Alright Eljay, you devoutly religious folks always start in on dating methods because it is more or less the "last frontier" between what scientists have repeatedly demonstrated to be reality and what your belief system cant seem to muster the strength to handle. Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. So I understand that this is no small issue. However the ONLY argument I ever see your crowd making is that "its all inaccurate, can not be trusted and your interpretations of this data are somehow more credible and justifiable." Seeing as I had to explain to you what Cro-magnum man was exactly, maybe you are not making that assertion. I dont know. But you cant ignore this data and stick your head in the sand. It warrants your attention. As a former math teacher, you should find it interesting I hope.

You simply can not sit here and declare that hundreds of millions of fossils that currently reside in display cases and drawers around the world are ALL inaccurately dated.That is paranoia plain and simple. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens, huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds, have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous. So unless you are attempting to assert that all of these findings found in museums throughout the world are simply all the same age then I dont know how exactly you are trying to support your beliefs. Were all of these fossils somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood? How exactly could all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest all live together? How could all of the marine creatures drown in the flood of Noah? Sea creatures dont drown! Its crazy speak. Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof.

You can refute the mountains of scientific data and evidence until the cows come home but clearly all you are demonstrating is that its far easier for you to make these claims yet a whole hell of a lot harder for you to demonstrate how these findings are erroneous or inaccurate in some respect. Go ahead, pick a respect. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity.

I've certainly read all of the gospels. I haven't read the entire New Testament, at least not in whole. And the reason for this is because when I sit down in earnest to try to do that I simply can't get very far before it becomes totally meaningless. They sound like they are just stating things that they'd like us to believe but they aren't given and decent reasons for why things should be that way.

Once you've seen the little man pulling the levers behind the curtain it's hard to believe what the puppet figurine is telling you. Why should you believe it?

You want to ask question of this figurine directly but you CAN'T because it's just a book. All you can do is take what the authors are spoon feeding you, and what they are spoon feeding you often CONFLICTS with what they spoon fed you earlier in the book!

You also can't separate the New Testament form the Old. You're fooling yourself terribly if you try to do that. Jesus is NOTHING on his own. Absolutely NOTHING. His entirety claim to divinity rests entirely on believing in the Old Testament FIRST!

In fact, if you can't read the Old Testament FIRST and BELIEVE IT! Then you truly have no right to even look at the New Testament. You must believe and accept the Old Testament FIRST! Otherwise the New Testament is meaningless. Trying to do it backwards is truly the joke of Christianity.



There are so many.

First off, why is God even allowing a fallen angel to screw with his creation?

If the wages of sin are death and sin is disagreement and disobedience to God then why isn't this fallen angle dead? That's the first contradiction right there.

Moreover, why is a fallen angel even required? Wasn't mankind evil enough of his own to fall from grace without the help of a fallen angel?

Who's at fault for mankind's fall? Man? Or the devil? If it is entirely the responsibility of man, then why even make up a devil in the first place?

I'll tell you why! Because the story was fabricated by mankind and they needed to invent the concept of evil demons to scare people with that's why!

In fact, the idea that Jesus when around casting demons out of people is pretty silly don't you think? If a person is possessed by an evil demon then how could they be held responsible for that? Why should a person be responsible for having been possessed by an evil demon?

Clearly if Jesus can cast the evil demon out of the person then the person never deserved to be possessed by it in the first place.

The story makes absolutely no sense Eljay. It only makes sense as a truly silly superstition. But it makes no sense at all in terms of a genuine supreme being allowing ghosts and goblins to possess the souls of men.

So right off the bat, if I were going to create a race of beings I would do it in an terrarium when there ware no evil demons and just let the race of beings that I'm creating answer for THEMSELVES. There's absolutely no need for any devil or evil demons. Either man is evil, or he is not! If he needs an evil demon to make him evil then he's a victim rather than a culprit!

So right off the bat, I'm at odds with the whole story.

Secondly, why is God creating women secondly as an afterthought? Why introduce the prejudice and bias based on gender? Even today we teach each other than such prejudice and bias is improper. Yet God seems to not only condone it but DEMAND IT!

If I were God I would have created Adam and Eve as a totally egalitarian couple and frown on anyone who incites bigotry based on gender.

And probably MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL,... I would NEVER asks anyone to slaughter an animal or anything to appease me for their disobedient of me. To me that sends an utterly WRONG MESSAGE. It's suggests a myriad of terrible things. It says that it's ok to kill animals for ceremonial rituals. It says that it's ok to disobey as long as you are willing to kill an animal to pay for your disobedience. It's basically a free ticket to buy the right to disobey!

What kind of a message is that to send to people? It's no skin off their nose if they have to slaughter an animal to pay for disobedience!

Hell's bell's if I were going to demand something as an appeasement for disobedience I would demand some kind of community SERVICE! I would make them to something POSITIVE and CONSTRUCTIVE to make atonements for their bad behavior. I would have them so busy doing positive and constructive things that they wouldn't have time to sin!

Make them grow a Garden and tend it! That'll keep them busy for a while. It only take one stupid night of heavy drinking to roast a sacrificial lamb. And what is learned by that?

Also, if I was going to inspire a book to be written it would FOCUS more own how to properly raise children than anything else. And I'm talking about how to MENTOR them with love, patience and understanding. I'm not talking about how to scare them into being BLINDLY obedient.

On the contrary my Bible would be all about UNDERSTANDING!

I also wouldn't change my tactics half way through the thing.

I would teach people in the first half of my book to stone sinners to death and kill heathen, and then teach them in the second half of my book not to stone people to death and to turn the other cheek.

I'd pick one moral value and stick to it!

I'd probably agree with Jesus. But that conflicts with the CURRENT Old Testament.

You can't just talk about the New Testament and ignore the Old.

Either Jesus was the God of Abraham or he was NOT.

If not, then fine. Let's rip the frigg'in Bible in half and toss out the Old Testament as being a completely FALSE GOD!

The only problem is that Jesus is suppose to be that FALSE GOD!

The Bible taken as a whole is an oxymoron.

Jesus cannot possibly have been an incarnation (or even the Son) of the God of Abraham. He's WAY TOO DIFFERENT!

I might actually be half-tempted to become a Jesus Freak myself if you can emancipate Jesus from the Old Testament. But I'm afraid that's not possible. As soon as you do that his crucifixion is meaningless.

The Bible must be taken as a whole. There's no two ways about it.

That's unfortunately because the New Testament alone might have had some merit in some sense. But the crucifixion is entirely dependent on the God who lusts for blood sacrifices to pay for disobedience.

It's just not a doable religion.

It's not a choice. Eljay.

I can't choose to believe in Jesus without also believing in the Old Testament. And I can't possibly believe that the real creator of this universe is like the God depicted in the Old Testament.

It's not a choice. It can't be true because it is based on oxymoronic propositions. The biblical God would need to be simultaneously all-wise and all-stupid. Or simultaneously all-powerful and all-helpless. Or simultaneously all-perfect and totally-flawed.

These are all blatant contradictions.

Therefore there's nothing to believe.

What exactly is it that you actually believe Eljay?

That Jesus Christ died to pay for your sins?

But who did he pay?

Himself?

He was the one who demanded blood sacrifices to pay for sins!

Was that a wise thing to do?

Not likely since it ended up that he has to sacrifice himself to himself.

What an idiot!

Seriously, think about it!

An all-knowing, all-wise, all-perfect God designs a universe in such a way that in order to save it he has to have himself nailed to a pole?

Is that a wise God?

I think not.

oil

Go back and look over the data on how long it takes a readioactive isotope to change, and the accuracy of predicting when, and at what time intervals the changes occur.

Absolute conjecture. However, science claims this doesn't matter. Ummm.. okay.

Oh, yeah, and despite the fact that there is no emperical evidence to aqssure the test controls establish two different metiors as having been created at the same time period (an established criteria for the reliability of the experiment), the validity is established because the graph appears consistent. Ummm... okay.

If I had offered conjecture like this in my advanced abstract calculus class - I would have flunked it.

It matters not to me if you think I'm wrong and you want to invest yourself in this stuff. Just be weary of calling anyone a "blind follower of myths"

I'm not saying I reject these theories - I just wouldn't bet a nickel on their validity until they can demonstrate controls that are only a hundred years old in theory to support an occurance that has lasted 4.5 billion years. Sorry - I don't buy it. That would be like asking a contol group of 5 Packer fans who the best qusarterback in the NFL is, and having the response be bret Favre - then claiming him as the best quarterback in the history of the NFL. It may be true - but not based on the experiment.

Science is great. It finally explained a way that Mother Mary could have been a virgin and had a baby. Look up the meaning of the word hermaphrodite! I'm not saying she was or that this is what happened. Just wanted to point out to the people that have used the argument that Christ could not have been born of a virgin that there argument is not valid!

SCIENTISTS HAVE MANY THEORIES, BUT NOTICE THAT THEY USUALLY END WITH THE PHRAZE "AS WE KNOW IT" WHICH LEADS ME TO BELIEVE IT'S JUST A PERSPECTIVE, NOT NESSESSARIELY THE TRUTH. AS HUMANS WE KNOW A BEGINNING AND AN END, HOWEVER IT IS WRITTEN THAT GOD HAS NO BEGINING AND NO END.

You didnt really offer rebuttal to my post so I will respond to this one. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. So this is only part of the reason why I choose to accept this data rather than rely on a book of Christian mythology that professes to "give me all the answers if I only have faith." Science does not require faith. You either believe these theories based on the evidence they provide or you dont. You will not go to hell if you choose not to accept them either. An added bonus. Geological dating can be absolute or it can be relative. Science is permitted to make educated guesses. That is a luxury the bible does not have. All I ever witness is people reading the scripture and interpreting it in whatever manner they deem fitting and then arguing about it on forums.

Obviously since the early 1900s, science has made tremendous advances when it comes to the absolute dating of the fossil record. Im not sure if you were aware of this. Radioactive decay, though a major advancement in this field is not the ONLY method in which ancient discoveries can be dated. Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other. This to me demonstrates that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough.

However, your issue seems to speak specifically to the inaccuracy of radiocarbon dating so I will address this. Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates. Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, in other words, the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element.By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated.

I will agree that you have a right to either accept this dating method to be accurate or dismiss it permanently. I hope that you will not do that at least Put down the bible for one moment and simply make an attempt to have a better understanding of this process. Do you enjoy going to museums? Natural history or other? Have you ever done that?

Do we not accept “scientific” explanations for phenomenon as “fact”, even though those explanations are based on unproven (and often unprovable) theories???

So how then, is an acceptance of a “scientific” explanation any different from acceptance of a “spiritual” explanation for any phenomenon? (e.g. OBE, NDE, RV, et al)

Isn’t it all just a matter of which “primary assumptions” you wish to believe in/agree with?

Just something to think about.

Sorry K - been too long to remember what post you are refering to. As to this one... You say science doesn't rely on faith, then in the next sentence you refer to "educated guesses". If this isn't functioning on faith - what is? Of course science functions on faith. Even if one refers to the definition of faith in the bible - it applies directly to science. The results of those "educated quesses are the exprience of the experiment (if applicable) or the mathematical reasoning of the premise (as in isotopic dating).
No different than one who has their faith in God - prays for a healing of an affliction, and experiences the healing.

I would not call the rndom discussions about scripture on these forums as representative of much of anything if the topic being discussed is not bothered to be researched. Else it's just taking someone elses word for it. Sometimes that's okay - depending upon the level of intrest. But in terms of active participation - pointless if the topic at hand is based solely ion an uneducated opinion.



Though the dating methods are fairly active - to a varying degree of error, the extrapolation into the distant past looses it's validity due to the principle of uniforminity - which is a premise that must be accepted before any dating method can be validated. There's always the small print which MUST state that the conditions of the present testing must have been present at the time the object dated is thought to be from - else the presumption is invalid, as the mathematical charts that support the presumption serve no purpose if any of the required fields are altered.



Ah, but you aren't finished yet. This holds true ONLY when the two items in the comparison (for you cannot determine the date of an isolated item using isotopic dating - which you just described - without a second parent item to compare it to) are known to have been formed at the same time. This is a requirement that validates the test. That is the same thing as a believer stating the bible is true because it says it is.



Yes, and largly due to your influence I have been doing extensive research on Isotopic dating, since even scientists realize that carbon-14 dating is not accurate beyond a few thousand years. I find that the presumptions of this method of dating follow a strict set of rules (and rightfully so) that cannot be substanciated.
There is no way that any of the materials that have been used to determine this method of dating can in any way be acccounted for as to their origin, as they are all elements that have entered the earth's atmosphere from space. In addition to this - there is no way that the atmospheric eternals can be measured to assure the uniformity needed to accurate detrmine the date of an item that is professed to break down into the daughter-element from the parent element over a period of a billion or more years. Which is the premise behind isotopic dating. It is impossible - for instance - to determine how much uranium turns into lead over a specific time period, because the specific atmospheric controls needed to assure the quality and validity of the test cannot be controlled, and thus
the accuracy of the results of the test remain within the realm of presumption. Now - because the math works - they say "this is all that is needed to assure the test would be true". But uniforminity is crucial to this statement, else the math falls apart.

In addition to this - the amount of time needed to assure that the infomation is accurate would necessitate that those conduction the test live to be more than a thousand or more years.

However - I am still investigating and researching this stuff, and as of yet, have not accepted - or rejected it. But what I will say, is that as far as I'v determined, it is no more factual than the account of the flood in Genesis. We have more evidence of that occurance, than we do of material that substanciates an earth that is 4.5 billion years old.