Paradise Cafe Discussions - A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement

Hello Derek and all,

I was surprised to hear that old earth creationism is currently out of fashion. I thought in our group, with so many members having some of the JW thinking still in them, that the idea of a day being an era or an epoch might be second nature to them. Have things moved on in recent times?

With all due deference to deedee (hi!), who introduced this C14 topic, I don’t know what to make of it anymore if both the young earth and old earth camps accept it is probably inaccurate, especially when calculating the age of things before the Flood.

For one thing, I learned that ‘half-life’ is not just a video game. And that the longest age that could be determined in theory for anything on earth is 100,000 years after its fossilisation.

I guess that means that the two schools of thought must be basing their ideas on other measuring tools. What are these tools, and are they accepted by both sides as reliable?

Brendan.

Hi Folks

I used to be an Old Earther, but now I'm a Young Earther, after studying lots of creationist material.

One thing I've found is that just about every topic raised by Old Earthers has been thoroughly discussed by creationists - including ice cores. For instance, there is an entire book on this one subject alone.

Just remember that much of the secular world disbelieves that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exist. There are many people who say Jesus never existed.

So if you want to believe secular geologists and evolutionists, you're welcome - but shouldn't you also accept their views on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus?

If you don't think geologists have an axe to grind, you don't know your history of geology. Charles Lyell, the "father of modern geology", actively wanted to get Moses out of the world.

Sadly, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

So if you want to believe secular geologists and evolutionists, you're welcome - but shouldn't you also accept their views on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus?

Hi interpretum,

I agree that a lot of scientists have turned evolution into a religion in itself. But what of the instruments used to put an age on fossils and rock formations etc.? Is it impossible to separate the instrument from the prejudices of the scientist using it? Also, can there really be no Christian scientists out there who have 'gone over to the other side'? I would be amazed if the only two camps were Christian scientists of the young earth persuasion, and secular scientists holding the other view.

Regards,
Brendan.

Has anyone seen "Expelled"?

Wanna-be scientists who write college papers that lean toward the truth about our origins never get to be scientists.

Scientists who go against evolution or the billions of years that go with it usually find themselves looking for work.

The truth is usually whatever Satan works the hardest to conceal.

:heartbeat:
Lou

Howdy Jesh

Re: "...or the billions of years that go with it ..."..."...truth is usually whatever Satan works the hardest to conceal."

Does this mean that (for example) if one does not support the notion that petrified rocks did not petrify but were created...that one is following a scheme of Satan?

Might it be that your current belief has become a "religion" of sorts? Your reference to Satan seems to impute that those that do not follow your belief are under his influence...is this so? Do you feel so strongly about this topic that you are becoming judgmental?

Christian love appreciation,

gogh

:confused:

When did I say all that?

It's not a salvation issue. Let's forget it, shall we?

:heartbeat:
Lou

Hi Jesh,
Without resorting to prejudice an anyone holding different opinions to yourself; What process of logic made you believe the world was a few thousand years old?

I can appreciate those who believe the world was made in six literal days... like Malkah, as a matter of their understanding of scripture... But how did you, scientifically speaking, get to believe in YEC?

Please cut out the smears on all scientists who don't see things the way that some fundamentalists reading science do, it won't wash with me.

Derek

Hi Brendan,
The Biblical fundamentalist YE creationists tend to be very vociferous. I've heard they want their brand of YEC introduced into schools.

By definition Brendan, a YEC cannot accept any tool, concept, or fact that is reference to any date outside his YE chronology.

Derek

Hi Folks,

A web site that I’ve read claims that longevity and Darwinism are considered to go hand in hand. Apparently, the Darwinian view reckons that time substitutes for the miracle of creation. So, a short creation period equals miracles, a long creation period equals evolution, with no middle ground. It asks:

Is the claim of great age for earth and humanity, as alleged by most scientists, based upon solid, scientific evidence? Or is it grounded upon evolutionary-oriented assumptions?
Dr. John Eddy, an evolutionary astronomer, stated: “There is no evidence based solely on solar observations that the Sun is 4.5 to 5 billion years old.” He continued:
I suspect that the Sun is 4.5 billion years old. However, given some new and unexpected results to the contrary, and some time for frantic recalculation and theoretical readjustment, I suspect that we could live with Bishop Ussher’s value for the age of the Earth and Sun [4004 B.C.]. I don’t think we have much in the way of observational evidence in astronomy to conflict with that (1978).
I wonder what the ‘new and unexpected results to the contrary’ might be, that would reduce 4.5 billion years to 6000? I never thought Bishop Usher ever considered he was ageing the earth – maybe he did not differentiate between the age of the earth and the age of human life on earth. This site states that we should not differentiate either. It states that human creation began mere days after the earth was created.

The article goes on to say that another method has been used to measure age; lead 206 this time, rather than C14. But certain assumptions need to be made just like C14, and it seems they can’t. Another method is the radiodecay rates of uranium and thorium, which apparently can’t be taken as constant either. Yet another method seems to be the potassium-argon method that yielded ages to rocks from Hawaii known to have been formed less than 200 years ago, ages from 160 million to almost three billion years (Funkhouser and Naughton 1968, 4601).

So we have three methods to determine age, leaving out C14:

Lead-206
Radiodecay rates of uranium and thorium
Potassium-argon

Having discredited these methods to its own satisfaction, the article goes on to advance the evidence for a young earth, both scientific and scriptural. It also discounts the Gap Theory that might allow for a long period of time between the creation of the earth and the creation of life upon the earth. This is the gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. If I understand correctly, it is the amount of time ‘the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters’. Here is the web page address:

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles..._the_earth

Another thing that surprised me was the strong disagreement with a Christian scientist named Ross who thought all this is ‘a trivial doctrinal point’. I think we would refer to it as a non-salvation issue. Why is the age of the earth so important? Has it become the central tenet of some new sect? And the old earth believers, are they just the counterpoint to this movement, irritated by the seeming arrogance of this new group? And the newbies vigorously defend their new-found belief, and around we go.

Brendan.

Hi Brendan,
Isoman would be much more knowledgeable on this subject than I.

Age of Universe ...Re:Astronomy:

Reflected light comes from the moon in just over one second, from the Sun it takes c.8 mins. From the nearest star it takes c.four light years.
Our Milky Way, the galaxy we are in, is perhaps, well over 100,000 light years across.
Distant galaxies are said to be many millions of light years away.

At what point did the Creator make the light/photons just appear to be travelling from distant celestial bodies? At greater than 6,000 light years?

Any light coming from more than six thousand light years away is therefore a big confidence trick by the Creator?
So distant objects in the Milky way are just illusions by the Great Prestidigitator!

At this point we get into the farcical situation where YEC's postulate totally unprovable hypotheses about the speed of light being different before the flood. Or something of this nature. :)

I can't believe in a Creator who cons us!

Derek

Hi Brendan,
Re:What you have read.
You may find this link interesting:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creat..._eddy.html
atb
Derek

Hi Derek,

It's a combination of a lot of things, and it starts with Genesis 1:1. The Hebrew rules of grammar do not allow for it to be anything other than a summary statement, with the details of creation to follow. The Kabbalists twisted it into meaning that everything was created already, and some cataclysmic event wiped out the earth. If we read from Genesis 1:2 on, without any pre-conceived notions, it's really quite simple. God created the earth first and built the heavens around it. That would be quite damaging to the theory of "origins" put out by the pseudo-science establishment.

Another red flare is all the changes that the Revisionists made to the text. Genesis 1:2 was changed from "And the earth was without form" to "Now the earth was formless and void". (The idea being, "now" is not really the beginning, so we have to disregard Genesis 1:1, even though the Hebrew "bereshith" means "absolute beginning" (no room for billions of years, or even one day for that matter, in between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2).

There's no way that humanism, communism, and the NWO would have ever been possible without first discrediting the Bible's creation account. Genesis 2:18 was changed from "it is not good for the man to be alone" to "it is not good for the man to continue by himself".
Verse 23 was changed from "This is now bone of my bones" to "this is at last bone of my bones..." To me, the truth being concealed is evidenced by the chicanery.....

Not to mention the live T-Rex tissue recently discovered....65 million years? I ain't buying it.

:heartbeat:
Jesh

Hi Jesh,
I accept your stand on your textual analysis of scripture and therefore if you have to weigh data discovered by science it has to fit into that template.
Many brilliant theologians and Hebrew scholars do not take your stance on Genesis 1.

One certainly cannot simply extrapolate long creative days from the Genesis account, I agree with YEC's in this. For example flowering plants would be standing for thousands of years with no insects to pollinate them.

I see the account of Creation is Genesis as tableaux of the Creative power of God at work in the universe. It is truth, just as the forward looking tableaux of the book of Revelation are truth, but all of these pictures, I would opine, are not literal in detail.

For the account to be as literal as you believe it would cause me, a person with a lifetime interest in the natural world, to have severe cognitive dissonance.

WCL
Derek

Just as a side-point to this. One of the most common claims "Young Earth Creationists" use when arguing Biblically for their view point is that the 24-hour creative days were the “original” viewpoint of the Church until modern times. That is just not true, as you can see from some of the following quotations. This argument has been around for a long time.
----
“…We answered to the best of our ability this objection to God's "commanding this first, second, and third thing to be created," when we quoted the words, "He said, and it was done; He commanded, and all things stood fast;" remarking that the immediate Creator, and, as it were, very Maker of the world was the Word, the Son of God; while the Father of the Word, by commanding His own Son--the Word--to create the world, is primarily Creator. And with regard to the creation of the light upon the first day, and of the firmament upon the second, and of the gathering together of the waters that are under the heaven into their several reservoirs on the third (the earth thus causing to sprout forth those (fruits) which are under the control of nature alone, and of the (great) lights and stars upon the fourth, and of aquatic animals upon the fifth, and of land animals and man upon the sixth, we have treated to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world, and quoted the words: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens."
(Against Celus 6:60 [AD 248])

““That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: "This is the book of the generation: also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth." For the expression "when they were created" intimates an indefinite and dateless production. But the expression "in the day that God made," that is, in and by which God made "all things," and "without which not even one thing was made," points out the activity exerted by the Son. As David says, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us be glad and rejoice in it; " that is, in consequence of the knowledge imparted by Him, let us celebrate the divine festival; for the Word that throws light on things hidden, and by whom each created thing came into life and being, is called day. “
(Miscellanies 6.16 [208 AD])

“For as Adam was told that in the [d]ay [h]e ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, 'The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,' is connected with this subject.”
(Justin Martyr, Dialog with Typho the Jew chapter 81 [AD 155])

Hi John,
Thank you.
You make a very good point from the early writings of Christians.
I suspect the main proponents of YEC are modern fundamentalists.
WCL
Derek