See who is a Creation Scientist

Do you care to give more than a sentence fragment for any of those. Sentence fragments are not very convincing. How about a few paragraphs on a few of them? The part that actually proves a young earth, not the part that you just think is a problem for an old earth.

And a citation for your archy conference claims while you are at it.

[ October 05, 2004, 11:05 PM: Message edited by: UTEOTW ]

 

Bob and Gup20,

Check out one of my sites. It's called Young Earth Creationists - http://yecs.org . It has a great number of YECs articles on a variety of topics.

God bless,
Jason

 

I read the article at the link you provided. It raised some questions for me. One particular question is: If some pre-flood people wrote documents (it mentioned clay tablets) that were later incorporated into Genesis, then does that mean that somehow these documents survived the flood and were found subsequently by Moses (or someone)?

I'm not arguing, but I find this difficult to believe (or understand). Am I using bad exegesis?

[edited to add:]

I guess Noah must have taken them on the Ark. Hey, I guess maybe I answered my own question. It is late.

[ October 06, 2004, 02:40 AM: Message edited by: Michael52 ]

 

"As I read nameless' quibbles, I thought the exact same thing."

You really should learn to do something other than make personal attacks. Calling something "quibbles" was not a convincing response last time I checked.

I have to ask, "doctor," if you actually read your bud Laz's statement over on IIDB. (I'm not sure becuase on this thread you have shown quite an inability to recall what others, including yourself, have posted.) He spelled it out quite nicely. If you are successful at showing that a young earth interpretation is the only way to go, but you cannot refute the evidence for an old earth and show in addition that the earth is actually young, then you have given all the Laz's of the world all the reason they need to reject God and I don't think it would be very hard to dig up anecdotes on former Christians who lost their faith over the same thing.

"Check out one of my sites. It's called Young Earth Creationists - http://yecs.org . It has a great number of YECs articles on a variety of topics."

I hope this is more intellectually honest than your list of scientists who "rejected" evolution but who in reality had either never heard of evolution or who were actually old earthers.

Let's see.

Go to the home page. Click on the top item on the menu bar to the side "Cave Formations." Then click on the first link. (Is this whole page nothing but links?! Anything original?!) "Rapid Stalactites? - by Stephen Meyers, B.S., and Robert Doolan" which links to http://answersingenesis.org/creation/v9/i4/stalactites.asp . The reader may go read it for themselves but in summary it tells of a number of anecdotes where stalactites where seen to be forming more quickly than normal.

But let's examine it and see.

Well, it turns out that rapid growth of stalactites is known to science. Unfortunately for AIG and Jason, this generally invloves minerals other than limestone that are much more soluable in water. A number of the examples in the article (mostly those on manmade structures like bridges and "cement wall steps" involve cement. In this case rainwater will react with the cement to form calcium hydroxide which is quite soluable in water. (If you have ever taken a chemistry lab you will know what I mean.) The calcium hydroxide will react with carbon dioxide from the air and precipitate calcium carbonate.

Only two examples actually involve limestone. One is an example of a bottle that accumulated 3 millimeters of calcium carbonate in 33 years. Multiply this out and you get 9 inches per thousand years which is within the normal range for stalactite growth and is not actually unusual. The other example is where water discharged from a power plant forms stalactites quickly in a tunnel. First, hot water from a power plant would be expected to dissolve much more limestone and does not represent a natural set of conditions. Second, we don't know that the water itself is not carrying material that could enhance the growth. If the water was flowing through concrete aquaducts, it could pick up CaOH as we already disscussed. Or water treatment in the plant could change the pH and make limestone more soluable in the water.

So, in all the blunder, AIG never gives us an example of rapid growth of limestone stalactites under natural conditions.

I guess this does meet the standard of your other list. Now all you need is a page of quote mining and you are all set. Is there one of those out there somewhere, "doctor?"

I also can better see now why you went to a group of atheists and asked to debate Bible interpretation. You would be in real trouble if you took my advice and offered them that you would take the affirmative on a debate that asked if the physical evidence is consistent with a model of a young earth consistant with a YE Biblical interpretation.

 

Ran out of edit time. I made a mistake. Calcium hydroxide is Ca(OH)2 not CaOH.

 

Ute,

I visited that board. Lazarus made an interesting statement about attempting to prove that the Bible meant to be literal and thus must TODAY be rejected since science has disproved it.

His age (19 I think based on the profile) suggests he may be an angstful college kid who resents the religion of his parents!

It would seem to be a bit of twist for Jason - although it would inevitably lead back to the evolution versus creation debate.

 

Shall we discuss the unprovable uniformitarian assumptions going into this statement? For example, that the conditions for growth would remain exactly the same throughout the thousands of years, or that the 3 mm of growth occured at the same rate over the 33 years?

From AiG: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v9/i4/stalactites.asp
Although these fantastic features are commonly thought to represent perhaps tens of thousands of years or more of groundwater action,1 there is much evidence that they can form rapidly under certain conditions. For example, Sequoyah Caverns, south of Chattanooga at Valley Head, Alabama, has fast-growing formations. Director of the caverns, Clark Byers, cemented a clear plastic panel in front of some stalactites in April, 1977, to prevent tourists from breaking them off. In less than 10 years the stalactites grew about 25 centimetres (10 inches or one inch per year). On the ceiling of the cave, animal tracks can be seen, and there are fossils of many marine creatures—plus a bird fossil which looks like a chicken. In an interview in 1985, cavern director Byers made no secret of the fact that he believes these fossils are a result of Noah’s Flood.

 

Well, saying there are unproveable uniformatrian assumptions is one thing. Continue to claim them as evidence for a young earth is another thing. Do you have evidence somewhere for NON UNIFORMITARIAN interpreation of the earth's geological past? In view of Ute's comments about how there are known instances of rapid stalagtite formation when certain chemicals are involved, you'll need to find documentation that this instance wasn't one of those cases.

 

Well I was HOPING you would ask!!

In fact, my evidence is so irrefutable that I am surprised that it does not convince everyone here on this Christian board!

In Genesis 1:1, the Bible begins by explaining to us in great detail how the earth was created by God in six literal days. Each day of creation marking the main work done by God on that day. The Bible goes on to describe each day of creation as GOOD, and the things created - the things God SAW were GOOD. This indicates quite convincingly that there was no sin or death in the original creation. By the sixth and final day of creative work, God had craeated all life on earth. In his final act of creation, he created Humanity in his own image to steward the creation for Him. He told Adam, the first Man he created, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or death would enter the world. The Bible tells us that Death is the result of sin... the wages of sin is death.

Romans 5:12 tells us that death entered the world because of Sin, and Adam's was the first sin.

Genesis 3 tells us that prior to Adam's sin, and the subsequent curse that is known as The Fall, there was no need for adam to sustain himself by eating, and there was no death (Gen 3:19) prior to the fall.

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.

Furthermore we see from the lifespans of Adam and his immediate offspring that they lived 900+ years. Then God mitigated that in the gene pool by limiting that to ~ 120 years (science now thinks that lifespan is hereditary).

Gen 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

The Bible also describes that, because of the sin and death that had entered the world (AFTER the time of creation where God delcared everything good), it had now become corrupted.

Gen 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
These are severe biological changes the world had never seen... and very contrary to the uniformitarian concept.

What does corrupt mean? It is the Hebrew word shachath {shaw-khath'}. It means to destroy, corrupt, go to ruin, decay. At the time of the creation of Man on day six, things were good... not corrupt. Therefore there was no death or decay. One of the definitions of Corrput from Merriam-Webster's dictionary is "to alter from the original or correct form or version" or to spoil or rot (aka decay). That means there was no decay in creation leading up to and including the creation of man, and this concept (in the form of sin and death) was introduced AFTER man's creation. This means that evolution could not have happened, as it is predicated upon millions of years of death and struggle.

Furthermore - in detriment to the uniformitarian mindset is we see the Bible describe Noah's world-wide flood. This is a severe geologic event that is ignored by present uniformitarian scientific interpretation of evidence.

There is much more of course in the Word, however, these should be sufficient evidences of NON-UNIFORMITARIAN interpretations in the geologic past. Since God's credibility is 100% and his word is infallible and absolutely true in every verse, we can take the eyewitness account of creation and the flood and apply that to our interpretations of the evidence. Therefore the uniformitarian mindset should be dismissed as we have no doubt whatsoever that is is a mistaken concept.

[ October 06, 2004, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: Gup20 ]

 

AIG was the ones making the assumptions. They were the ones reporting the growth over the years. All I did was point out that the growth was in the range that science expects stalactite from limestone to grow.

Now as far as the part of the article you quote goes... Tell me where they say that those were stalactites made from limestone.

That is the whole point here. AIG tried to pull a fast one. Stalactites made from limestone take a very long time to grow.

(You want me to provide some citations for radiometric dating that demonstrates this? How about Ford, Derek C. and Carol A. Hill, 1999. Dating of speleothems in Kartchner Caverns, Arizona. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 61(2): 84-88. You will see stalactites dated at 190 thousand years old. Just why would the dating agree with the observed growth rates if both radiometric dating was a problem and these things really could grow quickly?)

It is well known that stalactites made from minerals other than limestone can and do grow quickly. So AIG depends on the reader not knowing this and tries to trick him. They do this by trying to equate the growth of non-limestone stalactites with those from limestone. There only two examples of limestone stalactites in the article. In one growth occurs at the normal rate and is not a natural situation in another. They are trying to trick the reader and they are very good at it. But, like most young earth arguments, they crumble under the slightest weight of an investigation.

 

Actually, you said you wanted an example of stalactites in natural conditions...

I gave you an example of growth in natural conditions... a cave of stalactities.

 

Hi Paul,

Part of the problem in evolutionism is that they don't account for a world wide flood and the cataclysmic activity that accompanied it (e.g. volcanoes, seismic activity, etc.). Evolutionists believe that everything has remained constant and decayed at a constant rate, but when you throw those things I just mentioned into the mixture, you get an entirely different story. This is a prime reason why evolutionists get billions of years as they date things and creationists (e.g. yecs) do not.

God bless,
Jason

 

http://sherpaguides.com/georgia/mountains/cumberland_plateau/cumberland_plateau.html


This link describes the Sequoyah Caverns as being limestone rock, BTW -

Caves of Lookout Mountain
Here in the northwest corner of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and the southern part of Tennessee, cavers have discovered a region linked by the Cumberland Plateau and characterized by a vast network of caves cut through limestone rock. To cavers this region is not Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, but "TAG." They come from all over the world to explore its labyrinthine underground passages. Tennessee alone has more than 5,500 caves—more than any other state. Ellison's Cave on Georgia's Pigeon Mountain is the deepest cave east of the Mississippi River.

A few caves in the region are commercial, open to the public for a fee. These include famous caves such as Ruby Falls in Lookout Mountain and lesser-known sites such as Sequoyah Caverns near Valley Head, Alabama. Business volume varies greatly at different caves. Raccoon Mountain Caverns estimates some 10,000 visitors a year, while perhaps 350,000 annually see Ruby Falls.

(emphasis added by me)

 

We are not talking about the caves we are talking about what is dissolved in the water entering the caves and making the stalactites. There is nothing here to indicate that the stalactites are made of dissolved limestone or that anything unusual is actually going on.

And you did not answer the question of why, if the growth rate of stalactites is actually so much faster and if radiometric dating does not work, did the dating of the stalactites in the reference I gave you turn out as they did.

 

You also have not given any consideration to the time required to dissolve the cave itself before you can start growing stalactites!

 

And do you think factoring Noah's flood into the formation of the caves increases or decreases that time?

 

It really depends on the cave.

You may want to go look up the difference between vadose caves and phreatic caves. Vadose caves were actually formed (geologically) quickly through flowing water. The result is very much different than the classic phreatic caves which are formed very slowly over time through dissolution of limestone. And, unfortunately for you, most caves do not show evidence of rapid formation but there are some that do and the evidence points you to which are which.

So, a handful of caves do show evidence of rapid formation but most are inconsistent with rapid formation.

 

One other question.

Since you are asserting that the caves were dissolved / carved out by flood waters, just when was all that limestone deposited?

You problems continue to multiply.