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Topic: CREATION OR EVOLUTION
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| rob0330 wrote: The circumstantial evidence for creation and a young earth far outweigh that of evolution. |
Excuse me? Where's your evidence for a young earth that outweighs the fossil record, the geological record, evidence from mitochondrial DNA, the existence of coal and oil, carbon dating, continental drift, radioactive decay rates, red shift, the microwave background, ... The whole of experimental science really is very consistent on the world being several orders of magnitude older than Biblical allegory says it is.
| An increasing number of scientists are reaching that conclusion. |
This is a typical tactic in this kind of fundamentalist argument. A year ago, ten scientists believed X. Today, eleven scientists believed X. Fundamentalists claims that ``an increasing number of scientists believe X.''
A 1997 survey of American scientists showed that only 5% believed in creationism, let alone young-earth creationism. (Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham, "Scientists are still keeping the faith," Nature 386: 435 (1997).) Since the US has considerably higher levels of religious belief than almost any other broadly-Christian country in the world, it seem unlikely that more than 5% of scientists in other Western countries believe in creationism, either.
So, do you have any actual data to cite?
| Some scientists, however, are finding it difficult to forsake their faith in evolution, and they are either ignoring or covering the evidence. |
Appeal to global conspiracy really isn't a convincing argument. Perhaps the reason that there are very few scientific articles supporting creationism?
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/bishop_19_3.html
is an interesting read.
[I've made a couple of minor formatting edits to this post; nothing that changed the meaning.]
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| rob0330 wrote: Unfortunately, the circular reasoning used by evolutionists confuses most people. (i.e. We found the fossil in this layer of earth which is x-million years old, therefore, the animal represented by the fossil is x-million years old. How did you know the geologic earth layer was x-million years old? Because it had an x-million-year-old fossil in it.) |
This is a gross mischaracterization. Do you really think the whole scientific community would be so stupid as to make or believe such a ridiculously false argument? Again, a typical tactic in fundamentalist arguments: the straw man. Misrepresent your opponent's position as something absurd, show that it's absurd and hope the mud sticks.
Yes, it is sometimes argued that a particular geological stratum is X million years old because it contains the bones of dinosaurs that were around X million years ago. Yes, it is sometimes argued that some *different* dinosaur bones are Y million years old because they were found in a stratum known to be Y million years old. Yes, both of these techniques are used but *never* in the same place.
There are many ways of dating rocks without using fossils, such as radiometry and paleomagnetism. Radiometry measures the extent to which radioactive elements in the rocks have decayed. Carbon dating works on the same principles but only for organic matter. Paleomagnetism uses the orientation of magnetised crystals in the rock, which can be correlated with data on the movement of the earth's magnetic poles.
Another technique is that massive volcanic eruptions often leave vast layers of ash or lava extremely quickly. For example, the Yellowstone eruption of 640,000 years ago spread a layer of ash over most of the North American continent. Once you've dated this layer by a few different methods in a few different places, you can be confident in the date of the whole layer, wherever you find it on the continent. (This is true regardless of whether or not you believe the layer to be that old. If you could show that several different parts of it were 700 years old, it would be reasonable to believe that the whole layer was 700 years old.)
There is no circularlity here.
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Evolution, of course.
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Just a thought on the books of Moses.Genesis 1:1 reads; In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. There is a definite (.) period at the end of that sentence.Genesis 1:2 follows...And the earth became void and without form. This indicates that at some point in time before this second verse the earth allready existed. As for Cain's wife we have to look at the days of creation.On the 6th day God created man, both male and female. He rested on the 7th day.Then Genesis chapter 2 tells us that God looked and saw that He had not created a man to till the soil. So He planted a garden and created Adam, later creating Eve. This is a seperate creation from the 6th day. Therefore when Cain was cast out of the garden,he married one of the females from the 6th day creation.
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Chapter 2 just gives more details from chapter 1; it's the same creation. As for your first point, that's known as the Gap Theory(i.e., a gap between verse 1 and verse 2). The Hebrew word for your "became" can also be "was", which is how the King James Bible has it. However, in Isaiah it says that God did NOT creat the earth void, so I personally believe the Gap Theory; it makes more sense to me.
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