[_ Old Earth _] The Age Of Earth

[Free]

and a lot of the stupid wars probably would have been averted

 

[Sir Pwn4lot]

and a lot of the stupid wars probably would have been averted

Really? You can't think of any? Ok well:

French Wars of Religion (4 million killed, 8th worst war of all time [off the top of my head ])
The Crusades (Many of which were approved by the Pope)
The 30 Years War (6-11 million killed)
Taiping Rebellion

It would seem worthwhile to say something.....

 

[jasoncran]

and aethistic countries wouldnt fight , come on, or kill many

germany 6 million plus
russia (stalin) 30 million plus
pol pot several million
mao tse tzung 40 million

man wars not over religion mainly but the power that it and others things bring. it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, jesus never condended killing the unbelievers that refused to convert.

 

[Free]

and a lot of the stupid wars probably would have been averted

Really? You can't think of any? Ok well:

French Wars of Religion (4 million killed, 8th worst war of all time [off the top of my head ])
The Crusades (Many of which were approved by the Pope)
The 30 Years War (6-11 million killed)
Taiping Rebellion

It would seem worthwhile to say something.....

I was just wondering if that was what he was getting at (since, as Jason has pointed out, it completely ignores what has been done in the name of godlessness) and what that has to do with the age of the Earth.

 

[Sir Pwn4lot]

I was just wondering if that was what he was getting at (since, as Jason has pointed out, it completely ignores what has been done in the name of godlessness) and what that has to do with the age of the Earth.

Give me an example of someone waging a war IN THE NAME OF Atheism. I don't mean someone who's coincidentally Atheistic, because if you want to go down that route then you can include all of the millions of Christian people who did terrible things and were coincidentally Christian (Pretty much everyone before 1950) lol.

Things like flying planes into buildings because your religion says to kill the infidels IS motivated by religion. Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Oklahoma building because he was pissed with the FBI WASN'T motivated by his religion, he was simply coincidentally Christian.

Same thing stands for Stalin and Mao. Hitler was his own self centered pseudo-Catholic somewhat Pagan religion.

I honestly don't know anyone who's killed someone because of the age of the earth lol.

 

[jasoncran]

one must worship something or someone. but i will now go back to topic.

 

[Sir Pwn4lot]

one must worship something or someone. but i will now go back to topic.

Where on Earth did you get this assertion from?

 

[jasoncran]

one must worship something or someone. but i will now go back to topic.

Where on Earth did you get this assertion from?

because everyone has that habit or thing that must have, be it money, women, tv, or even dare i say science, and rush to have it. never met an atheist that didnt have something or someone that had to have, addictions whether benign or bad are a form of worship, i have a freind who is into zen and is an atheist and he has to have that meditation daily, or he feels incomplete.

 

[Sir Pwn4lot]

one must worship something or someone. but i will now go back to topic.

Where on Earth did you get this assertion from?

because everyone has that habit or thing that must have, be it money, women, tv, or even dare i say science, and rush to have it. never met an atheist that didnt have something or someone that had to have, addictions whether benign or bad are a form of worship, i have a freind who is into zen and is an atheist and he has to have that meditation daily, or he feels incomplete.

Depending on what you mean by worship then I agree with you.

If by worship you mean agree with or like then sure, I 'worship' many things. But if you mean (like I think you do) worship as in manifest faith or unwavering obedience in then no, I don't worship anything.

I only use Science for as long as it works, if I find it doesn't work (which I haven't found anything that it can't explain) then I'll stop using it lol.

The rise of science and the rise of technology, massive increase in health/life expectancy, rise of literacy, and rise of morality are curiously synonymous. Once we got rid of superstition things slowly started to get better.

Isn't this a topic about the age of the Earth?

 

[jasoncran]

yes it is, and i got off topic again when i answered your question. i may start a thread on that though.

 

[coelacanth]

Most Christians here believe the miracles Christ performed. One such example is the feeding of the masses.. twice. Those fish didn't have age but maybe a few hours at most before getting into the hands of those in attendance.

Without knowing or believing Christ created those fish one would be compelled to view the fish as having age. There could be no other deduction when creation is not believed. By all logic, by the evidence in one's hand the fish under examination would indeed appear to be at least some months old.

The scientific community has no law/s governing creation of something from nothing. There are no principles, no formulas, no laws by which we may know the mechanics of creation from nothing. Due to this fact only the observed can be used to deduce age. If I gave someone a newly created object, one created only moments before from nothing, it would be impossible for that person to rightly deduce it's age.

Christ created the fishes that fed multitudes. I'm not going to limit God's power of creation to the logic of men or their scientific conclusions.

Then you must admit that God went to great lengths to make it appear that the earth is billions of years old. Same with the universe. Why?

 

[Physicist]

What science does

Science provides the data, the evidence by such observation. Science says or states nothing. Science is not an entity of it's own. Science simply provides or generates the data. Man makes the conclusions. The science of forensics is used to provide evidence for both a defense attorney and a prosecutor. It is by conclusion a judgment is made. Scientists are men judging by what science provides to come to the conclusions they themselves make. Scientific conclusion. Unfortunately those conclusion are made without any regard for the possibility of creation simply because man and man's science cannot provide laws, rules etc for something being created from nothing.

What scientists actually do is attempt to find relationships between observed phenomena.These relationships are then used to predict expected behavior of objective reality. A set of relationships may be combined into Laws or Theories, as, for example, Newton's Laws or Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. All such Laws or Theories are tentative and subject to change if they don't match observed phenomena. By this method, humanity has gain greater knowledge of how the Universe works.

Science has also developed some 'rules-of-thumb' to select between competing Theories. For example, gravity can be explained by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, that says that mass bends space-time. One could offer a competing Theory that says that mass in coordination with miniature demons, bends space-time. The latter is rejected by Occam's razor since it includes an extra, unnecessary assumption, the demons. Generally, science prefers the simplest explanation.

If you want to include creation from nothing in your worldview, please show why it is necessary. As far as science has determined, the total energy of the Universe is constant.

 

[Rick W]

Is there a power that can indeed create something from nothing?
Just because the conclusions people make from the data science generates through observation of what has been created doesn't negate the possibility that something can indeed be created from nothing.
I can observe a car all day but that doesn't mean I know how it was manufactured. Observation does not teach metallurgy. It's just there. I have no clue of the processes required to build it.

 

[lordkalvan]

Is there a power that can indeed create something from nothing?
Just because the conclusions people make from the data science generates through observation of what has been created doesn't negate the possibility that something can indeed be created from nothing.
I can observe a car all day but that doesn't mean I know how it was manufactured. Observation does not teach metallurgy. It's just there. I have no clue of the processes required to build it.

The ultimate consequence of this argument is, of course, Last Thursdayism. The intellectual barrenness of the idea that observed age is only an illusion was exemplified by the underwhelming reaction to Philip Henry Gosse's 1857 work Omphalos. This reaction was typified by the comment of the Rev Charles Kingsley who observed that he found it impossible to 'give up the painful and slow conclusion of five and twenty years' study of geology, and believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie.' It is impossible to determine whether or not the idea of 'created age' is wrong and so the concept is ultimately untestable and methodologically absurd: science is rendered pointless and we may as will sit trembling in our caves whenever the anger of the gods is made manifest in thunder and lightning.

As to your example about the 'creation' of a car and its apparent inexplicability because of your ignorance about 'the processes required to build it': well, you can apply the scientific method and a little research and understand the entirely non-supernatural methods by which the car you observe so wonderingly has been put together. Just like Nature.

 

[Rick W]

I'm not saying we should "sit trembling in our caves whenever the anger of the gods is made manifest in thunder and lightning.".
Heck, I had 5 sciences in my senior year in high school and pursued science to eek out a living.
I just don't see any reason to totally dismiss the possibility that God did indeed do as written as advocated by some, or the use of conclusions drawn by the observed to claim there is no God.
When reliance upon observation becomes the only means of thinking then we turn our backs not only on God but also upon the gift of the heart to know Him.
Again, we cannot simply conclude creation of something from nothing is impossible when we ourselves are part of that creation. Once we admit to ourselves that we can't know everything, that there is a limit to what man can understand then we can use observation to know the power and glory of God.
Science proves nothing. All it does is generate data and nothing more. The conclusions drawn by that data are formed within the mind of the observer. Looking out into the universe, gathering the information sought to support one's assumption, is very much like the art of forensics. Depends on what one wants to prove. All research, debate or gathering of information must first be preceeded by some assumption/s otherwise there would be no point in one's efforts. It's that assumption, that motivation that dictates how the tools of science, the gathering of information, will be used to produce the information sought and the conclusions drawn from the information gathered.

 

[lordkalvan]

I'm not saying we should "sit trembling in our caves whenever the anger of the gods is made manifest in thunder and lightning.".

I'm sorry if you thought this was what I was suggesting you were saying: what I was trying to point out is that this seems to be the ultimate consequence of this kind of argument.

Heck, I had 5 sciences in my senior year in high school and pursued science to eek out a living.
I just don't see any reason to totally dismiss the possibility that God did indeed do as written as advocated by some, or the use of conclusions drawn by the observed to claim there is no God.
When reliance upon observation becomes the only means of thinking then we turn our backs not only on God but also upon the gift of the heart to know Him.

Observation is indeed not 'the only means of thinking'. However, observation, measurement and analysis and the inferences and conclusions about the natural world that we draw from those procedures either tell us something 'true' about that world, or there would seem to be not very much purpose in ether making them or trying to learn something from them. If multiple, independent methodologies all point to an Earth and Universe that are very much older than the age calculated from ancient legend by a minor sect of Christianity, then it would seem reasonable to conclude that the observations are correct and the sect mistaken.

Again, we cannot simply conclude creation of something from nothing is impossible when we ourselves are part of that creation.

It would seem reasonable to agree with the Rev Kingsley that the creation that we observe and measure does not lie to us, however.

Once we admit to ourselves that we can't know everything, that there is a limit to what man can understand then we can use observation to know the power and glory of God.

Your conclusion does not follow from the initial premise. Admitting ignorance about something does not immediately open the door to the admission of God as an explanation for that ignorance, hence my earlier reference to thunder and lightning.

Science proves nothing. All it does is generate data and nothing more.

Well, it gathers data in an attempt to falsify hypotheses and, if the consequence of that data-gathering is that the hypothesis is not falsified then confidence in its validity as a description and explanation of the phenomenon in question is enhanced.

The conclusions drawn by that data are formed within the mind of the observer. Looking out into the universe, gathering the information sought to support one's assumption, is very much like the art of forensics. Depends on what one wants to prove. All research, debate or gathering of information must first be preceeded by some assumption/s otherwise there would be no point in one's efforts. It's that assumption, that motivation that dictates how the tools of science, the gathering of information, will be used to produce the information sought.

But those assumptions are continually being tested by multiple researchers, which is how knowledge and understanding advances and expands. Science is not about proof per se, it is about this process of testing to determine whether an idea is more or less valid. Einstein's special and general theories of relativity are excellent examples of this process, I think.

 

[Rick W]

The problem lies in the fact that we have no means of testing creation from nothing. If I gave you something that was created from nothing just moments ago I'm quite sure the evidence would be undeniable that there is age much greater than 2 minutes. After all, even the atoms had to come from the Big Bang anyway. In that case it's a simple exercise of manipulation of matter and not one of creation.
We can't observe creation as it occurs or has occurred. With that simple premise in mind one can only conclude it doesn't occur or ever has. Why? Because we can't see it happening. Not only that but we don't have the intellectual horsepower to even develop a rudimentary set of rules governing such an occurrence. And I seriously doubt we ever will. I can attempt to teach a chimp the theory of evolution but his mind just doesn't have what it takes. Likewise we are also limited even though we are presumably from the same family but just one rung up on the evolutionary ladder.

 

[Rick W]

BTW, do you remember Carl Sagan's "flatland"?
I'm getting off the topic of creation for bit.

 

[lordkalvan]

The problem lies in the fact that we have no means of testing creation from nothing. If I gave you something that was created from nothing just moments ago I'm quite sure the evidence would be undeniable that there is age much greater than 2 minutes.

Why are you 'quite sure' of this? And if you are 'quite sure', you must also be able to see that 'created age' is intellectually barren: if something appears to be two billion years old, but in fact is only 2,000 years old, what can we assume but that the creator is deceptive?

After all, even the atoms had to come from the Big Bang anyway. In that case it's a simple exercise of manipulation of matter and not one of creation.

Except that the observed ages of different phenomena appear to be different. Artifacts from Dynastic Egypt appear to be older than artifacts from the Magdalen Era. Fossil Ichthyosaurs appear to be older than fossil dolphins. How do we distinguish between real and created age? If created age cannot be tested for, it becomes an interesting exercise in theology, but remains wholly worthless scientifically.

We can't observe creation as it occurs or has occurred.

Well, cosmologists are moving ever closer to observing the Big Bang. It is certainly the case that the consequences of this creative event can be observed and measured.

With that simple premise in mind one can only conclude it doesn't occur or ever has. Why? Because we can't see it happening. Not only that but we don't have the intellectual horsepower to even develop a rudimentary set of rules governing such an occurrence. And I seriously doubt we ever will.
I can attempt to teach a chimp the theory of evolution but his mind just doesn't have what it takes. Likewise we are also limited even though we are presumably from the same family but just one rung up on the evolutionary ladder.

You seem to be assuming that creation cannot have a naturalistic explanation and that our observations of natural phenomena tell us nothing meaningful about the origin and history of those phenomena because we don't have minds capable of encompassing a proper understanding of them. On the basis of the history of knowledge, I disagree profoundly.

 

[Rick W]

Sagan used an illustration about a 2 dimensional world. I don't remember the gist of the illustration but it was compelling none-the-less.
Anyway, he had some shapes cut out of paper laying on a table. He them "Flatlanders". Houses were a few rectangles arranged in the form of an open box and he even had a door represented by another rectangle of paper.
Below is something like what Sagan was using.

Anyway, They saw their neighbors and objects in 2D seeing only the very edge of "people" and objects. They couldn't see up or down for they were locked in that 2D world.
One day an apple fell through the plane of flatland which of course coexisted within the world of 3D. As the apple went through the plane the flatlanders observed a round being suddenly appear, grow bigger then disappear in like manner. The frightened flatlanders had no explanation of course since nothing they observed in their world could appear and "wink out". But by all they could observe could not explain the appearance of the intruder.

That is the problem with relying solely on what we observe dismissing anything else that is impossible to detect.
Don't be a Flatlander.