Creation History

Science is accurate-history isn't. Also, you might want to check back into learning about science: The world wide flood-has no evidence to support it, nor does a young earth.

 

>>>>>Science can only be used to validate things that we know already.<<<<<<<<

Not true at all and what a strange idea. Science often leads to entirely new knowledge that we did not know previously. Of course it is useful to use history as well as science, as long as we understand that historical records have the potential to be mistaken and often are mistaken. Your comment above shows that you do not understand science very well.

 

Hi Mike! Welcome to the board! Are we having fun yet?

I'd like to ask you your opinion about continental drift. Do you take it to have all happened at once in the days of Peleg, as some have claimed?

 

Perhaps this timeline of creationist history, worked out by the guys at talk.origins, would help:

Well today the earth is 6000 years old according to Bishop Usher. Unfortunately this was not good enough for Dr. Lightfoot, and so in the seventeenth century, in his great work, Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and one of the most eminent Hebrew scholars of his time, declared, as a result of his most profound and exhaustive study of the Scriptures, that "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created all together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water," and that "this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine o'clock in the morning."

For those of you who know a little about geology a beginning:

23 Oct. 4004 BC: Encounter with Nemesis knocks Lucifer out of Oort Cloud.

1 Nov. 4004 BC: Earth still largely molten; Adam and Eve cover their shame with Asbestos waders.

3714 BC: The first biotechnologist, Cain, invents cyanobacteria.

3554 BC: Komataiites inundate earliest crust, Noah's Ark incinerated providing earliest radiocarbon date for charcoal.

2724 BC: Archaean stratiform sulfide deposits form, ending the neolithic. Bronze introduced.

2444 BC: Tired of reading graphic granite, Inkhaten invents hieroglyphics.

2184 BC: Earliest sedimentation. Discovery of slate leads to stone tablets.

2094 BC: Nimrod the Hunter erects the Geosyncline of Babel.

2004 BC: Breathable atmosphere develops; first sermon preached.

1914 BC: Advent of diapirism; Lot's wife turned into first salt dome.

1804 BC: Tubal Cain inaugurates banded Iron Age. Sphinx starts to fossilize.

1794 BC: Children of Ham split from Israelites, insisting that the Burgess shale fauna are kosher. Chowder invented.

1704 BC: Samson attempts first Perovskite synthesis; Laboratory of the Philistines implodes.

1624 BC: Charshumash the Hittite bitten by first vertebrate, lawyers emerge from slime.

1444 BC: War of the Chaldean Succession, Pangaea broken up in accordance with the Treaty of Tartessos.

1334 BC: Shang Empire abandons efforts to invent compass when China drifts over south magnetic pole.

1264 BC: Moses invents hydrofracturing, opening of Red Sea rift drowns Egyptian army.

1194 BC: Odysseus runs aground on Gondwandan riviera.

1104 BC: Ezekiel see de Pterodactyl, 'way up in de middle of the air.

1024 BC: Goliath stepped on by irate Barosaurus; David takes credit.

794 BC: Jonah swallowed by Carcharas megalodon.

454 BC: Marble deposits form in Greece, Parthenon erected.

338 BC: Aristotle publishes Air-Earth-Fire-Water phase diagram, concludes that quartz is a polymorph of water.

64 BC: Pliny the Elder writes eye-witness account of the Alpine orogeny.

48 BC: All of Gaul is divided into three parts when Corsica collides with the European plate.

AD 24: Miracle of the Loaves and Ichthyosaurs.

AD 494: Snakes evolve and are driven out of Ireland.

AD 974: Lief the Unlucky lost with all hands when his dragon ship is mistaken by a rutting male Kronosaurus.

AD 1066: William the Conqueror invades England by walking through northern France.

AD 1215: Magna Carta eaten by Velociraptor.

AD 1324: Gunpowder introduced, dinosaurs immediately hunted to extinction.

AD 1384: Dante Aligheri describes core-mantle boundary.

AD 1484: Leonardo da Vinci designs Archaeopteryx.

AD 1492: Mesoamerica emerges just in time to be discovered by Columbus, the Santa Maria is attacked by Ammonites.

AD 1522: Cortez uses asteroid impact to conquer Aztec Empire.

AD 1588: Spanish Armada frustrated by continuing absence of English Channel.

AD 1604: Flowering plants appear; Wars of the Roses recommence.

AD 1636: Earliest primates appear, Harvard founded.

AD 1664: A primate is elevated to Primate of Ireland; Archbishop Ussher successfully deduces last four out of nine digits of the age of the Earth.

AD 1674: A gibbon, as the first simian graduate of Oxford, submits Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as D. Phil. thesis.

AD 1688: A vengeful Spain finally invades England via London-Bruges canal; Inquisition burns Newton at the stake for Alchemy.

AD 1776: Washington's Mastodon cavalry routs Hessians at Battle of the Hudson Canyon.

AD 1834: Charles Darwin attacked by giant Rattite in Galapagos, returns home a convinced Neptunist.

AD 1894: Awed by extent of glaciation, Cecil Rhodes proposes Capetown to Cairo bobsled run.

AD 1914: Lesser Dryas sea level rise unleashes U-boats into the Atlantic, Holy Roman Empire wins World War One.

AD 1948: Paul Nitze proposes using ice to contain Stalin, Cold War begins, ending First Interglacial.

AD 1954: Second 56-day Interglacial allows Viet Minh to end era of European colonialism with siege of Dienbienphu.

AD 1957: Glaciers return to Fulda gap as De Gaulle invades Russia. Says "Napoleon never experienced a real Russian winter."

AD 1961: Rachel Carson links DDT to Glyptodont's decline.

AD 1969: Last sighting of Sabre-tooth in Central Park, Elizabeth Taylor divorces Proconsul.

AD 1971: Warhol paints Campbell Soup cans on walls of Lascaux caverns.

AD 1983: Australopithicus wins The America's Cup.

AD 1988: Homo habilis evolves into Pat Robertson, who is talked out of naming Family Channel for ancestor.

AD 1990: Last Neanderthals perish in siege of Kremlin.

AD 1991: Saddam Hussein discovers fire, creating Holocene tar sands in Kuwait.

AD 1995: Citing black smoker emissions, EPA bans continental drift. Thermophilis wins Nobel prize for sequencing its own DNA while trapped in amber.

25 Oct AD 1997: talk.origins becomes a moderated newsgroup, T. Holden appointed; St. John's Millennium begins.

 

Welcome Mike!

We tend to be an argumentative lot, and academically adversarial, but there's not as much bitterness here as on some boards. No one cuts anyone else any slack, but I think even the surliest of our number would be sorely missed if they were to depart. I hope you stick around even if things get a little rough.

I took the time to go to your website and read some of your stuff. Although I disagree with about 95% of it, I see you are an intelligent, thoughtful, well-read, and articulate individual. So, although I may be taking the antagonist position here, it's nothing personal -- it's about the ideas and conclusions.

[Let the surliness begin!]

I've studied a lot of alternative* archaeology, anthropology, religion, and history (from here out, I'll just use "anthropology" as inclusive of all four). Mostly the Van Daniken and ancient American schools, somewhat less of the Atlantis / "ancient Gods" schools, and much less of the Velikovsky / Ragnarok schools. I'm worried about several methodologies that seem common to all the branches of alternative history.

First, the use of myth and loose historical narrative requires one to pick and choose. Mainstream anthropologists do this by using common sense, Occam's razor, consensus views, the coordination of evidence from other disciplines, etc. However, for alternative anthropologists, there is a strong inclination to make the pre-existing theological (etc.) views one of these selection criteria.

For example, I'm part Irish, and if I had a strong enough desire to believe that the monastic Irish settled America, I'd be inclined to see Celtic writing on every scratched rock. This causes a positive feedback loop involving the pre-existent belief and the misconstrued evidence. Mainstream anthropology, with tens of thousands of researchers of all ilk, has enough of problem with this even in the absence of a driving ideology.

Second, alternative anthropology relies heavily on similarities between myths and artifacts from various cultures. Sometimes these similarities are genetic. In this case, they are useful to archaeologists and historians. Sometimes, however, the similarities merely represent the similarities common to most human beings and cultures, and so are mostly interesting to anthropologist.

For example, the resemblance of all the pyramids of ancient Egypt is genetic. The similarity of Egyptian pyramids to Meso-American pyramids is almost certainly superficial and due to the constraints placed on building with heaps of stone. Alternative anthropologists have a track record of assuming similarities are genetic until proven otherwise. The converse approach may be less exciting, but it's scientifically preferable.

[Now, just a few "nit-picks," but all in the spirit of lively debate, no meanness intended!]

Alternatively: Every new creationist publication was aimed towards a goal that had already failed, piling one assertion on top of another, and re-stating a case that has already been falsified.

The act of making this statement falsifies it.

I agree, except where necessary to make specific points. We tend to be topic-drifters. As protagonist, much of the burden of keeping us on track will fall on your shoulders; don't be shy about keeping hold of the reins.


-Neil

*Sometimes the term "cult archaeology" is also used (which sounds even worse). But "cult" is used in the technical anthropological sense of a pre-existent belief system which drives the archaeological research, but may be external to it.

 

It's just my opinion; and I'm honestly interested in your view of the difference. If you reject the label "alternative," entirely, I'm OK with that too, as long as you explain why your view differs from what I call alternative.

In social science especially, I do think there's a certain amount of individual choice about what's sensible and what's not. The mainstream view is a consensus of lots of choices by individuals with varying views. This doesn't guarantee correctness, but it does help provide a center and stability to the pursuit of science. And it's always possible to find scientists who confuse the reigning mainstream paradigm with ultimate truth -- they are just as wrong in their own way as the "alternatives." (Anthropologically speaking, the reigning paradigm is the "cult" in their "cult archaeology.")

Even though the number is growing, this is still a controversial position. Some of the archaeologists have adopted this position because of a prior commitment to the Bible as reliable history. Others have adopted the position because a few archaeologists have done a lot of scientific work to move it from the fringe into a more mainstream view. Even some traditional archaeologists who reject the evidence for a revised chronology acknowledge the work the revisionists have done.

My point being: scientific consensus will eventually follow the scientific evidence. To the extent the revisionists have made converts, it shows they are doing good science. To the extent that the revisionists have failed to change the reigning paradigm, it shows their work is faulty or still incomplete.

Not necessarily, any more than if someone considers any other text to be reliable history they become alternative. It's a matter of degree and approach to science. A prior non-scientific commitment to any view does put one's science in danger of becoming "alternative."

A discussion of what's "alternative" anthropology and what's not may not be what you want to discuss here. I mainly offered it by way of background about myself and my views. I'm really more interesting in discussing the evidence and conclusions. I don't reflexively reject ideas that go against mainstream science, but I'm a skeptic so those ideas do face an uphill battle.

For example, I originally thought the idea of an asteroid-induced demise for the dinosaurs was pure bunk (it started as a fringe idea from some mainstream scientists). Twenty years later I have to say that its proponents have marshaled an impressive -- though not airtight -- case. On the flip side, I originally thought Rohl's (et. al.) evidence for a revision in Egyptian chronology was very impressive -- even if it was a fringe idea. Close a decade later, I think the traditional chronology is still better. The revisionists aren't totally without hope, but they're going to have to come up with a lot more evidence.

-Neil

 

A point that the die-hard OE's refuse to consider. Most of the time I hear the old worn out phrase, "God would not deceive us"!!

For some reason they never consider that they just may be mis-interpreting the available data, and it's not "GOD DECEIVING US"!

Science is the one disecting/assimilating/interpreting/juggling all the data and saying, in effect, "I know what God says, but I'm proving otherwise."

As for me, I'll take what God says and be content!

 

Mike wrote:

Perhaps Mike will tell us about his first clue that The Galatian's timeline was a spoof, meant for amusement.

 

Excellent Mike!

Your points at cogent and well formed - as opposed to the light banter that you have received in response so far.

Clearly there is a thread running through the creation histories from many sources - such that a "Bible-believing Christian" would easily detect similarities as from a common source.

But as you have noted in one of your comments - some Christians have drifted to the atheist view of "origins" to the point that any perspective that is "in harmony" with God's Word is "alternative" rather than in their "main stream" thinking.

A very instructive point for the reader.

Bob

 

Mike,

I once asked an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi about the Hebrew grammar and syntax of Exodus 20:8-11 as to whether the term "Yom" could be made to have vague and undefined meaning IN that context.

(The orthodox Jews are in harmony with our evolutionist bretheren here - in embracing the mythologies of evolutionism fully).

And his response was that the term COULD ONLY mean a literal day IN the Exodus 20 text SINCE it is hard-wired into the day of the people at the foot of sinai in the language that is used.

But of course - his response was that the text does not matter to the orthodox Jew - the traditions of the Rabbi's superceed God's Word.

A similar approach that is taken on this thread when God's Word contradicts the mythologies of evolutionism. Mythologies recently "spun" historically speaking (as it turns out).

Bob

 

>>>>>AD 1636: Earliest primates appear, Harvard founded.<<<<<<

Is this just a coincidence?

 

>>>>>There was no rain, and instead the ground was watered by a mist that came up from the earth.<<<<<

Even at the present site of Las Vegas?

 

Especially in Las Vegas.

Seriously, anthropology and archaeology come up so seldom here, maybe we could move this along by picking some particular topic and starting a new thread.

Bro. Mike?

-Neil