A nit on your nit: There are unicellular green algae.
He said a couple of hundred thousand years, well that’s completely wrong. I know our sun has been around for 4 billion years, and the earth has been around almost as long. The whole history of homo-sapiens is just a speck on the timeline of earth.
Yes, just imagine it!
If Arth were a mere 10% farther in average distance from the sun, the mean nightly temperature would drop below 100 degrees Celsius, and the water vapors and propanol that circulate in our Vexrtuzzains would condense! Then how would we set up the vital convection currents that keep nutrient motes wafting through our caverous bodies?? All life would end.
Truly, we must thank Rxxi’toyv for placing our planet in the most appropriate location to support our continued survival.
For those who are interested, the September 2001 edition of National Geographic has the cover story ‘How Old is It?’, which address some of these issues and, even more interesting, the various methods used to calculate the age of the earth, the universe, rocks, fossils etc.
The earth, according to this, goes back 4.5 billion years, and the oldest rock on earth has been dated at 4.03 billion (“few rocks survived [the earth’s] molten youth”, p. 91)
There is more on this at:
http://nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0109
In terms of the creationist/evolutionist argument, the problem here is that each group is arguing within totally different frameworks of belief. While i am an atheist and a believer in the Big Bang, evolution etc., i also realise that scientific knowledge and our reliance on it are, to a considerable extent, social contructions rather than absolute truths. In his 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn makes a good case for the impermanence and subjectivity of scientific ‘progress’. This book should be required reading for anyone in a college science or humanities program.
All that said, i find the tortuous logic of creationists a little offputting and freaky at times. I particularly dislike the fact that while i am willing to allow that my own position does not hold absolute objective authority, most creationists are unwilling to make even this small concession. The problem with such absolutism is that it must make for either complete serenity, or constant insecurity in the face of mounting evidence that contradicts the creationist worldview.
michael
This is one of those things I hate about creationist thinking.
No the Earth was not made to fit us, we were made to fit it via evolution.
Think about it if we as a species were unable to survive in temperatures, say 10 degrees lower or higher we’d freeze or burn up.
Or if our thumbs weren’t made opposable… oh heck you can see where this is going.
And is it just a coincidence that I found a winning lottery ticket on the street yesterday?
Won a whole two bucks… yup!
Try this response.
So. You believe that a few thousand years ago a disembodied mind that can will reality into existence did so, and somehow whoosh! over the course of seven days, in a big puff of smoke, somehow, some way, this big, huge, beautiful Earth was created as it stands today. Of course it’s just coincidence that all the well-established data of astrophysics, geology, and biology create a consensus picture that is very different. It’s just a coincidence that things most strongly objected to by the puff-of-smoke adherents are easily shown to be factually true, while the Bible is obviously, to even the meanest of reasoners, a poor guide to physical reality. It’s also just a coincidence that the Bible is chock full of things that have been proven wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt, aaaaaaaaannnnnndddd… the weird thing is, it also offers a terrific amount of emotional appeal for its believers - including but not limited to immortality! - even though there has never been the slightest solid proof of any of it. So do it. Challenge me. Tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.
Mangetout
What, precisely, is the value of pi?
It’s what you get when you take the natural logarithm of -1 and divide that by i.
I believe Mangetout’s point was that claiming that every fact in the Bible is literally true is silly, and invites one to q&d retorts. Of course, that’s not the best one, but it’s one of the more famous ones.
btw, good to see you’re posting again, Libertarian.
UltraFilter
Thanks for the welcome. Unfortunately, our economic survival has compelled me to give my full attention to work lately. Things are slowly picking up, and I can drop in from time to time. When I come back on a more regular basis, I’ll be opening a thread on Spiritual Suffering.
Meanwhile, I do understand the point Mangetout was making, and I acknowledge it as a valid point. However, equally valid is the point that I think ought to always be made along with that one, namely that the value of pi cannot be expressed precisely as a real number whether in the Bible or in a math book. Pi is about 3 and the vessel likely wasn’t exactly round in any case. As a person who likes to pick the best possible ammunition for debate, and a person who has researched scripture to at least a respectable depth, I think much stronger arguments can be made with respect to biblical errancy than the pi equals 3 thing.
Fortunately, I don’t worship the Bible, so it makes little difference to me.
Libertarian: I understand what you’re saying, and agree with you. My guess is that Mangetout just grabbed the first thing that came to mind for attacking biblical inerrancy.
I disagree, but that’s a subject for another thread. 
I’ll give it a shot. “The circumfrence of a circle that has a diameter of 1 is equal to pi.”
The author of the Bible merely had to mention one of the dimensions of the vessel, since the ratio between the diameter and the circumfrence is the same no matter the circle. Because he felt the need to mention both dimensions suggests that he did not know that.
By “real number”, I meant with digits. The expression “pi” did not exist in that culture at that time, and its origin is not divine. Try expressing it as the author did, using numbers, like three point something. You cannot possibly be accurate. Were the author fretting over absolute accuracy, his descendants would still be writing his book.
I guess since no one is stupid enough to actually stand up for creationism “here” (or anything else this sad bunch disagrees with), you all must think you are right and that no one disagrees with you? Much like you do on the subject of the Apollo astronauts being super-imposed onto long range images. No one wants to jump into a pack of angry and hungry hyenas who attack everything they don’t understand, when there are decent people to talk to somewhere else. If you people don’t think you appear as close minded twits, you need to think again.
It seems many people here share something in common, you are the last to know the truth, and the last to accept it, but always the first to try to silence it.
None of you could handle how the earth was really formed, and that goes for both the creationists and the other group who thinks it was all some big cosmic accident. I believe the story of creation is closer to the real story, but in fairy tale form.
Seethruart
My point is that he could have been absolutely accurate if he mentioned that it was a circle and only gave one of the dimentions, either the diameter or the circumfrence. That would have been sufficient to describe it. His error was giving both dimentions, one of which must be irrational and which cannot be written with a finite number of decimals or as the ratio between two integers. So no matter how you look at it, it is a mistake.
Do you have any evidence for this? If so, please present it.
Seriously man, you can’t even handle the truth about the faked Apollo missions, what makes you think you could accept the truth about how the earth was formed? That story is even more of a shocker than the astronauts being super-imposed onto long range images of the moon’s surface. Plus there is nothing to be gained or lost by dicussing that, because it can’t be changed. However, there is something to be gained by exposing the Apollo lie…a little more truth in this world.
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=seethruart
Seethruart
Having read the mistake-ridden drivel (including several deliberate falsehoods) posted about the “faking” of the moon landing, I am unimpressed by a claim that I “cannot handle” information about either the origins of matter or the evolution of life on Earth. I am quite willing to consider actual data that contradicts the currently accepted scientific theories of origins. On the other hand, we currently have three separate threads inviting people who oppose science (or claim to have alternative scientific explanations) to submit their data. In each case, the respondents, so far, have made wildly innacurate complaints against evolutionary theory while providing no substantive information, themselves.
Just as your imaginary little people exist in your head, so your attempts to challenge genuine science seems to be unable to cross the boundary from your mind to reality.
Libertarian wrote:
If 2 Chronicles 4:2 had said that the tub measured 10 cubits across and took a line of 31 cubits to measure around it, I wouldn’t have a problem with the Old Testament’s approximation of pi. But it didn’t. It said it measured 10 cubits across and took a line of 30 cubits to measure around it.
This isn’t just a round-off error, it’s a gross architectural mistake. Either that, or the tub was hexagonal.
I believe you are the one making false claims (should I be suprised?). Where have I said anything about imaginary little people? Nowhere have I mentioned that. I suppose you imagined it, like you imagine the Apollo missions landed on the moon
I claim the moon landings were faked, and I am backing that up with solid photographic evidence. I have made no false claims. The only false claims are made by NASA and the US Government.
As far as your bogus scientific theories go…you can stuff them.
Seethruart
Seethruart, the biggest error of your whole theory is that you are ignoring to tell us who had the technology to get the long-range images in the 60’s with such an amazing resolution. (Even today it is not possible) I had the chance to see the wall size prints of the Apollo photos in a local museum and there is no way such detail could have been captured from the earth.
As for the OP, I posted this awile ago in another tread but it looks better here:
Lets look at the creation of our own moon from the newest evidence:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/origins2.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-01d.html
Recent evidence and mathematical simulations are beginning to give more credence to the idea that the Moon came to be as a result from a collision to an object the size of mars. This is not the wacky Velikovsky theory, there was no close encounter here, the mars size object was obliterated and so was the crust of earth 1. After the collision, the majority of the pieces fell down on our current earth 2, and the pieces around it turned into our moon.
For our discussion it is important to mention that rocks dated from before the collision have evidence of biological activity, meaning that it is possible that there was life in earth 1, but life came back on earth 2.
For the evolutionist this is another opportunity: two eras now were to look for the origins of life. And how life finds a way to come back (or to be appear again!) under the most stressful circumstances. For the creationists this is yet another headache. Compounded by this:
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In the Bible the moon was supposed to appear at the same time as the sun. (Gen. 1:16)
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Creationists now have to deal with 2 creations.
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A worldwide flood would have been child’s play compared to the almost complete destruction of the earth’s crust. So there is no reason why, if humans were on earth from the beginning, for the Bible to ignore such a catastrophe.