Evidence for God from Science

zoegirl wrote:Then I would ask you one thing. Show me how ALL of those pieces of evidence are wrong. Evidence is valid when the results can be validated with one another (ie speed of light correlating with radioactive decay...) and when multiple sources receive the same results.

zoegirl wrote:And most of the criticism of these from ICR and others? They conveniently leave out factors that sway the results. I would respectfully say that it is not the scientists who are slippery with their data. Believe it or not, there are plenty of Christian scientists who study these data and come to the conclusion that the data is not wrong, and it's not because they have not twisted motive to discredit scripture. They love scripture (I teach with two other OEC in my science department and one is engaged to a OEC scientist getting his PhD) They love scripture. They believe it to be infallible.

And many scientists are not that dismissive of God, especially Physicists.

Show me how all of the above pieces of data are wrong...

zoegirl wrote:Also, why is this so threatening? We do not dismiss scripture, We simply look at the Hebrew and understand that it has multiple meanings. We believe that the Hebrew is literal.

zoegirl wrote:Adam,



OEC is not the same as evolution. Talking about the age of the universe does not mean that you support evolution or naturalistic causes.


We must be careful in discussion so that we don't confuse the issue. When we (OEC) are discussing the age, we are not equating the two and therefore we should separate those issues in the discussion.

Thanks

adam wrote:Isn't this shifting the burden of proof?

zoegirl wrote:I will post a thread that answers your questions about radiometric dating. There are good valid answers to yours worries that dismisses the common criticisms about dating. They know how to calibrate it. CAn't do it right now.

He is right when he addresses why the article is wrong. Many of the common criticisms for radiometric dating have very easy answers and they have been tested for time and time again.

zoegirl wrote:It is a shame that many poeple who support YEC only use that website

adam wrote:Before I receive a bunch of information about how accurately radioactive isotopes are known to decay plus how accurately Parent radioactive isotopes can be measured to the amount of neutral decayed resultant elements, can you share with me how the verification process is completed to demonstrate that the age is actually correct and how it is a hard science not to be questioned? Do you have a time travel machine?

Can We Really Believe the Dating Systems?

We have covered a lot of convincing evidence that the Earth was created a very long time ago. The agreement of many different dating methods, both radiometric and non-radiometric, over hundreds of thousands of samples, is very convincing. Yet, some Christians question whether we can believe something so far back in the past. My answer is that it is similar to believing in other things of the past. It only differs in degree. Why do you believe Abraham Lincoln ever lived? Because it would take an extremely elaborate scheme to make up his existence, including forgeries, fake photos, and many other things, and besides, there is no good reason to simply have made him up. Well, the situation is very similar for the dating of rocks, only we have rock records rather than historical records. Consider the following:

There are well over forty different radiometric dating methods, and scores of other methods such as tree rings and ice cores. Vast amounts of data overwhelmingly favor an old Earth. Several hundred laboratories around the world are active in radiometric dating. Their results consistently agree with an old Earth. Over a thousand papers on radiometric dating were published in scientifically recognized journals in the last year, and hundreds of thousands of dates have been published in the last 50 years. Essentially all of these strongly favor an old Earth.
Radioactive decay rates have been measured for over sixty years noAll of the different dating methods agree--they agree a great majority of the time over millions of years of time. Some Christians make it sound like there is a lot of disagreement, but this is not the case. The disagreement in values needed to support the position of young-Earth proponents would require differences in age measured by orders of magnitude (e.g., factors of 10,000, 100,000, a million, or more). The differences actually found in the scientific literature are usually close to the margin of error, usually a few percent, not orders of magnitude! w for many of the decay clocks without any observed changes. And it has been close to a hundred years since the uranium-238 decay rate was first determined.
Both long-range and short-range dating methods have been successfully verified by dating lavas of historically known ages over a range of several thousand years.
The mathematics for determining the ages from the observations is relatively simple.
The last three points deserve more attention. Some Christians have argued that something may be slowly changing with time so all the ages look older than they really are. The only two quantities in the exponent of a decay rate equation are the half-life and the time. So for ages to appear longer than actual, all the half-lives would have to be changing in sync with each other. One could consider that time itself was changing if that happened (remember that our clocks are now standardized to atomic clocks!). And such a thing would have to have occurred without our detection in the last hundred years, which is already 5% of the way back to the time

page 20

of Christ.

Beyond this, scientists have now used a "time machine" to prove that the half-lives of radioactive species were the same millions of years ago. This time machine does not allow people to actually go back in time, but it does allow scientists to observe ancient events from a long way away. The time machine is called the telescope. Because God's universe is so large, images from distant events take a long time to get to us. Telescopes allow us to see supernovae (exploding stars) at distances so vast that the pictures take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to arrive at the Earth. So the events we see today actually occurred hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago. And what do we see when we look back in time? Much of the light following a supernova blast is powered by newly created radioactive parents. So we observe radiometric decay in the supernova light. The half-lives of decays occurring hundreds of thousands of years ago are thus carefully recorded! These half-lives completely agree with the half-lives measured from decays occurring today. We must conclude that all evidence points towards unchanging radioactive half-lives.

Some individuals have suggested that the speed of light must have been different in the past, and that the starlight has not really taken so long to reach us. However, the astronomical evidence mentioned above also suggests that the speed of light has not changed, or else we would see a significant apparent change in the half-lives of these ancient radioactive decays.

Doubters Still Try

Some doubters have tried to dismiss geologic dating with a sleight of hand by saying that no rocks are completely closed systems (that is, that no rocks are so isolated from their surroundings that they have not lost or gained some of the isotopes used for dating). Speaking from an extreme technical viewpoint this might be true--perhaps 1 atom out of 1,000,000,000,000 of a certain isotope has leaked out of nearly all rocks, but such a change would make an immeasurably small change in the result. The real question to ask is, "is the rock sufficiently close to a closed system that the results will be same as a really closed system?" Since the early 1960s many books have been written on this subject. These books detail experiments showing, for a given dating system, which minerals work all of the time, which minerals work under some certain conditions, and which minerals are likely to lose atoms and give incorrect results. Understanding these conditions is part of the science of geology. Geologists are careful to use the most reliable methods whenever possible, and as discussed above, to test for agreement between different methods.

Some people have tried to defend a young Earth position by saying that the half-lives of radionuclides can in fact be changed, and that this can be done by certain little-understood particles such as neutrinos, muons, or cosmic rays. This is stretching it. While certain particles can cause nuclear changes, they do not change the half-lives. The nuclear changes are well understood and are nearly always very minor in rocks. In fact the main nuclear changes in rocks are the very radioactive decays we are talking about.

There are only three quite technical instances where a half-life changes, and these do not affect the dating methods we have discussed.

1. Only one technical exception occurs under terrestrial conditions, and this is not for an isotope used for dating. According to theory, electron-capture is the most likely type of decay to show changes with pressure or chemical combination, and this should be most pronounced for very light elements. The artificially-produced isotope, beryllium-7 has been shown to change by up to 1.5%, depending on its chemical environment (Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 171, 325-328, 1999; see also Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 195, 131-139, 2002). In another experiment, a half-life change of a small fraction of a percent was detected when beryllium-7 was subjected to 270,000 atmospheres of pressure, equivalent to depths greater than 450 miles inside the Earth (Science 181, 1163-1164, 1973). All known rocks, with the possible exception of diamonds, are from much shallower depths. In fact, beryllium-7 is not used for dating rocks, as it has a half-life of only 54 days, and heavier atoms are even less subject to these minute changes, so the dates of rocks made by electron-capture decays would only be off by at most a few hundredths of a percent.

page 21

2. Physical conditions at the center of stars or for cosmic rays differ very greatly from anything experienced in rocks on or in the Earth. Yet, self-proclaimed "experts" often confuse these conditions. Cosmic rays are very, very high-energy atomic nuclei flying through space. The electron-capture decay mentioned above does not take place in cosmic rays until they slow down. This is because the fast-moving cosmic ray nuclei do not have electrons surrounding them, which are necessary for this form of decay. Another case is material inside of stars, which is in a plasma state where electrons are not bound to atoms. In the extremely hot stellar environment, a completely different kind of decay can occur. ' Bound-state beta decay' occurs when the nucleus emits an electron into a bound electronic state close to the nucleus. This has been observed for dysprosium-163 and rhenium-187 under very specialized conditions simulating the interior of stars (Phys. Rev. Lett., 69, 2164-2167; Phys. Rev. Lett., 77, 5190-5193, 1996). All normal matter, such as everything on Earth, the Moon, meteorites, etc. has electrons in normal positions, so these instances never apply to rocks, or anything colder than several hundred thousand degrees.

As an example of incorrect application of these conditions to dating, one young-Earth proponent suggested that God used plasma conditions when He created the Earth a few thousand years ago. This writer suggested that the rapid decay rate of rhenium under extreme plasma conditions might explain why rocks give very old ages instead of a young-Earth age. This writer neglected a number of things, including: a) plasmas only affect a few of the dating methods. More importantly, b) rocks and hot gaseous plasmas are completely incompatible forms of matter! The material would have to revert back from the plasma state before it could form rocks. In such a scenario, as the rocks cooled and hardened, their ages would be completely reset to zero as described in previous sections. If this person's scenario were correct, instead of showing old ages, all the rocks should show a uniform ~4,000 year age of creation. That is obviously not what is observed.

3. The last case also involves very fast-moving matter. It has been demonstrated by atomic clocks in very fast spacecraft. These atomic clocks slow down very slightly (only a second or so per year) as predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. No rocks in our solar system are going fast enough to make a noticeable change in their dates.

These cases are very specialized, and all are well understood. None of these cases alter the dates of rocks either on Earth or other planets in the solar system. The conclusion once again is that half-lives are completely reliable in every context for the dating of rocks on Earth and even on other planets. The Earth and all creation appears to be very ancient.

adam wrote:Zoegirl, I'm just curious, do you believe there was a worldwide flood or do you concede to the local flood concept?

zoegirl wrote:
It is a shame that many poeple who support YEC only use that website

I don't only use AiG.

Have you ever read John MacArthur's "The Battle for the Beginning"? John MacArthur is a well known (I'm sure you know him) theologian and does a good job revealing the philosophy lurking under the insistence that an old Universe has been proven.

I generally use AiG as a cross-reference tool because they have a conservative approach to the evidence. I'm sure they don't get everything right but Jesus warned about straining out gnats...

If I'm getting on your nerves, just tell me. You were the first person gracious enough to dialogue with me and I like this debate.
Adam_777

adam wrote:me that post-modern thought has infiltrated the culture way too much.

zoegirl wrote:
Also, why is this so threatening? We do not dismiss scripture, We simply look at the Hebrew and understand that it has multiple meanings. We believe that the Hebrew is literal.


Who said it's threatening? I'm enjoying getting to know my new friends and sharing my thoughts. Iron sharpens Iron, right? Every time I challenge someone I put myself on a limb to be scrutinized. I hope my demeanor isn't presumed to be hostile or arrogant. I am assertive. I will reiterate that this is an inside debate but just because it's an in-house debate doesn't mean that there is no value to the discussion. I know I'm among brothers and sisters.

Zoegirl, you're a teacher and teaching is a tough job. I thank you for it. I teach a home study and occasionally I get to deliver the message at Church, which pales in comparison to your day in day out job. As dogmatic as I am about being a YEC, I still want to be as fair as possible to opposing views so that people can make up their own minds and have an unhindered perspective, if possible.

Adam_777 wrote:Hi Zoegirl,

You're very passionate about this topic. Could you be wrong?

adam wrote: When you show me all those studies showing the reliability of dating techniques, you aren't really answering the charge that in the sciences this really isn't conclusive stuff. It may be believed by many but that doesn't make it correct. Even science philosophers like William Lane Craig and John Lennox recognize that we are limited. The repeating science (if assumed to be as good as you present) has many assumptions with it. Can you concede to this?

adam wrote: Give this a listen. It includes Hugh Ross, Stephen Lloyd, and John Lennox:

http://bethinking.org/science-christian ... is-1-3.htm

We have a hard enough time understanding things that are in our immediate presence. Are you really comfortable being dogmatic about the things we purport to know from far away stars and galaxies?

adam wrote: Is light a constant? We don't even really understand what light is to begin with.

adam wrote: We know it can be bent and manipulated. The accepted theory of general relativity shows us that if time/space can be bent, what makes light such a certain constant? Especially when we can put our finger in a glass of water, and watch it appear to get dismembered, to prove that light does strange things depending on the medium that it's in.

adam wrote: This is all fun theoretical stuff but I will trust the Word of the Lord before I trust my own understanding. The world can call me narrow minded if they want but Jesus keeps proving Himself reliable and I keep proving myself unreliable. So it's really a no-brainer.

adam wrote: I think I want to start a new thread about the flood.

adam wrote: I want to conclude that your assessment that YECs are so ignorant doesn't hold up. It's just an insult that seeks to defame those that don't agree with the establishment.

adam wrote: I look back and I see that you're ignoring many of my points and questions. That's okay though, I think we should start talking about some of the specifics. I'll be starting some new threads when I get a chance.

adam wrote: It was nice chatting with you, Zoegirl. I'll see you on some other threads.

Adam_777 wrote:

zoegirl wrote:Adam,

I really appreciate your testimony and the fac that you do want to test everything.

My biggest problems of YEC is that

1) It imparts a meaning to scripture that just isn't there. based on English translations. Forcing a meaning that doesn't exist in the original Hebrew

I would personally say an exegeses of Genesis, even from my interlinear Bible makes a literal six day creation account quite acceptable if it's not mandated however I can concede that the eisegesis of the passages into ages is not farfetched. I would argue that it's unnecessary. However, when you fast forward to Exodus there is a rather plain confirmation of the six day creation account. Again, could you use eisegesis to read ages into the text. Well, I suppose, but why?

(Ex 20:11) 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

(Ex 31:17) 17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

(2 Peter 3:4-5) 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old , and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:


2 Peter 3:4-5 has an interesting ring to it, the interlinear word for word translation, makes the points even more forcefully. The first point is "all things continue as they were" describes the evolutionary scientist as too willing to assume uniformitarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformita ... _(science)) when coming to interpretive conclusions of the evidence (tectonic plates moving a certain amount per year so they have always moved a certain amount per year). Uniformitarianism isn't always bad but can be missleading when feeling that the evidence for an old earth is conclusive. I think the assumptions should at least be understood on both sides regardless of what side you come down on YEC or OEC.

adam wrote: The second part is even more telling "by the word of God the heavens were of old" the interlinear Bible says "that heavens were of old". I think this is interesting because the day Adam was made he was an adult. It seems the day the universe was made it was an adult also.

adam wrote:

zoegirl wrote:2) They twist scientific equations and do so blatantly. "Forgetting" to include an important variable in a equation that favors a Young earth, See below

I don't think the equations hold the key to this discussion. I think it is much simpler than that.

adam wrote: There is good repeatable science in the field of say, radiometric dating. Measurement of radioactive isotopes can be done with great accuracy but the extrapolation that this proves an old earth is hypothetical. This short video introduces some of the assumptions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lRQiNjJoBw

adam wrote: This video mentions the cosmic dust on the moon argument that you mentioned but I don't know enough about it to argue for or against it. The other information prior to it however, I found quite compelling to at least cast doubt on the reliability of radiometric dating.

adam wrote:

zoegirl wrote:3) Often, their debates revolve not aroung strong arguments but emotional straw-man arguments. They may win on style or charisma, or by browbeating their opponents, but rarely on actual points. (I am really stressing YEC versus OEC, not those that debate Christianity versus Atheism). One of our teachers went to a debate and his wxact phrase was "ashamed of how the young earth creationist didn't address the points"

I'm a draftsman not a scientist but I have to understand scientific principles to do my job. Basically when I hear the science that has proven an old earth I'm seeking to understand the assumptions. I wrote an essay in a very hostile environment to my ideas. It was interesting how the conversation unfolded. I think the conversation stayed civil for the most part but read beyond my essay at your own risk.

http://www.freeratio.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=5626523

Adam_777 wrote:Hi Zoegirl,

Of course, I could be wrong, that's why I study. I stay open to the evidence and try hard not to jump to conclusions. However, every attempt to defend a day/age interpretation of scripture goes into odd contortions away from the plainest meaning of the text. I know verses have been misinterpreted in the past for things like, flat earth and a geocentric earth but the YECs say that the Day/age Model is unneeded, unproven, un-provable, and changes meaning badly enough that verses could mean anything. The philosophy that confuses so many Christians today is naturalism, secular humanism, sprinkled with a healthy dose of post-modern relativism. You have tried to use a relativistic method on me.

adam wrote:The faulty antithesis is this: If you don't know something completely (show us that ALL the research is wrong) then you can't know anything. Is this right? I hope you really don't believe this.

adam wrote: I don't know every shred of research and neither do you. I think the theoretical conclusions scientists come up with today in the realm of origins shows the self-righteous nature of people today.

adam wrote: There are good answers for why a plain reading of Genesis is not only acceptable but mandated. A good exegeses will, at least show that the day/age theory is an eisegesis of scripture and not meriting God the capacity to tell us how He did it in simple language.

adam wrote: It doesn't take a Hebrew scholar to understand scripture:

(2 Peter 3:16-17) 16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures , unto their own destruction. 17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.

If your arguments for rearranging the meaning of scripture sound similar to the arguments that people use against God wouldn't you want to be open to the possibility that the World has influenced you more than the Word?

adam wrote: (2 Cor 13:5-6) 5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified. 6 But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.

If you think canning air trapped in ice or measuring radioactive decay or presuming what we're looking at when we're watching stars is more viable then God's Word, I can't help you.

adam wrote: I'll take the eye-witness testimony, thanks. The evidence for Abe Lincoln is almost completely tied up in history (letter, pictures, eye-witness accounts passed down). The origin of the universe is also tied up in history; the best account we have; God's infallible Word.

adam wrote: Jesus didn't qualify Genesis the way we do. If Jesus could plainly say things like “Have you not read…” or “Is it not written…” this tells me that He even revered scripture as plain so I have to ask; what happened in the last century that allows us to feel that we can read things into scripture? We have such liberty to interpret scripture when all the while it's really interpreting us.

zoegirl wrote:And this is fine....just stop using YEC data. If none of the data is reliable, then NONE of us can atttempt to explain it. If God's creation is so unable to be studied, then Ken Ham has no business using his data.

zoegirl wrote:http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Fischer.pdf

Can't past it ehre because it is a PDF but very nice summary of the biblical context of YOM

Adam_777 wrote:

zoegirl wrote:http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Fischer.pdf

Can't past it ehre because it is a PDF but very nice summary of the biblical context of YOM

I couldn't open it.

FFC wrote:

Adam_777 wrote:

zoegirl wrote:http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Fischer.pdf

Can't past it ehre because it is a PDF but very nice summary of the biblical context of YOM

I couldn't open it.

It's still evolving