Their Own Version of a Big Bang: A creative & effective challenge to the "science" of Darwinism

LA Times ^ | 11 Feb 2006 | Stephanie Simon

[Greg o the Navy]

WAYNE, N.J. — Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies.

[starbase]

So Havoc, I've been reading your posts on this thread for quite some time now, did you misrepresent the ages of skin and bones from two different mammoth findings or not? Perhaps inadvertently you made a mistake?

[Havoc]

That I believe "Dr. Dino" and "Ham". Sorry, Has zip to do with them. Either what they present is true or false. I accept what is true and reject what is not. They don't get carte blanche anymore than evo hacks pretending at science.
As for 'speaking for God' - the Christian community has a tendancy to police it's own. That gets far less play than the actions of some that the community had long before warned were wolves in sheep's clothing.. which leaves little ground to whine.

You betray yourself in stating nobody has credentials to speak for God. If you deny the possibility outright, you're no deist. Sorry. You sound more like an Atheist pretending at Deism.

[gleeaikin]

Thank you for providing an incredibly rich mine of source materials. It will keep me busy for years.

So far as I know the Bible says nothing about 6,000 years. That figure was arrived at several centuries ago by the Irish Bishop, James Ussher who calculated the age of the earth based on the begats and lives described, starting with Adam and Eve. He managed to convince his colleagues that God began is work at 9am, Monday, Oct. 23, 4004. [Was that GMT or Armagh time, and the Julian Calendar, or the Gregorian Calendar.} Since many of the lifetimes were not given ages, how could even his figures be more than gross estimates. Furthermore, we have little matters like Cain going east of Eden to find a wife, who is definately not listed in the bible. How many years of ancestors did this unlisted wife have? Maybe they went back 100,000 year, who knows (at least by using the Bible as a source).

So far as the flood is concerned, it appears that around 4,000 years ago there were several episodes of disaster over a 150 year period. One was apparently worldwide, and the other localized in the Middle East/Mediterranian area. With the draining of 9/10 of the southern Iraq marshes, a meteor crater several miles across has been discovered with an age around 4,000 years ago. Was this involved in the flood?

In the early 1800's a canal engineer named William Smith became fascinated by the fact that layers of rock always occurred in the same order wherever canals were dug. Moreover, the same layers always had the same kinds of fossils, which were different from the fossils in all the other layers. He conceived the idea of mapping the location of all the layers of rock by geological age throughout England, Scotland and Wales. This great work was completed in 1815, and was one source of Darwin's later achievements.

A few years ago my husband was driving us East to West and back across Kentucky on the Interstate. There are fantastic cuts through layer upon layer upon layer of sedimentary rock (rock formed from clay, sand and marine organisms settling at the bottom of a body of water). Since I knew even a foot of rock took many years to form, I became mesmerized by the ever increasing quantities of layers. Eventually I was swept by the absolute awesomeness of this immense sweap of time. It had the quality of a religious experience. Why on earth do people want to limit God to six thousand lousey little years? How small minded. If you want to impress your children with Gods magnificence, show them his handiwork!

[Havoc]

It has nothing to do with heart or soul, it has to do with simple logic. One doesn't have to be Christian or deist to see the flaw of the position. He ruled out completely the possibility of God speaking through a human being in any way shape or form. Logically, if there is a god, and I believe there is, that is powerful enough to create everything we can see - he is also powerful enough to speak through a man.. I didn't ask what he believed, I asked for the criterian he would use to establish whether God were speaking through someone else. He instead delivered a blanket refutation of the mere possibility.

[Havoc]

No, I didn't misrepresent the ages of anything. I refered to something that is said to be misrepresented by someone else. Apparently, that is equivelent to lying on some planet in this universe - which I guess would make Bush a liar; but, we must compartmentalize and esteem the two differently to save face.. lol. Next question.

[starbase]

No, I didn't misrepresent the ages of anything.

Well that's good. You certainly seemed like a sincere debater so I thought I'd just ask. I read your rebuttal to dating techniques here. That's quite a stunning spiel. Although I'm still neutral on most of the points in this discussion, your treatment of dating technique limitations is certainly arresting.

[AmericaUnited]

There is no evidence that any human speaks on God's behalf.

Another ridiculous claim...

There is no evidence that you have a soul. Have you or anyone else seen it, tasted it, smelt it, measured it, weighed it, taken pictures of it? No!? So that PROVES you don't have one. (At least according to your rules)

[KeepUSfree]

I can only interpret here. But, what I get out of it is not that they are the same in actions....but they are the same when it comes to keeping the worshippers of their religion ignorant of reality.

No matter how you slice and dice it, denial of reality is VERY dangerous. Currently, Christians aren't bombing folks. But, anytime you hide your head in the sand and deny reality, you run the risk of going down the same path as the Muslims are now.....

[MississippiMan]

Estimated Age of Fossil: 2.5 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, floral & faunal data (1, 4)

Riiiiiiight. The obvious problem is that this "stratigraphic, floral, and faunal" data is based on classic circular reasoning and conjecture. They know how old the fossil is because of where it was found in the strata. And how do they know how old the various strata are? By the fossils found in the strata.

Darwin himself acknowledged the huge, glaring, and obvious problem in his own theory: the fact that there were no transitional fossils in the fossil record to support his theory, when they should have been prolific. His assumption was that as technology of fossil recovery advanced, these transitional fossils would be found everywhere. 150 years later, they're still missing, but evolutionists have collectively decided to just keep that little problem quiet.

Sure, they trot out some meaningless fossil every now and again and spin incredibly speculative yarns about what it might show, but reality is this: Darwin himself knew that for his theory to be true, the (at that time largely still buried) fossil record had to be TEEMING with clear, unambiguous transitional fossils. Not a leaf. Not three fish bones, one of which has a knobby protrusion to be declared a vestigial limb. No, he knew there HAD to be a huge number of fossils that left no doubt, fossils that were clearly and obviously species in transition. There still does not exist ONE such fossil. Not one. (Pictures of ape skulls lined up in a row don't count.)

Ken Hamm is actually a very intelligent man, as are the ever-increasing numbers of scientists who are willing to take the risk and speak out against evolutionary dogma. It's always amusing to watch Evolutionist Freepers poke fun at creationism, as if everyone who dares believe in creation is a backward hick, all the while ignoring the fact that there are plenty of scientists, in the relevant disciplines, who believe. People with immense education, but they're all just bumbling simpletons by comparison to Enlightened Freeperdom who blather on and on about all the "evidence."

I praise the Lord for Ken Hamm and the wonderful organization he leads. He's bringing more and more misguided Christians back to the infallible authority of the Bible, and the soon-to-be-open Creation Museum will give the movement a great boost, reaching both believers and unbelievers.

Evolutionists actually have a huge worry far beyond Ken Hamm, of course: They, like all of us, will one day come face to face with the original creationist, the Creator whose existence they've spent their lives denying with great bluster. The scales will be off at that point, but it will sadly be too late to change their minds; their futures, futures of unfathomable horror and despair, will be set. So incredibly sad, but as Paul made clear a couple thousand years ago, there will indeed be those who choose to be willfully ignorant of the most obvious truths.

MM

[sangrila]

It is 2006.

[sangrila]

"there are plenty of scientists, in the relevant disciplines, who believe"


No there aren't. Evolution is scientific fact. Evolution does not contradict the Bible.

[AmericaUnited]

My major problem with guys like this who claim the Earth was created in a literal 6 days, because that is what the Bible says, is that the Hebrew word for day in Genesis can mean either a 24 hour day or just 'A PERIOD OF TIME'. So, to claim it MUST mean a 24 hour day is just being obtuse.

[Havoc]

It's simple logic. If you have an equation that relies on a constant, then you find that your presumed constant is anything but, your results are then problematic to say the very least. Every one of the technical electronic means used to measure dates rests upon such an assumptive constant. In some cases the assumption of constancy has been overturned by facts. In others, the assumption is being challenged by new developements that call earlier dogma into question - such as constancy of half-lives which has largely been assumed.

IMHO, these things are the posterchildren for the popular statements about assuming.

The fun thing is that there is humor to be had in debating this in endless ways.. not least of which is the argument over half lives. Apparently, if we assume the early conditions of the earth's formation, there would be too much heat produced if half-lives weren't constant. IE, if we stipulate that their primary assumption is wrong, our stipulation can be shown wrong if we blindly accept the assumption of their version of the creation of the earth.
If we can't trust a minor assumption, we then must trust a vast conspiracy of assumption (the existence of all circumstance wanted for constant half-lives) in order to accept that we are wrong about the minor assumption. How about if we just employ an easier assumption that they're wrong. Or is that assuming too much? lol

[Havoc]

Sorry, this is a misnomer and a half of an argument. The word used in hebrew always means a 24 hour period of time in specific conditions. Those conditions are met both in Genisis and in Exodus where God Himself carves the statement into the stone tablets for Moses. It's not just that Genisis leaves no way out, Exodus compounds the problem for handwringers. The contextual logic of the story itself requires it to be 24 hour periods if that were not bad enough. And, further, The experts on the matter, the rabbis, cinche the argument. The entire junk argument over day age sprung into existance with Evolution. It never existed prior. Since then, there has been an attempt to redefine language in order to support a theory that marrys evolution with religion. On the surface, it appears to work. When you get into the facts and mechanics of both sides, you find they are utterly incompatible. The two are diametrically opposed. When you understand that, you understand that no amount of devolving language matters. The 24 hour/vs day age garbage is rendered moot. The facts about the language just put the final nail in the lid.

[Alien Gunfighter]

Heathen! Everyone knows that Odin formed Midgard from the bodies of slain giants!

But, given your tagline, I assume you already know how the earth will end. I have adopted the strategy of Being Eaten First!!!

[AmericaUnited]

The experts on the matter, the rabbis, cinche the argument. Bzz! Sorry, not so at all.

This is a very interesting read: The Age of the Universe

Excerpt:

15 billion or six days?

Today, we look back in time. We see 15 billion years. Looking forward from when the universe is very small -- billions of times smaller -- the Torah says six days. They both may be correct.

What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning, relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer. Any one of a dozen physics text books all bring the same number. The general relationship between time near the beginning when stable matter formed from the light (the energy, the electromagnetic radiation) of the creation) and time today is a million million, that is a trillion fold extension. That's a 1 with 12 zeros after it. It is a unit-less ratio. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says "I'm sending you a pulse every second," would we see it every second? No. We'd see it every million million seconds. Because that's the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe. In astronomy, the term is "red shift." Red shift in observed astronomical data is standard.

The Torah doesn't say every second, does it? It says Six Days. How would we see those six days? If the Torah says we're sending information for six days, would we receive that information as six days? No. We would receive that information as six million million days. Because the Torah's perspective is from the beginning looking forward.

Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Essentially the estimate of the age of the universe. Not a bad guess for 3300 years ago.

The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step.

Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.

(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)

The calculations come out to be as follows:

The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.

The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.

The third 24 hour day also included half of the previous day, 2 billion years.

The fourth 24 hour day -- one billion years.

The fifth 24 hour day -- one-half billion years.

The sixth 24 hour day -- one-quarter billion years.

When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?

But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.

[PatrickHenry]

"Excuse me, were you there? Can you remember that?"

Important Notice!
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All "Were You There?" graduates are fully qualified to Teach the Controversy.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping, but I was asleep when this mess got posted. It's way too late for the ping list now.

[starbase]

Well I must admit I was stunned when I learned how shaky evolution has always been. I had been taught that it was more sure than the rising of the sun, Piltdown not withstanding.

But solely the fact that there are no transition fossils renders the theory of evolution false. There must be fossils of lizards with inverted pelvises, fish with hands and opposable thumbs, birds with long meat rending canine teeth in order for all creatures everywhere (think about that!), all creatures everywhere to have progressively built themselves up to where they are today. In short, a vast collection of fantasy fossils, and in fact, many living examples of half-creatures as well, otherwise there is no "step" between two species.

But there is another element that, alone or taken in tandem with the above observation, really gives the death blow to evolution. And that is the self limiting genome of each and every animal and plant. That is to say, that you cannot keep breeding a dog until you get a fish, or a chicken, or a whale. But if evolution in fact occurred as a macro-driving process, well then you could arrive at any animal given enough selective reproductions of any other. Either that or we must believe there was a finite set of special animal material that could become any kind of animal, until set in its pattern. But how could such a one time only situation exist?

I was stunned when I recently learned these two facts. I realized I'd been lied to my whole life by an established orthodoxy, which itself was playing for time hoping a solution would be found before these major flaws were discovered.

In this big debate, I cannot say I know the creationists are correct, because life either was or was not created by a Deity, and that sums up their position. But I also cannot say the evolutionists are correct because the processes they depend on for validation can be shown (as per these two examples) to be unsupportable.

Kind of fascinating to find ourselves in this position. Even more strange than one side or the other being correct, is the fact that we're spinning around the sun, and we don't know how long this has all been here. At least that's how it would seem.

And the fact that there are no transition animals, plus the fact that animals cannot be bred into entire different species, would seem to imply that something put them here largely as is, a long time ago, and here they remain today.

[Non-Sequitur]

Darwiinists are a major embarrassment to mankind for refusing to admit forthrightly the pathetic bankruptcy of their faith system to acocunt for the origins of life in a universe less than 15 billion years old.

And teachings like this guy is promoting is blowing evolution right out of the water, huh? Eve wasn't eaten by a T-Rex because all animals were vegitarians before she ate the apple?