Nor do you know. I think that the things states in Genesis REALLY happened. I feel that the details needed are included and that it explains why we have intellectual endeavors. I have no desire to speak for God or explain how he might have done things if he were me. Isn't that anthropomorphizing God?
fine, that's alright if you don't want to "play God" and I don't expect you to answer. That is my point however. Genesis may mean something OTHER than the interpretation you have.
Provide any rational and logical evidence that man knew nothing at that time, or has more capacity now than at some other time in history. It is irrefutable that the further we go back in history the newer systems and organisms were. It is further known that the second law of thermodynamics would have worked on these systems. Is it not logical and reasonable to propose that man could have been more intelligent in the past and been prone to fewer problems?
yes, we are the same "Homo sapiens" as we were back then with the same brains.
But those people living from 2000 BC- 0 AD were
nowhere near modern man in the sciences. These people had basic Bronze Age technology, practiced basic agriculture, and had ethnocentric ideologies.
They weren't stupid, they just hadnt learned yet. Yes, these cultures were developing over time and there were great minds that were around then, but they were not able to fully grasp scientific ideas. Even the most brilliant were unable to fully unravel our place in the Universe or evolution. Even if God wanted to tell His followers about the Universe's complexity and genetics, we wouldn't have bothered since it was way over their heads. It's like describing physics to a 2nd grader! Proof of this is the fact that it took hundreds of more years before science was learned (by trial and error). To put it simply, they accepted the Genesis story and YEC as literally true and the Church suppressed any "progress" (until the late 1700's and 1800's).
The archaeological evidence all shows a Bronze AGE culture with short lifespans, little technology, and basic housing/infrastructure. Can you show me evidence that these people were any more sophisticated than the history books tell us? The most sophisticated thinkers in the ancient world (<0 AD) were polytheists (Greeks, Romans) or Buddhists (Chinese). We are focusing on the ancient Christians who would have written the Bible.
It would seem this suggests that man's reasoning/thinking processes are not perfect, and perhaps he will develop flawed theories. My faith in the ability of man to interpret the Bible is not faith in man at all but faith in God and His Spirit.
yeah, if a
handful of scientists came up with evolution/Old Earth then you could say that maybe their "reasoning/thinking processes" were flawed. But the fact that the majority of the scientific community, with a heck of a lot of experience and education, has accepted the idea takes away your argument. The YEC's are the ones with flawed theories because 1. they are based off of a sotry that cannot be proven as true and 2. one that lacks any evidence whatsoever. So, who more likely has the "reasoning/thinking" flaws? The YEC's. Faith in God/His spirit will make your faith improve but not your reasoning/thinking... sorry.
There isn't a shred of evidence that points to an old earth, and to even suggest that there is simply and clearly demonstrates your bias in interpretations of future “evidence”. The only things pointing to an old earth or a young earth are actions of reasoning and thinking that create structural models. There is a simple axiom within science, generated by great minds of the past that says, “The simplest explanation is most likely to be true”.
Uh, common sense points to an Old Earth. You did not provide any evidence for your position. I put all of those examples on the table supporting Old Earth. Please tell me what proves a Young one? If your idea had any plausibility whatsoever, you could find something on Earth that could only happen on a young Earth. And if you are a YEC, you have to shoehorn it all into the history of human civilization (most of which is recorded history). Good luck with that!
"Simplest explanation"? Yeah, so thunder is God bowling in Heaven and rain is God crying? lol You know very well that the Universe is far too complex to be explained by the simplest explanation. YEC's criticize evolution as not explaining this complexity good enough. How do you intend to explain it all using the simplest explanation when it really isn't simple at all? Case in point, the Noah Story. It sounds good on paper but if you try and explain what we see on Earth using this "simple explanation", the story just falls apart.
Also radiometric dating, rock composition, fossil composition, and drifting rates, are all interpretations and not really evidence of anything. Did you have some specific rediometric date, rock formation, fossil, or plate movement you would like to refer too?
I am not saying INTERPRETATIONS are EVIDENCE, I am saying the EVIDENCE points to this INTERPRETATION. Big difference.
Isn't the former a YEC tactic?
all of that points to one conclusion, OLD Earth. Just look in any journal or textbook that looks at dating, geochronology, plate tectonics. Do you really want me to post an example? The fact that all of the evidence points to the same conclusion is powerful evidence. It explains what we see today perfectly. On the other hand, YEC has not explained anything yet.
Please explain why individual plates have not and can not change speed
thermodynamics. If you sped up plates that much it would generate so much heat that the oceans would heat up so much as to kill all the life in it. Fast plate tectonics also fails to explain the apparent great age of the ocean basins: the magnetic reversals set in basalt, the sediment patterns on the abyssal plain, the position and age of the Hawaiian Islands, erosion patterns of continents, the distribution of current organisms, the correlation of the fossil records on separate continents, and the interactions of plates. Care to explain all of this assuming a young Earth? Where is the geologic record of such a catastropic plate movement?
I would suggest that what we see right now is not a reliable predictor of what might be happening in a different environment or period in history.
I accept this as I still haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.
I don't reject evidence, or reason, or logic, but I do reject structural models based mostly on philosophy. Science has become less of the exacting and strict application of reason in a dualistic world that we would see in Aristotle, Descartes, and Newton, and more of an art form in best how to interpret all evidence presumming an age of 4.6 billion years. This is the ilk of the uniform geology, material monism, present is the key to the past, evolutionary structural model.
Philosophy? Evolution/Old Earth emerged by the same processes of "strict application of reason" as were used by Aristotle, Archimedes, Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin. I think Darwin's reasoning was reasoning in it's purest form. Evolution didn't even exist on paper and this man had the insight to use the evidence to explain what we see today on Earth. In the final years of the 19th century this reasoning continued in all different fields as the fallacy of YEC was exposed. The fact that YEC has been left behind by reason is your problem, not mine... Evolution/Old Earth is not a scientific conspiracy and if it is, I'd love to see the proof (start from Darwin's day and go from there).
P.S., the age of "4.6 billion years" is a fairly recent estimate. The age of the Earth has increased as we learned more over time so it makes no sesne to say that we started with an assumption of 4.6 by and made the evidence fit it.
You still have to face the fact that you start with a conclusion and fit evidence after. That's the worst thing you can do in science.
Theories are not an accept or reject question they are simple suppositions and explanations from an imperfect organism with no first hand knowledge of the actual truth of many things. Science is not a collection of theories, but a process of discovery.
Yes, it is a process of discovery but why do you assume that Man has not learned one thing in the last 2000 years in the field of science. If sciecne using the scientific method is obviously useless to you, then how do you suppose we find out about our past, present, and future. These same "theories" that Man has come up with are happening as we speak. Plate Tectonics, evolution, it's all happening right now!
You said you will not accept or reject science's theories on the premise that "no one was there". Then, by logic, you can't accept YEC either because it has the same exact problem. Where do we go now?
Every theory of the beginning, except one, lacks a feasible mechanism. God by his very Word created the earth and the heavens, and it has always been here from mans finite perspective.
All of the mechanism of Old Earth are realistic and based on current processes. So unless you think today's mechanisms are not actually existent, then they are perfectly acceptable mechanisms for the past.
So this same God placed all of this evidence around us just to keep us busy? Did He create an apparent Old Earth recently? For all we know, God didn't tell us jack and he's enjoying watching us come to the correct conclusion regarding our origins!
Please provide more specifics about what you propose here. Are you saying that at some point several continents were submerged?
I didn't say several. The Indian subcontinent was once further wouth and a sea existed between India and Asia (two masses on two plates. The Asian plate comprised a huge area and the Indo-Australian Plate contained India and other land masses. As India approached Asia, the continental rocks interacted with each other. As the areas got closer together, the deep ocean basin filled in with sediment from the two landmasses (river runoff) and also uplifted as the two masses collided slowly. The two granite masses were of equal mass so instead of subducting, the masses buckled and folded. The slow rate is evident by the transition from a deeper whater fauna to a shallow, bottom-dwelling fauna. The continents closed on each other over long periods of time and finally the old Tethys seafloor was lifted above sealevel. Some pockets and lakes existed until the whole landmass had fused. The Himalayas rose over the next several million years. The plates have done this at a constant slow rate and this continues to this day where My Everest continues to grow slowly. I'd need to see evidence in the rock of fast change to accept an alternate theory. A fast change would leave a footprint!
Would it not also be correct to observe that at some point the region called the Tethy's sea was at some point as high as Everest?
if Everest was once at sea level and below, as in not yet uplifted as a "mountain" then yes it was.
We do not know that Tethy's fauna is distinct from fossils found in the time of dinosaurs; that is an interpretation.
We do know. The Tethys fauna is more closely related to today's fauna than it is to the dinosaur's. You also do not find dinosaur fossils in the same strata (and there were many marine dinos). You'd need to find me a Tethys fossil and a dinosaur era fossil that are identical to each other to confirm contemporary status. They are different so that means different time.
We may be able to find out with more specific and wide spread information that we do not find that specific shallow water fauna in many places were we find large dinosaur fossils.
yes, we cannot find land dinosaur fossils with shallow sea fossils just by the habitat difference. But, we do know what dinosaur-era sea creatures looked like as they have been taken in Triassic-Cretaceous strata.
Please explain how Levels of sea level rise and fall in association with Ice ages places a date on the region. It seems clear that sea level and ice content are related systems. If a purple baboon laid a golden egg sea level change and ice sheet content would be related. Please explain.
I don't know what the purple baboon thing is but Ice core data allows us to see precipitation levels, CO2 levels, and atmospheric data and that allows us to interpret sea level changes. We can track the number and intensity of Ice Ages over the last few million years. While this might not be good for something 60 million years ago, this method of dating is reliable for things 100's of thousands of years in the past. This correlates very well with sea level data preserved in rock layers. Is there any other way to explain sea level rises and falls? Ice formation and melting is the only way to significantly change sea level in geologic time.
Look at a normal coastal stratum. Explain in ANY other way besides normal repetitive sea level falls and rises that you would get said stratum?
Again answer yourself
answer what? It all agrees and points to one conclusion.
Please show how each: the plate movements, the fossil record, and the radiometric dating methods independently show the time and speed of Everest formation.
it all does... it is common knowledge in the scientific community. Tectonics is happening, radiometric dating works and is used in a wide field of sciences, and the fossil record is set in stone (cannot be altered). Show me how all of this shows a Young Earth. The burden of proof is on you to prove your own theory.
