A very long email (masters degree in biology), doesn't agree with most scientists

Sapient
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A very long email (masters degree in biology), doesn't agree with most scientists

A LONG EMAIL FOR YOU TO RESPOND TO, I POSTED TWO FOLLOW UPS BELOW:

I am rather curious, how many of you started out believing in a religion,
but didn't really know much about it? Or believed in a religion and later
became atheist? Why do most atheist groups hold the theology that there is
no god but concentrate most of their arguments towards Christians, and Jews
when there are thousands of cult religions out there and many other
religions? I just want to clarify that I am a research scientist in
biology working on a double doctorate at the moment (DDS/PhD). My BS was
in Biology with a high concentration in molecular biology and a chemistry
minor. My Masters is in biology as well. Basically, my life has been
centered around two studies, the study of religion and the study of
science. I do believe that there are many many religions out there that
make outrageous claims and contradict scientific FACT. However, I do
believe that there are religions out there that science does not
necessarily disprove either or vise versa. I think a huge problem is that
many people take on the aspect of one extreme or the other. In other words
you're either for pure religion and what it says, or pure science and what
it says. Being a researcher I have been trained sufficiently to question
pretty much everything I come across. I question religion and science. I
have found that Christianity holds very strong points but I think is
easily misinterpreted by atheist’s theologians and the like. This sadly
draws weak support to their claims without even studying the materials at
hand in depth. The same can be true for the Christian who doesn't study
science. Ignorance may be bliss for many, but I beg to differ. I felt my
calling was to study both and try to make a connection to end the war on
the 'brainwashed' stereotype. From my studies, I have concluded that I am
more of a creationist than an evolutionist. Don't get me wrong, because I
am Christian it does not mean I disregard what science has to offer with
theories, facts and data. One thing I am blessed with is an open mind
that allows me to see past what is already understood or held true and to
put in my own fresh ideas that helps break down the walls.

This is what I believe: I believe in Christianity, the God of Christianity, the creation
story, and the bible in the literal sense, evolution in the standpoint of
genetic drift to a degree, adaptative radiation, microevolution and
geographical barriers
(I am trying to keep this as simple as possible for
those who may not understand biology). As you may be aware, there are two
creation stories in the bible. This I am well aware of. However, it does
not contradict like many people think it does, but actually makes more
sense and thus provides supporting biblical evidence that the world is
older than 6000 years. I personally believe it is much older but many
Christians don't realize the two stories: the creation of the universe
and the world, and later the creation of the garden (simple explained
version, I could write a whole page on the whole ordeal). There is a time
frame there that isn't recorded which makes the age of the earth variable
even in the biblical sense. Another thing I believe in is Noahs ark.
Strangely it seems the creation story and the Noah’s ark story are the
two leading causes that people use not to believe in the bible, both from
genesis. The story of Noah’s ark holds many truths and evidence: No
living organism on the earth is older than 4600 years (and many can be
older than that) The oldest trees are 4600 years, the sahara desert with
the rate of spreading has only covered enough ground for a 4600 year time
frame, the oldest coral reef is 4600 years old. This is where science
plays in the bible, in Genesis it states that Noah should collect every
animal of it's KIND. Not every species. Many people disregard this and
see it as every animal in the world, when it is actually only land
dwelling animals of its kind that breathes through lungs, this doesn't
include insects who breath through slits on their exoskeleton, worms
through skin diffusion etc. This allows supporting evidence for
adaptation and changes in animals over the years after this point in
history. In the past thousand years we have taken wolves and bred them
into thousands of different types of dogs with probably 100 pure breeds,
(just ball parking it). So why is it so hard to think that 8 people
formed the 9 distinct geographical races of the world? Modern genetics
show how, following such a break-up of a population, variations in skin
color, for example, can develop in only a few generations. There is good
evidence that the various people groups we have today have not been
separated for huge periods of time. [Worldwide variations in mitochondrial
DNA (the "Mitochondrial Eve" story) were claimed to show that all people
today trace back to a single mother (living in a small population) 70,000
to 800,000 years ago. Recent findings on the rate of mitochondrial DNA
mutations shorten this period drastically to put it within the biblical
time-frame. See L. Lowe and S. Scherer, "Mitochondrial Eve: The Plot
Thickens," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 1997, 12(11):422-423; C.
Wieland, "A Shrinking Date for Eve," CEN Technical Journal, 1998,
12(1):1-3.]

Next question is: What Is a "Race"?
There is really only one race -- the human race.. Clearly, though, there
are groups of people who have certain features (e.g., skin color) in
common, which distinguish them from other groups. We prefer to call these
"people groups" rather than "races," to avoid the evolutionary
connotations associated with the word "race."
All peoples can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. This shows that
the biological differences between the "races" are not very great. In
fact, the DNA differences are trivial. The DNA of any two people in the
world would typically differ by just 0.2 percent (J.C. Gutin, "End of the
Rainbow," Discover, November 1994, pp. 71-75.). Of this, only 6 percent
can be linked to racial categories; the rest is "within race" variation.
The variation in DNA between human individuals shows that racial
differences are trivial. This genetic unity means, for instance, that
white Americans, although ostensibly far removed from black Americans in
phenotype, can sometimes be better tissue matches for them than are other
black Americans.

Anthropologists generally classify people into a small number of main
racial groups, such as the Caucasoid (European or "white"),3 the Mongoloid
(which includes the Chinese, Inuit or Eskimo, and Native Americans), the
Negroid (black Africans), and the Australoid (the Australian Aborigines).
Within each classification, there may be many different sub-groups.

Virtually all evolutionists would now say that the various people groups
did not have separate origins. That is, different people groups did not
each evolve from a different group of animals. So they would agree with
the biblical creationist that all people groups have come from the same
original population. Of course, they believe that such groups as the
Aborigines and the Chinese have had many tens of thousands of years of
separation. Most believe that there are such vast differences between the
groups that there had to be many years for these differences to develop.

One reason for this is that many people believe that the observable
differences arise from some people having unique features in their
hereditary make-up which others lack. This is an understandable but
incorrect idea. Let's look at skin color, for instance.
One reason for this is that many people believe that the observable
differences arise from some people having unique features in their
hereditary make-up which others lack. This is an understandable but
incorrect idea.

What about SKIN COLORS?
It is easy to think that since different groups of people have "yellow"
skin, "red" skin, "black" skin, "white" skin, and "brown" skin, there must
be many different skin pigments or colorings. And since different chemicals
for coloring would mean a different genetic recipe or code in the
hereditary blueprint in each people group, it appears to be a real
problem. How could all those differences develop within a short time?
However, we all have the same coloring pigment in our skin -- melanin.
This is a dark-brownish pigment that is produced in different amounts in
special cells in our skin. If we had none (as do people called albinos,
who inherit a mutation-caused defect, and cannot produce melanin), then we
would have a very white or pink skin coloring. If we produced a little
melanin, we would be European white. If our skin produced a great deal of
melanin, we would be a very dark black. And in between, of course, are all
shades of brown. There are no other significant skin pigments [Other
substances can in minor ways affect skin shading, such as the colored
fibers of the protein elastin and the pigment carotene. However, once
again we all share these same compounds, and the principles governing
their inheritance are similar to those outlined here. Factors other than
pigment in the skin may influence the shade perceived by the observer in
subtle ways, such as the thickness of the overlying (clear) skin layers,
the density and positioning of the blood capillary networks, etc. In fact,
"melanin," which is produced by cells in the body called melanocytes,
consists of two pigments, which also account for hair color. Eumelanin is
very dark brown, phaeomelanin is more reddish. People tan when sunlight
stimulates eumelanin production. Redheads, who are often unable to develop
a protective tan, have a high proportion of phaeomelanin. They have
probably inherited a defective gene which makes their pigment cells
"unable to respond to normal signals that stimulate eumelanin production."
See P. Cohen, "Redheads Come Out of the Shade," New Scientist, 1995,
147(1997):18].

In summary, from currently available information, the really important
factor in determining skin color is melanin -- the amount produced.
This situation is true not only for skin color. Generally, whatever
feature we may look at, no people group has anything that is essentially
different from that possessed by any other. For example, the Asian, or
almond, eye differs from a typical Caucasian eye in having more fat around
them. Both Asian and Caucasian eyes have fat -- the latter simply have
less.

What does melanin do?

It protects the skin against damage by ultraviolet light from the sun. If
you have too little melanin in a very sunny environment, you will easily
suffer sunburn and skin cancer. If you have a great deal of melanin, and
you live in a country where there is little sunshine, it will be harder
for you to get enough vitamin D (which needs sunshine for its production
in your body). You may then suffer from vitamin D deficiency, which could
cause a bone disorder such as rickets.
We also need to be aware that we are not born with a genetically fixed
amount of melanin. Rather, we have a genetically fixed potential to
produce a certain amount, and the amount increases in response to
sunlight. For example, you may have noticed that when your Caucasian
friends (who spent their time indoors during winter) headed for the beach
at the beginning of summer they all had more or less the same pale white
skin color. As the summer went on, however, some became much darker than
others.

How is it that many different skin colors can arise in a short time?
Remember, whenever we speak of different "colors" we are referring to
different shades of the one color, melanin.
If a person from a very black people group marries someone from a very
white group, their offspring (called mulattos) are mid-brown. It has long
been known that when mulattos marry each other, their offspring may be
virtually any "color," ranging from very dark to very light. Understanding
this gives us the clues we need to answer our question, but first we must
look, in a simple way, at some of the basic principles of heredity.

Heredity
Each of us carries information in our body that describes us in the way a
blueprint and specifications describe a furnished building. It determines
not only that we will be human beings, rather than cabbages or crocodiles,
but also whether we will have blue eyes, short nose, long legs, etc. When a
sperm fertilizes an egg, all the information that specifies how the person
will be built (ignoring such superimposed factors as exercise and diet) is
already present. Most of this information is in coded form in our DNA [Most
of this DNA is in the nucleus of each cell, but some is contained in
mitochondria, which are outside the nucleus in the cytoplasm. Sperm
contribute only nuclear DNA when the egg is fertilized. Mitochondrial DNA
is inherited only from the mother, via the egg.].
To illustrate coding, a piece of string with beads on it can carry a
message in Morse code. The piece of string, by the use of a simple
sequence of short beads, long beads (to represent the dots and dashes of
Morse code), and spaces, can carry the same information as the English
word "help" typed on a sheet of paper. The entire Bible could be written
thus in Morse code on a long enough piece of string.
In a similar way, the human blueprint is written in a code (or language
convention) which is carried on very long chemical strings of DNA. This is
by far the most efficient information storage system known, greatly
surpassing any foreseeable computer technology.6 This information is
copied (and reshuffled) from generation to generation as people
reproduce.

The word "gene" refers to a small part of that information which has the
instructions for only one type of enzyme, for example.7 It may be simply
understood as a portion of the "message string" containing only one
specification.

For example, there is one gene that carries the instructions for making
hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in your red blood cells. If
that gene has been damaged by mutation (such as copying mistakes during
reproduction), the instructions will be faulty, so it will often make a
crippled form of hemoglobin, if any. (Diseases such as sickle-cell anemia
and thalassemia result from such mistakes.)
So, with an egg which has just been fertilized -- where does all its
information, its genes, come from? One half comes from the father (carried
in the sperm), and the other half from the mother (carried in the egg).
Genes come in pairs, so in the case of hemoglobin, for example, we have
two sets of code (instruction) for hemoglobin manufacture, one coming from
the mother and one from the father.

This is a very useful arrangement, because if you inherit a damaged gene
from one parent that could instruct your cells to produce a defective
hemoglobin, you are still likely to get a normal one from the other parent
which will continue to give the right instructions. Thus, only half the
hemoglobin in your body will be defective. (In fact, each of us carries
hundreds of genetic mistakes, inherited from one or the other of our
parents, which are usefully "covered up" by being matched with a normal
gene from the other parent

To give an example of the speed time frame: The blue Fugates weren't a
race but rather an excessively tight-knit family living in the Appalachian
Mountains. The patriarch of the clan was Martin Fugate, who settled along
the banks of Troublesome Creek near Hazard, Kentucky, sometime after 1800.
His wife, Mary, is thought to have been a carrier for a rare disease known
as hereditary methemoglobinemia, which we'll call met-H.
Due to an enzyme deficiency, the blood of met-H victims has reduced
oxygen-carrying capacity. Instead of being the usual bright red, arterial
blood is chocolate brown and gives the skin of Caucasians a bluish cast.
Hereditary met-H is caused by a recessive gene. If only one of your
parents has this gene, you'll be normal, but if they both have it, there's
a good chance you'll be blue.

None of Martin and Mary Fugate's descendants would have been blue had they
not intermarried with a nearby clan, the Smiths. The Smiths were
descendants of Richard Smith and Alicia Combs, one of whom apparently was
also a met-H carrier. According to family historian Mary Fugate, the first
known blue Fugate was born in 1832. Because of inbreeding among the
isolated hill folk--the Fugate family tree is a tangled mess of cousins
marrying cousins--blue people started popping up frequently thereafter. A
half dozen or so were on the scene by the 1890s, and one case was reported
as recently as 1975. They were quite a sight. One woman is said to have had
lips the color of a bruise. – one hundred years and we observe a
phenotypically different group of individuals

Also there is a group of people that have two giant claw like toes for
feet called the ostrich people.
With all of this being said, is it still hard to believe that Noah’s ark
is a possibility? I still want to go back to my original question and ask
what made you atheist etc. Hope we can continue to talk because, as you
might see from just a partial piece of a topic, I have a lot to say.

Quote:

1. Did you really just write that whole email for us?
2. Would you join our forum and discuss your email with others if I posted
it?

- Sapient

Quote:

1.yes I did.
2.I would love to discuss my email with others as well as potential others
under a few conditions: my faith isn't bashed....i.e. having people saying
that I'm gay for my beliefs, Jesus is a homo, christians are closeminded
etc, people stay on the subject at hand (it is easy for someone to talk
about one topic and then bombard their response with potentially endless
amounts of other comments acusations, questions, theories etc. Obviously
I have a life outside of the computer world, it takes time for me to type
and feel that I may be overwhelmed with too many emails to respond. I
also have control over what I say and request that any comments that I
state should not be taken out of context or used in an abusive manner that
may threaten my educational/oocupational endeavors. With this said, how do
I join and how fast do people respond? Obviously in a day I cannot go
through more than a few comments and have appropriate time to read, obsorb
think and respond.


drdoubleu
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BobSpence1

BobSpence1 wrote:
drdoubleu wrote:

Brian37 wrote:

 

Corinthians 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

(Note)This passage does not call the sun a star, it goes out of its way to treat it as seperate than a star. "One glory for the sun" different glories for stars. This writer is not treating the sun as a star which it is.
"one star differse from another" DUH! again, it doesnt take a genious to observe that.

 

I couldn't resist. once again you are ignorant to history. Science used to teach that all stars are the same, so your statement proves you don't know science in the past. The point was that the bible was going against the teachings of science from that time for at least a thousand years beyond. Noting that they didn't call the sun a star doesn't mean a thing. Did they not call it a star or call it something that concludes it wasn't a star?

Absolutely not. How often do you hear people say don't stare into the star? You don't! you hear don't stare into the sun.

Now I'm finished.

Where did science believe all starts were 'the same'? That would contradict direct observation - they are plainly different brightnesses and colors, so they certainly would never have said they are identical, but clearly they would have had a theory that assumed they were basically similar types of objects.
With modern intruments we have learned more details on just how and why they differ, but there does seem be a distinct lack of spectroscopic data in the Bible. Just a statement that they are different, which is obvious to the naked eye, especially in unpolluted skies.
They clearly treated the Sun as a distinctly different thing from the stars, you would really have to do even more eye-squinting reading between the lines to find anything even hinting at the fact that the Sun is just another star, which happened to be much, much closer than the other ones.

 

just google it or look up old science books or scrolls from biblical times.  You'll find it there. 


Brian37
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drdoubleu wrote:

drdoubleu wrote:
Sapient wrote:
drdoubleu wrote:

then you are an idiot.

Says the guy who I've proven is a liar.

 

 

You have not proven me to be a liar. I misunderstood the comment what brian37 said to me in regards to christians and science. I am human and have the ability to error and read something differently than the original intent. However I felt it was appropriate to note his misconceptions on the bible vs. BECAUSE it is important to note he doesn't know the bible, some of the verses he used were incorrect and that message was read after I sent out the initial. I haven't responded to any since. As you know he violated my original agreement to argue as well as you have too, but I will let that go. He continually does so in a demeanor that is beyond condenscending and is unecessary.

And when I make a minor mistake you do the stereotypical, "AH HA, YOU DONT KNOW JACK, THEREFORE THE BIBLE IS A SCIENCE TEXTBOOK AND JESUS EXISTS" A

If you bother to look at the Jerimiah verse YOU gave your translation, I put the one I quoted knowing your next move would be, "What translation are you using Brian37?"

Then I put them juxtiposed and still proved to you that the writers of neither version talked about planets or galaxies, and that the word "countless" in the version you quoted merely was ment as a literary tool to mean "THAT'S BIG or ALOT OF"

And you could have posted the full text of the verses originally from the version you used in your chart so people knew which one you were reading, but the result still would have been the same. VAUGE METAPHOR, nothing else.

You dont like that I am calling a duck a duck and you dont like that I see through your elaborate scam.

You want me to be polite then knock off this "my book is a science textbook" Been there done that, you are not the first and you wont be the last to attempt it, and you are not the only religion to attempt it. We have seen this tactic before and it holds absolutly no water.

If your friend has a booger on their nose and they say, 'No I dont" do you let them walk around all day with it, or do you hand them a mirror. I am handing you a verbal mirror (metaphor for the lousy logic you are using)

As smart as you say you are you should have known that the people here have run into this tactic before. Most atheists are wise to this and not fooled by it. Others here could have spelled better than I and not misquoted, but the overall message is correct. None of the verses you quoted contain scientific data. It is observation that a pet rock could make.

"The sky is blue" does not constitute knowing the scientific cause of that. Your verse quotes are all metaphor, nothing more.

Now, you say you have flaws but cant see past mine but ask me to see past yours? Not once, but twice you said you were not going to discuss this again and here you are talking about me again.

You have no right to complain about me when you provide a link to Dr Dino KENT HOVIND, btw in jail for tax evasion. Nice Christian morals there bud, quote a man waiting sentance for 58 charges tax related could face 288 years.

Now, this is exactly why I try to avoid these elaborate scams. WHY? Because I already know ultimatly what you are trying to defend. You are trying to defend the core of your religion. You will coax people into this elaborate cob web of fiction and once they buy it you can get them to buy the virgin birth and magical death story.

I skip all that and cut to the chase. Show me god's testicals and sperm? Doesnt have any? A spirit did it? Show me spirit sperm? Cant? Ok, fine, but dont ask me to buy it.

You do all this elaborate stuff so you can talk about the "empty tomb" which no passage in the bible tells us how human flesh reconstitutes it self using medical terms and technology. NOT THERE at all.

Insted, knowing you cant be direct you pull this same tired tactic.

SO, cut to the chase? Do you or do you not have evidence of the mechinisms of how a spirit gets a girl pregnant? Can you replicate or falsify a "spirit". Just what does a "spirit" use to act as the male half of the DNA that mixes with Mary's egg?

Where is your evidence that a human body can be drained of all its blood, suffer rigor mortis, brain death and complete celular death and bacterial decay only to get up 3 days later and walk around and talk?

CUT TO THE CHASE, WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE?

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


BobSpence
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Sorry, drdoubleu, No luck

Sorry, drdoubleu,
No luck finding references to any of that. How old do you mean? I've started at Copernicus, thru to Galileo, at one end. 

There was no 'Science' of the heavens worth speaking about before Copernicus, they were still into the Ptolemaic system endorsed by the Church as consistent with the Bible, and Copernicus got into trouble with the church for questioning it.

If its so easy to find references, surely you can provide us at least one link.

Similarly for the Bible - from Genesis on, we have the Sun referred to in very different terms to the stars. Just what are you basing this particular claim on??

Your claims are the ones massively contradicting modern knowledge, it's up to you to provide something pretty convincing.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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drdoubleu

drdoubleu wrote:

www.drdino.com I think has a few sources on it.

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! You know, using Kent Hovind as a reference does wonders for your scientific credibility. Rofl.


doc101
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Whats wrong with using

Whats wrong with using Christian sources? I don't understand why Atheists are able to use Atheistic sources and deem it credible, and Christians use Christian sources, and they are deemed as irrational...

 

doesn't make sense to me

 

After reading this thread i've came to a conclusion from all the Atheists that have posted

 

No matter what information present to you from a Theistic point of view, you will absolutely not convert to Christianity; you don't care whether it is rational or not, i have yet to see any sort of sign of anyone converting, or reconverting for that matter.

 

its all in the "will" i guess...


drdoubleu
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BobSpence1

BobSpence1 wrote:
drdoubleu wrote:

Brian37 wrote:

 

Corinthians 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

(Note)This passage does not call the sun a star, it goes out of its way to treat it as seperate than a star. "One glory for the sun" different glories for stars. This writer is not treating the sun as a star which it is.
"one star differse from another" DUH! again, it doesnt take a genious to observe that.

 

I couldn't resist. once again you are ignorant to history. Science used to teach that all stars are the same, so your statement proves you don't know science in the past. The point was that the bible was going against the teachings of science from that time for at least a thousand years beyond. Noting that they didn't call the sun a star doesn't mean a thing. Did they not call it a star or call it something that concludes it wasn't a star?

Absolutely not. How often do you hear people say don't stare into the star? You don't! you hear don't stare into the sun.

Now I'm finished.

Where did science believe all starts were 'the same'? That would contradict direct observation - they are plainly different brightnesses and colors, so they certainly would never have said they are identical, but clearly they would have had a theory that assumed they were basically similar types of objects.
With modern intruments we have learned more details on just how and why they differ, but there does seem be a distinct lack of spectroscopic data in the Bible. Just a statement that they are different, which is obvious to the naked eye, especially in unpolluted skies.
They clearly treated the Sun as a distinctly different thing from the stars, you would really have to do even more eye-squinting reading between the lines to find anything even hinting at the fact that the Sun is just another star, which happened to be much, much closer than the other ones.

 

To answer this I think it is refering to saying that stars were all similar as in shape and size.  which we now know as different.  I really couldn't find it online but keyword resources don't always bring things up here is an email of a group of people that can find the information for you:[email protected]

 As for the few of you that somehow got my campus email here is the answer to your random question about why guys have nipples:

Male Nipples

"Lactiferous ducts form well before testosterone causes sex differentiation in a fetus. Men have mammary tissue that can be stimulated to produce milk."

Nipples on males were one of Darwin’s evidences for descent with modification, however it wasn’t too commonly spoken of for a while until recently. Now, it seems that everywhere I go, I hear, “Why do males have nipples?” Along with many other “evidences” put forth by the author, this does not affect creation theory, but instead, is actually predicted. Contrary to common belief, a baby growing in its mother’s womb does not start out as a female; however, it does start out very similar to males and females, in that it is sexually dimorphic.

Nipples on males are one example, amongst many, of design economy and efficient embryological development. Another example would be the development of both the müllerian duct system (female) and the wolffian duct system (male). This is due to both sexes having the same genetic information for these structures. The differences are only a product of designed chemical signals later on in development.

Nipples may pose a problem for evolutionists. They are easily explained within the creation model, but how so in the evolution model? The evolutionist has a few options to select from, but all are very unsupported. Suppose the male used to suckle the young, and this explains the lactiferous ducts. But, why would this have changed? How could this have changed? Perhaps the male is evolving the ability to suckle young, and the nipples are merely nascent structures that will be beneficial in the future. Well, if they serve no purpose, as the evolutionist says, then they will not be subject to natural selection (as previously stated in Discover magazine) and will not be effected, thus, a discontinuance of evolution.

There’s also the idea that we (males) attained our nipples as a derivation of common ancestor; via the phylogenic tree of life - from reptiles to mammals and so forth. However, if this is the case, then our nipples are still evolving into something that we can use, as stated in the previous possibility. This option as well offers no clue as to the evolutionary origins of male nipples, and no evidence of the future ability to suckle young. Concluding this argument, nipples are not evidence for evolution, nor are they evidence against special creation.

 Dr. W


BobSpence
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It's not about Christian

It's not about Christian vs. Atheistic sources, it's about Christian sources vs Scientific sources, ie sources strongly committed to a fixed and absolute pre-conceived ancient set of ideas, vs a discipline devoted to evidence-based knowledge. They don't necessarily conflict, but when they do, why would you go with the one that just pulls arguments out of the air  or out of ancient way-past-their-use-by-date writings??  The study of things scientifically has built an incrediblly successful track record of uncovering how the Universe  'works', to the point where we can send craft to the outer reaches of the Solar System and develop technology beyond anything dreamt of by the authors of the Bible. There are relatively respectable Xian 'sources', but Kent Hovind is not by any stretch of the imagination one of them. 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


triften
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drdoubleu wrote: They

drdoubleu wrote:

They weren't even based on the growth patterns of the trees, they were based on fossilized trees found in the area. Dead buried trees and assumed that they were continued growth from those and assumed that the trees themselves were up to 12,000 years old posting it in journals, national geographic etc. But when they took a core sample they realized they could not be older than 4600 years old even though the fossils indicated that they had the ability to be that old and other trees showed to have potential to be that old. You would figure that you have a field of 4500 year old trees that somewhere else they would be older but they all come about the same exact age.

The trees propagate over time by branching out and sprouting from their roots. I have some plants in my apartment that grow the same way. Not all the trees start growing at the same time. Here's an example of how this could work just fine (again, not designating a species just an example): The "example tree" spreads by sprouting from its root structure. It lives to the age of 3,500 years old. However, it doesn't start sprouting a new tree until it hits 1,000 years old. So Tree 1 is growing, perhaps separated from it's friends by gelogic forces. Let's assume it's rather young. It hits the age of 1,000 years and starts sprouting Tree 2. So, after 1k years, Tree 1 is 1k years old and Tree 2 is 0. 1k year later, Tree 2 sprouts Tree 3, so the ages are 2k, 1k, and 0. After another 1k years, Tree 3 sprouts Tree 4 and the ages are 3k, 2k, 1k, 0. After one more 1k period, Tree 1 has died of old age (*snif*) but joy of joys, Tree 4 sprouts Tree 5. If we come along 250 years later, then no living tree is over 3.25k years old. So our current ages are:

Tree 1 (DEAD)

Tree 2 3.25k

Tree 3 2.25k

Tree 4 1.25k

Tree 5 250 years

Scientist: "Wow... Here's a bunch of trees! (takes sample, counts rings) The oldest is 3.25k years! And there's a dead tree that appears to have been abound 3.25k years old when it died. Perhaps 3.25k years ago a bunch of these were killed! Or maybe... the trees just live to about 3.25k years. Hmmm..."

The age of the oldest tree only tells you how old the trees can live.

drdoubleu wrote:

triften wrote:

Which sedimentary level? I'd love to see a reference or two. Same for the buried tree claim. It's not as if layers of sediment or rock can shift turning fossils on their sides or moving trees so that they point up.

As far as your friend's prank, garbage in, garbage out is how it goes with most procedures.

That is a good idea except that the tree is vertical and the sediment is horizontal. I can't find the article at the moment. I think I have it on hard disk but here are some pictures to show what I'm talking about:

<a><img src="http://www.huddersfieldgeology.supanet.com/images/foss4d.jpg "></a>

<a><img src="http://www.seekfind.net/Animations/polystrate_tree_fossil_from_drdino2.gif"></a>

<a><img src="http://www.seekfind.net/Animations/polystrate_tree_fossil_from_drdino3.gif"></a>

They were buried aparently completely still rooted to the ground.

And there's not such thing as tectonic activity? That could shift strata? Using your own tactics, I could decide to blow off your stance here since you don't have a PhD in geology. (Yes, I am reading your other posts.)

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html

It's quite reasonable for a non-"Flood" flood to deposit several feet of mud (land slide perhaps?) which would then be changed into sedimentary rock with bands giving the appearance of different strata.

Also, I'd recommend looking up the phrase "proof by personal incredulity."

drdoubleu wrote:

triften wrote:

Well please provide a link to some updated data (and an anecdote about a friend of yours doesn't count.)

www.drdino.com I think has a few sources on it.

There are so many things wrong with young Earth creationism.

drdoubleu wrote:

trfiten wrote:

So in Genesis 7:11 it basically says that the fountains of the deep rose up as well as the windows of the heavens opened. Two primary issues with the fountains of the deep here: 1) large underground resevoirs (sp?) of water would have either collapsed (unless you assume god's hand in this, which we aren't since you are trying to defend flood claims with evidence) or been so deep they were superheated, addding to the heat issue along with the rain; 2) Such an uprising of water would have created very noticable effects on the layers of rock and I'm fairly certain that people with much more experience in geology than I would have noticed them.

yeah, some evidence is the trees I showed you. Alot of geolgists have this evidence but instead of seeing it as a flood they view it as the great meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs even though it doesn't explain why the shells in sediment of where dinosaurs are somehow are also found on the tops of mountains where obviously water wasn't there...or was it Wink.

Tectonic activity is a real thing. Over millions of years, an area, like say the middle of what is currently North America, that is under water, can get pushed up and the landscape changed bringing former sea beds to the tops of mountains.

Unless you are going to tell me that tectonic activity does not occur and that North America and Europe are not moving apart at about an inch a year.

drdoubleu wrote:

triften wrote:

I noticed you were distinctly silent regarding my question about the Egyptians, you'll likely assume that is due to shoddy dating techniques. (sarcasm on) I guess all we have to go on is a text passed down over hundreds of years and (mis)translated through a number of languages, originally written by people even more ignorant of the world around them than we are. (sarcasm off)

what was your quote regarding the eqyptians? I don't remember reading anything about it otherwise I would have commented. Please be aware I have flown through a lot of these comments today and have tried to respond to all of them as fast as I can...except for those who I distinctly clarified that I'm not going to acknowledge....nor do I read now. Could you please repeat the question for me?

Requoted from my still visible previous post:

triften wrote:

So, if the earth was covered in water 4.5k years ago, where were the Egyptians during all this? In fact, they finished the Great Pyramid of Giza right around when this flood was supposed to have taken place and there are pyramids older than that. I'd think a flood suposedly capable of carving the Grand Canyon would have handily erased the pyramids of Egypt.

 

-Triften


drdoubleu
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doc101 wrote: Whats wrong

doc101 wrote:

Whats wrong with using Christian sources? I don't understand why Atheists are able to use Atheistic sources and deem it credible, and Christians use Christian sources, and they are deemed as irrational...

 

doesn't make sense to me

 

After reading this thread i've came to a conclusion from all the Atheists that have posted

 

No matter what information present to you from a Theistic point of view, you will absolutely not convert to Christianity; you don't care whether it is rational or not, i have yet to see any sort of sign of anyone converting, or reconverting for that matter.

 

its all in the "will" i guess...

 

Thank you for the support and rational thinking.  It is rather funny to think that it's perfectly fine to have an atheist use atheist supports but when a creationist scientist who does support degrees of evolution uses creationist references and support to disprove the atheist views that it loses all credibility.  I think the name of this site should be irrationalresponders.com.  The fact is I'm giving you scientific FACT that because it contradicts the main scientific theories that it isn't included in books.  This does not mean they are wrong.  Could you imagine what would happen to the science community if they actually realized the biblical standpoint was true?  Most atheist funding would end along with anything dealing with Darwin.  Don't diss a creationist biology website because it shows real world models that you aren't familiar with.  Keep in mind, I also know your side as well, but you lack my side of the information.  Hence why most of you are atheist and I'm not and never will be.   

 You laugh at the site and at Dr. Hovind....yet he still has the 250,000 dollar deal that if you can prove evolution to be a fact that he will pay you that money.  He has had this for almost 20 years yet no one can meet the challenge.  Steve Hawkins won't even debate him and he hates chrstians with a passion.  

Where's the Evidence?

Imagine that you are looking at a luxury liner moving through calm waters. To your  amazement about a dozen people jump off the ship, and cling to a lifeboat. You watch as the rest of the passengers stand on the ship and laugh at them. You can understand their reaction. What those few people did was foolish. It made no sense.

Suddenly, the ship hits an unseen iceberg and sinks, taking with it all who stayed on board. Now you see that those who seemed like fools were wise, but those who stayed on the ship  and seemed to be wise, were fools.

We have in the Bible a command to jump off the luxury liner of this world. Before you laugh at  stupid Christians, ask yourself if there is any proof that its claims are true. Here is compelling evidence that the Bible is no ordinary book:


The Bible and Stars

Jeremiah 33:22 (written 2500 years ago): "As the host of heaven cannot be  numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured."


 The Bible claimed that there are billions of stars ("host of heaven" is the biblical term for the stars). When it made this statement, no one knew how vast the numbers of stars were as  only about 1,100 were observable. Now we know that there are billions of stars, and that they cannot be numbered.


 TheEarth's Free-float in Space

 Job 26:7 (written 3500 years ago): "He stretches out the north over the empty place, and hangs the earth upon nothing."
   

  The Bible claimed that the earth freely floated in space. Science then thought that the earth sat on a large animal. We now know that the earth has a free float in space.


The Bible and Atoms

Hebrews 11:3 (written 2000 years ago): "Through faith we understand that the  worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

 The Bible claims that all creation is made of invisible material. Science then was ignorant  of the subject. We now know that the entire creation is made of invisible elements called "atoms."


 Blood is the source of Life

Leviticus 17:11 (written 3000 years ago): "For the life of the flesh is in the blood."
 

The Scriptures declare that blood is the source of life. Up until 120 years ago, sick people  were "bled", and many died because of the practice. We now know that blood is the source of life. If you lose your blood, you will lose your life.


The Bible and Dealing with Disease

Leviticus 15:13 (written 3000 years ago): "And when he that has an issue is  cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean."
 

The Bible said that when dealing with disease, hands should be washed under running water. Up until 100 years ago doctors washed their hands in a basin of still water, resulting  in the death of multitudes. We now know that doctors must wash their hands under running water. The Encyclopedia Britannica documents that in 1845, a young doctor in Vienna  named Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was horrified at the terrible death rate of women who were dying after giving birth in hospitals. As many as 30% of those giving birth died. The Doctor  noted that doctors would examine the bodies of those who had died, then, without washing their hands, go straight to the next wards and examine expectant mothers. This was their  normal practice, because the presence of microscopic diseases was unknown. Doctor Semmelweis insisted that doctors wash their hands before examinations, and the death rate immediately dropped down to 2%.


The Bible and Radio Waves

 Job 38:35 (written 3,500 years ago. God Himself speaking): "Can you send lightnings, that they may go and say unto you, Here we are?"
 

 The Bible here is saying a scientifically ludicrous statement -- that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that radio waves move at the speed of light?  This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth. Science didn' t discover this until 1864 when "the British scientist James  Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing" ( Modern Century Illustrated Encyclopedia, Vol. 12).


The Bible Reveals the Earth is Round

 Isaiah 40:22 (written 2800 years ago): "It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth."
   

 The Bible informs us here that the earth is round. At a time when science believed that the earth was flat, it was the Scriptures that inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the  world. He wrote: "It was the Lord who put it into my mind. I could feel His hand upon me . . . there is no question the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit because He comforted me with  rays of marvelous illumination from the Holy Scriptures . . ." (From his diary, in reference to his discovery of "the New World&quotEye-wink.


The Bible and Light

Job 38:19 (written 3500 years ago). "Where is the way where light dwells?"
   

Modern man has only just discovered that light (electromagnetic radiation) has a "way," involving motion traveling at 186,000 miles per second.


Time, Space, Matter, Power, and Motion

 Genesis 1:1,3 (written 3,450 years ago): "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth . . . And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
   

Science expresses the universe in five terms: time, space, matter, power and motion. "In the beginning (time) God created (power) the Heaven (space) and the earth (matter) . . . And  the Spirit of God moved (motion) upon the face of the waters."


The Bible and Dinosaurs

Why did the dinosaur disappear? This is something that has modern science mystified, but the Bible may have the answer (written 3500 years ago. God Himself is speaking):
    

 "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eats grass as an ox. Lo now, his  strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of  brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where  all the beasts of the field play. He lies under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him  about. Behold, he drinks up a river, and hastens not: he trusts that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He takes it with his eyes: his nose pierces through snares. (Job 40:15-24).

  • This was the Largest of all creatures He made.
  • It was plant-eating (herbivorous).
  • It had its strength in its hips.
  • Its tail was like a large tree (a cedar).
  • It had very strong bones.
  • Its habitat was among the trees.
  • Drank massive amounts of water.
  • His nose pierced through snares.
  • Then Scripture says, " . . . He that made him can make his sword approach to him." In other words, God caused this, the largest of all the creatures He had made, to become extinct.

The Bible and the Science of Oceanography

 

  Psalm 8:8: "And the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas."
   

 What does the Bible mean by "paths" of the seas? The sea is just a huge mass of water, how then could it have "paths?" Man discovered the existence of ocean currents in the  1850's, but the Bible declared the science of oceanography 2,800 years ago. Matthew Maury (1806- 1873) is considered to be the father of oceanography. He was bedridden  during a serious illness and asked his son to read a portion of the Bible to him. While listening, he noticed the expression "paths of the sea." Upon his recovery, Maury took God  at His word and went looking for these paths. His book on oceanography is still considered a basic text on the subject and is still used in universities.


Mountains in the Ocean

Jonah 2:6 (written 2,800 years ago): "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;  the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet have you brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God."
 

 When Jonah was in the depths of the ocean, he spoke of going down to the "bottoms of the mountains." Only in recent years has man discovered that there are mountains on the ocean  floor. The greatest ocean depth has been sounded in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana's Trench, a distance of 35,798 feet below sea level. Mount Everest is 29,035 feet high.


The Water Cycle

Amos 9:6 (written 2,800 years ago): "He . . . calls for the waters of the sea, and  pours them out upon the face of the earth; the Lord is His name."

    The Mississippi River dumps over six million gallons of water per second into the Gulf of  Mexico. Where does all that water go? That's just one of thousands of rivers. The answer lies in the hydrologic cycle, something that was not fully accepted until the sixteenth and  seventeenth centuries, 2500 years after the Bible said that God takes the waters of the sea, and pours them upon the face of the earth.


The Earth's Rotation

Job 38:12, 14, (written 3500 years ago) God Himself says: "Have you commanded  the morning since your days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?  It [the earth] is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment."
   

 Modern science has come to understand that the earth's rotation on its axis is responsible for the sun's rising and setting. The picture here is of a vessel of clay being turned or rotated  upon the potter's wheel -- an accurate analogy of the earth's rotation.


The Sun's Movement

Psalm 19:4-6: "In them has He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.  His [the sun's] going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."
   

Bible critics have scoffed at these verses, saying that they teach that the sun revolves  around the earth. Science told them that the sun was stationary. Then they discovered that the sun is in fact moving through space at approximately 600,000 miles per hour. It is  traveling through the heavens and has a "circuit" just as the Bible says. It is estimated that its circuit is so large, it would take 200 million years to complete one orbit.


The Treasure of the Snow

  Job 38:22 (written 3,500 years ago). God says: "Have you entered into the treasures of the snow?"
    

It wasn't until the advent of the microscope that man discovered that each and every single snowflake is uniquely a symmetrical "treasure."


The Bible and the First Law of Thermodynamics

 Genesis 2:1 (after creation): "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."
   

 The Hebrew word used here is the past definite tense for the verb "finished," indicating an action completed in the past, never again to occur. The creation was "finished" -- once and  for all. That is what the First Law of Thermodynamics says. It states that neither matter nor energy can be either created or destroyed. There is no "creation" ongoing today. It is  "finished" exactly as the Bible states.

 


The Bible and Entropy

Hebrews 1:10,11 (written 2000 years ago): ". . . And, You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of your  hands: They shall perish; but you remain; and they all shall wax old as does a garment."
   

 The Bible tells us that the earth is wearing out. This is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics states. This wasn't discovered by science until comparatively recently.


The Bible and the Immune System

 Genesis 17:12: "And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed."
   

Why was circumcision to be carried out on the eighth day? Medical science has discovered  that the eighth day is the only day in the entire life of the newborn that the blood clotting element prothrombin is above 100%.  Medical science has also discovered that this is  when the human body's immune system is at its peak.


The Seed of Life

Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
    

This verse reveals that a female possesses the "seed of life." This was not the common  knowledge until a few centuries ago. It was widely believed that the male only possessed the "seed of life" and that the woman was nothing more than a glorified incubator.


Just the Right Amount of Water

 Isaiah 40:12 (written 2,800 years ago): "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand . . ."
   

 We are told that God has measured the waters and set a proper amount of water on the earth. Modern science has proved that the quantity of water on earth is just enough for our  needs. If the sea became three meters deeper, the water would absorb all the carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and no creature could live any longer.


The Empty North

Job 26:7 (written 3500 years ago): "He stretches out the north over the empty place . . ."

 Less than 200 years ago, through the advent of massive telescopes, science learned about the great empty space in the north.


The Stretching Heavens

  Isaiah 40:22 (written 2,800 years ago): "It is He that . . . stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in."

 Scientists are beginning to understand that the universe is expanding, or stretching out. At least seven times in Scripture we are clearly told that God stretches out the heavens like a curtain.


Prophetic Facts in the Bible

 

 We will now take a moment to look at some of the Bible's incredible prophecies. These are known as the ''signs of the times." They are the signs that will be indications of the end of  this age (not the end of the world). They are taken from Matthew chapter 24, Luke chapter 21, 1 Timothy chapter 4 and 2 Timothy chapter 3:

  • Wars and rumors of wars.
  • Nation will rise against nation.
  • Kingdom will rise against Kingdom.
  • Famines.
  • Disease.
  • False prophets.
  • Deception.
  • Lawlessness (forsaking of the Ten Commandments).
  • The preaching of the Gospel.
  • False Christs.
  • Earthquakes in various places.
  • Signs from Heaven.
  • Persecution against Christians.
  • Signs in the Sun.
  • Men's hearts would fail them for fear of the future.
  • Stressful living.
  • Selfishness.
  • Materialism.
  • Arrogance.
  • Pride.
  • Homosexual increase.
  • People would be cold-hearted.
  • They would be intemperate.
  • They would be brutal.
  • Youth would be rebellious.
  • They would be haters of those that stand up for righteousness.
  • They would be ungodly.
  • Pleasure-seekers.
  • There would be a call for "peace."
  • People would be blasphemous.
  • There would be much hypocrisy.
  • False Bible teachers would have many followers, be money-hungry, and would slur the Christian faith (see 2 Peter 2:1-3)

Daniel 12:4 tells us that in the last days there will be an increase of travel and knowledge.  Men would scoff, and say that these "signs" have always been around. They would also deny the flood of Noah (despite the overwhelming scientific evidence of a  universal flood). The Bible even informs us of their motivation for the denial. It says they would love lust. Then Scripture tells us that they make one big mistake. Their understanding  of God is erroneous. They don't understand that God's time frame is not the same as ours. They think (in their ignorance) that God's continued silence means that He doesn't see their  sins. In truth, He is merely holding back His wrath, waiting for them to repent (see 2 Peter 3:8-9):

 "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own  lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are  ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (2 Peter 3:3-6).

 Jesus warned that the sign to look for was the repossession of Jerusalem by the Jews. That happened in 1967, after 2,000 years, bringing into culmination all the signs of the times:

  "And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24).

 These scientific and prophetic facts prove that the Bible is no ordinary book; that it is supernatural in origin, as it so often claims. It uses the words "Thus says the Lord" 3,800  times, and has 3,856 verses that speak directly or indirectly concerning prophecy. There is no other book in any of the world's religions (Bagvat Gita, Vedas, Koran, Book of Mormon,  etc.) that contain perfectly accurate prophetic and scientific truth. In fact, they contain statements that are clearly erroneous and unscientific.

 

What About Evolution?

What about evolution—doesn't that disprove the Bible? Firstly, let me make it clear that I do  believe in variations within species. Some dogs appear to have evolved from large to small (or small to large), but no actual "evolution" has taken place. They are still dogs. There is no  evidence for man evolving from primates (each having a common ancestor), generally known as "the theory of evolution." Professor Louis Bounoure, Director of Research,  National Center of Scientific Research so rightly stated: ""Evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless."" Sir  Arthur Keith (Sir Arthur Keith wrote the foreword to the 100th edition of Origin of the Species) said, ""Evolution is unproved and unprovable."" Malcolm Muggeridge, the famous  British journalist and philosopher said, ""I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in history  books of the future."" Dr. T. N. Tahmisian of the Atomic Energy Commission said, ""Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever.""

 

Scrap the Current Theory?
Look at this new discovery: "Paleontologists have discovered a new skeleton in the closet of human ancestry that is likely to force science to revise, if not scrap, current theories  of human origins" (USA Today March 21, 2001). Reuters reported that the discovery left "scientists of human evolution . . . confused ," saying, "Lucy may not even be a direct human  ancestor after all." In truth, evolution isn't "scientific." It's a theory. Dr. Kent Hovind—an authority on evolution has a standing offer of $250,000 for anyone who can give him scientific evidence that evolution is true  (www.drdino.com). Evolutionists should take him to court. They could become famous. They could make this another "Scopes" trial, but they won't, because they can't. All they have is  faith in a theory. In fact, evolution qualifies as a religion. The dictionary says of the word "religion": "A set of beliefs concerned with explaining the origins and purposes of the  universe . . ." Evolutionists even have their own religious language: "We believe, perhaps, maybe, probably, could've, possibly . . . " Their founding father of the faith is Charles Darwin.  Their god of the religion of evolution is "nature," often referred to by the faithful as "Mother Nature." She is the one who is responsible for everything we can see in creation. What's  more, she's very attractive to lust-filled men. They gravitate to her like a moth to a flame. That's because she's deaf, blind, and mute. She doesn't hear anything, she doesn't see  anything, and what's most important—she doesn't say anything. Mother Nature doesn't have any moral dictates. That's why evolution is so appealing. It is called "idolatry" (making  up a false god) and is a transgression of the First of the Ten Commandments.

Microevolution is observable, while macroevolution takes a great leap of blind faith. If  Christians had as much faith in the Bible as evolutionists have in the theory of evolution, we would see revival. Like little children, they believe without the need of a thread of evidence.  Evolution doesn't disprove the existence of God. It just reveals that those who believe it are truly capable of faith in the invisible. It confirms Napoleon's observation: "Man will believe  anything, as long as it's not in the Bible."

 

What About Mistakes in the Bible?

Perhaps you have found what you see as mistakes in the Bible, and they are stopping you giving the Bible any real credibility. Here are some common arguments:
  Hares don't chew cudInsects don't have four legsThe account of two creationsCain's incestAdam didn't die the day God said He wouldA flat earthBible atrocitiesDivine  genocideThe "Potter's field" prophecy not being in the Book of JeremiahThe "contradiction" between "an eye for an eye," and "turn the other cheek"Zedekiah not seeing BabylonClear contradictions in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.

We will look at two, then I will make reference to more later in this booklet:

  "And the prince [the "prince" referred to here is Zedekiah] that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall to carry out  thereby: he shall cover his face, that he see not the ground with his eyes. My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the  land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there" (Ezekiel 12:13).

 "And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall  surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall behold his eyes." (Jeremiah 32:4-5).

 This is a clear contradiction. One prophet says that Zedekiah will not see Babylon. The other says that he will be taken captive by the Chaldeans, and his eyes will see the king of Babylon.

 Here is what happened:

  "Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound  him with chains, to carry him to Babylon"(Jeremiah 39:6-7).

 Zedekiah looked into the eyes of the king of Babylon, and then he was blinded and taken captive to Babylon.

  Here is another glaring "contradiction" in two accounts of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus:

 "And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord  said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man" (Acts 9:7).

  "And I answered, Who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute. And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they  heard not the voice of him that spoke to me" (Acts 22:8,9).

 Did they hear the voice, or didn't they? Here's the answer:

 "Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both  glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spoke to him" (John 12:28-29).

 Those who stood by heard God's voice, but they didn't hear what He said. Now you have a choice. You can either argue about the word "voice," or you can stop for a moment and say,  "Could it be that I am a proud person, and that I refuse to humble myself? Could it be that my professed wisdom has put me at the wrong end of the line?

 

 


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drdoubleu wrote:  You

drdoubleu wrote:

 You laugh at the site and at Dr. Hovind....yet he still has the 250,000 dollar deal that if you can prove evolution to be a fact that he will pay you that money. 

And if you had an understanding of evolution you would know why the $250,000 challenge is bullshit.  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind.html


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Sapient wrote: bullshit.

 

that about sums up that website.  Which surprisingly is what 90% of this debate has been taken from from your standpoint....but continually debunked by myself and the fact that the websites rationality is based on non biologists, theories and not facts, as well as ambiguous data that can be interpreted an almost infinite number of ways, has less credibility than my freshman year of undergrad books for advanced organismal and evolutionary biology, as well as most of its references (not all) which is bases the site on outdated at least 20 years.  

Question, have you ever escavated fossils?  I certainly have on many occasions....it doesn't really line up with what the text books tell you.  Stop mixing fact with fiction. 


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drdoubleu wrote:

drdoubleu wrote:
You laugh at the site and at Dr. Hovind....

Damn straight I do. Not only because creation "science" is as much science as christianity itself is science, but also because "Dr" Kent Hovind himself is a fraud. His "degree" is in christian education from an unaccredited bible university. He is as much a scientist as I am a muslim.

If you're really confident in what you believe, I suggest you use some of this creationist nonsense as references when you present you doctoral thesis in microbiology. See how well that flies.

drdoubleu wrote:
Stop mixing fact with fiction.

Argh! Irony overload... can't... stop... laughing...


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drdoubleu wrote:



drdoubleu wrote:

I am christian because of several reasons, the stories in the bible correlate with the history of the time and do not violate the historical events. Science and history confirm events time and time again. The god of Chrstianity is different than any other god...I really don't feel like elaborating so don't challenge me on this because I have done it enough times.


I agree with you that the nature of the Christian God is different than that of other gods. I would even go as far as saying that the Christian God is much more difficult to understand than other ones, so much so that people reading the Bible find contradictions in Him which they aren't able to resolve. However, my point is not that. Rather my question to you is why do you believe in Christianity so strongly that you as a scientist are able to reject other worldviews? Have you done significant research on other perspectives, evaluated them scientifically? From what you have posted it seems quite apparent that you have not. In fact it seems that Christianity was the most immediately available religion to you, so this is the only one you researched in depth. If I am wrong about what serious thought you have put into considering other perspectives, please show me how I am wrong. But the fact of your positive believe in Christianity is not enough on its own to reject other worldviews.

 

 

 

drdoubleu wrote:
The people of the bible existed, their deaths and bodies correlate with the time frame and sites. The names of cities are still here today, the places still exist, there are millions of artifacts and archeological sites throughout the places of the bible that support the stories.....including the fact that the bible is actually used to locate sites. My views as a biologist are only part of the support needed for my faith. This part is the part I use for the scientifically naive or those who have been tainted with theories on theories on theories to the point that they see it as the scientific absolute and have been clouded to not see the real world actually contradicts a majority of the theories. The prophecies of the prophets have been fullfilled I believe Jesus Christ was a real person, archeology and history confirms this regardless of what other people may say. Aparently they don't understand the size of community, the location, the wars, the fires, the other non biblical documents etc. when making their claims. His death and ressurrection were recorded by numberous writers in the bible. If such a thing didn't occur then the romans would have said they found a body, such an event never happened. I could go on and on, but my faith is extremely strong. Actually speaking to people on this site makes my faith even stronger and provides me with more information on how people are misled so I can study more on it. Other than that it seems to be the same questions time and time again.


All of this is all good and well, but even if every single word of this is true (the Bible is not my area of expertise, so I can't evaluate the truth of what you are saying) your belief by itself still does not reject other possible worldviews.

drdoubleu wrote:
Buddha was a hindu, so much of his beliefs were taken from his original religion.

what is your point here?


drdoubleu wrote:
He was a drunk too...which might explain how he say a talking pink elephant....but do you really think someone would sit under a tree for 20 years?

what is your point here? Is "do you really think..." really a line of argument coming from you, a Christian who believes in Hell? Can you explain your argument here?

Before we discuss Buddhism, I need to know from you how much you know and have read, and what you understand of it. From what you have written so far, it doesn't seem like you've thought too much about it all, in which case it would be difficult to discuss it with you.

 

drdoubleu wrote:
I honestly can't say how many christians have it right.

Unfortunately, neither can I.

drdoubleu wrote:
My best friend is hindu, she has been all her life. the funny thing about hinduism is that even hidus can't answer questions about their own religion.

This is true of many religions, including Christianity.

drdoubleu wrote:
they don't know how many gods they have, they don't know which ones are the right ones to worship etc. One of my friends decided to become a christian when his grandpa spent 20 years eating rice and in prayer in the corner of their house. when he died a calf was born and later walked and stood in the spot where the grandpa used to pray. they thought that that was him reincarnated. I think it's a little contradictory to say in a religion that your level of faith bases your rewards for the next life and then have someone so dedicated not even come back as another human but rather a farm animal.


Ok. I am happy that you have put a little effort into trying to understand another religious perspective with your best friend. Unfortunately, I don't think you have done a deep enough study of this particular religious perspective to say anything really valuable. But you can prove me wrong.

drdoubleu wrote:
Catholics have many things right but many more things wrong. To understand you must study the bible and understand the contradictions they have. They base their dogma on rituals and traditions, not scripture.

Really I don't have a burden to prove my faith to anyone but myself. I have grown up in science, but also understand the changes it has had in just my lifetime. The bible hasn't changed. I can pick up a bible from 1599 and have it read the same as 1999. Yes there are books that aren't in the bible but that's because they are either not written by first hand accountants, outdated past the time of the apostles, or plainly don't have anything important to say. The bible is extremely long and if properly studied takes even longer. It has taken me three months just to study half of Mark. why? because I am trying to learn it to the best of my abilities.

I am glad you are finding happiness and peace in your personal spiritual endeavors. In order for you to say other people are wrong however, you are going to have to do the same kind of careful study of other texts which represent different worldviews. (If you want to really be able to talk about Hinduism and Buddhism, you can start with the Bhagavad Gita and say, the philosophical writings of Nagarjuna. If you want to have the authority to reject the atheism, you might want to try Bertrand Russell and more recently Richard Dawkins-whom I haven't read myself. Until then, these are still possibilities of viewing and understanding the world)

drdoubleu wrote:
How do you know I have it right? Study anything I have said and you will see.
ok; as long as you study everything I recommend also.


drdoubleu wrote:
Study the bible and then study what I have said and you will see what I am saying is right. If it wasn't then I wouldn't be much of a researcher in biology and faith now would I?
no, you wouldn't.

drdoubleu wrote:
It is true that christianity historically divides people, but so does every other religion and non religion view.
Yet somehow Christianity is right?

 

drdoubleu wrote:
The deal with the films and such I think is quite untrue. You may see a lot of morals or such in a few movies but you can't watch horror films, goreflicks, chickflicks etc and say wow that was quite biblical. My favorite is the groups that tried to get The Passion removed because it was so gory then the same people went and watched Saw I-III. Give me a break.

My point was about the pervasiveness of Christianity in our culture, in our calendar, our vacations, our weekends, in our schools, our government, not about gore in the movies. There is no debate about teaching the Hindu creation story in Kansas public schools. Why? Hinduism is not as pervasive of a force in Kansas as Christianity.


drdoubleu wrote:
Let me ask you this, when was the last time an atheist, hindu, muslim, LDS, etc got together and helped people in need?
Short answer? today.


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Christianity is mutually

Christianity is mutually incompatible with the scientific method. First of all, it is based on authority and it leaves no room for error since it claims to be the inerrant word of god. The scientific method, on the other hand, is somewhat objective, and inherently self-correcting. Thus it is pointless to speak of science as "saying something," since science is a process, not the theories accepted at any given time. Second of all, it is vague and often ambiguous. Scientific literature is precise and specific - often making it difficult to read. The Bible speaks in parables. It has been constantly reinterpreted throughout history and contains no actual truth-value. There is no objective way to interpret the Bible just as there is no objective way to interpret Hamlet or any other such text. Knowledge is justified true belief and the Bible does not contain any scientific knowledge. Here is why: even if the statements about nature found in the Bible were true, there is no way for its authors to have had any sort of justification for their ideas. The fact that their writings could be interpreted in light of modern scientific advances (which owed absolutely nothing to the Bible) does not at all establish that they were infused with such ideas in the first place.

An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.


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BobSpence1 wrote: Regarding

BobSpence1 wrote:
Regarding the tired old argument about fossils penetrating multiple layers of strata, I think it is well covered in this link:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html
There also appears to be an assumption that fossilisation must have taken the entire apparent age of the fossil. Of course mineralisation can and normally does occur relatively quickly.
The process would actually have to occur quickly, at least the initial stages, for us to have a well preserved mineral version of the original, otherwise the ordinary processes of decay and erosion by earth movement, water, etc, would have essentially destroyed it.
So the observation that significant mineralistion can occur in a very short period in no way invalidates evidence for evolution, rather it is a requirement for high quality fossils.
Once sufficiently mineralised to be stable, further processes may further change it over time, of course, to produce what we see today.
Establishing the age of the specimen is a separate exercise based on various techniques such as these


bobspence1 wrote:
 Carbon dating is just one, as you see, limited to 50000-100000 years at most, so not relevant to most of evolutionary or geological history.
Some of those may not be strictly relevant to evolutionary problems, but they do help calibrate and check those that are.

From what I see, althought I got tired going through the list, these individual measurements all need to be recalibrated themselves.  You take five uncalibrated testing methods and what do you get?  Bunk data.  It even says most or all are unable to measure even back to the timeframe of the creation story or the flood of 4600 years ago and is mainly for man made objects and sediments that were exposed to the sun.  Even if a meteor hit the earth that's a time frame where nothing can be dated because the sun was blocked out.  

They still can't find a measuring tool to figure out the age of the wooley mammoth without making it's pelt and bones a few thousand years older than each other. 


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triften wrote: The trees

triften wrote:

The trees propagate over time by branching out and sprouting from their roots. I have some plants in my apartment that grow the same way. Not all the trees start growing at the same time. Here's an example of how this could work just fine (again, not designating a species just an example): The "example tree" spreads by sprouting from its root structure. It lives to the age of 3,500 years old. However, it doesn't start sprouting a new tree until it hits 1,000 years old. So Tree 1 is growing, perhaps separated from it's friends by gelogic forces. Let's assume it's rather young. It hits the age of 1,000 years and starts sprouting Tree 2. So, after 1k years, Tree 1 is 1k years old and Tree 2 is 0. 1k year later, Tree 2 sprouts Tree 3, so the ages are 2k, 1k, and 0. After another 1k years, Tree 3 sprouts Tree 4 and the ages are 3k, 2k, 1k, 0. After one more 1k period, Tree 1 has died of old age (*snif*) but joy of joys, Tree 4 sprouts Tree 5. If we come along 250 years later, then no living tree is over 3.25k years old. So our current ages are:

Tree 1 (DEAD)

Tree 2 3.25k

Tree 3 2.25k

Tree 4 1.25k

Tree 5 250 years

Scientist: "Wow... Here's a bunch of trees! (takes sample, counts rings) The oldest is 3.25k years! And there's a dead tree that appears to have been abound 3.25k years old when it died. Perhaps 3.25k years ago a bunch of these were killed! Or maybe... the trees just live to about 3.25k years. Hmmm..."

The age of the oldest tree only tells you how old the trees can live.

You are trying to mix scientific data, facts and figures in with your own ideology which is wrong at that.  You don't need to explain the scenario to me because I already understand it.  What I'm trying to tell you is, you have a set number of trees sprouting, they can measure the time and rate each tree sprouts, from this you can figure the average time it takes for the next tree to sprout etc.  From this they find that the living trees or perhaps the living trees and the dead ones right next to it make up the living body and gives the original germination of the first plant that started the cycle.  When this occurs they can conclude that none are older than 4500 years old.  What they base the older numbers on is fossils in the area, not by the tree on in the path of the tree but in surrounding areas that potentially could hold trees of its kind but not necessarily originally attached.  Or they find pollen in lake beds and base its age off of this finding regarding the supposed age of rock or mud at the bottom.  This makes the data skewed and inaccurate.  If the trees were right in line with the living ones I would agree, but they are taking fossils and stating these were once the living trees of today so these trees must be that old.  In anycase what I say has never been observed for any of the oldest trees in the world and therefore support my claims and still show the flaws in your statement.  If you don't believe me, which aparently no one does based on my education but based on my religion you should get off your computer and go to Utah or california where these trees are.  

 

triften wrote:

And there's not such thing as tectonic activity? That could shift strata? Using your own tactics, I could decide to blow off your stance here since you don't have a PhD in geology. (Yes, I am reading your other posts.)

 

Now you are being rediculous.  I never said there wasn't a such thing as techtonic activity.  What I am saying and showed you with links to the photos of what I'm talking about is you have a standing tree | and the layers of sediment around the tree and the surrounding areas is ____  meaning they are parallel with the current ground and parallel to the horizon.  The tree is perpendicular with the same stance as when it was living.  If the layers were sideways or angled at all I would agree with you but this isn't observed.  therefore my statement still remains.  You are right I dont' have a degree in geology.  I have a joke, what do you call a biologist that couldn't get into grad school?  a geologist.  In the heirarchy of the science pole, they are quite near the bottom. 

 

"www.talkorigins.org isn't even a credible scientific site.  If you even tried using this as a source on a grant, you will get it rejected until you can come of with something more credible.  Most of the information you are getting contradicts basic biology, chemistry and physics.  The information on the site for one is outdated to the point that the people making the claims were probobly the original readers of the science 'journals' at the time they were smoking pot and dropping acid at woodstock.  You are taking atheist views that are biased towards their own agendas and trying to mix them in with poorly interpreted data and out of date studies."  What makes the difference between that and a creation site?  You can test it yourself and the results come out the same for creationist but different for the atheist claims that direct it back to creationism. 

triften wrote:

It's quite reasonable for a non-"Flood" flood to deposit several feet of mud (land slide perhaps?) which would then be changed into sedimentary rock with bands giving the appearance of different strata.

 

It is reasonable, but then again, how would this work when you go around globally and see the same trend in the same age of sediment?  Global land slides giving change to sedimentary rock with bands giving appearance of different strata?  So I guess it's okay to believe in global land slides roughly around the same time but not a global flood. 

triften wrote:
 

Tectonic activity is a real thing. Over millions of years, an area, like say the middle of what is currently North America, that is under water, can get pushed up and the landscape changed bringing former sea beds to the tops of mountains.

Unless you are going to tell me that tectonic activity does not occur and that North America and Europe are not moving apart at about an inch a year.


And I never said there was no such thing as tectonic activity nor continental drift.  The only problem with this is innacurate global findings once again.  You have north america underwater, which would be well beyond the supposed time of Pangea (sp?).  So before then it was underwater then it rose.  I'll say that much.  then you have the drift.  Mountains start to form and give rise to the old sea bed.  This is where the error comes in.  Check out the time frame geologists give for a mountain range to raise up with the current trends we see today with erosion and elevation.  Then check out the time frame those sea shells were found on top of the mountains.  The shells on the ocean bed that are not ontop of mountains are thousands to millions of years YOUNGER than the mountain ranges themselves.  So good idea, but the data doesn't agree.

 

triften wrote:


So, if the earth was covered in water 4.5k years ago, where were the Egyptians during all this? In fact, they finished the Great Pyramid of Giza right around when this flood was supposed to have taken place and there are pyramids older than that. I'd think a flood suposedly capable of carving the Grand Canyon would have handily erased the pyramids of Egypt.

Historical context

Believed by mainstream Egyptologists to have been constructed in approximately 20 years, the generally accepted estimated date of its completion is c. 2560 BC ((January 21, 2004) (2006) The Seven Wonders. The Great Pyramid of Giza).This date is loosely supported by archaeological findings which have yet to reveal a civilization (of sufficient population size or technical ability) older than the fourth dynasty in the area.  So you are right it is roughly around that time.  BUT it doesn't mean it wasn't through that time.  It is roughly before the time of the flood or possibly hundreds to a thousand years before.  They base the age on the potential civilizations around there.  The great sphinx was built around the same time frame.  No civilization has been around since that time before it.  We still don't know how they were built.  How would such a great civilization vanish without a trace and not leave behind the tools and instructions on how to build the way they did?  Please note the sphinx

Copyright (c) 2001 - Andrew Bayuk, All Rights ReservedCopyright (c) 2001 - Andrew Bayuk, All Rights Reserved

Copyright (c) 2001 - Andrew Bayuk, All Rights Reserved

 

 

Notice the lines running down the sides?  Now look at flood recession:

http://www.jaha.org/edu/flood/why/img/dam_gallery/images/Abandoned_SF_dam.jpg

 

When I was in an archeology class they told us at one time the sphinx was underwater.  It is evident with the water lines running all the way down the sides of it.   So the time frame is the same.  They built before and up to the time of the flood but eventually discontinued all together after this time frame.  This does not debunk the flood  story.  "The Great 19th century battle between catastrophits and uniformitarians seemed to end with the notion of global cataclysms being dismissed as a back door to the supernatural.  But catastrophist theory has  gradually become more and more plausible so that now less than 100 years later it is widely believed that mass extinctions are linked to meteor strikes" - Dr. Robert Schoch

You use the word, would have, when it should be could have.  You are basing the degree of the flood and how it affected Giza compared to how the flood  affected a different continent across the ocean at a different sea  level, different coast, and different rock sediment.

 

Startling evidence for Noah’s Flood
Footprints and sand ‘dunes’ in a Grand Canyon sandstone!

by Andrew A. Snelling and Steven A. Austin

‘There is no sight on earth which matches Grand Canyon. There are other canyons, other mountains and other rivers, but this Canyon excels all in scenic grandeur. Can any visitor, upon viewing Grand Canyon, grasp and appreciate the spectacle spread before him? The ornate sculpture work and the wealth of color are like no other landscape. They suggest an alien world. The scale is too outrageous. The sheer size and majesty engulf the intruder, surpassing his ability to take it in.’1

Figure 1. A panoramic view of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim at Yavapai Point. The Coconino Sandstone is the thick buff-coloured layer close to the top of the canyon walls. Compare with Figure 2.

Figure 2. Grand Canyon in cross-section showing the names given to the different rock units by geologists.

Anyone who has stood on the rim and looked down into Grand Canyon would readily echo these words as one’s breath is taken away with the sheer magnitude of the spectacle. The Canyon stretches for 277 miles (446 kilometres) through northern Arizona, attains a depth of more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometres), and ranges from 4 miles (6.4 kilometres) to 18 miles (29 kilometres) in width. In the walls of the Canyon can be seen flat-lying rock layers that were once sand, mud or lime. Now hardened, they look like pages of a giant book as they stretch uniformly right through the Canyon and underneath the plateau country to the north and south and deeper to the east.

The Coconino Sandstone

To begin to comprehend the awesome scale of these rock layers, we can choose any one for detailed examination. Perhaps the easiest of these rock layers to spot, since it readily catches the eye, is a thick, pale buff coloured to almost white sandstone near the top of the Canyon walls. Geologists have given the different rock layers names, and this one is called the Coconino Sandstone (see Figures 1 and 2). It is estimated to have an average thickness of 315 feet (96 metres) and, with equivalent sandstones to the east, covers an area of about 200,000 square miles (518,000 square kilometres).2 That is an area more than twice the size of the Australian State of Victoria, or almost twice the area of the US State of Colorado! Thus the volume of this sandstone is conservatively estimated at 10,000 cubic miles (41,700 cubic kilometres). That’s a lot of sand!

Figure 3. Cross beds (inclined sub-layering) within the Coconino Sandstone, as seen on the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon.

What do these rock layers in Grand Canyon mean? What do they tell us about the earth’s past? For example, how did all the sand in this Coconino Sandstone layer and its equivalents get to where it is today?

To answer these questions geologists study the features within rock layers like the Coconino Sandstone, and even the sand grains themselves. An easily noticed feature of the Coconino Sandstone is the distinct cross layers of sand within it called cross beds (see Figure 3, right). For many years evolutionary geologists have interpreted these cross beds by comparing them with currently forming sand deposits — the sand dunes in deserts which are dominated by sand grains made up of the mineral quartz, and which have inclined internal sand beds. Thus it has been proposed that the Coconino Sandstone accumulated over thousands and thousands of years in an immense windy desert by migrating sand dunes, the cross beds forming on the down-wind sides of the dunes as sand was deposited there.3

Figure 4: A fossilized quadruped trackway in the Coconino Sandstone on display in the Grand Canyon Natural History Association’s Yavapai Point Museum at the South Rim.

The Coconino Sandstone is also noted for the large number of fossilized footprints, usually in sequences called trackways. These appear to have been made by four-footed vertebrates moving across the original sand surfaces (see Figure 4, left). These fossil footprint trackways were compared to the tracks made by reptiles on desert sand dunes,4 so it was then assumed that these fossilized footprints in the Coconino Sandstone must have been made in dry desert sands which were then covered up by wind-blown sand, subsequent cementation forming the sandstone and fossilizing the prints.

Yet another feature that evolutionary geologists have used to argue that the Coconino Sandstone represents the remains of a long period of dry desert conditions is the sand grains themselves. Geologists have studied the sand grains from modern desert dunes and under the microscope they often show pitted or frosted surfaces. Similar grain surface textures have also been observed in sandstone layers containing very thick cross beds such as the Coconino Sandstone, so again this comparison has strengthened the belief that the Coconino Sandstone was deposited as dunes in a desert.

At first glance this interpretation would appear to be an embarrassment to Bible-believing geologists who are unanimous in their belief that it must have been Noah’s Flood that deposited the flat lying beds of what were once sand, mud and lime, but are now exposed as the rock layers in the walls of the Canyon.

Above the Coconino Sandstone is the Toroweap Formation and below is the Hermit Formation, both of which geologists agree are made up of sediments that were either deposited by and/or in water. 5,6 How could there have been a period of dry desert conditions in the middle of the Flood year when ‘all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered’ (Genesis 7:19) by water?

This seeming problem has certainly not been lost on those, even from within the Christian community, opposed to Flood geologists and creationists in general. For example, Dr Davis Young, Professor of Geology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a recent book being marketed in Christian bookshops, has merely echoed the interpretations made by evolutionary geologists of the characteristics of the Coconino Sandstone, arguing against the Flood as being the agent for depositing the Coconino Sandstone. He is most definite in his consideration of the desert dune model:

‘The Coconino Sandstone contains spectacular cross bedding, vertebrate track fossils, and pitted and frosted sand grain surfaces. All these features are consistent with formation of the Coconino as desert sand dunes. The sandstone is composed almost entirely of quartz grains, and pure quartz sand does not form in floods … no flood of any size could have produced such deposits of sand …’7

Those footprints

The footprint trackways in the Coconino Sandstone have recently been re-examined in the light of experimental studies by Dr Leonard Brand of Loma Linda University in California.8 His research program involved careful surveying and detailed measurements of 82 fossilized vertebrate trackways discovered in the Coconino Sandstone along the Hermit Trail in Grand Canyon. He then observed and measured 236 experimental trackways made by living amphibians and reptiles in experimental chambers. These tracks were formed on sand beneath the water, on moist sand at the water’s edge, and on dry sand, the sand mostly sloping at an angle of 25 degrees, although some observations were made on slopes of 15deg; and 20° for comparison. Observations were also made of the underwater locomotion of five species of salamanders (amphibians) both in the laboratory and in their natural habitat, and measurements were again taken of their trackways.

A detailed statistical analysis of these data led to the conclusion, with a high degree of probability that the fossil tracks must have been made underwater. Whereas the experimental animals produce footprints under all test conditions, both up and down the 25° slopes of the laboratory ‘dunes’, all but one of the fossil trackways could only have been made by the animals in question climbing uphill. Toe imprints were generally distinct, whereas the prints of the soles were indistinct. These and other details were present in over 80% of the fossil, underwater and wet sand tracks, but less than 12% of the dry sand and damp sand tracks had any toe marks. Dry sand uphill tracks were usually just depressions, with no details. Wet sand tracks were quite different from the fossil tracks in certain features. Added to this, the observations of the locomotive behaviour of the living salamanders indicated that all spent the majority of their locomotion time walking on the bottom, underwater, rather than swimming.

Putting together all of his observations, Dr Brand thus came to the conclusion that the configurations and characteristics of the animals trackways made on the submerged sand surfaces most closely resembled the fossilized quadruped trackways of the Coconino Sandstone. Indeed, when the locomotion behaviour of the living amphibians is taken into account, the fossilized trackways can be interpreted as implying that the animals must have been entirely under water (not swimming at the surface) and moving upslope (against the current) in an attempt to get out of the water. This interpretation fits with the concept of a global Flood, which overwhelmed even four-footed reptiles and amphibians that normally spend most of their time in the water.

Not content with these initial studies, Dr Brand has continued (with the help of a colleague) to pursue this line of research. He recently published further results,9 which were so significant that a brief report of their work appeared in Science News10 and Geology Today. 11

His careful analysis of the fossilized trackways in the Coconino Sandstone, this time not only from the Hermit Trail in Grand Canyon but from other trails and locations, again revealed that all but one had to have been made by animals moving up cross bed slopes. Furthermore, these tracks often show that the animals were moving in one direction while their feet were pointing in a different direction. It would appear that the animals were walking in a current of water, not air. Other trackways start or stop abruptly, with no sign that the animals’ missing tracks were covered by some disturbance such as shifting sediments. It appears that these animals simply swam away from the sediment.

Because many of the tracks have characteristics that are ‘just about impossible’ to explain unless the animals were moving underwater, Dr Brand suggested that newt-like animals made the tracks while walking under water and being pushed by a current. To test his ideas, he and his colleague videotaped living newts walking through a laboratory tank with running water. All 238 trackways made by the newts had features similar to the fossilized trackways in the Coconino Sandstone, and their videotaped behaviour while making the trackways thus indicated how the animals that made the fossilized trackways might have been moving.

These additional studies confirmed the conclusions of his earlier researches. Thus, Dr Brand concluded that all his data suggest that the Coconino Sandstone fossil tracks should not be used as evidence for desert wind deposition of dry sand to form the Coconino Sandstone, but rather point to underwater deposition. These evidence from such careful experimental studies by a Flood geologist overturn the original interpretation by evolutionists of these Coconino Sandstone fossil footprints, and thus call into question their use by Young and others as an argument against the Flood.

Desert ‘dunes’?

The desert sand dune model for the origin of the Coconino Sandstone has also recently been challenged by Glen Visher12, Professor of Geology at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, and not a creationist geologist. Visher noted that large storms, or amplified tides, today produce submarine sand dunes called ‘sand waves’. These modern sand waves on the sea floor contain large cross beds composed of sand with very high quartz purity. Visher has thus interpreted the Coconino Sandstone as a submarine sand wave deposit accumulated by water, not wind. This of course is directly contrary to Young’s claims, which after all are just the repeated opinions of other evolutionary geologists.

Furthermore, there is other evidence that casts grave doubts on the view that the Coconino Sandstone cross beds formed in desert dunes. The average angle of slope of the Coconino cross beds is about 25° from the horizontal, less than the average angle of slope of sand beds within most modern desert sand dunes. Those sand beds slope at an angle of more than 25°, with some beds inclined as much as 30° to 34°, the angle of ‘rest’ of dry sand. On the other hand, modern oceanic sand waves do not have ‘avalanche’ faces of sand as common as desert dunes, and therefore, have lower average dips of cross beds.

Visher also points to other positive evidence for accumulation of the Coconino Sandstone in water. Within the Coconino Sandstone is a feature known technically as ‘parting lineation’, which is known to be commonly formed on sand surfaces during brief erosional bursts beneath fast-flowing water. It is not known from any desert sand dunes. Thus Visher also uses this feature as evidence of vigorous water currents accumulating the sand, which forms the Coconino Sandstone.

Similarly, Visher has noted that the different grain sizes of sand within any sandstone are a reflection of the process that deposited the sand. Consequently, he performed sand grain size analyses of the Coconino Sandstone and modern sand waves, and found that the Coconino Sandstone does not compare as favourably to dune sands from modern deserts.

He found that not only is the pitting not diagnostic of the last Process to have deposited the sand grains (pitting can, for example, form first by wind impacts, followed by redeposition by water), but pitting and frosting of sand grains can form outside a desert environment.13 For example, geologists have described how pitting on the surface of sand grains can form by chemical processes during the cementation of sand.

Sand wave deposition

Figure 5. Schematic diagram showing the formation of cross beds during sand deposition by migration of underwater sand waves due to sustained water flow.

A considerable body of evidence is now available which indicates that the Coconino Sandstone was deposited by the ocean, and not by desert accumulation of sand dunes as emphatically maintained by most evolutionary geologists, including Christians like Davis Young. The cross beds within the Coconino Sandstone (that is, the inclined beds of sand within the overall horizontal layer of sandstone) are excellent evidence that ocean currents moved the sand rapidly as dune-like mounds called sand waves.14

Figure 5 (right) shows the way sand waves have been observed to produce cross beds in layers of sand. The water current moves over the sand surface building up mounds of sand. The current erodes sand from the ‘up-current’ side of the sand wave and deposits it as inclined layers on the ‘down-current’ side of the sand wave. Thus the sand wave moves in the direction of current flow as the inclined strata continue to be deposited on the down-current side of the sand wave. Continued erosion of sand by the current removes both the up-current side and top of the sand wave, the only part usually preserved being just the lower half of the down-current side. Thus the height of the cross beds preserved is just a fraction of the original sand wave height. Continued transportation of further sand will result in repeated layers containing inclined cross beds. These will be stacked up on each other.

Sand waves have been observed on certain parts of the ocean floor and in rivers, and have been produced in laboratory studies. Consequently, it has been demonstrated that the sand wave height is related to the water depth.15 As the water depth increases so does the height of the sand waves which are produced. The heights of the sand waves are approximately one-fifth of the water depth. Similarly, the velocities of the water currents that produce sand waves have been determined.

Thus we have the means to calculate both the depth and velocity of the water responsible for transporting as sand waves the sand that now makes up the cross beds of the Coconino Sandstone. The thickest sets of cross beds in the Coconino Sandstone so far reported are 30 feet (9 metres) thick.16 Cross beds of that height imply sand waves at least 60 feet (18 metres) high and a water depth of around 300 feet (between 90 and 95 metres). For water that deep to make and move sand waves as high as 60 feet (18 metres) the minimum current velocity would need to be over 3 feet per second (95 centimetres per second) or 2 miles per hour. The maximum current velocity would have been almost 5.5 feet per second (165 cm or 1.65 metres per second) or 3.75 miles per hour. Beyond that velocity experimental and observational evidence has shown that flat sand beds only would be formed.

Now to have transported in such deep water the volume of sand that now makes up the Coconino Sandstone these current velocities would have to have been sustained in the one direction perhaps for days. Modern tides and normal ocean currents do not have these velocities in the open ocean, although deep-sea currents have been reported to attain velocities of between 50 cm and 250 cm (2.5 metres) per second through geographical restrictions. Thus catastrophic events provide the only mechanism, which can produce high velocity ocean currents over a wide area.

Hurricanes (or cyclones in the southern hemisphere) are thought to make modern sand waves of smaller size than those that have produced the cross beds in the Coconino Sandstone, but no measurements of hurricane driven currents approaching these velocities in deep water have been reported. The most severe modern ocean currents known have been generated during a tsunami or ‘tidal wave’. In shallow oceans tsunami-induced currents have been reported on occasion to exceed 500 cm (5 metres) per second, and currents moving in the one direction have been sustained for hours.19 Such an event would be able to move large quantities of sand and, in its waning stages, build huge sand waves in deep water. Consequently, a tsunami provides the best modern analogy for understanding how large-scale cross beds such as those in the Coconino Sandstone could form.

Noah's Flood?

We can thus imagine how the Flood would deposit the Coconino Sandstone (and its equivalents), which covers an area of 200,000 square miles (518,000 square kilometres) averages 315 feet (96 metres) thick, and contains a volume of sand conservatively estimated at 10,000 cubic miles (41,700 cubic kilometres). But where could such an enormous quantity of sand come from? Cross beds within the Coconino dip consistently toward the south, indicating that the sand came from the north. However, along its northern occurrence, the Coconino rests directly on the Hermit Formation, which consists of siltstone and shale and so would not have been an ample source of sand of the type now found in the Coconino Sandstone. Consequently, this enormous volume of sand would have to have been transported a considerable distance, perhaps at least 200 or 300 miles (320 or 480 kilometres). At the current velocities envisaged sand could be transported that distance in a matter of a few days!

Thus the evidence within the Coconino Sandstone does not support the evolutionary geologists interpretation of slow and gradual deposition of sand in a desert environment with dunes being climbed by wandering four-footed vertebrates. On the contrary, a careful examination of the evidence, backed up by experiments and observations of processes operating today indicates catastrophic deposition of the sand by deep fast-moving water in a matter of days, totally consistent with conditions envisaged during the Flood.

 

References

1. Morris, J.D., Cumming, K.B. and Ham, K.A., in press. The grandest of canyons. In: Grand Canyon — Monument to Catastrophe, S.A. Austin (ed.), Institute for Creation Research, San Diego, chapter 1, p. 1.

2. Baars, D.L., 1962. Permian System of the Colorado Plateau. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, vol. 46, pp. 200–201.

3. Middleton, L.T., Elliott, D.K. andMorales, M., 1990. Coconino Sandstone. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 10, pp. 183–202.

4. McKee, E.D., 1947. Experiments on the development of tracks in fine cross-bedded sand. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, vol. 17, pp. 23–28.

5. Blakey, R.C., 1990. Supai Group and Hermit Formation. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 9, pp. 147–202.

6. Turner, C.E., 1990. Toroweap Formation. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 11, pp. 203–223.

7. Young, D.A., 1990. The discovery ofterrestrial history. In: Portraits of Creation, H.J. Van Till, R.E. Shaw, J.H. Stek and D.A. Young (eds), William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, chapter 3, pp. 80–81.

8. Brand, L.R., 1979. Field and laboratory studies on the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) vertebrate footprints and theirpaleoecological implications. Palaeogreography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, vol. 28, pp. 25–38.

9. Brand, L.R. and Tang, T., 1991. Fossil vertebrate footprints in the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) of northern Arizona: Evidence for underwater origin. Geology, vol. 19,pp. 1201–1204.

10. Monastersky, R., 1992. Wading newts may explain enigmatic tracks. Science News, vol. 141 (1), p. 5.

11. Geology Today, vol. 8(3), May–June 1992, pp, 78–79 (Wet tracks).

12. Visher, G.S., 1990. Exploration Stratigraphy, 2nd edition, Penn Well Publishing Co., Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp. 211–213.

13. Kuenen, P.H. and Perdok, W.G., 1962. Experimental abrasion — frosting and defrosting of quartz grains. Journal of Geology, vol. 70, pp. 648–658.

14. Amos, C.L. and King, E.L., 1984. Bedforms of the Canadian eastern seaboard: a comparison with global occurrences. Marine Geology, vol. 57, pp. 167–208.

15. Allen, J.R.L., 1970. Physical Processes Sedimentation, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, p. 78.

16. Beus, S.S., 1979. Trail log third day: South Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon, Arizona. In: Carboniferous Stratigraphy in the Grand Canyon Country, Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada, S.S. Beus and R.R. Rawson (eds), American Geological Institute, Falls Church, Virginia, p. 16.

17. Lonsdale, P. and Malfait, B., 1974. Abyssal dunes of foraminiferal sand on the Carnegie Ridge. Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 85, pp. 1697–1712.

18. Rubin, D.N. and McCulloch, D.S., 1980. Single and superimposed bedforms: a synthesis of San Francisco Bay and flume observations. Sedimentary Geology, vol. 26, pp. 207–23 1.

19. Coleman, P.J., 1978. Tsunami sedimentation. In: The Encyclopedia of Sedimentology, R.W. Fairbridge and J. Bourgeois (eds), Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, pp. 828–831.

 

AND

The Grand Canyon

by Dr. Gary Parker

First published in
Creation: Facts of Life Chapter 3: The fossil evidence

There’s no doubt about it: the best place to see, study, and put together all these ideas about stacks of fossil-bearing rock is the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon is an awesome gash in the earth, running for about 200 miles (300 km) along the Colorado River in the northwest corner of Arizona. The Canyon is about a mile (1.6 km) deep, and about 10 miles (16 km) from north to south rims. The walls of the narrow, zig-zag inner gorge expose tilted and faulted Precambrian rock, while the walls of the outer and upper gorge are streaked with thick, colorful, horizontal bands of fossil-bearing rock, representing roughly the “bottom half” of the geologic column.

I once believed and taught, like so many others, that the rock layers in Grand Canyon represented stages in evolution laid down over vast eons of time. But, after leading over 15 week-long backpacking trips for university students through the Canyon and studying the rock layers and fossils close-up, I’m ready to stake the place out with Bible verses! What I once assumed was a record of a lot of time, now looks like evidence of a lot of water instead!

Actually, the Canyon seems to provide an excellent contrast between rocks laid down slowly and gradually on a local scale and those laid down rapidly and catastrophically on a colossal scale. Evolutionists have argued that fossil-bearing rocks were largely laid down in local floods and/or by rivers dumping sediments into lakes or seas. Those processes do build up sediment layers; the Mississippi River, the classic example, is continuing to build up its delta right before our eyes.

When the Mississippi is flowing full and fast (often after spring rains and snow melt), gravel is carried relatively far. Later, often during the drier summer season, the river slows, so that sand is dumped where gravel was, then silt on the sand. Such slow and gradual processes produce “lumpy” sediment layers that thicken and thin over short distances and contain virtually no fossils.

Actually, the Precambrian sedimentary rocks in the inner gorge probably do represent sediment laid down somewhat slowly and gradually. Like Mississippi delta deposits, these units thicken and thin, disappear and reappear, over short distances, and they contain very few fossils. They don’t have the “layer-cake” appearance—deep and wide horizontal bands of fossil-rich rocks—characteristic of rapid flood deposits. Instead, they have the “swirl-cake” appearance—lumps of fossil-poor rock—like the sediment layers being produced at the mouth of the Mississippi River right now. To Biblical creationists/Flood geologists, the Precambrian rocks at Grand Canyon look like pre-Flood or early Flood rocks formed by processes occurring like those today during the many centuries before the Flood.

But then the Flood came! There are still countless research projects to be done and questions to be answered, but let me share with you a simple model for the basic formation of Grand Canyon that ties together most of the ideas we’ve been discussing. Please treat these ideas as a stimulus to thinking, not, by any means, as the last word on Grand Canyon.

Although most people relate the Flood to “forty days and forty nights of rain,” the Bible says that the Flood began when “the fountains of the great deep burst forth.” It seems that most of the water came from below, not from above. Few people realize what a tremendous amount of water is found in molten rock (magma) trapped beneath the earth’s surface! When a hole or crack develops in the solid rock capping the more liquid magma, the pressure release causes the super-super hot water to flash into steam, and “BOOM” we have an upward-outward rush of vapor, gas, dust, and ash, producing a volcanic explosion and/or an outpouring of liquid rock on the surface (lava)! A geologist looking for a way to start a worldwide flood could hardly come up with a better mechanism than breaking up the “fountains of the great deep!”

As the volcanic fountains opened up in what is now the Grand Canyon area, the colossally stupendous force just pushed the pre-Flood or early Flood rock aside and tilted it up. The Precambrian rocks in the inner gorge are indeed cracked and tilted, and igneous intrusions cut across and between them, marking, I am suggesting, the beginning of Noah’s Flood, recorded for our study.

A cross-section of the Grand Canyon

Figure 34. Grand Canyon: a lot of time, or a lot of water? … a record of evolution? Or of the Biblical outline of history: Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Christ!

The first Flood current in the area came with such tremendous force that it sheared off the tilted Precambrian rocks in virtually a straight line, producing the so-called “angular unconformity” diagrammed in Fig. 34. Science tells us that the tilt-and-shear could not have happened slowly and gradually. One of the tilted units (the reddish Hakatai Shale) is so soft and crumbly you can dig it out with your fingernails. Another is so incredibly hard (the Shinumo Quartzite) that researchers can barely knock off a piece with a hammer. Had the rocks been tilted up slowly and eroded gradually by rain drops and rivers, the crumbly rock would be all gone, leaving valleys, and the hard unit would stick up in ridges and hillocks. The two different rock types would result in a very wavy contact being formed at the angular unconformity between the tilted layers and the first horizontal unit, the Tapeats Sandstone. Instead, it looks as if the Flood current that eventually deposited the Tapeats came in with such titanic force that the hard and soft rocks were sheared off almost equally in a nearly straight line.

Actually, the Shinumo Quartzite is so hard that parts of it do occasionally stick up through the Tapeats. But the force of the Flood was so great that it broke off huge boulders of this incredibly hard rock, picked the boulders up, and carried them miles (kilometers) away before finally dropping them! Wow! Many devastating floods have been observed in historical times, but none with such power! So far as I know, there are no evolutionary (“uniformitarian”) theories to explain how such huge boulders could be picked up and slowly and gradually moved by ordinary river and raindrop erosion! Even the Colorado River today, a classic example of strength and power, is unable to move lesser boulders downstream from the mouths of its side canyons.

Once the Flood got started, it began to deposit rock layers deep and wide and full of fossils, the “layer-cake” effect characteristic of floods—but on a scale far greater than anything recorded by human observers (except Noah and his family).

We do get some inkling of the kind of geological processes involved from the study of “underwater landslides” called turbidity currents. In 1929, an earthquake loosened sediment lying on the ocean floor off Newfoundland near the continental slope. The loosened sediment roared down the slope at freeway speeds, up to 60 miles or 100 kilometers per hour! How do we know? The dense, muddy slurry flowing along the bottom severed transatlantic telephone cables one after the other, so the time of travel could be calculated from the time telephone service stopped on each line. The roaring sediment spread out over the deep ocean’s abyssal plain, covering an area of hundreds of square miles (kilometers) in a matter of hours! Many boulder flows, megabreccias, and other deposits which once mystified geologists are now interpreted, even by evolutionists, as huge layers deposited rapidly by turbidity currents. Some evolutionists estimate that perhaps 40% of the geologic column was formed by these stupendous flows!

When Biblical creationists/Flood geologists offer explanations for the rock layers in Grand Canyon, they appeal neither to Biblical authority (the Bible doesn’t mention Grand Canyon!) nor to mystical or supernatural processes. They appeal, instead, directly to the evidence we can see, touch, and measure. That evidence seems to suggest that processes we do understand, like turbidity currents, explain what we see—except that the evidence also tells us that the scale was regional, continental, or even global, not just local.

Consider this dramatic statement from the secular (evolutionary) textbook by Levine that I have used with my college Earth Science classes.

Many channels on Mars dwarf our own Grand Canyon in size, and in order to form, would have required torrential floods so spectacular as to be hard to visualize by earth standards.

Note three things: First, it’s normal for a scientist to interpret channels like Grand Canyon in terms of flooding. Second, it’s possible for a scientist to accept cataclysmic flooding on a planet that presently has little or no surface water. Third, a scientist can infer from the evidence left behind “torrential” and “spectacular” flooding on a scale far greater than anything ever recorded in scientific journals! Certainly there’s nothing unscientific about inferring a colossal flood at Grand Canyon from the evidence on a planet (Earth) whose surface is drenched in water!

I’ve mentioned that, because of the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence, many evolutionists are now calling themselves neo-catastrophists. They want nothing to do with old-fashioned catastrophism (Noah’s Flood!), but they agree that most layers of fossil-bearing rock were produced rapidly and broadly by flooding on a catastrophic scale, what Derek Ager compared to “short periods of terror” in the life of a soldier.

It’s these short periods of terror, it seems, that caught plants and animals off guard, buried them too deeply and quickly for them to escape or to be obliterated by scavengers, and turned them into fossils. Clams and snails, for example, are not normally knocked dead and fossilized by a few sand grains or even by huge shifts of sand induced by hurricanes. But zillions were buried and fossilized, it seems, in the first overwhelming deposits of “Flood mud.”

At Grand Canyon as around the world, the “first” or “deepest” layer to contain an abundance of fossil remains is called the Cambrian geologic system. As discussed earlier, these Cambrian “stones cry out” for Creation! Instead of a few simple life forms, hard to classify and apparently thrown together by time and chance, as an evolutionist might expect, we find a dazzling variety of complex life forms, apparently well-designed to multiply after kind: clams, snails, lampshells, echinoderms, and the most complex of all invertebrates, the nautiloids (“shelled squids”), with an eye that sees the world as we do, and the trilobites, with their geometrically marvelous compound eyes.

But why should Cambrian deposits contain only (or almost only) the remains of sea creatures? A professor debating me in Australia put it this way: “If God created everything in six days, why don’t we find mice with trilobites in Cambrian rocks?” My simple reply: “Because mice don’t live on the sea floor.” Ecology, not evolution, is the key. (He then said he meant his question only as a joke.)

Many people have the completely mistaken notion that the Biblical Flood covered the whole earth almost instantly, stirred everything up, and then suddenly dumped it all. Not at all! According to the Biblical record, Noah was in the Ark for over a year. It was about five months before “all the high mountains under the whole heavens” were covered, and it took several more months for the water to subside as “the mountains rose up and the valleys sank down” at the end of the Flood. As the Flood waters “slowly” rose over the earth, plants and animals were buried in a sort of ecologic series: sea-bottom creatures, near-shore forms, lowland plants and animals, then upland (with sea creatures deposited from bottom to top, as the sea eventually covered everything). Evolutionists and Flood geologists may agree that the fossil-bearing rocks were laid down in “short periods of terror,” but Flood geologists see the “long periods of boredom” between layers as minutes or months, not millions of years!

Indeed, once the rock layers at Grand Canyon began to stack up, it seems they “forgot” all about “evolutionary time.” In one small step (especially small with a heavy backpack!), a hiker can step right across “150 million years” of “missing evolutionary times”! I’m talking about the contact between the Muav and Redwall Limestones (Fig. 34).

The Muav is Cambrian (supposedly, “evolution stage 1”), while the Redwall is Mississippian or lower Carboniferous (“evolution stage 5”). If Grand Canyon is assumed to represent stages in evolution laid out for all to see, where are evolutionary stages 2, 3, and 4 (Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian)? Evolutionists recognize that’s a serious question. Grandparents can’t have grandchildren without first having children, and plants and animals can’t evolve directly from stage 1 to stage 5 without evolving through stages 2, 3, and 4 first. Everyone agrees that in any “chain of life,” you can’t skip generations!

Evolutionists recognize the problem of rock layers (“150 million years’ worth”) missing from Grand Canyon—but they also have a ready solution to the problem: erosion. Stage 2, 3, and 4 rocks really were deposited, they suggest, but they were uplifted and eroded away; then stage 5 rock (Mississippian Redwall) was laid down directly on top of stage 1 rock (Cambrian Muav). It’s as if erosion tore out three chapters from the story of evolution!

That evolutionary argument is certainly logical and potentially correct. We see erosion erasing rock layers today, and we can infer that erosion also did so in the past. So evolutionists went looking for evidence of erosion, but they were honest enough to admit that they did not find it, at least not on a sufficient scale.

When a rock layer is eroded slowly and gradually by streams and rivers, as discussed earlier, an irregular surface is produced. When sediment later accumulates on this surface and hardens, the wavy contact line produced is called a disconformity, and often old stream beds may be identified along its surface. That’s not what we find at the Redwall/Muav (Mississippian/Cambrian) contact. Over hundreds of miles of exposure in and out of various side canyons, the two rock layers are in smooth, horizontal contact. There are occasional small erosional dips called Temple Butte Devonian, but the regional picture is clear: it looks like one rock layer was deposited directly on top of the other with very little time break. According to the evidence, those 150 million years never existed at all!48

If there were strong evidence for 150 million years of erosion, geologists would call the contact a disconformity. Because the evidence suggests, instead, smooth, continuous deposition with little time break, the contact should be called a conformity. But admitting a 150-million-year “hole” in evolutionary theory would be far too difficult for most evolutionists, so they use the contact term we discussed earlier: paraconformity. Flood geologists just accept the evidence as it stands: no 150 million years. But evolution requires 150 million years at that point. Hence, the term “paraconformity” is offered, not as a solution to the problem of all that missing time, but as a label for a problem to be solved by future research.

Evolutionists believe that other evidence for evolution is so strong that paraconformities can be regarded as just minor glitches in an otherwise convincing story. That’s exactly how I dealt with “minor mysteries” when I believed and taught evolution. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that approach, but, note, that it’s an act of faith, not science. Flood geologists can simply accept the directly observable evidence for rapid, continuous deposition, the more scientific choice at this point.

There’s further evidence to encourage Flood geologists to think that they have made the correct scientific choice. If individual sediment layers were hardened, uplifted, eroded, then covered again with water, it’s likely that the lower hardened layers would crack in a pattern different from cracks formed in layers above them, and produced and moved millions of years later. In other words, there should be “buried faults,” cracks through one layer not continuing into the layer above. But there are virtually no buried faults above the Precambrian in the Canyon. There are faults, all right, but they cut continuously through the whole sequence of Paleozoic layers present (Cambrian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian), not just part of it. That evidence suggests the whole “layer cake” was formed rapidly and continuously, without a major break in time—just as you would expect from understanding Grand Canyon in terms of what the Bible says about Noah’s Flood.

But then we come to the Coconino Sandstone. Above the Redwall are several other major layers (Supai Group, Hermit Shale, Coconino Sandstone, Toroweap Formation, and Kaibab Limestone, as shown in Fig. 34). All these were obviously laid down as water-borne sediment (i.e., flood deposits)—except the Coconino. The Coconino is a cross-bedded sandstone usually interpreted as a huge desert dune deposit.

Now why did I have to bring that up? I’ve been trying to encourage you to think about the horizontal bands of Grand Canyon rock as a “layer cake” formed by global flooding. How could 400–600 feet (100–200 m) of desert dune get sandwiched between two layers of sediment deposited during the year of Noah’s Flood?

The first time someone asked me that question, I didn’t know what to say. Admitting the problem, I sputtered something about how the Bible talks about a great wind that blew back and forth over the earth as the Flood subsided, but then I also admitted that the layers above the Coconino suggested the Flood was still depositing.

Then somebody reminded me of what I should have known already: dunes also form underwater. Ripple marks in sand at the beach are just “mini-dunes,” and my students and I have actually watched much bigger dunes form and travel underwater while on scuba dives (in rough seas) to the Florida Keys. The weight of evidence now favors the formation of the Coconino as an underwater dune deposit. Most telling is the work by Dr. Leonard Brand on the abundant animal trackways for which the Coconino is famous.49

In this case, my confidence in Flood geology was confirmed by further research. It remains to be seen whether the evolutionist’s confidence will ever be encouraged by further study of paraconformities. There are surely many other questions to be researched, but the weight of evidence we have available now (and that’s as far as science can go) seems to suggest strongly that the horizontal rock layers at Grand Canyon were formed rapidly, not by a lot of time, but by a lot of water instead!

But if the rock layers got stacked up under water, we have another problem. The North Rim of Grand Canyon is now over 8000 feet (over 2500 m) above sea level. How did that happen? How did the rock layers end up far above sea level, and where did that big gash, the Canyon itself that cuts through all those layers, come from?

The Bible tells us that at the end of the Flood “the mountains rose up and the valleys sank down.” An evolutionist friend of mine once told me that the best evidence for the Creation/Corruption/Catastrophe model he knew was that any land existed at all on the earth. If our planet had spun down from a gas cloud, he said, the outer layers would consist of basaltic ocean crust (density 3.5 g/cm3), covered by a concentric layer of granite (3.0 g/cm3), the whole thing covered by over 2 miles (3 km) of water (density 1.0 g/cm3)! He said it looked as if “someone with big hands” (the closest he could come to saying “God”) took the granite and shoved it up into a pile to form the dry land. Then he added that the “guy with big hands” was also smart enough to thin the basalt under the granite piles to maintain the earth in gravitational balance (isostasy) so that it wouldn’t fracture as it rotated.

Perhaps God did use supernatural means to raise the land after the Flood as He did on the third day of the creation week. Or perhaps He used secondary means not yet discovered. A Biblical creationist/Flood geologist would never want to rule out God’s direct supernatural intervention (our salvation and resurrection depend on it!), but neither would he or she appeal to supernatural processes unless logic or the evidence clearly pointed in that direction. Actually, neither creationist nor evolutionist is satisfied with present models for “upwarp” and “downwarp,” moving big chunks of land above and below sea level.

However the land was raised, the next question is this: Where did the Canyon itself come from? The Flood may have stacked the rock like a giant layer cake, but what cut the cake?

One thing for sure: the Colorado River did not do it. The Colorado River starts about 12,000 feet (ca. 3,500 m) up in the Rocky Mountains of western Colorado. By the time it gets to the Grand Canyon area, it’s at about 5,000 feet (1,500 m). And that’s the problem. Grand Canyon is definitely not a lowland valley. The North Rim of the Canyon is over 8,000 feet (2,500 m) high! For the Colorado River to carve the Canyon, it would first have to hack its way half a mile (over 700 m) uphill! Water just doesn’t do that, especially when there’s the opportunity to flow downhill in a different direction. For this and several other reasons, even evolutionary geologists no longer believe that the River slowly cut the Canyon over 60 million years.

The Kaibab upwarp (monocline) through which the Canyon is cut seems to have dammed up a great deal of water. It is possible to map the outlines of a giant “fossil lake” that once covered parts of Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. Since there seems to be no renewable source for such a vast amount of water, it may have been “leftover” Flood water trapped as the mountains rose and valleys sank.

Then the dam broke! The Grand Canyon area is crisscrossed with earthquake fault lines, so it might have been some sort of rift or fault that tore a breach in the dam. The water impounded by the dam would have rushed through the crack, probably cutting the essential features of the Canyon very rapidly indeed. The Colorado River (which is not even able to move the boulders at the mouths of its side canyons) is just a modest trickle caught in the twists and turns where the dam was breached. The Canyon came first; the River came second.50

Now, if the evidence is as clear and simple as I’m suggesting it is, then even evolutionary geologists who were totally unwilling even to consider my Biblical conclusions could at least accept the individual points as scientifically logical—and they do.

Consider Harlan Bretz. For years and years, he studied the “Channeled Scablands” of eastern Washington, a area of 15,000 miles2 (40,000 km2). It looks as if a giant, braided stream cut channels up to 900 feet (250 m) deep in hard basaltic lava (much harder to cut than most of the Grand Canyon layers). Bretz postulated that a tongue of glacial ice blocked off what we now call the Columbia River near Spokane, damming up a huge body of water called glacial Lake Missoula. Then the ice-dam broke. And, according to Bretz, the stupendous drainage from that lake cut the essential features of those channels 900 feet (250 m) deep over 15,000 miles2 (40,000 km2) in—one or two million years?—no, in “a day or two.” That’s the conclusion presented by the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) in its pamphlet51 “The Channeled Scablands: the Story of the Great Spokane Flood.”

At first, the “slow and gradual” school of evolutionary thought (“uniformitarians”) laughed Bretz to scorn. But after examining his evidence, a team of geologists decided Bretz was right after all, and they gave him geology’s highest award, the Penrose Medal. In accepting the award, Bretz said that his greatest contribution to geology was reviving the idea that great catastrophes have shaped the physical features of the earth (“neo-catastrophism”).52

Geological layers at Mt. St. Helens

Figure 35. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1982 formed a 1/40 “scale model” of Grand Canyon in just 5 days. Other effects observed at Mt. St. Helens dramatically and visibly supported Creation/Flood geologist theories about the rapid formation of coal, polystrates, and sediment banding. (There is an excellent video by Dr. Steven Austin available.)

Less dramatic in scale, but directly and awesomely visible, was an eruption of Mt. St. Helens. We have described the first eruption in May of 1980, as the force of water flashing to steam blew the top 1300 feet (400 m) off the north side of the volcano. More to the immediate point was the explosion in June of 1982. The heat generated from that explosion melted frozen mud, producing a mud flow that filled up the North Fork of the Toutle River. The smoke cleared five days later to reveal that the mud flow had been eroded into a zig-zag main channel with many sharply tapered side canyons. Horizontal bands of sediment, some thick, and some exceedingly fine, lined the walls of the newly formed canyon. Right before our eyes, a small volcano (which never even produced a lava flow) had stacked up horizontal bands of sediment, and cut channels through it, forming a 1/40th size “scale model” of Grand Canyon in just five days! All sorts of features once thought to take millions of years of time were formed, instead, by a lot of water in just five days! And my wife and I got to see it on a dizzying flight down the length of that “Little Grand Canyon.” (See Austin video,53 Morris,54 and Fig. 35.)

Although very dramatic, both the Channeled Scablands and Mt. St. Helens are quite modest events compared to the epic geologic work that would have been done by a Global Flood like that described in the Bible.

At least the worldwide evidence is now so clear that even evolutionists are talking about worldwide catastrophes. The most highly touted is supposed to be an asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs and a host of other life forms. Scientists have calculated that if an ocean were hit by an asteroid about 6 miles (10 km) across (and several that size pass near earth’s orbit!), a wave of water would slosh over all the continents and bring nearly instant destruction on an unimaginable scale!

The Bible doesn’t say whether God used secondary agents, such as an asteroid impact, to trigger the Flood. Either way, it’s encouraging to see that evolutionists recognize the evidence that points toward global catastrophe. Indeed, some evolutionists now believe the earth has suffered multiple global catastrophes, and I mentioned that others even see evidence of colossal flooding on Mars, a planet that presently has no significant surface water!

The asteroid catastrophes some evolutionists postulate are dramatic, and so is the Biblical narrative, as it tells how “all the high mountains under the whole heavens” were once covered with water. If that were so, we ought to find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. Grab your pick and shovel and go looking, and what do you find? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth! Right up to sea creatures fossilized in the high Himalayas, it looks like the scientific evidence in God’s world encourages us to trust the Bible as God’s Word!

Sometimes, I imagine a geologist who has spent 20 years roaming through Grand Canyon. Finally, he decides to take a break and hike up to the rim. There, on a park bench, he finds a Bible. As he opens it and reads the first few chapters, he jumps excitedly to his feet. “Eureka! I’ve found it! That’s what I’ve been seeing here in Grand Canyon!”

  1. “Now I know why the first forms of life to leave an abundance of fossil remains are so complex and varied, and classify into groups like we have today. They were created well-designed to multiply after their kinds.”
  2. “Now I know why the ‘geologic column’ shows a decline in variety, even extinction, for so many groups. We’re not looking at a record of evolutionary progress, but a record of death—a Corruption of the world God had created all very good. Grand Canyon is really a vast, open graveyard.”
  3. “Now I know how fossils were preserved, how the Precambrian rocks were tilted up and sheared off, how the huge Tapeats boulders were moved great distances, why 150 million mythical years are missing at the great paraconformity, how trackways were preserved in the Coconino, and why the Colorado River is trapped in the sharp curves of the Canyon. We’re not looking at a record of a lot of time, but of a lot of water—the tremendous worldwide Catastrophe of Noah’s Flood!”
  4. “Now I know I can look to Christ to raise me to new life. Nobody could ever have survived the awesome destruction of the world we see reflected at Grand Canyon. And if Christ could save Noah from the Flood, He can save me from death, too!”

When I started working on my doctoral minor in geology, I really thought my study would make it very hard to accept the simple truths and promises in the Bible. My excellent professors all believed evolution, but what I learned about fossils made it hard to believe evolution and very easy to believe what the Bible teaches about Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, and Christ!

We find evidence of Creation not only in the design and complexity of the “first” fossils found of each group, but also in the wonderfully constructed “language” of DNA; in the intricate way a baby develops in his or her mother’s womb according to the plan fully presented at conception, in the similarities that point to “common Creator,” not common ancestry, in classification; in marvellously interdependent adaptations, like those of the woodpecker; in the incredible variability, like all the human skin colors, stored in the first parents of each created kind.

We find evidence of Corruption, the way God’s Creation was ruined by man’s self-centered arrogance, not only in the death, decline, and extinction seen in all the fossil groups, but also in the effects of mutations producing disease, disease organisms, and other defects, and in the struggle to the death that is an essential part of Darwinian selection.

Evidence of a great Catastrophe, like the world-wide Flood described for Noah’s time, is clear from the billions of dead things buried as fossils, extinction, rapid formation of huge sediment layers by turbidity currents, polystratic fossils that cut through many rock layers without evidence of falling over or rotting, paraconformities (vast amounts of supposed evolutionary time missing without evidence or erosion), the tilting and shearing and boulder flows in Grand Canyon, etc., etc., etc.

All the above can be inferred directly from the scientific evidence, although it’s the Bible that really puts these together in a pattern of meaning. Evolution is based on genetics that have never been observed and fossils that have never been found. The Bible is supported by laws of heredity we put into practice every day and on thousands of tons of fossils buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth.

In short, evolution is a faith that the facts have failed. Biblical Christianity is a faith that fits the facts.

As I told you in the beginning, I didn’t always believe that. It took me three years of trying to “prove” evolution to two colleagues, professors of chemistry and biology, before I saw that the scientific evidence available disproves the traditional view of evolution taught as “fact” to millions of young people worldwide.

Does that mean I’ve proved Creation? Not at all. Contrary to a popular misconception, scientists can only disprove or support a theory, never prove it. As every working scientist knows, you can never tell when some new discovery will shift support to a competing theory. People (including scientists!) are finite, limited by space and time. As finite creatures, we must live by faith; there is no other choice.

But we can choose the object of our faith. We can put our faith in our own opinions or the words of “experts,” as I did through my first several years of teaching university biology. Or we can put our faith in the Word of the Living God, who stands outside our limits of space and time. Only God can tell us what is truly true, now and forever.

 

 

As you see, the flood ws only for the destruction of living things.  The canyon was just a biproduct of this event.  The flood and waters there would have had different current and strength patterns compared to Ciaro (sp?) and Giza.  Your thoughts are provoking but still fits in the time frame so doesn't debuke the story. 


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BobSpence1 wrote: The

BobSpence1 wrote:
The study of things scientifically has built an incrediblly successful track record of uncovering how the Universe 'works', to the point where we can send craft to the outer reaches of the Solar System and develop technology beyond anything dreamt of by the authors of the Bible.

 

This is true, but also the case with secularism.  We didn't even imagine going to the moon until the late 19th century.  I idea of even flying was rediculous and impossible up until the 18th century.  But the bible never says man will never do this.  If you base faith or lack of faith on the notion that we are able to go to space, that is a weak claim.  But if say you are against an absolute, such as you call the bible, and it says, God says that man will never reach the moon, and we do, then we see a conflict with God and the bible and holds to your claim.  But we don't.   

Here's an interesting concept of evolution and a spaceship.  If you have a genetic mutation that causes an animal to change in a slight way, would it be beneficial or fatal?  Now ask the same with the space ship, what would by chance and accident break or change on a spaceship by itself or defect in maufacturing that would make it a better ship and not cause it to blow up or crash as we have seen many times before.  Remember, apollo 13 was catastrophic due to a leak, the recent catastophe was caused by a little crack in the heat panelling.  Do you kind of see a different light on the picture?

 Off to the lab, hopefully I can answer more before the end of the weekend.

Dr. W 


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Quote: No matter what

Quote:
No matter what information present to you from a Theistic point of view, you will absolutely not convert to Christianity; you don't care whether it is rational or not, i have yet to see any sort of sign of anyone converting, or reconverting for that matter.

 

I would have no choice but to convert when shown the proper evidence. Neither would any other atheist.   I don't care for your copy and paste "evidence"  I want to see something that will leave me beyond doubt.  For example, my friend's kids tell me that Santa came to their house and they know it because he ate all the milk and cookies.  Your arguements are no more valid to me thus far.  I want to see God in person and see some valid evidence like making a new creature right in front of me.  

 

BTW, I don't believe your story about the $2300.  I used to be xtain and lived in poverty with my mother and sister.  I prayed and cryed everyday/night that He would help us.  It only got worse.  When I got out on my own as an adult, I realized that religion was to control people and put it aside like I did Santa.  I started living for myself and in complete control of my life with no prayer.  That's when I finally started to accomplish my goals.  I thank myself, not any imaginary friend.


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drdoubleu wrote: I idea of

drdoubleu wrote:

I idea of even flying was rediculous and impossible up until the 18th century.

Which is why the bible had no problem making up the story about God destroying the Tower of Babel because he didn't want man to reach heaven.

 


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And I thought I had

And I thought I had ADD.

Why cant your god handle a simply pesky task by showing us unbelievers some of his DNA or maybe his picture or show us how he got Mary pregnant.

I am tottally not suprised by your continual dodge to a direct question. You have nothing, so rather than face it, you hope you can spam this board with all these needless distractions and maybe some of us will give up and say, "He's smart, therefor Jesus is real"

You are smart, the problem is you are putting your smarts to bad use. You are so emotionally attached to an idea that you had been sold that you'll do anything to sell it by lying and bastardizing science. You might as well wright a book about Area 57, or about the third man on the grassy knoll. Why dont you take your "Weekly World News" tactics and your X-Files crap and throw it in the garbage before waste your intire life needlessly.

NOW, show us the mechinisms of how a "spirit" got a girl pregnant. THATS IT, that is all you have to do. Should be easy for such a smart person like you.

No more crap about charts and water errosion.

THIS IS A DIRECT AND SPECIFIC TASK!

SHOW US THE MECHINISMS AND PROCESS OF A SPIRIT GETTING A GIRL PREGNANT!

The next post better not adress anything but the above, otherwise you are proving yourself to be the intelectual coward you continually have shown yourself to be so far. Anything else is a waste of our time and yours.

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Sapient wrote: drdoubleu

Sapient wrote:

drdoubleu wrote:

I idea of even flying was rediculous and impossible up until the 18th century.

Which is why the bible had no problem making up the story about God destroying the Tower of Babel because he didn't want man to reach heaven.

 

 

Dude sapient, its not that he didn't want man to reach Heaven, he didn't want them to have pride

The point was, that humans were shaking their fists at God, the Tower was a symbol of rebellion

 

Look at Genesis 11:3

3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth

 

It was basically, "hey lets make a tower, and be like God" 


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drdoubleu

drdoubleu wrote:
BobSpence1 wrote:
The study of things scientifically has built an incrediblly successful track record of uncovering how the Universe 'works', to the point where we can send craft to the outer reaches of the Solar System and develop technology beyond anything dreamt of by the authors of the Bible.

 

This is true, but also the case with secularism.  We didn't even imagine going to the moon until the late 19th century.  I idea of even flying was rediculous and impossible up until the 18th century.  But the bible never says man will never do this.  If you base faith or lack of faith on the notion that we are able to go to space, that is a weak claim.  But if say you are against an absolute, such as you call the bible, and it says, God says that man will never reach the moon, and we do, then we see a conflict with God and the bible and holds to your claim.  But we don't.   

Here's an interesting concept of evolution and a spaceship.  If you have a genetic mutation that causes an animal to change in a slight way, would it be beneficial or fatal?  Now ask the same with the space ship, what would by chance and accident break or change on a spaceship by itself or defect in maufacturing that would make it a better ship and not cause it to blow up or crash as we have seen many times before.  Remember, apollo 13 was catastrophic due to a leak, the recent catastophe was caused by a little crack in the heat panelling.  Do you kind of see a different light on the picture?

 Off to the lab, hopefully I can answer more before the end of the weekend.

Dr. W 

Secularism? What are you trying to say here?
I was specifically responding to the claim that we are biased by relying on 'Atheistic' sources to refute your claims. Are you trying to make a point that non-scientific 'Secular' sources can be just as mistaken as Religious sources - then I would agree. of course.
Interesting point here is that both Xianity and Islam supported early science, as ameans of revealing the true magnificence of 'Creation', then seemed to go sour on it when the un-fettered search for knowledge began to make observations and generate theories that didn't quite fit what the respective Holy Books said about the nature of reality.   I find it ironic you are quick to try and discredit sources  as being 'out-dated', when you seem to be trying to justify the reliability of a source that's 2000 years out-of-date  Smiling Regarding dating methods, ALL those methods I quoted were ABSOLUTE, ie they don't strictly need calibration to get actual dates. Errors arise in the details of measurement techniques. Your attack on tree-ring dating is very unconvincing, and anyway, errors in countin individual trees would tend to under-estimates in age. Regarding radiometric dating, there are actually many more isotope-pairs which can be used, depending on the materials being investigated.
Potassium-Argon is usable from 100k year to 4bn year;Argon-Argon from 1000y - several billion;Uranium-Thorium usable out to several hundred thousand years;Fission track in mica out tp a few Myear;Rubidium-strontium to a billion years or so;Thermo-luminescence to a few hundred thousand years. The point being that we have quite a range of options to date stuff over evolutionary time periods. If you are going to arue with all of these, you better take it up with the nuclear physicists.
There is another very important method that I don't thinkI mentioned, that is valuable at giving us clues tothings such as temperature, ocean volume, precipitation, chemistry and gas composition of the lower atmosphere, volcanic eruptions, solar variability, sea-surface productivity, desert extent and forest fires, over long continous periods of time, out to 800,000 years for some cores from Antarctica. 
 Wonder what a 'Global Flood' would have doen to snow and ice caps....
Regarding evolving space-ships, any complex system like that actually does have an analogy with evolution, since an initial design for such a thing is bound to have problems, so extensive testing and re-design to correct the inevitable flaws which are revealed is part of the process, a bit like trying a range of different approaches and selecting the one which works best in practice.  Obviously simple evolutionary process wouldn't apply to a one-off thing like a space-ship, whereas the continual and inevitable process of minor genetic variation in self-reproducing organisms, will naturally lead to evolutionary change over long periods of time, as observed in the fossill record and massively reinforced by modern genetic studies.

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drdoubleu wrote:

drdoubleu wrote:

You are trying to mix scientific data, facts and figures in with your own ideology which is wrong at that. You don't need to explain the scenario to me because I already understand it. What I'm trying to tell you is, you have a set number of trees sprouting, they can measure the time and rate each tree sprouts, from this you can figure the average time it takes for the next tree to sprout etc. From this they find that the living trees or perhaps the living trees and the dead ones right next to it make up the living body and gives the original germination of the first plant that started the cycle. When this occurs they can conclude that none are older than 4500 years old. What they base the older numbers on is fossils in the area, not by the tree on in the path of the tree but in surrounding areas that potentially could hold trees of its kind but not necessarily originally attached. Or they find pollen in lake beds and base its age off of this finding regarding the supposed age of rock or mud at the bottom. This makes the data skewed and inaccurate. If the trees were right in line with the living ones I would agree, but they are taking fossils and stating these were once the living trees of today so these trees must be that old. In anycase what I say has never been observed for any of the oldest trees in the world and therefore support my claims and still show the flaws in your statement. If you don't believe me, which aparently no one does based on my education but based on my religion you should get off your computer and go to Utah or california where these trees are.

Right, so claiming the Bible as a source of scientific evidence does not equal ideology, but presenting an example to explain something is.

In your previous post, you were claiming (or at least appeared to) that the age of the trees were measured by counting rings.

I think your ideology comes into play more often since you seem to assume a priori that the flood happened and are more than ready to snub any aging technique that doesn't match up with your belief. I don't this is going to be productive. Sapient, you are a more patient man than I.

 

drdoubleu wrote:

triften wrote:

And there's not such thing as tectonic activity? That could shift strata? Using your own tactics, I could decide to blow off your stance here since you don't have a PhD in geology. (Yes, I am reading your other posts.)

Now you are being rediculous. I never said there wasn't a such thing as techtonic activity. What I am saying and showed you with links to the photos of what I'm talking about is you have a standing tree | and the layers of sediment around the tree and the surrounding areas is ____ meaning they are parallel with the current ground and parallel to the horizon. The tree is perpendicular with the same stance as when it was living. If the layers were sideways or angled at all I would agree with you but this isn't observed. therefore my statement still remains. You are right I dont' have a degree in geology.

Sorry, didn't mean to be rIdiculous. Fair enough on the layers. I must have misread one of your previous statements. The possibility of that much sediment being deposited at once still stands though.

drdoubleu wrote:

I have a joke, what do you call a biologist that couldn't get into grad school? a geologist. In the heirarchy of the science pole, they are quite near the bottom.

Oh, elitism. That's grand.

drdoubleu wrote:

"www.talkorigins.org isn't even a credible scientific site. If you even tried using this as a source on a grant, you will get it rejected until you can come of with something more credible. Most of the information you are getting contradicts basic biology, chemistry and physics. The information on the site for one is outdated to the point that the people making the claims were probobly the original readers of the science 'journals' at the time they were smoking pot and dropping acid at woodstock. You are taking atheist views that are biased towards their own agendas and trying to mix them in with poorly interpreted data and out of date studies." What makes the difference between that and a creation site? You can test it yourself and the results come out the same for creationist but different for the atheist claims that direct it back to creationism.

So you are saying that neither talkorigins nor a creationist website are credible? Then why did you provide Dr. Dino as a resource?

Heaven forbid I have an agenda: to think for myself and doubt the Bible.

drdoubleu wrote:

triften wrote:

It's quite reasonable for a non-"Flood" flood to deposit several feet of mud (land slide perhaps?) which would then be changed into sedimentary rock with bands giving the appearance of different strata.

It is reasonable, but then again, how would this work when you go around globally and see the same trend in the same age of sediment? Global land slides giving change to sedimentary rock with bands giving appearance of different strata? So I guess it's okay to believe in global land slides roughly around the same time but not a global flood.

Doc, I said nothing about world-wide landslides, that was you, just then.

Perhaps I missed a reference claiming that all those trees we supposedly in the same strata. If I did, please let me know.

drdoubleu wrote:

triften wrote:

Tectonic activity is a real thing. Over millions of years, an area, like say the middle of what is currently North America, that is under water, can get pushed up and the landscape changed bringing former sea beds to the tops of mountains.

Unless you are going to tell me that tectonic activity does not occur and that North America and Europe are not moving apart at about an inch a year.


And I never said there was no such thing as tectonic activity nor continental drift. The only problem with this is innacurate global findings once again. You have north america underwater, which would be well beyond the supposed time of Pangea (sp?). So before then it was underwater then it rose. I'll say that much. then you have the drift. Mountains start to form and give rise to the old sea bed. This is where the error comes in. Check out the time frame geologists give for a mountain range to raise up with the current trends we see today with erosion and elevation. Then check out the time frame those sea shells were found on top of the mountains. The shells on the ocean bed that are not ontop of mountains are thousands to millions of years YOUNGER than the mountain ranges themselves. So good idea, but the data doesn't agree.

Actually, evidence suggests there was an inland sea in North America 100 million years ago, a bit after the breakup of Pangaea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_american_inland_sea

(Your pyramid bit appears to be copy and pasted from Wikipedia so I'm assuming we agree that it is "reliable" and not an "atheist" resource.)

Also, you've previously derided dating techniques and now you want to claim that these shells are younger than the mountains. Sigh.

 

drdoubleu wrote:

triften wrote:


So, if the earth was covered in water 4.5k years ago, where were the Egyptians during all this? In fact, they finished the Great Pyramid of Giza right around when this flood was supposed to have taken place and there are pyramids older than that. I'd think a flood suposedly capable of carving the Grand Canyon would have handily erased the pyramids of Egypt.


When I was in an archeology class they told us at one time the sphinx was underwater. It is evident with the water lines running all the way down the sides of it. So the time frame is the same. They built before and up to the time of the flood but eventually discontinued all together after this time frame. This does not debunk the flood story. "The Great 19th century battle between catastrophits and uniformitarians seemed to end with the notion of global cataclysms being dismissed as a back door to the supernatural. But catastrophist theory has gradually become more and more plausible so that now less than 100 years later it is widely believed that mass extinctions are linked to meteor strikes" - Dr. Robert Schoch

So, if we're going to make statements about the history of the Earth without geology expertise and using only photographs, I'd like to point out that those flood lines stop at about the Sphinx's shoulder and the head appears to have rather little erosion (aside from that nose, she should talk to her surgeon.)

(See that was a joke that wasn't funny at someone else's expense.)

drdoubleu wrote:

You use the word, would have, when it should be could have. You are basing the degree of the flood and how it affected Giza compared to how the flood affected a different continent across the ocean at a different sea level, different coast, and different rock sediment.

Okay, you've claimed that the dating of mountain ranges is accurate (the seashells), so if the Flood really covered every mountain (what was it, by 15 cubits or something? Maybe I'm mis-remembering) it would have been over 8,848 meters deep. That's a lot of water. Now the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is about 2100m above sea level. Now, your going to tell me that 1900 more meters of depth did less damage at Giza than at the Grand Canyon? The difference of 1900m of water provides extra pressure of over 2700 psi! And at Giza, the pressure would have been over 6 tons per square inch.

I've snipped out your copy and pastes. If you post a link to an article, I am (despite being evolved from a common ancestor with apes) saavy enough to read said article.

Here's some info on Mr. Snelling (Dr?) and his problems with ideology.

http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/crefaqs.htm#who

("I don't wanna let other people look at my magic 'wood' sample!&quotEye-wink

drdoubleu wrote:

As you see, the flood ws only for the destruction of living things. The canyon was just a biproduct of this event. The flood and waters there would have had different current and strength patterns compared to Ciaro (sp?) and Giza. Your thoughts are provoking but still fits in the time frame so doesn't debuke the story.

I think your statement "the flood ws only for the destruction of living things" shows that you have some trouble being objective. Why does the flood have to be "for something"? Also the idea that "the flood ws only for the destruction of living things" seems like an attempt to sidestep the issue of a lack of geological evidence.

And furthermore, how does one kill fish and sealife with a flood?

 

-Triften


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It is well known that the

It is well known that the Sphinx is below the level of the Giza plateau, in range of occasional extreme Nile floods. And of course the story is that the nose was damaged by one of Napoleon's cannon.  I have actually stood in front of that monument. Later, I moved on to see the pyramids. Standing near the pyramids, on the side nearest Cairo, the Sphinx is not very prominent. In fact, a local guy tried to get some money out of me just for pointing out the Sphinx as a possible photo - you can just see the back of the head. 
Note that Pre-dynastic culture has been dated back to before 9000 BC, ie 11000 years ago, with a fairly continuous evidence of cultivation, so the standard Biblical flood chronology definitely doesn't seem to work here.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Poetic license

Noticed this in Job37:38:

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

       Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens?

So does this mean that there are billions of clouds, also?

And that rain actually comes out of jars in the clouds? Tthis will be news to those poor dumb scientists Smiling .

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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KSMB wrote: drdoubleu

KSMB wrote:
drdoubleu wrote:

www.drdino.com I think has a few sources on it.

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! You know, using Kent Hovind as a reference does wonders for your scientific credibility. Rofl.

says the guy who doesn't know what a DDS is. 


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Sapient wrote: drdoubleu

Sapient wrote:

drdoubleu wrote:

I idea of even flying was rediculous and impossible up until the 18th century.

Which is why the bible had no problem making up the story about God destroying the Tower of Babel because he didn't want man to reach heaven.

 

 

Sapient, sapient, sapient, it's a good thing we aren't dart partners because I don't think you could be any further off target.  The tower of Babel is a story about man's pride, self gratification, the quest to become gods themselves that others can worship and most importantly the formation of ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.  It had nothing to do with where the tower was going but how it was being done.  They were forming a one world government in which the people that stood at the top would be the gods of the land.  It had nothing to do with flying or reaching the heavens that would have pissed God off.  This is strong evidence for your lack of wisdom of even interpreting the most obvious bible verses correctly. 


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And here come the ad hominem

And here come the ad hominem attacks. Seriously. Using that jailbird you might as well be using the National Enquirer site, or maybe here: http://www.coasttocoastam.com Please. Don't use insane bullshit sites or you'll only make us laugh.

Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team


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Doc101 and Drdoubleu, I'm

Doc101 and Drdoubleu, I'm becoming ever more impressed with how firmly the theism virus has shielded your mind tight from reality:

Tower of Babel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, searchThis article is about the Biblical story. For other uses, see Tower of Babel (disambiguation). the artist has based his conception on the Minaret of Samarra The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865): the artist has based his conception on the Minaret of Samarra

According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens.


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MarthaSplatterhead

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

 

I would have no choice but to convert when shown the proper evidence. Neither would any other atheist. I don't care for your copy and paste "evidence" I want to see something that will leave me beyond doubt.

 

This is your down fall and evidence that you are not a scientist.  You want someone to hand the information to you.  more importantly me.  Why don't you get out and discover for yourself?  

Mark 4:24-25 says:  He wen ton to say, "pay attention to what you're listening to!  Knowlege will be measured out to you by the measure of attention you give.  This is the way knowledge increases.  Those who understand these mysteries will be given more knowledge.  However, some people don't understand these mysteries.  Even what they understand will be taken away from them.  

The degree of our understanding is directly proportional to the effort put into listening.  It would be pointless to listen to the teacher only to disregard His teaching.  If we seek, we will find.  If we listen, we will hear.  If we seek to understand, understanding will be given to us.  Conversely, if we do not seek, we will not find.  If we do not listen, we will not hear, if we do not understand, the little bit of understanding we have will be taken away.

What can I do for proofs?  

Big Bang contraidicts the conservation of angular momentum.  If the big bang occured all planets in a line of symmetry (the same galaxy) would be spinning in the same direction.  We don't see this.  We see planets spinning in all different directions even in our own solar system.

Magnetic fields can't be dated past 12,000 years and any further contradicts the possibility of life on earth.  Why doesn't it go further back?  Perhapse the earth isn't millions of years old.

The equator spins at 1044 mph.  Since 1972 we have added 21 leap seconds to the clock.  Why?  because the plaent is slowing down.  What does this mean?  it means we were once going faster.  At this rate, 65 million years ago the dinosaurs would have to have harnesses to keep them on the earth and the gravitational pull would be so great, no life on earth could exist, or the centripital force would be so great, nothing would stay on the planet.  A handfull of scientists say it's much slower than this and we are slowing at .003 seconds a year.  But then they also say that our mountains were caused by this spin....losing all credibility to their claims.

The moon is leaving us at a rate of 1 inch per year.  65 million years ago the moon would have been so close that our tides would go from the east coast all the way in to Chicago, IL.  This is not seen and sheds light that we aren't that old.

Then there is this:  Foot prints of humans found next to dinosaurs.  Even I am skeptical about this BUT

This photo from the Interactive Bible Site, shows a series of 14 left, right footprints with three- toed dinosaur tracks intersecting at 30 degrees.

"Believe it or not, dinosaur footprints, and the footprints of man, are found in the same strata, in the very same formation, in some cases only 18 inches apart, at a geological dig in Glen Rose, Texas, called the Paluxy River Bed. The ancient footprints of "man" at the site are found to be evenly spaced, and go under overhanging shale formations, continuing under the formations, and have been excavated.

 

 

There has been much controversy over the excavations in the Paluxy riverbed in Glen Rose, Texas.  Over the years there have been several groups and individuals who claimed to have found human footprints alongside, and in, the already famous dinosaur tracks of the Paluxy.

If it can be demonstrated that humans and dinosaurs co-existed in the fossil record, this would exactly contradict the theory of evolution, demonstrably falsifying it.  It is understandable why one should be cautious and skeptical of claims such as human and dinosaur tracks found together, however it should be noted that this is not the only evidence of their contemporaneous existence that has been found.

The London Artifact is a hammer, probably used for fine metal working judging by its size, weight and the ends of the head.  It was found near London, Texas, near a waterfall in 1940.  The rock of this area is dated geologically as Cretaceous (144 Million to 65 Million years old), or during the time of the dinosaurs.  Besides being a fascinating find, the metallurgy of the hammer is remarkable:  Good, high quality metal with no bubbles or slag and a bizarre compounding of 96% iron, 2.6% chlorine and 0.74% sulfur.  A cut was made into the corner of the head to verify it was metal.  Sixty years later, that cut (shown also on this replica) has still not rusted!  When you compound chlorine with iron you get a powder etchant - not tough steel!

What is this artifact doing in rock so "old" and how did the people who formed it make it the way they did?

 http://s8int.com/images/londonartifact1.jpg

//www.bibleandscience.com/otherviews/images/london.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Photo G6

 

And what about the pleasiosaur corpses found throughout the 19th century.  Impossible survival for 65 million years, probably survival for 12,000 years:

Plesiosaur 2.jpg (26629 bytes)

.Plesiosaur.jpg (26678 bytes)

California.jpg (26467 bytes) California 2.jpg (28305 bytes)

Scituate.jpg (23063 bytes)

Do I believe this?  The hammer I do, the dinosaurs I'm skeptical however, recorded throughout history.  Until 1800s they were called dragons.  The word dinoasur didn't even exist.  The bible as I mentioned before even talked about them at a river side. 

 

I like how you said "evidence"  because it's an article out of a well respected journal that uses science to disprove a scientific theory that you believe in.  It is evident that even if God himself smacked you upside the head you still wouldn't believe it. 

 

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:
 

For example, my friend's kids tell me that Santa came to their house and they know it because he ate all the milk and cookies. Your arguements are no more valid to me thus far. I want to see God in person and see some valid evidence like making a new creature right in front of me.

 

For one, Santa Claus really did exist if you knew history.  Saint Nicholas (Greek: Νικόλαος, Nikolaos, "victory of the people&quotEye-wink is the common name for Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who had a reputation for secret gift-giving, but is now commonly identified with Santa Claus. Among Orthodox Christians, the historical Saint Nicholas is remembered and revered. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, children, and students in Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia (country), Russia, the Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro. He is also the patron saint of Barranquilla (Colombia), Bari (Italy) Amsterdam (Netherlands), and of Beit Jala in the West Bank of Palestine.  Anyway, you are basing faith in religion and God and comparing it to fictional characters based on real people in history.  This is a little different.  The whole santa claus deal is in celebration of the good deeds of saint nicholas.  The easter bunny was made to take away from the christian celebration of the ressurection of christ since the first century AD.  I know it's not the exact date, but traditions shall remain and are significant. 

 You want to see God in person....no one i the bible has seen God face to face, the mormons believe people have but that's based on their weak interpretation of the bible.  People have seen the face of God through Jesus Christ.  You want to see God, see him work through those that serve him and the good deeds that they provide for those in need.  I don't know the last time I didn't stop to help someone on the side of the road who needed assitance or helped push a car of someone who ran out of gas, or just listened to someone who needed someone to talk to.  Read the bible and you will see God face to face through his word.  Remeber it is also written do not challenge the Lord your God through such lacks of faith such as this (wanting to see God in person).

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:
 

BTW, I don't believe your story about the $2300. I used to be xtain and lived in poverty with my mother and sister. I prayed and cryed everyday/night that He would help us. It only got worse. When I got out on my own as an adult, I realized that religion was to control people and put it aside like I did Santa. I started living for myself and in complete control of my life with no prayer. That's when I finally started to accomplish my goals. I thank myself, not any imaginary friend.

Don't believing in my story doesn't make it any less true.  I have plenty of witnesses of the event to hold it in a court of law.  God answers prayers in his own time.  Plus, maybe he answered your prayers in different ways and not in the ways you wanted him to but your heart is closed off to not realize this.  If he provided for you and gave you what you needed at that time would that have made you a stronger person later on in life?  Probably not.  Look at Job he lost everything in his life and still praised God.  You had a loss of faith and turned your back.  How do you expect prayers to be answered when you lose your faith when they don't happen in your own time.  Our tour was based on spreading the word and was answered right before the time of departure because we were strong in faith.  Our blessings continued throughout the trip.  We planned on eating peanut butter crackers and sleeping in a van for a month and ended up in a warm bed, house and full meals every night.   


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Sapient wrote: Doc101 and

Sapient wrote:

Doc101 and Drdoubleu, I'm becoming ever more impressed with how firmly the theism virus has shielded your mind tight from reality:

Tower of Babel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, searchThis article is about the Biblical story. For other uses, see Tower of Babel (disambiguation). the artist has based his conception on the Minaret of Samarra The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865): the artist has based his conception on the Minaret of Samarra

According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens.

 HAHAHA  WIKIPEDIA!!  I LOVE IT!!!  The most fallible dictionary and source site on the internet.  Although I have just lost compete respect for you showing a credible source, the diffinition you just gave me still doesn't disagree with what I just said to you.  Built by a united humanity is the same thing as a one world government.  One world government literally means a complete united humanity.  End of story.  


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BobSpence1

BobSpence1 wrote:
Secularism? What are you trying to say here?
 anything pertaining to nonbiblical beliefs.   
BobSpence1 wrote:
Interesting point here is that both Xianity and Islam supported early science, as ameans of revealing the true magnificence of 'Creation', then seemed to go sour on it when the un-fettered search for knowledge began to make observations and generate theories that didn't quite fit what the respective Holy Books said about the nature of reality. 
Please define nature of reality?  Your personal reality?  Then I would agree.  The reality of nature itself in the world?  Then I would strongly disagree.  The theories were taken to the extent that it would draw man away from God.  Although not a great excuse you still have the problem that a lot of the anti-religion theories out there are based on their own set of faiths.  There are six definitions of the word evolution, only one is scientific:  Microevolution.  Microevolution can be tested, seen and proven.  The rest are a basis of theories with millions of missing links.  They take several extinct animals, many living in the same time frame and then saying they evolved from each other.  Yet not one animal is ever seen in a metamorphic transition between species.  They are always observed in hundreds to thousands in number as complete species without any intermediate limbs etc.   [
BobSpence1 wrote:
   I find it ironic you are quick to try and discredit sources as being 'out-dated', when you seem to be trying to justify the reliability of a source that's 2000 years out-of-date Smiling
 Are you trying to say that I am taking the bible as an absolute scientific journal?  Then I disagree, I believe that it is the infallible word of God and the path to truth and the best way to live you life.  BIBLE:  Basic Instructions Before Leaving EArth (dying).  What I say  is it has numberous stories, but with science you can support these stories with evidence and experiments.  The theories that man has created that contradict the bible, does threaten faith, but gradually over time seem to destruct themselves and cause back pedalling and a struggle for a new theory to take it's place.  The reason why you can't use the bible as a scientific jouranl if you will is because science literally means that you can't prove something correct but can prove something wrong and you can't prove the supernatural wrong using the natural.  But you can prove the supernatural correct with the natural.   [
BobSpence1 wrote:
   Regarding dating methods, ALL those methods I quoted were ABSOLUTE, ie they don't strictly need calibration to get actual dates. Errors arise in the details of measurement techniques.
 To say this is acknowledgement that you are not a scientist.  Any scientist knows that in science there are no absolutes.  To have an absolute, you yourself must be absolute, or omniscient.  Since not a single scientist is, your claim is way off basis and has no grounds to say that it's absolute anymore than a person says that the world being flat is absolute. 
BobSpence1 wrote:
   Your attack on tree-ring dating is very unconvincing, and anyway, errors in countin individual trees would tend to under-estimates in age.
 The study of the growth of trees and its rate of growth is studied well enough to conclude the age of a 4500 year old tree with only a 100+/- age discrepancy.   
BobSpence1 wrote:
   Regarding radiometric dating, there are actually many more isotope-pairs which can be used, depending on the materials being investigated.
Potassium-Argon is usable from 100k year to 4bn year;Argon-Argon from 1000y - several billion;Uranium-Thorium usable out to several hundred thousand years;Fission track in mica out tp a few Myear;Rubidium-strontium to a billion years or so;Thermo-luminescence to a few hundred thousand years. The point being that we have quite a range of options to date stuff over evolutionary time periods. If you are going to arue with all of these, you better take it up with the nuclear physicists.  
since I am not a nuclear physicist I do not know what these dating tools are used for.  However, I do know that nothing is able to date as old as they say it is.  And on what basis do they base these measuring devices on?  Estimations of how long it takes for something to decay, or estimations on how long it takes for something to metamorph.  they are merely estimates based on other estimates still.  Why do you think in aging they only use one or two methods?  
BobSpence1 wrote:
  There is another very important method that I don't thinkI mentioned, that is valuable at giving us clues tothings such as temperature, ocean volume, precipitation, chemistry and gas composition of the lower atmosphere, volcanic eruptions, solar variability, sea-surface productivity, desert extent and forest fires, over long continous periods of time, out to 800,000 years for some cores from Antarctica.  
 All of these methods you just mentioned have already been proven to be incorrect.  ESP.  The ice core samples you said.  They once thought that each ring was like a tree and showed a cool season and a hot season, dark and light bands.  Well they based this on years and counted down.  Still they haven't reached the bottom of the ice, BUT, what they disregarded when they made this claim is that you can have up to 12 or more cooling and heating periods in one week!  Three WWII fighter planes ran out of gas and crash landed in greenland.  a billionaire wanted them for his collection and when to greenland to get them some 40 years later only to discover they were now under 200+ feet of solid ice.  When they dug out the planes they saw many many rings on the way down, up to I believe 400 rings.  400 rings doesn't =400 years like they thought.  If you ever go to alaska when it snows and freezes, your car can be covered with 10 rings of ice by the time you get out from work.  I forget how many feet they have dug down in antartica but the rings were just cooling and heating periods that actually equaled out to be only a few thousand years old. 
BobSpence1 wrote:
   Wonder what a 'Global Flood' would have doen to snow and ice caps.... [/qoute]  It would have thickened them and cooled the air in that area quite a bit as observed. 
BobSpence1 wrote:
 
Regarding evolving space-ships, any complex system like that actually does have an analogy with evolution, since an initial design for such a thing is bound to have problems, so extensive testing and re-design to correct the inevitable flaws which are revealed is part of the process, a bit like trying a range of different approaches and selecting the one which works best in practice. Obviously simple evolutionary process wouldn't apply to a one-off thing like a space-ship, whereas the continual and inevitable process of minor genetic variation in self-reproducing organisms, will naturally lead to evolutionary change over long periods of time, as observed in the fossill record and massively reinforced by modern genetic studies.

interesting to see you disregard a quote taken for a post doctorate atheist professor at my University describing how effective mutations are in contributing to positive outcomes. 


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drdoubleu

drdoubleu wrote:
MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

 

I would have no choice but to convert when shown the proper evidence. Neither would any other atheist. I don't care for your copy and paste "evidence" I want to see something that will leave me beyond doubt.

This is your down fall and evidence that you are not a scientist.

That is a ludicrous assumption.

 

Quote:
You want someone to hand the information to you. more importantly me. Why don't you get out and discover for yourself?

 

Yes. You are making the claim. I don't have time to go out trying to find imaginary friends.

Quote:
Mark 4:24-25 says: He wen ton to say, "pay attention to what you're listening to! Knowlege will be measured out to you by the measure of attention you give. This is the way knowledge increases. Those who understand these mysteries will be given more knowledge. However, some people don't understand these mysteries. Even what they understand will be taken away from them.

 

Oh so now you are preaching at me? Again with the assumptions. I do pay attention to all around me and that is precisely how I came to the realization of there being no story book god.

Quote:
The degree of our understanding is directly proportional to the effort put into listening. It would be pointless to listen to the teacher only to disregard His teaching.

 

More assumptions of my study habits.

Quote:
If we seek, we will find. If we listen, we will hear. If we seek to understand, understanding will be given to us. Conversely, if we do not seek, we will not find. If we do not listen, we will not hear, if we do not understand, the little bit of understanding we have will be taken away.

 

More preaching....yada, yada, yada

Quote:
What can I do for proofs?

Pray that children stop dying of AIDS in Africa and have it stop at once, then I will believe you.

Quote:
Big Bang contraidicts the conservation of angular momentum. If the big bang occured all planets in a line of symmetry (the same galaxy) would be spinning in the same direction. We don't see this. We see planets spinning in all different directions even in our own solar system.

 

I'll admit that I, personally, don't know but not for lack of an answer as I am sure there are more qualified individuals you could ask about that.

Quote:
Magnetic fields can't be dated past 12,000 years and any further contradicts the possibility of life on earth. Why doesn't it go further back? Perhapse the earth isn't millions of years old.

 

Now, even I know better than that and this is where I lose the little respect I had for your argument.

Quote:
The equator spins at 1044 mph. Since 1972 we have added 21 leap seconds to the clock. Why? because the plaent is slowing down. What does this mean? it means we were once going faster. At this rate, 65 million years ago the dinosaurs would have to have harnesses to keep them on the earth and the gravitational pull would be so great, no life on earth could exist, or the centripital force would be so great, nothing would stay on the planet. A handfull of scientists say it's much slower than this and we are slowing at .003 seconds a year. But then they also say that our mountains were caused by this spin....losing all credibility to their claims.

 

...and aliens built the pyramids, because granite was nowhere to be found except 400 miles up (or down? that always confused me) the Nile. And the stone technology is something we still don't know about today because we have machines that do it for us.

Quote:
The moon is leaving us at a rate of 1 inch per year. 65 million years ago the moon would have been so close that our tides would go from the east coast all the way in to Chicago, IL. This is not seen and sheds light that we aren't that old.

 

Then there is this: Foot prints of humans found next to dinosaurs. Even I am skeptical about this BUT

This photo from the Interactive Bible Site, shows a series of 14 left, right footprints with three- toed dinosaur tracks intersecting at 30 degrees.

"Believe it or not, dinosaur footprints, and the footprints of man, are found in the same strata, in the very same formation, in some cases only 18 inches apart, at a geological dig in Glen Rose, Texas, called the Paluxy River Bed. The ancient footprints of "man" at the site are found to be evenly spaced, and go under overhanging shale formations, continuing under the formations, and have been excavated.

 

 

There has been much controversy over the excavations in the Paluxy riverbed in Glen Rose, Texas. Over the years there have been several groups and individuals who claimed to have found human footprints alongside, and in, the already famous dinosaur tracks of the Paluxy.

If it can be demonstrated that humans and dinosaurs co-existed in the fossil record, this would exactly contradict the theory of evolution, demonstrably falsifying it. It is understandable why one should be cautious and skeptical of claims such as human and dinosaur tracks found together, however it should be noted that this is not the only evidence of their contemporaneous existence that has been found.

The London Artifact is a hammer, probably used for fine metal working judging by its size, weight and the ends of the head. It was found near London, Texas, near a waterfall in 1940. The rock of this area is dated geologically as Cretaceous (144 Million to 65 Million years old), or during the time of the dinosaurs. Besides being a fascinating find, the metallurgy of the hammer is remarkable: Good, high quality metal with no bubbles or slag and a bizarre compounding of 96% iron, 2.6% chlorine and 0.74% sulfur. A cut was made into the corner of the head to verify it was metal. Sixty years later, that cut (shown also on this replica) has still not rusted! When you compound chlorine with iron you get a powder etchant - not tough steel!

What is this artifact doing in rock so "old" and how did the people who formed it make it the way they did?

http://s8int.com/images/londonartifact1.jpg

//www.bibleandscience.com/otherviews/images/london.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Photo G6

 

And what about the pleasiosaur corpses found throughout the 19th century. Impossible survival for 65 million years, probably survival for 12,000 years:

Plesiosaur 2.jpg (26629 bytes)

.Plesiosaur.jpg (26678 bytes)

California.jpg (26467 bytes) California 2.jpg (28305 bytes)

Scituate.jpg (23063 bytes)

Do I believe this? The hammer I do, the dinosaurs I'm skeptical however, recorded throughout history. Until 1800s they were called dragons. The word dinoasur didn't even exist. The bible as I mentioned before even talked about them at a river side.

 

I like how you said "evidence" because it's an article out of a well respected journal that uses science to disprove a scientific theory that you believe in. It is evident that even if God himself smacked you upside the head you still wouldn't believe it.

 

You assume what I believe, yet again. I am not everybody on this site. We have not formed any doctrine. Stop assuming shit. If your god smacked me upside the head, don't you think that I would believe it? I find your attitude to be borderline trolling since you don't even know me and you act pretty brave behind the monitor. You say in essence that even if God were to come down and smack me and I saw the evidence right in front of me that I still wouldn't believe. Do you really think that to be true when I just got done telling you that that is what it would in fact take for me to believe you?

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

For example, my friend's kids tell me that Santa came to their house and they know it because he ate all the milk and cookies. Your arguements are no more valid to me thus far. I want to see God in person and see some valid evidence like making a new creature right in front of me.

Quote:
For one, Santa Claus really did exist if you knew history. Saint Nicholas (Greek: Νικόλαος, Nikolaos, "victory of the people&quotEye-wink is the common name for Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who had a reputation for secret gift-giving, but is now commonly identified with Santa Claus. Among Orthodox Christians, the historical Saint Nicholas is remembered and revered. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, children, and students in Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia (country), Russia, the Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro. He is also the patron saint of Barranquilla (Colombia), Bari (Italy) Amsterdam (Netherlands), and of Beit Jala in the West Bank of Palestine. Anyway, you are basing faith in religion and God and comparing it to fictional characters based on real people in history. This is a little different. The whole santa claus deal is in celebration of the good deeds of saint nicholas. The easter bunny was made to take away from the christian celebration of the ressurection of christ since the first century AD. I know it's not the exact date, but traditions shall remain and are significant.

 

I know about that shit but it doesn't have anything to do with parents telling their children the lie about a jolly fat man in a red suit that brings them toys if they are good.

Quote:
You want to see God in person....

Yeah, if you want me to believe about what you're saying about him.

Quote:
no one i the bible has seen God face to face,

 

Ahem, my point exactly.

Quote:
the mormons believe people have but that's based on their weak interpretation of the bible.

No true Scotsman is a bitch!

Quote:
People have seen the face of God through Jesus Christ.

Where's the proof that Jesus existed? No book was ever written about him during his life time.

Quote:
You want to see God, see him work through those that serve him and the good deeds that they provide for those in need. I don't know the last time I didn't stop to help someone on the side of the road who needed assitance or helped push a car of someone who ran out of gas, or just listened to someone who needed someone to talk to. Read the bible and you will see God face to face through his word.

Take out the word "God, he, him" and replace with "lamp" because it will still make as much sense to me.

Quote:
Remeber it is also written do not challenge the Lord your God through such lacks of faith such as this (wanting to see God in person).

 

Of course. If we saw him then it would be too benevolent of him to allow us proof. But we all know what a sick bastard he is.

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

BTW, I don't believe your story about the $2300. I used to be xtain and lived in poverty with my mother and sister. I prayed and cryed everyday/night that He would help us. It only got worse. When I got out on my own as an adult, I realized that religion was to control people and put it aside like I did Santa. I started living for myself and in complete control of my life with no prayer. That's when I finally started to accomplish my goals. I thank myself, not any imaginary friend.

Quote:
Don't believing in my story doesn't make it any less true. I have plenty of witnesses of the event to hold it in a court of law. God answers prayers in his own time. Plus, maybe he answered your prayers in different ways and not in the ways you wanted him to but your heart is closed off to not realize this. If he provided for you and gave you what you needed at that time would that have made you a stronger person later on in life? Probably not. Look at Job he lost everything in his life and still praised God. You had a loss of faith and turned your back. How do you expect prayers to be answered when you lose your faith when they don't happen in your own time. Our tour was based on spreading the word and was answered right before the time of departure because we were strong in faith. Our blessings continued throughout the trip. We planned on eating peanut butter crackers and sleeping in a van for a month and ended up in a warm bed, house and full meals every night.

Sorry this still sounds like the little boy telling me how Santa came to his house and ate all the milk and cookies so he must be true.


drdoubleu
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triften wrote: Right, so

triften wrote:

Right, so claiming the Bible as a source of scientific evidence does not equal ideology, but presenting an example to explain something is.

 

you're giving me a headache.  I am not basing the bible as a source of scientific evidence but rather using scientific evidence to confirm the validity of the bible.

 

triften wrote:

In your previous post, you were claiming (or at least appeared to) that the age of the trees were measured by counting rings.

I think your ideology comes into play more often since you seem to assume a priori that the flood happened and are more than ready to snub any aging technique that doesn't match up with your belief. I don't this is going to be productive. Sapient, you are a more patient man than I.

No I'm more than will to snub out anything regarding aging techniques that isn't accurate such as saying, oh, pollen is found here in rocks and oh, look a similar tree, that means this tree is 11,000 years old based on what I have just put together.   That isn't science, that's stupidity.  I will gladly accept anything that has scientific measurements that has a system that isn't based on a set of theories, assumptions or gestimates like they have with those trees other than the most accurate way to measure a living tree.  End of story. 

 

triften wrote:
 

So you are saying that neither talkorigins nor a creationist website are credible? Then why did you provide Dr. Dino as a resource?

Heaven forbid I have an agenda: to think for myself and doubt the Bible.

I provided Dr. Dino as a source because Dr. Hovind has over 30 years dedicated in researching the topics I am talking about.  He bases he findings on his own field studies, research as well as hundreds of close friend scientists that he works with on various projects.  Whereas the atheist sites are based on professors or common people putting in their own opinions with minimum reading effort through the internet and no scientific methods being used.  The deal with the canyon for instance was based on journal built on NIH grant proposal standards, vs, a statement of "we see that the canyon is deep and the rocks look like the river has cut through them, therefore the river started at the top, and eventually erroded it down over millions of years."  Completely disregarding there are many other rivers the same age that are as deep as they were at the time of their formation without carving through any rock. 

To think for yourself as you claim to be is nothing more but basing your beliefs on another persons discussion on how their science is right without questioning it.  You just assume because they have a Ph D. in their title that what they say must be pressumed to be absolute and infallible. 

 

triften wrote:


Doc, I said nothing about world-wide landslides, that was you, just then.

Perhaps I missed a reference claiming that all those trees we supposedly in the same strata. If I did, please let me know.

I'm saying they were in the same level of sediment based on 'age through depth' or however you want a geologist to measure it. 

 

triften wrote:
 

Actually, evidence suggests there was an inland sea in North America 100 million years ago, a bit after the breakup of Pangaea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_american_inland_sea

(Your pyramid bit appears to be copy and pasted from Wikipedia so I'm assuming we agree that it is "reliable" and not an "atheist" resource.)

Also, you've previously derided dating techniques and now you want to claim that these shells are younger than the mountains. Sigh.

 

Once again I state that wikipedia isn't a source that should be used for information.  anyone can type it in.  However I am familiar with what they said.  Please note the references were all from the same author except 1.  This ocean deal doesn't contradict the flood.  The flood still would have covered north america with sea water and freshwater.  The shale it speaks of is once again the result of rapid burial of sea life.  The sea life in currents can be carried over mainland, dumped and buried to turn into fossils and shale.   If you are basing discoveries on geology, then yes the shells are younger than the mountain ranges they sit upon.  Because according to geology the mountain ranges would have occured before that certain species of marine life was in existance.

triften wrote:


So, if we're going to make statements about the history of the Earth without geology expertise and using only photographs, I'd like to point out that those flood lines stop at about the Sphinx's shoulder and the head appears to have rather little erosion (aside from that nose, she should talk to her surgeon.)

(See that was a joke that wasn't funny at someone else's expense.)

No, they actually go all the way up to the top, try and find a better picture.  There have been flood in the area before but nothing to submerge it like it has been in the past during the time of the great flood.  I gave you a referance of a researcher you should look up that talks about the flood and the erosion of the sphinx. 

 

triften wrote:

 

Okay, you've claimed that the dating of mountain ranges is accurate (the seashells), so if the Flood really covered every mountain (what was it, by 15 cubits or something? Maybe I'm mis-remembering) it would have been over 8,848 meters deep. That's a lot of water. Now the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is about 2100m above sea level. Now, your going to tell me that 1900 more meters of depth did less damage at Giza than at the Grand Canyon? The difference of 1900m of water provides extra pressure of over 2700 psi! And at Giza, the pressure would have been over 6 tons per square inch.

I've snipped out your copy and pastes. If you post a link to an article, I am (despite being evolved from a common ancestor with apes) saavy enough to read said article.

I don't know what you are basing this information off of. 

 

triften wrote:

Here's some info on Mr. Snelling (Dr?) and his problems with ideology.

http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/crefaqs.htm#who

("I don't wanna let other people look at my magic 'wood' sample!&quotEye-wink

I'll have to look at this sometime in the weekend if people stop responding so much and giving me so much to try and answer...remind me if I forget and I'll look at it.


triften wrote:

I think your statement "the flood ws only for the destruction of living things" shows that you have some trouble being objective. Why does the flood have to be "for something"? Also the idea that "the flood ws only for the destruction of living things" seems like an attempt to sidestep the issue of a lack of geological evidence.

And furthermore, how does one kill fish and sealife with a flood?

 

-Triften

 

The flood in reference for something can be referred to in genesis with the purpose of the flood.  Noah was told there was going to be a flood, although it didn't rain in his time.  He built a boat, gathered the animals and the flood came.  This is why i said it was for something.  The geological evidence is there, along with the fossil beds.  except as a flood, they base it on a meteor strike that burried the land in debree and dirt with little to no evidence of it being a meteor.  and yes I know of the information and have read on it many times and sat in on seminars as well. 

 

How does one kill sea life?  try thermal shock for one, changing temperature is an easy way to kill a fish.  Ever seen what a tsunami does?  you don't drown you get crushed and impaled by debree.  Same thing.  Plus when you mix mud, dirt and the such in your breathing fluid, you suffocate the same way as we would in a room filled with smoke.  So, temperature change, debree and lack of oxigen should do the trick. 


drdoubleu
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BobSpence1 wrote: It is

BobSpence1 wrote:
It is well known that the Sphinx is below the level of the Giza plateau, in range of occasional extreme Nile floods. And of course the story is that the nose was damaged by one of Napoleon's cannon. I have actually stood in front of that monument. Later, I moved on to see the pyramids. Standing near the pyramids, on the side nearest Cairo, the Sphinx is not very prominent. In fact, a local guy tried to get some money out of me just for pointing out the Sphinx as a possible photo - you can just see the back of the head.
Note that Pre-dynastic culture has been dated back to before 9000 BC, ie 11000 years ago, with a fairly continuous evidence of cultivation, so the standard Biblical flood chronology definitely doesn't seem to work here.

 

Yes they have flood but nothing that historically outside of the bible has put it underwater. 


drdoubleu
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BobSpence1 wrote: Noticed

BobSpence1 wrote:
Noticed this in Job37:38:

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens?

So does this mean that there are billions of clouds, also?

And that rain actually comes out of jars in the clouds? Tthis will be news to those poor dumb scientists Smiling .

Cloud

The Hebrew so rendered means "a covering," because clouds cover the sky. The word is used as a symbol of the Divine presence, as indicating the splendour of that glory which it conceals (Ex. 16:10; 33:9; Num. 11:25; 12:5; Job 22:14; Ps. 18:11). A "cloud without rain" is a proverbial saying, denoting a man who does not keep his promise (Prov. 16:15; Isa. 18:4; 25:5; Jude 1:12). A cloud is the figure of that which is transitory (Job 30:15; Hos. 6:4). A bright cloud is the symbolical seat of the Divine presence (Ex.29:42, 43; 1 Kings 8:10; 2 Chr. 5:14; Ezek. 43:4), and was called the Shechinah (q.v.). Jehovah came down upon Sinai in a cloud (Ex. 19:9); and the cloud filled the court around the tabernacle in the wilderness so that Moses could not enter it (Ex. 40:34, 35). At the dedication of the temple also the cloud "filled the house of the Lord" (1 Kings 8:10). Thus in like manner when Christ comes the second time he is described as coming "in the clouds" (Matt. 17:5; 24:30; Acts 1:9, 11). False teachers are likened unto clouds carried about with a tempest (2 Pet. 2:17). The infirmities of old age, which come one after another, are compared by Solomon to "clouds returning after the rain" (Eccl. 12:2). The blotting out of sins is like the sudden disappearance of threatening clouds from the sky (Isa. 44:22).

Cloud, the pillar of, was the glory-cloud which indicated God's presence leading the ransomed people through the wilderness (Ex. 13:22; 33:9, 10). This pillar preceded the people as they marched, resting on the ark (Ex. 13:21; 40:36). By night it became a pillar of fire (Num. 9:17-23).

Learn and you shall see. 

 


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MattShizzle wrote: And here

MattShizzle wrote:
And here come the ad hominem attacks. Seriously. Using that jailbird you might as well be using the National Enquirer site, or maybe here: http://www.coasttocoastam.com Please. Don't use insane bullshit sites or you'll only make us laugh.

 

 

Does anyone have a freakin' clue what this guy is talking about? 


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MarthaSplatterhead

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:
drdoubleu wrote:
MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

 

I would have no choice but to convert when shown the proper evidence. Neither would any other atheist. I don't care for your copy and paste "evidence" I want to see something that will leave me beyond doubt.

This is your down fall and evidence that you are not a scientist.

That is a ludicrous assumption.

 

Quote:
You want someone to hand the information to you. more importantly me. Why don't you get out and discover for yourself?

 

Yes. You are making the claim. I don't have time to go out trying to find imaginary friends.

Quote:
Mark 4:24-25 says: He wen ton to say, "pay attention to what you're listening to! Knowlege will be measured out to you by the measure of attention you give. This is the way knowledge increases. Those who understand these mysteries will be given more knowledge. However, some people don't understand these mysteries. Even what they understand will be taken away from them.

 

Oh so now you are preaching at me? Again with the assumptions. I do pay attention to all around me and that is precisely how I came to the realization of there being no story book god.

Quote:
The degree of our understanding is directly proportional to the effort put into listening. It would be pointless to listen to the teacher only to disregard His teaching.

 

More assumptions of my study habits.

Quote:
If we seek, we will find. If we listen, we will hear. If we seek to understand, understanding will be given to us. Conversely, if we do not seek, we will not find. If we do not listen, we will not hear, if we do not understand, the little bit of understanding we have will be taken away.

 

More preaching....yada, yada, yada

Quote:
What can I do for proofs?

Pray that children stop dying of AIDS in Africa and have it stop at once, then I will believe you.

Quote:
Big Bang contraidicts the conservation of angular momentum. If the big bang occured all planets in a line of symmetry (the same galaxy) would be spinning in the same direction. We don't see this. We see planets spinning in all different directions even in our own solar system.

 

I'll admit that I, personally, don't know but not for lack of an answer as I am sure there are more qualified individuals you could ask about that.

Quote:
Magnetic fields can't be dated past 12,000 years and any further contradicts the possibility of life on earth. Why doesn't it go further back? Perhapse the earth isn't millions of years old.

 

Now, even I know better than that and this is where I lose the little respect I had for your argument.

Quote:
The equator spins at 1044 mph. Since 1972 we have added 21 leap seconds to the clock. Why? because the plaent is slowing down. What does this mean? it means we were once going faster. At this rate, 65 million years ago the dinosaurs would have to have harnesses to keep them on the earth and the gravitational pull would be so great, no life on earth could exist, or the centripital force would be so great, nothing would stay on the planet. A handfull of scientists say it's much slower than this and we are slowing at .003 seconds a year. But then they also say that our mountains were caused by this spin....losing all credibility to their claims.

 

...and aliens built the pyramids, because granite was nowhere to be found except 400 miles up (or down? that always confused me) the Nile. And the stone technology is something we still don't know about today because we have machines that do it for us.

Quote:
The moon is leaving us at a rate of 1 inch per year. 65 million years ago the moon would have been so close that our tides would go from the east coast all the way in to Chicago, IL. This is not seen and sheds light that we aren't that old.

 

Then there is this: Foot prints of humans found next to dinosaurs. Even I am skeptical about this BUT

This photo from the Interactive Bible Site, shows a series of 14 left, right footprints with three- toed dinosaur tracks intersecting at 30 degrees.

"Believe it or not, dinosaur footprints, and the footprints of man, are found in the same strata, in the very same formation, in some cases only 18 inches apart, at a geological dig in Glen Rose, Texas, called the Paluxy River Bed. The ancient footprints of "man" at the site are found to be evenly spaced, and go under overhanging shale formations, continuing under the formations, and have been excavated.

 

 

There has been much controversy over the excavations in the Paluxy riverbed in Glen Rose, Texas. Over the years there have been several groups and individuals who claimed to have found human footprints alongside, and in, the already famous dinosaur tracks of the Paluxy.

If it can be demonstrated that humans and dinosaurs co-existed in the fossil record, this would exactly contradict the theory of evolution, demonstrably falsifying it. It is understandable why one should be cautious and skeptical of claims such as human and dinosaur tracks found together, however it should be noted that this is not the only evidence of their contemporaneous existence that has been found.

The London Artifact is a hammer, probably used for fine metal working judging by its size, weight and the ends of the head. It was found near London, Texas, near a waterfall in 1940. The rock of this area is dated geologically as Cretaceous (144 Million to 65 Million years old), or during the time of the dinosaurs. Besides being a fascinating find, the metallurgy of the hammer is remarkable: Good, high quality metal with no bubbles or slag and a bizarre compounding of 96% iron, 2.6% chlorine and 0.74% sulfur. A cut was made into the corner of the head to verify it was metal. Sixty years later, that cut (shown also on this replica) has still not rusted! When you compound chlorine with iron you get a powder etchant - not tough steel!

What is this artifact doing in rock so "old" and how did the people who formed it make it the way they did?

http://s8int.com/images/londonartifact1.jpg

//www.bibleandscience.com/otherviews/images/london.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Photo G6

 

And what about the pleasiosaur corpses found throughout the 19th century. Impossible survival for 65 million years, probably survival for 12,000 years:

Plesiosaur 2.jpg (26629 bytes)

.Plesiosaur.jpg (26678 bytes)

California.jpg (26467 bytes) California 2.jpg (28305 bytes)

Scituate.jpg (23063 bytes)

Do I believe this? The hammer I do, the dinosaurs I'm skeptical however, recorded throughout history. Until 1800s they were called dragons. The word dinoasur didn't even exist. The bible as I mentioned before even talked about them at a river side.

 

I like how you said "evidence" because it's an article out of a well respected journal that uses science to disprove a scientific theory that you believe in. It is evident that even if God himself smacked you upside the head you still wouldn't believe it.

 

You assume what I believe, yet again. I am not everybody on this site. We have not formed any doctrine. Stop assuming shit. If your god smacked me upside the head, don't you think that I would believe it? I find your attitude to be borderline trolling since you don't even know me and you act pretty brave behind the monitor. You say in essence that even if God were to come down and smack me and I saw the evidence right in front of me that I still wouldn't believe. Do you really think that to be true when I just got done telling you that that is what it would in fact take for me to believe you?

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

For example, my friend's kids tell me that Santa came to their house and they know it because he ate all the milk and cookies. Your arguements are no more valid to me thus far. I want to see God in person and see some valid evidence like making a new creature right in front of me.

Quote:
For one, Santa Claus really did exist if you knew history. Saint Nicholas (Greek: Νικόλαος, Nikolaos, "victory of the people&quotEye-wink is the common name for Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who had a reputation for secret gift-giving, but is now commonly identified with Santa Claus. Among Orthodox Christians, the historical Saint Nicholas is remembered and revered. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, children, and students in Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia (country), Russia, the Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro. He is also the patron saint of Barranquilla (Colombia), Bari (Italy) Amsterdam (Netherlands), and of Beit Jala in the West Bank of Palestine. Anyway, you are basing faith in religion and God and comparing it to fictional characters based on real people in history. This is a little different. The whole santa claus deal is in celebration of the good deeds of saint nicholas. The easter bunny was made to take away from the christian celebration of the ressurection of christ since the first century AD. I know it's not the exact date, but traditions shall remain and are significant.

 

I know about that shit but it doesn't have anything to do with parents telling their children the lie about a jolly fat man in a red suit that brings them toys if they are good.

Quote:
You want to see God in person....

Yeah, if you want me to believe about what you're saying about him.

Quote:
no one i the bible has seen God face to face,

 

Ahem, my point exactly.

Quote:
the mormons believe people have but that's based on their weak interpretation of the bible.

No true Scotsman is a bitch!

Quote:
People have seen the face of God through Jesus Christ.

Where's the proof that Jesus existed? No book was ever written about him during his life time.

Quote:
You want to see God, see him work through those that serve him and the good deeds that they provide for those in need. I don't know the last time I didn't stop to help someone on the side of the road who needed assitance or helped push a car of someone who ran out of gas, or just listened to someone who needed someone to talk to. Read the bible and you will see God face to face through his word.

Take out the word "God, he, him" and replace with "lamp" because it will still make as much sense to me.

Quote:
Remeber it is also written do not challenge the Lord your God through such lacks of faith such as this (wanting to see God in person).

 

Of course. If we saw him then it would be too benevolent of him to allow us proof. But we all know what a sick bastard he is.

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

BTW, I don't believe your story about the $2300. I used to be xtain and lived in poverty with my mother and sister. I prayed and cryed everyday/night that He would help us. It only got worse. When I got out on my own as an adult, I realized that religion was to control people and put it aside like I did Santa. I started living for myself and in complete control of my life with no prayer. That's when I finally started to accomplish my goals. I thank myself, not any imaginary friend.

Quote:
Don't believing in my story doesn't make it any less true. I have plenty of witnesses of the event to hold it in a court of law. God answers prayers in his own time. Plus, maybe he answered your prayers in different ways and not in the ways you wanted him to but your heart is closed off to not realize this. If he provided for you and gave you what you needed at that time would that have made you a stronger person later on in life? Probably not. Look at Job he lost everything in his life and still praised God. You had a loss of faith and turned your back. How do you expect prayers to be answered when you lose your faith when they don't happen in your own time. Our tour was based on spreading the word and was answered right before the time of departure because we were strong in faith. Our blessings continued throughout the trip. We planned on eating peanut butter crackers and sleeping in a van for a month and ended up in a warm bed, house and full meals every night.

Sorry this still sounds like the little boy telling me how Santa came to his house and ate all the milk and cookies so he must be true.

 

I've given you proof and explainations.  It's up to you whether or not you want to continue the persuit to try and find the information yourself.  The face of God is easily explained through the study of the bible and understanding the word.  You can either read it through cover to cover and not get anything out of it, or you can actually study it, grow and understand to be able to answer peoples questions like I do on a daily basis.  I don't have time to listen to some bitter kid crying over drunk milk and cookie crums when they disregard science and truth.  You say no duh to no one seeing the face of God but do you know why?  And don't say because he doesn't exist because 1) that would mean you have absolute knowledge over everything and therefore claim to be god yourself discrediting yourself and any of your opinions 2) you haven't read the bible enough to understand this.

 Saying that Jesus never existed and that no books were written on him shows that you know nothing of history.  Funny to know that even non christian archeologists openly support and have evidence that christ walked the earth.  Most basis for the claims that people have are from people with their own agenda that have never set foot out of the country and over to the land where Jesus was.  You forget that Jesus wasn't a world known figure and was only in one part of the world.  The part of the world he was in was invaded, burned to the ground and most writings destroyed in the first century.  Any first count encounters of christ would have been more than likely killed off during this time.  why were they attacked and killed?  because they didn't acknowledge Csar as their god among many other reasons.  Look it up you can even google it and it will tell you historically.

Is there any historical proof that Jesus existed?

The ancient historical record provides examples of writers, philosophers and historians who lived during or not long after the time Jesus is believed to have lived and who testify to the fact that he was a real person. We will look at what some of these people have said.

Cornelius Tacitus

Tacitus lived from A.D. 55 to A.D. 120. He was a Roman historian and has been described as the greatest historian of Rome, noted for his integrity and moral uprightness. His most famous works are the Annals and the Histories. The Annals relate the historical narrative from Augustus’ death in A.D.14 to Nero’s death in A.D. 68. The Histories begin their narrative after Nero’s death and finish with Domitian’s death in A.D. 96. In his section describing Nero’s decision to blame the fire of Rome on the Christians, Tacitus affirms that the founder of Christianity, a man he calls Chrestus (a common misspelling of Christ, which was Jesus’ surname), was executed by Pilate, the procurator of Judea during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberias. Tacitus was hostile to Christianity because in the same paragraph he describes Christus’ or Christ’s death, he describes Christianity as a pernicious superstition. It would have therefore been in his interests to declare that Jesus had never existed, but he did not, and perhaps he did not because he could not without betraying the historical record.

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian was a Greek satirist of the latter half of the second century. He therefore lived within two hundred years of Jesus. Lucian was hostile to Christianity and openly mocked it. He particularly objected to the fact that Christians worshipped a man. He does not mention Jesus’ name, but the reference to the man Christians worship is a reference to Jesus.

Suetonius

Suetonius was a Roman historian and a court official in Emperor Hadrian’s government. In his Life of Claudius he refers to Claudius expelling Jews from Rome on account of their activities on behalf of a man Suetonius calls Chrestus [another misspelling of Christus or Christ].

Pliny the Younger

Pliny was the Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor (AD. 112). He was responsible for executing Christians for not worshipping or bowing down to a statue of the emperor Trajan. In a letter to the emperor Trajan, he describes how the people on trial for being Christians would describe how they sang songs to Christ because he was a god.

Thallus and Phlegon

Both were ancient historians and both confirmed the fact that the land went dark when Jesus was crucified. This parallels what the Bible said happened when Jesus died.

Mara Bar-Serapion

Some time after 70 A.D., Mara Bar-Sarapion, who was probably a Stoic philosopher, wrote a letter to his son in which he describes how the Jews executed their King. Claiming to be a king was one of the charges the religious authorities used to scare Pontius Pilate into agreeing to execute Jesus.

Josephus

Josephus was a Jewish historian who was born in either 37 or 38 AD and died some time after 100 AD. He wrote the Jewish Antiquites and in one famous passage described Jesus as a wise man, a doer of wonderful works and calls him the Christ. He also affirmed that Jesus was executed by Pilate and actually rose from the dead!

The four Gospels

The four Gospels are the four accounts of Jesus’ life, which are contained in the New Testament part of the Bible. Historians will tell you that the closer an historical document is written to the time of the events it describes, the generally more reliable it is as a source of information about those events. Matthew’s Gospel account of Jesus’ life is now reckoned to have been written sometime between AD 70 and AD 80. Mark’s Gospel is dated between AD. 50 and AD. 65. Luke’s Gospel is dated in the early AD 60s and John’s Gospel sometime between AD 80 and 100. If Jesus died sometime in the AD 30s, it is clear that Mark, Luke and Matthew wrote their Gospels within living memory of Jesus’ death. John’s Gospel comes later and probably outside of living memory for most as John lived to an unusually old age for the ancient period, but the accuracy of his Gospel was verified no doubt by those who read the earlier Gospels.

Another feature of the Gospels is that they were written by men who either knew Jesus personally, or who knew people who themselves knew Jesus personally. Matthew was a former tax collector who became a disciple of Jesus. Mark was a close associate of Simon Peter, who is regarded as being Jesus’ most prominent disciple whilst Jesus was on the earth. Luke was a close associate of Paul who is the most famous of Christian missionaries and who wrote the largest contribution to the New Testament. Paul, in turn, was a close colleague of Simon Peter. John was the former fisherman who became the closest disciple of Jesus. The accounts of such men need to be considered at least seriously!

 


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drdoubleu: When I referred

drdoubleu:
When I referred to Absolute dating techniques, I was making the distinction between absolute and relative.  Relative dating techniques are those where the process generating successive points on the scale is not one whose rate is known independently, so all it can do is allow us to say that X occurred before or after Y.
Whereas tree-rings are in principle absolute, since they are generated by the cycle of the seasons, which is intrinsically annual, therefore giving us an inherent scale of years. Main errors would be due to glitches when the seasons were unusual, epecially when very poor for growth, leading to very thin or virtually invisible rings. We obviously need to correlate records from overlapping sequences from individual trees to provide a complete sequence which can be referenced to an actual date, normally by matching the seasonal variation patterns. I was not referring to absolute accuracy.
Radiometric dating is based on known, measured decay rates of different isotopes, expressed as 'half-lives', which seem, by all observations, measurements, and theory, to be unnaffected by the environment, hence allowing us to calculate the time elapsed since whatever event may have 'reset' the 'timer'. Such resetting events vary depending on the particular isotope pair in question. It may alternatively be timed from when the material became isolated from a process keeping the ratio constant, such as normal active metabolism in the case of C14. The point being, once it can be established that the two isotopes are sufficently isolated, and that neither can leak away, calculating the time they have been in this state is simply a matter of accurately measuring the ratio of the amount of each one as accurately as possible, and plugging this ratio into an equation based on their known half-lives, and we get an actual time period in years, no 'calibration' or comparison required. The actuaj accuracy will depend on the  accuracy of the relative concentration measurement, the integrity of the sample, and the sensitivity of the particular pair to such errors, which depends on a number of things such as the actual decay rates and the time period involved. 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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MarthaSplatterhead

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:
drdoubleu wrote:
MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

 

I would have no choice but to convert when shown the proper evidence. Neither would any other atheist. I don't care for your copy and paste "evidence" I want to see something that will leave me beyond doubt.

This is your down fall and evidence that you are not a scientist.

That is a ludicrous assumption.

 

Quote:
You want someone to hand the information to you. more importantly me. Why don't you get out and discover for yourself?

 

Yes. You are making the claim. I don't have time to go out trying to find imaginary friends.

Quote:
Mark 4:24-25 says: He wen ton to say, "pay attention to what you're listening to! Knowlege will be measured out to you by the measure of attention you give. This is the way knowledge increases. Those who understand these mysteries will be given more knowledge. However, some people don't understand these mysteries. Even what they understand will be taken away from them.

 

Oh so now you are preaching at me? Again with the assumptions. I do pay attention to all around me and that is precisely how I came to the realization of there being no story book god.

Quote:
The degree of our understanding is directly proportional to the effort put into listening. It would be pointless to listen to the teacher only to disregard His teaching.

 

More assumptions of my study habits.

Quote:
If we seek, we will find. If we listen, we will hear. If we seek to understand, understanding will be given to us. Conversely, if we do not seek, we will not find. If we do not listen, we will not hear, if we do not understand, the little bit of understanding we have will be taken away.

 

More preaching....yada, yada, yada

Quote:
What can I do for proofs?

Pray that children stop dying of AIDS in Africa and have it stop at once, then I will believe you.

Quote:
Big Bang contraidicts the conservation of angular momentum. If the big bang occured all planets in a line of symmetry (the same galaxy) would be spinning in the same direction. We don't see this. We see planets spinning in all different directions even in our own solar system.

 

I'll admit that I, personally, don't know but not for lack of an answer as I am sure there are more qualified individuals you could ask about that.

Quote:
Magnetic fields can't be dated past 12,000 years and any further contradicts the possibility of life on earth. Why doesn't it go further back? Perhapse the earth isn't millions of years old.

 

Now, even I know better than that and this is where I lose the little respect I had for your argument.

Quote:
The equator spins at 1044 mph. Since 1972 we have added 21 leap seconds to the clock. Why? because the plaent is slowing down. What does this mean? it means we were once going faster. At this rate, 65 million years ago the dinosaurs would have to have harnesses to keep them on the earth and the gravitational pull would be so great, no life on earth could exist, or the centripital force would be so great, nothing would stay on the planet. A handfull of scientists say it's much slower than this and we are slowing at .003 seconds a year. But then they also say that our mountains were caused by this spin....losing all credibility to their claims.

 

...and aliens built the pyramids, because granite was nowhere to be found except 400 miles up (or down? that always confused me) the Nile. And the stone technology is something we still don't know about today because we have machines that do it for us.

Quote:
The moon is leaving us at a rate of 1 inch per year. 65 million years ago the moon would have been so close that our tides would go from the east coast all the way in to Chicago, IL. This is not seen and sheds light that we aren't that old.

 

Then there is this: Foot prints of humans found next to dinosaurs. Even I am skeptical about this BUT

This photo from the Interactive Bible Site, shows a series of 14 left, right footprints with three- toed dinosaur tracks intersecting at 30 degrees.

"Believe it or not, dinosaur footprints, and the footprints of man, are found in the same strata, in the very same formation, in some cases only 18 inches apart, at a geological dig in Glen Rose, Texas, called the Paluxy River Bed. The ancient footprints of "man" at the site are found to be evenly spaced, and go under overhanging shale formations, continuing under the formations, and have been excavated.

 

 

There has been much controversy over the excavations in the Paluxy riverbed in Glen Rose, Texas. Over the years there have been several groups and individuals who claimed to have found human footprints alongside, and in, the already famous dinosaur tracks of the Paluxy.

If it can be demonstrated that humans and dinosaurs co-existed in the fossil record, this would exactly contradict the theory of evolution, demonstrably falsifying it. It is understandable why one should be cautious and skeptical of claims such as human and dinosaur tracks found together, however it should be noted that this is not the only evidence of their contemporaneous existence that has been found.

The London Artifact is a hammer, probably used for fine metal working judging by its size, weight and the ends of the head. It was found near London, Texas, near a waterfall in 1940. The rock of this area is dated geologically as Cretaceous (144 Million to 65 Million years old), or during the time of the dinosaurs. Besides being a fascinating find, the metallurgy of the hammer is remarkable: Good, high quality metal with no bubbles or slag and a bizarre compounding of 96% iron, 2.6% chlorine and 0.74% sulfur. A cut was made into the corner of the head to verify it was metal. Sixty years later, that cut (shown also on this replica) has still not rusted! When you compound chlorine with iron you get a powder etchant - not tough steel!

What is this artifact doing in rock so "old" and how did the people who formed it make it the way they did?

http://s8int.com/images/londonartifact1.jpg

//www.bibleandscience.com/otherviews/images/london.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Photo G6

 

And what about the pleasiosaur corpses found throughout the 19th century. Impossible survival for 65 million years, probably survival for 12,000 years:

Plesiosaur 2.jpg (26629 bytes)

.Plesiosaur.jpg (26678 bytes)

California.jpg (26467 bytes) California 2.jpg (28305 bytes)

Scituate.jpg (23063 bytes)

Do I believe this? The hammer I do, the dinosaurs I'm skeptical however, recorded throughout history. Until 1800s they were called dragons. The word dinoasur didn't even exist. The bible as I mentioned before even talked about them at a river side.

 

I like how you said "evidence" because it's an article out of a well respected journal that uses science to disprove a scientific theory that you believe in. It is evident that even if God himself smacked you upside the head you still wouldn't believe it.

 

You assume what I believe, yet again. I am not everybody on this site. We have not formed any doctrine. Stop assuming shit. If your god smacked me upside the head, don't you think that I would believe it? I find your attitude to be borderline trolling since you don't even know me and you act pretty brave behind the monitor. You say in essence that even if God were to come down and smack me and I saw the evidence right in front of me that I still wouldn't believe. Do you really think that to be true when I just got done telling you that that is what it would in fact take for me to believe you?

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

For example, my friend's kids tell me that Santa came to their house and they know it because he ate all the milk and cookies. Your arguements are no more valid to me thus far. I want to see God in person and see some valid evidence like making a new creature right in front of me.

Quote:
For one, Santa Claus really did exist if you knew history. Saint Nicholas (Greek: Νικόλαος, Nikolaos, "victory of the people&quotEye-wink is the common name for Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who had a reputation for secret gift-giving, but is now commonly identified with Santa Claus. Among Orthodox Christians, the historical Saint Nicholas is remembered and revered. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, children, and students in Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia (country), Russia, the Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro. He is also the patron saint of Barranquilla (Colombia), Bari (Italy) Amsterdam (Netherlands), and of Beit Jala in the West Bank of Palestine. Anyway, you are basing faith in religion and God and comparing it to fictional characters based on real people in history. This is a little different. The whole santa claus deal is in celebration of the good deeds of saint nicholas. The easter bunny was made to take away from the christian celebration of the ressurection of christ since the first century AD. I know it's not the exact date, but traditions shall remain and are significant.

 

I know about that shit but it doesn't have anything to do with parents telling their children the lie about a jolly fat man in a red suit that brings them toys if they are good.

Quote:
You want to see God in person....

Yeah, if you want me to believe about what you're saying about him.

Quote:
no one i the bible has seen God face to face,

 

Ahem, my point exactly.

Quote:
the mormons believe people have but that's based on their weak interpretation of the bible.

No true Scotsman is a bitch!

Quote:
People have seen the face of God through Jesus Christ.

Where's the proof that Jesus existed? No book was ever written about him during his life time.

Quote:
You want to see God, see him work through those that serve him and the good deeds that they provide for those in need. I don't know the last time I didn't stop to help someone on the side of the road who needed assitance or helped push a car of someone who ran out of gas, or just listened to someone who needed someone to talk to. Read the bible and you will see God face to face through his word.

Take out the word "God, he, him" and replace with "lamp" because it will still make as much sense to me.

Quote:
Remeber it is also written do not challenge the Lord your God through such lacks of faith such as this (wanting to see God in person).

 

Of course. If we saw him then it would be too benevolent of him to allow us proof. But we all know what a sick bastard he is.

MarthaSplatterhead wrote:

BTW, I don't believe your story about the $2300. I used to be xtain and lived in poverty with my mother and sister. I prayed and cryed everyday/night that He would help us. It only got worse. When I got out on my own as an adult, I realized that religion was to control people and put it aside like I did Santa. I started living for myself and in complete control of my life with no prayer. That's when I finally started to accomplish my goals. I thank myself, not any imaginary friend.

Quote:
Don't believing in my story doesn't make it any less true. I have plenty of witnesses of the event to hold it in a court of law. God answers prayers in his own time. Plus, maybe he answered your prayers in different ways and not in the ways you wanted him to but your heart is closed off to not realize this. If he provided for you and gave you what you needed at that time would that have made you a stronger person later on in life? Probably not. Look at Job he lost everything in his life and still praised God. You had a loss of faith and turned your back. How do you expect prayers to be answered when you lose your faith when they don't happen in your own time. Our tour was based on spreading the word and was answered right before the time of departure because we were strong in faith. Our blessings continued throughout the trip. We planned on eating peanut butter crackers and sleeping in a van for a month and ended up in a warm bed, house and full meals every night.

Sorry this still sounds like the little boy telling me how Santa came to his house and ate all the milk and cookies so he must be true.

 

Besides the fact that I am annoyed that you disregarded anything I said that contradicts evolution and completely went on by saying I am preachy I have this to say to you.  Grow some balls and read these books.  I am personally giving you information and answers to a lot of your questions that otherwise would literally take me a few books to write.  Both you and myself know this to be true.  Read these books then ask yourself if you feel the same way you do.  If you do not concur I will take it that you are a closed minded coward afraid to read anything that may threaten their current belief system of a non-god existance.  I have proven otherwise with myself by continually watching discovery, owning national geographics, soon to be Ph D in biology etc.  You see, I believe in evolution, as I have already said, but not to the degree of faith atheists and many biologists take it.  But still I read anti-religion stuff all the time.  

 Get these books, read them, then talk to me

 

Buried Alive - The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man by Dr. Jack Cuozzo

The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
Lee Strobel

 The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, God's Outrageous Claims, The Case for Christmas, The Case for Easter,also written by Lee Strobel (a former die hard atheist who sought after evidence to write a news article ending christianity but became a christian)

Does God believe in Atheists.

 Tell me then whether or not you have the same ideologies.

 I dare you.


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drdoubleu

drdoubleu wrote:
BobSpence1 wrote:
Noticed this in Job37:38:

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens?

So does this mean that there are billions of clouds, also?

And that rain actually comes out of jars in the clouds? Tthis will be news to those poor dumb scientists Smiling .

Cloud

The Hebrew so rendered means "a covering," because clouds cover the sky. The word is used as a symbol of the Divine presence, as indicating the splendour of that glory which it conceals (Ex. 16:10; 33:9; Num. 11:25; 12:5; Job 22:14; Ps. 18:11). A "cloud without rain" is a proverbial saying, denoting a man who does not keep his promise (Prov. 16:15; Isa. 18:4; 25:5; Jude 1:12). A cloud is the figure of that which is transitory (Job 30:15; Hos. 6:4). A bright cloud is the symbolical seat of the Divine presence (Ex.29:42, 43; 1 Kings 8:10; 2 Chr. 5:14; Ezek. 43:4), and was called the Shechinah (q.v.). Jehovah came down upon Sinai in a cloud (Ex. 19:9); and the cloud filled the court around the tabernacle in the wilderness so that Moses could not enter it (Ex. 40:34, 35). At the dedication of the temple also the cloud "filled the house of the Lord" (1 Kings 8:10). Thus in like manner when Christ comes the second time he is described as coming "in the clouds" (Matt. 17:5; 24:30; Acts 1:9, 11). False teachers are likened unto clouds carried about with a tempest (2 Pet. 2:17). The infirmities of old age, which come one after another, are compared by Solomon to "clouds returning after the rain" (Eccl. 12:2). The blotting out of sins is like the sudden disappearance of threatening clouds from the sky (Isa. 44:22).

Cloud, the pillar of, was the glory-cloud which indicated God's presence leading the ransomed people through the wilderness (Ex. 13:22; 33:9, 10). This pillar preceded the people as they marched, resting on the ark (Ex. 13:21; 40:36). By night it became a pillar of fire (Num. 9:17-23).

Learn and you shall see. 

 

Wow! You utterly missed my points there! My first point was that you base a whole argument on the word 'countless' as anticipating modern scientific assessments of the actual number of stars, then when I point out a very similar sentiment about clouds, you go off on some completely irrelevant 'argument'.
The other point was a more generalised one, in that you are happy to seize on an expression which you think may be interpreted somehow as 'scientific', no matter how loosely, and ignore  the masses of other statements which are clearly metaphorical or poetic or based on mistaken pre-scientific ideas about natural phenomena.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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drdoubleu wrote: Is there

drdoubleu wrote:

Is there any historical proof that Jesus existed?

Cornelius Tacitus

Lucian of Samosata

Suetonius

Pliny the Younger

Thallus and Phlegon

Mara Bar-Serapion

Josephus

 

All of this has been obliterated as good reason to believe a Christ existed by our own Rook Hawkins.

 

Presenting Lee Strobel for your argument shows you haven't done your research:

www.caseagainstfaith.com

 

 


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Water and Ice

drdoubleu: Bob Spence wrote:Wonder what a 'Global Flood' would have doen to snow and ice caps....
 It would have thickened them and cooled the air in that area quite a bit as observed.
Ice under water that is above freezing point MELTS!!! The erosion  is even more severe when that water is turbulent or flowing. This even happens to icebergs in Antarctica! I have personally observed the difference between that part of an iceberg that has been under water for a while with that which has not, when I saw one tip up after a big chunk broke off, lifting one side up. This was in Antarctica, where the sea-water is below the freezing point of fresh water.... IOW, the correct answer is that the icecaps existing at the time of such a flood would have been massively eroded if not completely melted and washed away!
Are you so wedded to this insane idea of the reality of a truly world-wide flood that you think the scientists working on these ice cores would be not be fully aware of all the factors involved in forming the layered structure in these cores?  They can check the time scale by measuring the isotopic composition of the trapped air bubbles, so it's a no-brainer to be sure that the layers they are counting are seasonal ones. Of course that isn't the only way they can check. 
Basic checks of records of precipitation rates over historical times gives us a starting point for thickness vs time, so we can establish the characteristic seasonal pattern , and then just extrapolate down the length of the core continually adjusting for the effects of compression under the increasing weight of layers above, as well as progressive changes in average precipitation rate and pattern. The seasonal variation is very strong in high altitudes, as we go thru long periods of little or no daily sun to maybe 24-hour daylight, accompanied unsurprisingly by large changes in average temperature and snowfall, so the layering is still fairly clearly identifiable down to great ages and depths.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Sapient wrote: drdoubleu

Sapient wrote:

drdoubleu wrote:

Is there any historical proof that Jesus existed?

Cornelius Tacitus

Lucian of Samosata

Suetonius

Pliny the Younger

Thallus and Phlegon

Mara Bar-Serapion

Josephus

 

All of this has been obliterated as good reason to believe a Christ existed by our own Rook Hawkins.

 

Presenting Lee Strobel for your argument shows you haven't done your research:

www.caseagainstfaith.com

 

 

 

I don't have time today to read all the crap that your friend wrote but I will read it.  However, you have given me nothing but inaccurate statements and nonrespectable sources to date which makes it hard for me to give you any credibility.

In regards to Lee Strobel....this does not prove what he was is wrong:

 
Objection 1: Since Evil and Suffering Exist, A Loving God Cannot
Objection 2: Since Miracles Contradict Science, They Cannot be True
Objection 3: Evolution Explains Life, So God Isn't Needed
Objection 4: God Isn't Worthy if He Kills Innocent Children
Objection 5: It's Offensive to Claim Jesus is the Only Way to God
Objection 6: A Loving God Would Never Torture People in Hell (he does?)
Objection 7: Church History is Littered with Oppression and Violence (as if the rest of the world wasn;t)

Objection 8: I Still Have Doubts, So I Can't be a Christian

 These claims are evident to anyone that they are not able to hold credibility in disproving what someone says based on credible research and findings.  You can't disprove history, facts, people, archeology etc. based on a cheep shot of personal philosophy of there is no god since they can't make a rock that even they cannot lift.  Such thought contributes to the continual growth of stupid people.


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BobSpence1

BobSpence1 wrote:
drdoubleu: Bob Spence wrote:Wonder what a 'Global Flood' would have doen to snow and ice caps....
It would have thickened them and cooled the air in that area quite a bit as observed.
Ice under water that is above freezing point MELTS!!! The erosion is even more severe when that water is turbulent or flowing. This even happens to icebergs in Antarctica! IOW, the correct answer is that the icecaps existing at the time of such a flood would have been massively eroded if not completely melted and washed away!
Are you so wedded to this insane idea of the reality of a truly world-wide flood that you think the scientists working on these ice cores would be not be fully aware of all the factors involved in forming the layered structure in these cores? They can check the time scale by measuring the isotopic composition of the trapped air bubbles, so it's a no-brainer to be sure that the layers they are counting are seasonal ones. Of course that isn't the only way they can check.
Basic checks of records of precipitation rates over historical times gives us a starting point for thickness vs time, so we can establish the characteristic seasonal pattern , and then just extrapolate down the length of the core continually adjusting for the effects of compression under the increasing weight of layers above, as well as progressive changes in average precipitation rate and pattern. The seasonal variation is very strong in high altitudes, as we go thru long periods of little or no daily sun to maybe 24-hour daylight, accompanied unsurprisingly by large changes in average temperature and snowfall, so the layering is still fairly clearly identifiable down to great ages and depths.

 That would be a good conclusion if you disredard the fact that we only have the ability to measure precipitation since the time that it can be measured, that the isotopic meausrement of airbubbles has been debunked and that the thickness of ice would not melt due to the new water covering it.  Infact, the water as it travels to the south and northpole would continually get hold.  Hold in account that the mineral content is diluted and has a higher freezing point, mixed with the prexeisting ice you would have a possible few tons of ice thaw but then replaced by the freezing water ontop.  you would have ice start and the top, but ice at the bottom increasing the rate of ice freezing through thus making a faster, thicker ice cap.  Yes erosion does happen and did happen, but unlike today, they didn't have the global warming patterns...you are also disregarding the last mini ice age that even if the caps were melted away a great deal would have increadible build up between this time and the current planetary heating trends.   

"Are you so wedded to this insane idea of the reality of a truly world-wide flood that you think the scientists working on these ice cores would be not be fully aware of all the factors involved in forming the layered structure in these cores?"

 No but they didn't take it into consideration until they found the WWII planes.  They had a theory of error and then when found changed it, but it seems that you still base everything on that error.  I encourage you to read up on it.

 

Dude, even if there wasn't a global flood, this information is still known and I would still argue you about it. 


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drdoubleu wrote:Sapient

[mod edit: ENOUGH WITH THE CUT AND PASTE ARGUMENTS!]


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drdoubleu wrote: Get

drdoubleu wrote:

Get these books, read them, then talk to me

Buried Alive - The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man by Dr. Jack Cuozzo

The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
Lee Strobel

The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, God's Outrageous Claims, The Case for Christmas, The Case for Easter,also written by Lee Strobel (a former die hard atheist who sought after evidence to write a news article ending christianity but became a christian)

Does God believe in Atheists.

Tell me then whether or not you have the same ideologies.

I dare you.

Nah.  My parents-in-law try to give me enough of this sort of atheist-turned-xtian bs.  I don't care for it.  I also don't care for your smug attitude mister. 


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You do realize that 200+

You do realize that 200+ feet of solid ice is way more than what we would have if it was simply the result of the local snowfall over the period since the planes crashed, even if it was 50 years. 200 feet over even 50 years would be 4 feet  per year, wheras high snowfall in Greenland is in the range of less than 3 inches per year.
So 200 feet of solid ice over the planes has to be old ice, that had covered the planes due to an ice slide or glacier movement of some kind.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

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Sapient wrote:

[mod edit: ENOUGH WITH THE CUT AND PASTE ARGUMENTS]


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What is wrong with you? I


What is wrong with you? I did not ask you if Jesus existed. You went off on another elbortate scam.

Sayine, "George Washington was real" doesnt mean he could pull a Lamborginni out of his ass magically.

Weither Jesus existed was NOT the focus of my direct question.

NOW, let's try again, this time FOCUS!

No more crap.

SHOW US THE MECHINISMS OF HOW A "SPIRIT" GETS A GIRL PREGNANT!

Thats all I want you to adress, nothing else.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog