JWs and the problem of Creation en toto

by logansrun 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Valis
    Valis

    There are geological and biological factors which are currently observed to change at rates that are in disagreement with the standard geochronological interpretation of thousands of millions of years for the development of the crust and of life on earth. A number of alternative explanations have been proposed to bring about reconciliation, but these involve postulating an unsatisfying variety of special cases.

    Evaluating factors dealing with the past warrants a great deal of caution. Extrapolation from the present involves some risk, and new observations and interpretations can readily alter conclusions for a past that is difficult to analyze. These problems apply to all dating scenarios. On the other hand, the recognized discrepancies with standard geochronology described herein appear significant and are based on several different tests. Because of this, some alternative views to standard geochronology appear credible.

    Eh hooberus the first highlited part implies IMO, that give or take a few million no one knows how old the earth is, but it is certainly older than 6,000-10,000 years. That article doesn't deny that fact. The second one should be applied to the biblical interpretation, but the author tried to weasel out of the test by saying well it could have happened so I can't rule it out. As well, the proofs by which the test is passed or failed is idiotic as well...Saying that in 3200 years we could reach out current population, as of the start of the human race with no technology and that since we have been around a hundred times that, the bible could possibly be right about the age of the earth.....*LOL*.. Whatever...*LOL* The pink unicorn could come to my house tomorrow, but I doubt I will ever get that lucky. The last one is a disclaimer to include creation myth in the discussion of geology and the origin of the human race.....*LOL* I took geology and I don't ever remember that Jehover was mentioned and that's a good thing.

    Sincerely,

    District Overbeer

  • figureheaduk
    figureheaduk

    If i remember correctly, the WT based it's 1975 prophecy on Adam being created in 4026BC (4026 + 6000 years of human rule, not counting "year zero" = 1975). But when there is a huge amount of scientific evidence (which i subscribe to based on logic, radiocarbon data, geology etc) that points to humans living on the earth many, many thousands of years before this). That's why I've always been a (humanist) scientist and not a theologist - science can (often) give proof, whereas with religion you seem to rely on faith and a 2,000+ year old book.

    A few weeks back my soon to be returning JW girlfreind gave me a WT book to read (can't remember what it was called - it seemed to be aimed at young adults and printed in the late 70's/early 80's), and one chapter read something like "fossil evidence and the great flood", where it said the flood must have happened because sea fossils have been found on areas above sea level. It was then i used my basic knowledge of geology and plate tectonics to show that over millions of years two "areas" of land can meet up, and form mountains (and any fossils in the areas close to the meeting point can therefore rise above ground level). i also used the case of the West African / South American coatlines as an example, where not only do the shapes of theoir coastlines seem to almost fit into each other, but fossils of creatures thought only to exist on the West coast of Africa have been found on the South East American coast, and vice-versa. A few weeks back on this site's chat room i was told that the WT stopped teaching the "fossils above sea level as evidence of the flood" theory years ago......

    Considering it was sopposed to be a "science" (or rebuking thereof) book, it wasn't half full of crap, lies, half truths and misquotes. Anybody know what it was called? it was a hardback book missing it's paper cover, but the hardboard cover beneath was light blue with (gold?) writing

    p.s. not in a good mood, my pub quiz team just lost out on winning £280 between 4 of us

    millions now living will never see through the crap.

  • figureheaduk
    figureheaduk

    Just had a bit of a flashback - I think the book was called something like "Evolution or Creation - how did we get here?". Does this ring any bells?

  • greven
    greven

    Ah..the famous life how did it get here -by evolution or creation? book.

    That book is riddled with misquotes and misrepresentations (straw men) and uses every logical fallacy possible. It is largly based on another book called The Neck of the Giraffe by Francis Hitching. a crackpot that also wrote books on pyramid energy, earth magic and dowsing. The creation books quotes him often as a biologist, zoologist and evolutionist but this guy has not had any academic education. For fun do a search on Francis hitching and see what comes up!

    Greven

  • Abaddon
    Abaddon

    *sings*

    "In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, on the trail of the lonesome pine"

    I mean...

    "In the White Mountains of California, on the trail of the bristlecone pine"

    hooberus, please tell us how old the Earth is, and how old the Universe is.

    I am very curious over the time scale thing that Creationists have, it's very funny to me for them to do this when there are trees that can be shown to have successfully endured a global flood (or, rather, can be shown to have not had to endure a global flood as there wasn't one). No fancy machines or difficult science or complicated mathematics doing the dating, just a saw, a needle, a handclicker and a magnifying glass/microscope. And don't start with the double ring theory, it doesn't apply to the species I am talking about (as per my little song).

    I am so bored of you tilting at windmills without realising which way the wind is blowing. You attack individual aspects of evolutionary theory without realising that the general process and time scales are pretty much proven. No one has said all the contributing theories we have today are absolutely right, but regadless of this, the general process and time scales are still supported by many many different strands of science.

    In light of this behaviour, I'd like you to say what you believe regarding the age of the Earth and the Universe (own words, no C&P's). I can then enjoy addressing whatever evidence for that belief you present.

    The link you posted contains a variety of arguement supporting YEC viewpoints. These are debunked quite nicely here;

    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood.html

    ... if there are any particular points in the link I have provided you do not agree with or understand, I'll be happy to discuss things with you or explain the scienece (if I am able).

  • hooberus
    hooberus

    Abaddon said:

    I am very curious over the time scale thing that Creationists have, it's very funny to me for them to do this when there are trees that can be shown to have successfully endured a global flood (or, rather, can be shown to have not had to endure a global flood as there wasn't one). No fancy machines or difficult science or complicated mathematics doing the dating, just a saw, a needle, a handclicker and a magnifying glass/microscope. And don't start with the double ring theory, it doesn't apply to the species I am talking about (as per my little song).

    How old is the oldest tree Abaddon? Proposed dates for the flood range from 4500 to 7500 years ago.

    Thanks for the link to the talkorigin site which gives a response to some maximum dating issues proposed by ceationists:

    Now here is the link to the trueorigin site:

    http://www.trueorigin.org

    DATING ISSUES

    Aardsma, “Myths Regarding Radiocarbon Dating”
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-189.htm

    Austin, “Excess Argon at Mount St. Helens”
    http://www.icr.org/research/sa/sa-r01.htm

    Austin, “Excessively Old ‘Ages’ for Grand Canyon Lava Flows”*
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-224.htm

    Austin & Snelling, “Discordant Potassium-Argon Model and Isochron Ages”*
    http://www.icr.org/research/sa/sa-r03.htm

    Batten, “Tree Ring Dating”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/docs/tree_ring.asp

    Brantley, “Dating in Archaeology: Challenges to Biblical Credibility”
    http://www.apologeticspress.org/defdocs/rr1993/r&r9311a.htm

    Brown, “Unique Enigmatic Helium”
    http://www.grisda.org/origins/25055.htm

    Brown, “Radioisotope Age”
    http://www.grisda.org/georpts/gr20_01.htm

    Brown, “Amino Acid Dating”
    http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/amino/

    Brown, “Ancient DNA”
    http://www.mhrc.net/ancientDNA.htm

    Brown, “Carbon 14 Dating”
    http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/C14.htm

    Brown, “Mitochondrial Clock” (abstracts of articles)
    http://www.mhrc.net/mitochondria.htm

    Brown, “Can Tree Rings Be Used to Calibrate Radiocarbon Dates?”
    http://www.grisda.org/origins/22047.htm

    Chadwick, Various Questions Re: Radiometric Dating
    http://origins.swau.edu/q&a/radio/default.html

    Chaffin, “A Mechanism for Accelerated Radioactive Decay”
    http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/37/37_1/chaffin/acceldecay.html

    Christian Answers Net, Various Questions Re: Radiometric Dating
    http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-radioactive.html

    Christian Answers Net, Carbon 14 & Other Radiometric Dating Methods
    http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

    Giem, “Carbon-14 Content of Fossil Carbon”
    http://www.grisda.org/origins/51006.htm

    Giem, “Carbon 14 Dating Models”
    http://www.grisda.org/origins/24050.htm

    Harrub and Thompson, “The Demise of ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ ”
    http://www.apologeticspress.org/docsdis/2003/dc-03-01.htm

    Humphreys, “Nuclear Decay: Evidence for a Young World”
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-352.htm

    Lorey, “Tree Rings and Biblical Chronology”
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-252.htm

    Major, “Dating in Archaeology: Radiocarbon & Tree-Ring Dating”
    http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/rr1993/r&r9310a.htm

    Overn, “Isochron Rock Dating is Fatally Flawed”
    http://tccsa.freeservers.com/articles/isochrons2.html

    Malcolm, “Helium in the Earth’s Atmosphere”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v8n2_helium.asp#auth

    Oard, “Antiquity of landforms: objective evidence that dating methods are wrong”
    http://answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tj14n1_landforms.asp

    Plaisted, “The Radiometric Dating Game”
    http://www.trueorigin.org/dating.asp

    Plaisted, “The Radiometric Dating Deception”
    http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/deception.html

    Plaisted, “Reply to Dr. Henke and Others” (Re: Radiometric Dating)
    http://www.trueorigin.org/henke1.asp

    Plaisted, “Problems With Isochrons”
    http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/isochron.html

    Plaisted, “Mitochondrial DNA Mutation Rates”
    http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/mitochondria.html

    Roth, “Some Questions About Geochronology”
    http://origins.swau.edu/papers/geologic/questions/default.html

    Sarfati, “Blowing Old-Earth Belief Away” (atmospheric helium)
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1401.asp

    Snelling, “Radioactive ‘Dating’ in Conflict”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/382.asp

    Snelling, Radioactive ‘Dating’ Failure”*
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/cenv22n1_dating_failure.asp

    Snelling, “Excess Argon: The ‘Achilles Heel’ of Dating Volcanic Rocks”
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-307.htm

    Snelling, “Dubious Radiogenic Pb Behavior Places U-Th-Pb Mineral Dating in Doubt”*
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-319.htm

    Snelling, “The Cause of Anomalous Potassium-Argon ‘Ages’”
    http://www.icr.org/research/as/as-r01.htm

    Snelling, “Crustal Rocks and the Problem of Excess Argon”
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-309.htm

    Snelling, “Dating Dilemma: Fossil Wood in ‘Ancient’ Sandstone”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v21n3_date-dilemma.asp

    Snelling, “U-TH-PB Dating: An Example of False Isochrons”
    http://www.icr.org/research/as/uthpbdating.html

    Snelling, “Young Radiocarbon Date for Ancient Fossil Wood”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v22n2_geology.asp

    Snelling, “The Failure of U-Th-Pb 'Dating' at Koongarra, Australia”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tj_v9n1_koongarra.asp

    Snelling and Woodmorappe, “The Cooling of Thick Igneous Bodies on a Young Earth”
    http://www.icr.org/research/as/igneousbodies.html

    Vardiman, “Ice Cores and the Age of the Earth”
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-226.htm

    Vardiman, “Rapid Changes in Oxygen Isotope Content of Ice Cores”
    http://www.icr.org/research/lv/lv-r02.htm

    Vardiman, “The Helium Escape Problem”
    http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-143.htm

    Walker, “Radioactive Decay Rate Depends on Chemical Environment”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/v14n1_radioact.asp

    Webster, Jr., “Genesis and Time: What Radiometric Dating Tells Us”
    http://www.grisda.org/georpts/gr21_01.htm

    Woodmorappe, “Molecular Clocks Can Run Very Fast”
    http://www.rae.org/clocks.html

    Woodmorappe, “Billion-fold Acceleration of Radioactivity Demonstrated in Laboratory”
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0321acc_beta_decay.asp

    Woodmorappe, “National Geographic magazine joins the dating game”
    http://www.trueorigin.org/natgeo_jw01.asp

  • Abaddon
    Abaddon

    hooberus; Dendrochronology extends beyond the life of any one tree. If you'd seriously looked at the issue, you would have known this.

    The way it does is like this;

    aabaacdaabacddaccbaaeddceefdcabaaaccbbdddeefffaaa
    aaaccbbdddeefffaaabbcddeeffeegghh

    In the above 'diagram', the top sequence of 'rings' (I tried using lines but had to use letters as the line wouldn't line up) is to illustrate a sample from a live tree. The pattern of rings (as the relative widths of the growth rings vary according to the climactic conditions of a season) can be matched with an older, dead tree, and the period when the trees were BOTH alive found. As one can know the age of the live tree, one can then know the age of the older tree too.

    Thus you can show that there were trees that somehow withstood a global flood... or rather that there WASN'T a global flood.

    You evasion in providing a date for the age of the Earth or the Universe has been noted. I have been over the trueorigins site quite enough thank you; if you wish to discuss a specific issue, fine. The point I was making giving you the talkorigins link was that there were exisiting debunks of various creationist claims on that site.

    Obviously as a Christian you would not want to post any misleading material, and as some of the theories you posted were not so much out of date but never given much credence anyway due to elementary errors in the science underpinning them, I thought you'd like to know.

    As I said before, if you have any questions or want to discuss specific questions, fine, but please have the courtesy to answer simple questions regarding your own opinion.

  • hooberus
    hooberus
    hooberus; Dendrochronology extends beyond the life of any one tree. If you'd seriously looked at the issue, you would have known this.

    Just because I asked how old the oldest tree was does not mean that I don't know about Dendrochronology. I know that it involves multiple trees.

    Thus you can show that there were trees that somehow withstood a global flood... or rather that there WASN'T a global flood.

    How old is the oldest tree? Is it older than my flood dates? If not why are there no individual trees older than this? Does it require a chronology requiring several trees (and ring interpretation) to push back past flood dates?

    You evasion in providing a date for the age of the Earth or the Universe has been noted.
    This won't go on my permanent record will it?
  • Abaddon
    Abaddon

    hooberus; So, you know about dendrochronology, and that it involves multiple trees, and then you say;

    How old is the oldest tree? Is it older than my flood dates? If not why are there no individual trees older than this? Does it require a chronology requiring several trees (and ring interpretation) to push back past flood dates?

    Which shows you really don't know about dendrochronology, or are asking questions you know the answer to. Of course, as you have evaded giving a firm date for the Flood I can't say whether there are trees older than that. Obviously trees have a finate lifespan. But regardless of whether there are trees older than the flood dendrochronology can show trees were standing during and survived after any possible date for the flood. Take my previous example;

    Present Day Sapling

    aabaacdaabacddaccbaaeddceefdcabaaaccbbdddeefffaaa
    aaaccbbdddeefffaaabbcddeeffeegghh

    Flood Sapling

    As you can see, I've now added a marker for the supposed date of the flood and for when the two trees were saplings (this is a simplified example, okay?). The tree alive today can be used to find out if a second tree was alive at the same time by matching ring widths, much in the same way you'd match grain on a table with a veneer. As you know the age of the tree alive today, when you find the overlapping sequence with the older dead tree (aaaccbbdddeefffaaa), you can then know when the overlapping sequence was (i.e. when both trees were alive), and thus count back from the overlap and find out when the tree that is dead was a sapling. This proves that there were trees standing BEFORE, AFTER AND DURING the supposed dates of the Flood, so either;

    a) trees survived a global flood (possible in a few species, very unlikely (as in most every biologist would say it was impossible) in the species under discussion).

    b) there was no global flood

    Please don't try and blow me off in the future by saying you understand something when you clearly don't. You protest everytime I suggest you need to increase the breadth of your scientific knowledge in order to ba able to appreciate some discussions, and be it on geology or dendrochronology, you persistantly make errors in interpretation (or accept articles with such errors as satisfactory) because of the lack of breadth of your scientific knowledge. This doesn't mean you are bad or stupid. Misconceptions are something any science educator has to learn to overcome, be it on mass vs. weight or colour pigment vs. coloured light.

    So, how old is the Universe, how old is the Earth, and when was the Flood? Surely, the Bible being so accurate and all, you can answer at least the last of those three questions?

  • hooberus
    hooberus
    So, how old is the Universe, how old is the Earth, and when was the Flood? Surely, the Bible being so accurate and all, you can answer at least the last of those three questions?

    I have given dates for the flood of 4500 to 7500 years ago. Please attempt to disprove this by the use of dendrochronology or admit that dendrochronology does not disprove the flood.

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