Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Creationism vs Evolution

As far as uranium dating there are alot of factors.

1. the rock has to be free from lead at the beginning. *This is usually not the case; there is some lead to start with. This gives the rock what is called a built-in age, something more than zero.

2. We assume that the uranium was tightly sealed in the rock so that nothing could get in or out. Sometimes this may be true but not always. Over long periods of time, some of the lead or the uranium might seep out into groundwater. Or more uranium or lead might get in, especially if it is a sedimentary rock. For this reason, the uranium-lead clock works best on igneous rocks.

3.Other complications arise from the fact that another element, thorium, which may be in the mineral, is also radioactive and slowly disintegrates into lead. Besides that, uranium has a second isotope—the same chemically but different in mass—that decays at a different rate, also forming lead. Each of these ends up in a different isotope of lead.

So Like I said a guess at best

cpurser hey no hard feelings it's a discussion after all and one that can bring out emotions in people. But they are not looking for how much uranium is left but rather how much is now lead. I think there is a difference not sure though. Need to do more research when I get home.
Edit: just saw sboardsvt's post but will research more on topic later.

Unfortunately it looks like some heated discussion has occurred. I didn't start the post to provoke people to anger.

The topic of Creation vs Evolution is one of those topics that will go on until the end of time, and maybe this is the wrong place to discuss issues as these, or is it? It seems that most people confuse the issue of religion in discussions such as these. Religion does not equal Christianity. Religion is something you believe in. For people who believe that the Theory of Evolution is correct, that is their religion.

Now, if we get back to initial question of how evolutionists determine the age of the earth, most people can agree that Carbon dating is not accurate. If you use science to prove or disprove science, then science has disproven the use of Carbon dating to accurately determine the age of anything. (Just out of curiosity, I wonder how old I would be if Carbon dating was used?)

So if evolutionist use the fossil record to determine life, what do the Creationists use? The Bible. Some say the Bible is a history book. It does have a lot of history in it. It mentions actual kings and other events in history so that with some research one can determine the time when certain events occurred. This is how and why Creationist believe the earth is only thousands of years old. Some say the Bible contradicts itself. I personally have never been shown any proof that the Bible contradicts itself. So if you have some examples I would like to see them. Some say the Bible isn't complete and that some things were left out. Well, if you view the Bible as a history book, I challenge you to look through your school history books, there are a lot of things that are left out. School history books have to leave out things because they would be too big. Some say the Bible is all figurative. I agree that some of the descriptions in the book of Revelation are figurative. You try to explain something you have never seen before using only words that you know and tell me how figurative your language will become.

In the book of Genesis, the creation of the world is explained. It is hard to imagine an all power and all knowing God simply because our minds are too limited. But the Bible says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and that the earth was formless and void. Then God created the light and divided it from the darkness and this was the first day. (Obviously I am paraphrasing). It goes on to say how He divided the lands from the seas and created the plants and then the animals and finally man.

Now I realize it takes a lot of faith to believe the Biblical account of Creation, but you know, it takes a heck of a lot of faith to believe the Theory of Evolution too. It's just me, but I would rather believe that God created the human race than to believe that the human race evolved from some muck.

I guess the biggest problem for me when it comes to dating is all of the assumptions that have to be made. How much of this radioactive element was present at certain times is almost impossible to discover. But, if one uses all of the events in the Bible and counts them up as far as age of people, kings reigns and so forth I think it can easily provide the answer to how old the earth is.

I personally, dont believe that the bible was meant to be taken so literally,,,In the old jewish traditions and books, The Kabbalah, It describes the universe as beginning from a vacuum, basically describing the big bang....You guys hsould read a book called G-d and The Big Bang...

There are archeological artifacts describing the stars in an alignment that wasnt present after 6000 years ago,,,and disputing star alignment is futile.

The world can be millions of years old, and still have been created by G-d..I am personally not very religious, and have a masters in science, so I tend to view scientific evidence a bit stronger than writings of faith...
Actually Darwinian evolution is found at the microbiology level,,,constant evolution for survival,,changes are observed in every generation..

I wonder if God is turning the world into such a sinful society because of overcrowding in Heaven? Allowing all his children to go to Hell for the sake of the angels having more elbow room in the eternal afterlife. (It's apparently a given that I'm going to Hell since I'm not Catholic.) Mankind is lower than we have ever been. Most of the world's population makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like the Vatican. Why is God letting this happen? Time for another flood?

Oh, I just recalled -- I was washing my car this weekend and saw a rainbow in the mist. Despite being completely materialistic at the time, I remembered that God put that rainbow in my hose water to remind me that he would never flood the world again and wipe out all flesh. Phew, I'm safe -- for now anyway. And by his Divine plan, murderers will go on murdering, thieves will go on stealing, and priests will go on raping little children. Maybe FOX can sign God and Satan for the next episode of Celebrity Boxing!

Edit: Sorry that was so facetious. Just that the more I read from the pro-Creationist, pro-Biblical folks (not just on this site either) the more it seems like a big farce. But I can't shake the blind faith I was raised with, so for now I do still believe in God as I stated earlier.

Ok this was a shot, I have to respond. Why is some one that believes in religion a "nut"? That's what you are saying isn't it? 70% of the world population are all nuts? You must be one the chosen "sane" people.

Look, I don't general like to lay into people but geez woman! Just because someone has a different opinion than you doesn't make them nuts. You are probably one of those people that never listen to an opposing point of view. They just sit there thinking of ways to argue back. Let me guess, when an arguement isn't going your way, you throw up the big W..."WHATEVER" and walk away.

The whole point of this topic is to tell each other the opposite view points. NOT to argue over who is right and who is wrong. I won't be able to convince you I'm right if you believe you're in the right and vice versa. Please, let's try to keep it civil.

Dude man, why in the world do you think you are going to Hell because you are not Catholic?

God never talked about certain religions as the way to get to Heaven. He never started a religion, only a relationship. Religions are man made becuase none of us can agree with each other and we all have different views of God. And yes, evolutionist, anthiests, and agnostics all have a view about God. This is why I hate it when people talk about religion. The whole purpose of the Bible is to establish the relationship between God and man. It shows us where we fit into the greater scheme of things, and gives us a purpose and meaning to our lives.

Now as far as Evolution goes, what kind of meaning to life can we get out of it? Are we all just hap-hazardly here? Do we start from muck and return to muck when our life is over?

Sorry about that, I kind of got off the subject of Creation vs Evolution.

I really appreciate everyones views on this subject. How can I understand your point of view and you understand mine unless these kinds of subjects are talked about.

WhiteSE brought up the Big Bang. Let's discuss that for a moment.

Scientists say that they can see stars and galaxies billions of light years away. How do they know they are billions of light years away?

First, no one can measure star distance accurately. The farthest accurate distance man an measure is 20 light years (some textbooks say up to 100), not several billion light years. Man measures star distances using parallax trigonometry. By choosing two measurable observation points and making an imaginary triangle to a third point, and using simple trigonometry, man calculates the distance to the third point. Due to the fact that the stars are so far away, the angle of the triangle is so small that the distance can't be determined.

Several other methods such as luminosity and red shift are employed to try to guess at greater distances but all such methods have serious problems and assumptions involved. If one is to believe the red shift theory, it has been found that some objects are traveling faster than the speed of light. That is clearly in opposition to the Big Bang.

Another assumption is that light travels at the same speed throughout the universe. It has recently been discovered that it is possible to slow down light:

* On February 18, 1999, Houston Chronicle ran an article on page 10A about a Danish Physicist, Dr. Hau working at Harvard, being able to slow down light by cooling it. They cool it to fifty-billionths of a degree above absolute zero -459.67. The light was slowed down to 38 MPH!

* "Eureka! Scientists break speed of light", Jonathan Leake, Science Editor, Sunday Times [UK] June 4, 2000.
UNITED STATES SCIENTISTS claim they have broken the ultimate speed barrier: the speed of light. In research carried out in the United States, particle physicists have shown that light pulses can be accelerated to up to 300 times their normal velocity of 186,000 miles per second.
The work was carried out by Dr Lijun Wang, of the NEC research institute in Princeton, who transmitted a pulse of light towards a chamber filled with specially treated cesium gas. See also: New York Times May, 30, 2000

Just wanted to throw this in:

I saw this earlier, and I thought that it would be a great out, but there is a problem with this...Satan is a created being...he can not create. So, where did he get those dinosaur bones?

Another point:
A problem with scientific dating of geological strata is circular reasoning. For instace...
A scientist finds a fossil. (S)he claims that it is X million years old... How do they know this? Because of how deep it was found in the rock. Well, how do they know that layer of rock's age? Because they found that particular fossil in it!

Not very scientific, if you ask me. BTW, carbon dating is inaccurate, because the half lives of C-14 atoms is so long, we can never witness its decay.

I'm on God's team. 'Nuff said!

One more thing...If evolution is true, which I don't believe it is, but if it is, why, after countless billions of years, is everything not perfected yet? It has had ample time...