Which do you trust, God or science?

Phillip,

You really should move out here to California where all of us educated people live. The home prices here are not as bad as you may think. You can still buy a livable house for $2,300,000. Sure, it may have only two bedrooms and one bathroom, but you can always use the restroom at Wal-Mart when things get rough. And of course while you are at Wal-Mart you can pick up a large, discarded cardboard box and use it for a third bedroom. If you don’t believe that you can still buy a two bedroom house in California for $2,300,000, here is proof:

http://realestate.aol.realtor.com/Prop/1040979599?gate=aolrealestate

If you need a yard for your children to play in, you may be interested in this bargain-priced home. And this house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms so you will not have to go to Wal-Mart to use their restroom and look for a large cardboard box.

http://realestate.aol.realtor.com/Prop/1042784201?gate=aolrealestate

 

No wonder people were moving to San Luis Obispo where I lived.

Have you been to Paso Robles lately? It has grown a lot in the last few years.

 

And of course that is why it is so very critical that fundamentalist Christians who have no advanced degrees in the sciences refrain from arguing about evolution and the age of the earth. And of course Satan is even more aware of this than we are, and he uses these fundamentalist Christians to make a mockery of the Christian faith while they believe, in their ignorance and foolishness, that they are doing God a favor!

 

I haven’t been there since the middle 1970’s when I landed there in a private plane so that it could be refueled on my way to the Bay Area. Back in those days the runway wasn’t much longer than my driveway in Santa Monica.

 

And of course that is why it is so very critical that fundamentalist Christians who have no advanced degrees in the sciences refrain from arguing about evolution and the age of the earth. And of course Satan is even more aware of this than we are, and he uses these fundamentalist Christians to make a mockery of the Christian faith while they believe, in their ignorance and foolishness, that they are doing God a favor!

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To the contrary my not-so-wise-friend.
It is the lie of evolution that Satan is using to make Theistic Evolutionists look foolish.
For the world KNOWS that evolution is used to destroy the concept of God. And they see foolish liberal christians buying it hook-line-and-sinker, and are laughing at them! For they say, "You claim to believe in God yet don't believe He is mighty enough to create the universe in the blink of an eye".
And their assessment is right. OTOH, it is we "funnymentalists" who stand against the tide and declare, God IS mighty, God SPOKE and it was so, exactly as it is written! We stand for the integrity of the words of God. They (liberal theistic evolutionary christians) however, must re-write it to fit evolution.
In HIS service;
Jim

 

Jim,

Shame on you ! No one is saying that God could not have done it—we are saying that He did not do it and that He never said that He did do it. All that you have on your side is a very lame and ignorant interpretation of Genesis . We, on the other hand, have on our side not only a nearly infinite amount of scientific data, but God Himself . Why are you insisting upon making Christians look like intellectually challenged baboons?

 

Craig says, "We are saying that He did not do it and that He never said that He did do it."

What do you do with this verse??

"All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made."--John 1:3

And this verse??

"For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visable and invisable, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him, and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist."--Colossians 1:16-17

And this verse??

"For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."--2Peter 3:5-7

And this verse??

"And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eightth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly."--2Peter 2:5 **side note--Craig---just how did God "bring in" the flood??---by His word---He just spoke the word--and the judgment waters "obeyed"---see??---we ask---"Where did all that water come from??"---well, of course, God brought it in---the water came from God!! How?? By the word of His power!

Now---which position would you rather be in??

On the inside of the ark---lookin' out and witnessing the very power of God's word--believing by faith in the very wonder of it all??? Or--on the outside of the ark lookin' in--with a geology book in one hand and a biology book in the other hand trying to figure it all out with a #2 pencil and a scratch sheet of paper??? "Well! According to my calculation--this liquid stuff surrounding me is not really H2O! It ain't what it really is!!"

I tell ya what, Craig!! I'd rather be "willingly ignorant" of whats written in some feeble minded man's biology and geology book----rather than to be "willingly ignorant" of whats written in God's Holy treasure book we call the Bible!!---I'd rather get up in the face of the smartest Biologist you can take me to--and tell him what he just said---doesn't add up to whats in the word from the Word---rather than to stand before the very throne of the universe's Creator and tell Him that what's written in His book just doesn't add up to whats written in that biology/geology book that "Dr. So & So" just wrote!! I might flunk out of that finite professor's class for being "willingly ignorant" of whats written in that class book---but at least I can know Infinite God won't flunk me for being "willingly ignorant" of His word!!

You see---one day--all of those biology/geology books are gonna go up in flames---"Poof!!"---and they won't exist anymore---all of that "learnin'"--gone up in smoke!!!---but the word of God will abide forever!!!---"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."---2Peter 3:7 And just where is that fire gonna come from?? Lightning in Yellowstone?? Somebody throwin' a lit cigarette out of the window of a speeding vehicle over here in Mississippi?? Naw!! Its gonna come from the same place that that water came from that swallowed up all those ungodly people---but yet saved Noah!!!**(side note here: Ummmmmm, no matter how hard you press your nose into that geology book--you won't be able to figure this one out either--except by faith in the written word from the Word!!)

Where do you stand, Craig??? Are you with God or against Him?? Probe your heart right now!! Ask the Holy Spirit to wash away all the feeble thoughts and theories of man and replace them with the infallable word from the Word!!

Blackbird

[ January 29, 2005, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: blackbird ]

 

"No sir. For those measurments to be useful at all they must be accurate to the 'n'th degree. Any school boy knows that even with a variable of just 1 degree in an angle you get a very wide margin of error just one mile away. Now you take that error and multiply it by the supposed millions of light years and you get astronomical errors. And that sir, illustrates my point quite well."

Good thing that the measurements are more accurate than that then.

Ground measurements can measure the accuracy to 1 part in 100th of an arcsecond.

Hipparcos, a satellite, can measure the angle with an accuracy of around 1 part in 1000th of an arcsecond.

As an example, the parallax of Alpha Centauri is 0.76 arcsec. If you can measure to 0.001 arcsec, then this determination is fairly accurate. In addition, parallax is only useful to distances out to 100-1000 pc, depending on the brightness of the star. Other methods are used beyond this. See http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/distance.htm

Since your premise is false, your conclusion is false. You also fail to address the reason from my first reply where the distance measurements also agree with inverse square law calculations from brightness. Very strange that the measurements would be wrong and yet two completely unrelated techniques would give the same answer.

 

AMEN!
I honestly feel sorry for Craig and cronies. God's ability doesn't have to 'make sense' to me. God said it so I believe it! That's FAITH, Craig and others.

1 Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,...

Luke 18:16b "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. 17 Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."

SIMPLE, CHILD LIKE FAITH.......

 

Just-want-peace: "Now I don’t want a long scientific explanation that I can’t grasp, but in simple words, where/what is the proven, unchallenged parameter, upon which the determination of the age of any artifact or fossil, that is beyond our present ability to observe, is based?"

The answer to this is the null set.
Your required parameters preclude any answer.
I'm surprised the discussion lasted so long,
as there is nothing to discuss. Your question
is wrong and cannot be answered.

Just-want-peace: "Now before you challenge, I do not have any foundation to believe YOUNG EARTH/CREATION other than the word of God; in other words since there are two contrasting interpretations of existing evidence, I CHOOSE to believe God over SCIENCE."

Actually you don't have the word of God on your side,
you have the understanding of the word of God that
some men gave you. YOu have chosen sides on a
false dilimma (two-truths).

I hear you saying: I trust the men who have told me
what God said in His written word more than
the men who spake for science.

 

"No sir. For those measurments to be useful at all they must be accurate to the 'n'th degree. Any school boy knows that even with a variable of just 1 degree in an angle you get a very wide margin of error just one mile away. Now you take that error and multiply it by the supposed millions of light years and you get astronomical errors. And that sir, illustrates my point quite well.
How so? Simply by the fact that some folks will claim that we can know how far away a particular star is from us, and by knowing that distance we can know how long it has taken the light from that star to reach us, thereby giving us a reasonable knowledge of how long ago that star was created. Therefore the conclusion is that the universe MUST be billions of years old becasue of how long it has taken the light to reach our planet.
It all breaks down on the fact that the distances cannot be accurately known!"

- Remarks by av1611jim
..............................................

One of the other posters claims that you are wrong because the accuracy is much better than you think. His argument may well be right and I suspect that it is but your argument also fails from the point of view of your incorrect requirement that the method be highly accurate. There are many measurements that do not have to be accurate to the "nth degree", in order to be useful. Keep in mind that any measurement has some degree of error. The usefulness of the method does not depend on whether or not there is uncertainty but only on the extent of our knowledge of the uncertainty. There is no reason to believe that a 10 percent uncertainty or error in the measurement of distance that you mention will make the method useless. In fact, a 10 percent error in the distance will most likely still give a result that is useful. It may produce only a 10 percent error in the calculated distance to a star and if that is the only uncertainty then the measurement could still be useful. You have not shown otherwise. Suppose the distance to a star is 10 light years as measured by the method but the true distance is only 9 light years. That accuracy may be entirely acceptable for many purposes. You fail to understand the logic behind measurements.

You mention that a one degree error in the measurement of an angle can produce a "large" error in measurement of distance. That is certainly true but it may not be large in comparison to the thing being measured. Let us suppose a one degree error causes an underestimate of the distance to a star by an amount of 1 light year. That is a huge distance in miles but if the total distance to a star is 50 light years then one light year is not much of a relative error. So your premise is false. Your bathroom scale is not accurate to the nth degree but it serves the purpose. Many measurements in science or either less accurate, relatively, or more accurate than your bathroom scale but quite often they serve the purpose in either case.

Your real objection to measuring distance that way has to do with your uncomfortable feeling when told that some stars are many thousands or millions of light years away. Too bad, the methods used to measure those distances are not invalid merely because they may have an uncertainty of a few percent. These measurements need not be accurate to the nearest mile to be accurate enough for the purpose at hand.

[ January 29, 2005, 01:17 PM: Message edited by: Benfranklin403 ]

 

"It would only be logical that if an improvement is made to the species that "survival of the fittest" would delete the original species in most cases.

Secondly, evolutionists always point to non-existent fossils as being steps from single cells up to multiple celled creatures, yet none of these fossilized animals exist any more; indicating that if evolution of the species were taking place then the improved species would eliminate the unimproved species."
....................................................

An improved species may eliminate the parent species in some cases but certainly not in all cases. For example, suppose a population of Species A became separated from its peers by geography as might happen if a few members of a bird species flew to an island. The island population could evolve into species B while the parent species could still live on at another location. The separation does not have to be caused in that exact fashion of course. This type of speciation happened apparently in the Gallopagos islands and was instrumental in forming Darwin's idea of evolution. The parent species may or may not live on. It has happened both ways.

In the case of humans, there is every reason to believe that we descended from something that would be recognizably different from present day apes. And of couse we descended from many different types of creatures. In order to talk about what we descended from, you have to specify how far back in time you want to talk about. Our ancestors from 100,000 years ago would look a good bit like present day humans and not at all like apes. If you want to talk about 500,000 or one million years ago, then the difference from present day humans becomes substantial but there still is not much similarity to apes. It is a complex history not very well appreciated by creationists because they prefer to put cotton in their ears and not learn anything disturbing.

 

"I have asked you believe BenFranklin403, what are YOUR personal beliefs about Adam and Eve and the Virgin Birth and all of the miracles Jesus made happen in the New Testament? Give us a little background about yourself and where you stand on all of these issues, please...

Thank you..."
.......................................

Phillip,

It seems to me that we should be able to discuss the facts and conclusions of science without regard to religion. I don't like to mix the two as I think it leads to problems. Obviously I do not agree with a literal interpretation of Genesis.

 

No Phillip, you are mistaken about the age of the earth being greatly extended during your adult life. Here is some information found on the Internet and I know from my own personal experience in science that this is correct in terms of it being an accurate account of the history of dating the earth. This information is from a Talk Origins website but I cannot find again the exact page. Here it is:

1953b F.G. Houtermans uses Patterson's (1953) data and the lead isotopic ratios of young terrestrial sediments, to compute a rough age for the Earth of 4.5 ± 0.3 billion years. These represent the first publication of the right value by a valid calculation.

However, Houtermans' calculations are essentially isochrons based on two data points (one data point for iron meteorites, another for young terrestrial sediments). Without additional data to tie the Earth and meteorites to a common source, the computed values are not guaranteed to be meaningful.

1956 Clair C. Patterson publishes an isochron age for the solar system (and therefore the Earth) of 4.55 ± 0.07 billion years. The age computation is based on Pb isotope analysis of five meteorites. Patterson points out that data for young Earth sediments fall on the same isochron; this implies that the Earth shares a common origin with the dated meteorites. Though only a few meteorites had been dated at this point in time, and the individual meteorite ages that did exist were not very precise, they also agree with the isochron age.

1998 A lot of data has been collected since Patterson's (1953, 1956) and Houtermans' (1953b) works. Precision of instruments has improved. Many more meteorites have been sampled and dated. Moon rocks have been sampled and dated. Decay constants have been measured with more accuracy. New techniques have been devised, tested, and applied.

The arrival of this new data has two effects: (1) some new data can be used to improve the precision of the original computations; and (2) new independent measurements confirm the original ones. Purely by coincidence, all of the adjustments (for example, current values of decay constants) to Patterson's 1956 computation have canceled each other out. Today's best estimate of the age of meteorites (4.55 ± 0.02 billion years) is identical to Patterson's value except for the smaller error range. That value has been confirmed dozens of times over.

The best estimate of the age of the Earth today is the same as that for meteorites: 4.55 ± 0.02 billion years. In the event that one wishes to be extra cautious in reporting a value, using the very generous error range of 4.5 ± 0.1 billion years is almost certain to encompass future changes as well.

For further detail on this topic, I strongly recommend G. Brent Dalrymple's The Age of the Earth.

 

One additional thought on the above date of 4.5 billion years. It has an uncertainty of about 100 million years. One hundred million years is an incredibly long time. But the uncertainty is not troublesome for this purpose is it? This is a good example of where a very large absolute error is small on a relative basis.

 

I don't know what part of California you live. I have been to LA once and practically lived at San Diego for about three years working on Navy Radar and satellite imaging systems.

I loved San Diego. The climate was perfect and it really was not nearly as crowded as people are led to believe. I've seen worse traffic jams in Tulsa at noon, than I did in San Diego area.

 

My wife too young to remember when we changed from apes .

Rob </font>[/QUOTE]My father-in-law is still an ape (and my wife agrees, too.)

 

And of course that is why it is so very critical that fundamentalist Christians who have no advanced degrees in the sciences refrain from arguing about evolution and the age of the earth. And of course Satan is even more aware of this than we are, and he uses these fundamentalist Christians to make a mockery of the Christian faith while they believe, in their ignorance and foolishness, that they are doing God a favor!

</font>[/QUOTE]You are absolutely right. There was one of those near San Luis Obispo that most knew about. It is an us 4 and no more church. Their witness was counter-productive and a shame to the cause of Christ. People would laugh at them and they were known by what they were against rather than what they stood for. They were known for bashing Bibles other than the Authorized Anglican Version, the KJV. I can rememeber when they started and met in a shack. Now they have a very nice building out in the countryside surrounded by cow pastures. They associated with nobody and nobody associated with them. They were seperated from the world and ineffecive. But they keep pattting themselves on the back.