God - a liar?

I have a question. When you say
"If evidence is given for a younger earth, would any of you believe it? "Do you mean "will you uncritically accept anything a creationist says ?" ?Do you mean "will you believe a creationist over the vast majority of qualified experts ?" ?I am not committing to believing material just because it comes from a creationist. I am not committed to trusting creationists over all other experts. And no unbiased person could offer either commitment.So, how good is your evidence ? How will it fare when we check it out against what we know and against the views of other experts ? That is what will decide my reactions.

And I started with that since I started from the point of view that the evidence of age is very strong (equivalent to a good forgery) and I wanted to make the point that a deception does not require a formal statement.So can we agree that *if* God had created a highly detailed and consistent appearance of age, then it would imply that God is a deceiver - and that therefore we should reject the idea that the evidence of age is a false appearance. (see post 2 for my arguments that such a detailed appearance would have to be a deception).

Mike, you don't seem to understnad that this is all about the YEC "appearance of age" argument. The idea that all of the evidence of age is just an appearance.SO as I have already stated my position is that there is so much evidence of age, so many details and so much consistency - including evidence of events that happened BEFORE the YEC's creation date - that the only way to get such an appearnce of age is an intentional deception.So it is a subgroup of YECs that take a position that IMPLIES that God is a liar - even if they do not realise it.

So Mike what you are saying is that someone who DOESN'T beleive that the universe is a massive deception created by God is calling God a liar while someone who implicitly beleives that it IS is not calling God a liar.That's just twisted, Mike.Now once again in POST 2 I made my arguments as to why "appearance of age" implies that God is a liar. And once again you are IGNORING that and trying to pretned that I am somehow blameworthy for coming to a conclusion that YOU DON'T LIKE!I'm getting really sick of your attitude Mike. It reeks of dishonesty and hatred. Once again you REFUSE to discuss the points I raised back at the very beginning of the thread in order to try to fix blame where it doesn't belong. Why won't you DISCUSS this Mike ? Why all the evasions, excuses and the attempts to find someone else to blame ?

Lets start with the last item. Buzsaw's point in message 5 IS ALREADY ACCOUNTED FOR IN MY ARGUMENT. So why exactly should I read it again ?Now you say that you have highlighted areas where I tried to trick you. Now I kno for a fact that everything I wrote was entirely honest and that there was NO attempt to trick. So EVERY instance of highlighitn is a false accusation on your part.So did I say that YEC's accept that the evidence for age IS so great that the "apparent age" argument is a massive deception. No. Did I say that the evidence IS so strogn that "apparent age" must actually BE a massive deception and that therefore the "apparent age" argument IMPLIES that it is a massive deception. Yes I did. And that is the "trick" - honestly stating my posiiton.In the next point the "trick" is again - telling the truth about my own position. Post 2 GIVES the reasons for concluding that apparent age implies deception - and argues AGAINST the underlying assumption of your "football" analogy (i.e. that the evidence of age is weak and superficial).Comeo on Mike why are you complaining that I tell the truth instead of what you WANT me to say. Why call that a "trick" ?

Sylas, I came to the conclusion I did because:1) Mike has repeatedly refused to address the arguments I wrote back in post 2. He is refusing to even try to get to grips with the actual evidence. That is pretty bad in itself. He can't say that he has forgot about it - he's had plenty of reminders. There is no reasonable alternative now to concluding that it is a deliberate evasion of arguments he can't answer.2) Instead he prefers to generate ad hoc and false excuses - including maligning others who accept the evidence of age. Even if their reason for doing so is a trust in God.
He could try arguing that the evidence for age isn't *that* good, he could accept that the Earth and the Universe really are old, he could even try arguing that there is a reasonable alternative explanation - but he won't even attempt any of these.
By not actively disputing these points he is implicitly accepting that the evidence *is* or is at least likely to be that strong (simple gainsaying without an attempt to look at the evidence doesn't count in my book), that there is no reasonable alternative to deception given the weight of evidence and that it is at least possible that the Universe could be young and created to look exactly as if it were very, very old.In doing so he takes that attitude that God is - or at least might be - a liar, but that he should falsely accuse others to try to avoid blaming God.That's a pretty bad attitude from where I'm standing.

Mike, way back in post 2 I pointed out that:1) The evidence for age is very great, consisting of many consistent lines of evidence. Appearance of age alleges that all this evidence is deceptive.2) Given God's capabilities and knowledge the only reasonable explanation for why the deception was so perfect was that God meant it to be that way.That is why apparent age implies deception on God's part.Here's one YEC argument trying to explain radiometric dating in terms of an "apparent age". It is from AiG's "TJ" - which is supposedly peer reviewed so it ought to be high-quality by YEC standards. Billion-Fold Acceleration of Radioactivity Shown in Laboratory | Answers in Genesis See the section "A Creation Week Scenario".It alleges that God created all the matter that would make up the Earth as an ionised plasma - no reason why is given - with changes to the strong nuclear force which increase other decay rates.Now what ISN'T mentioned is that these would NOT speed up all radioactive decays proportionately (e.g. one might go 100 times faster, another might go 1000 times faster). Nor is it mentioned that the radiometric "clock" starts ticking when the rock solidifies.So what does God have to do for this scenario to work ? God has to age the different isotopes differently, THEN magic them into rocks so that the different isotopes give consistent (false) dates. And then God has to create MORE rocks with DIFFERENT false dates. And He has to arrange them so that all these false dates are consistent. None of that is mentioned but it is all implied - because that is the only way the scenario can produce the results we see.So why exactly would God do all that ? Rather than, say, miraculously creating Earth ex nihilo without a preceding plasma state and with all the rocks making up the planet showing a (true) age of zero ?Remember this is an actual YEC attempt at explaining radiometric dating and it has God jumping through hoops for no apparent reason other than to fool anyone who trusts radiometric dating. And that is just ONE of the lines of evidence for an old Earth.

What do you mean I "didn't take the chance" ?I STARTED by talking about the evidence - in post 2. If you are refusing to go back and lread it there - and instead insisting that I repeat myself then you are the one playing games.And I have explained often enough that it is the *implications* of apparent age that lead to the conclusion God is a liar - and even some YEC's agree with that and reject "apparent age" for that very reason.What I say is true - it isn't a "falsehood" because YOU don't like it.

Mike, before accusing me of "circular illogic" you really ought to take care to get your own arguments correct.I assume that the substitition to the quote is supposed to reflect your position - with corrections because your substitution doesn't actually make grammatical sense we arrive at the claim:"someone who DOESN'T believe that the universe has a false appearance of age created by God is calling God a liar"Well that's obvious nonsense. How could it possibly be true ?

Well, Mike I'm sorry that I didn't realise that your error was even worse than I thought. The statement you quoted was not my position - it was my perception of your position as can clearly be seen by the first few words "So Mike what you are saying....". You quoted those words, Mike - a shame you didn't read them.So I can't even call your post a "nice try".

Here are 2 OEC sites which say that apparent age implies that God is a liar.http://lordibelieve.org/page18.html
http://swordandspirit.com/_STUDY/texts/OEC.doc
(or if you don't want to read a Word file try
http://swordandspirit.com/_STUDY/texts/appearance.html )This site may or may not be OEC but it certainly is Christian
http://www.stalbans.org.nz/.../RobYule/Creation/fait_sci.htmEven this YEC site finds "appearance of age" questionable.
WordPress › Error I guess you think that all these people are determined to say that God is a liar, too ?

Well Mike IF you bother to read post 85 again you will see that BEFORE the statement you quote you say "It is not my position, it is your position.". And THAT was talking about your altered version! What was the point of altering it if not to make it reflect your actual position ?As for your revised posiiton it is still wrong. The point you are missing is that those who do NOT accept AoA - including myself - do not attribute the creation of deceptive evidence to God. AoA does that by definition. And when AoA comes up against the actual evidence then it does indeed attribute a "massive deception" on the part of God. The "light in transit" argument alone implies that the vast majority of the universe is an illusion - and that when we see a supernova more than 10,000 light years away we see an explosion that never happened destroying a star that never existed.If you want to DISCUSS the real issues then starting by addressing the points I raised in post 2. Your first post didn't do that. If you don't want to really discuss the points I raised then don't bother - some empty box-ticking enterprise is just a waste of your time and mine.

Mike, your "analogies" assumed that the evidence for an old Earth was weak and superficial. If you don't beleive that then you don't beleive that your "analogies" were valid.And what I said no more implied that God could be a liar than the OEC sites I provided links to. The initial post in the thread specifically asked about "apparent age" - and THAT is the context of my reply. All I did was give the reasoning behind the conclusion that "apparent age" implies deception on the part of God - a conclusion that as you have seen even some creationists agree with.

And if you see post 2 I explain why that is not a viable possibility.The most important reason is that God doesn't need to put up with "unintentional side-effects". The best you can argue is that an appearance of age is necessary in some respects - but even that fails when we consider the actual facts. For instance why would we need light from galaxies that can't even be seen with the naked eye ? Certainly not for "signs and seasons". In fact we don't need anything more than you would get from a literal reading of Genesis - a geocentric universe with all the heavenly bodies, just lights in the sky. And I'd really love to see how the success of radiometric dating could be explained by an "unintentional side-effect". A side-effect of what ?

Mike, are you trying to suggest there was something wrong with my presentation of that quote ? If not then just what ARE you trying to say ?