This is something that has been bothering me. Not too long ago i was having a conversation with a guy i know about Christianity. He is a fundamental Christian i guess, and we started talking about evolution etc. At one point the subject of the age of the earth came up. I learned in school that the earth is like 4-5 billion years old. He on the other hand insisted that the earth was 6000 years old. He said that he could give an internet address to a site that proves this. Since neither of us have any expertise in this subject we decided to leave it at that.

I know that there are many people on these forums that believe that the earth is 6000 years old and probably can give me a link to a site that claims that it can prove it. Since i don't have a single clue about the science that is behind measuring the age of the earth, it wouldn't do me much good.

Later i started thinking about the fact that we can artificially make diamonds. As i understand it diamonds are supposed to be really old, like billions of years old, so wouldn't it be completely ridiculous if we could make diamonds yet we were billions of year wrong about their age?

When you start to think like this, where does it end? We know about DNA, nuclear energy, viruses, space etc. yet we would be totally wrong about evolution, The big bang etc?

I mean how do you deal with this? If i would become a believer i would have to rationalize everything thing i just wrote and a ton more to fully believe what the bible says is true.

Well a few things to that:
I don't have a link, sorry. not at the moment anyway. BUT I would say that yes I agree, the earth is around, 6,000 years old, at a maximum of 10,000 years old.
Now you said,


When you start to think like this, where does it end? We know about DNA, nuclear energy, viruses, space etc. yet we would be totally wrong about evolution, The big bang etc?but look at it. You stated things we KNOW, then compared it with evolution...something no one knows. The Big Bang theory is what? Theory. Merely an idea. Nothing more. Same with Evolution. it is a theory, an idea. nothing more. and False and completely a lie altogether.
There is more support in the bible and in the world that support that the world is not that old, that we as humans lived with dinosaurs, and Adam and Eve were, indeed, the very first AND only humans created.

Also, with carbon dating...it isn't fact nor accurate. I read in a book somewhere, (sadly I can not quote nor refer) that said that scienctists tested carbon dating on a pair of shoes. THey got results saying the shoes were thousands of years old. I'm sure with some research I could find this and refer you to it to see for yourself, but as I mentioned, I don't have that information at the moment.

As for people living with dinosaurs. In the bible, in several instances, a monster, or large animal is discribed. Sadly, people try and say that these creatures' discriptions are for creatures of today, such as hippos or gators. but this is not true. For some are discribed as tall, huge, with thunderous tails. Doesn't sound like a hippo to me.

Hey Tuto :wave:


I know that there are many people on these forums that believe that the earth is 6000 years old and probably can give me a link to a site that claims that it can prove it. Since i don't have a single clue about the science that is behind measuring the age of the earth, it wouldn't do me much good.
This is a question that never goes away because there's lots of interesting evidence and hypotheses on all sides of the debate. Personally, I'm undecided but lean towards an old earth. I'm science minded, but have no specific natural science training. What I find most compelling is that multiple, non-dependant schools draw roughly the same conclusions about the earth's age. I DO keep my mind open though, and try not to be dogmatic about it.


Later i started thinking about the fact that we can artificially make diamonds. As i understand it diamonds are supposed to be really old, like billions of years old, so wouldn't it be completely ridiculous if we could make diamonds yet we were billions of year wrong about their age?
The trick is, we make diamonds synthetically. If we were to leave diamond production to nature, how long would it take to do the same thing? Most geologists would say "a really really long time".


When you start to think like this, where does it end? We know about DNA, nuclear energy, viruses, space etc. yet we would be totally wrong about evolution, The big bang etc?
Yes. Seems like we know too much to be wrong sometimes, right? Well, consider that before Einstein developed the theory of relativity (and turned the physics world on its head), academia of the day figured mankind pretty much knew all there was to know. Not to say earlier theories were "stupid", they just encompassed all the observed data as best as it could at the time.


I mean how do you deal with this? If i would become a believer i would have to rationalize everything thing i just wrote and a ton more to fully believe what the bible says is true.
Here's an interesting question: what do you believe the bible says?
There's basically two schools of thought on the creation story.
1) Its literal: God tells Moses exactly how it was all done, in literal detail. The word "day" means "24 hours"
2) Its figurative: God shows Moses "generally" how it was done. References to "day" are figurative and could mean "age".
These two ideas are contested passionately in Christianity. Some are adamant that the truth is (1), sore are adamant that the truth is (2), and some (like me) can't decide.

You and I are alike in that we like to have things figured out before we commit to them. Its gotta make sense before we take it into our hearts and say "Yes, this is truth!". So lets leave the exact age of earth out of the equation for a moment, and apply that need for "sense" in the opposite direction.

Does evolution make sense of the human experience?
How is that we seem to know what's "fair" and "right" and "wrong" and "unfair" even as little children?
If we're all no more than a freakish cosmic accident, who says anything we believe is right and wrong?
If all we have is about 60 years on this rock and then *poof*, nothingness, why on earth should we be bound by honor, fairness, law, and good?
If someone killed your family tomorrow, and you were alone, would the empty cosmic void care about the injustice?

When I asked myself these questions, I realized that there's good reason to believe in God. Once I made that determination, my next question was "did this God reveal him/herself specifically to creation".

I'm glad you're asking questions and carefully considering the answers. You don't have to give up reason to find the answers and be satisfied.
Hope to see more of your questions in the future.



Rob.

Well a few things to that:
I don't have a link, sorry. not at the moment anyway. BUT I would say that yes I agree, the earth is around, 6,000 years old, at a maximum of 10,000 years old.
Now you said,

but look at it. You stated things we KNOW, then compared it with evolution...something no one knows. The Big Bang theory is what? Theory. Merely an idea. Nothing more. Same with Evolution. it is a theory, an idea. nothing more. and False and completely a lie altogether.
There is more support in the bible and in the world that support that the world is not that old, that we as humans lived with dinosaurs, and Adam and Eve were, indeed, the very first AND only humans created.

Also, with carbon dating...it isn't fact nor accurate. I read in a book somewhere, (sadly I can not quote nor refer) that said that scienctists tested carbon dating on a pair of shoes. THey got results saying the shoes were thousands of years old. I'm sure with some research I could find this and refer you to it to see for yourself, but as I mentioned, I don't have that information at the moment.

As for people living with dinosaurs. In the bible, in several instances, a monster, or large animal is discribed. Sadly, people try and say that these creatures' discriptions are for creatures of today, such as hippos or gators. but this is not true. For some are discribed as tall, huge, with thunderous tails. Doesn't sound like a hippo to me.

I don't want to insult you, but the fact that your referred the theory of evolution and the big bang theory as just ideas takes a lot of credibility away from your post. I mean i am no expert but even i know that there is a huge difference between a scientific theory and what your average person would call a theory.

I cant give an opinion about the accuracy of carbon dating, because i don't know anything about the science that goes behind it. No book or internet link will change that, because without a doubt understanding it requires advanced knowledge in many different fields. But the thing is that the people that actually know about the science seem to think that its accurate. Who am i to argue with that?

Then we come to the dinosaur part. Even though it would be nice to believe that dinosaur lived here with humans, there are still a lot of scientist working on the field of evolution and billions of dollars invested in the research. It just feels impossible to believe in something so simple.

Well theories are ideas. and most scientific theories are foolish. Being foolish, sadly, they throw away a lot of money. Either way, the contrast is Truth and theory. People choose which to follow. I choose to follow the Truth. You say the Truth may sound simple..honestly, it is. The bible is straight forward, direct, blunt, simple, and true. It is people, religion, and theories people come up with, using their faulty scientific methods, that make the Truth difficult.

But perhaps, I I don't know what a theory is. I thought, it was an idea. A hypthothesis. A prediction.

Hey Tuto :wave:




You and I are alike in that we like to have things figured out before we commit to them. Its gotta make sense before we take it into our hearts and say "Yes, this is truth!". So lets leave the exact age of earth out of the equation for a moment, and apply that need for "sense" in the opposite direction.

Does evolution make sense of the human experience?
How is that we seem to know what's "fair" and "right" and "wrong" and "unfair" even as little children?
If we're all no more than a freakish cosmic accident, who says anything we believe is right and wrong?
If all we have is about 60 years on this rock and then *poof*, nothingness, why on earth should we be bound by honor, fairness, law, and good?
If someone killed your family tomorrow, and you were alone, would the empty cosmic void care about the injustice?

When I asked myself these questions, I realized that there's good reason to believe in God. Once I made that determination, my next question was "did this God reveal him/herself specifically to creation".

I'm glad you're asking questions and carefully considering the answers. You don't have to give up reason to find the answers and be satisfied.
Hope to see more of your questions in the future.



Rob.

Thanks for your answer. I am a bit out of my league when questioning the validity of evolution etc. and the points you just now presented are probably more important.
If we look back at history i think you and i can both agree that the concept of right and wrong seem to vary greatly between societies. There has been slavery, war, genocide, and many other horrible things done in different societies, some of them Christian. It seems that the current concept of right and wrong has been around for a very short while and it seems to be constantly developing.

About the children part. I once saw a nature show where child monkeys played with others of their kind. They didn't want to kill each other and neither did the adults. Obviously they understood the importance of their pact. Couldn't the human behavior you described be explained the same way?

I have to say that the thing that draws me to these forums is probably the fact that I don't want to believe that after i die there is nothing left. But that alone isn't enough the believe in something, even though its tempting.

Well theories are ideas. and most scientific theories are foolish. Being foolish, sadly, they throw away a lot of money. Either way, the contrast is Truth and theory. People choose which to follow. I choose to follow the Truth. You say the Truth may sound simple..honestly, it is. The bible is straight forward, direct, blunt, simple, and true. It is people, religion, and theories people come up with, using their faulty scientific methods, that make the Truth difficult.

But perhaps, I I don't know what a theory is. I thought, it was an idea. A hypthothesis. A prediction.

Science

In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_%28abstract%29) or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by rigorous observations in the natural world, or by experimental (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiment) evidence (see scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method)). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic), and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections, inclusion in a yet wider theory, or succession. Commonly, many more specific hypotheses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis) may be logically bound together by just one or two theories. As a rule for use of the term, theories tend to deal with much broader sets of universals than do hypotheses, which ordinarily deal with much more specific sets of phenomena or specific applications of a theory.
Of several competing theories, one theory may be superior to another in terms of its approximation of reality. Scientific tests of the quality of a theory include its conformity to known facts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facts) and its ability to generate hypotheses with outcomes that would predict further testable facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory#Science

This is something that has been bothering me. Not too long ago i was having a conversation with a guy i know about Christianity. He is a fundamental Christian i guess, and we started talking about evolution etc. At one point the subject of the age of the earth came up. I learned in school that the earth is like 4-5 billion years old. He on the other hand insisted that the earth was 6000 years old. He said that he could give an internet address to a site that proves this. Since neither of us have any expertise in this subject we decided to leave it at that.

I know that there are many people on these forums that believe that the earth is 6000 years old and probably can give me a link to a site that claims that it can prove it. Since i don't have a single clue about the science that is behind measuring the age of the earth, it wouldn't do me much good.

Later i started thinking about the fact that we can artificially make diamonds. As i understand it diamonds are supposed to be really old, like billions of years old, so wouldn't it be completely ridiculous if we could make diamonds yet we were billions of year wrong about their age?

When you start to think like this, where does it end? We know about DNA, nuclear energy, viruses, space etc. yet we would be totally wrong about evolution, The big bang etc?

I mean how do you deal with this? If i would become a believer i would have to rationalize everything thing i just wrote and a ton more to fully believe what the bible says is true.

What's the problem with the earth's age being only a fraction of what evolutionists claim ? Look at the advances we have made in just 100 years. You have to remember, the planet wasn't anything like it was during the time of Adam/Eve. Adam was given dominion over God's creative work. He named ALL the animals - which had to take a VERY long time. The judgements came - not when Eve disobeyed but when Adam messed up. The judgements affected the WHOLE of creation but God had a backup plan - Jesus - the 2nd Adam.

I recorded the ages/births of everyone in Genesis - those that I could. If I recall, 2000 years passed up until Joseph. So, here we have hard documentation of the earth in its infancy. What do evolutionists have ? GUESSES - ASSUMPTIONS - BASELESS THEORIES - all geared towards one goal - removing God from the equation. In other words, to take the place of God. Hmmm..who was the last turkey who tried this ???

Personally, I don't think evolution nor creation should be taught in the public schools.

Thanks for your answer. I am a bit out of my league when questioning the validity of evolution etc. and the points you just now presented are probably more important.
Yeah. Its a bit like asking why physicists haven't unified the field theories when you're barely out of high school math. The best you can do is research the theory's claims, research its critiques, and ask questions as best you can.

For example... my questions stand as...
1) Do we have concrete examples of organisms gaining genetic information via mutation? Or more plainly: is there such thing as a beneficial mutation, since every mutation we know of tends to make the host less sexually dominant and less suited to environment.
2) How does step-wise evolution account for complex organs, when such organs are utterly useless when not whole. In other words, how is an "almost eye" useful? How is an "almost lung" useful? How is a flipper-hoof hybrid equal to a hoof or as a flipper? Some things just don't work unless they're whole.
3) If spontaneous generation is pretty universally disdained, how does abiogenesis occur?


If we look back at history i think you and i can both agree that the concept of right and wrong seem to vary greatly between societies. There has been slavery, war, genocide, and many other horrible things done in different societies, some of them Christian. It seems that the current concept of right and wrong has been around for a very short while and it seems to be constantly developing.
I'd agree that history sometimes (not all the time) favors the victor, but it has not been as morally flexible as you might think. Do you think African slaves felt their ordeal to be just? In a Godless universe it wouldn't matter what they thought. I think the slavery, war, genocide and other horrible things were just as horrible then as they were now... you just need to find the group of people who were the victims and they'd tell you straight up.


About the children part. I once saw a nature show where child monkeys played with others of their kind. They didn't want to kill each other and neither did the adults. Obviously they understood the importance of their pact. Couldn't the human behavior you described be explained the same way?
Yeah... there's a case for pack mentality, but to me pack/herd mentality doesn't cut it. If I'm ultimately accountable to no-one, what do I care about someone not in my pack? If my pack/herd is stronger, why not lay waste to the another and take their stuff? Why is rape, theft, molestation, and deceit so universally felt as unjust? Many people would say its because it interferes with someone else's right to living their life. What right? In a Godless universe, who gave them such rights and why should those rights supersede my strength to impose my own survival, comfort, and pleasure?


I have to say that the thing that draws me to these forums is probably the fact that I don't want to believe that after i die there is nothing left. But that alone isn't enough the believe in something, even though its tempting.
"Is this all there is"?
Its as good a place to start as any. :) Its good to have you here.

Thanks for your answer. I am a bit out of my league when questioning the validity of evolution etc. and the points you just now presented are probably more important.

HisLeast already gave you some good examples of almost-organs.

I'd also urge you to consider systems where multiple life-forms interact with each other. Take something simple like insects pollinating flowers. With no insects, why would a flower develop, and how long would it last if it was never pollinated? On the other hand, how long would an insect last if there were no flowers from which to draw food?

In the absence of an insect the flower would not survive. In the absence of a flower the insect would not survive. To me it seems the chances of both developing, purely by chance, at a sufficiently similar time to take advantage of each other, are so low as to require more faith than it takes to believe that God created everything.

Later i started thinking about the fact that we can artificially make diamonds. As i understand it diamonds are supposed to be really old, like billions of years old, so wouldn't it be completely ridiculous if we could make diamonds yet we were billions of year wrong about their age?

There is a bit of confusion here. The question is not about how old a diamond is, but how long it takes to make a diamond. The creation of a diamond is not dependent on a long time. You need the right materials and the right conditions, and you can make a diamond or any other kind of gemstone for that matter, in a laboratory. These "created" gemstones as they are called are not synthetic because they are the real thing. The fact that they can be made in the laboratory proves that it doesn't take millions of years for a diamond to form.

It can also be demonstrated that various things can be fossilized in a very short period of time. What is needed to make a fossil is not a long period of time but rather, the right conditions and the right materials. Here you can see a picture of a miner's hat (http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i3/fossil_hat.asp) that is completely fossilized.


When you start to think like this, where does it end? We know about DNA, nuclear energy, viruses, space etc. yet we would be totally wrong about evolution, The big bang etc?


I'm not sure what the conflict is here. The answer is YES we can be totally wrong about the Big Bang. As more and more information comes in it is becoming evident that much of what has been believed about astronomy is not correct. When this stuff piles up and gets to a critical point, it will have to be acknowledged that much of what is believed and taught today is WRONG. This article on what is called "Surprise Effects (http://www.icr.org/articles/print/3963/)" should be easy to read as it is written in layman's terms. It explains some of the "surprises" that are coming to light as we learn more about what is out there in space. Science has a long history of being wrong about a lot of things. That's why it keeps changing.

Those things that are solidly known and do not change are not in conflict with what the Bible teaches. For example you know that if you plant an apple seed, you will get an apple tree, and that apple tree will produce apples. This is scientific fact, and is in keeping with Scripture which says that each plant will reproduce after its own kind. Those things that are in conflict with the plain and straight-forward teaching of Scripture have not been proven, and are subject to change in the future.



I mean how do you deal with this? If i would become a believer i would have to rationalize everything thing i just wrote and a ton more to fully believe what the bible says is true.

If you are willing to do just a little bit of investigating on your own you will find that the Creationist viewpoint is really not as outlandish and ridiculous as you have been led to believe. Both links I provided for you above have much more on those websites that can answer the questions you may have about origins. Consider it with an open mind. You might be surprised.

Yeah. Its a bit like asking why physicists haven't unified the field theories when you're barely out of high school math. The best you can do is research the theory's claims, research its critiques, and ask questions as best you can.

For example... my questions stand as...
1) Do we have concrete examples of organisms gaining genetic information via mutation? Or more plainly: is there such thing as a beneficial mutation, since every mutation we know of tends to make the host less sexually dominant and less suited to environment.
2) How does step-wise evolution account for complex organs, when such organs are utterly useless when not whole. In other words, how is an "almost eye" useful? How is an "almost lung" useful? How is a flipper-hoof hybrid equal to a hoof or as a flipper? Some things just don't work unless they're whole.
3) If spontaneous generation is pretty universally disdained, how does abiogenesis occur?


I'd agree that history sometimes (not all the time) favors the victor, but it has not been as morally flexible as you might think. Do you think African slaves felt their ordeal to be just? In a Godless universe it wouldn't matter what they thought. I think the slavery, war, genocide and other horrible things were just as horrible then as they were now... you just need to find the group of people who were the victims and they'd tell you straight up.


Yeah... there's a case for pack mentality, but to me pack/herd mentality doesn't cut it. If I'm ultimately accountable to no-one, what do I care about someone not in my pack? If my pack/herd is stronger, why not lay waste to the another and take their stuff? Why is rape, theft, molestation, and deceit so universally felt as unjust? Many people would say its because it interferes with someone else's right to living their life. What right? In a Godless universe, who gave them such rights and why should those rights supersede my strength to impose my own survival, comfort, and pleasure?


"Is this all there is"?
Its as good a place to start as any. :) Its good to have you here.

Tell you the truth i don't think i can form an opinion about the validity of evolution. It would probably be the same as if somebody handed me a blue print of a nuclear reactor and asked me to explain how does it work?

The African slaves them selfs also had slaves from neighboring villages. They also practiced genocide, war etc. long before the white man turned them into slaves.
One of the cardinal mistake of looking at history is to judge or look at it from modern worlds perspective. For example today Genghis Khan would be thought as a monster because his wars killed millions of people, but back then everything was different and he was probably thought to be a great leader, because he had the qualities that were valued during that time. Societies where completely different from ours, the way people made a living or got food was different and the way people thought was different. Thats why you cant take a historical event and judge it by the values we currently have.

Who are the monkeys accountably to? Like i said my knowledge of evolutions is very limited but i think it could be argued that humans like other animals through natural selection have developed mechanisms that are meant to ensure the success of our species.

The Bible never says the Earth is 6,000 years old. Instead, people look to the genealogies in order to date the Earth. The problem is the Ancient Hebrews don't do genealogies like we do. If you look at some of them throughout the Bible, some are missing names that others have. This isn't a contradiction - it's just that ANE (ancient near eastern) people traced lineage back via well known people, not every name.

In other words, the Bible is really silent on how old the Earth truly is. That, however, is why some people believe it to be that young.

Young Earther's site that justifies their position:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

Old Earther's site that offers a rebuttal to most of Ken Ham's claims

http://www.answersincreation.org/


I met Ken Ham and Gary Parker at a seminar thay gave on young earth theory about 10 years ago. They posed some interesting questions about old earth theory and the inaccuracy of the uranium to lead and pottasium to argon dating methods. Carbon dating systems are invalid for dating objects in the millions of years. There were however questions they couldn't answer. Such as the distances that can be shown with light years by observing distance galaxies. These distances are are observed using Doppler/red shift,gravitational lenses and other methods. The only explantion they could give was that God created the universe with an appearance of age and countered with a question on how many rings did I think the first tree had. While such sophmoric rhetoric may suffice for most Christians it seems to be akin to most scientists to the flat earth theory that the catholic church clung too for many years,despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Read the above links and decide for yourself.

Well a few things to that:
I don't have a link, sorry. not at the moment anyway. BUT I would say that yes I agree, the earth is around, 6,000 years old, at a maximum of 10,000 years old.
Now you said,

but look at it. You stated things we KNOW, then compared it with evolution...something no one knows. The Big Bang theory is what? Theory. Merely an idea. Nothing more. Same with Evolution. it is a theory, an idea. nothing more. and False and completely a lie altogether.
There is more support in the bible and in the world that support that the world is not that old, that we as humans lived with dinosaurs, and Adam and Eve were, indeed, the very first AND only humans created.

Also, with carbon dating...it isn't fact nor accurate. I read in a book somewhere, (sadly I can not quote nor refer) that said that scienctists tested carbon dating on a pair of shoes. THey got results saying the shoes were thousands of years old. I'm sure with some research I could find this and refer you to it to see for yourself, but as I mentioned, I don't have that information at the moment.

As for people living with dinosaurs. In the bible, in several instances, a monster, or large animal is discribed. Sadly, people try and say that these creatures' discriptions are for creatures of today, such as hippos or gators. but this is not true. For some are discribed as tall, huge, with thunderous tails. Doesn't sound like a hippo to me.


It has been a while since I read the book about the dating of rocks and whatnot. I might have gotten it messed up with something else when I mentioned the shoes. But the link below has an article explaining in full the different types of dating methods and their fallibility.

http://answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-radiometric-dating-prove

There is a bit of confusion here. The question is not about how old a diamond is, but how long it takes to make a diamond. The creation of a diamond is not dependent on a long time. You need the right materials and the right conditions, and you can make a diamond or any other kind of gemstone for that matter, in a laboratory. These "created" gemstones as they are called are not synthetic because they are the real thing. The fact that they can be made in the laboratory proves that it doesn't take millions of years for a diamond to form.

It can also be demonstrated that various things can be fossilized in a very short period of time. What is needed to make a fossil is not a long period of time but rather, the right conditions and the right materials. Here you can see a picture of a miner's hat (http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i3/fossil_hat.asp) that is completely fossilized.



I'm not sure what the conflict is here. The answer is YES we can be totally wrong about the Big Bang. As more and more information comes in it is becoming evident that much of what has been believed about astronomy is not correct. When this stuff piles up and gets to a critical point, it will have to be acknowledged that much of what is believed and taught today is WRONG. This article on what is called "Surprise Effects (http://www.icr.org/articles/print/3963/)" should be easy to read as it is written in layman's terms. It explains some of the "surprises" that are coming to light as we learn more about what is out there in space. Science has a long history of being wrong about a lot of things. That's why it keeps changing.

Those things that are solidly known and do not change are not in conflict with what the Bible teaches. For example you know that if you plant an apple seed, you will get an apple tree, and that apple tree will produce apples. This is scientific fact, and is in keeping with Scripture which says that each plant will reproduce after its own kind. Those things that are in conflict with the plain and straight-forward teaching of Scripture have not been proven, and are subject to change in the future.




If you are willing to do just a little bit of investigating on your own you will find that the Creationist viewpoint is really not as outlandish and ridiculous as you have been led to believe. Both links I provided for you above have much more on those websites that can answer the questions you may have about origins. Consider it with an open mind. You might be surprised.

Do you know how diamonds are made? I mean the progress that goes into and the science behind it? I don't have a single clue about it. The thing is that the people who know how to make diamonds aren't arguing about their age. I mean if the progress of making diamonds proved that they in fact aren't billions of years old then why doesn't any of the scientist that make the diamonds correct the mistake? If we leave conspiracy theories out of it i think the most logical conclusion is that they also think that diamonds are billions of years old.

Tell you the truth at this point i don't have a doubt in my mind about the age of the earth or evolution. At first when i started thinking about it i thought about natural selection, fossil etc, easy stuff you learn from high school. Now that i have spent a few years in an university (studying law) and met the people that study chemistry, biology etc. i have seen just how advanced these fields are. I once visited a class about advanced physics and i was completely blown away how advanced it really is. Evolution and biology are probably the same. The basics are extremely simple, but to truly understand it takes probably years, and its constantly moving forward. Thats why it would be so easy for me to accept that the earth is 6000 years old and dinosaur lived among people etc, because that i can understand. But at the end of the day i know i would be just fooling my self.

I think it makes more sense that there was some higher being that put evolution in motion, created the earth and the universe etc, but i can't be sure about that either

Some of my church friends are happy to believe in evolution - although to fundamentalists, it's considered heresy!

I don’t have a problem with an older Earth or cosmos, and there may be some evidence for micro-evolution within a species.

However, the story (I use the word loosely) beginning in Genesis is about two people in a garden.
Having been an agnostic, I now believe in my mind that Jesus is not only real; I know in my heart that He is who He says He is.

The Bible is indeed the living and active Word of God – unlike any other book.
I’ve read (Just to see) portions of the Book of Mormon and the Quran.
They are dead books written by dead people.
‘Books which may have the appearance of something but are only nothing.

Since I believe in Christ and the Word of YHWH, and there’re an accounting of the generations leading all the way back to Eden, I had to ask myself:
At what point do these accounts turn from historic fact into: myth, legend and allegory?

The answer is: nowhere. It is ‘an’ historical record.

So if one chooses to believe in six days of creation, or God’s “big bang”. It doesn’t matter to me.
The God I know and serve is real. His Word is truth.

Evolution, intelligent design, or even six days won’t get you into Heaven or save you from hell.
Only Yeshua/Jesus can do that.
'Not of our merit - through deeds or the law, but through His righteousness and power.

Richard

I think it makes more sense that there was some higher being that put evolution in motion, created the earth and the universe etc, but i can't be sure about that either

So on that basis, since you've said yourself it makes more sense that there is some kind of "higher being", do you want to have a relationship with that higher being?

Do you know how diamonds are made? I mean the progress that goes into and the science behind it? I don't have a single clue about it. The thing is that the people who know how to make diamonds aren't arguing about their age. I mean if the progress of making diamonds proved that they in fact aren't billions of years old then why doesn't any of the scientist that make the diamonds correct the mistake? If we leave conspiracy theories out of it i think the most logical conclusion is that they also think that diamonds are billions of years old.

Tell you the truth at this point i don't have a doubt in my mind about the age of the earth or evolution. At first when i started thinking about it i thought about natural selection, fossil etc, easy stuff you learn from high school. Now that i have spent a few years in an university (studying law) and met the people that study chemistry, biology etc. i have seen just how advanced these fields are. I once visited a class about advanced physics and i was completely blown away how advanced it really is. Evolution and biology are probably the same. The basics are extremely simple, but to truly understand it takes probably years, and its constantly moving forward. Thats why it would be so easy for me to accept that the earth is 6000 years old and dinosaur lived among people etc, because that i can understand. But at the end of the day i know i would be just fooling my self.

I think it makes more sense that there was some higher being that put evolution in motion, created the earth and the universe etc, but i can't be sure about that either

Hi Tuto!

The old earth/young earth controversy is realistically one of those things that depends entirely on one's viewpoint of God.

The reason that I say that, is all evidence one way or the other is going to be interpreted on the basis of what one believes. There is nothing in evidence for an "old earth" (i.e. Fossils, oil, diamonds, etc.) that can not be duplicated in a laboratory, or in the case of the fossilized miner's hat found to occur naturally without a massive amount of time involved.

The so-called "Theory of Evolution" (which is at best a hypothesis and not a theory btw) has become much more than an object of scientific investigation, it has become a naturalistic religious philosophy...a theology that seeks to preclude the existence of God. "The Atheists Religion" if you will, which is absolutely IMO is incompatible with a Christian world view because it flies in the face of the nature of God as revealed in the Bible.

If evolution is true, then untold millions upon millions of species have suffered and died...and we are built upon the graveyard of their suffering...which is antithetical to the nature of God who pronounced everything He made "good".

But evolution requires billions and billions of years to work, therefore a younger dating is unthinkable, and there is a built in predisposition to date various things as..."OLD" :P

Now I'm not going to say the earth is only 6,000-10,000 years old, but neither am I going to say it is billions of years old either.

When I entered college in late 1975 (we rode dinosaurs to school...don't ya know :lol:) my major was Anthropology, and I was well and thoroughly indoctrinated in evolution. What got me to start questioning the whole thing was 3 fold:

First was a paper I read by a geologist who mentioned that he was astounded by the fact that oil deposits were under pressure. He wrote that the layers in which oil deposits are found are porous; therefore the pressure should have bled out a million years ago.

Second was Amino Acid dating. I remember when it was universally hailed as being "the new method" of dating fossils...how much more accurate it was going to be than the carbon 14 method of dating, etc. Problem was...no one could get anything to date out much more than 30,000 years old...so it was abandoned.

Third was when mussels were scraped off a pier piling in San Diego...and dated at about 3,000 years old.

Once again, to sum it up: Given any piece of evidence...the interpretation of the given evidence is going to be directly affected by one's predisposition...

You can google and get information on how lab created diamonds are produced. If you make a diamond in the lab, what that shows is that it doesn't take millions of years to make a diamond. That's all it shows. It debunks what we had been taught -- that it takes millions of years to make a diamond. It doesn't say anything about how old natural diamonds are. Does that make sense? People who make diamonds are not in the business of determining the age of the earth. They're in business of making diamonds. The natural diamonds were made at some point in the past, when the materials and conditions were favorable for making diamonds.

Maybe you would feel like reading this article: Diamonds May Be a Creationist's Best Friend (http://www.icr.org/article/3878/) It's a bit technical but the point is that the composition of the carbon in the diamonds themselves bear evidence of a young earth.

What a person believes about the age of the earth or about Evolution doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on the technology that is developed that enables us to learn more about the world around us. The beliefs about origins provide a set of assumptions that are used to interpret the data that we find. For example, Creationists believe the Bible's account of a massive, global flood. If such a flood had taken place, then there would be evidence (http://www.icr.org/geological-strata/)for it all over the earth. When Evolutionary geologists look at the same evidence, it is interpreted from a different set of assumptions and different conclusions are reached.

Hi Tuto!

The old earth/young earth controversy is realistically one of those things that depends entirely on one's viewpoint of God.

The reason that I say that, is all evidence one way or the other is going to be interpreted on the basis of what one believes. There is nothing in evidence for an "old earth" (i.e. Fossils, oil, diamonds, etc.) that can not be duplicated in a laboratory, or in the case of the fossilized miner's hat found to occur naturally without a massive amount of time involved.

The so-called "Theory of Evolution" (which is at best a hypothesis and not a theory btw) has become much more than an object of scientific investigation, it has become a naturalistic religious philosophy...a theology that seeks to preclude the existence of God. "The Atheists Religion" if you will, which is absolutely IMO is incompatible with a Christian world view because it flies in the face of the nature of God as revealed in the Bible.

If evolution is true, then untold millions upon millions of species have suffered and died...and we are built upon the graveyard of their suffering...which is antithetical to the nature of God who pronounced everything He made "good".

But evolution requires billions and billions of years to work, therefore a younger dating is unthinkable, and there is a built in predisposition to date various things as..."OLD" :P

Now I'm not going to say the earth is only 6,000-10,000 years old, but neither am I going to say it is billions of years old either.

When I entered college in late 1975 (we rode dinosaurs to school...don't ya know :lol:) my major was Anthropology, and I was well and thoroughly indoctrinated in evolution. What got me to start questioning the whole thing was 3 fold:

First was a paper I read by a geologist who mentioned that he was astounded by the fact that oil deposits were under pressure. He wrote that the layers in which oil deposits are found are porous; therefore the pressure should have bled out a million years ago.

Second was Amino Acid dating. I remember when it was universally hailed as being "the new method" of dating fossils...how much more accurate it was going to be than the carbon 14 method of dating, etc. Problem was...no one could get anything to date out much more than 30,000 years old...so it was abandoned.

Third was when mussels were scraped off a pier piling in San Diego...and dated at about 3,000 years old.

Once again, to sum it up: Given any piece of evidence...the interpretation of the given evidence is going to be directly affected by one's predisposition...

Tell me then if the evidence is up for question then why would every university in the world go along with it? I mean it doesn't make any sense? They are all apart of this great conspiracy?

Tuto,

The history of science is full of examples of "everyone" believing a certain thing that turns out not to be true. If you can, see the movie Expelled (http://www.expelledthemovie.com/). It might open your eyes to some things.

The trouble is when a theory has become so well accepted it's regarded as fact, any academic establishment that openly questioned it and taught that it was not fact would risk ridicule and loss of status. Then when the theory is proven to be false they all fall over themselves to show how they were researching the accuracy and had reached the same conclusion.

To give you an example, look at Dr Andrew Wakefield and his early reports questioning the safety of the MMR vaccine. Regardless of whether his research was sound or not, the fact he was ostracised for his research is quite alarming - I would have hoped that the scientific community would conduct new research to assess his initial findings with a view to either verifying or disproving them. It must make other researchers think twice before publishing anything hugely controversial.

Also when Galileo proposed that the Earth revolved around the Sun (instead of the reverse, as was believed in the day) he was regarded as a crackpot and forced to admit he was wrong, if he wanted to be spared execution.

You can google and get information on how lab created diamonds are produced. If you make a diamond in the lab, what that shows is that it doesn't take millions of years to make a diamond. That's all it shows. It debunks what we had been taught -- that it takes millions of years to make a diamond. It doesn't say anything about how old natural diamonds are. Does that make sense? People who make diamonds are not in the business of determining the age of the earth. They're in business of making diamonds. The natural diamonds were made at some point in the past, when the materials and conditions were favorable for making diamonds.

Maybe you would feel like reading this article: Diamonds May Be a Creationist's Best Friend (http://www.icr.org/article/3878/) It's a bit technical but the point is that the composition of the carbon in the diamonds themselves bear evidence of a young earth.

What a person believes about the age of the earth or about Evolution doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on the technology that is developed that enables us to learn more about the world around us. The beliefs about origins provide a set of assumptions that are used to interpret the data that we find. For example, Creationists believe the Bible's account of a massive, global flood. If such a flood had taken place, then there would be evidence (http://www.icr.org/geological-strata/)for it all over the earth. When Evolutionary geologists look at the same evidence, it is interpreted from a different set of assumptions and different conclusions are reached.

Like i said in my previous post, i just don't buy that the people who are smart enough to understand how to make diamonds would simply keep the information about their age for them selfs instead of releasing it in a peer reviewed scientific magazine for example. I mean in order to make diamonds you have to understand how they are formed in nature and that would probably mean that you have to understand how long it takes for them to form, what pressure, temperature etc. They have all this information and yet remain quiet?

Like i said in my previous post, i just don't buy that the people who are smart enough to understand how to make diamonds would simply keep the information about their age for them selfs instead of releasing it in a peer reviewed scientific magazine for example. I mean in order to make diamonds you have to understand how they are formed in nature and that would probably mean that you have to understand how long it takes for them to form, what pressure, temperature etc. They have all this information and yet remain quiet?

It's not really that simple. I don't know the precise mechanisms for making diamonds (if I did I'd be seriously rich!), but in general things that require extreme pressure and heat work at different speeds depending on the pressure and heat available.

It may be that a diamond can be created in a week with a certain machine that creates the pressure artificially but if the pressure were, say, 10% of what the machine could generate then the process could take a year or two.

So without knowing precisely how much pressure they would have been under while forming naturally it's impossible to say how long they would have taken to form naturally.

Like i said in my previous post, i just don't buy that the people who are smart enough to understand how to make diamonds would simply keep the information about their age for them selfs instead of releasing it in a peer reviewed scientific magazine for example.

Well again, you're confusing two things. The length it takes to make a diamond has nothing to do with how old a diamond is. If someone made a diamond in a laboratory a year ago, that diamond is a year old. If a diamond was formed in the earth 4000 years ago, it is 4,000 years old. But that diamond didn't take 4,000 years to form. It formed rapidly when certain materials met certain conditions favorable to the formation of diamonds. Does that make sense?

Another issue is the people who publish in journals are not always the same people who are out in the real world using available knowledge and technology. I don't know if there is or is not an article in a scientific journal about creating gemstones in the lab. I do know that gemstones are being created in labs every day, and sold in jewelry stores and online all over the place. Why don't you go into a jewelry store and ask the jeweler about lab-created stones?


I mean in order to make diamonds you have to understand how they are formed in nature and that would probably mean that you have to understand how long it takes for them to form, what pressure, temperature etc. They have all this information and yet remain quiet?

I don't know how selling lab-created stones in jewelry stores is considered 'quiet.' It's out there. But yes, the understanding of how the stones form had to be understood before it could be duplicated in a laboratory. It just so happens that gemstones can be created in a short time and do not require millions of years to form.

The trouble is when a theory has become so well accepted it's regarded as fact, any academic establishment that openly questioned it and taught that it was not fact would risk ridicule and loss of status. Then when the theory is proven to be false they all fall over themselves to show how they were researching the accuracy and had reached the same conclusion.

To give you an example, look at Dr Andrew Wakefield and his early reports questioning the safety of the MMR vaccine. Regardless of whether his research was sound or not, the fact he was ostracised for his research is quite alarming - I would have hoped that the scientific community would conduct new research to assess his initial findings with a view to either verifying or disproving them. It must make other researchers think twice before publishing anything hugely controversial.

Also when Galileo proposed that the Earth revolved around the Sun (instead of the reverse, as was believed in the day) he was regarded as a crackpot and forced to admit he was wrong, if he wanted to be spared execution.

I have to say that I cant be persuaded from my position at this subject. The more i think about it the more certain i become. I mean the billions of dollars that have been invested in the research of evolution, some of it from the private sector which means that it has to show more than cosmetic results.

There is a reason why i come to these forums and its not evolution. I think i need to find the true reason why i come here and see where that leads me.

I have to say that I cant be persuaded from my position at this subject. The more i think about it the more certain i become. I mean the billions of dollars that have been invested in the research of evolution, some of it from the private sector which means that it has to show more than cosmetic results.

There is a reason why i come to these forums and its not evolution. I think i need to find the true reason why i come here and see where that leads me.

But all these billions of dollars still haven't come up with a single example of life spontaneously arising from non-living things, nor have they come up with a single demonstrable example of macro-evolution.

I have to say that I cant be persuaded from my position at this subject. The more i think about it the more certain i become. I mean the billions of dollars that have been invested in the research of evolution, some of it from the private sector which means that it has to show more than cosmetic results.

There is a reason why i come to these forums and its not evolution. I think i need to find the true reason why i come here and see where that leads me.
I understand how you feel, Tuto.
But process geology is hardly a case for evolution [and I don't think posters in this thread meant it to be] only "evidence" of an old Earth.

Certainly God can create matter with the evidence of it's formation process built right in. Or else there'd be a lot of women walking around with coal on their ring fingers. :rolleyes:

Cheer up! :pp
Richard

But all these billions of dollars still haven't come up with a single example of life spontaneously arising from non-living things, nor have they come up with a single demonstrable example of macro-evolution.

Yet they keep investing and investing in it? So either every investor in the past hundred years has been a retard or they constantly find something new. I know what you mean with macro and micro evolution, but lets say that the earth is billions of years old, isn't it common sense that during such a long period of time a series of micro evolution = macro evolution?

Yet they keep investing and investing in it? So either every investor in the past hundred years has been a retard or they constantly find something new. I know what you mean with macro and micro evolution, but lets say that the earth is billions of years old, isn't it common sense that during such a long period of time a series of micro evolution = macro evolution?

I wouldn't call them retarded; I would say they're mismanaging funds. The simple truth is there is zero evidence of life coming from non-life.

One can argue for macro-evolution all one wants to, but it becomes implausible to say "life came from non-life" when - other than violating logic - there's no evidence for it. There has to be a first cause that was not caused itself, thus making this cause non-material.

This is something that has been bothering me. Not too long ago i was having a conversation with a guy i know about Christianity. He is a fundamental Christian i guess, and we started talking about evolution etc. At one point the subject of the age of the earth came up. I learned in school that the earth is like 4-5 billion years old. He on the other hand insisted that the earth was 6000 years old. He said that he could give an internet address to a site that proves this. Since neither of us have any expertise in this subject we decided to leave it at that.

I know that there are many people on these forums that believe that the earth is 6000 years old and probably can give me a link to a site that claims that it can prove it. Since i don't have a single clue about the science that is behind measuring the age of the earth, it wouldn't do me much good.

Later i started thinking about the fact that we can artificially make diamonds. As i understand it diamonds are supposed to be really old, like billions of years old, so wouldn't it be completely ridiculous if we could make diamonds yet we were billions of year wrong about their age?

When you start to think like this, where does it end? We know about DNA, nuclear energy, viruses, space etc. yet we would be totally wrong about evolution, The big bang etc?

I mean how do you deal with this? If i would become a believer i would have to rationalize everything thing i just wrote and a ton more to fully believe what the bible says is true.

For as long as your only models for comparison are going to be evolution and creation science you will always battle controversy's. There are other viable theories to explore that never get any exposure for the sake of the tradition of the "other's". Unfortunately, this lack of exercise for imagination and detection may cause us to never discover any truth when we are not willing to explore outside the box.

Not that I buy into it completely, for we may never know exactly how the written word of God blends into empirical evidences, but read up on "Historical Creation".

It will at least give you an idea for alternative, plausible explanations for interpretation. Always remember: King James versions, NIV's, Living Bible's, NASB's, etc. are NOT the inspired word of God. They are only English translations of the inspired word of God.


http://hometown.aol.com/arkvow/creationism.htm
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/creation.html

...

There is a reason why i come to these forums and its not evolution. I think i need to find the true reason why i come here and see where that leads me.

I like this statement! Why do you think you came here to the forums? Maybe you should start a new thread, with a new question. Or tell us something about yourself.

You came here knowing that this is a Christian forum. What is it that drew you to us? I am looking forward to your next post!

I wouldn't call them retarded; I would say they're mismanaging funds. The simple truth is there is zero evidence of life coming from non-life.

One can argue for macro-evolution all one wants to, but it becomes implausible to say "life came from non-life" when - other than violating logic - there's no evidence for it. There has to be a first cause that was not caused itself, thus making this cause non-material.

This will be my second to last post on this thread

From my very limited knowledge, doesn't evolution only explain how organisms evolved and not how life begun?

I like this statement! Why do you think you came here to the forums? Maybe you should start a new thread, with a new question. Or tell us something about yourself.

You came here knowing that this is a Christian forum. What is it that drew you to us? I am looking forward to your next post!

I have to do this when i find the time. School work is just killing me at the moment.

This will be my second to last post on this thread

From my very limited knowledge, doesn't evolution only explain how organisms evolved and not how life begun?

You are correct. However, many people try to take evolution and use it to explain how life began. In other words, evolution - being science - is extremely limited in its scope of knowledge and, therefore, cannot work as an explanatory system on certain things.

This is why many reputable scientists keep trying to find how life came from non-life - without evidence of how this could occur, the most intellectually satisfying position to hold is, in the very least, Theism.

I believe the world was created in seven days. Why? Many christians say that 1 year is the equivalent of 1000 years or 1 million years or whatever. Funny thing is, plants were created before the sun...so im sure they could last a day but not a huge span of time with no light!

Secondly, evolution theorists are clever but stupid people in some cases. The thing they never get at, the thing they will NEVER be able to figure out, is how the world actually started. Forget the big bang theory, pah... The world started out as atoms right? Well how did the first atom come to be there? The world obviously had to start by some supernatural presense. BY SOMETHING THAT DID NOT HAVE TO BE CREATED BECAUSE IT ALWAYS EXISTED! I think it is a bit hard for us to get our head around the fact that something can simply exist and always exist because we are too knowledgable about our physical plane and about time, and how everything around us manifests.

Also, the science theory of the creation of the world matches up to some of the biblical creation of the world. You just have to look out for it. Like i think the part where you can't see the sun yet represents when their were gases around the whole earth clouding the sky or something...a pastor at church explained his theory to me once.

As far as science goes, no one can prove how long the world has been around for. God controls everything including time and who would doubt that he could create the world is seven days? I mean, he's God.

Lol kay i feel bad for using the word stupid. I think what i mean is ignorant, they try to prove their point with facts but ignore the very beginning of life itself...the very first piece of life...because they have nothing for it.