Young Earth Creation theory put to rest!

[stahrwe]

I like how discussion of the age of the universe was dropped. What about the age of the Earth? Light from distant stars? The Grand Canyon? Evolution?

Of course, none of that matters, god could have created the Earth and made it 'appear' to be millions of years old. He could have made distant stars with the rays of light partway to Earth. He could have made the Grand Canyon 'as if' it had been eroded over long periods of time. He could have created organisms 'as if' they had evolved. Reasoning and logic mean absolutely nothing, goddidit is the ultimate fallback point.

Nothing was dropped. See Genesis discussion about how the age of the universe is determined, Hubble's not so constant, dark matter, dark energy, regression analysis of models, etc.

[stahrwe]

I've been following this discussion with interest and some amazement. I have friends who are devout Christians who believe genesis is a "teaching story" but I don't think I've ever met anyone who took it "literally". I've seen alot of the attitude on American TV shows and in the news etc. but thought they were playing it up to be funny.

I've heard about the Bible Belt but in Australia we have nothing similar. How do these people gratuate high school with that belief? Are there really schools that teach creationism? or whatever they label it now?

Well, you've met one now. I am a proud YEC. I graduated from an accredited public high school with honors. In high school my focus was on chemistry and physics. During my senior year I did a paper in which I derived E=MC2 from newton's law of motion (see science forum for a posting with my rough draft notes which I still have). I majored in physics at the Univesity of Florida. I graduated from that university with honors in 3 years instead of the usual 4 because I skipped my freshman year by takng a special test which gave me college credit for that year and by taking advanced placement classes in high school which counted as college credit.

[stahrwe]

There are private schools, many of them established to promote religious belief while providing a high school degree, as well as home schooling, and .... texas as well.

booktalk.org/the-problems-in-texas-scho ... t7634.html

BTW, the first pithy saying in your signature block is right on point with a discussion we are having in the Genesis thread. It is a continuing source of amusement to me when people, like Kadeem, make statements on subjects they have no clue about.

[Interbane]

Nothing was dropped. See Genesis discussion about how the age of the universe is determined, Hubble's not so constant, dark matter, dark energy, regression analysis of models, etc.

I did, I responded. It was a "bam, cheeze it!" type story. NASA says the universe is approximately 13.5 billion years old, so therefore after some math we think it's 4k years old.

[bleachededen]

I think this debate should remain here, in the thread created for it, instead of being drawn into the Genesis reading, because I sense that others who were once active in that thread are remaining silent now because the discussion has moved from simply discussion of the topic (Genesis) to this argument to defend or attack the YEC literal interpretation position. I don't think this discussion needs to happen in two threads, and I think this one is more suitable because it isn't interfering with other members' discussion of the Bible.

Just my humble speculation.

I agree that it should not be in two different threads, and, logically, since it is intimately connected with Genesis, that is where it beongs.

Why does it belong there? Just because it deals with Genesis doesn't mean it is only discussing Genesis and therefore cannot be discussed anywhere else. The same goes for Johnson's post about "questions for God." As there is an entire forum dedicated to the Bible and Beliefs and Christianity, anyone can post any thread in it, even if it also regards to a thread that already exists.

My point in stating this was that it is unfair to have this argument in the Genesis thread because that is for discussing Genesis as a book in the Bible, not the Creationist viewpoint in general, and you are therefore alienating other people who may want to discuss Genesis without the YEC debate.

Would you put Doomsday Book, a science fiction book about time travel to the middle ages, in the history section, simply because it discusses a period in history? Or put Frankenstein in science because it deals with some of the fundamentals of science? Can I put the Handmaid's Tale in religion because the dystopia Atwood created is ruled by fundamentalist Christians?

A thread in a forum marked for religion and belief is relevant enough for any religious post to be started, even if it does coincide with a thread that is already being discussed. If you find it too tedious to jump from thread to thread, that is your problem, not the poster's.

[stahrwe]

Nothing was dropped. See Genesis discussion about how the age of the universe is determined, Hubble's not so constant, dark matter, dark energy, regression analysis of models, etc.

I did, I responded. It was a "bam, cheeze it!" type story. NASA says the universe is approximately 13.5 billion years old, so therefore after some math we think it's 4k years old.

Cute, haven't seen the "Cheeze It" in a while.

BTW, NASA does make mistakes, sometimes it even repeats them, 1/28,2/1/

[stahrwe]

I think this debate should remain here, in the thread created for it, instead of being drawn into the Genesis reading, because I sense that others who were once active in that thread are remaining silent now because the discussion has moved from simply discussion of the topic (Genesis) to this argument to defend or attack the YEC literal interpretation position. I don't think this discussion needs to happen in two threads, and I think this one is more suitable because it isn't interfering with other members' discussion of the Bible.

Just my humble speculation.

I agree that it should not be in two different threads, and, logically, since it is intimately connected with Genesis, that is where it beongs.

Why does it belong there? Just because it deals with Genesis doesn't mean it is only discussing Genesis and therefore cannot be discussed anywhere else. The same goes for Johnson's post about "questions for God." As there is an entire forum dedicated to the Bible and Beliefs and Christianity, anyone can post any thread in it, even if it also regards to a thread that already exists.

My point in stating this was that it is unfair to have this argument in the Genesis thread because that is for discussing Genesis as a book in the Bible, not the Creationist viewpoint in general, and you are therefore alienating other people who may want to discuss Genesis without the YEC debate.

Would you put Doomsday Book, a science fiction book about time travel to the middle ages, in the history section, simply because it discusses a period in history? Or put Frankenstein in science because it deals with some of the fundamentals of science? Can I put the Handmaid's Tale in religion because the dystopia Atwood created is ruled by fundamentalist Christians?

A thread in a forum marked for religion and belief is relevant enough for any religious post to be started, even if it does coincide with a thread that is already being discussed. If you find it too tedious to jump from thread to thread, that is your problem, not the poster's.

It becomes confusing because one isdiscussing the same issues in two places. It is inefficient, becasue it tends to lead to duplication. Additionally, we already have a significant amount of material posted there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to look for some dark energy.

[geo]

My point in stating this was that it is unfair to have this argument in the Genesis thread because that is for discussing Genesis as a book in the Bible, not the Creationist viewpoint in general, and you are therefore alienating other people who may want to discuss Genesis without the YEC debate.

I agree completely. I'm completely burned out with the YEC "debate" which isn't a debate at all. There is no validity to the YEC position in terms of reason or logic. It's a faith-based position. Period the end. The Genesis discussion has become hopelessly mired down in YEC arguments that God literally created the world in six days and on the seventh day he rested and that Noah's ark really happened. And it has sidelined any kind of real discussion that might otherwise take place.

[Interbane]

BTW, NASA does make mistakes, sometimes it even repeats them, 1/28,2/1/

Of course they do. Absolutely. Now, with your misdirection aside, let's consider 13.5 billion to a few thousand. Corroborated by many different agencies with differing agendas.

Corroboration is when others verify the information. If NASA had outside agencies corroborating their work, they would make far fewer mistakes, if any. Here is some corroboration:

Since the universe must be at least as old as the oldest thing in it, there are a number of observations which put a lower limit on the age of the universe; these include the temperature of the coolest white dwarfs, which gradually cool as they age, and the dimmest turnoff point of main sequence stars in clusters (lower-mass stars spend a greater amount of time on the main sequence, so the lowest-mass stars that have evolved off of the main sequence set a minimum age). On 23 April 2009 a gamma-ray burst was detected which was later confirmed at being over 13 billion years old.[2]

The expansion of the Universe

Today's observed recession of galaxies pays witness to the sheer force of the Big Bang, and the enormous - almost inceivably large - reservoir of energy that it provided the Universe. During the 1920's, the astronomer Edwin Hubble was the first to realize the largescale expansion of the Univers by examining the "redshifted" spectra of a number of galaxies. (A "redshift" refers to a shift to longer wavelengths in the spectral lines of an object's spectrum, while a "blueshift" represents a shift to shorter wavelengths.)

To relate the recession velocity of a galaxy with its distance, Hubble proposed the relationship: v = H x R. The constant of proportionality, H, is known as "Hubbles' constant" and has units of km/sec/megaparsec. Modern astronomers disagree as to the precise value of H. The most commonly used estimate is around 50 km/sec/Mpc, but astronomical data indicates that the value can range up to 100 km/sec/Mpc.

Of immediate significance is the realization that Hubble's Law, and in particular Hubble's constant, cna be used to set limits on the age of the Universe. Inverting Hubble's costant, and canceling units of distance, actually yields a time estimate for the age of the Universe. For a value of H=50 km/sec/Mpc, we have an age of 10 billion years, while for H=100 km/sec/Mpc, the age is 20 billion years. Hence, we conclude that the age of the Universe, as derived from Hubble's Law, is somewhere between 10 and 20 billion years old.


Age of Globular Clusters

Globular clusters are densely-packed, beehive-like conglomerations of stars which are situated at the outer edges of our Galaxy. They are by far the oldest existing objects in our Universe. The ages of globular clusters are detemined from both stellar evolution theory as well as dynamical considerations. Consisting of two different types, metal-rich and metal-poor, globular clusters range in age between 11 and 17 billion years. The highly metal-poor clusters, such as M15 and M92, are up to 17 billion years old, while the slightly more metal-rich clusters range in age between 11 and 12 billion years. (For measure, globular cluster stars are classified as population II stars, while the younger stars that populate the galactic disc known as population I stars). Assuming that the oldest of the globular clusters are some 17 billion years old, we conclude that the Universe is about 18 billion years old if we include another 1 billion years needed for the formation of our Galaxy.

Radioactive Element Dating

Due to nuclear instabilities, many elements tend to decay over time. These are known as radioactive elements, and their rates of decay can be used to date many phenomena in nature, including the age of the Universe itself. The standard parameter used to measure the rate of radioactive decay is known as the "half-life", and is defined as the time required for a sample of radioactive elements to decay to half of its original amount.
Two isotopes of uranium, 235 and 238, are especially useful in dating techniques. U-238 decays into lead (Pb-206) with a half-life of about 4.5 billion years. Assuming we know how much of the lead isotope was originally contained in a given sample, we can determine its age by comparing present abundances of U-238 and Pb-206. This dating method has been used to assess the ages of the oldest rocks on Earth, which have been found to be about 4 billion years old. Lunar rocks and the oldest meteorites yield ages of about 4.6 billion years. Similar dating techniques exist for isotopes of strontium, krypton, and rubidium. Taken together, we conclude that from the age measurements of meteorites, lunar and Earth rocks, that the Solar System was formed around 5 billion years ago.

The heavy elements in the Universe were largely produced in supernova explosions. In order to estimate the age of the Universe, we must combine the age of the radioactive elements with the supernova age. The rate of supernova events in our Galaxy is estimated to be about one every 30 years or so. If we add in the time for galaxy formation, around 1 billion years, we find an estimate for the age of the Universe in the range between 11 and 18 billion years.

[johnson1010]

It is a continuing source of amusement to me when people, like Kadeem, make statements on subjects they have no clue about.

Indeed.