Age of the Earth 2

[artsylady]

Agreed, but it wasn't about Mr Baird, it was about unnamed people.

Part of this quote was Mr. Baird speaking for himself, as an archaeologist who deals in this dating method, regarding its unreliability.

Here I'd like you to name and quote how many involve this particularly story. I'd also point out that if someone (or a community) create a legend involving a worldwide flood - they are also going to have to include a mechanism for the survival of the human race - otherwise the question "then why is there anyone left" would destroy the legend.

http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html

Please read some of these legends from various places.

To name a few places where the boat and people being saved are Africa, Asia, Europe, Mexico. The AUSTRALIAN legend even uses the same Biblical name - Noah! How do you reconcile all these similarities? Read a few of these. Many speak of God telling the man to build the boat and take on his family and two of every creature. To say that all of the civilizations completely independant of each other made up remarkably similar stories shows that you wish to deny a possibility. They are not just stories from Europe or Asia. The same story is scattered all over the globe! Now, in each of these places, either there WAS a flood where a man was saved on a boat with animals and his family, OR some civilizations completely made up the story - otherwise, as you state, there wouldn't be anyone left to tell the story. So which do you think it is?

No, but communication has become better in the last 1000 years, and travel has become much more common. And legends spread.

But the stories of dragons go back much much further than the last 1000 years.

The dragons of legend also flew and breathed fire out of their noses. Dinosaurs didn't do that.

Pteradyacles flew. So did the North American Indians "Thunderbirds". You should check out their description of this flying creature. It might surprise you.

Also, the last dinosaur fossil we ever found was dated to be 65,000,000 years old, which is a long time before alexander the great, or Saint George ever killed any dragons. Some believe that there are still marine dinosaurs living somewhere in a small population - and say that the Loch Ness Monster is one of them, or a group - and this has some surface plausibility, because the oceans are mostly unexplored. We actually recently caught a fish we believed had been extinct for millions of years, proving it can happen. Even then, I don't believe a bit of it, because it's so unlikely.

I disagree that this is unlikely. What if our dating methods are just wrong?

As for dinosaurs still existing on the ground, it just aint possible, not in any large numbers anyhow.

I agree that there are not large numbers of dinos still around.

A small population is a very isolated and as yet unexplored region could theoretically be possible, but to sustain a small population for 65 million years at a stable level, well, it's very unlikely.

The 65 million years old is what I have a problem with.

[artsylady]

I'll look up more info on the evolution of language but much later. Gotta run

[Guest green_ink]

Hi SA!

I'm a scientist, myself, and appreciate what you've had to say in this thread. I was raised in a Christian home but promptly dropped out after being confirmed. Then spent college and later trying to figure out what sort of God/Christianity I believed in, on the VERY rare occasions that I thought about religion at all. Of course, having children of my own inspired me to return to church for their sake. Ah, but I resented going! I had better things to do! I didn't really know any committed Christians (as opposed to the kind I was then), but they just seemed silly to me. How could one possibly believe that the earth was only a few thousand years old, after all? Or that a flood covered the whole entire earth? Geology is what I studied in college, so people who could believe such overt silliness didn't seem worth getting to know better. I hadn't thrown out the idea of the existence of God, just relegated him to some far corner of heaven where he'd sit and watch how the universe he created was getting along. And the resurrection of Jesus? well, I just preferred not to think about that too much. I'm sure that if I had been committed to searching and reaching a conclusion about the existence of God at that time in my life, I would have wound up an atheist, too.

But, my time of search came after a personal crisis inspired by a healing service at the church I attend. It pushed me to the point where I was unsure whether I believed in God, and I found that very distressing. "Nice people" were generally Christians and believed in God. What would it say about who I thought I was, my self-perception, if I no longer believed in God?

So, I started searching. I read. Boy, did I read. I read the New Testament, and I found works of apologetics. I read a bit of philosophy. I read about different ways of expressing Christianity. ANd you know what? Over a period of about 3-4 months, I came to faith. It was hard. I am skeptical of "religious" feelings, and such. I still have a very dry, intellectual faith. But for me, I found the evidence for Christianity won out. Of course, I still believe the earth is billions of years old and that there was no world-wide flood. I follow a moderate approach to scripture, wherein Genesis is more a laying out basic truths about the formation of the world and early history of God's people, a literary work rather than a scientific dissertation. I have even come to accept that real true miracles do at least occasionally happen, and that Jesus was bodily resurrected from the dead after his crucifiction.

But the thing I found most helpful in reaching this point, was philosphical-type discussions. You can talk scientific data all day and not have an answer to a basic question like, how can something come from nothing? Two books I found enlightening were "Scaling the Secular City" (I'm sorry, I cannot recall the author), and "Miracles" by C.S. Lewis. SA, you sound so well read that you've probably looked at this sort of stuff, but if not, I highly recommend these two especially. (I would guess you don't watch much TV, and spend alot of you free time devouring various and sundry reading material ).

I know I appreciate a wise word from someone who has time to keep up with the latest research. One thing I'm wondering what you may know of, is the status of the origins of life debate. I think I had read that despite what scientists had thought awhile back, the likelihood for the spontaneous creation of life on earth is much smaller than previously thought. Also, on evolution, I think I saw some reports that as more fossil and other evidence has been gathered, instead of pointing to gradual evolution, it has shown periods where there are explosions of new species in very short time periods, and species show up with complex structures essentially fully formed, but no precursor forms. I apologise for being so vague in these references, and I may be totally mistaken. I watch too much TV, and have a mind like a steel seive to boot (only the biggest chunks of info are retained in it! )

peace!

old Geologist's saying: "I never would have seen it if I hadn't first believed it was there."

[nebula]

Nebula

Yes, the translation of numbers and symbols is our invention, but the principles behind them? Yes, 1 + 1 = 2 is the language we invented. But, did we invent the principle or did we discover it?

We certainly didn't invent the principle of nothingness and wholeness, we discovered these. From these, we define a number series, and hence invent basic arithmetic, multiplication, fractions, and then calculus.

Do you not find it amazing that the universe can be described at all?

No, since we have tools to describe both order and randomness, and these are the only two options. Any universe with any random set of physical laws will be able to be described, and, if it is at all non-random, predicted to a certain extent.

How so? What basis or evidence do you believe that on?

Well, firstly, I have empirical evidence that it can happen, in evolution. Secondly, I have a theoretical understanding of how order can build naturally from disorder, given energy (by means of non-random selection).

The simplest example of natural order building up that I can think of is a hole on a beach. A hole on a beach will have pebbles and stones washed over it, but it will only let in pebbles and stones small enough to fall in, while it will reject those that are too big, and these will wash over it. This non-random but perfectly natural sorting mechanism will eventually build up a 1,0 digital pair (small inside, large outside) - information, order, decrease in local entropy.

I'm asking you these questions because this is one area with atheists, especially the ones literate in science, that I simply cannot understand.

Athiests seem to think it natural that such things as order and nothingness and those things we call principles and laws just exist on their own merit, without any outside cause or foundation. They just are - because - because! To imagine that a bunch of atoms can exist at all, and be bound together to form elements and compounds - doesn't that just fill you with wonder that such is even possible? How is it that the elements can be categorized in a chart (the Periodic Table) that so nicely is able to categorize them together by their unique properties so orderly? How can randomness - or whatever it is you consider it to be - just "do" it? Or to consider that DNA is actually a code?

Doesn't that just blow your mind that it can be so?

[artsylady]

Here are some links regarding language. The oldest writings are from about 5000 years ago.

http://www.netgain.co.nz/writing.htm

I meant to copy another link but suddenly my copy button isn't working.

[artsylady]

Also, you might want to know, this is exactly what the people at the last Christian site I visited said to me. 4800 posts later, and many many prayers, I'm still an atheist.

But you're still in the company of Christians. Maybe their prayers are working.

May I ask why you left there to come here?

Just one more, if you don't mind. May I ask you if you had been a Christian at one time?

[artsylady]

QUOTE 

No, it doesn't. Language was probably only evolved one or a few times (the ability to talk only once), then differentiated and "mutated" (changed) and specialised.

Language evolves very quickly. Have you talked to a 15-year old lately? "Yo! Ssssuuuupppp?" has replaced "hello how are you?"

QUOTE 

Are feral children typical of our ancestors? No, because our ancestors lived in communities, where communication was vital. I'm not surprised that feral children don't talk, they havn't been exposed to any other creature capable of meanigful speech or understandable communication.

They would be typical to our supposed ancestors - the ones who had no speech. Again, a human has to be taught to speak and taught at a young age. I can attest to this personally. I have a four year old foster child who was neglected and now is able to finally speak at a 2 year old level. His therapists aren't sure at this point that he will ever be able to catch up.

So, if humans have to be taught to speak and taught at a young age, how could speech start?

Do you agree with linguists that speech all started from one mother language?

QUOTE 

artsylady, I appreciate your posts, but the fact of the matter is, there is absolutely no physical evidence of a worldwide flood in the near past (or at any time in the past in fact) and there is plenty of physical evidence against this hypothesis.

Respectfully, I disagree. There is much evidence for a global flood - so much so that I'm not sure where to begin.

QUOTE 

This physical evidence comes from as diverse fields as biology, anthropology, geology, archaeology, biochemistry, physics and paleontology.

Again, I must disagree. All of the above fields of study have proof for a global flood. There is evidence to suggest evolution happened as you may think it did, and there is evidence to support the Bible. In your opinion, the evidence clearly shows evolution happened. In mine, the evidence shows that the Bible tells it the way it really happened.

QUOTE 

However, there is some evidence of a local flood (the Red Sea flood) that may well have passed into legend as a worldwide flood (the "world" of the ancients being so much smaller than our world). 

That was a different flood.

[Guest yod]

QUOTE

QUOTE 

However, there is some evidence of a local flood (the Red Sea flood) that may well have passed into legend as a worldwide flood (the "world" of the ancients being so much smaller than our world). 

That was a different flood.

not necessarily.

Check out this verse in 1 Chronicles 1:19

Two sons were born to Eber:

One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided;

this was only a couple of generations after Noah. I believe this is saying that the earth was one land mass in the Day of Noah. A flood could easily have covered the entire inhabited earth.

[John3;16]

If the law of thermal dynamics states that matter can neither be created nor distroyed, then where did all of this matter come from?

Before matter, there had to be nothing, from nothing you get nothing.

great vastness, emptyness, void, and bang matter and life?... , sounds like you would need a whole lot of faith to believe in that, this world and universe is in a degenerative state, as soon as life begins, it begins to die, there has never been one single link between any species found, so you are talking about spontainous creation, if you look at life you have to see a creator, it is by design, not happenstance, there are to many components that function together like the adp to atp that the muscles use to contract, but it is performed at the cellular level, these things do not just fall together, the eye is another example, separate systems working together for the benifit of the host, you have a lens that focuses, contracting and relaxing muscles, rods and cones to recieve light reflected images, these then are converted to electrical inpulses, by chemical reactions, sending this information to the brain, which is made up of the same type cells that the nerves are made up of, then the brain using electro/chemical impulses, creates an image in our consciousness, which science cannot even begin to explain, that is consciousness, what is that? can you explain that? where and how does it exist? We are more than corrugated chemical reactions, all of the cells in you body are identical, but each performs different funtions, liver cells, white blood cells, neurons, hair, skin, even red blood cells all start out idential, how could so many functions be performed by these cells that are modified into the type of cell to to perform the particular funtion that is required. creating organs, skin, hair, teath, ect., what could corrigraph such an event. and it would have to be replacted over and over again, by chance, through every species, because ther is no link, and there couldn't possibly be a link between many species due to the fact that there is such varity of species, flies have eyes, so do fish, there are no branches because they would have found some evidence, somewhere in this world, in some dig, just something to think about, we have a designer, and he wants you to seek him, and believe and trust in him. Satan whants you to believe in your own intelect, and trust in those things which are visible, but if you search you will find, because he is the creator of all the universe, it reveals his majesty.

[Guest Theophilia]

The Truth is he is trying to proove a lie. There are many many scientists who have proven that that dating system is the same as the evolution thing, it is only a theory made up by man to support a theory made up by man, and the same holds true of every fact the evolutionists claim. The true scientists have proven the 6 day creation.

Ok - I have a really hard time with this one...for both sides of the argument...you can never prove anything to anyone. Basic philosophy class will teach you that.