Summations Only

Hi ICANT,No, I am not a creationist in the overwhelmingly most common meaning of that term. That is, I do not believe that a literal reading of the bible describes the history of mankind or the universe in an accurate way. Think about this logically. How could I believe that the universe came from a place where maths doesn't work? That would be like believing that the universe came from a place where a story "wasn't written".What do I think:
1. The universe from today until about 13.7 billion years is well described by the standard cosmological model, which is mostly derived from General Relativity.
2. I know that that model stops working at a certain point 13.7 billion years.So, I have a scientific knowledge of the last 13.7 billion years of cosmic history. At no point do I make a claim of the universe's origin.However I do think that West Semitic literature written around three thousand years does not contain an accurate depiction of what occurred.This thread is about how frequently people met individuals during their youth who did think West Semitic literature written around three thousand years actually describes the history of the world.I hope that is clear enough.Edited by Son Goku, : Would -> What, I think I can't spell anymore!

Hi foreveryoung, But I thought you were a biblical literalist? If so, then this appears to be an attempt to have your literalist cake and eat it. Either the genealogies are accurate, in which case they can clearly be used to date biblical events, or they are not accurate, in which case the Bible is errant. I don't see how your middle ground position would work. Even using comparative dating, the Hadean was a long time before humans appeared on the scene. In fact, there were no modern animals or plants back then. There were no humans during that period, therefore neither the Hadean nor the Archean can possibly be the Flood era.How do you explain this contradiction? Be sure to mention that to your geology professors. But that's not the only geological process going on is it? For a start there is erosion. There are also subduction zones where whole tectonic plates gradually disappear into the mantle. Does your model take this into account?Mutate and Survive

Hi Son, When I am talking about a creationist I am refering to someone who believes the universe had a beginning to exist.Did the universe begin to exist 13.7 billion years in the past?
OR
Was the material the universe is formed from exist eternally in the past? I never heard about a creationist until I came to EvC in 2007.I had heard of religious people that believed in a young earth and people who believed in an old earth called gap theory.I had heard of people who believed the universe began to exist with a big bang.I never believed any of them. Because the Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Since God had no beginning the universe could have no beginning. It existed, just was not in the form we see today.God Bless,

I suppose the universe could have existed within the imagination of God before He actually created it. If I were to build a new deck onto my house, I could well imagine what it will soon look like. Does that mean the deck actually exists?

I know the universe existed 13.7 billion years ago and that it was very small and hot at
that time. I don't know what existed before then, so I don't know if it existed eternally
before that, existed for a few billion years already, only started existing a microsecond before that. I simply don't know.

Hi Phat, If you have imagined the deck in your mind and even drawn a blueprint it exists in your mind and on paper.But if there is no material in existence for you to build the deck it does not exist and cannot exist, unless you have the ability to speak the materials into existence.But since the metal and wood does exist, the deck exists in some form just not in the form you have imagined or drawn on paper.God Bless,

Hi Son, If you don't know the answer, then why ask the question concerning creationism?The universe either existed in some form or it began to exist.If the universe began to exist there had to be an entity in existence to create the universe causing it to begin to exist.That entity could have been the Hartle-Hawking instanton, or two branes banging together. In either case there had to be existence of some kind in existence.God Bless,

Hi Phat, The man in Genesis 2:7 was formed from the dust of the ground. Thus he was made not created.Mankind in Genesis 1:27 was created in the image/likeness of God.A great ocean creature was created in Genesis 1:21.The heavens and the earth was created in Genesis 1:1.Those are the only creation events mentioned in Genesis chapter 1 & 2.All following uses of (bara) created, was refering to one of the above events. There is the possibility that matter/energy was created ex nihilo. But the text in Genesis 1:1 does not support such an idea. Now if my Hebrew professor was correct and we should interpet Genesis 1:1 as "In the realm or sphere of the beginnings God created the heavens and the Earth" that would support that matter/energy was created ex nihilo.God Bless,

Just look in any general archaeology text. You will find descriptions of culture sequences from several parts of the world.None include a flood event with total population and culture disruption at that time period.Egypt is a good example. Their writings began before the date ascribed to the flood and continued beyond that date. There was no break as would have been seen from a global flood.

I don't understand the reason for your question. This site is based around the evolution/creationism discussion. However I never met Creationists growing up, so I wondered if anybody else had. This, to me, seems completely unrelated to my knowledge of the beginnings of the universe.

Re: Evidence vs. belief
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, I am a biblical literalist. The genealogies are accurate; they just were never meant to measure time. They have been trimmed multiple times to keep them from being unwieldy. The son is still the ancestor of the father in each line. The hebrew language does not neccesitate a 1 generation descent per line. Hundred of generations could be held within one descent line. Just because you can't find human fossils, doesn't mean they weren't living. Can you find fossils for every species that ever lived? I didn't think so. You can make no definitive statements about what lived and what didn't live based on fossils. There is no contradiction. I am at the very top of both of my geology classes and was the top of the one I took last semester. I am not suicidal. Why should I risk such a good record? Erosion cannot date a single thing. It isn't consistent enough across all situations to be reliable. Yes, my model takes plate tectonics into account. My accelerated decay model provides a means for rapid plate movement and subduction.

Like I said, they just gave up an quit. They lack the ability to think deeper into the matter it seems. First, unevidenced,unobserved mechanisms that are contrary to the known laws of nature are called miracles in case you were not aware of that. The creation was a miracle in terms of what happens today. The flood was a miracle in the same sense. The laws of nature were different during creation than they are today. It was changing the very laws of nature that caused the great cataclysm otherwise known as noah's flood or known to scientists as the late heavy bombardment. It is what caused the mantle to differentiate into a molten part and different densities of peridotite and crustal material. It is what caused the extreme number of mantle melting events and greater volume of mafic melts. It is what caused the plates to move faster upon a much less viscous athenoshere. It is what caused to the plates to collide and subduct at a much faster rate than today. To sum up: Accelerated decay goes hand in hand with accelerated plate tectonics.As for the heat: If the decay was spread out over half a billion years and all the original radioactive material was concentrated in the center of the earth, your imagined problems suddenly disappear. The RATE team just caved in because they were intimidated by the proposed problems and didn't have enough ingenuity to think of possible solutions.Edited by foreveryoung, : No reason given.

So, when the Bible says "son", we shouldn't take that literally, because interpreting the Bible literally would be a stupid way to interpret the Bible.But you are still a Biblical literalist, and we should interpret the Bible literally, because that is how God wants us to interpret the Bible.Er ... how about you argue that one out with yourself? Sure, but on the same basis you could say: "Just because you can't find pigs with wings, doesn't mean that there aren't winged pigs".When I say that there were no humans in the Archean and that there are no pigs with wings, I am speaking on the basis of all the evidence that we have.Now, clearly, we have to (provisionally) make our minds up about things based on all the evidence we have. Well then, it seems that there are no pigs with wings and no humans in the Archean. Well, sure, if you never say what you think, then your record would be perfectly good. Also, if I never said what I think, I could pass myself off as a good Christian. But the success of my dishonesty wouldn't make me a good Christian. And if you are deceiving your professors, that doesn't prove that you are good at geology, it proves that you are good at pretending to be good at geology. No-one said it was a consistent dating method. You were asked whether you could take it into account. I for one would like to see if your model consists of anything more than handwaving.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Yes, I am a biblical literalist. The genealogies are accurate; they just were never meant to measure time. They have been trimmed multiple times to keep them from being unwieldy. The son is still the ancestor of the father in each line. The hebrew language does not neccesitate a 1 generation descent per line. Hundred of generations could be held within one descent line.

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I guess that you don't know the Bible very well. The genealogies give an age for the ancestor at the time when the descendant is born, and it is those ages which are used rather than an assumed time between generations.e.g. Genesis 5:3 says that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born. 5.6 says that Seth was 105 when Enosh was born. 5.9 says that Enosh was 90 when Kenan was born. And so on.Inserting extra generations doesn't change the calculation at all.

No they didn't. Quite so. The world's leading creationists are idiots. You can put them right.Well then, why don't you start by talking to them instead of us?Let us know how you get on. Yes, they're called miracles, I do know. So maybe the sky is green but god's working a miracle to make it look blue. Maybe diamonds are as squishy as Jello, but god's working a miracle to make them appear hard. Maybe I have three legs, but god's working a miracle to make it look like I only have two. And maybe the earth is young, but god's done a miracle to make it look old.You can always fantasize that god has done a miracle to make things look different from how they are. But we have to go by appearances. According to the evidence we have, the sky is blue, diamonds are hard, I have two legs, the Earth is old. If god is deceiving me in any of these respects, then I am in fact deceived. But the materials examined by the RATE project were not in the center of the earth. They were in the crust where they could take samples. Your fantasies about what might have happened in the center of the earth have nothing to do with the evidence that they actually gathered. No they didn't. They didn't cave in, and they did have sufficient "ingenuity" to make up a lot of unevidenced crap --- as I have shown.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.