in our thinking. So, let me see if I now understand your position. You're not even convinced that the Genesis account even happened in real life, whether we define 'yom' as a 24 hour day or an era. Is that now correct?

If so, then yes, I can see that I'm wasting my time discussing the wrong points.

Again, this is a very interesting appeal to emotion.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. Paul wrote a statement. That statement said that the time would come when men would not put up with sound doctrine.

I'm merely asking you to consider your position in light of that statement. Could this be the time and could your understanding be some of the slipping away from sound doctrine that Paul was warning Timothy of? That's all. You don't have to go and get all emotional about it. As a matter of fact, I would prefer you try to look at it in the cold light of sobriety of mind and leave emotionalism out of the equation. So please, if that is how you construed my effort in this passage, let me apologize and assure you that that wasn't my intent.

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

Perhaps a definition of scoffing is in order. I believe that when the Scriptures speak of 'scoffing' or 'scoffers' it is refering to someone who would deny something that they are told is true by someone else. Example: I say the sky is blue. The scoffer replies, even though the sky is obviously blue, no it's goldenrod.

The Scriptures tell us that they came to us by God's Holy Spirit and anyone who knows the Holy Spirit would then know that they testify to the truth. God's Spirit does not lie nor does it work to deceive. Neither of these traits are characteristics of God and therefore could not be characteristics of His Spirit.

So, if God's word says that something happened in a particular way or gives an account of an event and someone says, "No, I don't believe that." Then they are scoffing. Now, you have turned the tables around and made the argument that if God did use evolution, then I'm the scoffer. No!!!! You see God's word doesn't teach any evolutionary theory. It is an understanding that some have adopted because they are unable to stand against the onslaught of wise and learned scientific theory. God's word says that He created every creature after its kind. God's word says that there was a moment in time when there was no man upon the earth and then He formed man out of the dust of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils. It gives absolutely no indication that the real explanation for why man is on the earth is because some other creature over billions of years of evolutionary time procreated and the DNA was somehow corrupted and out popped some offspring that was slightly different from its immediate parent. Then that offspring also procreated and in a few generations the new offspring was slightly different from its parents and so on and so forth until one day a man was born of two procreating parents who had in themself the breath of life.

That understanding only comes when one says to themself. "Ok, I know that science is right and it has 'proven' that there just isn't any way that the first man was just suddenly made by God and set in the earth and so let me see how I can work scientific knowledge into the knowledge of the Scriptures." So, since the Scriptures do not teach any form of evolutionary theory in just the common understanding of the text, then I would not be a scoffer even if evolution proved to be true.

On the other hand, the Scriptures do seem to be fairly clear, although some find it hard to understand, that when God had the Spirit to cause to write 'yom' and then further defined 'yom' in context as an evening and a morning, that the plain and common reading of the text would be that in this case the Hebrew word 'yom' would seem to be intended to be understood as a regular roughly 24 hour day consisting of an evening and a morning just like a day does today. Many, many people stumble on this because, yes, the Hebrew word 'yom' can mean an age or an era, and like many english words today must be further defined by a contextual reference before one can decide what the literal translation of the word meaning should be. These people then dismiss the contextual reference that God has given them. Choosing rather to just settle on the the argument that 'yom' could mean other periods of time and so we can't be sure what God was intending us to understand when He caused His Spirit to write 'yom'.

Paul writes, concerning the creation, that God has made it plain to us.

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.

Ahhh, there you go stacking you deck. You know you'd get shot in Las Vegas for such a thing. 'Proper'? How do you know? Because it agrees with science?

This is the way it has been understood for a long time.

Maybe you'd define what a long time is and whether over that long time we are talking about those who claim to be children of God or just the world in general. I mean, let's face it, if we're referring here to the world in general, well gosh, even when the Hebrews were in Egypt, the Egyptians thought the creation had come about by some fanciful god account and so I think it fairly safe to understand that those who don't know or believe the truth of God have always made up accounts of 'how we got here'.

If, on the other hand, we're talking just a few hundred years or even a thousand, well, then we bump up against Paul's admonition to Timothy again. Are these new teachings and more learned understandings of how we got here part of the myths that we have been warned were coming?

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.

Friend, I'm sorry and I know this is going to sound judgmental and self-righteous of me, but you just don't have a clue what God has done in delivering to you the Scriptures. Not a clue. You don't have even the slightest understanding that God called a man by the name of Abram and made several covenants with him and that His purpose for beginning the nation of Israel, according to Paul, was that a written revelation authored by the mind of God's Holy Spirit could be delivered that would explain to us all about how we got here, why we're here, how He was going to save us through the sacrifice of His Son, and how it's all going to end. I categorically deny that the Scriptures wee written as an aopologetic to the creation myths of that time. The Scriptures are the truth, yes THE TRUTH about all things delivered to you from God himself.

You can choose to believe science if you like. It's your choice. If your faith isn't strong enough to stand against the learnings and teachings of men, then it just isn't. But I'd caution you to be very, very careful about blaspheming the sacred work of God's Holy Spirit, which according to Paul, is the author of the Scriptures. I'd encourage you to take that up with the Lord in your prayers.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[miamited]

hi phil,

Just some other loose information for you to consider as you draw up these responses against the literal biblical creation account and what 'everyone else' believes.

According to Gallup in 2005:

Evolved,
God
guided

Evolved,
God had
no part
God created man
exactly how Bible
describes it


OTHER
(vol.)


No
opinion




​

2005 Sep 8-11

31%
12
53
1
3​

You are not yet in the majority, but are surely closing in. And I will readily admit that you will one day be in the majority with your currently held belief. Again, trusting that Paul's warning to Timothy was appropriate as much then as it is now. And also trusting that Jesus asked the question of whether he'd find faith upon the earth when he returned as a sure sign that mankind is going to move ever further away from the truth rather than towards it.

However, on the brighter side for you:

You probably are counted among the more educated than I am. Because it would seem clear that what we are taught in school is a large indicator of what we will believe about our beginnings and pretty much no self-respecting college or university would teach biblical creationism as even an alternative to 'the truth'.

Here's the link if you'd like to peruse some of the other information: American Beliefs: Evolution vs. Bible's Explanation of Human Origins

Here's a poll done more recenty by the Virginia Commonwealth Universities Life Science department:

God guidedGod did
not guideGod directly
createdNone of
these (vol.)Unsure/
Refused %%%%%

5/12-18/10​

2418432
14

Again, you and your like minded followers have some ground to make up, but don't worry, you'll get there. And neither of these polls reflect necessarily the positions of believers. Neither of the polls make any claim that there respondents were culled by any religious faith.

Here's some information contained in a Newsweek poll:

According to a Newsweek poll done in march of 2007:
Only 13% of Americans believe in naturalistic evolution (that is that God had no part in evolution)
However, 48% of Americans believe that God created "humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so"
30% of Americans took the middle ground responding that they believed "Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process"
9% remained unsure.


And it seems that this poll is not a fluke as many other polls from different polling companies have reported very similar findings. Go to polling report and look around at some of the other polls if you'd like.
It seems, to me, that these results are good news for Mike Huckabee who has gotten some heat for saying that he doesn't believe in evolution. Those kinds of attacks seem quite strange in light of America's views on the origin of life on earth.
I mean why would you attack someones view when it lines up with about 78% of Americans?
But all that aside, Im not even sure why you would bring up this question in a presidential campaign as it has nothing to do with what it takes to be president.

Notice that this article claims that this poll is not some kind of 'fluke', but that much similar results are found in many other polls. I just thought you should know the 'truth' about which side of the fence you're on. Stand firm! Don't fall to the myths and fables of the new and improved 'science'. Friend, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith.http://www.biblestudytools.com/1-timothy/6.html#cr-descriptionAnchor-49

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[miamited]

ooh, those polls didn't come out properly formatted. Ok, let me give you the poll results:

First poll
evolved, God guided 31%
evolved, God had no partv 12%
God created man exactly how bible describes it 53%
other 1%
no opinion 3%

Second unformatted poll
God guided 24%
God did not guide 18%
God directly created 43%
none of these 2%
unsure/refused 14%

 

[SkyWriting]

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.

A notable lack of soil buried under rock.
I'm not going to claim such evidence would "only" fit a young earth view.
You'd have to admit defeat if I did that.

 

[SkyWriting]

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!

"Scientists have confirmed the existence of protein in soft tissue recovered from the fossil bones of a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) and a half-million-year-old mastodon."

An alternate view is that the dating method is wrong.

Your "best argument" and "only one interpretation" rules are unheard of for a scientific request for papers so....

 

[Papias]

To help out Ted:

Note, Ted, that theistic evolution is the dark green line. You're "78%" was incorrect, because theistic evolution supports agree with the basic facts of evolution. In general, these data above agree with the data you posted - you are right, there are many polls saying about the same thing.

Papias

 

[SkyWriting]

To help out Ted:...

I don't see any messages from "Ted."