Why radioactive decay dates beyond around 4300 years are invalid

[The Barbarian]

Just now, RV_Wizard said:

For as much as you quote him, Augustine wouldn't believe any of your posts.

In fact, Augustine wrote that if new information was available, we should be willing to reconsider our thinking.    So, if he were alive today, he's agree with most Christians now, just as he did then.

 

[The Barbarian]

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Augustine said "For through Wisdom all things were made, and the motion we now see in creatures, measured by the lapse of time, as each one fulfills its proper function, comes to creatures from those causal reasons implanted in them, which God scattered as seeds at the moment of creation when He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created. Creation, therefore, did not take place slowly in order that a slow development might be implanted in those things that are slow by nature; nor were the ages established at plodding pace at which they now pass. Time brings about the development of these creatures according to the laws of their numbers, but there was no passage of time when they received these laws at creation..."

Yes.    God created nature to bring forth life, from what Augustine visualized as "seeds" that came forth in the proper "lapse of time."     He is saying that the initial creation was instaneous, from which all other things came about over time.

You just made my argument for me.   Did you not realize what Augustine wrote here?   It's a very primitive idea of evolution. 

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

He is saying that the initial creation was instaneous, from which all other things came about over time.

Augustine is YOUR hero, not mine.  He invented doctrine not found in the Scriptures, such as confessing to men and infant baptism.  So you agree with him that the earth cannot be more than 6,000 years old, right?  

I presume you also agree with him when he said of God, "He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created. Creation, therefore, did not take place slowly in order that a slow development might be implanted in those things that are slow by nature."

So your champion of the ancient earth and evolution actually believed in neither.  Neither did the early Christians, despite your constant claims to the contrary.

Edited April 2 by RV_Wizard

[The Barbarian]

4 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Augustine is YOUR hero, not mine. 

It was probably a bad idea for you to post parts of his writing that supports my argument.   I get that.   You probably didn't read it very carefully.

 

4 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

So you agree with him that the earth cannot be more than 6,000 years old, right?  

He went with the evidence he had at the time.   As you know, Augustine said that one should always be willing to change one's opinions, if new facts show a need to do so.   He'd be OE today.   And Augustine was willing to learn from God's creation:

"Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics, and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn... If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe our books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren, ... to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call on Holy Scripture, .. although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. "

St. Augustine, Confessions 

He's talking to you.   Listen to him.

 

 

[RV_Wizard]

9 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

It was probably a bad idea for you to post parts of his writing that supports my argument. 

His words in NO WAY supported the evolution of ANYTHING, and he argued for a 6,000 year old earth.  That's YOUR hero, not mine.  I take issue with many of the unscriptural concepts he championed.

9 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

He went with the evidence he had at the time.  

Exactly; the word of God which speaks of a six day creation and a 6,000 year old earth.  The word of God has not changed.  SOME people like to tell fabrications about what it says, but it remains unchanged.

In his writing, he is warning about talking against things easily disproved, like pretending there couldn't be a day before the sun was created because the light that God created wasn't really a light; or denying the global flood in spite of all the evidence for it,  or those who believed in a flat earth.

Despite claims by rabid fanatics, evolution is nothing more than a belief.  Science has proven that life only comes from life; that abiogenesis is a mathematical impossibility and that even the simplest life forms have complex DNA.  In short, life was designed.  Science can't prove the origination of anything.  While people may claim that all living things have a common progenitor, it's nothing but speculation and wishful thinking.  Claiming that it is a proven fact is outright lying.

 

[The Barbarian]

26 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

His words in NO WAY supported the evolution of ANYTHING

Anyway, the book where he talks about that is Book V of his work, On the Literal
Interpretation of Genesis (Latin: De Genesi Ad Litteram), and since that isn’t available
for free online (not yet anyway) I thought I’d share a few quotes that illustrate the point. If you’re looking for quotes from St. Augustine about evolution, these are them.

Specifically, we’re talking about Book V Chapter 7 Paragraph 20, where he lays out
what his topic is: “the production of things in the course of time following the creation of the world.” And the first point he makes is this: “The [Book of Genesis] appropriately begins with [water,] from which all kinds of animals, plants, and trees are born [and] develop in time...each according to its nature.” This is interesting because what he’s going to try to show is that every type of animal, plant, and tree was generated from water and earth and gradually developed into their present forms.

In the same paragraph he also speaks of “primordial seeds, whence all flesh and all vegetation are brought forth.” The reference to “seeds” is an analogy that he’ll get into a bit later: he compares the origin of species to the bringing forth of trees, which start out as a seed and then grow out of the earth into their mature form.

Moving on, a couple of paragraphs later he gets to the heart of it: “The things [that God] had potentially created…[came] forth in the course of time on different days according to their different kinds…[and] the rest of the earth [was] filled with its various kinds of creatures, [which] produc[ed] their appropriate forms in due time.” (Chapter 7 Paragraph 22) That is evolutionary thinking. God didn’t create all species of animals all at once, according to St. Augustine; He created them in a potential kind of way, so that they would develop later, “producing their appropriate forms in due time.”

But he has more to say about that: “It is obvious that in accordance with those kinds of creatures which He first made, God makes many new things which He did not make then.” (New species from an old genus.) “It is thus that God unfolds the generations which He laid up in creation when first he founded it.” (Chapter 20 Paragraph 41) After that he explains this by means of the tree analogy I mentioned earlier.
“Th[e] tree surely did not spring forth suddenly in [a mature] size and form, but rather went through a process of growth with which we are familiar. …[It] took its shape as it [gradually] developed with all its parts. … One [form of tree] comes from the other [form of tree], therefore, in succession, but both come from earth and not earth from them. Earth, then, is prior and is their source. The same is true of animals.” (Chapter 23 Paragraph 44) That’s an awesome set of quotes right there: because he says the same thing is true of animals, it follows that he thinks
animals “did not spring forth suddenly in a mature size and form” but gradually “went through a process of growth” through which they “took their shape” and “developed all their parts.” That’s not just true of individual animals growing from an immature state to a mature state; he’s talking about animal kinds -- the Latin word is genus. Animal kinds (canines, felines, etc.) gradually came to look like what they do today.

St. Augustine continues with the seed analogy in Chapter 23 Paragraph 45: “In the [tree], then, there [is] invisibly present [in its seed] all that [will] develop into the tree. And in this same way we must picture the world [when it was created]... This includes not only heaven with the sun, moon, and stars...but it includes also the beings which water and earth produced in potency and in their causes before they came forth in the course of time.” And finally: “The works which God produces even now as the ages unfold have their beginning in [the original creation].” (Chapter
23 Paragraph 46)

https://cainaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/AugustineonEvolution.pdf

Maybe, instead of reading bits and pieces that people cut for you, it would be worth reading the entire article.    You might learn something important. 

Worth a try?

 

[The Barbarian]

33 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

Despite claims by rabid fanatics, evolution is nothing more than a belief. 

It's directly observed in all sorts of living populations.   Did you forget what biological evolution is, again?

34 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

Science has proven that life only comes from life

God says otherwise:
Gen. 1:24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds.

And science, studying abiogenesis, has found that this is very likely correct.   Why not just accept it God's way?

36 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

that abiogenesis is a mathematical impossibility

Show us your math.    I'm thinking you just tossed that out, without ever doing any math whatever.  But maybe I'm wrong.   Let's see what you have.

37 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

even the simplest life forms have complex DNA.

Or simple bacterial DNA without telomeres.    Or even simpler viral RNA.     BTW, all the components of DNA are known to form in the absence of life.  Would you like to learn about that?

38 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

While people may claim that all living things have a common progenitor, it's nothing but speculation and wishful thinking. 

Sorry, genetics shows you are wrong.    It turns out that DNA shows the same tree of life first discovered by Linnaeus, hundreds of years ago.   And we know this works, because we can test it on organisms of known descent.

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Worth a try?

No.  As I said, he's your hero, not mine.  That he said one thing one time and later said something else as he moved further and further away from the word of God doesn't surprise me.  Augustine is responsible for bringing many heretical views into the church and thus polluting it.

1. Absolute predestination (God decides who will be saved/doomed)
2. Impossibility of falling away or apostasy (Eternal Security)
3. Man has no free will (monergism)
4. One cannot know if he/she is saved (since also those who are carnal minded might be saved)
5. God commands impossibilities (God requesting man to stop sinning which he cannot do)
6. The supreme authority of the Roman church
7. Purgatory
8. Prayers for the dead
9. The damnation of unbaptized infants and adults
10. Sex is sinful also within a marriage because depravity is inherited (hence the rise of monasteries)
11. Mary never committed sin, and we do well to worship her/pray to/through her
12. The gifts of healing, prophecy and tongues have ceased
13. Apocrypha is included in the Scriptures
14. Eucharist is necessary for salvation
15. Giving people the official “saint” title

When he said “The tree surely did not spring forth suddenly in [a mature] size and form, but rather went through a process of growth with which we are familiar," it is in direct contrast to Genesis one which shows that trees bearing fruit were created on the third day.  Augustine didn't believe in the mature creation of anything.  Genesis talks about the mature creation of everything.  When a clergyman teaches contrary to the Bible, he is committing heresy.

I hope Augustine got right with the Lord before he died, because he was one of the great polluters of the church.

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

It's directly observed in all sorts of living populations.  

Adaptation is observed, not the origins of any species.  This is why you really can't be an honest person and defend evolution.  You have to lie constantly that what is observed today proves origins.  It certainly does not.  We can show that canines can be cross bred with other canines, by the offspring are always canines.  We can show similarities in DNA, but likeness does not prove causation.  Evolution is no more proven or provable than creation.  One requires a faith in God, one requires a faith in a purely natural word in which God has little or no part.

9 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

God says otherwise:

More dishonesty.  You never post the subsequent verses that said God MADE all the living things on the sixth day of creation.  You are like any other false teacher who takes a phrase or two from the Bible to validate a lie and you hope people don't actually read it.  The creation of life from non-living elements is a scientific impossibility.  Life can ONLY come from a Creator.  God proves to us that He is God by doing the impossible consistently.  If you have a belief in God, why do you constantly misrepresent His word?

9 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Show us your math.

With these assumptions artificially helping the evolutionary cause, we will calculate the probability of just one aspect of abiogenesis—placing the amino acids in the correct positions in the proteins needed for the simplest life:

At least 387 proteins made up of 20 different amino acids are required for the simplest self-replicating organism (Glass, 2006)
We will assume that of the 100 or more amino acids in a typical protein, on average it is critical that only 10 of the positions have the exact right amino acid. (Usually the number is much greater than this.)
Choosing from a list of 20 possible amino acids in each of 387 * 10 positions => 203870 = 105035 possible combinations.
Calculating the number of “attempts” to find the correct combination, based on the current scientific estimates for the age and size of the universe: 1080 atoms in the universe, 1012 atomic interactions per second, 1018 seconds since the origin of the universe => 10110 possible attempts
Combining the two yields a 1 in 104925 chance that over the entire history and space of the universe the simplest DNA needed for life would randomly form. (Sarfati, 2014b, 36%). That’s a 1 with almost 5000 zeroes after it, so essentially no chance of it happening.  Why would anyone base their scientific theory (or their worldview) on those odds?  source

9 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Sorry, genetics shows you are wrong

You put your faith in genetics, I'll put my faith in God.  I'll gladly answer to God for defending His word against those who attacked it and tried to lead others away from it.  He might not think so highly of those who spend their time trying to lead others away from Him.

[The Barbarian]

 

Evolution is observed in all sorts of living populations.  

On 4/3/2024 at 6:10 AM, RV_Wizard said:

Adaptation is observed, not the origins of any species. 

You've forgotten what "evolution" and "adaptation" mean - again.    But yes, evolution of new species have been observed.   Would you like me to tell you what those things mean, yet again?

This is why you can't be honest about these things.   There are honest creationists who admit the truth.

Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level
and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by
macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for
macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to
accept this fact. It certainly CANNOT be said that traditional
creation theory expected (predicted) any of these fossil finds.

YE Creationist Kurt Wise Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms

Be honest.  God would approve.

On 4/3/2024 at 6:10 AM, RV_Wizard said:

We can show similarities in DNA, but likeness does not prove causation.

We can test your denial by looking at the DNA of organisms of known descent.   It always works.

On 4/3/2024 at 6:10 AM, RV_Wizard said:

Evolution is no more proven or provable than creation.

Evolution is creation.  But as you learned, we can observe it happening in all populations.  

On 4/3/2024 at 6:10 AM, RV_Wizard said:

One requires a faith in God, one requires a faith in a purely natural word in which God has little or no part.

That misunderstanding is why you keep embarrassing yourself here.

Faith is for God.    Science requires evidence.

On 4/2/2024 at 8:50 PM, The Barbarian said:

abiogenesis is a mathematical impossibility

Barbarian asks: "Show us your math."   

On 4/3/2024 at 6:10 AM, RV_Wizard said:

Combining the two yields a 1 in 104925 chance that over the entire history and space of the universe the simplest DNA needed for life would randomly form. (Sarfati, 2014b, 36%). That’s a 1 with almost 5000 zeroes after it, so essentially no chance of it happening.  Why would anyone base their scientific theory (or their worldview) on those odds?  source

You're assuming that there could only be one result.   But as biology shows, there are millions of them.   Sarfati's first goof is to assume chemistry is random.   Many configurations are not allowed by the way atoms are confirgured.    Here's a way to check Sarfati's  second goof:

Take a deck of cards and shuffle it well.   Then deal out the cards one at a time, documenting the order.    The likelihood of that order is one divided by 52! or about

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000012

Do it again; you'll get an equally unlikely result.   Even worse, try to calculate the likelihood of you, given the genes of your great-great-great grandparents.    Lots more zeros.   So now Safarti has "proven" that you and poker games are so unlikely as to be impossible.

Sarfati's attempt is so easily disproved that I'm surprised anyone still tries to use it.

Genetics shows you are wrong.

On 4/3/2024 at 6:10 AM, RV_Wizard said:

You put your faith in genetics

For me, genetics needs evidence.   I put my faith in God.   You should, too.  He might not think so highly of those who spend their time trying to lead others away from Him.