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Age of the Earth questions you may have for a Bible literalist

Ladewig

I lost an avatar bet.
Ladewig
Joined
Dec 4, 2001
Messages
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AvalonXQ has never tried to hide his or her belief in Bible inerrancy. That includes the idea that evolution as it is taught today has so many errors that it may be classified as incorrect and that all the miracles and stories of the Bible are a true and accurate description of what actually occurred (including Noah's Flood).


One of the things I have learned in my eight years as a JREFer is that when opening posters ask that a thread be limited to a specific topic or that people should act in a polite manner in a specific thread, noticeable numbers of posters will be offended and will appear to go out of their way to show that they will not accede to any request. Still, one must try. If you have questions about AvalonXQ's beliefs related to animal evolution or miracles recorded in the Bible, please contact him directly or start a new thread. (I have started this thread with AvalonXQ's permission) I make this request of future posters because even within this limited scope, the number of issues raised may increase dramatically.

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Let's begin.

Are you going with the Ussher date or do you have some other date or range of dates in mind?

If the former, then dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, shows that data from oak trees in Europe goes back over 9930 years. cite
 
I'm curious if Young Earth theories ever use the idea that the speed of light hasn't always been constant (even in a vacuum), and of course any commentary on dinosaurs would be fascinating to me.

I must admit I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to young earth theories ... however I live a couple of hours away from Dinosaur Valley in Texas (where one can see some amazingly preserved tracks in riverbeds, etc) ... and down the road from this state park is a creation museum. I went inside finally, just out of curiosity, and they had hyperbaric chambers (IIRC) conducting experiments and "fossils" with human foot-prints next to dino prints, etc etc. Is this kind of evidence crucial to young earth theory or is it discarded and/or irrelevant? In other words ... is it used to further the claims the scriptures/Genesis account make, or are they irrelevant to it?

As you have time AvalonXQ ....
 
Northern Arizona is characterized by a raised seabed and fossils at over 7000 feet. These occur in a limestone layer called Kaibab Limestone, similar to that seen in the Grand Canyon at the rim:

http://education.usgs.gov/schoolyard/IMAGES/GrandCanyonAge.jpg

Above this Kaibab layer is a 100 mile or so string of extinct or dormant volcanoes. The volcanoes to the west are larger and more eroded than those in the east.

Even a cursory field trip by an elementary class raises some serious questions for YEC claims:

Why are the sea fossils and limestone absent from the volcanoes?

Why isn't the erosion along the line of volcanoes equal?

http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/volclandforms.htm
 
"Is your head so effing hollow that you can always hear the seashore?"

But then I'm not very nice.
 
My questions about that are many, but I'll note down a few.

As far as I recall the exile to egypt happened relatively quickly after the great flood. This raises two immediate questions.
1: How did so large a population grow suddenly from only a few people?
2: Why would the descendants of Noah suddenly forget all about the power of God after having been demonstrated in such a clear way and in fact abandon the deity completely?

In that vein, why isnt the flood mentioned in egyptian records, as everything else is?

Given the massive breeding rates needed to repopulate the animals post flood, why can't we find a single fossil of say kangaroos on their way from the middle east to Australia?

Why isnt the fossil layer composed of all big animals at the bottom with all small animals on top as would happen during gravity selection following mass drowning?
 
Why is it that only the person who wrote the book of Joshua noted a 48 hour day? You would think that would be pretty remarkable to astronomers/astrologers in all other cultures that existed at the time. I can see why most cultures have flood myths, but why aren't there more "The sun didn't set for two whole days!" myths? I can think of several myths where the sun set too early, or didn't rise at all, but I can't think of any off the top of my head where it didn't set.


ETA: This isn't really an "Age of the Earth" question. Blargh. Feel free to skip it.
 
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Does it have to be about the age of the Earth? I have few questions (probably about a score or so) about the biblical flood that I want to ask him.
 
All very interesting, and all pointless. If a person will believe in miracles, without evidence, then no amount of evidence will convince him that a miracle did not occur.

Believers tell me that god created the universe, and everything in it, exactly as it appears today, including all the evidence of antiquity, some few thousand years ago.

There's no arguing with such an irrefutable hypothesis, it's a fool's errand to try.

"The bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it." It does.

DC
 
Near where I live (OK about 70 miles away, still), we have fossil-rich chalk cliffs which are, in total, about a thousand meters thick (mostly underground). When I say fossil-rich, it is really an understatement, since they are entirely made from fossils. Apart from the rich content of macro-fossils, the material itself is formed from the skeletons of microscopic marine creatures. Micro-and macro fossils together, they represent thousands of species, all extinct, and any column consists of the remains billions of individual creatures. I might add that similar deposits exist over extended areas, in multiple locations on Earth.

Please describe any plausible bio system that could sustain enough biomass to create such deposits in the time-span of a few thousand years.

Hans
 
a3sigma said:
Believers tell me that god created the universe, and everything in it, exactly as it appears today, including all the evidence of antiquity, some few thousand years ago.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, such a position begs a few questions, for instance:

- So God is intentionally misleading us, by installing fake signs of great age in Earth?

- Assuming that an almighty creator can create false signs of great age, why should we subscribe to the biblical time-scale in particular? If God could, and would, create false signs of antiquity 6.000 years ago, he could have done it at any time. How do I know the world was not created 6 years ago? Or 600,000 years ago? Or this morning?

- If I can't believe in what God shows me through the world, why should I believe in what God shows me through the Bible (which is, after all, just another part of the world)?

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
Unfortunately, such a position begs a few questions

Hans
Click to expand...


All easily dealt with:

He's not misleading us. The bible tells us exactly what happened. Appearances to the contrary are irrelevant. Assertions to the contrary are blasphemy.

We should subscribe to the biblical time scale because it alone is true.

The bible is not just another part of the world, it's the holy word of god.

and on and on....

There is no arguing with obstinate belief in magic. It is senseless to talk sense. Logic, evidence, and reason simply do not apply. Neither does it help to point out the myriad inconsistencies and contradictions in the bible. The response is that every word in the bible, including all editions and translations, is exactly as god intended. His intentions are beyond our understanding, and not subject to our scrutiny.
 
Wow. Lots of questions.
Ask whatever. I'll note, however, that questions based on presenting evidence that you have are unlikely to get a quick answer unless it's evidence I've examined in the past. I'm not willing to just discard evidence I haven't seen before without looking at it, and neither am I able to spend a lot of time examining new evidence these days.
We had a similar problem when an evolution thread was tried some time last season.
 
Ladewig said:
Are you going with the Ussher date or do you have some other date or range of dates in mind?
Click to expand...
I think Ussher's way too specific. However, it seems unlikely that, accepting the geneologies and accounts in the Bible as historical fact, you're going to get much beyond about 10,000 years.


If the former, then dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, shows that data from oak trees in Europe goes back over 9930 years. cite
Click to expand...
My understanding is that tree rings vary greatly according to water patterns in a given region, and that a tree may often produce two or three "year's" worth of rings in one year with cyclical floods, may produce fewer rings during a drought, etc. If this is the case, counting tree rings only works if we definitively establish how often a ring is produced.
ETA: I note that your cite claims that this difficulty is "controlled for".
 
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MarkCorrigan said:
Does it have to be about the age of the Earth? I have few questions (probably about a score or so) about the biblical flood that I want to ask him.
Click to expand...

I suggested a limited topic to allow AvalonXQ enough time to respond to all the questions. The ratio of questioners to answerers could exceed 20 to 1.

You can post it and see if AXQ answers it, you can send a private message to AXQ, you can start a new thread, or you can dig up an old Flood thread and ask AXQ to respond to that thread.
 
I was curious about YETheorists POV on the overall data that exists:

When you look at the scientific data, do you think that the bible explains the evidence better, or do you feel its more a case of examining evidence through a biblical lens to make it complimentary?

In other words, when you initially saw the scientific evidence, was your train of thought something like, "This doesn't seem to explain things very well." and when you examined the biblical accounts, you thought, "This seems to fit with the evidence I've examined."

Or was it more a case of, "Well, some of the evidence science has gathered doesn't seem to compliment the bible. Either the science is incomplete or the bible is not understood correctly, but the bible isn't or cannot be wrong."

I don't know if I'm phrasing things well ...
 
trentwray said:
I was curious about YETheorists POV on the overall data that exists:

When you look at the scientific data, do you think that the bible explains the evidence better, or do you feel its more a case of examining evidence through a biblical lens to make it complimentary?

In other words, when you initially saw the scientific evidence, was your train of thought something like, "This doesn't seem to explain things very well." and when you examined the biblical accounts, you thought, "This seems to fit with the evidence I've examined."

Or was it more a case of, "Well, some of the evidence science has gathered doesn't seem to compliment the bible. Either the science is incomplete or the bible is not understood correctly, but the bible isn't or cannot be wrong."

I don't know if I'm phrasing things well ...
Click to expand...

I think I basically look at the data and ask, "How well does this fit in with the Biblical account? How well does this fit in with the naturalist account? Which explanation fits better? Does this evidence cause problems for either account or bolster either account?"
Occasionally my conclusion has been "this evidence is a real challenge to Account X," but more often my conclusion is "both accounts have a reasonable explanation that fits with this evidence".
What's important to note, though, is that there is a WHOLE LOT of evidence out there that I haven't examined or studied. I'm not a geologist or an archeologist; I'm no expert.
And I have no way of knowing what each additional piece of evidence will tell me until I see it.
 
a3sigma said:
All very interesting, and all pointless. If a person will believe in miracles, without evidence, then no amount of evidence will convince him that a miracle did not occur.

Believers tell me that god created the universe, and everything in it, exactly as it appears today, including all the evidence of antiquity, some few thousand years ago.

There's no arguing with such an irrefutable hypothesis, it's a fool's errand to try.

"The bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it." It does.

DC
Click to expand...

You know, beyond internal inconsistency i have a huge question for YEC'ers.

The bible states that god can not or will not lie. Now the only explanation for yec is that god created the earth, including signs of antiquity.

But, if he created said signs in order to trick us, he is lying to us. Which would flatly contradict that statement.

So either god can and does lie, or YEC is not a position that can be defended. And if god can lie, that is going to shake the hell out of the foundations of christian teachings.

So the question to put it more clearly, is how do you explain god lying to us by making the world look very old, when the fact that he cannot lie is taken into effect?
 
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