Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Creationism vs Evolution

I can't believe I missed this discussion. Oh well. I do have a few points to make.

To answer the question as it is asked. Evolutionists cannot prove the age of the earth.

From Starr and Taggart: Evolution is simply the character of the population changing through successive generations.

This has nothing to do with proving the age of something, just studying a given population of creatures over the course of time and noting the changes in their characteristics.

As for Evolution, I suggest anyone who doesn't believe it just doesn't understand it. Read any Biology book. They will always describe Evolution, as it's the basis of Biology...or the study of life. Nowhere in the current study of evolution (and I'm not talking about Darwin's notes) does it mention religion.

From Webster's Dictionary: Religion-An organized system of beliefs, rites, and celebrations centered on a supernatural being power; belief pursued with devotion.

The last fragment is the key, belief pursued with devotion. No sense in arguing with one's devotion.

Why mix the two....Evolution and religion. Why can't a religious individual believe in the change of a species characteristics over time? They can, ask anyone who studies Islam. My best friend gives lectures upon religion and evolution. Islam believes in both.

Now, scientists determining the age of the earth, not Evolutionists, is something entirely different.

I will attempt to answer that entirely different question when it is asked.

Greatone..
just a quick thing... if they dated the shroud of turin, and it dated to christ's time.. I would discount that date right off the bat. We were not there at the time of the making of the shroud, so we can't tell how much of whatever isotope was there to begin with, and we creationists, seeing the world around us, would correctly surmise that we can't be nieve and think that the current rate of isotope decay is and has been the same since then, and also that the shroud was in a closed system for the entire time. After all this, we wouldn't even know what dating method to use, because c12-c14 wouldn't work. It's highly unlikely there would be potasium, or argon... lead?? I don't think so.. there are about 15 other methods I could think of, but none would even be possible for a shroud..
Anyways.. my point is, yes.. dating methods are SO fataly flawed, and based on such FLIMSY assumptions, that an honest creationist would say no to a dating method.. regardless of whether "it agrees" with him or not...
we don't say yes to something that agrees, and then in the same breath, like many evolutionists say but this date is unacceptable...

I lack the overall tact to make my point in a non-offensive way, so please accept my apology for any perceived hostility. Not supposed to sound that way!

Great one.. I would like to look up further this substance that you are taling about.. if you could try to find a reference for me.. a name of the substance or something I could use to maybe research it a little. I find that intriguing...

Others... I suggest you read study by Dr Russell Humphries suggest runaway plate tectonics, as a cause for a global flood. The catalyst for this runaway plate tectonics was gigantic meteors colliding with earth. Nobody disputes giant meteors hitting earth. We dispute you saying the meteors wiped out dino's.
The main concern I can see is that most people talk dogmatically of evolution, when in reality it is only man's theories (regardles of good or bad not debating that in this talk) and these theories change all the time.
A proper, straight forward reading of genesis however, will give you information that has not changed in many years... infact has never changed since it was compiled by Moses. So, although creation scientists will be honest with the evidence and drop bad science, puluxy riverbed tracks.. etc... we don't change our basic premise. God created.

assvt... please follow along...

humans.. we always look at things from a time perspective.. everything has a beginning because we are subject to time, time is not outside of the universe, but rather inside. God, "the same yesterday, today, and forever" is outside of time. This is why the first few versus of genesis say that "IN THE BEGINNING"
When... the beginning... it is explained this way, because God creates time, then, says... at the very first moment in time.. the beginning... I created the heavens and the earth...
We can not wrap our heads properly around perhaps Him being outside of time, but it is not a stretch! He is not a physical human.
Hope this answers it. Contact me at blumchen@rogers.com for a more indepth answer if you care!
I think I speak for most christians on this board.. we are trying our best to give you REAL answers to some REAL questions... one small dilemna many of you will have however, is that you start with the premise that Evolution happened. Then you look at the world around you, and say wow... looks like it did happen.. Well, if you picture an analogy... You are wearing evolution glasses... if you take those glasses off, and wear a pair that say creation start with the assumption there is a God. and watch the evidence make sense. Again, with your evolution glasses on, some evidence makes sense, but the majority just doesn't seem to fit just quite rightly.
I would challenge you to take up blitzkrieg's 5 most favoured arguements for evolution idea.. and make that list.. see if it stands...

Small point concerning dating again... most people say that a certain fossil was dug up in a certain layer.. say precambrian.. or messazoic...
then you say that that fossil must be 60 million years old.. it is in a certain layer... The problem is, the people that designed the stratographic column, relied on the people designing the geologic column, for dates, and vica versa.. the geologists say the rocks are this age, because of the fossils contained there in... the (word escapes me.. fossil diggers.. sorry guys)say that fossils are so old, because of the rock layers they are found in...
this is circular reasoning. An honest person would look at the situation, and say that we need to look at our ages...

The 40000 year upper age limit for carbon dating, is simply a math formula...
it doesn't mean that the earth has to be that old...
example...
formula works like this
we take an organic substance...
we surmise it has 1 ounce of carbon12 to begin with, we know at present that 1 ounce of carbon decays into 1/2 ounce of carbon over x years...
therefore... with our original assumptions, we plug in the exact(currently measured) half life of carbon12, and that gives us a date.. the problem is, imagine if carbon was leaching into, or out of the organic substance we are dating!!
also... we were not there originally to acuratly measure how much carbon was in it to begin with...
so we guess... (not terribly scientific)
anyways, half life of different isotopes is up into the billions of years. that does not mean that the universe has been around that long.. it just means that the isotope is VERY stable.. it take xbillion years for 1kg of said isotope, to decay in 1/2 kg of said daughter isotope!!

cpurser... if you read the latest creation mag... from AIG... you will see an interesting article about plesiarours... Your photo's however, that you point to, are not used as evidence by major creation organizations, because those photo's are not conclusive, and preliminary reports seem to indicate that thosae carcasses are mearly a wierd type of whale.. < Article is in the magazine in my car. Email me if you want to know the name of the whale...> sorry..

Taxed2Death:

You have done very well with your posts. About those pictures: I agree that they are not conclusive, but I found them interesting, none the less. The magazine that you mentioned sounds interesting. What is it called again? Creation? And the publisher is AIG?

MystiqueSVT:

I am glad you have joined the discussion.

"From Starr and Taggart: Evolution is simply the character of the population changing through successive generations.

This definition is very broad and vague, and it is one of MANY definitions of evolution. The way it is worded here, it could be taken as Micro- or Macro-evolution.

"This has nothing to do with proving the age of something, just studying a given population of creatures over the course of time and noting the changes in their characteristics.

But without enough time, macroevolution did not have time to happen! That is why Creationists dwell on this point. There has been enough time for changes within a species (micro-), but not enough time for mutations and other factors to allow across-species changes (macro-).

So after the flood, how did these animals get all around the world? did noah transfer them to all islands in the world. or was it just another godly miracle...

The biblical flood is totally absurb.

most of the 'evidence' is incomplete and has other more logical explanation as to why they exist.

large scale floods do happen all the time, but there is no evidence of a global flood that would have covered all...

Except if that flood occoured on mars right! I mean a planet that has yet to offer us one drop of water, is now thought to have been completely flooded at one time but it's impossible for the earth which is over 70% water to have been covered by a global flood??? Which sounds more like a stretch, which takes more faith to believe in???

Taxed2Death, I do believe the "substance" is called iridium. It's something commonly found in "extra terrestrial" rocks IE: asteroids. What makes it so interesting is that there is a fine layer of it spread across the world. Again, not anywhere you decide to dig a hole, because the earths crust is a ocnstantly changing thing, but when you find this at various points across the world, it suggests that something catastrophic happened to spread that layer over such a great distance. I believe it is also evidence of Pangea, the one giant continent that once existed.

I think this is a great discussion, I wish I had the time to thoroughly do all the research I want, but oh well.