Regarding dinosaurs, carbon dating, etc.

[Jaime]

[quote name='ChrisZewe' post='994987' date='Jun 1 2006, 06:20 PM']
It's blatantly figurative there. The Bible is not confusing. Jesus was giving them the bread and wine with his own body, so they clearly were not, and it was representative of it. Creation, though, is clearly factual.
[/quote]

Based on what, personal interpretation?

If you are going to believe that the bible is the literal word of God, then please have the temerity to stick with it.

The world was created in six days
we will all be sheep and goats after Judgement Day

[MissScripture]

[quote name='Franimus' post='995362' date='Jun 2 2006, 05:10 AM']
I don't want this to turn into a debate about the Eucharist, too, so I'll just point y'all over to the already-existing Eucharist thread.
Anywho, imo it shows more of God's power that He would create evolution and everything rather than just make everything appear.
[/quote]
That reminds me of what my highschool bio teacher told us. He said he believed that evolution happened, because what is more powerful, a God who can create a bunch of organisms that slowly die off, or a God who can create organisms that adapt and change so that they may survive?

[Jnorm888]

[quote name='missionseeker' post='994017' date='May 31 2006, 07:54 PM']
We don't take the creation story in the Bible as only literal. Yes we believe that God created the Earth and in the order it says but we leave the 6 days open. No one knows how long a day is when it is measured by God's time. (Even the Bible says that) Also most Catholics don't believe the world is only a few thousand years old. The grand Canyon alone proves this.

So, the way I see it, it could have been millions of years in between the creation of dinosaurs and men. Which gives them enough time to die out before the people got there.
[/quote]





There are Alternative views for the dates of the grand Canyon.



Most of what y'all been fed is soft science. Or mostly guess work. Which is shocking because most of this stuff came from liberal Protestants.






INLOVE Jnorm

[quote name='MissScripture' post='995561' date='Jun 2 2006, 01:49 PM']
That reminds me of what my highschool bio teacher told us. He said he believed that evolution happened, because what is more powerful, a God who can create a bunch of organisms that slowly die off, or a God who can create organisms that adapt and change so that they may survive?
[/quote]




There is still no proof for MACRO EVOLUTION so your teacher is teaching assumptions.


And on top of that Naturalist deny God's hand in any of it.





INLOVE Jnorm

[quote name='Tata126' post='995208' date='Jun 1 2006, 09:03 PM']
Love bugs were created in a laboratory?? No way! That explains so much. I bet cockroaches were created when that meteor killed the poor dinosaurs. And what about unicorns? Nobody's talked about unicorns yet!

Here's the deal. Genesis is a myth. Not a myth in the sense of false, but a myth in a sense of the story that a civilization tells about its origins. When Moses wrote it down, he was divinely inspired, I absolutely believe it, but I also believe that it's important to answer the question of how? and why?. For what purpose was Moses inspired to write that God created the world in six days? Let's see, what would Israelites wandering in the desert after 400 years of bondage in Egypt need to know? Maybe, something about the nature of the God who created them, that He is One, that He is the Creator, that He thinks His creation is good and that He has a personal relationship with His people? Yeah, that's probably important. Maybe, something about the nature of the creation - that the division of creation into six parts had a profound influence on the way the Jewish civiliation (and the Judeo-Christian culture, for that matter) sees the world.

But I think there is one very simple answer for why there are six days of creation. God rested on the seventh. Let's remember how important the Sabbath is for the Jewish religion; and let's not forget that you can't have a seventh day without six before it.

At any rate, it is a myth - the purpose of the story is to convey truths central to the identity of the civilization, but it doesn't have to be literally true to do it. I think people who try to read it literally miss the incredible depth of meaning that is there once you relax and stop worrying about it. Truth cannot contradict itself - if carbon dating tells us something contrary to what the Bible tells us, chances are we're reading one of them wrong.
Regarding the Eucharist: John Cardinal Henry Newman was onto something when he pointed out that no one can be convinced against his will. And, cheezy though it is, the ending to Ben Hur also contains some wise words "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible." Chris, if you refuse to even accept it as possible that Christ could have meant what he said, no one but God is ever going to be able to persuade you. But the rest of us do have excellent reasons for believing what we do, about which no amount of explaining will persuade you.
[/quote]




You have been infected with naturalism.


The Bible is not a myth. Genesis is true. Naturalist always change their arguements every 30 years or so. And they always doubt the Bible. But when the Bible is proved to be true they don't say sorry. Instead they go on and doubt again on some other ground.






INLOVE Jnorm

Edited June 2, 2006 by jnorm888

[Franimus]

Jnorm - read closer. Tata did not say that Genesis (let alone the entire Bible) is not true. "Myth" referred only to the literal myth, not referring to a "full" myth.
[quote name='Tata126' post='995208' date='Jun 1 2006, 11:03 PM']
Here's the deal. Genesis is a myth. Not a myth in the sense of false, but a myth in a sense of the story that a civilization tells about its origins.
At any rate, it is a myth - the purpose of the story is to convey truths central to the identity of the civilization, but it doesn't have to be literally true to do it. I think people who try to read it literally miss the incredible depth of meaning that is there once you relax and stop worrying about it. Truth cannot contradict itself - if carbon dating tells us something contrary to what the Bible tells us, chances are we're reading one of them wrong.
[/quote]

My belief is that either macroevolution occured in leaps as God stepped in more directly, or that we merely haven't found the missing links yet.

[MichaelF]

Anyone, other than myself, involved in this discussion have credentials in Biology? I'll settle for a Integrated Biology For Majors course, Genetics would be better.

If not, you should educate yourself on the subject, before you venture an opinion on Evolution.

It is the general opinion of the Church that some or all classical religious teachings about God and creation are compatible with some or all of the human understanding about biological evolution. The Church's stance is that God -guided- the evolutionary process, culminating in [i]h sapiens[/i] and our possible successors.

Opponents of the evolutionary theory seem to be suggesting that, if Man were not formed, [i]ex nihilo[/i], at one time (a literal interpretation of Genesis), then that somehow nullifies our dignity or our special relationship with the Creator.

Responsible scientists make -no- claims, positive or negative, regarding Divine influence of natural processes. Why? Due to our understanding of the fact that God is too big to be put under the microscope.

Natural phenomena happen according to a rule-set. Mapping out and manipulating these rules is Science. Figuring out how the rules were established is Theology.


Incidentally, Macroevolution used to be a tenuous theory, as ,by definition, major evolutionary changes take many generations in higher life forms. Then we began to explore poplation genomics. Comparing DNA among related species, we can track them backward to a common ancestor. It takes a while (lots of base-pairs per species, lots of species), but we are improving our knowledge by leaps and bounds (thank you, Bioinformatics people!).

Edited June 3, 2006 by MichaelF

[missionseeker]

[quote name='jnorm888' post='995613' date='Jun 2 2006, 04:51 PM']
There are Alternative views for the dates of the grand Canyon.
Most of what y'all been fed is soft science. Or mostly guess work. Which is shocking because most of this stuff came from liberal Protestants.[/quote]

[quote]

Now consider advocates of a young earth. They claim the earth is only 6,000 years old. [b]If so, for the Grand Canyon to be as deep as it is, it would have to have been worn away not at one inch per century but at 920 inches per century. In those century-old photos, instead of trails with no apparent change, we should see trails entirely washed away, not a trace left. But that is not what has happened.[/b]

This is a desiccated landscape, where lizards scurry around barrel cacti and where bushes are far apart because their roots grab jealously what little subsurface moisture there is, crowding out competitors. In such an environment there is not remotely enough water to do the job. Instead of intermittent streams, each side canyon would need constantly flowing torrents if nine inches of rock were to be worn away each year.

Lying in my sleeping bag, staring up at the Redwall, contemplating the massiveness and solidity of it all, I knew viscerally that what I saw was not formed recently. It could not have been. I did not have to engage in the thought experiment to realize that, of course. The hike from rim to river and back again contained its own internal testimony. Anyone with open eyes and aching feet had a proof that was strong even if not syllogistic. I had no need to know with exactitude how old the earth is, but the rocky halls about me testified that it is far older than 6,000 years—or even a hundred times that.

Proponents of a young earth will not accept what I say here as determinative. They will scoff, but it is unlikely they have camped where I camped or been awed by what awed me. Like the Spanish explorers, they wish to see properly, but they have the proportions wrong. A night by the Redwall would do them good.[/quote] Karl Keating


It really doesn't matter how old the earth really is. Thinking that the world is only 6000 years old goes totally against what we see with our eyes and know with our common sense. Theology/Faith will never go against common sense [i]or[/i] science.

[Jnorm888]

It's called the catastrophic theory.



And Karl Keating is not a geologist.


[url="http://www.origins.org/articles/bohlinray_grandcanyon.html"]Grand Canyon "age of the earth"[/url]




The Age of the Earth and Genesis 1

[b]"How old is the earth? How long has this planet been here? Ask most Christians this question and you will likely receive a quick, self-assured answer. All would be well if you could count on receiving the same answer! However, some will very quickly tell you that the earth was created during creation week and can be no more than six to ten thousand years old. Other Christians will tell you, with just as much confidence, that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. This is no minor discrepancy! What adds even more to the confusion is the fact that you can find both opinions within conservative evangelical circles. You can even find both opinions within the ranks of the few Christian geologists with Ph.D.s! Let me assure you that this is just as confusing for me as it is for you."[/b]

[b]"The age of the earth is a question both of biblical interpretation and scientific investigation. Unfortunately, neither Christian conservative Old Testament scholars nor Christian scientists are in universal agreement. This topic covers a broad spectrum of issues so I am going to try and narrow the focus of the discussion. I will first briefly discuss the biblical aspects of the question, then move on to geology, the flood, and the Grand Canyon."[/b]

[b]"First, how do the "young-earth" and "old-earth" positions view the Scriptures? Let me emphasize right at the start that both young- earth and old-earth creationists bring a reverent and submissive attitude to Genesis. The difference is a matter of interpretation. Well-known young-earth creationists Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and Steve Austin, from the Institute for Creation Research, interpret the days of Genesis 1 as literal 24-hours days, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 as consecutive or nearly consecutive generations, and the flood as a universal, catastrophic event. This leaves little room for much more than ten to thirty thousand years as the true age of the earth."[/b]

[b]"Old earth creationists such as astronomer Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe see the days of Genesis as long periods of time, perhaps even millions of years. Genesis 1, then, describes the unfolding of God's creation through vast periods of time. God still does the work, it is still a miracle, but it takes a lot longer than seven days. The flood of Noah necessarily becomes a local event with little impact on world-wide geology. Other old-earth creationists simply suggest that what is communicated in Genesis 1 is a literary form of the ancient Near East describing a perfect creation. Genesis 1 was never intended to communicate history, at least in their view. Personally, my sympathies lie with a Genesis interpretation that is historical, literal, and with 24-hour days in the recent past. But the testimony of science, God's natural revelation, is often difficult to correlate with this view. The earth has many layers of sediments thousands of feet thick. How could one year-long catastrophe account for all this sediment? The answers may surprise you!"[/b]




The Grand Canyon

[b]"The Grand Canyon is almost three hundred miles long, a mile deep, and four to twelve miles across. One's first view of the Grand Canyon is a humbling experience. You truly have to see it to believe it. I was mesmerized and could hardly contain my excitement when I caught my first glimpse of the canyon. I was there to partake in a six-day geology hike into the canyon with the Institute for Creation Research, a young-earth creationist organization. ICR believes that the strata, the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon, were primarily formed during Noah's flood perhaps only five thousand years ago. Most geologists, including Christian old-earth creationists, believe that the strata were laid down over hundreds of millions of years. What better way, then, to equip myself for the study of the earth's age, than to spend nine days around the Grand Canyon (six of them in it) with ICR geologist, physicists, and biologists. ICR has been conducting these tours for over ten years, so everything runs extremely well. Though I was a member of a hiking group, they also sponsored a group going down the Colorado River in rafts and a group touring the whole area by bus. All were accompanied by ICR scientists. Each day we received mini-lectures from the leaders as we broke for lunch or at points of interest along the trail. Topics included the sudden appearance of fossils, the complexity of the earliest canyon fossils such as the trilobites, the age of the earth's magnetic fields, the role of continental drift in the onset of the flood, where does the ice age fit into a young-earth model, water- canopy theories, carbon-14 dating, and the dating of the Grand Canyon basalts (rock layers derived from ancient lava flows).
We examined many evidences for rapid formation of rock layers, which is essential to the young-earth model. We spent nearly two hours at the Great Unconformity between the Tapeats Sandstone, which is dated at about 500 million years old, and the Hakatai Shale, which is dated at about 1.5 billion years old. These two formations were formed nearly one billion years apart in time, yet one lies right on top of the other. Nearly a billion years is missing between them! The night before entering the canyon for the hike, I wrote these words in my journal:"[/b]

[b]"If these strata are the result of Noah's flood and the canyon carved soon afterward, the canyon stands as a might testament to God's power, judgment, and grace. Even if not, what a wonderful world our Lord has sculpted for us to inhabit. His love is bigger than I can grasp, bigger--infinitely bigger--than even the Grand Canyon!"[/b]



Evidence of Noah's Flood in the Grand Canyon

[b]One of the more obvious formations in the Grand Canyon is the Coconino Sandstone. This prominent formation is found only a few hundred feet below the rim of the canyon and forms one of the many cliffs in the canyon. Its distinctive yellow cream color makes it look like a thick layer of icing between two cake layers.
Evolutionary geologists have described this sandstone as originating from an ancient desert. Remnants of sand dunes can be seen in many outcrops of the formation in a phenomenon called cross-bedding. There are many footprints found in this sandstone that have been interpreted as lizards scurrying across the desert."[/b]

[b]"These footprints would seem to pose a major challenge to young- earth geologists who need to explain this formation in the context of Noah's flood. Since there are many flood-associated layers both above and below this sandstone, there is no time for a desert to form in the middle of Noah's flood. Recent investigations, however, have revealed that the cross-bedding can be due to underwater sand dunes and that some footprints are actually better explained by amphibians moving across sandy-bottomed shallow water. Perhaps this formation can be explained by sand deposited under water."[/b]

[b]"This explanation does not entirely solve the young-earth geologists' problem, because it is still difficult to determine where the amphibians came from and how they could be crawling around in shallow waters on top of sediments that would have to be deposited halfway through a world-wide catastrophic flood. But let's go on to another flood evidence. Earlier, I mentioned the Great Unconformity. This can be observed throughout the Grand Canyon where the Tapeats Sandstone, a Cambrian formation estimated to be 570 million years old, rests on top of any one of a number of Precambrian strata ranging from one to two billion years old."[/b]

[b]"Our group observed a location in the Unconformity where the time gap between the two layers is estimated to be one billion years. It is very unusual, even for evolutionary geology, for two layers from periods so far apart, in this case one billion years, to be right on top of one another. It is hard to imagine that no sediments were deposited in this region for over a billion years! Evolutionary geologists believe that the upper sandstone was deposited over hundreds of thousands of years in a marine environment. However, we observed large rocks and boulders from a neighboring formation mixed into the bottom few feet of the Tapeats Sandstone. This indicates tremendous wave violence capable of tearing off these large rocks and transporting them over a mile before being buried. This surely fits the description of a flood rather than slow deposition. We spent nearly two hours at this location and we were all quite impressed with the clear evidence of catastrophic origin of the Tapeats Sandstone."[/b]

[b]"That the Coconino Sandstone likely had a water-deposited origin and that the Tapeats Sandstone was laid down in a great cataclysm are necessary elements for a young-earth flood geology scenario for the Grand Canyon."[/b]




The Erosion and Formation of the Grand Canyon

[b]"Perhaps one of the most interesting questions about the Grand Canyon is how it was cut out of rock in the first place. The answer to this question has a lot to do with how old the canyon is supposed to be. The puzzling factor about the Grand Canyon is that the Colorado River cuts directly through an uplifted region called the Kaibab Upwarp. Normally a river would be expected to flow towards lower elevation, but the Colorado has cut right through an elevated region rather than going around it.
The explanation you will still find in the National Park literature is that the Colorado began to cut the Grand Canyon as much as 70 million years ago, before the region was lifted up. As the uplift occurred, the Colorado maintained its level by cutting through the rock layers as they were lifted up. Thus the Grand Canyon was cut slowly over 70 million years! In recent years, however, evolutionary geologists as well as old-earth creationists have abandoned this scenario because it just isn't supported by the evidence. A major reason is that even at the present rate of erosion in the Grand Canyon, it would take as little as 71,000 years to erode the amount of rock currently missing from the Grand Canyon. Also, all of the sediment that would have to be eroded away during 70 million years has not been located. And lastly, evolutionists' own radiometric dates of some of the surrounding formations indicate that the Colorado River has been in its present location for less than five million years.[/b]

[b]"Some old-earth geologists have tentatively adopted a new theory that requires a few rather strange twists. This theory suggests that the Colorado River flowed through the area of the Grand Canyon only recently. The Colorado originally was forced in the opposite direction of its current flow by the Kaibab Upwarp and actually flowed southeast toward the Gulf of Mexico. This ancestral Colorado River may have occupied the course of what is now the Little Colorado River, only in the opposite direction of its current course."[/b]

[b]"This theory further suggests that about five million years ago a westward-flowing stream began to erode, upstream or towards the east, over what is today the Grand Canyon, through the Upwarp and capturing the ancestral Colorado River! If this sounds a little fantastic to you, you're probably right. In a recent volume on the Grand Canyon, a geologist, while maintaining this theory to be solid, admits a lack of hard data and that what evidence there is, is circumstantial. Into this controversy step the young-earth creationists, who need to explain how the Grand Canyon was formed, strata and all, in less than 5,000 years. They suggest, quite reasonably I think, that the canyon was formed when the Kaibab Upwarp acted as a dam for three lakes occupying much of Utah, Colorado, and northern Arizona. These lakes catastrophically broke through the Upwarp, and the Grand Canyon was cut out of solid rock by the drainage of these lakes through this breach in the dam. A small canyon was formed this way recently as a result of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Grand Coulee in Washington state was formed when an ice dam broke at the end of the Ice Age. This breached-dam theory answers a lot of questions the old-earth theories do not, and it needs to be considered."[/b]



Uncertainties of Dating the Grand Canyon


[b]"As we have seen, ICR scientists have come a long way in showing that many of the Grand Canyon strata could have formed rapidly, that erosion of the canyon by the Colorado River has not been going on for tens of millions of years, and that there are significant problems with the dating of the canyon."[/b]

[b]"However, there are still significant questions that remain to be answered if the young-earth model is to be taken seriously by old- earth geologists. For example, why are there no vertebrates among the fossils of the ocean floor communities of the Grand Canyon strata when vertebrates inhabit today's ocean floors? How did the many different kinds of sediments in the Grand Canyon (limestones, sandstones, shales, mudstones, siltstones, etc.) find their way to Northern Arizona as a result of one catastrophe and become so neatly stratified with little mixing? I raise these questions only to indicate that there is much work to be done. I also want you to realize that when someone asks me whether the flood of Noah created the Grand Canyon, I have to say that I don't know. And that's okay! The creation was a real historical event, Adam and Eve were real people, and the flood of Noah was real history as well. But finding the physical signs of these events can be tricky business. We need to encourage scientific investigation from both a young-and old-earth perspective because the testimony of God's word and His revelation from nature will ultimately be in harmony. It may just be hard to discern what that harmony is right now"[/b]

Dr. Ray Bohlin






INLOVE Jnorm

Edited June 5, 2006 by jnorm888

[Jesuspaidtheprice]

[quote name='ChrisZewe' post='994732' date='Jun 1 2006, 03:05 PM']
Yeah, sorry that I like to believe in the Word of God.
[/quote]

ahaha. ur funny.

I wouldn't stress about it. I'm convinced the Catholics are going to have another crusade sometime soon and purge the earth of those who believe in Genesis as an accurate account of history.

[bx_racer]

[quote name='ChrisZewe' post='994699' date='Jun 1 2006, 11:05 AM']
Calling God a She, even possibly a She, is not only heresy, but blatantly stupid -_-;

And...why would He let the dinosaurs roam? Why would he even create them? And then wipe them all out? It makes no sense. And don't give me carp about us not being able to understand why He does what He does, because no matter how you look at it, letting dinos rule for aeons is pointless.
[/quote]

hmm.. well i've got a few theories on this. some poor grammar, but just ignore it and think about this. He might've done it so we could have petroleum, and if you're thinking, why wouldnt he just put it there, well, He let the grand canyon be carved by a river instead of just putting it there, and that makes it more, um, intriguing i guess?
also, it gives us something to talk about, i mean it's kinda cool that there's mysteries in this world. it just wouldn't be the same if we knew everything. maybe it has something to do with trusting God because He knows what He's doing. And hey, some people that are employed in museums in paleontology might not have jobs if it werent for dinosaurs. Lastly, maybe to show He can create things we can have no clue about unless it's revealed in some way, (fossils). wow this is getting pretty deep, actually. I just noticed, its weird cause it's like God. sometimes u see a fossil and u just know that creature existed, just like u see evidence of God and u know He exists.