Is there evidence for a young earth? (An experiment)

I am curious about something—since you don't have a scientific background, what will be the basis for your evaluation of the credibility of that which may be posted in this thread?

 

http://www.setterfield.org/timeline.htm
If you can follow it.

 

"Salty seas: Evidence for a young earth"

Hello PlainSense

This is a good example of the kind of fraud we find on the YE side.

The first mistake is that there are at least 17 known sodium removal processes that are not mentioned or considered.

Another mistake is that he mistates the removal of sodium by alteration of basalt by hydrothermal activity by a factor of 35! When you consider the actual number removes 23% of the sodium that enters the ocean by itself, this is a huge mistake. It is difficult to even call it a mistake since the number comes from one of his sources.

If you fix all of the mistaken nnumbers and overlooked proceses, you find that the input of sodium is estimated to be 35.6 x 10^10 kg/yr while the output is estimated at 38.1 x 10^10 kg/yr. That appears to be a larger number out than in. Of course the error bars are large enough that what it really means is that the level of sodium is at equilibrium. If they are at equilibrium, then you cannot tell for how long this has been the case.

Another interesting thing is that the is a letter written to the authors about 9 years ago detailing the mistakes. The erroneous data has never been removed. Here is a link to the last of a series of letters between the authors and a scientists. They replied so they got the message. They just choose to continue the lie.

http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199606/0051.html

 

Do you plan to respond to the criticism of Setterfield or are you just going to keep posting the same link without defending it?

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/39.html#000001
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/1/2931.html#000002

 

The magnetic field has flipped several times in the past and probably will do so again. What about it?

Salt water - citations from 1750 and 1859? You gots to be kidding.

OK let's assume that life on earth is only 6,000 years old. I propose that life was seeded here by space aliens in flying saucers. I challange you to propose a physical test to show me wrong.

 

I do not want to hijack what may prove to be an interesting thread to deal with this unrelated nonsense, but because it is hazardous to the health of Christians, I shall address it very briefly.

Mr. Setterfield, a self-appointed “scientist” without a formal education in the sciences, seems to be determined to defend his personal and erroneous interpretation of Gen. 1 - 11 at all cost to the Christian faith. Notice the VERY FIRST SENTENCE in the article by Mr. Setterfield that is linked to in the above post,

“God does not lie.”

The clear and obvious intention of this sentence is to falsely insinuate that mainstream science makes God out to be a liar. But it is NOT God that mainstream science is making out to be a liar! The large majority of Baptist scholars of the Old Testament, and the vast majority of scholars of the book of Genesis, do NOT find Gen. 1 – 11 to be in conflict with science, but they do find the interpretation of Gen. 1 – 11 that Mr. Setterfield tenaciously holds to be true to be in conflict with the a sound interpretation of that passage of Scripture.

Posturing science against God and telling people that they have to choose EITHER science OR the Bible, and if they believe science they are calling God a liar, is causing thousands of young people every year to make a conscious decision for science and against the Bible. However, when we compare science to what the large majority of Baptist scholars of the Old Testament interpret Genesis 1 – 11 to be saying, there is NO conflict, and NO young people need to choose between science and the Bible, but rather they can learn from both science and the Bible, and between the two grow and mature in their faith so that God can use them to help others discover the truth of the Gospel and invite Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior.

Contrary to what Mr. Setterfield would have you to believe, science if a gift from God that is every day improving the quality of our lives. Yes, some evildoers have used science to injure others just as some evildoers have used guns to injure others, but science is not to blame—the blame lies in the hands of sinful men. If it were not for science, you would not have the monitor on which you are reading this message, nor the electricity to power it. Indeed, if it were not for science, very many of our children and other loved ones would have died from disease or injury.

Now let’s get back to the subject of this thread—the two AIG articles by Jonathan Sarfati.

 

Before going on to the second link there is something else to point out. The first link was NOT evidence for a young earth. The author said that his [flawed] analysis showed only that the earth could not be older than 62 million years. That does not in any way show the earth to be 6000 years old unless you use the logical fallacy of the false dilemma. It is an important point.

"I accept that I may not be able to follow everything absolutely, but even if I find that the arguments are way over my head, I will still be interested:

a) To see if AiG respond at all to critisicms levied against them.

b) To judge their response (as far as I am able to)."

I would like your reaction to my response on the salty seas. First off, what do you think of the authors changing the number in one of the references by a factor of 35? This by itself makes up most of the gap they allege. Second, what do you think of the authors leaving out over a dozen known ways to remove sodium from their calculations? Thirs what do you think about them not changing their writing in the last nine years even after these mistakes were pointed out to them?

">>>The earth's magnetic field: evidence that the earth is young<<< "

This one is a bit schizophrenic. At first it starts talking about Barnes and his claims of a decaying magnetic field. Well, the answer to this is that the field DOES change with time and it even goes to essentially zero and reverses itself periodically. But I do not even have to go int o this because the author then heads immediately into a polar opposite model which does allow for reversals. If there are reversals, then the Barnes stuff was a waste of everyone's time. It smacks of throwing everything against the wall and hoping something sticks.

It then goes right into Baumgardner's catastrophic plate tectonics model. Which is full of problems. A few of these are:

The mechanism does not work with known physics. The mantle would have to be much hotter than it is to lower its viscosity enough for his numbers to be true. If you follow the link to his paper you should see this. There is nothing proposed to get the mantle that hot nor to subsequently remove all of that heat to get today's mantle temperature.

As the basalt that makes up the sea floor cools, it becomes more dense and sinks. There is much supporting evidence for this. Baumgardner's model cannot explain the observed cooling of the seafloor. You just cannot remove heat that quickly.

According to Baumgardner, the seafloor should all bethe same age. It is not.

You can also get into more subtle things. Take the Hawaiian islands. There is a long chain of volcanic islands. They appear to have been formed by a slowly moving hotspot. If you plot the age of each volcano against how far it is from the currently active volcanoes on the big island, you get a linear plot that shows the steady movement of the hot spot. You can also observe that the older the volcano, the more erosion is has endured. Some of the oldest volcanoes in the chain have been eroded completely back into the ocean. This just cannot be done rapidly. All the volcanoes would have been required to form at the same time according to Baumgardner but instead we see differences in age and in how much erosion they have been exposed to.

But this leads into the larger criticism of what you cite. The evidence simply indicates that reversal have happened over a long period of time.

Notice that the article you linked does not even mention the spreading of the mid-Atlantic ridge. We can measure the rate of the spreading today. If you take that rate and go some distance from the ridge you can figure how long it took that area to get there from when it emerged at the ridge. If you then date the rock you get the same age. These spreading layers of rock record in them many reversals of the magnetic field. It has been going on a long time.

 

PlainSense Bible believer,

Thank you for your answer. I believe that those individuals who honestly and prayerfully study the arguments over the age of the earth can come to the correct answer. I believe that some Christians are afraid to accept that the earth is old because they have been taught that the Bible says that it is young and they are afraid of the consequences of accepting the conclusion that the earth is old. Therefore, I would encourage to you to carefully and prayerfully study Gen. 1 – 11 to find out for yourself the truths that God has given to us in that passage of Scripture. The literature on the book of Genesis is vast, and if you have access to a large university or seminary library, I encourage you to take a peek at some of this literature and see how very complex and multifaceted the issues are.

 

Excellent reply PSBB! You sum up my beliefs very well, but I could never verbalize them as well as you.

I really fail to grasp why some people who name the name of Christ choose to believe what science says ove the inspired word of God!

But that's their choice.

 

Actually - when you say you don't believe in God what BETTER answer could be hoped for than the non-God anti-Gospel, anti-Bible, Anti-Creation-account myth we call "evolutionism"?

Certainly the well known atheist evolutionist - scientist Richard Dawkins gets the point.

(Note for the Reader: In the above quote Dawkins argues that Christian evolutionist think “God does something”, that “God contributes something” to the subject of origins. And on that point alone – Dawkins argues for the inconsistency and flawed logic of so-called-christian-evolutionism.

Christian evolutionist sometimes argue against Dawkins claiming that HE has made too much of a grandiose claim about what Christian-evolutionists think God is doing.

How sad that Christian evolutionists are prone to going to such extremes.)

</font>[/QUOTE]In Christ,

Bob

 

What evidence do you find that the BIBLE reports that GOD SAYS He created the WORLD IN 6 DAYS and then rested on the 7th day?

Anything come to mind?

Anything "at all" evolutionists?

In Christ,

Bob

 

I have personally read thousands of post on this message board and I have yet to read even one post in which the author of the post even suggested that he or she chooses to believe what science says over the inspired word of God. This is an EXTREMELY SERIOUS accusation to make!

The truth is that some people on this message board have studied both the Bible and science and have learned that there is absolutely no conflict between the two. But of course some people read Genesis as though it was written in English by some farmer who lived and died in Kansas in the 1950's rather than an example of ancient oriental literature through which God speaks to men and women today. Of course if a farmer in Kansas wrote the Book of Genesis in the 1950’s, it would be understandable for someone to see in it your particular interpretation, but, guess what! It was not written by a farmer in Kansas and therefore it only makes sense to read it in the light of the genre of literature that it is a part of—and when one does that—one sees that there are no conflicts between Genesis 1 – 11 and either the theory of evolution or an earth that is billions of years old.

I believe that the Bible is the most important document that has ever been written, and therefore I believe that it is worth the effort to study it rather than simply read an English translation of it and ignore the Hebrew text and its literary genre and the cultures of the peoples to whom God has given it.

 

Absolutely none!

The J.W.’s Watchtower Society!

 

I don’t know why some Christians choose to believe the words of men rather than Jesus, but I believe that Christians should believe Jesus instead men. Men say that God wrote the Pentateuch; Jesus said that Moses wrote it.

John 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

I don’t know why men say that we should interpret Genesis literally, but allegorize the Gospel of John, but Baptists should know better.

Some men would say that I am just taking one verse out of context, but the truth is that Jesus never said that God wrote Genesis, but said or implied over and over again that Moses wrote it.

Mat 8:4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

Mat 19:7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
Mat 19:8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

Mar 1:44 And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

Mar 7:10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:

Mar 10:3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?
Mar 10:4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.
Mar 10:5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Mar 10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
Mar 10:8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
Mar 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Mar 12:26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

Luk 5:14 And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

And here is John 5:46 in context,

Joh 5:44 How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?
Joh 5:45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.
Joh 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
Joh 5:47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

And here are six interesting passages,

Mat 5:21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Mat 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Mat 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Mat 5:31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Mat 5:33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:

Mat 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
Mat 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Mat 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.


God did NOT say that He created the world in six days, despite what men say. Moses wrote the book of Genesis, and we have the testimony of Jesus that Moses wrote it. Jesus does not say that Moses was inspired when he wrote Genesis, but I believe that he was, perhaps in a similar way that Luke was when he wrote his Gospel and the Book of Acts,

Luk 1:1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
Luk 1:2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
Luk 1:3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,
Luk 1:4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

God did NOT say that He created the world in six days, and anyone who says that He says that He did is not telling you the truth.

Personally, I choose to take Jesus at His word, Moses wrote the Book of Genesis.

 

Good Morning, Plainsense.

I am still quite interested in what you think of the responses to your first two claims. Especially the first claim. The author changed numbers by large amounts from his sources, left out other numbers from his sources, and has not updated the results even though the mistakes were pointed out to him in a series of written exchanges nearly nine years ago. IMHO, this is not a good sign for either the author or the host web site.

A second question would be to ask if anyone has other data they think points to a young earth. I would hope specifically here for things that show a young earth and not just trying to poke holes in old earth because that sets up a logical fallacy of a false dilemma.

Lastly, there was a good quote in what Bob had to say when quoting Dawkins.

Now the point is that Bob has here introduced quotes from someone who he must think is enough of an authority to quote from who says that all the stages required for evolution are understood well enough to know they happened. Those who have studied the details have no doubt. You will find very, very few young earth biologists and I would assert none who came to that belief from the data only.