Religion of Evolution

[jcrawford]

Originally posted by Brett:
In addition to the vast amount of good it does, Christianity, clearly a 'good tree', has also resulted in unspeakable atrocities.

What "unspeakable atrocities" are you referring to if they are so 'unspeakable?'

And how was 'science' not involved?

Please keep in mind that the topic is on the religion of evolution, not Christianity.

 

[jcrawford]

UTE:

"I hope we have lurkers reading this now who have not made up their minds or who are open to changing their views."
==============

Proselytising evolutionary religous views again?

 

[jcrawford]

UTE:

"People have done dispicable things in the name of Christianity through the years.'
===================

Evolutionists continue to do even more dispicable things this Century than they did in the last.

This topic is on the religion of evolution in the 'other religious doctrines' forum.

Let's stop attacking Christianity, Christians.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

jcrawford, you know that Christianity is not being attacked. It is the argument against evolution that evolutionist have done evil things and therefore evolution is false that is being attacked.

 

[jcrawford]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
jcrawford, you know that Christianity is not being attacked. It is the argument against evolution that evolutionist have done evil things and therefore evolution is false that is being attacked.

If, as you say, "it is the argument against evolution that evolutionist have done evil things and therefore evolution is false that is being attacked;"
a) what has that got to do with Christianity?
b) why make any references at all to Christianity?
c) is "evil" a scientific concept?
d) do you not think evolution is evil?
e) what epistomological system are you using in order to form a qualified judgement?

 

[BobRyan]

One could argue that just because evolutionism is bad science and has nothing of substance to support it - it does not mean that some proof for it won't be found for it some day.

Indeed. But until then - why cling to the religion of evolutionism with all its bad guesswork and bad doctrines?

As Richard Dawkings points out - that is a grossly compromised position for any Christian to take since evolutionism claims to explain all that God does in terms of creating robust complex living planets.

I think all Christians who accept the accuracy of the "Account" the Creator gives in Genesis 1-2:3 and Exodus 20:8-11 - would have to agree.

This leaves Christian evolutionists in a hopelessly compromised position where Creationists and evolutionist expose the massive gap in their logic as they cling to BOTH the evolutionism of humanism and the Gospel of the Word of God.

I know this seems obvious to all - but it bears repeating.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[jcrawford]

Originally posted by BobRyan:
I think all Christians who accept the accuracy of the "Account" the Creator gives in Genesis 1-2:3 and Exodus 20:8-11 - would have to agree.

This leaves Christian evolutionists in a hopelessly compromised position where Creationists and evolutionist expose the massive gap in their logic as they cling to BOTH the evolutionism of humanism and the Gospel of the Word of God.

I know this seems obvious to all - but it bears repeating.

In Christ,

Bob

The more often you repeat it though the more obvious it may become to some fossiliferous skulls.

 

[CalvinG]

jcrawford,

That doesn't look like taking the basic scientific theory of evolution and using it to prove the non-existence of God to me. Was it intended as such? If so, I will offer a critique of the reasoning.

 

[DHK]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
DHK

Let's skip a few step here and go straight to the part where I ask what your specific objections are to radiometric dating.

Almost all forms of dating have their flaws. They make too many assumptions based upon the "law of uniformitarianism," and disregarding other events of history.

I do have some problems with some of the ones posting here. It is your logic. Since this is a forum for at least those who profess Christianity you must beieve at the very least in the exisence of God. If you believe that God exists, then what kind of God do you believe in? Is your God so anemic that He does not have the power or even the right to take on the name "Creator." If God exists, is he not powerful enough to create the world in six days as the Bible says he did.
Either the ones posting here believe in Christianity in general, or they are atheists. There is no middle ground. Evolution is the antithesis of the foundation of the Bible--Creation. God is our creator. Only an atheist would deny that fact. It is God Himself who calls that person a fool!

Psalms 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none who does good.

Evolution is its own religion void of real science that has replaced God with its "scientiscm."

As far as radiometric dating is concerned, as I mentioned it, along as other dating methods, are full of assumptions that make these methods very unreliable. I leave you with an excerpt from a grade 9 Christian textbook that answers your question about radiometric dating.

A Question of Time: Radioactive Dating Methods

Numbers enjoy a special status in our culture. They have an almost magical way of authenticating the statements they embellish. A published report containing figures as well as facts will have better success and command greater respect from its readers than one without figures. The problem is that sometimes people use questionable statistics to bolster their ideas and pass them off as fact to unsuspecting people.
Have you ever read in the paper a headline such as "50-Million-Year-Old Bat Fossil Confirms Theory"? How do researchers arrive at the such a large figure, and how certain are they of its accuracy? If you study the biblical account of Creation, Scripture seems to indicate an earth that is between eight thousand and fifteen thousand years old, which would also imply that living things have been here for the same amount of time. Why such a discrepancy?
Even devoted evolutionists admit that the theory of evolution is doomed if it does not have one very important ally on its side: time. They take the approach that given enough time (roughly 3/5 billion years) anything can happen, including evolution. Evolutionists use dates of billions of years as if they were common knowledge – and anyone who challenges these dates is being "unscientific." So evolutionists have asserted that the earth is billions of years old and have also devised radioactive dating techniques to "prove" the ages of fossils and rocks.
Estimates concerning the ages of rocks and fossils run into the millions and billions of years based on the so-called "long-term" dating methods: uranium-lead, potassium-argon, and rubidium-strontium. In each of these methods, an unstable original material is changing by radioactive decay to a stable end product. Uranium decays to lead in a series of alpha and beta decay reactions. Potassium decays to argon in a single step, and rubidium decays directly to strontium. It takes a certain amount of time for this decay process to occur. When a scientist measures the amount of argon in a rock sample, he can calculate the approximate age of rock assuming that when the rock was "formed." it contained only potassium. That would be similar to measuring the amount of gasoline in the gas tank of a car after a trip and estimating how much time has elapsed since the beginning of the trip.
These "long-term" dating methods are not deceptive in themselves, but the scientist who uses them must make some basic assumptions that he has no way of verifying. For example, the scientist using the potassium-argon dating method has no way of knowing how much argon was originally present in the sample. Assuming there was no argon present when the rock was formed is foolish, since it has been proved that rocks of known age and formation (volcanic rocks) have been found with an abundance of argon [Andrew A. Snelling, "The Cause of Anomalous Potassium-Argon 'Ages' for Recent Andesite Flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, and the Implications for Potassium-Argon 'Dating'" (paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Pittsburgh, PA, August 1998)]. The problem with these dating methods is that a key ingredient of the scientific method – observation – is missing.
Another assumption is that the radioactive decay rate is constant. Scientists use the principle of half-life to describe how long it takes for an isotope to decay. A 1.0-gram sample of iodine-131 will be present at 0.50 gram after only 8.0 days. So the half-life of iodine-131 is 8 days. Many radioactive isotopes have half-lives that have never been directly observed but rather extrapolated (graphing a projected trend). Uranium-238 is a good example because it is said to have a half-life of 4.51 billion years.
Obviously, scientists had to extrapolate that figure assuming that uranium has decayed at a constant rate since the origin of the universe. But we really do not know whether the rate of isotope decay is constant or not.
As you can see, these dating methods rely on some questionable assumptions. The main problem, however, with these "long-term" dating methods is in the interpretation of the results. Evolutionists say that these dating methods prove that the earth's rock layers are old, and therefore evolution occurred. But all that these methods ever really show is the amount of end product present within a rock, and that result can be interpreted many different ways. In fact, there are many Creationists who say some dating methods are accurate, and they have various theories to reconcile old-earth estimates and the Creation week described in Genesis 1. But on the whole, Christians who believe in a literal six-day Creation are skeptical of old-earth estimates. The general mistrust that believers have for dating methods to understandable, considering that evolutionary theory was considered "scientific fact" long before radioactive dating techniques were developed.
Carbon-14 dating is a short-term dating method that is often used to determine the ages of fossils and manuscripts. Cosmic rays from the sun produce a heavy isotope of carbon with two extra neutrons – carbon-14. It decays at a constant rate and has a half-life of 5730 years. Carbon-14 properties are identical to those of carbon-12; and all living things, plants or animals, always contain a certain amount of carbon-14. When an organism dies, no more carbon-14 is taken in by the dead organism, and the isotope gradually decays to nitrogen. By measuring the amount of carbon-14 left, scientists can determine the approximate time of the organism's death. Most scientists would agree that carbon-14 dating gives accurate calculations for living things since they have an abundance of carbon molecules. The carbon-14 method starts to lose accuracy for organisms over 3000 years old, partially because scientists have determined (using tree rings) that C-14 levels in the atmosphere fluctuated significantly prior to 1000 B.C. As with the other dating methods, C-14 data is useful only if the limitations are recognized.

Taken from The Physical World: An Introduction to Physical Science for Christian Schools, by Terry Egolf and Donovan Hadaway, Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 2000; pages 124-125.

I hope that answers your questions about radioactive dating.
DHK

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by DHK:
[Almost all forms of dating have their flaws. They make too many assumptions based upon the "law of uniformitarianism," and disregarding other events of history.

What is this "law of uniformitarianism" and what's wrong with it?

I do have some problems with some of the ones posting here. It is your logic. Since this is a forum for at least those who profess Christianity you must beieve at the very least in the exisence of God. If you believe that God exists, then what kind of God do you believe in? Is your God so anemic that He does not have the power or even the right to take on the name "Creator." If God exists, is he not powerful enough to create the world in six days as the Bible says he did.

Why do you even ask a question like that? The debate is not about what God COULD do but what He DID do.

Either the ones posting here believe in Christianity in general, or they are atheists. There is no middle ground. Evolution is the antithesis of the foundation of the Bible--Creation. God is our creator. Only an atheist would deny that fact. It is God Himself who calls that person a fool!

Pay closer attention. I profess that God is my creator. So do the rest of us posting on this board.

Evolution is its own religion void of real science that has replaced God with its "scientiscm."

Evolution is only science, it is not religion.

As far as radiometric dating is concerned, as I mentioned it, along as other dating methods, are full of assumptions that make these methods very unreliable. I leave you with an excerpt from a grade 9 Christian textbook that answers your question about radiometric dating.

Your grade 9 Christian textbook is full of assumptions that make its conclusions against science very unreliable.

From your book quotes:

These "long-term" dating methods are not deceptive in themselves, but the scientist who uses them must make some basic assumptions that he has no way of verifying.

Except, of course, when dating the Hawaiian islands and comparing the dates with the known rate of plate movement over the one volcano plume that formed the all; or when counting the annual layers in trees and comparing that with the carbon 14 dating of the wood; or counting the annual layers accumulating in the bottom of lakes and comparing that with the carbon 14 dating of the imbedded twigs; or when using several different elements in the same sample that would decay at different rates, allowing one to solver for a common intersection date for several independently derived sloping lines with results that would never come together if the daughter products were not all present (the isochron method)

The problem with these dating methods is that a key ingredient of the scientific method – observation – is missing.

Folks, looking at a rock to see what radioactive atoms are in it and what daughter products are in it is an observation. Where do these creationists come up with these wild ideas?

Another assumption is that the radioactive decay rate is constant. Scientists use the principle of half-life to describe how long it takes for an isotope to decay. A 1.0-gram sample of iodine-131 will be present at 0.50 gram after only 8.0 days. So the half-life of iodine-131 is 8 days. Many radioactive isotopes have half-lives that have never been directly observed but rather extrapolated (graphing a projected trend). Uranium-238 is a good example because it is said to have a half-life of 4.51 billion years.
Obviously, scientists had to extrapolate that figure assuming that uranium has decayed at a constant rate since the origin of the universe. But we really do not know whether the rate of isotope decay is constant or not.

yes we do because it has been checked. Radioactive decay is observed in astronomy from starlight millions and even billions of years old to be perfectly consistent with what we see today.

But on the whole, Christians who believe in a literal six-day Creation are skeptical of old-earth estimates. The general mistrust that believers have for dating methods to understandable, considering that evolutionary theory was considered "scientific fact" long before radioactive dating techniques were developed.

Translation: There was scientific evidence for an old earth before radioactive decay methods were developed, and they only confirmed the truth of an older earth.

The carbon-14 method starts to lose accuracy for organisms over 3000 years old, partially because scientists have determined (using tree rings) that C-14 levels in the atmosphere fluctuated significantly prior to 1000 B.C. As with the other dating methods, C-14 data is useful only if the limitations are recognized.

How much correction is needed from the actual data of tree rings? At the most, about 5%.

Bottom line: radioactive determination of the age of the earth and moon and the solar system remain good evidence for the age of the earth. Atoms do not lie. They keep God's timetable accurately and have revealed what God wanted us to find out when He put them there.

 

[jcrawford]

P of E:

"What is this "law of uniformitarianism" and what's wrong with it?"
===================

Law of Uniformity is the geological principle which assumes that current physical processes can account for all historical physical phenomena.

It was invented to discount any supernatural intervention in world history such as the worldwide catastrophic flood which submerged all the land and uplifted mountains from the bowels of the earth beneath the oceans.

It's wrong because the evidence of the worldwide cataclysm known as the Great Flood is all around us.

 

[jcrawford]

P of E:

"Pay closer attention. I profess that God is my creator. So do the rest of us posting on this board."
=========

But you deny that God once destroyed the world and changed heaven and earth with the worldwide flood as both Genesis and the creation scientists show.

 

[DHK]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What is this "law of uniformitarianism" and what's wrong with it?

The law of unifomitarianism is defined for us in the Bible in 2 Peter 3

2 Peter 3:3-4 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."

Notice:
#1. It is the scoffers (scorners, mockers, of God's Word) that believe in this law.
#2. All things have not continued the same as they were from the beginning of Creation. We have abundant evidence that they haven't. The worldwide flood is but one. When one examines data they must interpret according to their philosophical frame. Science cannot determine truth. It observes facts and draws concusions. Often its conclusions wrong. The Bible alone is truth. If your philosophical framework is evolution you will be wrong every time. If your philosophical frame work is the Bible you are bound to be right. Take the Grand Canyon for example. Evolution would have us believe that throughout millions of years the Colorado river slowly eroded away that vast rock and formed that huge canyon. Incredible! No, a Great Flood in a short period of time with a huge, tremendous force, bearing down upon that area of land formed that canyon. We observe the data around the canyon. We interpret according to our philosophical framework. One is humanistic and atheistic. One is Biblical and sets forth the truth that God has revealed to us. Not everything has continued (if anything) has continued the same from the beginning of creation. There have been cataclysms of various natures since the time of creation which the evolutionist does not take into consideration.

Why do you even ask a question like that? The debate is not about what God COULD do but what He DID do.

Then the answer is obvious. What He did do is written in the Book of Genesis, and this whole discussion is moot. If this is the discussion you want it should be centered around the first two chapters on Genesis. All the other information that you are bringing into this discussion are totally irrelevant to what God DID do. We already know what God did do. It is already recorded for us. That is why I posted what I did. Do you deliberately take the position of an atheist? For what reason?

Pay closer attention. I profess that God is my creator. So do the rest of us posting on this board.

You have really got my attention now. If you profess that God is your creator, then why don't you believe in creation? There is something wrong here. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Evolution and creation are on opposite sides of the pole. They don't mix. You have to believe in one or the other. You can't believe in both. You can't have two masters. Is your master the God of the Bible, or the god of evolution?

Evolution is its own religion void of real science that has replaced God with its "scientiscm."

Evolution is only science, it is not religion.

No, it is not science. It has put itself outside the realm of science when it deals with the realm of origins. Only relgion can do that. Science deals with observable facts; evolution does not (for the most part). If evolution dealt with that which can be observed we would see evolution taking place today, but we don't. We don't see the missing links--the half man and half ape running around. They are and always have been non-existent. There are no current missing links observable today. There is nothing in evolution that is observable. It is not science; it is religion--in the realm of metaphysics.

Your grade 9 Christian textbook is full of assumptions that make its conclusions against science very unreliable.
From your book quotes:

These "long-term" dating methods are not deceptive in themselves, but the scientist who uses them must make some basic assumptions that he has no way of verifying.

Except, of course, when dating the Hawaiian islands and comparing the dates with the known rate of plate movement over the one volcano plume that formed the all; or when counting the annual layers in trees and comparing that with the carbon 14 dating of the wood; or counting the annual layers accumulating in the bottom of lakes and comparing that with the carbon 14 dating of the imbedded twigs; or when using several different elements in the same sample that would decay at different rates, allowing one to solver for a common intersection date for several independently derived sloping lines with results that would never come together if the daughter products were not all present (the isochron method)

What are you getting at here? None of this has to do with "long term dating" It is a far stretch to go from let's say 4,000 years to 5,000,000 years. That is what the author is saying. Beyond about 3,000 years or so Carbon 14 has out lived its usefulness. So have all the other dating mehods. None of them can project dates into the millions or billions of years. It is impossible. Again you fail to take into consideration other factors--the law of uniformitarianism for one.

The problem with these dating methods is that a key ingredient of the scientific method – observation – is missing.

[QB]

Folks, looking at a rock to see what radioactive atoms are in it and what daughter products are in it is an observation. Where do these creationists come up with these wild ideas?

What ideas? The scientific method? Do you actually use it. Do you use the scientifc method in the dating of rocks? Would you care to explain how each step of the scientic method is followed in the dating of rocks. We can observe many things. For years people would gaze up at the moon and observe the "face" looking down upon them. Some would observe "the man on the moon." Others, deep dark craters full of water, some wild interpretations of the moon being made of green cheese. Whar was your observation? Your observations are relative to your preconceived ideas and your philosophical framework that you are working from. You are observing some things, but do not have all the evidence to interpret your facts. It is pure guess work. You have left open to your interpretation too many assumptions, and therefore can draw unwarranted conclusions. It was not until man landed on the moon that he could actually tell what it was made of, and what those craters actually were. You also have to get to the source of your rocks. You assume too much.

[QUOTEyes we do because it has been checked. Radioactive decay is observed in astronomy from starlight millions and even billions of years old to be perfectly consistent with what we see today.</font>

You cannot check something that cannot be checked. You cannot go back billions of years ago when there are no billions of years ago to go back to. Look, you admitted that you believe in a Creator. That is a good start. If that much is true, then God created. How did God create? If God created the stars, he also created the light that went with the stars. When Adam looked up at the stars on the sixth day of creation what did he see? Millions of stars many light-years away. You would assume if you were there that those stars would be billions of years old. The radioactive dating would tell you the same thing on the 6th day of creation as it would today. So again, it remains an assumption based on 2Peter 3:3,4.

But on the whole, Christians who believe in a literal six-day Creation are skeptical of old-earth estimates. The general mistrust that believers have for dating methods to understandable, considering that evolutionary theory was considered "scientific fact" long before radioactive dating techniques were developed.

Translation: There was scientific evidence for an old earth before radioactive decay methods were developed, and they only confirmed the truth of an older earth.

See how easy it is for you to interpret something that you read in a different sense that it was intended. If you do that here, what do you do with actual scientific facts.
Christians believe the Bible. The Bible states that the universe, the earth, and all that was created therein was created in the space of six days. The Bible determines truth, not science. Science forever changes. The Bible never changes. The Bible, time and time again proves the scientist has been wrong all along and then the scientist has to change his ways. Case in point: The Bible does teach a spherical earth. The Bible does teach that the life of the flesh is in the blood, far after Washington died of blood-letting when they didn't believe this concept.

How much correction is needed from the actual data of tree rings? At the most, about 5%.

Bottom line: radioactive determination of the age of the earth and moon and the solar system remain good evidence for the age of the earth. Atoms do not lie. They keep God's timetable accurately and have revealed what God wanted us to find out when He put them there.

This has already been addressed. Tree rings can only go back so far. The same with radioactive dating. Neither one can go back billions of years.
DHK

 

[UTEOTW]

DHK

You are still using the verse in 2 Peter out of context. It is talking about people who doubt the prophocies of the end times because they have yet to happen.

 

[DHK]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
DHK

You are still using the verse in 2 Peter out of context. It is talking about people who doubt the prophocies of the end times because they have yet to happen.

2 Peter 3:3-4 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

The last days are now. The last days started with the ascension (or perhaps even the resurrection) of Christ. Peter and Paul were living in the last days. They were living with the expectation of the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his imminent return.

2 Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

This is Paul writing to Timothy in a pastoral epistle. He is advising Timothy that in the last days (occuring in his life time) perilous will come, and therefore be prepared for them. He would have no need to write this advice to Timothy if the expectation of it occurring would not be within the lifetime of Timothy.

The last days were from the time of the resurrection, lasting until the time of when Christ comes again. We live in the last times, and so did Paul. Of what century or millennia did you think Peter was prophesing of? If you think he was prophesying of another time, then you must be declaring yourself to be a prophet yourself--in that case a false one.
DHK

 

[BobRyan]

Notice that when you directly deal with the great contradiction between the doctrines of evolutionism and the Word of God - evolutionists fall silent.

They would rather play the rabbit-trail game of one failed claim after another in the fossil record. But on a Christian message board - you have to address "both problems" not just the bad science used to review the fossil record.

When Richard Dawkings deals directly with the subject of Christianity and evolution and the "bad marriage this makes" since in his words the claims of evolutionism cover all the Creative acts of God -- he deals with the subject of this thread.

And yet...

In Christ,

Bob

 

[jcrawford]

You guys leave me speechless.

 

[BobRyan]

It is often the case that forgeries find ready acceptance among those religiously inclined to "believe" what the forgery promotes. (The Donation of Constantine comes to mind).

In the same way - the failed hopes of evolutionism's "faithful" have created the ideal climate for "hoaxes".

Notice.

History of forgeries. *Hoyle, *Watkins, and the others checked into historical sources and declared that they had discovered that, dating back to the early 18th century, the Solnhofen limestone area (where the only specimen's of Archaeopteryx have ever been found) was notorious for its fossil forgeries.

Genuine fossils, taken from the limestone quarries, had been altered and then sold to museums. These fossils brought good money because they appeared to be strange new species

Buyer beware.

In Christ,

Bob


In Christ,

Bob

 

[UTEOTW]

DHK

You are arguing against the wrong part.

It is quite obvious that Paul is talking about the end times and not something that was close at hand at the time of the writing. You did not need to prove that. Where you are incorrectly using the verse is in applying it to unifomitarianism. "All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" means, in context, those who say that we have had these prophecies of the end of time for a very long time and nothing has ever happened so i do not believe they will come true at this point in time either. It is very evident.

I do not believe that you can provide ANY corroboration that Paul actually meant geology here. I would be just as justified as you to turn the verse around in support of my position. I could call YECers the "scoffers" mentioned here for insisting that the species have been constant and unchanging despite all the evidence to the contrary. See, Paul agrees with me.

 

[BobRyan]

Notice:
#1. It is the scoffers (scorners, mockers, of God's Word) that believe in this law.
#2. All things have not continued the same as they were from the beginning of Creation. We have abundant evidence that they haven't. The worldwide flood is but one.

The Word of God says that God created this earth "in six days".

Evolutionism teaches its followers to say "oh no He did not".

The Word of God says all life on land was destroyed by a world wide flood.

Evolutionism teaches its followers to say "oh no that is not what destroyed life on earth - it was a meteor and that meteor did not wipe out ALL life on land".

Repeatedly the speculations and guesswork of man are propped up against the Word of God - in ways that even Atheist evolutionists can "see" to be in direct contradiction to the Bible.

And yet...

In Christ,

Bob