Inspecting a rock the day after creation

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Why? Because the same old rock as the example inn the OP would likely be there. Since they were created that way and there would be no way to declare it deceptive. The confusion comes when people look at the natural processes that came to exist after creation, and use those and those alone to tell us where the rock came from. Simple

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Why wouldn't we find a rock that looks like it's millions or thousands or zero years old though?The thing that makes it deceptive is that since we know how radioactive decay works, the ratio of parent to daughter isotopes creates a pretty obvious inference in to the past. If we know trees form 1 ring per year, and we cut open a tree to find 50 rings, it's a pretty natural conclusion that the tree is about 50 years old.You're not wrong that if the tree was actually supernaturally formed yesterday, relying on the rings would produce an incorrect conclusion. And it wouldn't be surprising at all if that conclusion was inconsistent with other evidence. But where things get closer to actively deceptive is if the ring evidence is also consistent with other evidence. It's still not wrong that a supernatural creator could also create a photograph that looks like it's 30 years old of a 20 year old tree, and a book that looks 50 years old that describes planting a tree, but what reason is there to do that other than an active attempt to trick people in to thinking the tree is 50 years old?When it comes to rocks, "God just made them that way" can explain why a particular rock looks billions of years old if you're satisfied with that kind of just so explanation, but it seems harder to explain why not just that rock but all the other rocks would be created in a way that leads to a consistent but wrong conclusion.

... and if the rock also happens to have a fossil in it?

Obvoiusly Bob Altemeyer has done a lot of research, but nonetheless I feel he's missed the boat entirely. If you ask dad3 or K.Rose or marc9000 or mike the wiz I'm sure they'll say one or both of these:

1. I did nothing wrong.
2. I've been wronged plenty here.

They don't feel guilty, they don't feel they need forgiveness, because they've done nothing wrong.--Percy

Where did I ever say that? Seriously: SHOW ME!You cannot show me, because YOU ARE LYING! And you know full well that you are lying!Your entire religion, CREATIONISM, is nothing more than a pack of lies. Indeed, its primary lie is that it is Christian. It is not Christian! It violates Christian doctrine at every turn as it seeks to discredit Christianity completely. Not that Christianity needs any help in discrediting itself, but the audacious arrogance of your mendacity posing as Christian is especially egregious. I'm sure that your god, the Great Deceiver (AKA Satan), has taken notice of you. As Jesus said of other hypocrites, you shall have your "reward". Your constant railing against "natural only" and "natural is all that exists" and "the supernatural does not exist" and accusing science of taking that position is just another stupid creationist LIE. SCIENCE TAKES NO SUCH POSITION! Rather, science does not include nor use the supernatural for the simple reason that it CANNOT use the supernatural. AS YOU YOURSELF HAVE NOTED!topic Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1, Message 1512: Like Rick Perry said, "Even a broken clock is right once a day."* Surprisingly, you got two things right:

• Science deals only with the natural it observes.
• The supernatural cannot be observed. Doesn't mean that it does or does not exist, [DWise1]but then who could possibly tell if it cannot be observed?[/DWise1]
  

But since then you've repeatedly taken a sharp left into the weeds by claiming to have "non-natural" means of observing the supernatural. It hasn't help at all that you have steadfastly refused to explain those "non-natural" means of yours.Obviously your refusal is because you have no such means, except for the traditional approach of just making shit up. Actually, every single "observation" of the supernatural is just making shit up. Exactly as you have been doing here. Your operative creationist lie here is conflating two very different terms:

• PHILOSOPHICAL Materialism -- the philosophical position that only the natural exists and that the supernatural does not exist. This is a purely philosophical position that has nothing whatsoever to do science nor how science works.
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• METHODOLOGICAL Materialism -- the practical and pragmatic concession that science cannot work with nor even deal with the supernatural, unlike the natural which science can work with and deal with quite well, so science restricts itself to the natural and leaves the supernatural alone. That includes excluding supernaturalistic "explanations" since they are inherently untestable and hence actually explain nothing, unlike naturalistic explanations which ARE testable and which do explain a lot. Nothing in METHODOLOGICAL materialism denies the possible existence of the supernatural, it merely states that we cannot use it. The worst it can say about the supernatural is that it is useless in and to science.

Your creationist lie is to conflate those two concepts, to false claim that science uses philosophical materialism. To hang a lantern on it: that false claim of yours is a complete and utter LIE.If you want to discuss this, then discuss. Knowing creationists, I anticipate that you will either refuse to (either actively or passive aggressively) or try to deflect and divert or just plain flat-out lie.Whichever way you choose, you may NOT choose to pretend that you have not been informed. Therefore, if you continue to push your stupid lie, then you will be denounced as a deliberate liar and your stupid false religion as a lie. Furthermore, you continued use of your stupid lie will constitute your admission of defeat. We cannot. Neither can you.

Bumper Sticker:

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MILITANT AGNOSTIC:
"I don't know ... AND NEITHER DO YOU!"

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However, we can posit a supernatural creation and then discuss it.That is what I have been trying to do and which you have repeatedly tried to prevent.I'm trying to be reasonable and have a discussion, while you insist on being unreasonable and want to prevent any kind of discussion. How typically creationist of you.More on that in another reply. I've been doing that all along, whereas you are the one broadcasting your own pathetically immense ignorance.Heed your own words lest it continue to be your own petard upon which you are constantly hoisting yourself.Of course, you could finally decide to try to learn something. But we all know that you hold your willful ignorance too dear for that to happen.

In a way, scientists are a bit too trusting in that they do not expect Nature to be trying to deceive them. They expect the natural evidence that they collect to be actual evidence and not a deliberate hoax.Still, it is science that then detects a hoax through further testing, and never any critics of science like creationists.Interesting thought: if dad's/dad3's/you're fired's (¿indication that he's also a MAGAt?) lying god is also the one who promised him Salvation, wouldn't that lying god have been lying to him about Salvation too? We know from decades of dealing with creationists that liars will lie about anything and everything. Curious minds want to know.

dad3's new name and the change he made to his account status have raised my concerns, so I've set his posts per day rate to 1.AbE:I've also removed his edit permissions.

About a decade ago Bob Altemeyer, PhD Psychology, retired after a 40-year career as a psychology professor at the University of Manitoba. I just learned in his Wikipedia article that he died about a year ago aged 83.In his doctorate exams he failed the part on authoritarianism, so he had to do further research, write a paper, and retake that part of the exam. That experience made him interested in the subject and authoritarianism became a primary research subject throughout his 40-ish-year-long academic career.From Wikipedia:

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Altemeyer performed extensive research on authoritarianism, identifying the psychological makeup of authoritarian followers, and authoritarian leaders. His studies concentrated on who the followers are, how they got that way, how they think, and why they tend to be submissive and aggressive. He also collected data on authoritarianism among North American politicians.

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Altemeyer documented his research in several books, most recently for general audiences in The Authoritarians, written at the suggestion of John W. Dean. Altemeyer's work is referenced in Dean's 2006 book, Conservatives Without Conscience. Altemeyer's last book, Authoritarian Nightmare, co-written by Dean, is a book about U.S. President Donald Trump and his authoritarian followers.

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Had he not died, he would have been a good authority during the next four years (and, sadly, probably beyond). The Authoritarians is available for free as a PDF and for a nominal charge in e-Book formats. I have referred to that work and quoted from it several times on this forum. I agree with you, but not because we could possibly trust their word for it. Since when have they and theirs ever displayed any capacity for self-awareness?

Hey!! How did I get dragged into this?

Ask Percy, Message 123 which you yourself just quoted.With your wonky aim, you must have trained as an Imperial stormtrooper.

/Pegged it.I *did* see the smilie, but in case you're still truly mystified at how people here see you then I confess I'm mystified at your mystification. As I keep reminding you, your very first posts here were under false pretenses. You're one of a group of members, and I should have included Dredge, who feel that inconvenient facts can just be ignored, or even worse denigrated as just digs and aspersions. And you've been doing it for so long with like-minded people that you're not even aware you're doing it. You feel as innocent as a new born babe.It often feels like this group doesn't see people who disagree with them or who hold different religious beliefs as worthy of respectful treatment, they can just do with them as they please. That's why dwise1 quoted Bob Altemeyer on the influence forgiveness has on Christians, but I believe arrogance, in the form of "I'm a forgiven Christian and can do no wrong," is the bigger factor because it seems more frequent that they commit ills without believing they've done anything wrong.I'm sure dad3 believes that his sequence of very short, repetitive and disrespectful responses were just fine because they were just what the people he was in discussion with deserved. So he ignored his minimum word limit that's intended to restore meaningful discussion, and when the alert box warning about suspensions became reality he changed his alias to "you're fired" and his status to "inactive," causing me to interpret this as anger and to believe it possible that when he returns later today that he would attempt to muck up threads (which has happened before), so I took further action by setting his message rate to 1 per day, and I removed his edit permissions.I mention all this because the kind of behavior dad3 is exhibiting is only seen from Christians.There's an interesting thing about discussions where two sides are trying to convince the other. Claims that resonate or are outrageous or even just sound believable have much greater power than facts. Politely and innocently protesting that you have no idea what xongsmith's constitutional reference meant has much more power than merely noting the fact that there have been around 20 posts in this thread that mention it (one of the incidents rhymes with "statuary fixed", others with "stone walls").Facts are only effective in discussions when both sides respect them. When one side gives far more weight to a good story then facts fall by the wayside. That's why marc9000 fills his posts with references to the Biden crime family and media coverups and ignores entire posts because they were only to "pacify and amuse your poster-base". He also says, "But you can't warn me about what those specific violations are? You can't, because I don't violate forum rules to anywhere near the extent that you, and others do here, as you constantly trash forum rule #10 when responding to me." He's a little angel. You all are, at least in your own minds.Anyway, if you want to make facts an important focus that would be wonderful. I know it's another thread, but it's where you're acting as if Trump's first term never happened and that we should expect to be happily surprised at the wonderful things that are about to happen. Responses will be strongly skeptical and contain strong objections, some of them rude because people really don't like being gaslighted.--Percy

As I said as Percy, people have raised issues and questions concerning your views. You should answer them.Please be aware that your post limit has been set to 1 per day. Your edit permissions have also been removed. Your post limit will be increased rapidly and then removed if meaningful discussion resumes, and your edit permissions will be restored.

*Whew*
Alot of misconception and character indictment to unravel here, so I'll address the most poignant in an attempt to avoid scattering this into multiple tangents.

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... or even worse denigrated as just digs and aspersions

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A "dig" is an unnecessary criticism that distracts from the larger discussion. An "aspersion" is a unproductive harsh attack on someone's character. There's plenty of that going on in here.

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Politely and innocently protesting that you have no idea what...

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I admit this idiosyncratic behavior. This is in response to obscenities and vicious insults to, perhaps, lighten things up or emphasize that such outbursts won't evoke a serious response.

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Facts are only effective in discussions when both sides respect them.

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Conversational debate such as within EvC is primarily tit-for-tat exchange of opinion. Facts are cited, then opinions are formed around those facts, then the opion is what's asserted. For example, given a 34-count convicted felon (fact) you see properly executed prosecutorial activities and court proceedings, and I see banana-republic-style unconstitutional abuse of government power. At some point you have to agree to disagree and move on. Cordial agreement to disagree is critical to civilized discourse.

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...dad3 believes...marc9000 fills his posts...

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I haven't had the inclination to try and follow & understand either series of posts. Maybe I'd agree with them, maybe I wouldn't, so I don't know if I'm OK or not with being lumped together as one.

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..."I'm a forgiven Christian and can do no wrong,"...

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Maintaining this attitude is completely wrong-headed, the truth is quite the opposite. And the longer I live the more profoundly curious it is that a people, a people aware of their own innate imperfection and embracing of humility, who make no claim to be "better" than anyone else, who strive to hold God and others above themselves, who value service to others above their own wants and indulgences, who want to share their beliefs through love and behavior (rather than argument and conquest), continue to draw so much ire.

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A "dig" is an unnecessary criticism that distracts from the larger discussion. An "aspersion" is an unproductive harsh attack on someone's character. There's plenty of that going on in here.

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And you’ve dismissed directly relevant facts as “digs”. Message 224 being the case I remember.

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Conversational debate such as within EvC is primarily tit-for-tat exchange of opinion. Facts are cited, then opinions are formed around those facts, then the opion is what's asserted. For example, given a 34-count convicted felon (fact) you see properly executed prosecutorial activities and court proceedings, and I see banana-republic-style unconstitutional abuse of government power.

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It’s more complicated than that, but relying on partisan sources won’t get to the truth. It’s certainly clear that Stormy Daniel’s was paid off just before the election, and that Trump disguised the repayments to Cohen as business expenses. And it’s also true that Trump brought the gag order on himself.

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This notion is completely wrong-headed, the truth is quite the opposite. And the longer I live the more profoundly curious it is that a people, a people aware of their own innate imperfection and embracing of humility, who make no claim to be "better" than anyone else, who strive to hold God and others above themselves, who value service to others above their own wants and indulgences, who want to share their beliefs through love and behavior (rather than argument and conquest), continue to draw so much ire

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I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve seen maybe one person like that here, and he wasn’t a Creationist - and he didn’t get a lot of hate coming his way.

If you're using the empty quote to provide links for the message and its author then that information is already present. If you look at your message (Message 132, or any message that's a reply to another message) and look in the upper right hand corner of that message you'll see that it says: You're just duplicating what is already there. Actually there's just a lot of you refusing to take responsibility, or even acknowledge, what you've said. As pointed out before, facts are not "digs" or "aspersions", and that's what you did, dismiss facts as digs and aspersions. Nice of you to concede a point. It would be appreciated if you could moderate the passive aggressiveness. Again, there is nothing in the Forum Guidelines about language. That's because study after study has shown that obscene language communicates meaning for which the rest of the language is inadequate. I ain't shitting you - you can look it up. For instance a Cliff notes look at The Power of Profanity: A Linguistic Exploration of Obscene Language concludes:

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In conclusion, obscene language serves a unique and multifaceted role in human communication. It provides a powerful emotional outlet, enhances linguistic flexibility, and reflects social and cultural attitudes toward taboo. By examining the linguistic, psychological, and social aspects of profanity, we gain a deeper understanding of its functions and impact. Far from being a simple form of vulgarity, obscene language is a complex, adaptive feature of human expression, capable of both bonding and dividing people, navigating emotions, and challenging societal norms. Through its study, we see profanity as more than offensive speech but as a dynamic, integral part of the human linguistic experience.

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Other studies reach similar conclusions. This site does not exclude "a dynamic, integral part of the human linguistic experience."What people are expressing when they use the language you object to is that they are taking strong exception to what you are saying. I guess they could say, "I take strong exception to what you just said," but "That's bullshit" actually communicates their assessment much more concisely. That would be against the Forum Guidelines. You should register a complaint at Report Discussion Problems Here 4.0. You seem to be saying that obscenities and insults excuse you from responding and make it acceptable to ignore people. What I see happening is that the more you dismiss and deflect, the more the responses up the volume. I couldn't guess the proportion of fact versus opinion here at EvC, and neither can you, but what I do observe is you dismissing facts. January 6th *did* happen. Trump *was* was recorded on a phone call pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to get him more votes. Trump *is* a convicted felon. Trump *was* president when the United States experienced a higher death rate from covid than any other western country. Trump *did* threaten and appears to still be threatening Denmark, Panama and Canada. Trump *did* endorse the racist march in Charlottesville when he said there were equally fine people on both sides. Trump *has* been accused of sexual abuse by more than 26 women.These are facts, and it is pissing people off that you are so determinedly ignoring them. That's on you, not on them for the way they express themselves. As I keep reminding you, and only because you keep ignoring the reminder, you came here under false pretenses, and your behavior since has cemented the impression that this is the kind of person you are. In your world reality is what you say it is, if people disagree then that's just opinion, and facts you don't like don't exist. Be specific. Conclusions drawn from facts are not themselves facts, but they certainly aren't opinions. When people call Trump a liar that isn't an opinion. Here's a database of Trump falsehoods and misrepresentations: In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claimsAnd what everyone else sees is you making unsupported allegations about the American legal system that largely echo Trump's own comments. You haven't even tried to support this allegation. You're doing what you're unjustifiably accused others of doing, making arguments based on opinion. It was proven in court that Trump manipulated campaign and business records to hide the fact that he had paid a porn actress for her silence about a tryst in 2006, the same year his wife Melania gave birth to Barron. Make your points about the New York City judicial system that would support your claim. This thread where you're posting messages was initiated by dad3. He's posted 53 messages here. Whether you ignored all his messages or are just pretending again, neither is a good look, and it's behavior very consistent with and similar to marc9000, dad3, mark the wiz and Dredge. If you do say so yourself. What counts isn't what one thinks about themselves, but what others see in them and their behavior. Very little Christian behavior has been displayed by the Christians who come here. For example, while illegal immigration has been discussed often and at length at EvC, I can't recall a single instance of a Christian calling for their humane treatment.--Percy

First, you had lifted Percy's statement out of context -- in my decades of dealing with creationist quote-mining, I learned how much they seek to hide in ellipses (in one single "quoted" sentence, the ellipses splitting it in half were hiding more than four pages, almost the entire body of the "quoted" article).For the sake of readers (as well as yourself), here is that context you hid (with the lifted part in bold): Second and to the point, people who would display such qualities as you list not only would not draw any ire, but would be welcomed and appreciated. Here are your own words in more easily readable format (bolded text to hang a lantern on your hypocrisy):

• a people aware of their own innate imperfection and embracing of humility,
• who make no claim to be "better" than anyone else,
• who strive to hold God and others above themselves,
• who value service to others above their own wants and indulgences,
• who want to share their beliefs through love and behavior (rather than argument and conquest)
  

Atheists (which I have been one of for 6 decades and have spoken with for about 4 decades), even though we do not share their supernatural beliefs, would welcome such people! President Jimmy Carter is a prime example of those qualities you list. In a couple hours I'm going to a monthly atheist discussion brunch and I can guarantee that almost all reference to him will be praise for his having displayed those qualities. He was a Christian who lived his life by those qualities and we atheists sincerely wish that all Christians we encounter were like him.Sadly, almost NONE of the "Christians" we encounter daily seem to even be aware of those qualities, or else lie about it (so much lying! especially from creationists, but not restricted to them). Those "truuue Christians"* do not follow Jesus, but rather are hypocrites -- if you were to ever actually read the Bible, or even just the Gospels, you would know that it was the religious hypocrites, "ye generation of vipers", to whom Jesus expressed his greatest anger. For your edification, here's a short clip of John Fugelsang on "The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle" in which he delivers his usual list of how evangelicals et al. do not follow Jesus. I have heard it several times on his radio talk show, "Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang" (carried on Sirius XM's Progressive Radio, Channel 127) == from the look on her face, this is the first time Stephanie Ruhle had heard it. Concluding statement from that video:

John Fugelsang:

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It's time to take the Bible back from the hypocrites and the thugs.

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Rather, those people you describe who actually follow and have those qualities (or at least try to develop those qualities) only draw ire from the Evangelicals, Christian Nationalists, MAGAts, et alia who denounce those good people as "weak" and "woke".Reposting from my recent Message 263: Again from that video:

John Fugelsang:

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That is why they never try to have the Sermon on the Mount posted in classrooms.

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Jesus is "too weak" and "his stuff doesn't work anymore." So they choose to stop following Jesus and to follow the Beast instead.Much more related material in my recent Message 263, BTW. And check out my Message 269 for how Trump's "miraculous healing of his head wound" ties in to End Times prophecy (one of the things the Jesus Freaks USED TO obsess on (but no longer), besides demons).