Evolution Corrupts the Gospel

>>>>>>>>>>Peter your post was rich in allegation and totally devoid of any reference to a science fact.<<<<<<

BobRyan,

Is your statement that follows, fact or fiction?

>>>>>>>>>In the case of old-earth geochronometers such as some of the radiometric clocks - the problem is the "starting conditions" have to be
"assumed" rather than "proven". And of course - atheism makes the "assumption" of no radioactive daughter products and a non-useful parent
product - because they don't "need" a living-planet to start with.<<<<<<

The fact of the matter is, BobRyan, that some geochronometers do not assume starting conditions and that some geochronometers do not make the assumption of zero radioactive daughter products. The fact of the matter is, BobRyan, that your objection is not valid as a general statement, although it is valid for some methods. But you really don't know enough about the methods to comment intelligently on them. I don't know what you mean by a non-usefull parent, and I suspect you can't explain it, either.

 

Peter101,
I'm curious--could you give us examples of some geochronometers which do NOT assume starting conditions (or zero radioactive "daughter" products) and in what manner they date the earth? Thanks.
DT

 

Although discussion of radiometric dating methods really belongs in a separate thread, there is an very good web page discussing radiometric dating from a Christian perspective at
http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/Wiens.html

Some readers may prefer to skip down to the section entitled "Can We Really Believe the Dating Methods?" or the appendix entitled "Common Misconceptions Regarding Radiometric Dating Methods."

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks--I'll check it out.
DT

 

The link referred to by a previous poster does provide support for my statement that BobRyan did not accurately characterize the radiometric methods. That is found in the list of misconceptions about the methods. I concur that the mentioned web site is a very good place to get high quality information about the various dating methods. Also, I would like to quote from one section of the web site as follows that discusses the radioactive halos:

"At any rate, halos from uranium inclusions are far more common. Because of uranium's long half-lives, these halos take at least several hundred million years to form. Because of this, most people agree that halos provide compelling evidence for a very old Earth."

 

JamesV wrote:

I don’t mind if anyone believes in the literal inerrancy of the Bible in the privacy of their home or church. But there are many of us Christians who have a different view of the Bible, and so it won’t cut any ice with us to say that “God says in Genesis that species were specially created”: we don’t believe that God (in effect) wrote Genesis or closely guided its writing or that it is best understood as an historical account.

If the “God says so” argument is to carry any weight with us, you have to give us some reason to believe that God guided the writing of the Bible in the way that you say. And so far I have not seen any such reason except arguments from authority, e.g. the Bible itself says so or some church council or authority says so. OK, so how do we know that those authorities are correct – because some other authority says so? This leads to an infinite regress.

This is really the heart of the creation-evolution controversy. Fundamentally it is not a matter of competing interpretations of the scientific evidence; rather, it comes from different views of the Bible. The scientific discussions here are interesting and informative, but they can never resolve the dispute because they do not touch the root of the matter. Since the evidence for evolution, although overwhelming, is complex and indirect, many Christians will find it very difficult to accept evolution so long as they believe it fundamentally contradicts their religious faith.

At the head of this forum it says “Creation/evolution boards on the net have a habit of degenerating into insults and mockery.” That’s partly because the participants are often not addressing the real issues underlying the dispute, which are religious in nature. A constructive dialogue between the two sides is a real possibility, but it requires each side to be honest about their real thoughts and feelings and to listen to the other side with respect and humility. Rather than announcing that "Evolution corrupts the Gospel" and implying that those who accept evolution are heretics or worse, it would be more constructive to ask them how they understand the Gospel and Christianity, recognizing that Christians have had and continue to have differing understandings of their faith.

I wrote: "Do you really worship a God who did all that the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) says He did?" JamesV:

Some of the hard sayings: The Bible implies that it was OK for Moses to commit murder, because his victim was an Egyptian. The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. The Lord killed or commanded the killing of countless men, women and children in the Hebrew Bible, especially if they got in the way of the Israelites. Much of the Mosaic law is cruel or irrational. Womanhood is insulted in many passages. There are a large number of at least apparent contradictions, e.g., three differing accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts. And on and on. (There is a very thorough list of problems with the Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/, although I don’t agree with everything on this page and don’t care for the sarcastic tone.)

This is part of the reason I reject the notion that the Bible is in every word the divinely inspired inerrant words of God. Another reason, of course, is the collision with the scientific consensus on biology and geology. I believe that there is a better way of understanding the Scriptures.

Richard

 

The title of this thread is disrespectful of those christians who accept evolution. I am sure that if I started a thread entitled "Creationism Corrupts the Gospel", it would be promptly deleted by the administrators.

 

May God guide you in your search for Him and His ways. There is (IMO) nothing more important in this life.

 

>>>>>UNLESS they are halos from Polonium showing INSTANT formation of granite. Then of course "we can't trust those stinking halos no more".<<<<<<

The halos don't come with a label, saying that they are caused by Polonium. But if they did, how do you conclude that the halos were caused by "primordial" Polonium? Remember that it has to be primordial polonium in order for Gentry's conclusion to be correct.

 

BobRyan,

Some of the dating methods do not require that the initial amounts of daughter or parent be known. It is not necessary to know those initial conditions to calculate an age. It is not easy to explain, but an analogy may help. Some of you may have played bridge. If so, you will know the meaning of the term "finess". To me, calculating the age by Isochron methods is a bit like a finess
in bridge. You make your bid without knowing for sure the location of the card that can stop you.
Here is a quote from a site that explains the isochron method.

>>>>>>Initial daughter product

The amount of initial D is not required or assumed to be zero. The greater the initial D-to-Di ratio, the further the initial horizontal line sits above the X-axis. But the computed age is not affected.<<<<<<

The above quote is from:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html#isodaughter

Also, it is important to point out that the methods by which the age of the earth and moon have been calculated are mostly isochron methods, that are immune from the problems that Bob Ryan has mentioned. Also, there are several different methods that are independent of each other and give the same age. This is powerful proof of the accuracy of these methods.

 

Since I just have a few minutes and you seem to be impatient for a reply, I will post a brief response.

Among Christians there are different interpretations of what the Gospel means. To me it means (very briefly) that the Kingdom of God is available to us sinners through the grace of God. The Fall does not have to be something that happened 6,000 years ago, or even a specific event. It means that without God's grace we are in a state of separation from God, however that may have come about. The Gospel, in the sense I believe in it, would be true even if Genesis said that humans came into existence exactly the way evolution says.

Please don't assume that every Christian shares your conception of the Gospel.

 

Amen, and great post brother Bob.

 

Just started to go through more of this thread. I guess you lost, eh?

Why does that remind me of the way Christianity itself is treated in some countries? That is seriously one of the most incredible statements I have read here. I am betting the author of it is also one who will holler about free speech when he is told to keep his ideas and opinions confined so that they cannot corrupt others!

The halos of the various radioactive elements have distinctive characteristics. You find rings at set radii from the central inclusion; and the pattern of rings is what tells us what element was originally there. Gentry considered the polonium halos he studied to be primordial because there was no precursor or parent element rings to be seen. Gentry's point was that, without evidence of a precursor, and since that type of polonium requires a precursor element, these halos must have been created or formed in situ. Since then, other possibilities have emerged, which can be found in the other literature on the topic. Currently Mark Armitage is working in conjuntion with Dr. Andrew Snelling examining many more halos in material they themselves have collected and know precisely where it came from. Gentry's major flaw that I am aware of was that he got his original materials from a museum or collector and did not have background history on them. It should also be noted that Gentry was considered the world's leading expert on radiohalos getting numerous government grants and lab privileges until it became known that he was concluding from his own research that the halos might be evidence of sudden and even recent creation. At this point all lab privileges stopped, his funding was cut off, and he was suddenly a pariah. It's interesting what matters of faith can do in science.

That was from Bob -- Bob, it is not a matter of how fast granite forms. It is a matter of how the polonium got into the mixture.

Also, your scenario which I quoted above is not in line with the biblical model that I can see, where we have a cool beginning (waters) which then heated up from the inside, presumably because of radioactivity.

Also, Bob, Peter is correct in saying that there are some dating methods which do not rely on knowledge or presumptions of initial mother/daughter ratios. He is also largely correct regarding the cross-checking using other radiometric dating methods. They key is not in the initial ratios, but with the two other presumptions of lack of migration of elements and, even more primarily, the presumption of consistency of radiodecay rates through time.

from Richard C:

Richard, you are blithely declaring that you can use your finite wisdom, understanding, etc. to judge Scripture. Scripture has already validated itself historically. Matthew considered it reliable enough to use it to try to convince his own people that Jesus was their long-awaited Messiah. You are choosing not to take it at face value due to your own inability to understand it -- but isn't that what we would expect if something was given to us by God? What makes you think we have any right at all to even begin to understand anything past what He has revealed to us? And even then, we have been told to ask for wisdom. Have you ever prayed, asking humbly for wisdom before you pick up your Bible to read it? That is something that is extremely important. You see, God CAN be trusted. Man cannot. You will find that confirmed in the last few sentences of the second chapter of the gospel of John. If Jesus would not entrust Himself as a person to men, why should you entrust the truth to them? God knows what He is doing, and He knows how to communicate clearly to us -- even through other men. In fact, you will find in 1 Peter 1:10-11 the following:

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Thus, we have evidence from the Bible -- unless this you also choose to throw out or reinterpret -- that even those who wrote the early Scriptures did so under inspiration and that they were not always sure themselves of what was being meant. But they knew God, and that was enough. Thus, we can trust, as they did, that God is communicating clearly throughout His Word to us.

So, you see, it's not a matter of sharing anyone's conception of the Gospel, but of believing it or not believing it as it is written. When Jesus answered the Pharisees, and even Satan himself, we hear over and over again, "It is written...."

If Jesus considered it in that light, perhaps so should we.