The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

stevejazzx

wolfsbane wrote:

Hmm. Just off the top of my head: CRS Quarterly http://creationresearch.org/crsq.html

One the articles from that site:

Deposits Remaining from the Genesis Flood: Rim Gravels in Arizona

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][/FONT]Michael J. Oard and Peter Klevberg
CRSQ Vol 42 No 1 pp 1-17 June 2005

Abstract

Well-rounded coarse gravel provides clues to the depositional process. The coarse gravel of the Mogollon Rim in central and northern Arizona, called Rim Gravel, was examined at two widely separated and representative locations. Further characteristics of the coarse gravel was obtained from the literature. The coarse gravel occupies the highest terrain in the region and is very coarse in east-central Arizona. It is deduced that this coarse gravel was deposited as a sheet and eroded into remnants during the Recessional Stage of the Genesis Flood. We conclude that the Rim Gravel provides evidence that the Flood/post-Flood (D/P) boundary corresponds to the stratigraphic location of rocks termed “late Cenozoic” in the uniformitarian geological column in this part of the western United States. This interpretation is relevant to theories for the formation of many notable geomorphic features, including the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.

*****************************************************

Seriously? I imagine wicknight was looking for something a tad more scientific than this childrens story.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

We can very easily deduce a number of conclusions about God and his nature if he does in fact exist outside of time and views all time as one.

The only possible conclusion is that God does not move through time as we do, because saying that God is enslaved to the present as we are would contradict the statement that he isn't. As such he would not, by definition, experience humans emotions that are defined by our inability to exist except in the present.

Your last sentence is a key to our controversy. Who says our emotions are defined by our inability to exist except in the present? Why can an eternal being not have changing emotions? Because Wickie says so? How can you know such a thing?

Saying God feels regret, or other human emotions that are defined by the passage of time

God's felling of regret was in response to our behaviour. Because He knows all that is to come does not mean He cannot respond to it. Even for the Christian in the eternal state, happiness will be a constant emotion only because nothing will be permitted to make us sad. God now permits things to make Him sad, angry, happy, etc. That will not always be the case.

is exactly the same as stating that God can get lost, in that it is an unworkable paradox. Either these statements cannot be true or the initial nature of God as defined by the Judeo/Christian religion cannot be true.

It is either one or the other.

The initial nature of God as defined by the Judeo/Christian religion is in full conformity to the idea that God feels emotions. It is your definition of what governs emotions that is at fault. The paradox is one of your own imagination:

Thats my point. If he isn't a slave to time then he exists at all points at the same time, and the same exact God, the same exact state of God, that exists at the start of time also exists at the end of time, and everything in between. Therefore the passage of time has no effect on the state, emotional or otherwise, of God.

He does not exist in such a manner. His freedom from time is His sovereignty over it, not its non-existence or His inability to respond to all its changes. God rules time and space so that all things work together to accomplish His will. Nothing happens without His permission. Not a grain of sand rolls down a dune on the most distant planet, not a sun extinguishes without His command. That is His relation to space and time.

wolfsbane

stevejazzx said:

Seriously? I imagine wicknight was looking for something a tad more scientific than this childrens story.

He might have the sense to read the whole article, not just the abstract:
http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/42/42_1/deposits_arizona.htm
Dismissive caricature is one way of avoiding debate.

Seloth

I was curious to know if you believe in Evolution or Creatism.

Yes I do believe in God But I believe in Evolution too.Quiet frankly the only people who seem to believe in Creatism are either American or elderly people

stevejazzx

Ehm, ok got through most of that article. Some already well established facts about stones trotted out otherwise a very rambling article. I include the conclusion here and highlight in bold my criticisms -

Summary

Coarse gravel on top of the Mogollon Rim in central and northern Arizona, called the Rim Gravel, has great significance for questions of historical geology in the American Southwest. We examined two widely separated and representative locations near the northwest Rim and along the east-central Rim. The coarse gravel occupies an erosion surface on the highest terrain in the region and is believed to have once been continuous all along the Rim. A large percentage of the coarse gravel is exotic quartzites, sometimes with percussion marks. Based on literature sources(not listed, which ones please!!!), paleocurrent data (a grpah please with the data) indicate the coarse gravel was transported from the south and west, which currently is at a much lower elevation than the Mogollon Rim. Based on Palewith the ohydrological analysis, we calculate that the coarse gravel was transported by sheet flow moving at velocities of at least a few tens of meters per second (40 mph or greater).(unsubstaniated as far i can see but irrelevant anyway)
Although the uniformitarian age of the gravel is generally believed to have been early “Cenozoic,” it can be surmised(why exactly) that the gravel and the “Mogollon Highlands” to the south were eroded probably in the mid “Cenozoic.” The more channelized erosion of the area probably would be assigned to the late “Cenozoic.” This is premised, of course, on the assumption that these uniformitarian classifications have any real meaning at all.
We infer that this coarse gravel was deposited as a sheet during the early Recessional Stage of the Genesis Flood. The area then underwent erosion of the deposited gravel and substrate during uplift of the area, generally during the Channelized Phase of the Deluge. We conclude that the Rim Gravel provides evidence (how???) that the Flood/post-Flood (D/P) boundary largely corresponds to the stratigraphic location of rocks termed “late Cenozoic” in the uniformitarian geological column in this part of the western United States. Since the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River cuts through the Rim Gravel, this feature must post-date the deposition of the Rim Gravel at least slightly.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

The general level of Bible knowledge amongst Christians is very poor, apparently. See this article, for example.

The more interesting points:

"Fewer than half of us can identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible, and only one third know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount."

"Approximately 75 percent of adults, according to polls cited by Prothero, mistakenly believe the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves." More than 10 percent think that Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. Only half can name even one of the four Gospels, and -- a finding that will surprise many -- evangelical Christians are only slightly more knowledgeable than their non-evangelical counterparts."

Thanks for that interesting quote. No surprise really. Just shows the nature of social or nominal religion. Even the 'evangelical' figures are no surprise, for, as I have often pointed out, that is often just a social tag in America.

The reality of the findings is best captured by the Washington Post's original byline for it:
Americans believe in religion -- but know little about it.

None of the Evangelicals I know would give any of those silly answers, even those with a poor education.

wolfsbane

pH said:

I'm still waiting for J C (or indeed any other creationist) to explain scientifically the presence of Iron (or indeed any star-forged element) on earth.

Why must iron be star-forged?

Sapien

wolfsbane wrote:

Why must iron be star-forged?

Indeed. Why bother coming up with an explanation for why a thing exists at all? There is an easier way... Over to you, wolfsbane.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

Who says our emotions are defined by our inability to exist except in the present?

How else would they be defined? Do you know anyone who doesn't move through time?

wolfsbane wrote:

Why can an eternal being not have changing emotions?

An eternal being can have changing emotions, so long as it only exists at a point in the present and moves through time as we do.

If the being exists at all points in time, or exists outside of time, as it is claimed by your religion that God does, then it will not have changing anything because there is no "present" to change. The past is exactly the same as the present which is exactly the same as the future. Otherwise it would be constantly over-writing it self in the future.

If you want to try and explain to me how something that exists at all points on a time line can change as the present moves along this time line be my guest Wolfsbane.

wolfsbane wrote:

How can you know such a thing?

Because instead of just blindly accepting the Bible, I thought about it for 5 minutes. I suggest you do the same.

wolfsbane wrote:

Because He knows all that is to come does not mean He cannot respond to it.

Actually it does, because to respond to something means to make a reaction when it happens, or after it happens. "When" doesn't exist for God. All points on the time line are equal and observed and experience at the same time. There is no "when" from God's point of view.

wolfsbane wrote:

God now permits things to make Him sad, angry, happy, etc.

Wolfsbane you are still thinking as if God exists only in the present, and therefore at this moment God can be something that he wasn't 5 minutes ago or 5 minutes from now.

But its the exact same God 5 minutes ago and the exact same God 5 minutes from now, since the same God exists at all points in time. It isn't a future version of God, like you could talk about your future self. It is the same God that exists now. If he is sad he is always sad. If he is happy he is always happy. If he is angry he is always angry. And that wouldn't make much sense since those emotions are rather mutually exclusive (can you be happy and sad over the exact same thing at the exact same time?)

wolfsbane wrote:

The initial nature of God as defined by the Judeo/Christian religion is in full conformity to the idea that God feels emotions.

If you believe that then I can only say, as I said to JC, that you need to read your Bible.

wolfsbane wrote:

His freedom from time is His sovereignty over it, not its non-existence or His inability to respond to all its changes. God rules time and space so that all things work together to accomplish His will. Nothing happens without His permission. Not a grain of sand rolls down a dune on the most distant planet, not a sun extinguishes without His command. That is His relation to space and time.

None of that changes the conclusion, in fact it simply strengthens it. God is completely detached from the entrapment to the present that humans experience.

Because you are not in the same state you were 5 minutes ago, and you won't be in the same state you are now 5 minutes in the future, your state can change as the present moves. You only exist in the present, you don't exist in the future yet and you don't exist in the past anymore.

But imagine if you did actually exist 5 minutes in the future. We will keep this simple, lets say that instead of exist only at one point in time at any one time (ie the present) you could actually exist at two points in time (God of course exists at all points in time, but we will keep it simple for the moment).

So you exist at point A, which is now, and point B which is 5 minutes from now.

You have a state at point A, we will call this state State 1. This includes everything from your exact position to your mental state at that point, what you are thinking about, all your stored memories, your emotional state etc.

Ok, so you exist at point A. But at the same time you are existing at point B. So all the properties of State 1, your position, your emotions, etc are also at point B. For example, say you are happy at point A, the present. You are also happy at point B, because you exist at point A and point B at the same time in the same state, State 1.

Say you are sitting on a chair looking out the window at a 43 degree angle at point A, the present. Since you also exist at point B at the same time then in point B you are also sitting on a chair looking at exactly the same thing out the window at a 43 degree angle.

So everything you are doing at point A is also being done at point B, because "you" (the one you) are existing at both points at the same time. There is only one "you," one state. But unlike normal reality where this one state, this one you, exists only at one point at a time (the present), we are supposing that you exist at two points at a time (the present, point A, and 5 minutes in the future, point

Now, this is where it gets interested.

Say the present, which was at point A, runs on a bit, for 5 minutes. As with the normal passage of time your state changes. You move, your brain things of something else. You might change your mood. To some up your state alters each millisecond that the present moves forward. We will call this future state State 2

So what happens when you get to Point B. Remember you exist at point B while you were existing at point A. The present has moved on to reach point B.

You cannot destroy yourself, destroy the state 1 that existed at point A and point B. When the present moves on to point B state 1 is still perfectly valid. It is the state you exist in at point B. As the present moves forward towards point B State 1 already exists at point B. State 2, the state after State 1, cannot over write this because State 1 is already at point B.

Your state cannot change between point A and point B because your state is already defined at point B as being State 1. It must remain at State 1, it cannot change to state 2 because that would create an illogical paradox, where you state at Point B just suddenly ceases to exist.

Now imagine if you existed not just at Point A and Point B at the same time, put at all points in time, as God is supposed to. His state cannot change in relation to our present because a state for God is already defined in the future because he exists there, just like your state at Point B cannot change because it is already occupied by "you".

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

stevejazzx said:

He might have the sense to read the whole article, not just the abstract:
http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/42/42_1/deposits_arizona.htm
Dismissive caricature is one way of avoiding debate.

Unfortunately for me I did read the whole article.

Leaving a side the mountain of mistakes and assumptions that even I, based on limited Leaving Cert geography, picked up on (the bit about "Percussion marks" is particularly weak) this paper is actually nothing to do with Intelligent Design or Biblical Creation. It is an assessment of a rock in North America that based on the markings of on the rock that the authors interpret at being caused by high speed collision they attribute (almost without cause) to a large flood in the area, which again they attribute to the Biblical Flood. Just because they can I guess. There are far more detailed and backed up papers on what actually caused the Mogollon Rim formations.

I am vaguely familar with Oard's papers. They all seem to follow a similar pattern. Present the "conventional" scientific theory, detail how it can't be correct, and then suppose a better theory that fits with the Bible. Which all sounds find and dandy, this is surely how science is supposed to work, until one spots that the "conventional" theory presented by Oard isn't actually the conventional theory at all. It is therefore easy to show its wrong since no one actually thinks its correct. I would imagine Oard is doing the same here with his "Uninformitarian Explanation", which surprise surprise he has no trouble going to town on. But I would have to leave a critical assessment of that to the geologists here.

But to summarise, nothing to do with a model on how a Biblically created world should work. Not what I asked for.

Son Goku

wolfsbane wrote:

Why must iron be star-forged?

There exists no nuclear pathway to iron through non weak force scattering, only the weak force will allow these transitions. The weak force doesn't come into existence until high energy densities, which are found in Stars and very heavy atomic nuclei.

Only Stars maintain the energy density.

robindch

> There exists no nuclear pathway to iron through non weak force scattering,

Carl Sagan had a nice thought about this:

All the elements of the Earth except hydrogen and some helium have been cooked by a kind of stellar alchemy billions of years ago in stars, some of which are today inconspicuous white dwarfs on the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy. The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of Star Stuff

Humanity is "star stuff contemplating star stuff". Think of it the next time you look up into the sky on a dark, cloudless night.

.

robindch

> Quiet frankly the only people who seem to believe in Creatism are
> either American or elderly people

...or people who don't know much about biology...

You may have missed it, but there's a thread going on this already. Do feel free to join in here

stevejazzx

..... as my previous attempt to prevent people from reading the whole article was spotted straight away link is bleow...

http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/40/40_3/Henry.htm

again I highlighted my criticisms in bold.

Conclusions


"Time" in general, and the age of the earth in particular, is the heart of evolutionary theorizing. Even more, the conventional age of the earth is the ultimate foundation for other long chronologies, both inside and outside the solar system. The evolutionary age of the earth is ultimately based on nothing more than Lyellian uniformitarianism,
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
radiometric claims notwithstanding, and Lyell's own agenda was to displace the biblical chronology (there's nothing in the article to support this) with a secular one. Aside from the evidences that the cosmos does not have a long age
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html)
it is also true that discrediting an old age for the earth discredits old ages for the universe as well. Since the earth is not truly old, the billions-of-years chronology for the sun, the solar system, and the universe has no (they want ot teach this in schools?)foundation. It is therefore no wonder that the humanist community has steadfastly rejected the concept of a recent creation for the earth. It is also clear that recent creationists must continue to defend the biblical doctrine of a young earth. (the composer of this piece appears to have alterior motives)
Along these lines, a group of creation scientists is currently looking at the theory and results of radioisotope dating. The preliminary conclusion is that substantial radioactive decay has indeed occurred in rocks. However, this decay has not taken place slowly over geologic ages. Instead, one or more episodes of accelerated decay with greatly shortened half-lives took place in the past, thus accounting for the array of radioisotopes allegedly requiring billions of years to form. According to Vardiman (2000, p. 4), It has been suggested that these increased decay rates may have been part of the rock-forming process on the early earth and/or one of the results of God's judgment upon man following the Creation(he was doing so well), that is, the Curse or during the Flood. (that flood again!)

So I have read 3 of these articles here now and they are all ......largely unfounded, all extremely biased toward there being a litrealistic creationist begining coincidentally not a single finding to contradict such.

Zombrex

stevejazzx wrote:

..... as my previous attempt to prevent people from reading the whole article was spotted straight away link is bleow...

http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/40/40_3/Henry.htm

The evolutionary age of the earth is ultimately based on nothing more than Lyellian uniformitarianism,
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
radiometric claims notwithstanding, and Lyell's own agenda was to displace the biblical chronology (there's nothing in the article to support this) with a secular one.

More nonsense.

This isn't a scientific paper, it is a rant about how Lyell had an "agenda" against religion.

"Lyellian uniformitarianism" is simply the idea that slow moving geological events shape the Earth. It was a challenge in the early 19th century to catasrophism, the established idea of the time that massive catastrophic acts of God shaped the Earth.

Saying modern geology is based "on nothing more" than this is like saying modern theories of gravity are based on nothing more than the assumption that gravity is a natural force rather than God simply pushing you down.

BTW I like the way radiometeric dating is just dismissed as completely wrong and based on "unfounded assumptions"

"Further, the mere occurrence of radioactive decay implies nothing about how long it has been happening. This is the fallacy of confusing the time to complete a process with the interval over which the process has been occurring."

This author doesn't seem to understand anything about radioactive dating. One has to wonder why he makes such simple mistakes when he is supposed to have a Ph.D in Chemistry.

I find it very hard to believe that any of this crap is peer reviewed by anyone in the field it claims to be discussing.

Scofflaw

Just for fun, and puttng my geologist hat on, let's go through some of the points form that paper. It's very kind of wolfsbane to have provided it, since it's always a pleasure to me to read a scientific paper. This post may get rather long.

Uniformitarian scientists would normally interpret rounded rocks as the result of a river or beach process. When they observe rounded rocks, they have a tendency to interpret them as fluvial (Miall, 1996). Generally, one does not encounter littoral (along beaches) environmental interpretations of rounded coarse gravels.

Indeed we do. Fluvial action can be observed to produce rounded pebbles, whereas beach pebbles tend to be smoothly flattened, and flood sediments tend to be angular.

Creationist geologists also expect much rounding of rock during the Deluge. So, the latter need to carefully examine the characteristics of the coarse gravel to be able to distinguish between a Flood-laid coarse gravel and one laid down in the postdiluvian (post-Flood) period.

Now, there's a curious statement. Why do Creationist geologists expect this? Modern floods do not produce rounded stones - the initial onset period is too brief, and after that the environment of a flood is more like being in a lake than a river.

The only possible reason I can think of is that the Flood was very violent, and involved much grinding and bashing of stones even after the floodwaters had covered them. Of course, if that was the case, no animal skeletons would have survived to become fossils, any more than they would in a modern ore mill.

One of the distinguishing processes between river deposits and diluvial deposits could be the locations of the coarse gravel deposits. The most intriguing locations are the well-rounded coarse gravels found atop plateaus and mountain ranges, especially in situations where the lithologies do not outcrop in the landform.

Note that this contains the assumption that a young earth is true, but the author hasn't quite thought this through. Assuming that the Grand Canyon was eroded down through Flood sediments, the same should be true elsewhere, and the place we would most expect to find immediately post-diluvian rivers is on higher ground.

Uniformitarian geologists would simply conclude that the coarse gravel was the remnant of an ancient river, but they rarely analyze their deduction in depth. This is where the diluvialist should examine other properties of the coarse gravel, such as its lithology, areal extent, geomorphology, and texture, to see if the deposit matches products of modern fluvial processes.

Ha. That's short-hand for "the uniformitarian geologist is able to analyse the result quickly, because there is an enormous body of work on the identification of sediments" whereas "the diluvian geologist should look for anything that might be used to claim a non-fluvial origin".

This article represents a literature search and a reconnaissance field description from two locations suitably representative but far apart in northwest and east-central Arizona.

In a step up from the normal approach of creationists, the author has actually chosen to actually loo at the actual rocks! Two reconnaissance visits and a literature survey - hmm - for my undergraduate mapping I did a literatire survey, plus six field weeks on the same few square miles of rocks. You may consider me underwhelmed.

There is also a large percentage of local “Paleozoic” rocks, especially sandstone. It is claimed that there are no local basalt boulders in the Rim Gravels, but only exotic basalts of K-Ar ages older than the gravels (Elston and Young, 1991), which may depend upon the exact definition of Rim Gravel. It is also a suspect conclusion unless geochemical data of statistically adequate number and not just “ages” disprove a connection with basalt flows in the region.

Which is to say, we don't accept dating, so dating techniques are unacceptable to disprove a connection we want to be there. Unfortunately, geochemically identical basalts of a different age would fool the test the author proposes.

Percussion marks were observed on many quartzite cobbles and boulders in the Rim Gravel. Percussion marks are not observed forming on clasts in modern channels where bedload occurs as described above. Even extremely energetic stream rapids seldom produce percussion marks, though a small percentage can be produced by waterfalls or hurricanes under the right conditions (Berthault, 2004, personal communication).

OK, we're talking about a highly energetic environment. Tha euthors claim that there is no evidence of channel structures, so this was not a braided stream environment.

Table III. Contrasting Interpretations of Rim Gravel Characteristics

I won't reproduce the table. It is sufficient to note that the author has set up a straw man here. The mainstream geological literature describes these gravels as "sheet flow" gravels (based on my own quick literature survey) - the author claims that the gravels are assumed to be fluvial.

Deposition of the coarse, tabular, surficial gravel was clearly regional and catastrophic...
...
...The likelihood that the Rim Gravel was first deposited as a sheet during an erosional event, after a great amount of deposition of other sediments, implies deposition during the Abative or Sheet Flow Phase during the Recessional Stage of the Deluge (Walker, 1994) (Figure 4).

Sigh. There's an even bigger straw man being used here, which at last explains why the author has chosen to use the term "uniformitarian geology" for mainstream geology. Uniformitarianism has two uses - indicating either:

a) the idea that everything happened by very gradual processes, as opposed to catastrophic events
or
b) the idea that the physical processes we see at work today operated in the same way in previous eras

Now, modern geology is uniformitarian, certainly - but it is uniformitarian in the second sense. Geology has not been uniformitarian in the first sense since the early 1900's - which is, coincidentally, when all creationist critics of science appear to have stopped their clocks. That's not a sneer, by the way - we repeatedly see the use of definitions, concepts, and theories that went out of date a century ago, but which creationists still set up and tear down. "Still fighting the last war" is the sneer, I think...

The coarse, tabular, surficial gravel capping an erosion surface is difficult to accommodate in a uniformitarian scenario because the once continuous cover over a wide area is not a stable feature or one seen forming in modern environments. Yet many remnants cover large areas to this day. In the east-central part of the Mogollon Rim, the coarse gravel often forms a flat surface on the highest terrain over a large area. It is difficult for uniformitarian scientists to appeal to terrain reversal due to the armoring of the coarse gravel because some of the gravel is matrix supported. In the hypothetical concept of terrain reversal, it seems that the gravel should end up as a lag and be clast supported. Lag deposits should provide a rough outline of paleochannels, yet this does not appear to be the case. So, the coarse gravels give every indication of being caused by a great catastrophe. But was this catastrophe the Genesis Flood or events in postdiluvian time?

Mmm. Now we're onto dismissing the mainstream explanations with one hand, while moving up the different Flood explanations with the other. Unfortunately, there are large gravel sheets in areas of rapid uplift like the Himalaya. Since the Colorado Plateau is supposed to have been undergoing massive uplift at the time, it's a little premature of the author to simply dismiss the mainstream position...

...but it never gets mentioned again.

So, in summary, the author has:

1. set up and knocked down a straw man (the fluvial interpretation)
2. set up and knocked down the larger straw man of the outdated sense of uniformitarian when applied to geology
3. assumed that catastrophic events in the geological column are necessarily Flood events, on the basis of 2
4. totally ignored the rest of the geological column, allowing him to interpret one single stratigraphic level as the waning phase of the Flood without any reference to what that would implie for the sediments below (and above) the Rim Gravel in the stratigraphic column
5. based all this on the level of research required for an undergraduate essay

Of these errors, the major one is 4. No attempt is made to work from the interpretation given of the Rim Gravel to the implications for the sediments above and below it. This is, unfortunately, also typical.

cordially,
Scofflaw

bonkey

Wicknight wrote:

Saying modern geology is based "on nothing more" than this is like saying modern theories of gravity are based on nothing more than the assumption that gravity is a natural force rather than God simply pushing you down.

Well, yes.

It could just be intelligent falling.

Scofflaw

stevejazzx wrote:

..... as my previous attempt to prevent people from reading the whole article was spotted straight away link is bleow...

http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/40/40_3/Henry.htm

And again, we find these interesting little claims:

Hartmann claims that, "The age of the solar system is 4.6 Gy [billion years]. This figure has been derived from studies of rocks from three planetary sources: the meteorites … the moon, and Earth" (Hartmann, 1983, p. 119). There appear to be three independent dating sources (the meteorites, the moon, and the earth) referenced here, but in fact the age of the moon is worked out to agree with the earth's alleged age (Hammond, 1974, p. 911; Fix, 1999, p. 186), and that of meteorites is worked out to be slightly older than the earth (Fix, 1999, p. 335).

Oh dear. Moon rocks and meteorites have been independently dated, by the usual methods, so this claim is false.

But wait - of course! Creationists don't accept radioisotope dating, so the above claim works from their point of view.

Unfortunately, that's very like saying "haha! So other than by measuring the distance the usual way, you are in fact only assuming that Dublin to Galway is 136 miles - a figure that all too conveniently agrees with your figure to Shannon Airport".

So, yes, if you reject information you don't like, you can pretty much conclude whatever you want. It's a shame that it proves more about you than about anything else, though.

cordially,
Scofflaw

stevejazzx

Scofflaw wrote:

Just for fun, and puttng my geologist hat on, let's go through some of the points form that paper. It's very kind of wolfsbane to have provided it, since it's always a pleasure to me to read a scientific paper. This post may get rather long.



Indeed we do. Fluvial action can be observed to produce rounded pebbles, whereas beach pebbles tend to be smoothly flattened, and flood sediments tend to be angular.



Now, there's a curious statement. Why do Creationist geologists expect this? Modern floods do not produce rounded stones - the initial onset period is too brief, and after that the environment of a flood is more like being in a lake than a river.

The only possible reason I can think of is that the Flood was very violent, and involved much grinding and bashing of stones even after the floodwaters had covered them. Of course, if that was the case, no animal skeletons would have survived to become fossils, any more than they would in a modern ore mill.



Note that this contains the assumption that a young earth is true, but the author hasn't quite thought this through. Assuming that the Grand Canyon was eroded down through Flood sediments, the same should be true elsewhere, and the place we would most expect to find immediately post-diluvian rivers is on higher ground.



Ha. That's short-hand for "the uniformitarian geologist is able to analyse the result quickly, because there is an enormous body of work on the identification of sediments" whereas "the diluvian geologist should look for anything that might be used to claim a non-fluvial origin".



In a step up from the normal approach of creationists, the author has actually chosen to actually loo at the actual rocks! Two reconnaissance visits and a literature survey - hmm - for my undergraduate mapping I did a literatire survey, plus six field weeks on the same few square miles of rocks. You may consider me underwhelmed.



Which is to say, we don't accept dating, so dating techniques are unacceptable to disprove a connection we want to be there. Unfortunately, geochemically identical basalts of a different age would fool the test the author proposes.



OK, we're talking about a highly energetic environment. Tha euthors claim that there is no evidence of channel structures, so this was not a braided stream environment.



I won't reproduce the table. It is sufficient to note that the author has set up a straw man here. The mainstream geological literature describes these gravels as "sheet flow" gravels (based on my own quick literature survey) - the author claims that the gravels are assumed to be fluvial.



Sigh. There's an even bigger straw man being used here, which at last explains why the author has chosen to use the term "uniformitarian geology" for mainstream geology. Uniformitarianism has two uses - indicating either:

a) the idea that everything happened by very gradual processes, as opposed to catastrophic events
or
b) the idea that the physical processes we see at work today operated in the same way in previous eras

Now, modern geology is uniformitarian, certainly - but it is uniformitarian in the second sense. Geology has not been uniformitarian in the first sense since the early 1900's - which is, coincidentally, when all creationist critics of science appear to have stopped their clocks. That's not a sneer, by the way - we repeatedly see the use of definitions, concepts, and theories that went out of date a century ago, but which creationists still set up and tear down. "Still fighting the last war" is the sneer, I think...



Mmm. Now we're onto dismissing the mainstream explanations with one hand, while moving up the different Flood explanations with the other. Unfortunately, there are large gravel sheets in areas of rapid uplift like the Himalaya. Since the Colorado Plateau is supposed to have been undergoing massive uplift at the time, it's a little premature of the author to simply dismiss the mainstream position...

...but it never gets mentioned again.

So, in summary, the author has:

1. set up and knocked down a straw man (the fluvial interpretation)
2. set up and knocked down the larger straw man of the outdated sense of uniformitarian when applied to geology
3. assumed that catastrophic events in the geological column are necessarily Flood events, on the basis of 2
4. totally ignored the rest of the geological column, allowing him to interpret one single stratigraphic level as the waning phase of the Flood without any reference to what that would implie for the sediments below (and above) the Rim Gravel in the stratigraphic column
5. based all this on the level of research required for an undergraduate essay

Of these errors, the major one is 4. No attempt is made to work from the interpretation given of the Rim Gravel to the implications for the sediments above and below it. This is, unfortunately, also typical.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Great post, sir.

Zombrex

An Old Age for the Earth Is the Heart of Evolution wrote:

When the Hubble constant was initially evaluated, the "upper limit" age it gave was too small to satisfy evolutionary geologists:

Unfortunately, the reciprocal of Hubble's constant gave an age for the universe of only 1.8 billion years. Rocks on earth were then already known to be as old as 3.0 billion years. Obviously, the universe could not be younger than the earth (Kornberg, 1978, p. 10).

Once again, a supposedly independent evolutionary chronometer works out in reality not to be independent, but is tied back to an old age for the earth.

This is complete nonsense.

Hubble constant has been debated and argued over for the last 50 years by theoretical physicists. The altering of the constant from Hubbles initial over estimate of 500km/s/mpc had nothing to do with objections from "evolutionary geologists", it was due to maths and future observations. And that value continued to be debated for years. The first modern estimate of the value was made by Allan Sandage, a student of Hubble.

Who peer-reviewed this crap? Jonathan F. Henry is a chemist. Quite why he is writing a paper on astrophysics I'm not sure (why are nearly all Creationists papers written by people who do not study or work in the field of the paper itself?), but one would at least expect that some real physicists would have "peer-reviewed" this paper and told him that this isn't true. Are there no Creationists physicists?

If this is the standard of "science" that Creationists conduct I weep for the students of the Kansas school district, or these poor students.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/3088444.stm

BrianCalgary

Well I'm not American.

Age I suppose is relative (46), so if you consider me old, then you are right.

philologos

Seloth wrote:

I was curious to know if you believe in Evolution or Creatism.
Quiet frankly the only people who seem to believe in Creatism are either American or elderly people

I'm Irish born and bred and I'm young (17), and I believe in Creationism. By the by, did you miss the huge 254 page thread about it?

Dave!

Enter it at your peril.... Your mind will be destroyed, this I promise you!

philologos

Some would already consider my mind destroyed for being a Christian. Doesn't mean I take any notice of them.

philologos

Just to bring this back to prophecy. I only really expect Christians to answer this question, but do you think that there are prophets among us today?

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote:

Just to bring this back to prophecy. I only really expect Christians to answer this question, but do you think that there are prophets among us today?

I'm not saying this just because I want to get back to more Creationist bashing (though it is fun ) but there has been so little about prophecy in this thread that you are probably better off starting a new thread on prophecy, particularly if you want input from Christians (I think most of the Christian posters avoid this thread). Any attempt to discuss it here will probably just get drowned out by the evolution-creation debate/argument/mud-wrestle

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote:

Some would already consider my mind destroyed for being a Christian. Doesn't mean I take any notice of them.

Well you wouldn't, your mind is destroyed ..

philologos

as is your soul

Zombrex

I was wondering what that mess on the carpet was ...

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Hubble constant has been debated and argued over for the last 50 years by theoretical physicists. The altering of the constant from Hubbles initial over estimate of 500km/s/mpc had nothing to do with objections from "evolutionary geologists", it was due to maths and future observations. And that value continued to be debated for years. The first modern estimate of the value was made by Allan Sandage, a student of Hubble.

Actually, the idea of geologists wanting anything to do with Hubble's constant is quite funny. Most geologists study it in the first place to avoid physics.

cordially,
Scofflaw