Thanks! answers my question!
Hi Dob. Anything to help out a fellow denizen of the Old Dominion.
The best place I know to find reasonable discussion of these questions is www.talkorigins.org .
Here’s a bit on thermodynamics.
Another bit on the recession of the moon.
Regarding the retrograde motion (rotation) of some of our planets, I don’t think anyone has a decent explanation for Venus yet. But that’s the key word: yet.
It would be very silly to point at Venus and say, “yep, there’s yer proof o’ God right there–now stop looking at it.”
With regards to Dob’s question, I have a question of my own.
If a disc is spinning clockwise, and you flip it upside down (or more to the point, if a different observer is upside down with respect to you), it’s now spinning counter, right?
So, spin just depends on your point of view. If some balls of rock are spinning in different directions, well, maybe some got turned upside down, or like SDstaff David wrote, maybe they got hit with another rock.
Besides, I agree with pravnik (lol). Just count the rings to find out how old Earth is!
I had a professor tell me once that the book of Genesis (and a lot of the Old Testament) is Hebrew poetry. These writings aren’t necessarily to be taken literally, right? Adam (‘man’) coming from Adamah (‘earth’) and all that?
A poem, to me, explains this crazy world about as well as Big Bang, if you ask me. That is to say, it’s an attempt at knowing the unknowable. Thanks for your time, folks.
I’d argue that 1) the Big Bang isn’t an attempt to explain “this crazy world,” it’s about the consistency and development of the universe, and 2) I’m not sure how it qualifies as “unknowable,” given that it’s a theory based on science and things that we already know and are learning more about by the day. I’d agree, however, that - whatever the intent of its author - it would be flat-out foolish to take the Bible literally.
Marley23, what I meant was that we can only guess at what happens on a cosmic level based on what we define as evidence. I happen to agree with the Big Bang theory, and with evolutionary theory, because they are just that: theories that explain based on current data.
It would be unwise to assume we’ve finally arrived at the explanations, because only 100 years ago, Maxwell’s equations were thought to be the final answer to fundamental forces, and then came the ultraviolet catastrophe. Then came quantum, then QED, and QCD, and strings, and supersymmetric strings, now M-theory, blah blah blah.
All I’m saying is, maybe the earth is 6000 years old, and maybe it’s 4 billion. But I don’t think we are much farther along than the ancient Hebrews were.
Yeah, that’s what I’m disagreeing with. Obviously any theory can be wrong, and past theories like the ones you mention have been. However, we actually have a methodology for dealing with these problems and - despite implications to the contrary - have made what I would say is a fantastic amount of progress on some very hard questions. And again, while any theory can be incorrect, our theories are based on evidence, which is more than I’d say about the Biblical account of creation, which is an attempt to explain the world in a way that fit the pre-existing beliefs of the observers.
We’ve gone through numerous theories of the history of the Earth and the universe, however, the ones you mention have all been revised, changed or discarded upon further scientific inquiry. That’s science at work. That’s not true of the Genesis story. It’s changed a bit based on interpretations of the wording, but science doesn’t seem to affect it much. Much of it is demonstrably false if you take it at face value. If you prefer that it is metaphor or poetry, then it doesn’t really apply to science in the first place.
What evidence does that version of creation really have behind it? The fact that the religions that espouse it are the most popular in the world. That’s about it. I’d argue that if history had been different, we could be having the same argument about the Hindu version of this story, or any Native American one. And we’d have the same lack of evidence.
Also, despite what you say, the theories of Evolution and the Big Bang are regarded as proven true based on the mass of evidence in their favor and the lack of competing theories and data. They’ve been revised over the years and will continue to be, I’m sure. You seem to be mistaking a theory in the scientific sense with a guess. If you seriously think it is equally likely that the Earth is 6,000 years old as it is 4 billion, I’d question your sanity.
Evolution and the Big Bang are theories. Young Earth is a belief and nothing else, especially given the abuses of science that are the trademark of its proponents.
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[sup]I thought it was a lot older than 6,000-10,000 years.[/sup][/ul]
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” -Albert Einstein
Counting Varves Find a lake near snow caped mountains and note and measure the accumalation of summer snow melt sedimentary deposits into the lake bottom of one year. Core drill and count these banded seasonal clay markers back through time to past six thousand years ago.
** Limestone Caves** The acidic water that enlarges caves by hydrolic flow beneath local water tables have a fixed saturation point that allows computation of minimum flow rates back through time. Measure the volume of removed rock and you can establish minimun ages for these caves. Most big caves would require much much more time for development that 6,000 years.
etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc,etc.etc.
Just about the all of what we know about earth science demands many millions of years of development. Biblical time doesn’t conflict with this lengthy dating. If you think it does you probably should rethink your understanding of spiritual beliefs.
I greatly Albert Einstein’s wisdom and his work. However, I respectfully submit that in my experience, religious science is one of the great oxymorons man has ever invented.
Unfortunately, all these methods are logical. I have found that, for the most part, religion and logic aren’t on speaking terms.
For those who believe the 6,000 year theory to be, shall I say it, gospel, nothing anyone can say or show will change their minds. Any “factual information” you can provide will be dismissed as lies and tricks.
Check out Robert Heinlein’s Job: A Comedy of Justice.
…I was wondering this as well. No where does it state the ammount of time between God created the earth, and when Adam sinned and dating began. (I wonder how long they were in the garden for?)
What, if anything, is this website relevant to…?
First off, quoting myself:
:smack: I greatly ADMIRE Al. :smack:
Dutchboy, Mr. Blue Sky posted this as an example of some typical Young Earth arguments. I wouldn’t bother refuting them, but apparently we’re not all in agreement if we should trust scientists or ancient Hebrew tribal patriarchs when it comes to matters of science.
From the web page:
Utter crap. The current theory is that the moon was knocked out of the Earth due to impact with a rogue planet, and it was way more than 1.2 billion years ago. All that is discussed in this old thread.
This, and the Magnetic Field one, are the same kind of stupidity. Take a present trend and project it back all the way across time, even though that’s not how it happened. It’s absurd to assume that things are as they always have been, and it’s demonstrably wrong in these cases (the Earth’s magnetic field periodically fluctuates).
If God was capable of creating the universe, which he did a little over 6000 years ago, then it would be a doddle to fix the evidence so that it looked like the earth was created only 6000 ya.
By making it appear the universe and life evolved slowly over a fantasticly huge period of time, it allows people to believe in him, rather than accept the evidence at face value. Thus God can continue to exist and not, as Douglas Adams put it, vanish in a puff of logic.
“Set out to leave the first vapour trail in the blue-sky scenario”
-David Brent, The Office
Of course, the 6000 years comes from interpretation, not scripture. So it would be just as sensible to argue that the world in fact came into being 1.2 seconds ago, and all evidence to the contrary was fabricated by god to give us reason to believe in him or some such horseshit.
thats a cool site thanks
that my man is a good fucking point.