Creationsim vs. Science

[Xahmen]

A lot of the argument against Christianity (or monotheism in general) is that the world and it's people have existed on this planet far longer than earliest recordings of time in the Good Book.
While there is scientific proof backing this claim up (carbon dated fossils and ruins) there are still prominent and outspoken leaders of the Conservative Party in the U.S.A that deny this.
Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and George W. Bush have all at one point or another admitted (or bragged) about being a Creationist: believing that the world is roughly four-thousand years old.

What is your stance, mind you, saying that the world may be older than four-thousand years doesn't mean you aren't believing in God.

I have to side with Science.  

[Austin Shipp]

this is stupid, you are setting up creationism to fail with your statements, and no creationists dont beleve the earth is 4,000 years old  

[Xahmen]

Wat.
Are you serious?  

[Scazarith]

Creationism and carbon dating can both be correct.

There are theories, and the bible hints in many places to confirm these theories, that there was a civilization here before adam and eve. This civilization wasn't necessarily "man" as we know him but something of the sort. Appearantly God leveled this civilization by flooding the entire earth (no I'm not confusing this with the story of Noah and the ark. I'm implying that he has flooded the earth more than once) because they were following Lucifer who as God's right hand man at the time was appointed to watch over the earth and had tried to set himself up as "god" to these beings on the earth. This is how he got big headed and eventually tried to overthrow God. [this was very possibly the first ever Epic Fail]
Now this is just a brief runthrough of this theory but if you get more indepth on it, it actually makes a good bit of sense.

Also, before adam and eve ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they were without sin. And without sin there is no death. This means they were not aging or dying. Adam and eve could've lived in the Garden of Eden for a million years before they ate of the fruit. The bible gives us no timeline on this.

So there are two very feasible examples of how the bible and science can coincide.  

[Austin Shipp]

lol BRAVO!!!  

[Big_Wave_Legacy]

Ohh I love these arguments.

Concerning the bible. In genesis ch 1 verse 28, god told adam and eve to replenish the earth, which means to fill again. This means there was already life on earth. Lucifer was in charge of earth, many angels were rulers of nations, or planets. I need my bible which i dont have on me to find the verse for this. But when lucifer was in rule of earth there was life on it. Many christians consider the time sice adam and eve to be 4000 b.c. but they were not the first beings on earth.

Concerning creationism and science. Well let em state a few things. In astonomy it mentions the big bang theory. Which means everything in the universe were created out of an explosion. Well concerning chemistry, matter cannot be created or destroyed. Only recycled. Unless its a nuclear reaction, but an atom must already be present for more atoms to split. So that fact in science contradicts that theory in science.  

[Crimson Raccoon]

Interesting discussion! Good points.

I'd like to mention that just because the Earth may appear to be older, that doesn't mean its impossible to believe that God created it just a few thousand years ago. After all, when God created Adam, he was a full-grown man, and if the very next day Adam had gone to the doctor for a check-up, the doctor would have told him, "You're 40 years old." And, for the purposes of the doctor and of Adam's health, he would have been correct. Why couldn't it be the same way with the Earth and Universe? God could very well have created them in a mature state, same way as Adam and all plants and animals, so that when scientists look at them they appear older, and for all intents and purposes, are older.

By the by, literalistic creationists believe the earth is about 6000 years old, not 4000. This is based on the genealogies of the Bible, which lists each generation and how long they lived. However, as was already said above, not all Creationists believe that the earth is 6000 years old, that's just how long its been since Adam was created. There are a few different interpretations about the age of the earth before Adam.

Also, Genesis states that Adam died when he was 930 years old, so he could not have lived in the Garden in Eden for millions of years. He and Eve may have been there for several years, but the genealogy says that Adam was "only" 130 years old when he became the father to Seth, and this was after expulsion from the Garden.

Scazarith, is what you're describing known as Gap Theory, or is this something different? I don't know much about it and I'd be interested to know what it's based on, things like the idea of an earlier race of people being wiped out by a flood.  

[Big_Wave_Legacy]

Well I know im not scazarith, but i think i know this myself but he could go in greater detail. There were two floods noahs and lucifers. As i said satan was ruler of earth and there was life on earth. the earth became so corrupted around the time lucifer was kicked out. so god flooded the earth to destroy all living life on it and he started from scratch.

but i would like to hear what scazarith says.

honestly i dont believe in "carobon dating". you cant tell how old a fossil is. there are soo many things that interfere when reading ages of things. i dont know really how to describe my concept for this. thats one thing i need to work on.  

[divineseraph]

Carbon dating goes by halflives. If you know how long it takes something to degrade, then you can tell how old it is by how degraded it is.

Take, for example, milk. If you have milk without a date, you can tell how old it is by how much it's degraded. If it smells and tastes fine, it's probably less than a month old. If it's become solid and tastes sour, it's been there for a long time.

These fossils have been tested by the half-life of radioactive carbon ions they have. The half-life of one of this stuff (Basically, how long it takes for it to completely evaporate) is a very, very long time. And so, by looking at how much of this carbon ion is evaporated, we can tell about how old the thing is.

Now, I'm no chemist, but I'm pretty certain that's how it's done, in simple terms. If anyone knows better, fill in where I messed up.  

[Xahmen]

I'm not to sure how keen I am on the "God made the world 6000 years ago but he put the dinosaur bones and stuff in the ground to make it look older" theory.
That seems a little ridiculous to me.

Divine, your simplified explanation of carbon dating was spot on. It isn't a conjectural science, and there really isn't any debate involved, it's fairly spot-on up to a point, and most scientists will just say "Well it's older than this thing here, but we can't tell how much older" when hitting that point of indiscernible data.

You guys ever hear of Lucy, the oldest recovered human fossil?
Click
3.8 to 4 million years old.  

[Crimson Raccoon]

Zahwomen

I'm not to sure how keen I am on the "God made the world 6000 years ago but he put the dinosaur bones and stuff in the ground to make it look older" theory.
That seems a little ridiculous to me.

haha, yes, that is ridiculous. xp It goes a good deal farther than what I said, though. I'm not sure how many people out there believe God put dinosaur fossils in the ground, but I suspect they are very few and quite the fringe group. Speaking in terms of the vast majority, a person who believes the earth is 6,000 years old also believes that the prominent dating methods of scientists are inaccurate, and that the fossils are much younger that they have been dated to be.

As described by divineseraph above, Carbon-14 dating is the bedrock method used for dating fossils and other such things as millions of years old. It is indeed widely accepted in the scientific community, but nonetheless it's still not a 100% proven method. There are a few assumptions that it's based on, which cannot be known for sure, at least not by our present knowledge.

Though it is a widely accepted method, the history of science is fraught with widely-accepted methods being proved false and reversed. It happens in every field of science every century. I would persuade you not to just write off someone who decides not to believe in carbon-14 dating as a quack. When prevalent science contradicts something in the Bible, some people choose to put their faith in science, and some choose to put their faith in the Bible. It is a fact that numerous undebated scientific theories have been falsified throughout history, so though many people believe in carbon-14 dating, a conscientious disbeliever of it can still be respected as intelligible.

A Christian article that gives a scientific discussion about possibility of carbon-14 dating being inaccurate is this page from AnswersInGenesis.com. I'm not necessarily expecting it to change anyone's mind about anything, I just want to show that it is not completely insane to disbelieve the dating methods, because there are some unproven assumptions it's based on which this article brings up.

I myself am not decided on what the Truth is about the age of the Earth. I probably will never make a decision, at least not until more definitive scientific evidence emerges. It's not fundamental to my Christian beliefs. I could believe that the dating methods of scientists are wrong. Or, I could believe that the description in Genesis of Creation in six days is metaphorical, and that each day represents a long age. Whichever possibility turns out to be true, neither should really have any effect on a Christian's faith.

Remember that I pointed out that "young-earth" Christians get the date of 6000 years from the genealogies in the Bible which say how long each person lived. So really, it only shows that humans have been on earth for 6000 years. If the six days of creation are actually representative of longer periods of time, then the dinosaurs could well have roamed the earth millions of years ago, before man was created. This is another prominent interpretation of the Creation, referred to as Day-Age Creationism.

I apologize that my posts turn out so long. If brevity is truly the soul of wit, I am an epic failure. gonk  

[Big_Wave_Legacy]

I understand the half lives, and its exponential decay, but I still dont believe it. there a bunch of crap that goes with it. what if the mineral breaks into 2 parts then decayse. the surface are expands and the decay rate will be somewhat faster. there are more flaws with it. anyways, i personally believe there was life on earth before adam and eve and its even supported in the bible.  

[Big_Wave_Legacy]

I understand the half lives, and its exponential decay, but I still dont believe it. there a bunch of crap that goes with it. what if the mineral breaks into 2 parts then decayse. the surface are expands and the decay rate will be somewhat faster. there are more flaws with it. anyways, i personally believe there was life on earth before adam and eve and its even supported in the bible.  

[Xahmen]

Wow, Crimson, that was a long, thought out, informative post(s).  

[divineseraph]

Big_Wave_Legacy

I understand the half lives, and its exponential decay, but I still dont believe it. there a bunch of crap that goes with it. what if the mineral breaks into 2 parts then decayse. the surface are expands and the decay rate will be somewhat faster. there are more flaws with it. anyways, i personally believe there was life on earth before adam and eve and its even supported in the bible.

I'm pretty sure it goes by the amount of radioactive stuff it's putting out. It puts out less and less over time. I would guess they use a standard, like a gram or so of the stuff to measure scientifically.