So after a long time the ameba got legs to live on land and the only ones wat survived grew hair an bigger legs (this is after they got tired of being sharks an cats except for them that liked it). So they were what we called apes for a long time like hundreds of thousands of years and all had like the same DNA for all that time till one got kicked in the nuts and it messed up the DNA in a squiggly. Then it got another preggie and you know it- the little cripple sucker beat all the old style DNA and got the job done first. Then the baby ape had a three part brain that could even contemplate and plan and it was a male so it raped a bunch and made more with that very same crippled DNA that replicated it self by millions.Then those wanted cars and whiskey so here we are. Now we can think and plan and we can do stuff other animals can't even contemplate but even though we are different we still proclaim we are nothing more than dumb animals and

Make sense.

Good post. Nowhere does history record that a plant became an animal but still people believe. It takes so much more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in a Creator.

yep, but how do you explain larry root.

Well, some people really still are animals.

Dang, eyeball, that was my syllabus overview in paleoanthropology 101. Except the getting kicked in the Cohones part. The "little squiggly" changed all by himself because all his squiggly test scores were marked "pass" which built up his self worth and made him feel special.

You're kidding, right? At this point evolution is no more a theory than gravity is. Read a science textbook.

wow. just... wow.

Oh schitt no.

I feel better now....all except for the guy raping apes.
He should be on the tough-guy list for sure.

"Instant" Evolution Seen in Darwin's Finches, Study Says - National Geographic News

Darwin's Finches Evolve Before Scientists' Eyes -Live Science

Wow. Just...

Wow.

And then one guy, unlucky and satiated on whiskey, saw a big female gorilla cruising just after the bars closed, got romantic with her and...well, Bigfoot is allegedly now in Colorado too.

Hilarious!

Sounds just like someone who is completely clueless about evolution.

Better put in some flashing smileys or dancing chickens or someone is sure to take it seriously.

Evolution OF species is a demonstrable scientific fact. You always end up with something that, at first blush, isn't a great deal different than what you started with, except genetic information is most likely lost. IE, we have mountain lions and jaguars in N. America, but no sabre-toothed tigers.

Descent-with modification,leaping all over Phylum, Class, Order etc, is a [bleep] fairy tale.

Folks,...you ain't gonna understand it.

It's like trying to explain the intracacies of a small block Chevy to a nightcrawler.

You can have faith,...or you can have proof,...

,..and you're not going to get proof,...so you better take option "A".

+1 A little frightening. Public schools are obviously failing to teach basic science.

Thank you bro professor Bristoe for the chill ins philosophy lesson today. I believe you cut to the very quick of it professor. Well done sir.

Why don't you read a book on grammar and learn the proper use of then and than.

Another [bleep] braniac!

Oh no sir, eyeball's rendition is basically how the truth of evolution is presented in the books, kick in the Cohones excepted of course, and.... paraphrased of course.

Hey, At least I tried to make it sound believable.

You cannot mate an ass with an ape (untill brobam, anyway) and get another creature. But a mutation makes another critter (man) and it produced more men by mating with what? -an ape?

Evolution, or something like it, took place over spans of time best described as "geological".

The human mind can't grasp time spans like that. To us, 20 years is a long time. 236 years makes for ancient history. 2012 years is practically the beginning of time.

There's a great demo of the way time passes and our inability to grasp it. A guy, scientist as it happens, is in a Porche. He's ripping down a racetrack that has a timeline of the world on it, in chalk or whatever, at 100 mph. As he does, he's talking, slowly, about the eras he's driving over. Finally, after quite a bit of this, he slams on the brakes and gets out. And there's all of human history at his feet... it's a few inches long if memory serves.

Given TIME in that sense, things can indeed morph and change. And they did.

Like my science teacher told our class..."Y'all may have come from monkeys. But I didn't!"

To anyone who's studied evolution, the objections are silly. It would be like you were a long time student of ancient Roman civilization, and a bunch of folks came along popularizing the idea that history actually only started in the year 1850, and insisted that all that stuff about ancient Rome is fiction designed to confuse people. Such a student wouldn't know where to begin with such people.

That's the problem. That guy was allowed within a hundred yards of a high school science student.

The history of mankind has shown that taking the easy way is always the best.

But, if he were to add that the earth was created with the appearance of age at that time, you couldn't prove or disprove his theory.

Your real "colors" are showing. For someone who professes the orthodox tenets of Christianity--you do don't you? Please ponder your exegetical rendering of Genesis chs 1-3 let alone how you approach to interpreting the scriptures. You are venturing off on a tangent not so much in promoting macroevolution (but, yes you are) but what is always amazing to me is the dogmatism in the face that science has promoted a boat load of "crap" in the last 120 years.

What you fail to perceive and also many others, is that evolution is not science; it is a dogma, "their" religion. And "they" cling to it all the while it is failing. You all need to much more demanding about what you believe and why.

IMHO of course

There has never been a scientific theory better supported by the facts than that of evolution. To deny it is utterly silly. Like denying the earth orbits the sun.

So let's see- then if asses screw apes for eons, then it will work? PS. Animal adaptation (smaller deer in the hill country from overcrowding) is not the same as evolutionary change.

If I just scratched out the math right and didn't screw up a decimal, and given the emergence of life 3.8 billion years ago (a billion is a thousand million), and arbitrarily saying that recorded human history is 7000 years...

Then one way to visualize this is that a line that has 1" = 1 year will be over 60,000 miles long. That's how long life has existed. That's more than twice around the earth.

Human history is about 1/10th mile- that's roughly 160 yards.

And THAT is how slime begets humans.

Don't be obtuse, eyeball.

You forgot the "leave politics out of belief" Believe what you want just leave beliefs out of the politics, try keeping it to what you know facts, not what you believe.

My question for the "evolutionist" is where did the "spark of life" come from and if it just "happens" then what has kept it from "happening" again and again?

Or could it be that those gorillas/apes are just to ugly to cause a few more "offshoots" in the present day....

Could it be that "Creation" is a continual and ongoing process rather than a one time event?

Could the "chain of being" be that "life creates life", and if one could go back to the beginning of the chain one would find God there?

Personally I don't see the theory of evolution conflicting with the existence of God, it only conflicts with the "stories" that were told about creation for thousands of years when human knowledge was in it's infancy and didn't quite understand the universe. Even now we still have a long way to go in that aspect.

We gonna solve this one again?

I've long thought that the theory of evolution is so controversial not because of what it says about the origins of man as what it says about the nature of a god who operates in such a manner. The theory of evolution is sweeping, majestic, operating on a time scale that could be called cosmic.

If a god is involved in this process, and I think there is one, then what this process reveals about god contradicts every known religion in the world... save Buddhism which in fact almost relies on evolution if you study it enough. The god of evolution does not inject himself into petty political arguments. He isn't jealous or prone to temper tantrums. He would find himself immune to homicidal rages attributed to him in religious texts. And he wouldn't give a good damn whether you believed in him or what you insist his proper name is. If he speaks at all it is in a whisper.

This I think is what makes people so mad. They want a god who thinks and acts like them. We don't like the way the real world god seems to operate. :p

Will

Well said Will!

At the very least, God's gift is life.

You sound like a flaming liberal.

A long long time ago, people had FAITH in a Sun god. Or Tree god. Or a coyote shape shifter god.

And a long long time ago, the best scientific minds KNEW the earth was flat. And it was the center of the universe.

Good luck with this debate. Again.

our arguments continue to evolve. this is an insightful post. thank you.

So since time is the hero if I start jumbing to the moon I will be able to do eventually because time allows the impossible to happen?

This appears you don't know the history of the Jewish Bible. Thousands of years ago they wrote the earth is round.

Also, seventeen times the Bible tells those who will learn God stretched out the heavens. The theory of the Big Bang is a Johnny-come-lately idea.

That statement could only be made with a lack of understanding of the physical sciences. Evolution cannot in any way, shape, or form be "better supported by the facts" than the laws of physics that can be demonstrated any day of the week in a physics or chemistry lab.

[/size][size:14pt]

Curious; why would you think there "is one"?

Would you PLEASE run for president already?!

Well said.

Yea, don't be obtuse, Lord. (you saw I winked, huh Lord?)

Bullschit, the Greeks figured out the earth was round via the position of the sun and earth 2300yrs ago. It was the ignorant heiarchy in the Church or Rome that disputed it.

Eternity is rooted in the breast of mankind, nature itself gives evidence that it didn't arise via its own power. To assert that those in the past searching without knowledge are to be disparaged, as a rationale for no faith in anything, is an utterly pointless arguement.

Then again, it does have a point. It is far more logical to assert that ALL religions are false, than to assert that all are true. They all make contradictory claims. They can no more all be true than we can all be Elvis Presley.

But if there is no God, then how did creation occur?

All you have to do is read the bullschit theory that is evolution of species, study the history of its proponents from its origins up until today, and you will have your answer.

But, how come sometimes I just feel like monkeying around, Uh, and I like bananas too.

Such a statement denies that any real belief in anything becomes inseparable from self. The stronger the belief, the more it molds most areas of any life. This process makes us who we are. Don't you know that?

If you do, and because the belief you are singly concerned about regards the God of the Bible, essentially your belief is Christians should not be allowed to vote.

More Freud than Darwin, most likely.

Lol, I'd never pass muster in today's America. Take Lamour's description of Nolan Sackett and then give him a buzz cut. I'm way too ugly and mean looking to be president... senator maybe. :p

Will

To your first point, religion is (on some level) pure kookery. Was then, is now, will be forever.

To your second point, the beauty of science is that it... uh... evolves. It's NOT dogma; it self-corrects.

To your third point, yes, this is a pointless debate.

Have you ever made a serious effort to study evolution?

Wow! You touched on what many believe about the religion of atheism, it's kookery, science being wrong enough that even non-scientists recognize it and that you have no point in this debate.

Thanks.

Now you're asking about life's origin, which is not evolution. Different subject. Naturally, my answer to life's origin is that found in Genesis, i.e., God commanded the waters to bring forth all manner of living creatures, and it did as it was commanded. As to the process, that's unknown.

Because I think high school science teachers should be required to understand the fundamentals of science??? If an economics teacher was teaching about why free markets are no good, and we need central planning and collectivism, I'd say the same about him.

I got a "A" in comparative anatomy in Pre-med.

A kookery expert has spoken. Afterall, you have from goo to you by way of the zoo. Kookery is something you are intimate with.

That is agreeable. But, to interpret that God did so in any manner that can be concocted through gnosis is suspect. That's just the way God works. There is enough there to lead the unbelievers astray. There's a good reason for that, but I'll save it. It goes against the teacher's union philosophy for sure.

I'm speaking of scientific theory, not laws. Like heliocentric theory, gravitation theory, or evolution theory.

How did you get through a pre-med program without acknowledging something so fundamental to biology as evolution?

eyeball...............trh is an eggspurt on everything...haven't you figured that out by now?

So, Miller-Urey has nothing to do with origins or evolution? That silly schit has been taught in every [bleep] high school in North America for over forty year.

BIG bullschit flag waving here.

I'd be curious how those who are anti-evolution think it is prevented from happening.

If you have
1. genetical inheritence from parents to offspring
2. genetic variance

How do you prevent evolution? Must be powerful, whatever it is. Maybe someone here could work out the math for us.

He might have gone to a school that hadn't been ruined yet by progressives or he's past 60 a ways.

Good thinking

In next class please discuss global warming

The evolution folks have their proof.Chicken Little had his proof.The folks that think we come from space travelers have their proof.Muzzies have their proof.Everybody has proof.Most of it is foolish.Like the science of global warming,that used to be global cooling,that now is climate change.Well at least they have decided that weather changes.So much for accepted science.Mankind-a herd of idiots chasing their tails.

Let's assume we did get here by evolution.
Big deal, it happened cause God made it that way.

And do not bring up the Big Bang.
The entire Universe once fit in a thimble?
Now that is a fairy tale!

No rational, educated person doubts that species evolve. That fact has absolutely no ability to explain how we got here in the first place, IE Miller-Urey.

The math HAS been done, by a lot of Ph.D geneticists/math whizzes, and they say 3.8 Billion times about a million or so years would be required for it to have ever occurred, and there are a LOT of reasons why the universe could never be that old. So, yes, the math has been done, and honest scientists, a lot of them secular-humanist/atheists themselves, say evolution as it is taught to high-schoolers and Bio 101 college freshmen is, as Teller would say, BULLSCHIT!

It was either Watson or Crick (the discoverers of the DNA helix) would postulated that life got here from aliens. He, early on, understood the cell was so complex it could never, ever have evolved from non-life, ala Miller-Urey.

In general, there's proof of evolution. Not so for Chicken Little, the space-people, or muzzies. That's kind of the point. As to the climate stuff- there's a great example of the scientific process vetting itself; that's one of the nice things about science versus religion. It's not always pretty but it evolves towards the truth.

I have seen so many fads come and go.Evolution is just one more.Long before man understands the universe he will crash and burn.Then its back to the caves to start all over again just like he always does.He thinks he is advancing.He isnt smart enough to see how foolish he is.

I thought about writing something, but you just pretty much said whatever I was gonna say, only better. I'm with you on this one.

bristoe pretty well summed it up.

In 1972 I went to college to learn the truth.After a couple years the only difference I could see between the science teachers and the hell fire and brimstone preachers back home was the collar.
If a person wants proof he will be looking his entire life and will not find it.He can find opinion but thats all.

So your only objection to evolution is the intitial occurence of life but nothing since then is a problem with you? In that case, I'd say you deviate hugely from most posting here.




REALLY? Care to give a few good citations on math that says it would take at least 3.8 billion-million years for life to evolve? I'd say that there is probably less than about 1% of biologists that would agree. Probably less than 1/10th of 1/10th of 1% but I'll grant you a few orders of magnitude if you can name say - an even dozen at reputable institutions.


So, I see you equate honesty with holding your preconceived notions of evolutionary time.



Lots has happened since W & C you know. Rather lots.

But in the meantime, alien DNA or not, you are good with the 30 million (+/- 20 million) species evolving from this bit of alien DNA? Cool. You stand out from this crowd of antis.

You do realize the climate folks ran in a 30 year long circle only to find what everyone already knew.They are still wanting to argue thats why I call it foolish.The evolution people are running in a bigger circle,thats all.

A sad waste of tuition dollars, that was.

Really? You see no difference between a religion telling you the world is 6000 years old and evolutionary theory?

Am not expressing any views on the theory of evolution today, but cannot help but ponder this. OK,if this is said by a person who knows little about science and has not engaged many scientific actions - then chalk it up to ignorance. But, if this person professes to know and do science - OUCH ! - something went badly wrong.

What religion do you want to talk about.I was a geology major so I see things on that time scale.I do understand your question.It comes from the first book of the Tora.If a person reads it and assumes a few things he can come up with that number.Its not what it says.You see it only says "in the beginning" it does not say when that was.Now if you read most english bibles say it was void and without form.The problem is the word was.Let me give an example-I saw Nagasaki and it was void and without form.Ya see it had become that way not created that way.I dont do 6000 years.

I'm a veritable Master of Science. Got a piece of paper hanging on the wall that says so.

Even theories in the physical sciences are better supported by the facts than evolution is. Yes, biology is more of a science than the so-called social sciences are, but biology is not at the same level of science that the physical sciences are. I kinda feel a little sorry for evolutionary biologists because they're trying to make chicken salad out of chicken feathers (or chicken waste, if you prefer) in terms of science.

+ 4.1Billion

OK, seriously the post of the year.

Many of the current HS texts have a chapter for origins of life seperate from those covering evolution.

Odd question, particularly since there are plenty of doctors, trained in top medical schools and having completed rigorous residency programs, who do not accept the theory of evolution.

Steve.

The problem occurs when people who call themselves scientists make their "science" dogma. We've seen it happen with both evolution and "climate change." Both of those areas of study have had a lot more out-and-out fraud than any other fields of "scientific" study, with the possible exception of alchemy.

No, I think that is BULLSCHIT as well. Miller-Urey notwithstanding, the entire evolution enterprise is a [bleep] fraud, it always has been.

THERE ARE NO TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS, NONE. Darwin predicted they would be found, they obstinantly refuse to turn up.

You're right a lot has been learned about the cell since the 50's, it is a LOT more complicated than even they thought at the time. This means it is even less probable/possible for mankind to have ever crawled out of the slime.

It never happened dude. You figure out what your alternative belief system should be. I already have.

Both are demonstrably faith-based.

Demonstrably? Please so demonstrate how evolutionary biology is faith based?

I'm still waiting on someone to show me the math how genetics + genetic variation cannot equal evolution. Seems to be no takers.

There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of transitional fossils that have been found.

fish

Bird

Getting Hungry now

So, a past curator of the British Museum is FOS? He said he didn't [bleep]' have any. I guess you had 'em hid out.

Imagine Red on the 70's show.....

"DUMBASS!"

Chill out.

You can disagree and debate without calling someone a dumbass or dropping "PH" bombs every 2 seconds. Cant you? Not very Christian of you.

Doesnt the Book say something about how to treat people?

Yea, one of the last ones they found, The Missing Link, turned out to be a pigs tooth. Of course, they had that retraction in small print on the last page.

Damn you're dumb. You post a picture of a fossil of a long extinct fish and trot out that silly-assed archeopteryx. When I went to high school I was assured that arche was a link between dinosaurs/reptiles and modern birds. Now they've admitted it was a [bleep] bird and you are dumb enough to cite that as proof of evolution.

Libs lie, He doesn't.

That schit don't work with me, I play by your rules.

God tells us in the very first verse and hte earth was without form and void. IF it became without form and void, then Adam and Eve became naked because the same word is used to describe both. They weren't created naked. Also Satan became the craftiest of the creatures becaue he was not created that way. The Word actually is quite simple if one does not try to apply a bunch of 18th and 19th century theories.

There is a little tid-bit that The Creator God wrote with His Own finger in stone about the creation. He came to Moses and wrote that He created Heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them in six days and rested on the seventh day. Therefore they were to work for six days and rest on the seventh day.

How is it that so many don't believe God is able to communicate?

You play by whatever rules are convenient for you and suit your personal preferences. Which is to say, you make a lousy christian.


You also make for a lousy defender of the anti's cause. Quit digging the hole you are in. It's deeper than you can possible understand.

Go on. Elaborate. You know me from a hole in the wall. Please do tell me "my" rules.

The nasty anger that spews from the mouths of those who espouse the Lord is disappointing.

Yea, lot of 'smart' [bleep] are digging themselves a hole to he'll.

A thread like this is a terrific opportunity to walk the talk.

Not sure what version of evolution you believe in for sure. But, belief that a scale became a feather doesn't that require a measure of faith? Perhaps not to you. But to me it does.

As to your math problem....
Since mathematical values of some sort need to be assigned to those words, breaking it down to it's most rudimentary level will be to utilize the values of the letters.

Equating those letters with the corresponding numbers based on the alphabet, IBIOTTCO that:


genetics.......=80
genetic........=61
variation......=109
Sum............=250

evolution......=132


Therefore genetics + genetic variation > evolution
Thus proving intelligent design.

Did you know there are birds that have some of the same features as your "misssing link" like claws on the wings. Just because it had teeth tells us nothing. Some mammals have teeth and some don't. Some fish have teeth and some don't. Some retiles have teeth and some don't. Some amfibians have teeth and some don't. I guess if we include the Vanician Fly Trap even some plants have teeth.

What do we learn from this? Some don't learn anything but others learn some fauna have teeth and some don't.

Now, that is a HOOT!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the laugh, though I hesitate to do so at your expense. It does, however, prove you don't understand the notion of proof.

BTW, I don't believe in evolution, I understand it and accept that it has to happen because it cannot be otherwise. The simple pair of facts that I listed and which even you have to accept, make it impossible that evolution cannot happen w/o devine intervention. I'm looking for how you prove that this has happened.

"Christians" always have been the greatest deterrent to Christianity. They still are.

I've read plenty of your posts and you are clearly no dope. Venus fly trap dont have teeth. They have extensions of the leaf which resemble what some people may think should be called teeth. Its the same tissue as the leaf. Teeth arent the same tissue as jaw or gum.


Noun:
1) Each of a set of hard, bony enamel-coated structures in the jaws of most vertebrates, used for biting and chewing.
2) A similar hard, pointed structure in invertebrate animals, typically functioning in the mechanical breakdown of food.

While that is certainly true for most, I'd exclude Ringman from that group. I couldn't disagree with him more but he is a gentleman about it. The rest of em? Well, nasty bunch for sure.

Let's follow that line. Did you know that some religions have books that dont state the same things as the books of other religions? Several different books state that they are correct. A contradition.

What do we learn from this? some learn nothing. Others learn that various religions have really old books that state various things.

That aside, its not a feature but a collection of features that leads to a theory that one thing MAY be a link between a prior and a newer species or form.

Arch may or may not be a "link". I dont claim to be an expert. That a mouse (or cat, or ear, or octopus) has teeth isnt germane to the observation or argument that an archaeopteryx does.



* edit. Huh. check out my post count. Creepin me out a little. *

Actually, you may want to read what Patterson actually had to say; you're apparently reading part of what he wrote, but missing the next sentence; he's actually expounding on why he won't say Archaeopteryx is the ancestor of all birds, because it might be a cousin species to Archaeopteryx.

Here's what he actually had to say on transitional fossils:
"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes ..."

Red's on the phone. He wants to talk to you.

I have read a bunch of his posts and he is no dolt by a very wide margin and isnt often crass.

I couldn't stay away, I had to hear what Take_A_ Knee had come up when he was standing around thinking and scratching his balls, maybe even wondering why he had a seam on his scrotum. (Reference to an earlier thread).

Here's the past curator of the British Museum of Natural History.

Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History.

I decided to get to the bottom of the matter. The quote is from a personal letter dated 10th April 1979 from Dr. Patterson to creationist Luther D. Sunderland and is referring to Dr. Patterson's book "Evolution" (1978, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.). My first step was to read the book. (I believe it is now out of print, but most university libraries should have a copy.) Anyone who has actually read the book can hardly say that Patterson believed in the absence of transitional forms. For example (p131-133):


"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . ."
Patterson goes on to acknowledge that there are gaps in the fossil record, but points out that this is possibly due to the limitations of what fossils can tell us. He finishes the paragraph with:


". . .Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else."
It is actually this statement which is the key to interpreting the Sunderland quote correctly; it is not possible to say for certain whether a fossil is in the direct ancestral line of a species group. Archaeopteryx, for example, is not necessarily directly ancestral to birds. It may have been a species on a side-branch. However, that in no way disqualifies it as a transitional form, or as evidence for evolution. Evolution predicts that such fossils will exist, and if there was no link between reptiles and birds then Archaeopteryx would not exist, whether it is directly ancestral or not. What Patterson was saying to Sunderland was that, of the transitional forms that are known, he could not make a watertight argument for any being directly ancestral to living species groups.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html

Crockettnj,



I stand politely corrected. Thanks.

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Oh, I do understand proof. But the proof that I live by can mean life or death. Not just where did this bug come from type proof. I design bridges and have to prove that my bridges will stand every day. I do that with math that is generally beyond most folk's understanding and even if I tried to explain it, eyes begin glazing over and it would be a further waste of time.

I also understand that neither of these hypotheses, Creationism, nor evolution, nor a couple of other hypotheses that I can dream up can be proven, or really dis-proven for that matter. And that IS by divine design. This is simply because the Lord God Almighty wants us to have faith in Him without looking for or needing a sign of some sort. I read that in a book. Opening up our heart to allow our spirit to communicate with His is where the knowledge of His power to do with this universe as He sees fit is derived. Really, that's all I need. With all due respect, I don't need anything from you or anyone else's approval or proof or what have you.

So, don't take it too heavily your being humored at my expense. I did so willingly, knowing full well that it was with a bit of levity and a bit of a waste of time. But it was mine to waste.

Later.

Post the transitionals for us. We are waiting.

The funny thing about my original post, and the way things stand at present, is that humans have a specific difference between themselves and animals. Yet, the evolutionary crowd still wants to ignore that difference and proclaim themselves the same as an animal. A mind, with understanding of right and wrong and things and events here, now, and overseas, and in the past, and in the future seprates humans from animals and it is nothing but lack of thinking and pure stupidity that has humans relegating themselves to a lower order. We could not become different from animals by an evolutional change. If one did, then subsequent births would revert to the original norm. That is the scientific method of things.

Like this?
Named Yanoconodon allini after the Yan Mountains in Hebei, the fossil was unearthed in the fossil-rich beds of the Yixian Formation and is the first Mesozoic mammal recovered from Hebei. The fossil site is about 300 kilometers outside of Beijing.
The researchers discovered that the skull of Yanoconodon revealed a middle ear structure that is an intermediate step between those of modern mammals and those of near relatives of mammals, also known as mammaliaforms.
"This new fossil offers a rare insight in the evolutionary origin of the mammalian ear structure," said Zhe-Xi Luo, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in Pittsburgh, Pa. "Evolution of the ear is important for understanding the origins of key mammalian adaptations. "http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070314195448.htm

Or this?

Discovery of a 160-Million-Year-Old Fossil Represents a New Milestone in Early Mammal Evolution
ScienceDaily (Aug. 24, 2011) � A remarkably well-preserved fossil discovered in northeast China provides new information about the earliest ancestors of most of today's mammal species -- the placental mammals. According to a paper published August 25 in the journal Nature, this fossil represents a new milestone in mammal evolution that was reached 35 million years earlier than previously thought, filling an important gap in the fossil record and helping to calibrate modern, DNA-based methods of dating the evolution.

I think it's your phone you hear schitbird.

Don't say that out loud. Your Mama's gonna hear you, come down in the basement, wash your mouth out with soap, and take away your Apple 2 for a week.

Indeed. And that is what macroevolution is: faith in a vacuum of an almost complete lack of evidence. In the famous words of Phillip Johnson: the evidence for macroevolution is somewhere between slim and none.

Of course Patterson, as the curator, could never agree with the fledgling (at the time) intelligent design gang, but he was intellectually honest enough not to make the blatantly false assertion that most of him comrades do.

What he did do, is a common debate tactic that shows his erudition. In logic this is called the infinite regress, often analogized as a "lengthening of the shadow". The arguement was ended by chasing a "rabbit" into a hole no one could follow. Smart guy, intent on not being ridiculed as a fool, unlike many of his compatriots.

Does your indictment of religion include the religion of Neo-darwinian evolution?

Darwin's theory predicts that the fossil record should be mostly transitionals---virtually dominated by it. At the time, the lack of transitionals was deemed a function of lack of excavation efforts. There have not been plenty of excavations and there are few if any transitionals.

I get to be a sinner, just like everyone else. In fact, I can't help but to be.

That's just flat wrong. Part of the problem is the definition of "transitional." If you accept that species evolve and naturally select, then virtually every fossil is somehow transitional. But to claim that there are "few if any transitionals" just isn't true. You could spend hours and hours reading about them... and not just on Wikipedia.

Sucks to be you.

But I sleep well. I have Him in my heart, He is peace, He is The Word, He is Jesus, He is everlasting, He is forgiveness, He is Eternal, He is the beginning, He is the End, He is All, and I didn't have Him, and I lived without Him, but He came into my heart and saved me and changed me and made me whole.

Well, with that "piece of paper hanging on the wall" it seems quite obvious - something went wrong in the process. Or, then, maybe this:

Not to offend any "non believers" but I would agree with many on here who see the folly of "evolution" and the "Big Bang" theories as the only "credible" explanations of life and the universe. To some, "random chance" resulted in all the complexities and organization of the universe, including everthing from DNA to the solar systems.
To me it's akin to believing a tornadoe blows through a junk yard and resuls in an Apple computer. Well, sure it wouldn't happen the first time, but given enough time, "certainly" it could be accomplished....not.
I think ART and SCIENCE themselves give evidence of a Creative and Onmiscient God.
Man's ability to create art comes from the fact that a creative God has put his immage in this particular creation. We create because we have been made by a creator who has given us this innate desire and capability.
SCIENCE and "the quest for knowledge" is simply man manifesting the characteristics of a God who has the ability "to know" and posesses all knowledge. Mans' pursuit of scientific knowledge, rather than, "explaining away" God, actually is evidence of Him put with in every mans soul.
I see absolutely no contradiction in "science" and Christianity. But as far as certain scientific theories go, they are only as valid as the "assumptions" they are based on. It is here where there is certainly plenty of room for debate.

Calling evolution a religion is a stupid play.

Not as clear cut as one might think. An article in 2007 pointed out some peculiarities suggesting that it is not a transitional fossil due to traits that were markedly different from it's purported ancestor and an inner ear that resembled monotremes. Prescribing to this as a transitional creature suggests that the inner ear evolved more than once.

http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2007/03/20/yanoconodon_and_the_alleged_jaw_to_ear_t





This one is interesting. But, not sure how it is determined to be anything but a different creature that was created obviously differing significantly from the from what existed in the monotremes at what is believed to exist at 170 million yrs.

Recognize that these dates of 160 million years ago and such are predicated on the evolutionists faith in somewhat of a steady rate of change in the earth which is required for the theory of evolution. Evolution requires time in an attempt to validate that theory. This is in contrast to the faith held by Creationists of Noachian cataclysm. Based on the Creationist perspective, this Jurassic Mother is simply another species but created by intelligent design regardless, caught in the flood event, and buried quickly. Therefore, it cannot be proven to be a transitional creature to Creationists.

In your opinion simply because you prefer to have faith in the prospect that you are somehow superior?

No, because it's not a religion, and calling it one is disingenuous at best, and a lame play.

But actually it's true in the sense that you need to have faith in something that can't be proven to support your ultimate religion that man is god.

So what you have found is maybe a mutant or another species. How would the "new" creature hear if the old stuff was not correct and the "new" stuff wasn't correct? It would be easy pickens for the preditor.

If evolution were true you could not find something half way between with all the other fossils that would permiate the fossil record. Like a pre-bat with a little bit longer fingers so that the membrane could later grow between them. Of course in the mean time it could not run as fast as it used to and could not fly at all so survival of the fittest would weed it out.

You're just in denial.

Nothing created everything...

The constant desire to accuse individuals who accept the science of evolution as somehow being non-believers is truly remarkable. One can easily accept the existence of God, and of evolution. They're not mutually exclusive, unless you're of a literalist religious persuasion. And if you are, why do you care? We all pretty much end up in Hell in your view anyway.

Cut-pasted from this thread -http://orbisvitae.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=43055

Certainly we can expect (based on existing fossil evidence) that before there were bats that there were organisms similar to the modern tree shrew.

What a transitional fossil is ...

By analogy from observing existing organisms:

Fossil {B} is transitional if it shares some traits with fossil {A} that are not shared with fossil\organism {C} AND it shares some traits with fossil\organism {C} that are not shared with fossil {A} AND it shares more traits with both fossil {A} and fossil\organism {C}.

We do not predict that you will find evidence of the "- (evolutionary path) - " nor does evolution predict that all {B} will be found, all that is predicted is that IF a fossil is found that it will show transitional characteristics, traits between ancestors and descendants as well as shared traits with ancestors, shared traits with descendants and shared traits with ancestors and descendants and many shared traits with both.

Thus from some ancestral shrew-like animal 65 million years ago, similar to this {A}:


... to the 54 million year old "new" bat fossil {B}:


... to this modern bat skeleton {C}


We can see that {B} is indeed intermediate between {A} and {C} but that more characteristics are shared by all three than are different between {A} and {C} AND that {B} shares some traits with {A} that it does NOT share with {C} (four claws on front arms, long tail, no echolocation) and it shares some traits with {C} that it does NOT share with {A} (long fingers being the most evident}.

Thus {B} is an intermediate fossil along the transition from non-bat to bat.

When you ask for a transitional bat fossil, this IS one.

Another cut-paste - this from www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999647
The New Scientist reports on Nov., 13th, 2004, in an article titled Rogue finger gene got bats airborne, that
A change to a single gene allowed bats to grow wings and take to the air, a development that may explain why bats appeared so suddenly in the fossil record some 50 million years ago. ... Although it is a small developmental change, if it allowed the ancestors of bats to grow extended digits it could explain how bats evolved flight so rapidly,...Relatively few transitional forms would have existed just briefly before being displaced by more advanced forms.

Apologies for the cutting and pasting but I don't have much spare time just now. Also the transition from running to flying would not be likely. A much more likely transition is from tree climbing- jumping from branch to branch- gliding from branch to branch and from tree to tree- flying. All gradual - no big changes all at once.

Very nicely put!

Call it a faith based belief system.Its a choice not truth.

I thought only God was all-knowing.

You say they are not mutually exclusive. And yet the time frames ARE exclusive. The order of God's creation and man's evolution ARE exclusive. If God sent a world wide flood it would create the "geological column" evolutionists try to use to prove God does not know how to communicate.

We who believe God is capable of communcation believe those who claim to believe the God of the Bible would use evolution cause unbeleivers to wonder what other mistakes God made. Those of us who believe God is capable of communication believe He inspired his prophets and apostles to write His Words accurately.

We don't want the distorters to take others with them.

"...the untuaught and unstable distort the Scripture to their own destruction."

I was raised as a good Methodist boy. The idea of Evolution fits in very well with the Methodist discipline. In fact I was close to adulthood before I knew there was a huge divide among Christians on the subject.

Methodism, in part, teaches a reliance on reason for understanding God's creation. You have the Bible as your guide, but things like direct experience, scientific study, and the like are perfectly reasonable additional resources. God his revealing himself every day to us. The idea is not to always look at it through the eyes of Men long dead, but be prepared to see It fresh each day and understand It for what it really is.

An example of this would be car repair. At the time the Bible was written, there were no automobiles. However, if you understand the Bible, you should be able to look at a car repair manual and judge what is appropriate and what is hooey. Because automobiles are not mentioned in the Bible, it does not mean they do not exist or that they should be suspect or that there is some other reason for them being there besides Henry Ford coming up with the idea and getting the ball rolling.

Now we come to Evolution. I have no doubt that folks in the Bible had an incomplete knowledge of science. I also have no doubt that the direct revelation of God would be filtered through human understanding before it hit the written page. This is reasonable.

I don't have to doubt my religion, simply because there are inconsistencies in the Bible. I only have to have faith that in reading the Bible I will have connection with the Almighty and that His guiding hand will lead me towards the truth in the end.

With Evolution, I cannot believe that any Man 2000-10,000 years ago would have the grasp of things like Geology, Astronomy, etc. that help form our modern view of the world. Therefore, I cannot believe that any man of that time would have been able to grasp the nearly-incomprehensible gradualness and subtlety that Natural Selection suggests. If God had sat down next to him on a log and explained it to him as best He could, I am certain that there would be misunderstandings-- not because of the imperfection of the Tutor, but rather the ignorance of the student.

I am comfortable, therefore, in accepting a bunch of the things in this world that are contrary to my understanding of the Bible. If the Bible says it was all created in 6 Days, I need to square that with my modern understanding that it happen over 12 Billion years. If the Bible says man was created from clay and woman from a rib of the man, I have to square that with my own understanding of how things work. It is that challenge that helps me understand what Really happened. For that purpose, God gave me both Faith and Reason and the ability to understand the power and limitations of each.

I have a dear friend who is an ex Israeli Paratrooper. She took a question like this to her rabbi many years ago. The rabbi laughed.

"Why would you ever want the two to ever agree? " he chided. "That would make it all too easy."

Well, the pre eminent paleoanthropologist of all time, Stephan Jay Gould, spent a lifetime examining all the schit you guys keep wiki-ing up, plus thousands of other examples, and he said it was impossible for it to have happened "gradually". So, I guess he was FOS, huh?

Do y'all think it's possible that God created everything through evolution? Do y'all think that since 1 day is a 24 hour period with man...that it's also a 24 hour period with the Creator of the universe?

Evolution is defined as a change in gene frequencies over time within a population. There is readily available evidence of this occurring constantly.
Adaptation, or evolution or advantageous traits, can be observed readily in any cellular biology lab in the world, and their results are undeniable.

The genetic code is a universal language...that lends tremendous credence to evolution.

Asking for evidence of evolution, to me, is like asking for evidence of gravity. It's literally everywhere we look. Fossils give us a timeline for changes in lifeforms, genetics allows us to track evolutionary progress by common ancestors...the list just goes on and on.

These discussions are not about transitional fossils,or about Gradualism vs Punctuated Equilibrium,or the great flood and the geologic column or the accuracy of radiometric dating, It's about a turf war. Up untill recent times religion has always been the arbiter of moral and scientific questions. That's changing, the boundries are being moved, as they should be. Religion answers moral questions and science deals with the factual state of the world/universe, two completely different systems that are not in conflict with one another.

I would say religion and science compliment each other. You're right; it is a turf war, but at the heart of it all are two disciplines that are not in conflict. A scentist does not deal in absolutes only probabilities, observable reality, replicatable experimentation, etc. Concepts like Faith in Science have no meaning, or if they do, they are obstructions to scientific thought. That does not make Faith wrong or Science wrong. Faith is a believe and trust in the unknown or the unknowable. Science is skeptical of both. I would not trust my minister to explain uniformitarianism any more than I would trust a geologist to explain transubstantiation. However, you need both Faith and Science to explain the world God has presented us.

Where it becomes a turf war is when one faction attempts to misrepresent what another's discipline is teaching. Belief in Evolution is not a disbelief in God. A relationship with Christ does not preclude a belief in Cosmic Strings or Inflation Theory. Without Science, we will be forever be ruled by despots and heirophants who would prefer us ignorant. Without Faith, we will be rudderless and easy prey for demagogues. We as free men have a responsibility to stand astride the two disciplines and use them to achieve what God has planned for us.

Science and religion do not have to be in conflict, but only if they do not try to answer the same questions.

When you have people drawing from scripture to answer questions as to what was the process for creation or what are the origins of the earth or the lineage of man? Makes it awfully hard to stay out of conflict if you ask me.

Sometimes religion can adopt a stance whereby the revelation of science does not contradict the tenants of religion. My background was not one of them. Raised a southern baptist in a literalist environment I found that when confronted by the cold hard facts on the ground I had a choice: forsake science or allow my religion to crash on the rocks of the evidence. The three letters found after my name on my business cards show the choice I made. That said not all religion is in such a confrontational posture toward religion.

Funny thing, I found that abandoning the constraints of the religion of my youth did nothing to deter my belief in a higher power or a higher calling for mankind. Time has given me a new perspective on religion and its purpose. But that is an even more heretical topic that is probably better left untouched on this thread. :p

Will

The problem with "religion" is that in general it/they were cooked up by less-than-stable people thousands of years ago, then codified by power-hungry opportunists into thing that SHALT NOT BE DISBELIEVED! EVER! NOT ONE BIT-ETH OF IT-ETH, VERILY AND HOW!

So basically if a person really buys into say the Bible as the literal word of God, then they are buying into a book written when the state of human knowledge was quite primitive.

Change comes hard for churches because at their core, they expect people to buy into a bunch of irrational crazytalk. This is their dilemma. Once you've got the sheep to buy in, you can't go changing the story.

Contrary to popular opinion I'm not an un-spiritual person. I've seen enough of this life to feel there is "more". But that's different than signing off on an entire package of beliefs hook line and sinker. Much different.

I'd also like to say that I don't subscribe to Darwinism as written by the dude in 1800-whatever. What I do believe is that the Earth has been around a very long time. Life has been around a very long time. Life changes and improves in a manner analogous to how a free market is supposed to work. Over an unfathomable length of time, truly unfathomable, it grew into the wildly complex, interwoven system we woke up and found ourselves in.

I don't discount the possibility of intervention(s) in the process by other being(s). But that's different than a "God"; it could be a seed meteorite; it could be green women like Kirk boned on Star Trek... it could be 10-armed insectlike space bugs... it could be beings much more subtle than that. It could be nothing at all; the application of time and very adaptable genetic codes could have gotten us here. I don't know.

I do know, it wasn't a bearded dude in the clouds 6000 years ago. That notion is frankly laughable.

Only a liberal would see morality as a bunch of irrational crazytalk.

Par for the course Jeff, well done!

I guess 'morality' is a relative term.....judging by all of the name-calling done on this thread by those who espouse morality.

There's a whole lot more than "morality" in the Bible, and much of it (and hell, some of the "morality", too) is crazytalk.

Do you believe the Bible is the literal word of God, HAJ? Every word of it?

Morality!

This is getting good.

Identifying somebody as a liberal is name calling?

Jeff knows he's to the left of the majority of folks here on the campfire. Thus, he is in fact, more liberal than most here. This is nothing new, and nothing even remotely akin to name calling. It's no more name calling than saying somebody that turns wrenches on a car for a living is a mechanic....

the physicist frijoh capra does postulate in his book, the Web of Life, that in the beginning, on earth, there were only one-celled life-beings. through "evolution" uploading additional DNA information, space dust, whatever the one-celled life beings continued to become more complex. i paraphrase of course.

through time, the plants took off in one direction to meet survival needs, and all other life forms took off in other directions, then further bifurcated. again, i paraphrase.

much later, like today, we have the plant kingdom and the rest of us kingdom, all interdependent upon each other down here on the Earth. the Earth was called Gaia much later. as was Mother Earth and Father Sun, or Great Creator. to further clarify, trees breathe out oxygen, breathe in CO2. we are their mirror image in terms of cooperative co-habitation.

others suggest that the plant kingdom is our mirror opposites. the trees are much more adaptable than us, they can live in the worst of conditions, and still re=leaf to bear fruit the next year. we humans have to move around in order to find suitable shelter, if we are to survive the winter onslaughts.

none of that even begins to indicate where life itself first came from. if "man" ever does manage to create life in a terrarium (the Earth) then katy bar the door, because we'll be on our way to a likely great awakening.

You need to define your terms a little more for me to give you an honest answer.

I do believe it is Logos, and always accompanied with Rhema.

I will draw some flack from Christians here for this next bit, but it's just how I understand things, to date.

"Let those who have ears to hear, hear!" Tells me that His Word is a mystery to those who do not follow Him. I'd go so far that some things are a mystery to us who do. I believe that there is a reason for it. We have a natural curiosity, that He gave us, and mysteries drive us to delve deeper. Every lover desires to be pursued, why would the lover of our souls be any different?

"The wisdom of God is foolishness to men." Applies to most who have argued in this thread.

"My sheep hear my voice, and they follow it." Applies to the other half, at least some of the time.

I'm not "a liberal"; that's a straw man thrown up for beatin' on.

That said, SOME of my beliefs differ from that of the modern American "conservative". BUT, I gotta tell you HAJ, the American political spectrum is an absolute bitch's brew of contradiction and hypocrisy. There's no shortage of "conservative" positions that are essentially leftist, for instance.

As to the name calling, I didn't take it as such; you are polite that way and I appreciate that. With that being said, I've grown pretty thick skin (scars? Lol) around here and you or anyone else can call me anything you want. It doesn't touch me.

But we digress. I'm asking if you believe the Bible is the literal word of God, every word of it?

Morality is the heart of the issue. With the theory of evolution you have the "survival of the fittest" passing their genetics onto the next generation. It doesn't matter whether it's done morally or not, all that matters is that the genetic code is passed on to the next generation, morality be damned in regards to how it gets done.

At least with a belief in God comes some sort of moral foundation to govern human behavior, with evolution not so much. Do we want to live in world that is governed by the rules of survival of the fittest? Or a world in which has rules and governs morality? The rules to what is moral and what is not are a whole different debate. Personally I would much rather live in a world where most of us are motivated in some way to be honest and treat each each other with dignity that a world if which it's every man for himself.

I think Katy can stay at the bar and finish her drink. In my Good-Little-Methodist-Boy worldview, if humans find a way to synthesize life in a test tube, it still does not answer the greater question of how something as bizarre as Life ever came to exist in this Universe. We can perhaps recreate the works of the Great Unseen Hand, but we cannot begin to pierce Why.

I think it's kind of funny: Eukarotes (all animals including humans) have only the most distant link with plants, but our closest cousins are fungi. There are a lot of folks on this forum ( not necessarily in this thread) that reaffirm this link with every posting they make.

The problem with fungus is that it is so close to us that it makes it so darn hard to kill. Anything that can kill fungus can kill a human. As a result, simple Athelete's Foot is almost impossible to cure.

As much of a good Methodist boy that I am, I still have to wonder why God caused that to be. He must have been having an off day. I'm willing to spot him that one, but it still leaves me scratching my head ( and my toes.)

The problem is with your understanding of the word "gradually." Gradually on the geological scale of time is different from gradually on the historical scale of time. Same with "sudden," such as the "sudden" appearance of millions of new species at the dawn of the Cambrian period, called the Cambrian Explosion. It's only "sudden" on the geological scale of time. In normal terms, it was amazingly slow and gradual. Your confusion about these terms stems from your not entering the minds of scientists to understand what they mean by them.

i love it when we humans, on the internet, gets into these kinds of arguments and debates.

so are practictioners of socialism closer to the law of the jungle, or is practitioners of capitalism more close to the law of the jungle?

in other words, if it's ok to manage wildlife, why is it oh so wrong to manage humans? i like the concept of morality in so far as it fits my morality. when it begins to diverge away, i might begin to argue a bit.

i think it's perfectly ok to catch at least a few fish with a barbed hook. if morality requires me to use barbless hooks in all conditions, i might whimper out a bit of dissonance.

When people took Darwin's theory's and used "survival of the fittest" to justify their domination and impoverishment of others, Darwin's reply was very interesting, in essence he said the fittest is not the most aggressive or strongest but the fittest were those species that are most able to adapt to change.

"In the past we have measured success by material wealth and power. Adaptable to change means we include in success not just abundance of material things, but health, love, friendship, peace of mind and joy. Being adaptable means understanding that with these as criteria we serve ourselves and the planet."

One funny portion of Scripture for me is found in the famous 23rd Psalm:

"Your rod and your staff comfort me."

Most people just assume that they are comforting to sheep in the same manner that the 2nd Amendment is comforting to us.

What cracks me up is that there was another very serious use for those instruments.

The best way for a shephard to keep his sheep safe was to keep them in a hurd. Keep them together. Obviously, sheep are wild, and curious so they like to wander off. This is very dangerous because when they wander off they become easy pickings for predators.

Well, if you have a problem sheep that keeps doing this, there is one surefire way to keep it in the fold. The shephard would take the rod, usually a 12" piece of acacia or other hard wood, and break a hind leg on the problem sheep. That doesn't sound too comforting does it!?

The comforting part is what happens next. All of us have seen old paintings of shephards with a sheep over his shoulders being carried about. More than likely what you are seeing is one of these problem sheep. Since that sheep is no longer mobile, the shepard has the responsibility to hand care for that sheep. To feed it and take it to water. While nursing this sheep back to health it forms a bond with that shephard. By the time it is fully healed, and allowed to walk freely, that sheep will usually be found always right neer the shepard.

That security, bond, and love are the comforting part in the 23rd Psalm.


I say all this because in my previous post I said:



The last part of that applies to me more often than not. I often find myself having wandered away from the herd, out there where I cannot hear the voice of the Shephard. This usually results in a "broken leg" of sorts.

The difference between me and most other sheep is that I'm a much slower learner.

I say this only to say, don't lump me in with other Christians. More often than not, I do not deserve to carry the name of Christ as a lable on my life. IMO, if you want to see a Christian, then study the person of Jesus. Everyone else is just second rate scum.

Would you prefer the term Natural Law?

I WISH I could find a YouTube of that thing I saw once many years ago- with the scientist in the Porsche driving 100 mph down a timeline of the Earth, etc.

It was the most effective demonstration I've ever seen for demonstrating the disconnect between "human" time and time on the scale of life on earth.

It's easy to think that say the Egyptians building pyramids, or cavemen in France, or (fill in the blank involving humans) were a long time ago. They were not. They were the merest hint of a blink of an eye ago.

Very true.

This doesn't SUCK but it's still not as good as Porsche-dude.

Good point about the pyramids, and where we are today.

we have traveled at near breakneck speed in the last 2500 years ago, or so.

from stone pyramids to walking on the moon, and post that adventure to sending space walkers to mars, etc.

rapidly forward, the Civil War, WWII and the bomb, the cold war, and now computers, transistors, the internet, and Obama the Muslim in the Whitehouse.

change is with us. wonder what's going to happen next? the evolutionary history of the human race has carried us through a lot of adventures. i've always thought the "great adventure" is just ahead of us.

What's interesting is that they say we aren't any smarter than those dudes & dudettes doing the "walk like an Egyptian" on the pyramid-era murals... not genetically speaking at least.

We are truly standing on the shoulders of giants, beneficiaries of an inverse pyramid of knowledge that has often been in spite of (impeded by) religious entities.

And so it is with evolution. Whether our understanding of it is exact or complete (very unlikely), it does represent entire lifetimes and careers of very smart people working very hard to suss out what happened and when. It is only because their findings are in contradiction to the literal word of fundamentalist religions that there's even this debate. For religion to acknowledge evolution is to admit that their tomes are not actually holy as written. As some have ably illustrated here, that's not a problem for, let's call them "modern" interpretations of religious books. But it IS a problem, a big one, for the fundies.

Luckily, the views of the various fundies of the world are becoming more and more marginalized. It's only through the political process that they are able to assert their kookery into school textbooks and the like. In other words, only when they can play the might makes right card.

That's pretty ridiculous.

not rediculous at all. he was being very honest, at the Soul level.

if we were bred and developed to mine gold on the Earth as slaves for the extraterrestrials, that's fine.

but, i've grown past the desire or need to mine gold to feed the needs of the folks who want streets paved with pure gold.

that's over. technology is the third leg of the stool that will either save us, or cause our demise.

as we destroy trees, en masse, we think it's fine. but, it's not. we have to reconsider.

Fitting that the geological time scale is circling the drain here. That's nearly the entire foundation of evolution. And it's circular reasoning to boot. If a fossil was found in this srata that we deduce is 160 million years old, then the fossil has to be 160 million years old. What if the strata isn't that old? That is the fundamental difference between those that believe Genesis and those that do not.

Don't expect much to come of anyone that is unwilling to entertain the notion, but I placed a link below to some scientific assessments of the effects of the floodwaters on the geologic strata and the impacts on the appearance of age.

I spent some time studying the materials of these scientist some 30+ yrs ago. Not much has changed. I heard some of their students debate some evolutionists when in college and the poor evolutionists were no match at all.

Effects of the Draining Floodwaters

I think this post deserves a reread.

This is the part that I was hoping the thread would get to. It intrigues me, as I know very little of how staunch "creationists" explain things.

Allosaurus fossils have been found. There exist quite a few. If this fossil represents a created organism that was trapped and killed off in the flood event, then it must have existed alive just prior to the flood. Therefore the allosaurus was alive and well during human existence?

If so, why are there no first hand discussions / mentions in any books/bible of dealing with / living with of such a thoroughly amazing creature? Its a tough one to swallow. (substitute diplodicus if you like... )

You missed the Memo

Yea.

No! You are missing it by a lot. I don't discount the creation theory a bit. It fits nicely into our need to believe that there is something else out they is greater than man. Creation provides comfort, especially as we near death. I have taken a number of evaluation-based classes in collage ( I minored in Biology) and I have not ever had a Prof. that made any effort to suggest that a plant evolved into an animal, period.


The concept of peer reviewed studies and theories centers around that the theory is placed under scrutiny and examined to be dis-proven, not proven or supported. A second or 3rd or (4th.-1,00000th) examination may not be able to punch a hole in a theory but experiments do not work to prove or support a theory. The whole idea is to examine all angles and prove it wrong.


There is plenty of fossil evidence that supports the link that earlier species evolve over VERY LONG periods of geological time. The theory of evaluation is a leap of faith that the earth has been around for millions of years not less that 10,000 as bible stories would have you believe.


Remember that the Roman Catholic Church supports evaluation and it is taught in most catholic high schools. A friend of mine who is a Jesuit Brother explained it to me like this�The Catholic Church is an evolving church because our God is an evolving god.

Ignorance is something to attempt to educate yourself out of even if it means that you might evolve into something new and more complex. Now that is quite a concept!


I was born and raised a Catholic and my mother was a Republican State Committee member, I am recovering from both

Perhaps I was not suficently clear "gradual" and "sudden" depend on the time scale being used. Change in a species has to be gradual because each generation can only be a slightly modified version of the previous generation. If a species stays relatively unchanged for 5,000,000 years and significantly changes over 500,000 years, then on that scale 500,000 years is relatively sudden.

Here is Gould, himself had to say in Punctuated Equilibria, Eldredge & Gould, 1972.
From the Statement: (3) The theory of allopatric (or geographic) speciation suggests a different interpretation of paleontological data. If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences is a chimera. A new species does not evolve in the area of its ancestors; it does not arise from the slow transformation of all its forbears. Many breaks in the fossil record are real.
(4) The history of life is more adequately represented by a picture of �punctuated equilibria� than by the notion of phyletic gradualism. The history of evolution is not one of stately unfolding, but a story of homeostatic equilibria, disturbed only �rarely� (i.e., rather often in the fullness of time) by rapid and episodic events of speciation.
From the final paragraph: The norm for a species or, by extension, a community is stability. Speciation is a rare and difficult event that punctuates a system in homeostatic equilibrium. That so uncommon and event should have produced such a wondrous array of living and fossil forms can only give strength to an old idea: paleontology deals with a phenomenon that belongs to it alone among the evolutionary sciences and that enlightens all its conclusions�time.

Eldredge and Gould were definitely not FOS but their ideas were quite controversial. Gould is a popular target for the common and dishonest practice of "quote mining". If I saw a quote by Gould, or any other prominent scientist, I would not pass it on before looking entire quote to confirm that it was not taken out of context to say something other than what its author meant to say. If you would care to read the whole thing, Punctuated Equilibria is easy to find on the net.

An old lady in our Sunday School class wears a big lapel pin that looks just like this.

Good question. It gets better though. Where did those creatures wind up after the flood? If Noah gathered 2 of each of these creatures onto the ark, then what happened? The assumption is that the creatures on the ark were not necessarily full grown.

Dr. Gish of ICR once published a book called "Tracking those Incredible Dinosaurs and the People Who Knew Them" It was in regard to tracks on the Paluxi River in Texas where it appeared that human tracks and large reptile tracks were at the same site. Later that was disputed and the tracks had deteriorated to the point that Dr. Gish removed that book from circulation because of the dispute. However, he always believed that those tracks were genuine and had degraded and to some extent, been vandalized.

Interestingly enough, this sauropod petroglyph in Utah shown below has been a source of contention since it's doubtful it was a self portrait. There are other petroglyphs where creatures resembling dinosaurs have been drawn in stone. This would have been after the flood.



Herodotus' wrote an account of Alexander the Great's story of a giant hissing beast that lived in a cave in India. Writings about Marco Polo suggest eye witness accounts as well as the legends from China and their dragons. And there was a story about a giant dragon like beast that had long horns much larger than an ox, perhaps resembling a triceratops that was killed near Nerluc, France in 1572. I could go on and on, but these are all anecdotal.

So why not the Bible? If the Bible contained everything that went on before the current era, it would be a very large book. But that isn't really the point of the Bible. It's more of a guide book to salvation.

However, there are some passages that elude to beasts, beginning with the creation of beasts, which isn't very telling, but it does distinguish them from cattle. But, there are others, for example, in the Book of Job, God is giving Job a bit of a Father-son chat. In Job 40:15-19 "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: . . . His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God." "Behemoth" is an English transliteration from the original Hebrew word. But that doesn't really describe anything we know of besides a sauropod of some sort. This is the only place that the word "behemoth" shows up in the Bible in this form, I think. The Book of Job, incidentally may very well be the oldest book of the Bible. In the Apocryphal books, there were stories of dragons being slain and the like as well. However, I haven't studied those much, being brought up as a baptist.

Guess they are going to clone a wooly mammoth here shortly. That's pretty cool.

It would seem not-impossible that there could be very large reptile holdovers into the human era, at least enough so that they'd enter the mythology.

I've been in sea-fossil beds at above 10,000 feet in New Mexico. That'd be some flood.

It was. It was world wide and lasted for thirteen months.

I suppose there's math out there to support enough water to flood to above 10,000 feet in New Mexico?

Last I heard that if all the ice on earth melted sea level would rise about 230 feet.

Dude, you read that silly schit and think it's profound? When this new critter pops on the scene, with all this new DNA, who and what is he gonna slap on the ass and say "who's yo Daddy" with? A she-critter would have to suddenly arise, at nearly the same moment in time, and she'd have to be ready to do the nasty, and we all know how problematic that can be.

ANYONE who's studied any REAL biology knows, that when you are dealing with populations that have shrunk to one mating pair, they are already extinct in a practical sense, the games over for them.

Also, instead of studying marx at his father's knee, dear old daddy Gould should have taken his ass to a mule farm, so he wouldn't be stupid enough to concoct silly schit like this.

10-4 there.

Killed a bunch of 'smart' suckers too.

Can you imagine having to care for it? No one has much of an idea of their diet except for samples that were found indicating alpine type forage in their mouths and undigested in the stomachs.

I cannot imagine the clamor if it were to die as a calf though?



There is evidence that seems to support that. Some of the petroglyphs could have been stories of stories, I suppose. I've seen some petroglyphs near Dinosaur Nat'l Monument that just make ya' stand there with your mouth open. Not sure what they were trying to convey. It seems too far north for peyote, but maybe the traded for the stuff.



It's quite an eye opener. Check out these links.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/whale-fossils-found-driest-desert-earth-154935450.html

http://www.platetectonics.com/book/page_11.asp

From the last link...

"Fossilized Sea Shells near Himalayan Peaks?
When archaeologists found the fossilized remains of ancient sea-creatures near the peaks of the Himalayas they were, understandably, puzzled. Intriguing questions were raised. Was there once an ocean or other large body of water at the top of this enormous mountain range? Unlikely.

Had the entire planet, Himalayas and all, at some point in Earth�s long history, been submerged underwater? Possibly - but highly improbable. No theory could fully explain this apparent paradox. Until the theory of plate tectonics was put forth."

Could it have been the Genesis Flood...well??? Naahhh.


ICR folks have some articles regarding rapid upheaval and tectonic plates shifting much faster due to runaway subduction of the silicate layer that explains the Genesis Flood description. In the Biblical account, there was a lot of water trapped beneath the earth's surface. When that containment ruptured, the earth flooded rapidly as well as the rain from the firmament above, which may have been foreign to folks prior to the flood. The resulting volcanic activity emitting the particulates in the air that provided the condensation nuclei to cause the firmament above to collapse seems to make some sense to me anyway.

Thank you.

Eyeball, that is damn funny. Where in heck did you find that---or did you write it yourself? If the latter, then you've got talent!

Thanks, I've had me a moment or two. Especially after enough crown and creek.

Feeding a mammoth... who knows! If they can get it past infancy it will tell them what it likes to eat. Hopefully modern intestinal fauna will work for it; they say there's an amazing level of symbiosis with our gut fauna- there's a good thread right there!- even to a genetic level.

Plus they can always clone up another one, right?

I don't think there's much question how or when the Sandia fossils I mentioned got there, so to speak. I've read about it, seen animations of what happened broadly speaking... Plate tectonics is cool stuff. So is the "moth and rust" that happens over long periods of time. I love reading about things like how entire huge mountain ranges have eroded away- like in Appalachia.

I suspect that there was a flood that inspired the tales in the Bible. I'm sure it seemed to them at the time that the whole world was flooding; for them, it was! It makes for powerful mythology.

But the whole world didn't flood 6000 years ago. Nope.

Really, the only time this stuff is worthy of "hot" debate is when a religion tries to assert it's influence to direct or influence public funding of... science stuff. Educational stuff. I don't mock people's irrational beliefs (well, maybe a little) and I reserve the right to my own damn irrational beliefs, thank you very much... <g>. But, religion has no business stifling the communication of truth, in the public sector, in favor of that religion's myths, no business at all. THAT'S where I get riled up. Whether evolution is exactly correct, or just mostly correct... it's a heck of a lot more correct than religion's (any religion) Creation Myths.

I still find it amazing that with all the holes that the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics poke in evolution, that people say it takes more faith to believe "an old guy in the sky" created the unfathomably complex reality we live in, versus "it just makes itself, eventually".

If evolution were true, 95% of the people I meet wouldn't exist.

That's cause you're like a culture growing in a Petri Dish,....albeit to fast
crap,....you've crammed 40 years of BPCR shooting into 3 months.

We stand in [bleep]' AWE of a life form that evolves that quickly, swampy.

Sigourny Weaver,....wtf, over ?

GTC

Those areas were likely at the bottom of an ancient sea at one time, and 'pushed up' by geological forces at a later time.

Some 'smart people' never contemplate the possibility of what has actually happened.

I'm ok with that with my edits

You get incensed over a religion being foisted on you, yet are perfectly fine with your religion of secular humanistic religion of self-worship being rammed down our throats and all that being foisted on my kids under the guise of poor excuse for a public education system I pay to support. It's at that point that we speak up and then you and your folks have a fit manifesting the most hypocritical arguments in existence about Christians pushing their religion on you.

I suspect it's because the thought that there is a God just might rattle your inner being and the manifestation is seen in the form of vitriol toward anything that may upset the need for self-aggrandizement

In less than 6000 years?

If creation is true God deserves a smack up side the head for many of the people he's created .

Maybe a question that is just as valid is, why is there exposed land mass? If the earth was smoothed out like it should be if it was cooling down from a molten blob it would have a smoother surface than it presently does. With our present oceans the water would be two miles deep. God's Word mentions God pushed down the low places and raised up the high places.

But there's something else to think about. According to Ph.D. geologists the entire continents would be eroded into the ocean in fourteen million years. If you want to argue that the same geologists will tell us the same continents are rising are a rate to at least match the errosion rate, you are correct. This brings up a very fun point for the creationists.

If the continents are eroding, which includes the dirt and stones, why are there still fossil bearing strata? Why is there geostatic pressure that pushes oil out of a fresh well?

Uh...........no!

Millions and millions of years ago.

The irony of the thread is that most of the individuals accepting the existence of evolution also accept the existence of God (or Goddess, depending on who's checking in...)

On the other hand, the Creationists reject even the notion of evolution in favor of literal application of ancient writings, translated into English, by the fallible hand of man, despite clear and abundant evidence that the timeline isn't possible.

Who's really close-minded and arrogant?

You brought up Gould to support your position.
I quoted from Eldredge & Gould's original paper to show that he did not support your positon.
Gould instantly becomes "silly schit".
You criticize me for thinking him "profound" when I said nothing of the sort.



That is creation and is not predicted or even allowed by evolution. Evolution is a change in gene frequency in a population over time. Populations evolve not individuals. Under natural conditions no individual can ever give birth to another species.


If you are in the creation business it makes some sense to create a pair of new critters if they are expected to reproduce.


Absolutely correct. I did't want to bring Noah into this but ...

You seem to be arguing against creationism now.

[quote]



The story about the great flood has always been a question in my simple mind. The world only has so much water. It�s either found as a gas-vapor, as above ground liquid, below ground liquid or as ice. It is a finite amount. When you look at the story of the Great Flood one has to ask where did the extra water come from and where did it go after the flood? To evaporate that amount of water would take a huge amount of energy and where did tat come from? Where did Noah put all of the fish that he was tasked to put away in pairs of 2 and the amount of food needed upon the Arc would have been huge as well?

It is a great story that was thought up to teach a moral and as children we need stories and morals. Very little fact here guys.

What? You don�t believe that koala bears swam across the ocean from Australia to the Middle East carrying a supply of eucalyptus leaves sufficient for the round trip so they could get on the ark and avoid drowning? Heathen!

Well.........no

but under with plate tectonics, the koalas didn't have to go very far, since Australia was actually right next to ... wait. Does creationism accept the concept of plate tectonics?

Stop tellin' the truth!
And while you're at it.....stop makin' sense!

You guys are going to make the Creationist mad now!


God said it so I believe it. End of Story! Never question your preacher, unless he is banging your wife, daughter or son.

RE Plate Tectonics
Apparently not:

Ringman -
�Maybe a question that is just as valid is, why is there exposed land mass? If the earth was smoothed out like it should be if it was cooling down from a molten blob it would have a smoother surface than it presently does. With our present oceans the water would be two miles deep. God's Word mentions God pushed down the low places and raised up the high places.�

But again, this notion that belief in evolution (or in this case "secular humanism") equates to a religion is just nonsense. It's an attempt to completely change the terms of the debate by destroying any destinction between religious and non-religious behaviors.

School is a place for teaching facts, or at least our best current understanding of them. Some things- nutrition comes to mind- have changed dramatically, and what was taught as fact a few decades ago turned out to be wrong. The neat thing about science, as opposed to religion, is that the scientific process can admit it is wrong and move forward. Religion, being based on dogma, cannot, generally speaking.

Another problem with the inclusion of creation myths as fact in school curricula is which myths to teach! Shall it be decided by majority? By which religion is willing to be most violent about it? Proportionally? By committee? Shall we sacrifice goats and use their entrails to decide? Etc.

But returning to the notion that secular humanism is a religion. I'm no religiosity expert, Lord knows, but working off the top of my head here it seems that religions require a God or Gods, an entity to whom one pledges their soul, an entity that is seen as powerful beyond compare, wise beyond comprehension, and so on.

The notion that "science" (or Darwin!) is viewed as such an entity is absurd. Science seeks to understand things that are powerful beyond compare; science seeks to codify the sum of human wisdom. It does not embody those things.

In summary: calling evolution or secular humanism a religion is a weak play, intended to give the faithful a fallback position to retreat to when, in my opinion, they have lost the debate.

Jeff-O:


Very well put.

I fully believe the Creation account. I also happen to believe, with Biblical evidence, there was a long period of time (likley hundreds of millions of years) between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.

To another point, man is fallible: God is not. God would not provide an account of His story, with flaws. Wherever they are presumed to be found, one must contemplate misunderstanding of scripture based on human failings, or that the real meaning or reconciliation will be revealed when we are face to face.

It would be if it were so, however his post is fully incorrect and begging the point.

Rick:


Your dealing with Faith vs Science (which also requires faith with evidence) The bible is a book of storys that have been handed down to teach man how to act with some morals, except when we want to over run another culture in the name of our god.

Tough sell with out blinders.

The smilarities are there, both require faith in absence of concrete proof.

I would say that since there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of creation scientists, and there are quite a few unexplainable holes in evolution theory, the debate is far from over.

What remains to be seen is whether the faithful of evolution theory will ever acknowledge it.

I hear what you are saying. It is a theory and the point is to continue to examine it. It is not a law, far from it. The Creation Story is just a story though.

Not necessarily. You are assuming that a Creator would be bound by the constraints of Physical Law that exist in our universe.

That might not be true.

SCOTUS disagrees...

Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda. Check it out. One of their Holidays.... Darwin Day.

Secular Humanist themselves disagree, and do in fact consider themselves a religion. Any simplistic google search would reveal that....

Then any search on Darwin and Humanism would show that evolution is in fact boldy united as a foundational tenent of Humanism.

Fact. Evolution is the faith of Secular Humanism.

IMO, if evolution is taught, then so should Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, and Intelligent Design. All of which are various interpretations of the SAME scientific data. All of which are based upon theories of faith.

Imagine, students with a well rounded education!!


Can't have that, when Utopian propoganda is so much more useful to the State.

That's where we disagree Jeff.
It is not a weak play.

Your unwillingness to concede that I'm allowed a belief that your version of science is a theory is the wholesale mentality as to how gov'ts gain control over the people. Look all through history, including the Church history where the authorities promulgate nothing that will permit thinking outside the system and, in fact, keep the people oppressed through ignorance by asserting a religion. In this case the religion is secular humanism...man is his own god.

If you want to treat secular humanism as FACT and teach it in school as such, then you are indeed practicing fascism, pure and simple, foisting your beliefs on unsuspecting children and forcing them to believe something in a manner that is by all accounts, extortion. If the students refuse to regurgitate the beliefs of the system, they are failed.

You want to call it a weak play because it's a strong play and the correct play.

Thank you, Sir!

Too easy!

HAJ: no. Evolution is not the faith of secular humanism.

Man, you guys see the world through colored glasses!

I guess I get it. In your religious belief system, there is that which is Godlike, or... pro-God. Then there's that which you perceive to be otherwise. In the black-and-white dichotomy of God v. Devil anything not Godlike is automatically assigned a corresponding, negative weight or value.

But HAJ, I say this with respect, but sir, this secular humanism = religion thing is one of he biggest crocks of [bleep] ever foisted upon believers. IT IS NOT A RELIGION. It is not remotely like a religion. It can only be seen as such if one's whole world revolves around this notion of God. Understand this: we don't believe in your God. Or any other God. We do not worship a God. We do not subscribe to a dogmatic belief system- which is a prerequisite for being religious in the sense you describe.

The lack of a religion is not a religion, and just because (I'm sorry) some cult thinks the world is out to get them, don't make it so.

School, public school, in a secular country, teaches the facts as we best understand them.

I have zero problem with teaching the various Creation Myths to kids in the schools- in a religious class, and with no preference given to the myths. Teach them all. They are all equally absurd, but, in that they are an interesting window into how the primitive mind saw the world, they are quite interesting and thought-provoking.

But they are absurd. A list of the various creation myths would demonstrate the utter fultility and blatant intellectual dishonesty in trying to teach ANY of them as "fact".

On the other hand, there's an overwhelming body of evidence that shows that every single one of those creation myths does not jibe with the geological and anthropological record. So, even though science can, will, and does make mistakes, it still provides us with the most cogent and well-vetted mechanism for interpreting the physical world around us.

Jeff, define religion as you understand it.

The existance or lack of existance of a diety has no part in defining a religion.

Here's one. I say we give this equal footing with, say, Christianity. And Darwin.

"Marduk Creates the World from the Spoils of Battle

����� In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names. Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no mountans, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters.

����� It was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then two more who outgrew the first pair. These further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of rivers and was Tiamat and Apsu's geat-grandson, was born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods, and with his magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his forebears.

����� Apsu and Tiamat's descendents became an unruly crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability to sleep with the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he proposed to her that he slay their noisy offspring. Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan, but after leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his murderous plan. When the young gods heard of his plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but soon Ea was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu, pulled Apsu's crown from his head, and slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu's waters, and it was there that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the rains and storms.

����� The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained of how Ea had slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and at its head she placed the god Kingu, whom she gave magical powers as well. Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father's battle, on the condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory. The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and scepter.

����� Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat's monstrous army. Rolling his thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu's battle plan soon disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting in it, and he shot an arrow down her throat. It split her heart, and she was slain.

����� After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigirs and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.

����� Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebeled by burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Timat's general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu's blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals."

Jeff, I'm not offended sir. I thank you for taking the steps to maintain a civil discussion here. I will do the same.

Can you answer me this?

Is atheism a religion?

Sounds crazy doesn't it!?

Using science to support it is no different than using science to support Biblical claims, which is ALSO, no different than using science to support the wildly accepted religion of Humanism, and it's off shoots (e.g. secular humanism).

Merriam disagrees. Bold added by me.


Main Entry: re�li�gion
Pronunciation: \ri-&#712;li-j&#601;n\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back � more at rely
Date: 13th century
1 a : the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
� re�li�gion�less adjective

You'll run with number 4, but it's fool's gold my friend. Fair warning.

Science is better served if theories were not taught as fact.

Science would be better served if data was just that, data.

Science would be better served if theories (hypothesis) remained in their part of the scientific method and not placed as the conclusion of the science.

Atheism is a religeon in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.

So instead we are gonna TEACH CREATIONISM AS FACT?!

I've been taught a fair amount of scientific FACT in my day, by the way.

...and all debate would be better served if its participants knew the difference between an opinion, a belief, a hypothesis, a theory and a fact.

Best be careful we don't piss off Marduk.

I'm thinking it needs to be written into the textbooks as an equal alternative to, oh, entire disciplines of physical science.

Yes? No? Why not?


"Marduk Creates the World from the Spoils of Battle

����� In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names. Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no mountans, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters.

����� It was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then two more who outgrew the first pair. These further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of rivers and was Tiamat and Apsu's geat-grandson, was born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods, and with his magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his forebears.

����� Apsu and Tiamat's descendents became an unruly crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability to sleep with the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he proposed to her that he slay their noisy offspring. Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan, but after leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his murderous plan. When the young gods heard of his plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but soon Ea was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu, pulled Apsu's crown from his head, and slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu's waters, and it was there that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the rains and storms.

����� The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained of how Ea had slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and at its head she placed the god Kingu, whom she gave magical powers as well. Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father's battle, on the condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory. The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and scepter.

����� Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat's monstrous army. Rolling his thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu's battle plan soon disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting in it, and he shot an arrow down her throat. It split her heart, and she was slain.

����� After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigirs and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.

����� Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebeled by burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Timat's general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu's blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals."

My bolds added.

Now, since using a word to define itself is never accepted in accademia, let us define "religious" and "religious faith".

Here is how Websters defines "religious"





Bold on the word "OR".

Since the word "belief" is used in all of these definitions, we need to look at that too.

The point is, Jeff, even these definitions support the idea that Humanism and Atheism are, in fact, Religions. The existance or lack there of of a diety does not itself define a Religion.

If that were the case, then Atheist would have zero claim against school prayer, as prayer would not step on their "beliefs", since they aren't a religion.

It is a theistic belief structure and therefore a religion.

Where did I say that?

I am just pointing out that by every deffinition out there, Secular Humanism is, in fact, a religion.

I would agree! Then maybe they would use them accordingly, instead of twist them to advance some sort of agenda.

Don't twist it. All along the discussion has been that creation and evolution are theories. NEITHER can be proven.

YOU said that "WE" teach the "facts" as "WE" understand them.

We'll, So I ask again. Who are the "WE" again?

Plenty of ph.D's who understand the sciences involved in the theories of origin I'd rather have teaching my children regarding origin than the public school system drones. But since they don't speak the language of the state religion, they are rejected.

Teach the science. That's what I'm suggesting.

Evolution isn't science so much as it is a contruct in which to explain the science, much like creationism and intelligent design are.

Exactly. Initially, evolution seems to make sense -over eons of time things change, and to some extent that is true, but animals don't become humans.

So not believing in unicorns is a religion too? Atheism is just a lack of belief in gods, not a belief that there isn't one.

At it's most fundamental level, the notion of "science" seeks facts, provable and replicatable facts. In pursuit of this, there's an entire system of how such knowledge is pursued, vetted, and assigned a degree of certainty.

At it's most fundamental level, religion seeks converts. In pursuit of them, there's an entire system of how such converts are to be converted, via fear, relief from suffering, and of course indoctrinated belief in blatantly non-factual mythology and doctrine.

The former has every reason to be presented in public-school classrooms.

The latter does not.

I don't know that evolution is being taught as a fact. Been out of school a while. It was taught to me as the most likely conclusion given the available evidence. That's how science should be taught. Scientists have done themselves no favors with the global warming crap for sure. Saying things like "the debate is settled" is absolutely contrary to how it's supposed to work and gives rise to all sorts of suspicions about other science. Physicist lay awake at night thinking of ways to poke holes in other physicist's theories and that's how it should be.

Critical thinking should be taught. Kids should be taught to look at the evidence, draw falsifiable conclusions based on the evidence, and adjust accordingly when new evidence is available. If they understand that, then it is a given that everything from evolution to quantum mechanics is subject to revision if contrary evidence presents itself.

Teaching creation is like teaching transubstantiation in that they are not falsifiable. Both are removed from the physical world and can't be proven or tested one way or another.

That's nonsense. But it's how state run religions operate.

And, by those remarks, seeking converts is precisely what you are trying to do.

Total hypocrisy

Except, it's not a State-run religion. Instead, it's an expression of scientific theory that happens to disagree with the creation myth of YOUR (and every other) religion. This upsets you and yours, and y'all pull every semantic and linguistic trick you can to try and equate two things that couldn't be much more different.

I'm sure there's a country somewhere you could move to that doesn't believe in secular schools, and believes in teaching creationism.

Genesis jibes pretty well with what science has to say about the origin of life on earth.

Prevailing scientific theories are not the equivalent of hypotheses. A hypothesis is an educated guess. It can rise to a scientific theory only after it survives intensive challenge and scrutiny.

+1

what i want to know is how many teeth a horse is supposed to have?

should we ask a holy man or a scientist? either one will do, so long as they know the answer.

So we're not animals?

I thought atheism was the belief that there is no God, while agnosticism was the mere absence of belief in God.

I suppose you are forgetting that a large reason why this country was inhabited from England and other countries in the first place was the opportunity for freedom from state run religion? Freedom from state run religion and religious persecution. Your state run system, I doubt teaches that any more either though.

Now you and your kind want to drive anyone who disagrees with you out. Tyranny and hypocrisy is just too telling.

Really? Better read it again. There are some sequences that you might find troubling in that regard. Particularly when you read that the earth was created before the sun and stars, but after light defining night and day.

What does that have to do with what I said? I spoke of life.

That said, the sun and the stars are considered parts of the heavens, which was listed before the earth.

Thirdly, Genesis wasn't written as a scientific treatise.

guess you did.

anyway....gotta run.

Except, it's not a State-run religion. Instead, it's an expression of scientific theory that happens to disagree with the creation myth of YOUR (and every other) religion. This upsets you and yours, and y'all pull every semantic and linguistic trick you can to try and equate two things that couldn't be much more different.

Teaching creation myths in public school as fact would, however, qualify as state-run religion. That's why we don't do it.

I don't want to run you out. You seem like good people. I just don't want my kid presented with your religion as if it were fact. What would be next? Teaching virgin birth in Health class? Resurrection from death in physiology? Walking on water in PE?

Agnostics can go either way. That deals with lack of knowledge. You can not know and still believe or not believe. Most atheists I know are agnostic atheists. They don't see a reason to believe in gods given the lack of evidence as a default position but believing there isn't one would require faith. Kinda like not believing in unicorns. Somebody may find one someday wandering around in the jungle but it seems unlikely.

x 10^10!!!

That is the single funniest post on the internet EVER

Hardly. You have no understanding of science if you think that. Facts are collections of details. Science is a rational understanding of that the details mean. You have missed this entirely. Back to square one with you.



If we are to play the semantics game, then you need to separate theories and hypotheses. They are not the same. You have much ground to cover to begin to understand what science is, never mind what it is telling us.

Well, I'm not.

You're just another "Siri" kind of being then. Well THAT explains a lot.

I feel better now knowing you aren't a human after all.

Though shalt not bear false witness....
I think I stated I was not an animal. You profess intelligence and can not read?

I am! Proud of it.

I sometimes wonder how much time peeps have spent with animals, that they'd think they are so different.

Are you vegetable, or perhaps angelic?

No, but several women have called me 'oh god'

I still think he must be digital, but if not, then the only other possibility is fungal. He has the mindset of a good portabella, but the imagination of a Psilocybin 'shroom.

Ten bucks says you woke up right after that!

That's the closely-related unihorn. everyone knows unicorns went extinct with the dinos.

Oh you so owe me a ten spot. You can't imagine being a single dr driving a 79 mark 5. You can't imagine the things I was called. I had to remove the screen from a back window of the apt I had and put a set of steps below the window.

That would plum tucker a guy out....

Hard to keep from telling the same stories over and over to the same person.

Walt,
Not all religions are "religious". Webster backs me up on this: Religion: cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. Evolution and environmental sciences certainly fit that definition. But I commend adherents for the faith extended. I don't have it in me.

ricky,
There certainly are people who "believe" in evolution. But what you fail to understand is that there are also a large number of people who actually understand it. They follow the inescapable logic and mathematics and they know what evolution is at a very fundamental level. They are not "believers" nor could evolution as a science fit that description.

Sadly, today, few folks even attempt to understand something as simple as the basics of evolutionary biology. If they did, they would no more argue against it than they would argue that the earth is round, not flat.

Strange how after all these years those finches didn't get bigger or faster so they could avoid being kestrel food.

really old news. What's your point - it is a nice example of character displacement - natural selection - in action.

Natural selection- they would get bigger, tougher, faster, hooked beaks, and meaner- anything for survival.

They aren't evolving for survival - they are staying kestrel dinner.

No.

Again, you display a total lack of understanding of the concept in just about every way imaginable.

If amoebas became Protozoa, why is there still amoebas? Did the stupid ones stay behind the curve like today's dimocraps?

Who said amoebas became protozoans?

That is like saying oranges became trees (all trees)...

Please try to learn something before asking stupid questions.

A six day creationist (I forgot his name but could come up with it) at San Dias national Lab developed the program for modeling plate techtonics which actually fit the world as we see it.

I do not accept that definition as valid as stated. I'm guessing it was down the list of definitions a bit?

By that definition virtually any "system" that people get horned up over is religion. That is simply not the case.

Or lack thereof.

Here's a quote from the introduction of the 1956 printing of Origin of Speices

On the other hand, it does appear to me, in the first place, that Darwin in the Origin was not able to produce paleontological evidence sufficient to prove his views but that the evidence he did produce was adverse to them; and I may note that the position is not notably different to-day. The modern Darwinian paleontologists are obliged, just like their predecessors and like Darwin, to water down the facts with subsidiary hypotheses which, however plausible, are in the nature of things unverifiable. Introduction to The Origin of Species 6th Edition (1956) pp. xvii-xix

Who wrote the intro?

That doesn't surprise me. I'd understood that his theory has been tweaked extensively since 18-whatever-it-was. But I'm no expert and will listen.

Look... in my heart of hearts it would not surprise me one bit if life on earth had been seeded, or if there have been interventions along the way. That'd be COOL, actually. It may turn out that this is the conclusion humanity eventually comes to- that Darwinism was wrong to some degree and that the evolution of life has been tweaked or guided to some extent. That is absolutely possible as far as I'm concerned.

So I'm onboard with that possibility.

Where I part ways with the modern Creationist movement is that they are attempting to insert their religion, Christianity, into this... They are trying to literally change the textbooks in our public schools to insert their religion as if it was valid science. That is NUTS. It's just as nuts as if the people who believe in the Mordak stuff below were trying to get their religion put into the textbooks.


"Marduk Creates the World from the Spoils of Battle

����� In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names. Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no mountans, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters.

����� It was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then two more who outgrew the first pair. These further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of rivers and was Tiamat and Apsu's geat-grandson, was born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods, and with his magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his forebears.

����� Apsu and Tiamat's descendents became an unruly crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability to sleep with the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he proposed to her that he slay their noisy offspring. Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan, but after leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his murderous plan. When the young gods heard of his plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but soon Ea was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu, pulled Apsu's crown from his head, and slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu's waters, and it was there that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the rains and storms.

����� The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained of how Ea had slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and at its head she placed the god Kingu, whom she gave magical powers as well. Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father's battle, on the condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory. The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and scepter.

����� Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat's monstrous army. Rolling his thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu's battle plan soon disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting in it, and he shot an arrow down her throat. It split her heart, and she was slain.

����� After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigirs and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.

����� Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebeled by burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Timat's general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu's blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals."
_________________________

Again, all of your questions illustrate that you've never made any effort to investigate what science says about evolution.

I guess you missed the part about me making a 'a' in comparative anatomy. I only got a 'b' in genetics but it was because the mid- term was one genetic problem that took an hour to work through. I was the only one in class who got it right so the sucker ended up throwing it out.

The trouble with arguments from authority is authorities can be wrong. The trouble with quoting from an introduction is that anyone can write an introduction and include personal bias. Even Ray "Banana Man" Comfort wrote an amazingly nonsensical intorduction the Origin of Species. The trouble with quotes from 1956 is that a great deal has been learned since then in every branch of science. The leading experts of 1956 in physics, cosmology, chemistry, aeronautics, computer science and every other branch of science made their contributions and have been left in the dust by over half a century of hard work by their decendents. As evidence the above quote is an extremely leaky bucket.

What I have not seen from the creationist side of the isle, and would very much like to see, is any sort of positive argument.

So I respectfully request from the creationist camp: an argument, based on verifiably accurate evidence, that is indicicative of miraculous creation over biological evolution or any other avenue of actual science.

No, I didn't miss that. That's inadequate, as exemplified by your obvious lack of basic understanding about what evolution proposes.

Do you have any idea just how moronic that question is? Most likely not, I suppose. You slime dwellers don't read much philosophy, or logic, do you?

You are making claims about reality. Why would you expect anyone to accept them as true if you refuse to provide any evidence? Please explain why asking for evidence of a claim is morinic. Use simple words that we mere slime dwellers can understand. Do you have anything to offer this discussion other than unwarranted insults?

wswolf,

Someone posted that their evolutionist has won every debate against creationists. The last debate I know Dr. Kindell did was with a Ph.D biologist. When it came time for the rebuttal the evolutionist said, "There's nothing I can say to rebutt Dr.Kindel." Here is part of an essay I wrote to myself so I have a reason from science to believe creationists have it correct while evolutionists don't.

Based on science there is not enough time for evolution to take place. If you don't take time to read it try to control yourself and not attack it. You will only look silly to those who do read it.

Like a parrot repeats things, I quote those who have studied and/or done research; whether in the lab or in the field. I read many books and listened to several lectures by Drs. Thomas J. Kindell, Henry Morris, Duane T. Gish, Clifford Wilson, John Morris, Donald Chittick, Jon Salin, and many others. Dr. Kindell is author of the almost unique book Evolution On Trial With Evolutionist At The Witness Stand. He uses the quotes of prominent evolutionist to show that to the unbiased person, the physical evidences in the earth tend to support creation. Dr. Henry Morris is perhaps the most prolific author of scientific creation material. He is the author of books such as The Genesis Flood, The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth, Many Infallible Proofs, Scientific Creationism, and many more. Dr. Gish wrote Evolution: The Fossils Say No, which was updated and renamed Evolution, Challenge of the Fossil Record about twenty years ago, which I believe has sold about 2,000,000 copies. He recently put out another book. The new work is titled Evolution: the Fossils Still No. Dr. Gish is probably the most prominent debater for special creation, from a scientific stand point, in the world today. Jon Slin wrote Genetic Entropy and the mystery of the Genome. All of these men are very interesting speakers and generally speak on a layman's level. The material used in this essay is from these men, and others not listed. I have listened to Dr. Kindell more than all the others combined. Therefore, I use his quotes and thoughts more than those of the other authors. In one of Dr. Kindell's lectures, he started by bringing up the point that,

"The single most controversial of all the controversial subjects in the whole creation evolution spectrum of evidences is the age of the earth. The age of the earth is the ultimate, absolute sacred cow of the individuals who believe in the theory of evolution. The common people on the street don't know much about thermal dynamics, quantum mechanics, or mathematical probability. They don't know anything about genetics or biochemistry, or even about the gaps in the fossil record. The evolutionists know that the average person on the street knows one thing positively: If there is credible evidence that the earth is relatively young...on the order of just thousands of years instead of billions of years, then the average man on the street realizes that evolution is impossible. They more or less understand that the time frame is the ultimate Achilles� heel of evolution. It has to have an enormous (enormous with a capitol "E") time frame. If you take away that enormous time frame, the whole concept collapses, having absolutely nothing to stand on."

Neither creationists nor evolutionists can absolutely prove, based on the scientific method, how old the earth is. Science is the result of testing and retesting, observing and verifying. Whenever you extrapolate into the past, you have to take present process rates and assume that the process rate has not changed as you go back into the past. There is another untestable but major assumption made. One assumes no other influences or factors took place in the past to change rate. This is called uniformitarianism. Of course there is no way in the world to scientifically know what happened in the distant past. Like creationists, evolutionists just have to use a lot of blind faith. Ken Hamm observes, "If you had someone who was there, then you could know for sure." Dr. Kindell says, "There is an eye witness Who was there, Who saw the origin of the universe and Who knows everything."

There is an almost universal belief in one historical event. Dr. Clifford Wilson says that in almost every culture of the approximately 200 that he has studied, there is belief in a world wide flood. He agrees with most anthropologists and archeologists that if something shows up in several different cultures, it has its origin in fact; based on the scientific principle of cause and effect. This is the bedrock for scientific investigation.

If there really was a world wide flood we would find enormous unmistakable evidence for it. There appears to have been a huge "local" flood at almost any road cut sight in any country in the world and regional floods where ever a canyon is cut. Geologists, archeologists, paleontologists and average individuals find evidence of marine life just about anywhere that man has chosen to investigate. Is there an extremely accurate historical document that tells the educated world that a world wide flood actually occurred?

We will look at a very limited amount of the generous circumstantial evidence which God created. Dr. Kindell said in a lecture,
"That's what we have to deal with when it comes to looking at the age of the universe and the earth from the scientific perspective. When you put all the physical evidences of processes that we can measure in the earth and the solar system, WE FIND THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM FALL ON THE SIDE OF YOUNG AGES. (Most people don't know this because of at least two reasons. One is they've been brainwashed all their lives, and the second is this material is not usually mentioned.) The indicated ages are much more in line with the Biblical teaching."

Biblical ages can be determined from the genealogies which were inspired by God and listed in the Scriptures. Six thousand (6,000) years old is young if you compare it to the four point six billion (4,600,000,000) years that the evolutionist constantly try to use.

How about the sign that used to instruct guests at Yellowstone National Park about the twenty-seven petrified forests? The park service, being influenced by the prejudiced belief that the earth is billions of years old and the Flood of Noah�s time did not occur, wanted to help the visitors understand the �scientific facts�. The sign proudly, but ignorantly, informed the viewer that the petrified forests are standing in the very place where they grew over a period of several million years.

Then Mount Saint Helens erupted. About one-half a cubic mile of dirt, rocks, ash and geological debris slid down the mountain. This debris displaced all the water in Spirit Lake making the whole lake a tidal wave. It raced up the side of the next hill uprooting everything in its path. Eventually gravity brought the lake back to a new lakebed; along with a million trees or more. Eventually, the trees became waterlogged and sank. Dr. Steve Austin dove to the bottom of the lake and observed the trees appeared as though they were growing in place. Some creationists took this knowledge to Yellowstone, and with permission, dug around the petrified trees. None of them have roots. At least none with roots longer than two to three feet long. That means every one of them had been uprooted from somewhere else and violently transported by water to their present location. We are talking about a petrified forest of forty square miles! Sounds like Noah�s Flood.

While the creationists were researching the roots, they also checked the tree rings. Again, all as in every petrified tree checked anywhere in the world, had less than one thousand seven hundred growth rings. You might ask, So what! What�s the big deal? Here is the fun answer. All the speakers I have heard or read on the subject maintain the Flood of Noah happened 1,656 years after Creation Week. Today we find trees over three thousand years old. Some Bristlecone pine trees even have up to four thousand five hundred rings. These same species, when discovered as petrified, always have less than one thousand seven hundred growth rings. Does this prove they started growing during Creation Week? No, but it is interesting, isn�t it.

Dr. Kindell teaches there are two dating systems that are used primarily by evolutionist as absolute proof that the earth and the universe have to be billions of years old. Radiometric dating is one. Although it masquerades as absolute dating, it�s not absolute, because it is based on un-provable assumptions. (Before we go any further, does it seem reasonable to think there would be a product which appears to be daughter product, but in fact if evolution is true, is on the way to becoming the radio active material in the first place?) What would happen to some of the calculations if God created some of these processes in equilibrium just six thousand years ago? Obviously, they are guaranteed to be inaccurate for dating millions or billions of years. Dr. Kindell is somewhat paraphrased in the following statement.
"Arbitrary assumptions are influenced by the bias of the person doing the dating. Depending on what the arbitrary assumptions are and how the calculations are being made, one can make the age of the earth any age one wants. No one knows absolutely the correct values to plug into the equation. Basically, whoever is running the equation uses it to fill a particular philosophical bias to guide him in putting in the values. A scientist can make the earth appear very old or very young depending on how he wants to run the calculations. Therefore it is NOT convincing evidence to the informed objective reader."

Is it unreasonable to think God created radioactivity in balance with the appearance of one half-life expended? God says in His Word that He is of order. Consider this. How old did Adam and Eve, and in fact the entire universe, look when they were first created? They and the entire universe were mature. Living organisms were ready to produce, not reproduce, offspring. The idea of radiometric material starting out with no daughter material present is not scientific because science is not based on guessing. Perhaps the material was in equilibrium to start with. Only God knows. Science is based on things we can prove, and dating the origin of the earth by radiometric dating using the concept that no daughter material was present is guessing. We can just as easily use radiometric dating to "prove" that the earth is young.
Again using Dr. Kindell's words,

"Now lets change two fundamental and arbitrary assumptions that are used in the evolutionist's big bang cosmology. These things are absolutely blatant assumptions. These are things which are unequivocally not based on scientific information. These beliefs, held by blind faith, are required for the evolutionist to guarantee that they get a universe that appears to be billions of years old; based on the big bang. These evolutionist faith positions lessen the value of the central thyme of creation. They assume that the earth is not near the center of the universe. This has some philosophical implications as well as scientific. Some of the philosophical implications are that the planet earth is an obscure planet way off out there in some inconsequential solar system in a remote galaxy in a forgotten area of the universe. This then makes man of no significants.

They also assume that the universe has no boundaries. This is, of course, contradictory to the Big Bang theory because we think of the Big Bang as starting from a little dense particle, The Singularity, that inflates out and, in fact, has a boundary. It's like an ever expanding sphere and the earth could be near the center. But they say, 'No. We don't really use that assumption.' They don't use that because if they assume that the earth is located near the center of this expanding universe, and that it is a bounded universe rather than unbounded, then this expansion would create a tremendous time dilation according to the proven aspects of Einsteinian general relativity. Basically what Einstein theorized in general relativity, which has now been proven with the use of atomic clocks, is that time can be different in different parts of the universe; based on the influence of gravity. (Don't confuse this with his special theory of relativity which deals with velocity time dilation; based on the idea that getting closer to the speed of light affects time so that time becomes different and relative.) Gravitational time dilation has been proven. It is scientific knowledge."

Some very fun information for the Bible believer has been brought to light by some non-creationists. Dr. Hubble, for which the Hubble telescope was named, and others have discovered by measuring the red shifts of galaxies, the earth certainly appears to be in the center of the universe. The Milky Way Galaxy is surrounded by a sphere of galaxies, which is surrounded by a sphere of galaxies, which is surrounded by a sphere of galaxies for about fifteen million light years. If the Milky Way was moved in any direction by one fifteenth of one percent (.0006%) of the assumed diameter of the universe, the spherical shaped dispersion of the galaxies would not be observable. They would blur together. To be sure, to the casual observer, it certainly appears we are in the center of the universe. But then, this is where Jesus shed His blood to redeem His creation. With all that said, we are going to look at evidences which give relatively young ages for the earth and all of God's creation. This changes the blind faith into informed faith.

We are now going to look at a few things that positively do not grant the evolutionist enough time for his theory to take place. These are from real scientific observations that can be verified by any objective observer who wishes to accept the truth rather than accept what he has been taught blindly.
The first one to be considered here is the deterioration of short term comets. The short term comets are those like Halley's Comet which come around about every fifty years to two hundred years. Dr. Kindell likened comets to dirty snowballs. These comets orbit the sun in highly elliptical orbits. Their tails always point away from the sun because the sun's radiation or solar wind actually blows material off the comet which forms the tail. Obviously they can't orbit forever since they are loosing mass. Eventually they will be gone. Astronomers have actually observed comets breaking up and disintegrating. It's interesting that all the short term comets would be completely disintegrated within as little as ten thousand years. The fact that short term comets are still here would indicate that the solar system was created less than ten thousand years ago.

Evolutionists often appeal to the Oort Cloud. It is cold so it can not be observed by infrared telescopes. It is dark so it can�t be seen with optical telescopes. In other words, it is not science it is accepted by blind faith. It is an ad hock invention to get around the obviously young solar system.

Another evidence from our solar system is the fact that we have dust and small asteroids close to the sun. This material is also acted on by that same solar radiation: This radiation acts on the fine dust and actually blows it out of the solar system. The dust actually accelerates to many tens of thousands of miles per hour. From about two inches and up, the asteroids are too big to actually be pushed out. The solar wind acts on them in such a way that their orbital speed decreases. When they are going too slowly to orbit, they just spiral into the sun. We can see that both by pushing the material out and causing it to spiral into the sun, the solar wind sweeps out or vacuums in the dust and fine debris in the solar system. Dr. Kindell says of this effect,
"It is so efficient that it would clean out every particle, out to the orbit of the planet Jupiter, in just two billion years. This is called the Poynting�Robertson effect; of course because of the scientists Pointeen and Robertson worked it out. There are tremendous amounts of fine dust and material remaining even very close to the sun. If the solar system is just six thousand years old, that would certainly explain why we have all this very fine material so close to the sun. That material should have been swept clean literally millions of years ago. So, this appears to be an indication of a relatively young age for the solar system, which of course includes earth"

We can see galaxies that are billions of light-years away. A light-year is the distance that light can travel at approximately one hundred eighty-six thousand (186,000) miles per second in a year's time. To save you the arithmetic, it is about six trillion (6,000,000,000,000) miles. And yet we can see stars and galaxies that are supposedly measured to be billions of light-years away. The light was supposedly traveling for billions of years to get from there to here. Using the present speed of light and the distance that light would have to travel today presents the same problem that every chronometer has when we try to extrapolate back into time. We are measuring the rate that we now see. Perhaps light traveled at an infinite speed when God first created it. We only have a hint of what this creation was prior to the Curse.

An interesting possibility was brought up by Dr. Russell Humphreys in his book called Starlight and Time. Solving the puzzle of distant starlight in a young universe. Dr. Humphreys outlines one possible way God could have created the universe to guarantee we would see the stars and galaxies no matter how far away He placed them. Consider the Scripture in Isaiah 40:22 where He "stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in." This actually teaches that God began the universe in the initial creation by starting it out in a very dense state and then spreading it out like someone stretching out a tent or a curtain. Hebrews 1:10-12 conversely teaches that God will eventually "roll them up:
"You, Lord, in the beginning did lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands; they will perish, but you remain; and they all will become old as a garment, and as a mantle you will roll
them up."
He rolled them out to start with and will roll them up when He is finished. Humphreys teaches that what Isaiah 40:22 states would be a definite way of explaining how we can see light from those stars and galaxies that are billions of light years away. Since the earth is located near the center of the universe, red shift would be explained. It also would explain so called back ground radiation which the Big Bang claims.

We will appeal to Dr. Kindell for the following information.
"The reason we could see the star light is that with tremendous gravitational influence, only six literal days would be passing on the earth and in our solar system, but the defused gravitational time dilation, according to Einstein, would cause everything out in the far reaches of space to be going extremely fast: Billions of years worth in time compared to earth. It has been established experimentally with atomic clocks that time is relative, as mentioned above.
"When God created the universe, He created time (see Titus 1), space, matter and energy. He created them to work according to the laws of physics, which includes relativity. Therefore, time can be different in different parts of the universe because of gravitational time dilation. Exodus 20:11 informs us that God 'in six days...created the heavens, the earth, the sea and everything in them. And on the seventh day He rested.' The Bible is written from the perspective of earth standard time. But in the far reaches of the cosmos because of its gravitational dilation from the expansion of the universe as God stretched out the heavens, light at its present speed would easily reach earth so that on the sixth day, Adam and Eve who were created as mature adults could look up and see stars and galaxies that are literally billions of light-years away. God did it in six days of earth standard time."

About 150 years ago a man by the name of Charles Lyell went around looking for some physical indicators on the earth that would disprove the biblical chronology. Dr. Kindell speculates about why Lyell did this. He says Lyell did this so he could say something like,

"Look we have physical evidence in the earth which cannot be correlated with the biblical chronology. Therefore the Bible is not to be taken literally. At best It is allegorical. It is not scientific. In fact, It is mythology. Therefore we can go and speculate about evolution, and all these ages of time, and we don't have to listen to what the Bible says anymore."

Dr. Kindell, in his lecture on the age of the earth, said that one thing Lyell looked at was the gorge below Niagara Falls. As the Niagara River follows its course and pours over the falls, it erodes the uplifted cliff from which it is falling. Over the years a big gorge has been cut back from where the cliff was uplifted a few thousand years ago. When Lyell visited the falls, he asked the local people how many feet it erodes each year. They told him it erodes two to three feet every year. Some of the locals had lived there for decades and had actually observed this during those years. Lyell observed it for a few months and declared (as Dr. Kindell paraphrased),
"In my view, it only erodes about one foot per year. These locals are a bunch of hicks who don't know anything. Therefore to erode that whole gorge, it took a lot longer than the six or seven thousand years that the Bible allows."

Consequently he went out and told anyone who would listen, "Anybody who believes the Bible is stupid, unscientific and ignores physical data and is an ignoramus living in the dark ages." I would ask, "Who was being ignorant and unscientific?" All the attacking worked for Lyell. A lot of Christians began to doubt the accuracy of the genealogies in God's Word. They were unwilling to hold on to the teachings of the fathers and believe the God of Scripture. The doubters began to say things like, "Well, I guess The Word can be reinterpreted. Maybe Lyell is right about The Bible being allegorical. The amount of time since creation is not important is it?" The first crack in the church's foundation started. In Psalm 11:3 It says, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" The Biblical authority was undermined by so-called Bible believing educators and leaders. From that point on, more and more cracks started and old ones spread. Cracks like, "How can we be sure God created in six literal days?", "Does 'virgin' in Matthew and Luke in reality mean a sexually pure girl or just a 'young' unmarried girl?", "Did Jesus really die on the cross?", "Perhaps there was no resurrection.", and "Isn't it allegorical that Jesus is returning for the church?" What then follows these cracks is the attack, "Since you can't trust some of your Bible, how can you believe any of it?" And our own experiences are challenged.

Isn't it hard to believe that just by challenging the age of the earth, the foundation of the church started crumbling? We must realize that the Word of God is the final authority on everything It addresses.

The orbit of the moon has been measured so long that science has documented its orbit is changing. It recedes about one and one half inches each year. There is an astronomical law called the Roche Limit. It states as a smaller astronomical body approaches a larger astronomical body, it can only come within a certain limited distance before the stronger gravity of the larger body will destroy the smaller body. As a result the moon could not have started any closer than the Roche Limit at its closest, and most likely has been receding ever since. If you put that in the perspective of billions of years, you'd look out in the sky and you wouldn't be able to find the moon. (A billion is a thousand millions and a million is a thousand thousands. We're talking a huge number.) It would be a speck of light like a planet or a star. The fact that the moon is still very prominent in the sky indicates that it has not been there very long.

Perhaps some of you saw the photographs in LIFE magazine many years ago (1954). A meteorite actually crashed through the roof of a woman�s house and hit the womaan on her thy. IT still a black burn where the skin was chared. Fortunately, the roof absorbed most of the energy. Possibly some of you have visited the big meteor crater in Arizona. It is quite spectacular. There are even larger ones that have been found as a result satellite photography. The craters was so huge that they were not recognized as a craters until man's technology had allowed him a more spectacular view of the earth that God created. At any rate, they show undoubtedly that the earth, even though it has a protective atmosphere, is periodically struck by meteorites. Apparently some of them are extremely large. There aren't huge numbers that hit the earth every year, and in fact in a single year it's not really very significant. But, if you multiply that by the evolutionist's billions of years, then the total number of impacts becomes very significant indeed.

We should be able to find many craters along with deposits of meteorite material almost anywhere in the crust of the earth. When we look in the strata of naturally open places like Grand Canyon, we should find tons, literally tons of meteorites or at least their fragments. The multiple hundreds of millions of them should be all over the place. What we find is an extreme absents of meteorite material. That�s why they bring such a high price when discovered. This is, as we creationist would predict, consistent with the idea of a young earth. Isn�t this what the Scripture indicates?

There is a famous picture taken from the Apollo Eight lunar mission when it orbited the moon. A picture of an earth rise over the horizon of the moon was taken and it very definitely depicts a difference between the earth and the moon. The conspicuous thing is earth has clouds: It obviously has an atmosphere which supplies some protection. The moon has no such atmosphere and is very pock marked with meteorite strikes and other space debris.

When scientists first began to think seriously about putting a man on the moon, a lot of them were concerned. They thought that it would be impossibility because it was billions of years old and the influx of meteoric dust from the cosmos would be almost an insurmountable problem. This dust was the object of lots of measurements during the sixties. The amount of material coming in was believed to have accumulated in a huge layer of dust on the moon. They assumed the dust to be at least fifty feet thick and un-solidified because the moon has no weather to consolidate and compact the dust. The general consensus was that very fine cosmic dust would be like sifted flower. Scientists were convinced the landing craft would disappear into this dust if men tried to land on the moon. They were so convinced they required the lunar craft to be built with large pads hopefully to float or rest on the dust. Neal Armstrong, the first man to step out of the space craft said, "I can scrape with my boot through the dust onto solid rock." It was about an inch thick. They were taken aback because the creationist began to point out, "Well look, if the astronauts had found that thick layer of dust, they would have said, 'It's because the moon is billions of years old.' but since they didn't find it we creationists use the reverse logic to show that the moon is rather young."

Measuring the dust has continued. The data from the sixties and the data we get now have some major inconsistencies. During the sixties about a thousand times more was coming into our atmosphere than what we measure now. This appears to indicate that this dust comes in waves. In spite of this, if the earth and the moon are billions of years old, there can be hundreds of fluctuations and there would still be a lot more than an inch of dust there. As Armstrong would tell you, "There's only enough for a good footprint."
In Dr. Kindell�s lecture on the age of the earth, he says,

"Conversely there is a reason the creationist would predict that there should be large quantities of dust on the moon if in fact it is billions of years old. The dust would be of lunar origin though, not from space. It is an aspect of lunar dust that presents a major problem to the thinking evolutionist. That is the fact that because the moon does not have the protection of an atmosphere, its surface is bombarded by full strength ultraviolet light and other cosmic radiation which is estimated to break down even the hardest lunar rocks at at least the rate of three ten thousandths of an inch per year. To give you an idea of how small that is, that's about 1/16 the thickness of a human hair. Not much. Again though, if you multiply that by just one billion years (remember a billion is a huge number that is casually thrown around by evolutionist), there would be thirty three thousand feet of pulverized, powdered rock on the surface of the moon That's enough to erode the entire lunar mountain ranges. The lunar mountain ranges are supposed to have been there for billions of years. As radiation strikes the tops of these mountains, gravitation would slough the material off the tops of them. The astronauts should have found, as they went out with the lunar rover, tremendous sloughed off deposits of that dust at the bases of the mountains. Just like Lyell's belief, since it was not founded on the Truth, the dust was not there. Indeed the dust was very thin every where. The evolutionists never have come up with a good explanation for that. In addition, there should be no sharp features on the moon. The fact that they exist in sharp detail indicates an extremely young age for the moon."

Stalactites are some sharp features that give the honest evolutionist trouble. In years past we were taught it took about one hundred thousand (100,000) years to produce one cubic inch. We usually see stalactites in caves. The most famous cave for Americans is probably Carlsbad Caverns. If we take one of those tours, the tour guide will inform us as a result of their brain washing, "It took hundreds of thousands or even millions of years for these stalactites to form." But if we take a look at how fast they grow in known areas, we can know positively that there is a lot of room for error. In fact in World War Two many subway tunnels were opened up below London as bomb shelters. After the war they were no longer needed and closed. When they were opened up later, it was discovered that they were infested with stalactites When there is enough of the correct chemicals in the water that is seeping through, it can leach out material that can and does produce stalactites in a relatively short time. In fact within fifty years after it was constructed, the Lincoln Memorial had stalactites growing under it up to six feet long.

In Dr. Gish's book there is photographic evidence of at least one stalactite in the Carlsbad Cavern that formed so rapidly that it produced some very unexpected evidence of rapid growth. A bat apparently died and fell down on a growing stalagmite. The bat was entombed and preserved, because the rate of deposition was so great.

Creationist geologists know that, after the flood, there would be a lot of remnant flood water remaining on the earth for a long time before it drained off or evaporated. If some of it seeped through the rocks and leaked through caverns such as Carlsbad Cavern there would be plenty of chemicals in it. And in a matter of just centuries, or less, the Carlsbad Cavern's stalactites and stalagmites would have easily been produced. There is documenting evidence to prove it.

Next, let�s ask a challenging question. Why is the sign at the entrance of Carlsbad Cavern gone? Several decades ago the sign at the entrance of Carlsbad Cavern informed the visitors the caverns were two hundred and eighty million (280,000,000) years old. Then a few decades ago, the sign was proudly revised to reflect new cave knowledge: The caverns are approximately ten million (10,000,000) years old. Later the revised sign had to be revised. It proudly informed the visitors the caverns were two million years (2,000,000) old. But, facts are hard on ignorant prejudice. More recent discoveries show the caverns could be formed in as little as a few centuries. The new revised sign is.....well, gone.

The Genesis Flood produced phenomena about which we are still learning. After the flood huge deposits of minerals eroded into lakes or the ocean. They are still eroding. There are different ways this can be considered. One is to look at all the specific chemicals in the continents that have been identified going into the oceans by means of river erosion and river run off. Every single one of these can be documented to favor a young age for the continents. Every single one of those gives ages way too young to accommodate the theory of evolution. This indicates that the age of the ocean is just too young to support the theory of evolution of life. The theory of evolution contends that the evolution of life started in the ocean. The evolutionists started to use the chemical runoff calculations, but abandoned them because every time they came up with ages far too young to support their pet theory of an ancient ocean of billions of years old. Needless to say, they discontinued measuring them. They eventually concluded that these tests could not be accurate and didn't publish their findings.

Along the same line of thought, the lack of sediments that scientists have found on the ocean bottom are a major problem. At present rates of erosion all that sediment can be accounted for in less than fifteen million years, not billions of years. Now does it mean it took that long? No, that's just an upper limit of how long it would take at present rates. Since Noah�s Flood was a world flood, it predicts this. The creationists took this information because there is no legitimate scientific reason to reject it. By giving ages too young to accommodate the theory of evolution, it supports a recent creation. The amount of sediments supports Noah�s Flood.

A really big problem the evolutionists have is based on the known cubic tonnage of material that is on the continents today and the known amount of sediments that have been measured draining into the oceans each year. Scientists have found that it would require fourteen million years to erode the continents into the oceans at the present rate; on average. This would take then all down to sea level and in the process would destroy any and all evidence of the fossil record. And yet, some of the continents have places like The Grand Canyon, where we have about a mile thickness of sediments containing fossils which the evolutionist swear represent hundreds of millions of years of geologic and evolutionary time. It doesn�t take a genius to realize if the continents are completely eroded every fourteen million years, there can be no geological column with out a world wide flood. Based on known facts, there should be no record of geological time that spans hundreds of millions years preserved anywhere in the world.

At The Grand Canyon and other places like that where we can see large samples of strata, we see irrefutable evidences of a huge recent flood that have not had time to erode into oblivion. As Ken Hamm says,
"We know from the Bible from Someone Who was there, Who knows what He is talking about, that there was a great year long flood that affected the earth in a catastrophic manner. And sediments were laid down all over the earth very rapidly by means of that catastrophe."
So, even if we don't assume what we know from God's Word and just take the standard assumption of the present rates and extrapolate back into the past, we end up with an age way too young to accommodate the theory of evolution. All this sedimentation information is lethal to the theory of evolution.

The Bible indicates the continents rose after the flood. This happened about four thousand four hundred years ago. The Mississippi Delta is a bit bigger than what would accumulate at the present rates of deposition in that amount of time. When the flood drained off, there was a massive amount of water rapidly draining off the continents and carrying huge amounts of sediment. If we compare it with the amount that the evolutionary time frame would predict, there's still insufficient sediment to give even a glimmer of hope to the measuring evolutionist. Remember it only takes 14,000,000 years for the entire continent to erode. Consequently the entire Gulf of Mexico would have been filled, and in fact would not even exist. There is no evidence the continent has been drifting, so they can't appealed to that.

Many of the oil reservoirs we find are under tremendous geostatic pressure. Remember old movies when they struck oil!? As usual, this presents a severe problem for the evolutionists. The sedimentary rocks that incase these oil reservoirs have a known permeability factor. Fluid disperses through them under pressure. In most cases, this permeability is such that all the pressure would have dissipated in as little as ten thousand years (10,000). In the more dense rock, it could take up to 100,000 years. But, certainly not millions of years. The evolutionists want us to believe these oil field reservoirs were formed as much as 100,000,000 years ago. (Remember, each zero indicate a numerical value that is ten times greater than the preceding zero) Any geostatic pressure should have dissipated a long, long, long time ago. Absolutely here should not be any pressure. But, it�s there in abundance.

Using an electron mass spectrometer, scientists have been able to detect carbon fourteen in every sample of coal and every fossil from every location in the world. Even more fascinating is they appear to be about the same age. The problem for the evolutionists is carbon fourteen, until very recently, could not date any anything beyond about fifty thousand years. Now they can measure carbon fourteen in samples, which evolutionists would date at ninety thousand years. Carbon fourteen has even been found in diamonds! Someone might appeal to contamination, but in every lab? And diamonds are too hard to contaminate. Since fossils, coal, and diamonds are supposed to be multiple millions of years old, this has back fired on them. There is not suppose to be even a detectable trace, and yet it is in everything tested.

For the creationist who believes in the Flood there is no problem. All these things were buried in the Flood at the same time just a few thousands years ago.

Speaking of things that are buried, consider the following. Here is a quote from Dr. Donald Chittick, a PhD chemistry. After one of his lectures in 1999, a woman from the audience asked about the millions of years required to form coal and oil. Dr. Chittick demonstrates scientific facts are really quite hard on the previously held un-scientific beliefs; which he previously held. That is the belief that millions of years are required to form these products of violent, catastrophic earth activity. He states,
�There are two kinds of oil. There is oil that comes from animal material and it has porphyrins, nitrogen from the proteins and stuff. Oil that comes from plant material, which is the majority of the oil discovered, has hydrocarbons in it. Free notably of nitrogen compounds. How was coal and oil made? Well, they used to say it took millions of years to form coal and oil. What is necessary to form coal? The same process forms both coal and oil. You bury a large amount of green plant material, plant material is cellulous, a carbohydrate. When you heat a carbohydrate, it looses water. It dehydrates, like when a pie boils over in the oven. The sugar in your pie is a carbohydrate. When that boils over, the heat dehydrates the sugar and the water leaves. This leaves the carbon behind. Well, if you bury plant material, green plant material, it gets hot. The heat then, because it is cellulous, causes a dehydration reaction; a loss of water. But, the chemical reaction of loosing water, itself, makes heat, so it gets hotter, which makes it loose more water, which makes more heat, which makes it get hotter, and it spirals up loosing water.

�One of two processes will happen. If the geological formation is such that the water of dehydration can leak away, then we leave the carbon behind and we form coal. In fact you can plot right on a straight line the dehydration amount percentage of the grade from lignite to anthracite right on a straight-line degree of dehydration. If, on the other hand, the geological formation is such that the water of dehydration cannot leak away and we have little alkaline clay, volcanic ash for example, then you form oil. Both coal and oil had to be formed in less time than that required for the heat to leak away. If it had been a slow gradual process, the heat would have leaked away and never reach this coal or oil forming chemical reaction spiral. We have now made artificial coal and oil in the laboratory. First time was at Argon National Laboratory in 1980 and again in 1993. The coal that is made by this process is identical to the natural coal. If you aren�t a real coal expert, you can�t tell the difference. And oil is the same way. So now we know it had to happen in a very short while.�

The Great Genesis Flood explains how we got the oil reservoirs and the coal deposits. In fact all the huge sedimentary deposits for that matter are predicted by The Flood. How does one produce the juge oil deposits with uniformitarianism?

In the lab heat and compression have been shown to produce coal from certain organic materials in as little as an hour and a half. Also it only takes about twenty minutes to convert a ton of fatty type protein into a barrel of crude oil by subjecting it to heat and pressure. There was plenty of heat and compression during the Great Genesis Flood to accomplish both of these phenomenon.

Lord Kelvin was a creationist who loved to bring up the crustal temperature of the earth when discussing the age of the earth with his adversaries. He is quoted as saying,
"If we assume what the evolutionist say is true, for the sake of argument, the earth condensed out of a hot gaseous cloud, and was white hot and molten to begin with, and gradually cooled down, we can use the laws of physics and thermal dynamics, and determine how long that would take. We can use calculations, equations based on the cooling of a sphere.", so he did the calculations and went on to say, "At best to cool down to its present temperature, it would only take about twenty two million years." It was discovered radioactive decay would create heat in the crust of the earth. So, his opponents argued, "Radio active decay creates enough heat, like putting a stove in the room, to keep the earth hot longer. That gives us the time we need." Lord Kelvin said, "No. There's not nearly enough radio activity in the crust of the earth to make that big of a difference." and "It wouldn't make any significant difference if they went and calculated it again."

Dr. Harold Slusher of the University of Texas at El Paso, and his associate Thomas B. Gamwell reported it in a technical monograph. They took the old Kelvin calculations, and put in the best estimates of the amount of radio activity in the crust of the earth (which is rather rare). Dr. Slusher said, "Based on the best estimates given by the evolutionist themselves, it only changes it to forty-two million years."

He is not saying that is how old the earth is, but if we assume it started out white hot and molten, that's all the time required to cool to its present life zone temperature. This is again showing there just is not enough time for evolution to have occurred. The evolutionist want us to believe the earth started out white hot and will eventually suffer what is called "The ultimate heat death.", and end cold. That is, all available energy in the universe will have dissipated into unavailable energy. God�s Word tells us the exact opposite. He says the earth started out cool covered by water and conversely will end by melting. The following paragraphs show from the science of geology that we can depend on God�s Word.

Apparently, at the instant of creation, God created some radioactivity in the crust of the earth. In particular I am referring to that which produced polonium halos which are generated by polonium 214. THEY APPEAR TO ARGUE FOR AN INSTANTANEOUS CREATION OF AN EARTH WITH A SOLID CRUST. Dr. Robert Gentry has found massive amounts of what appears to be primordial polonium. No one has done more independent, and thorough, research than he has on this subject. He is considered to be the world's premiere expert on the subject of preocloic halos.

Polonium is the normal decay chain product of uranium 238. When it decays in solid rock its radiation produces changes in the color. These are called halos. The radiation penetrates through the rock a certain depth based on its power. Scientists can actually tell what kind of element gave off the radiation by the halo it produces. It is a message in stone telling us what kind of isotope it was. For example, polonium 210 has 5.3 million electron volts, and polonium 214 has 7.69 million electron volts. Therefore, it penetrates deeper into the rock when it gives off its radiation than the former. A significant thing is that normally we find polonium 214 as one of the intermediate decay chain products of uranium 238. Dr. Gentry has found massive amounts of what appears to be primordial polonium that is not associated with a uranium parent. It appears to have been created in the rocks at the instant of creation.
This is very exciting because Polonium 214 has a half life of only 164 millionths of a second. That means in a tiny fraction of a second it is completely decayed away, leaving only its halo.

If the earth started as a white hot molten liquid and not a solid, how did the flash of color changing energy causing the halo effect to get trapped in the rocks if they were liquid? Dr. Gentry argues that these halos are literally the signature of God. It appears that God purposefully created primordial polonium at the origin of the planet to show that He created the basement crustal rocks of the earth instantly and in a solid form. In that instant of creation, when these elements were also created, polonium 214 flashed off its energy and the color was trapped as a photograph in the rocks. This shows the basement rock wasn't molten, it wasn't slowing cooling down for millions of years.

In the Bible, the Psalmist says, "He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast." These halos appear to show us that is indeed exactly how quickly God did it. Dr. Robert Gentry says,

"The half life of polonium 214 is only 164 micro second. According to one theory of the planets, the earth cooled down from a hot gaseous mass, and gradually solidified over a period of hundreds of millions of years. If this were so, polonium halos could not possibly have formed because all the polonium would have decayed soon after it was synthesized, and would have been extinct when the crustal rocks formed. Unless the creation of the radioactivity and the rocks were simultaneous and instantaneous, there would be no picture, no variant preocloic halos. Further by the virtue of the very short half life, the radioactivity and the formation of the rocks must be almost instantaneous."
The halos are testimonies of God�s creation in the rocks. Even in their prejudice, unbelieving scientists are without excuse.

Bible believers have the ultimate information, though. We have the Word of Someone Who was there in the beginning. As Ken Hamm says, "God knows everything about everything and was there and gave us His eyewitness account." His Word is accurate history. God says He created heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them (including angels, demons, dinosaurs, fish and people) in six twenty-four hour days. One can determine from the genealogies that God created all this about six thousand years ago.

.....and what's with all these people who think the world is round?

Are you refering to the prophets who wrote the Bible tousands of years ago? They are all alive forever more.

So in the last 6,000 years:

An Ice Age came and went several times

The central USA has been flooded by the ocean several times and several generations of the Rockies and the Appalachians have rose and disappeared somehow quickly

Yellowstone has had at least 3 super-eruptions
Toba had even bigger eruption

An even more massive MEGA eruption covered Siberia in 10,000 cubic miles of lava

A 1-mile wide meteor hit Manson, Iowa, excavating a 30 mile-wide crater
An even bigger meteor hit the Yucatan Peninsula
An even BIGGER meteor hit Sudbury, Ontario

South America has moved over 1/2 mile a year away from Africa generating massive earthquakes and tsunamis every week

I wonder why we are still here?

You make some straw men there and then ask a question.

For the fun of it I will give you some facts. In the last 6,000 years there have been creation, entropy introduced, and a World Wide Flood brought on by extreme vocanism and water erupting from under the ground; which predicts one ice age. The other events happened in conjunction with the World Wide Flood. Evoluton cannot explain even one of the ice ages they want to belive in.

By the way you missed the meteorite that hit in what is now Rissia.

If "several generation of Rockies and the Appalachieans have rose and disappeared" why are there fossils in them? After all, Ph.D. level geologists know the continents completely erode in only fourteen million yeas.

The answer to why we are still here is God's Grace.

Copernicus is calling.

Ringman,

Thank you for your courtious, and massive, reply. You obviously expended a good amount of time and thought and I, for one, appreciate it.

There is far too much material to digest quickly, especially since it is getting late.

As an initial impression I think debates are mainly for invigorating audiences and are, with few exceptions, a better way determine the better debater than which side of the debate is true. Since many (most?) audiences have a poor understanding of basic science the debater favoring evolution has to teach them something about the nature of science before beginning to explain complex ideas. There is usually not time for this in a debate format. The creation side has only to do a "Gish Gallop", throwing out dozens of assertions few of which could be refuted in the time allowed.

Of the authors you mention; Morris, Gish and Hamm are familiar and throughly debunked long ago. Kindell is new to me but his arguments are not. I call them vampire arguments; drive a steak through it's heart, sever it's head, stuff it with garlic, bury it at the crossroads and it will rise again with the next full moon. Don't know that I will have time to deal with all of them before this thread fades away but will take a whack at some as time allows.

Walt

wswolf,

You bring up the audience. Forget the audience. The problem is the Ph.D biologist could not rebutt Dr. Kindell. He does have an understanding of science. He is an example of why every year dozens of Ph.D level scientists turn from evolutionism to some form of creation.

I watched a debate with Dr. Kindell in Medford. The opponent pretended to have severe chest pain. An abulance was called. Dr. Kindell answered a few questions from the audience to be polite and then went to the hospital.

His opponent had already left. The ambulance drivers were still there and told Dr. Kindell the guy was faking it and wanted a ride home. They informed him law required they deliver him to the hospitol.

Evolutionism cannot be defended from science. Dr. Kindell was "an ardent evolutionist" as he describes himself. Many years ago he told me, "Christians have two brains. One is lost and the other is out looking for it." But he continued to study science (ten fields). Science convined him he was wrong. He became a creationist. Later he becme a Christian and then a Bible believing creationist. Finally when he could find no scientific reason not to beleive God's Word ment anything other than what It states he became a firm defender of six day creation created by the God of the Bible 6,000 years ago.

Nice dodge. Copernicus deals with the solar system.

Now look up Hubble's discovery from the 1920's. Then check it again in the 1970's and then again in the 1990's. But then that would require you to beleive in what astronomical science displays for any Ph.D astronomer to see for himself and recorded.

Hubble called his discovery quantized red shifts. He said it appeared there is a spere of galaxies about a million light years plus or minus out from the Milky Way. Another million light years plus or minus and another sphere of galaxies, etc, etc. Sorta like a BB inside a pea and the pea inside a marble and the marble inside a pingpong ball and the pingpong ball inside a golf ball and so on and on and on and on.

There are random galaxies between these quantized groupings.

Copernicus showed that the earth is the center of the earth and nothing more. Galileo was put on the rack for thinking similarly and then uttered "And yet it moves" after being released.

I know what red shifts are. To use that to put the earth in the center of the universe is sadly lacking in what a red shift means.

Read Stephen Hawking, and Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes or anything else by Stephen Jay Gould.

ironbender,

We use what one evolutionist says to refute an evolutionist we don't care for? Maybe he can explain away all those other scientific observations I wrote about in the essay.

You nailed it.

Did God fake all of the fossil evidence to make the earth look older than it really is?
Did God fake all of the geological evidence to make the earth look older than it really is?
Did God fake all of the other scientific evidence (chemical, biological, etc.) to make the earth look older than it really is?

Literal Creationists see nothing wrong with having a Biblical bias, because they�'know' it�s true; and Mormons see nothing wrong with having a Book of Mormon bias, because they 'know' it�s�true; and Muslims see nothing wrong with having a Qur�an bias, because they 'know' it�s�true, and�Scientologists�see nothing wrong with having a Dianetics�bias, because they 'know' it�s true, and so on.

Scientists are also biased by scientific findings. Scientists�too see nothing wrong with their scientific bias, because they 'know' it�s true. I think the key distinction here is that scientists are letting the evidence lead the story, rather than letting the story lead the evidence. And the evidence suggests that we live in a natural world ruled by natural laws.
That's not to say that a Creator didn't set it all in motion.

Science alters it's views to fit the facts, while others alter the facts to fit their views.

God does send a deluding influence on those who wish to beleive a lie. But for the above qustions the World Wide Flood of Noah's day explains all you are asking about. I am not a scientist but do wonder how, if evoloution is true how did the radio active elements evolve from hydrogen and then begin their decay rate? When a radio active element is discovered how do we know some of it was not washed into place or leached out over the "millions" of years? We don't! There are just too many assumptions for the serious student.

Science shows bones quickly disappear soon after animals die. With a flood the size of Noah's there would be huge amounts of water borne sediments trapping millions of animals and burying them quickly. Thus they would be protected from destruction by bacteria or preditors. There is nothing in uniformitarianism which begins to explain the huge fossil grave yards found in various places in the world. Consider the numbers of bison and carier pigions killed in this contry. Where are the fossils?

I can tell from this post you did not read the essay with gobs of scientific evidence for a young universe; which demands a young earth.

OK, I'll forget the audience. Precisely on what point could the biologist not refute Dr. Kindell? Perhaps Dr. Kindell's point could be refuted or already has been refuted buy someone else. Until we know what Kindell was on about this is just an anecdote.



Kindell is not an example of a Ph.D scientist turning from evolution. His biography shows no qualification in any life science and his Doctorate is in The Philosophy of Theology. He did apparently study something at the Institure for Creation Research (ICR).

Some of the other authorities you cited in the massive post on page 31 are:
Henry Morris - Ph.D in hydraulic engineering. Founder of ICR.
Duane Gish - Ph.D biochemistry. Vice-President of ICR.
Donale Chittick - Ph.D physical chemistry. Adjunct faculty member ICR.

From Institute for Creation Research - http://www.icr.org/tenets/
"All things in the universe were created and made by God in the six literal days of the Creation Week described in Genesis 1:1-2:3, and confirmed in Exodus 20:8-11. The creation record is factual, historical, and perspicuous; thus all theories of origins or development that involve evolution in any form are false. All things that now exist are sustained and ordered by God's providential care. However, a part of the spiritual creation, Satan and his angels, rebelled against God after the creation and are attempting to thwart His divine purposes in creation".

Whatever the ICR teaches it is not science. Science proceeds from observation to conclusion. ICR and your authorities start with a conclusion of Biblical literalism and try to mangle the data to fit. They are preaching.

I will take a look at some of the individulal claims later.

I did read it. I appreciated the effort towards good-faith debate greatly, too.

There is no way that the Earth is 6000 years old, so it starts from a false premise. When starting from a false premise, and with a predetermined outcome in mind (IE, creationism) and with a system of information, theory, and ongoing research as VAST and elastic as our body of scientific knowledge, I'm not surprised that there are nooks and crannies where folks can make some hay.... but it's not science.

(As an analogy, I bet the Toasterists of the world could completely disassemble a modern car and "prove" that it HAS to be descended from a toaster. That speaks to the complexity and diversity of parts in a modern car; not the viability of Toasterism!)

It's this kind of pseudoscience, reprepresented as being equal to the massive body of vetted research and study of the physical world, that needs to be prevented from being presented to our children in public schools as fact.

It's a good thing that salvation has nothing to do with the age of the earth...and that there are many millions that realize that.

The mass of evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology, geology, chemistry, and other fields is undeniable to a reasonable mind...although it's discounted by 'some' as being intentional delusions by God for believing lies.

That's pretty pitiful really.

You're a tougher man than I.

I checked out at 'thermal dynamics'... ouch.

Will

Reckon he actually believed Jonah spent 3 days in the belly of a whale too...and that God sent them 2 female bears to kill 42 children for makin' fun of Elisha's bald head!

The convolutions necessary to reconcile plate tectonics with a WORLDWIDE flood, all within the last 6000 years, alone are mind-boggling.

The fossil strata I have explored in cliffs up at 10k feet in the high desert in New Mexico were sea fossils, and they were not the result of flood deposit 6000 years ago.

I was not refering to Dr.Kindell. I was posting aobut the Ph.D. biologist.

Because you think The God of the Bible is not able to communicate you make the erronious claim, "Whatever the ICR teaches it is not science."

DUMBASS! (Imagine Red shouting it this time).

IF WE DIDN'T EVOLVE, AND WE ARE HAVING THIS "CONVERSATION", HOW ELSE DID WE GET HERE.

There is no way that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, so it starts wiht a false premise. When starting from a false premise, and with a prederimined outcome in mine (IE, evolutionism) ans with asysttem of information, theory, and ongoing researchas VAST and elasticas our body of scientific knowledte, I'm not surpirsed that there are nooks and crannies where folks can make some hay....but it's not science. It brain washing from pre-school through graduate school. It is a world view.

With what you have posted, you still have not refuted the scienctific facts I posted in the essay.

Ringman, no offense and I wouldn't even say this if you hadn't demonstrated a level-headed willingness to debate this contentious and I presume deeply meaningful topic buuuut...

Not only do I not believe in a God that communicates obtusely, I don't believe in God period. Not yours or anyone else's. I hope you understand that as a citizen of a nation with CODIFIED government neutrality on this matter, which is to say a government that recognizes our right to believe or not believe as we see fit, I am constitutionally bound to defend this freedom and keep it from poisoning public institutions. As well as personally inclined to do so due to my unbeliever status.

Our courts, our schools, our police and city governments... are SECULAR. They must remain so. As a fellow Patriot I think on some level you get this.

I applaud you for hangin' in on this debate.

This really is turning into a Gish Gallop.


Elements heavier than hydrogen were formed in the centers of giant stars. Giant stars eventually explode (supernova). The heavy elements are spread by the explosion.

Biblical literalism doesn't rely on assumptions?


Most bones do. Fossilization is a rare event.

A single flood produces one layer of sediment, coarse material on the bottom and finer material on top. This can be found in any geology text, even some written 150 years ago. If Noah's flood had happened we would expect to see a massive sediment layer like this on top of a dense jumble of fossils of all types. Trilobites, Anomalocardids, archaeopteryx, cynodictis, arsinoitherium, dinosaurs, humans, giraffes, rabbits and Tasmanian devils all in the same layer. Nothing like this is found in the geological record.

Uniformitarianism is not an explanation it's a principle (not an assumption because there is evidence) that physical processes act in the same manner now as they did in the past. Huge fossil graveyards have been explained by huge releases of poison gas or ash from volcanoes killing lots of animals at once before they were buried (dinosaurs in Montana and mammals in Kansas).

During and after the late 19th century bison extermination people made a living collecting bones to be ground up for fertilizer.
Passenger pigieons were hunted mostly for sale in city markets. After cooking a bird and gnawing the bones what happens to them. they go to a landfill or get dumped in the ocean. Not good conditions for fossilization even if fossilization could occur in less than 200 years.

It occurs to me that I grew up in an ancient land (New Mexico). There's a resonance down there that has to be lived to be understood. Not a lot of folks down there preaching a 6000-yr-old planet. The evidence to the contrary is just too blatantly, almost pornographically in a geological sense, on display.

Yep. If one but had the time and inclination.

Refutation seldom changes viewpoint, however.

You have a good day.

Man, you are blinded by your world view. The very topics you point to are some of the very ones I use to suport my science. You cannot explain how the billions of fossils were laid down in water born sediment in the amounts we observe in a naturalistic world. The Flood explains them.

Dr. Sanlin was an evolutionist. He has a Ph.D in genetics. He invented the gene splicing gun. He has over seventy bioloical patents. As an evolutionist he taught the graduate students at Cornell University for twenty-five years. Once he started invistigaing mutations he was amazed. (I doubt you know more than he does about genetics.) At the present accumulation rate of mutation, he maintains you can go back only about 6,000 years to achieve no mutations in the human speicies.

Even Dr. Crick who discovered the DNA molecule saw there was no way it could develope through a random process and said the spacemen brought it to the earth! He called it panspermia.

Zoology is absolutely consistant with God's Word. God said each kind would reproduce after its kind. Both in the fossil record and in living examples we see diversity of species; not continuum.

When Darwin wrote his book in 1859 he didn't know about he cell. He thought it was some kind of jellitinous mass. We know now that even one cell is more complex than the largest city in the world. And I'm supose to beleive it created itself?

The Flood explains geology infinitely better than uniformitarianism. How do you explain the Grand Cayon or any other huge land formation based on the slow gradual change of the present is the key to the past?

Tell us how chemistry gets past a six carbon molecule in a naturalistic world.

Your world view has kept you from seeing the facts. The idea that God uses these as deception is only a deception for those who beleive in evolutionism.

Yeah. Its called microevolution. Completely uncontroversial. Its macro we want evidence on.

Coming from someone who denies scientific proof, physical evidence and logic in favor of a literal interpretation of what is clearly an allegory.

And the faithful look to pastors, who share your beliefs, for guidance in their lives?
It's like the blind leading the blindfolded.

The only 'science' and 'facts' you have shown so far have been concerning Black Holes..........black holes of logic!

No offence intended.

This is based on the idea that stars evolved from the substances from the big bang. You can't have the elements if you can't explain where the stars came from. Cosmic gases would NOT condense based on the known scientific laws of gas mechanics. One astronomer made me laugh when he said the first star was formed a near by star exploded and cause the gas to colapse on itself. Wait a minute! From where did that star come?



Not "assumptionS". Rather accepting the ONE scientific concept of cause and effect. The Cause is greater than the effect in the creation model. The effect is greater than the cause, contrary to science, in the evolutionary world view.



In both the creation and evolution models fossils are rare today. In evolution speculation is necessary to invent a process for their presence. The Flood model predicts them; and in huge quantities.



A single flood that covers the intire world and lasts for thirteen months will be acted on by the same tidal effects we see in the world today. Based on the this knowledge of a world wide flood there would be multiple layers; just as we observe in the Grand Canyon and in almost any road cut.

The fossil record now displays exactly what you are asking of it. That's why some paleontolgist are switching from slow gradual change to believing either multipul huge local floods or the Flood of God's Word.



How in the world do you know about gas from a volcano thousands or millions of years ago? This is a philosophical escape theory to get away from the prediction of the Genesis Flood.

[quoteDuring and after the late 19th century bison extermination people made a living collecting bones to be ground up for fertilizer.
Passenger pigieons were hunted mostly for sale in city markets. After cooking a bird and gnawing the bones what happens to them. they go to a landfill or get dumped in the ocean. Not good conditions for fossilization even if fossilization could occur in less than 200 years. [/quote]

You got me!

YOu still have not refuted the information in the scientific essay.

Bingo! But occationally it does. That's why some Ph.D evolutionist switch to creation every year. See if you can find even one Ph.D. level creation scientist who switched and became an evolutionist. I better bring a lunch.

No offence taken. You mentioned black holes. Based on the Big Bang all gravity in the unverse, including all the gravity of all the black holes, was in the cosmic egg. How in the name of science did it explode?

How did you discover the creation information is an alogory? I have met a few Th.D and Ph.D. folks who disagree with you.

When I include Ph.D level folks who are turning from evolution to creation I do NOT include pastor or theologians. They seem to be stuck in a rut and, like you, refuse to accept Truth.

In the end, there's really not much to worry about. The "Intelligent design" deal is not getting a whole lot of traction in public schools (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District) and it allows for old earth, evolution, and big bang. There's no way public school students are going to have to worry about being taught young earth creationism (Edwards v. Aguillard). For all practical purposes, YEC has been reduced to an interesting topic to discuss on the internet.

That's about right.

Are you drunk?

You are making claims about reality. Why would you expect anyone to accept them as true if you refuse to provide any evidence? Please explain why asking for evidence of a claim is morinic. Use simple words that we mere slime dwellers can understand. Do you have anything to offer this discussion other than unwarranted insults? [/quote]

DUMBASS! (Imagine Red shouting it this time).

IF WE DIDN'T EVOLVE, AND WE ARE HAVING THIS "CONVERSATION", HOW ELSE DID WE GET HERE. [/quote]

Are you drunk? [/quote]

No, but you are most assuredly a moron.

Pizz off TAK. The adults are trying to have a conversation.

Why is it that you're the only one on this thread that can't articulate their disagreements in a fairly respectable manner?

And this probably is as much because of the theistic element as it is a lack of science. They aren't going to come right out and say so, but the government isn't going to allow it to be taught in public schools, because of the freedom of religion aspects of the constitution, no matter how solid the science is or isn't.

The other scientific views are completely secular, so no political problems with them.

In 2007 I was elk hunting in the Schell Creek Range in eastern NV at around 9,000 feet. My partner and I ran onto a boulder encrusted with fossilized shells and trilobites.

www.picsearch.com/pictures/Travel/Nature/Mountain chains/Mountains Sc-Z/Schell Creek Range.html

I'm sure no God sprinkled these over the mountains with his "salt shaker".

Keep thumping those knuckles, Ringman.

Yes, I've seen them in the mountains of west Texas often. I have sat on those ridges and glassed for deer and wondered what the Indians wondered years ago on noticing them. in Genesis, God tells of the behemoth roaming the mountains in ages past, Nd of shaking the earth on it's axis to the point that "all mankind died".

This in no "conversation" azzhat. The creationist camp has made an unsupportable claim or two but you dumbasses' only retort is, "you just don't understand the science" whenever they give one of your sacred cows a high shoulder shot.

You mofos are too ignorant to understand that the doctrine (that's EXACTLY what it is, currently) of evolution is the linchpin of Dialectical Materialism. It is the philosophical underpinning of killing fields all over this planet. And so far, you mofos have won, volumes of evidence that contradict your sacred cow, will, if mentioned in the publik skools you jackasses also revere will result in a pink slip for the teacher who utters a shred of it.

And you chastise me and tell me to be civil. EAT SCHIT AND DIE MOFO!

Your impotent rage is duly noted.

And now, after that shaking, true north and magnetic north are maligned, but men who's brain is made by God, will try to prove Him very odd.

I might be more productive to slow down from the Gish Gallop and stick with one subject per post. In your essay with "gobs of scientific evidence", Polonium halos seemed promising so lets give them a go.

How could Gentry have found massive amounts of something that has completely decayed away? I am suspicious already.

A long quote follows ("Polonium Haloes" Refuted - http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html). This is a complex subject that takes a bit of explaining.

Creationist Robert Gentry has argued that ring-shaped discoloration haloes in primordial granite rocks are the result of damage from alpha-particle emission by radioactive isotopes of the element polonium. Since radiogenic polonium has a very short half-life (usually measured in fractions of a second), Gentry argues that, if granite takes thousands to millions of years to form as mainstream geology believes, any polonium originally present would have decayed away long before the granite could have formed and could not have produced these haloes. Therefore, he feels that their existence is evidence for an instantaneous and recent creation of these granite rocks, and by extension the Earth. The following articles point out the flaws in Gentry's argument.
Professional geologist Tom Bailleul takes a second look at Gentry's claimed polonium haloes, arguing that there is no good evidence they are the result of polonium decay as opposed to any other radioactive isotope, or even that they are caused by radioactivity at all. Gentry is taken to task for selective use of evidence, faulty experiment design, mistakes in geology and physics, and unscientific principles of investigation and argument style.

"Polonium Haloes" Refuted
A Review of "Radioactive Halos in a Radio-Chronological
and Cosmological Perspective" by Robert V. Gentry
by Thomas A. Baillieul
Copyright � 2001-2005
Introduction
As the creation/evolution debate continues, there has been an increasing sophistication of certain Creationist arguments and publications. It can be an especially difficult challenge when the Creationist author has professional credentials and has published in mainstream scientific journals. One such individual is Robert Gentry, who holds a Master's degree in Physics (and an honorary doctorate from the fundamentalist Columbia Union College). For over thirteen years he held a research associate's position at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he was part of a team which investigated ways to immobilize nuclear waste. Gentry has spent most of his professional life studying the nature of very small discoloration features in mica and other minerals, and concluded that they are proof of a young Earth.
*****
Gentry's hypothesis quickly runs into trouble with all of the accumulated evidence from many fields of earth science pointing conclusively to a great age for the Earth. Not the least of these evidences is radiometric age dating. To reconcile his presumed young age for the Earth with reported isotopic age dates for rocks around the world, Gentry (1992) argues that radioactive decay rates have varied over time. He is forced to conclude that decay rates for his chosen polonium isotopes have remained constant while those of dozens of other radioactive isotopes were many orders of magnitude greater 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. This of course gives rise to several major inconsistencies:
� many rocks have been dated by a variety of techniques using different isotope pairs having very different decay mechanisms, the results showing remarkable consistency in measured ages. Gentry's hypothesis would require that all of the different decay schemes for the different radioactive isotopes must have been accelerated by just the exact - but very different - amounts to give the consistent age dates we find for rocks today. For example, the decay rate for uranium-238 (half life = 4.5 b.y.) would have to be accelerated by nearly four times the rate for potassium-40 (half life = 1.25 b.y.). Given the large number of different radioactive isotopes and decay schemes that have been used in dating rocks, the chance of this coincidence taking place is essentially zero.
� a general principle of radioactive decay is that the more rapid the decay rate, the more energy that is released. The slow radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium-40 has been identified as a primary source of the Earth's internal heat. Speeding up the radioactive decay rates of these isotopes by many orders of magnitude to be consistent with a 6,000 - 10,000 year age for the Earth requires that the energies of decay 10,000 years ago would have been extreme, keeping the Earth in a molten state to the present day. Obviously this has not occurred.
� if one is going to propose that radioactive decay rates varied, and varied differently for each isotope over time, there is no reason why the decay rates of numerous polonium isotopes should not also have varied. Under a variable decay rate model, it can even be proposed that polonium decay rates were much longer than observed today. In fact, once the idea of variable decay rates is introduced, it becomes impossible to assign discoloration haloes to any specific isotope or isotopic series, and Gentry's hypothesis falls completely apart.
The decay rate and the energy of emitted alpha particles are both related to the imbalance of neutrons and protons in an atomic nucleus, and are controlled by the strong nuclear force and the binding energy for the particular nuclide. Anything more than a fractional change in the decay rate over time would require variation in the fundamental forces of nature and the relationship of matter and energy. There is no evidence that anything of the sort has ever occurred.
There are many independent lines of reasoning beside radiometric age dating for concluding that the Earth is far older than 6,000 years. Other geologic processes, with completely independent mechanisms, which demonstrate a long period for Earth history include:
� the slow crystallization and deposition of great thicknesses of limestones occurring over and over in the geologic record;
� the growth of salt domes in the gulf coast region of the U.S. and beneath the deserts of Iran by slow, plastic deformation over millions of years of a deeply buried salt bed in response to the slow accumulation of overlying sediments;
� the spreading of the world's ocean basins, recorded in the symmetrical patterns of magnetization of the basalts on each side of the mid-ocean ridges. The current measured rate of spreading results in an age estimate for the western margin of the Pacific basin of approximately 170 million years - an age which has been confirmed by radiometric dating.
Literally hundreds of other examples could also be presented.
Summary/Conclusions
Gentry's polonium halo hypothesis for a young Earth fails, or is inconclusive for, all tests. Gentry's entire thesis is built on a compounded set of assumptions. He is unable to demonstrate that concentric haloes in mica are caused uniquely by alpha particles resulting from the decay of polonium isotopes. His samples are not from "primordial" pieces of the Earth's original crust, but from rocks which have been extensively reworked. Finally, his hypothesis cannot accommodate the many alternative lines of evidence that demonstrate a great age for the Earth. Gentry rationalizes any evidence which contradicts his hypothesis by proposing three "singularities" - one time divine interventions - over the past 6000 years. Of course, supernatural events and processes fall outside the realm of scientific investigations to address. As with the idea of variable radioactive decay rates, once Gentry moves beyond the realm of physical laws, his arguments fail to have any scientific usefulness. If divine action is necessary to fit the halo hypothesis into some consistent model of Earth history, why waste all that time trying to argue about the origins of the haloes based on current scientific theory? This is where most Creationist arguments break down when they try to adopt the language and trappings of science. Trying to prove a religious premise is itself an act of faith, not science.

wswolf - if a hypothesis requires just one divine intervention it has removed itself from the realm of science. Three divine interventions seems a little over the top.

Mr. Gentry, not Dr. Gentry. A smart guy for sure, but no PhD scientist?

"wswolf - if a hypothesis requires just one divine intervention it has removed itself from the realm of science. Three divine interventions seems a little over the top."

You have a gift for polite understatement. Well done.

+1.

A pleasure reading wswolf's carefully crafted posts. Kudos.

To cooperate with your one subject per post I didn't read past the above. You must have skimmed over his information. When the material decays it colors the host rock. This happens instantly. If the earth started off white hot and molten the tiny color would have instantly disappeared.

So the rock had to be instantly created with the polonium in it. The polonium decayed instantly and left its mark. It's not that hard. Your suspicion is not justified from science. It is justified by your bias.

No matter how bad the evolutionist wants a problem for the creationsits the problem is the evlutionist's.

Gentry used science. He is not using a hypothesis. The evolutionist is using philosophy. The long ages is an assumption suported by other assumptions that the earth is old.

Ringman, do you know what a hypothesis is? Your arguments are usually much better than this.

I haven't seen any proof of this.. can you show me it in a recognised work (peer reviewed), that has been validated by a scientist?

Gentry�s the only guy with this hypothesis as far as I know. wswolf posted a pretty thorough refutation of the polonium ring deal a page back.

Hypothesis: A testable and potentially falsifiable explanation which includes some way to determine whether it is inaccurate or incomplete.
Its not 'blind speculation'.

Theory: (1) An explanation of a set of related facts or a given phenomenon. Example: Why �matter attracts matter� is a theory of gravity. (2) A body of knowledge including all known facts, hypotheses, and natural laws relevant to a particular field of study.
It is not conjecture!

Science: An objective method of measurably or verifiably improving our understanding of physical nature in practical application, or mathematics, or through experimentation and observation, by proposing falsifiable hypotheses explaining the facts in a theoretical framework to be subjected to a perpetual battery of critical analysis in peer review.
It is not "a conspiracy against God."

[biological] Evolution: An explanation of biodiversity through population mechanics, summarily defined as �descent with inherent genetic modification�: Paraphrased for clarity, it is a process of varying genetic frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in the morphological or physiological composition of descendant subsets, which �when compiled over successive generations- can increase biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.
It is not "How life began without God." It�s not "how life began" at all, and it certainly isn't 'anti-god'. Neither does it have anything to do with the origin of the universe. It�s simply how generations of branching lineages change and diversify over time; that's all!

The definitions and comentary above are quotes from AronRa who phrased them better than I could.

Gentry cooks up a hypothesis that predicts that the earth is still molten and requires multiple divine interventions changing the basic laws of nuclear physics to account for the state of the earth as we see it, and he is doing science? If Gentry's work can be classified as science then so can any other suprenatural explanation for anything. "The accumulated evidence from many fields of earth science pointing conclusively to a great age for the Earth" is philosophy? Better check that definition of science. Since I used the word "law" in the scientific sense I better put in another definition.

Law [of nature]: A general statement in science which is always true under a given set of circumstances. Example: That �matter attracts matter� is a law of gravity. - AronRa

Seems like anyone who's results agree with your assumption of a supernatural creator is doing science and anyone using "an objective method of measurably of verifiably improving our understanding of physical nature" is using philosophy.

Why do Creationist readilty accept that Jesus used metaphors and parables during his time on earth.. but reject the notion that metaphors and parables are contained in the written word?

If people are going to demand that Creationism be taught, then are they prepared for the schools to spend equal time on creation theories espoused by Hindus and Buddhists? Or those of the various Native Americans? or African Animists? Or the ancient Greeks, Norse, or Egyptians?

Schitbird, NO ONE is seriously considering letting Dr. Gish or Ken Hamm write their HS biology books. All anyone is saying is the public schools should present the FACTS (stubborn things, they are) that Darwin's Theory has lots and lots of holes in it. That isn't done, anywhere, ever, at least not when the marxist teacher's unions get wind of it. The smart kids will figure the rest of it out on their own. There are ONLY two options regarding human origins.

knee, your imagined "holes" are really only between your ears. That's the point. The whole idea of evolution is about as controversial as the earth orbiting the sun.

It is so interesting how you need to bring in marxism now, as if that has diddly to do with how genetic change occurs. Really, give it up man, you're lost.

What metaphors and parables are you refering to?
He didn't explain why He uses metaphors such as "I AM the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me," or "I AM the Bread of Life." They seem to explain themselves.

Jesus explains why he speaks in parable though,

"And He was sayng to them, 'To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God; but those who are outside get everything in parables; in order that while seeing, they may see and not perceive; and while hearing, they may hear and not understand; lest they return again and be forgiven.'"



Where did you get the idea that people are going to demand that creation be taught? I am note inclined to have a person antaginistic to creation teaching creation in school or anywhere else; just like you would not want me teaching evolutionism.

Ouch. Schitbird. Wow. Pain. Good lord... On-his-knees slung an insult. That makes in incomprehensible argument much clearer.... give it a rest.

Perhaps you're aware that the teachers' unions don't select state curricula, or textbooks.

Can you please provide some authority for the claim that that "[t]here are ONLY two options regarding human origins?" I'm sure the millions of practitioners of other religions who subscribe to creationism might disagree with your pronouncement...

He apparently sees the teaching of evolution as a Marxist plot to undermine capitalism or something judging from his comment:

�This in no "conversation" azzhat. The creationist camp has made an unsupportable claim or two but you dumbasses' only retort is, "you just don't understand the science" whenever they give one of your sacred cows a high shoulder shot.

You mofos are too ignorant to understand that the doctrine (that's EXACTLY what it is, currently) of evolution is the linchpin of Dialectical Materialism. It is the philosophical underpinning of killing fields all over this planet. And so far, you mofos have won, volumes of evidence that contradict your sacred cow, will, if mentioned in the publik skools you jackasses also revere will result in a pink slip for the teacher who utters a shred of it.

And you chastise me and tell me to be civil. EAT SCHIT AND DIE MOFO�

Never mind that the Soviets were all about Lamarckism as opposed to natural selection up until the 60�s. Evolution is a threat to his world view it seems and needs to be fought tooth and nail. Facts be damned.

A distinction without a difference, and your point is?

Hitler wasn't an evolutionist either, was he? He only killed 30 million plus.

Margret Sanger wasn't an evolutionist either, was she?

My whole point is if you knuckleheads can't see the philosophical/world view issue with having young skulls-full-of mush only being taught that when they look up their family tree, a monkey will schit in their face, and the monkey's family tree goes back to some slime-filled pond, then you are too stupid to be in charge of anything more complicated than a shovel or maybe a mop. What is scary is a whole bunch of you are publik skool teachers. We are absolutely [bleep] as a nation.

You claimed that evolution was the "linchpin of Dialectical Materialism"; a Hegelian offshoot of Marxism. I was pointing out that natural selection was frowned upon by the folks supposedly using it as their �linchpin�. Try to keep up.

Is it a �linchpin� of Nazism too now? I hadn�t heard���

Gotta admit that TAK takes this thread to a whole different level of entertainment. Much like the Blond Chicks explains MPH thread.

Guffawing.

He does take this thread somewhere...

I'd like to think he'll be appointed head debator for the creationist movement. That'll be a surefire way to get creationism taught in all public schools PDQ.

I�m starting to think he�s an atheist/naturalist sock puppet out to make the YEC�s look even crazier. Nobody could possibly be that obtuse.

I had to watch the Blond chic vs MPH after reading carbons comparison and I've gotta' say her input would be a welcome respite for TAK. No doubt she'd articulate her position at least as good he.

She could just "wack it in half"...

You, sir, are insulting my slime heritage.

My people will be contacting your people.

+1

Curious whether you believe the bread and wine at the last supper were literally the flesh and blood of Jesus. Roman Catholics believe it, but just wondering if you agree with Catholics on this.

"LADIES & GENTLEMAN !!!!
IT'S THE BATTLE OF THE MILLENIUM !!!!
CREATION VS. EVOLUTION!!!

This is going to be a caged, no holds barred match, to the death!!!!

In one corner we have EVOLUTION, who brings with it an assortment of weapons, including : records, fossils, actual proof, and even a bit of faith and belief.

In the other corner we have CREATION, who brings---wait a minute, CREATION is pulling something from out of a sack, it's a....it's a.... It's a book ?!? CREATION has brought a book to use in battle. And yes a bit of faith & belief."

"It's unbelievable the way they are going at each other folks ! It's a battle royal. Who will win this grudge match? Who will suffer from their loss? We may never know. Let's watch & see, and pray ours is the victorious one, which ever that may be."

Damn you're dumb, quite ignorant as well.

Take_a_knee.....

I've tried to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my own ass!

Take a knee, when they took your knee, they apparently took both your legs and left you without a leg to stand on.

Ignorance + Arrogance = Stupidity

Don't keep going there.

Looking forward to an answer to this question.

You don't have a combat arms background, do you schitbird?

If I never heard of the Catholic Church I belive Jesus. They got their believe about the body and blood of Jesus from Whom? Jesus! He, after all, did feed over 5,000 people with a sack lunch and had several baskets left over. He did, in fact, raise Lazarus from the dead after Lazarus was buried for four days. So when He says, "This is My body broken for you" who am I to challenge Him?

You seem to be ignorant of the fact that creationists and evlutionists use the same science. It is a matter of world view. We bring our biases no matter where we go.

Why do you think so many Ph.D evolutionists reject evolution in favor of creation every year? Can you name one Ph.D creationists, not a theologian, who has switched to evolution?

Hardly.

You might be the only Protestant who accepts that. Protestants generally believe he was using symbolism, and quote scripture in support of that claim.

Hey! another schitbird. But at least I'm capitalized.