The Historical Implications of a Young Earth
Sethosayher
6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
study.
IAAH
"God did it."
That's how. It's a test, or a temptation, or
something humans were not meant to know, or an
evolutionistic conspiracy meant to bring atheistic
revolution.
Or some damn thing. Ask 15 creationists, you'll
get 15 different answers.
--
"I do not pretend to be able to prove that there
is no God. I equally cannot
prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god
may exist; so may the gods of
Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But
no one of these hypotheses is
more probable than any other: they lie outside the
region of even probable
knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to
consider any of them."
-Bertrand Russell
Thurisaz the Einherjer
> "God did it."
> That's how. It's a test, or a temptation, or
> something humans were not meant to know, or an
> evolutionistic conspiracy meant to bring atheistic
> revolution.
> Or some damn thing. Ask 15 creationists, you'll
> get 15 different answers.
Also very popular with the la la land crowd:
1. Ignoring the existence of all that evidence
2. If 1. is not possible, claim "Carbon dating doesn't work so none of
that's older than 4400! Ha haaa! Glory!"... of course they claim that no
matter what the evidence is because, hey, all cretinists know exactly that
carbon dating is the only dating method those eeeebil ebilushenists(TM)
use.
--
Romans 2:24 revised:
"For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you
cretinists, as it is written on aig."
My personal judgment of monotheism: http://www.carcosa.de/nojebus
jillery
Some YECs point out that the Bible doesn't say how long Adam and Eve
lived in Eden, and OF COURSE they didn't age until they sinned. Also,
there is disagreement in the Bible as to actual genealogies. They use
these and whatever else suits them to stretch Creation back to 10K
years or more, to accomodate the things you mention.
The fact is, if what you write doesn't agree with their interpretation
of the Bible, they will tell you how wrong you are no matter what you
say. My advice is to not worry about it, and stick with dates that
can be shown by the evidence.
Kermit
Creationists don't believe in reality. They say they do, and they
think they do, to the extent they think about it at all. But they *act
as though reality were a social agreement, like the borders between
two countries, and everything they say is not to discover the nature
of reality, but to make reality the correct one - the righteous one,
in which they know more than the eggheads, and in which they are the
center of the universe, and will live forever.
This is why they will repeatedly use pseudo-arguments which have been
refuted over and over - these have nothing to do with "reality", but
everything to do with persuading you.
Don't they speak over and over about "having faith so that you can
believe", or "deciding to believe something"? I can decide to read a
book or not, or go to a class or not, but I can't (given my current
experiences) believe anything differently by an act of will. *They
can, for reality to them is arbitrary. They know, deep down, that
their worldview maps very poorly to reality, which is why they spend
so much time denying evidence and seeking the reassurances of like-
minded people.
Kermit
Vend
> They know, deep down, that
> their worldview maps very poorly to reality, which is why they spend
> so much time denying evidence and seeking the reassurances of like-
> minded people.
Possibly that applies to all organized religion, not just creationism.
You don't need to attend to a ritual every week to remind you that the
Earth is spherical or that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s.
Iain
I don't know, but I always suspected it might be an American thing.
Americans have a shorter sense of history and so feel they can more
comfortably make pronouncements about 6000 years ago, as if that were
inscrutibly ancient history.
Oddly, this doesn't apply so much to Australians.
Maybe because their Aboriginal population has an oral history going
back further than 6000 years.
--Iain
Frank J
While others help you with that, don't lose sight of the fact that
creationists (the ones that knew a little science) had mostly conceded
an old Earth (old life too?) before the "scientific" creationism
(flood geology and all) was concocted in the 20th century. And even
after that, OECs contended that their conclusions were reached
"scientifically". Unfortunately they used the same "picking and
choosing" process that the YECs used, and no real scientists do. And
even with that cheating they could not agree on the basic whats and
whens of natural history. Some creationists (who prefer to be called
"design proponents") in recent decades even concede common descent and
admit that Genesis is not to be taken literally. But like any YEC or
flat-earther they swear that evolution is falsified, unfalsifiable or
both. It's still "picking and choosing" evidence (and mining quotes,
redefining terms to suit the argument - the usual tricks of
pseudoscience) but only to "prove a negative." The audience can always
infer the alternative with which they are comfortable, and not have to
think how *it* is easily falsified.
The "don't ask, don't tell" approach has been gaining in popularity in
recent decades, but creationists do still make . YEC arguments,
because they still sell to much of the rank and file. But if they
conveniently avoid challenging *creationist* positions that contradict
theirs, and target only "Darwinism" they can be reasonably suspected
of not having any confidence in their YEC. But they still might
believe that the "masses" need to believe fairy tales to behave
properly.
Frank J
> On 1/2/10 11:49 PM, * Sethosayher wrote:
>
> > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> > study.
>
> "God did it."
>
> That's how. It's a test, or a temptation, or
> something humans were not meant to know, or an
> evolutionistic conspiracy meant to bring atheistic
> revolution.
>
> Or some damn thing. Ask 15 creationists, you'll
> get 15 different answers.
Yes, and the most curious part is that it will always be only the
"Darwinists" who are wrong. The other 14 creationists will
conveniently cease to exist.
Jim
Excellent points, and I think you have nailed it. If your favorite
scripture is the true Word of God (be it Bible, Koran, or Vedas), then
obviously external reality can't be true, so it *must* be a social
contract. It also kinda fits with the whole post-modernist rejection
of reality as an objective, external thing upon which one may stub
one's toes. Indeed, I think for most folks in the US (at least),
reality is sort of mythical anyhow - we have so modified our immediate
environment so that our entire life experience is insulated (obvious
exceptions like Desertphile notwithstanding) and actually having to
deal with things that are not the direct result of human endeavor is
rare enough that we can get away with thinking that everything is the
way it is because we decided that we wanted it that way.
VoiceOfReason
Rachael Maddow interviews Frank Shaeffer on America's Evangelical
subculture. "We have a subculture which is literally a 5th column of
insanity that
is bred from birth ... to reject facts."
Dan Listermann
"Sethosayher" <setho...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:28b6770d-1103-427e...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
They will tell you that all that evidence is based on useless assumptions,
obviously forgetting that their very theism is based on nothing more than
useless assumptions.
.
Dan Listermann
"Iain" <iain_i...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:32a4c5c1-b498-4f6c...@j5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
it factual weight, I like to point out that the religion of Australian
Aborigines is at least 45,000 years old.
.
teresita
> Some YECs point out that the Bible doesn't say how long Adam and Eve
> lived in Eden, and OF COURSE they didn't age until they sinned.
Not correct. They never ate from the Tree of Life, because the whole
point of kicking them out of the garden and blocking the way was to keep
them FROM eating from the Tree of Life. If you object that the power of
the fruit only lasted 24 hours, so that they had to keep eating from the
tree of life, then why was the penalty for eating of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil permanent? Was the knowledge imparted from
THAT tree permanent but the life imparted from the other tree temporary?
--
Teresita
http://hackylinux.blogspot.com/
Dan Listermann
"teresita" <rub...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:hhq8d...@news2.newsguy.com...
.
Steven L.
You're going to love it.
Some creationists claim that those stone tools that archaeologists and
paleontologists use as evidence of Paleolithic cultures, were actually
formed by natural processes like glaciation. They're just funny shaped
rocks that *look like* hand axes.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/paleolithic.asp
Note the irony here:
Creationists claim that living things (which were born naturally) are
evidence of Intelligent Design.
But they claim that stone hand axes (which scientists say really were
designed by primitive humans) were created by natural processes!
--
--
Steven L.
sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the "NOSPAM" before sending to this email address.
Kalkidas
85d60f...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:
YECs are the minority, so you should really qualify your use of the term
"creationist". Hopefully, they'll teach you that in graduate school.
Ron O
The young earth is getting older. It used to be 6,000 years old, but
by the time the creation scientists went to court in the early 1980s
it had increased to less than 10,000. By the mid 1990's when the ID
perps started to denigrate the creation science effort in order to
distance themselves from the other creationist failures, the age of
less than 20,000 years old became common. There was just a thread
about the Italian science agency funding a creationist book that
claimed that the dinos went extinct 40,000 years ago, so the earth is
older than that.
It probably won't be long before they get back to Kelvin's failed age
estimate of less than 300 million years old. The only problem with
that will be that Kelvin didn't know about nuclear fusion and
radioactive decay when he made those estimates. It won't matter to
the nut cases. They are already so wrong, what is a little more
willful ignorance?
The guys that claim that the earth is less than 20,000 years old have
claimed that, at least, Pliestocene rock layers are post flood. This
means that around 2 million years of earth history has to have
occurred since the flood, but the amount of evolution that they are
claiming happened after the flood is a lot more than 2 million years
of earth history. The examples that they gave such as foxes and dogs
evolving from the same pair on the ark would account for 10 to 15
million years of earth history. All cat kind evolved from one pair,
from saber toothed giants (that evolved during the cold period after
the flood) to your tabby. These guys claim that the extinct fauna
were also on the ark. Whole biomes of dinos, and before them Perminan
fauna. It is mind boggling. Whole different worlds of animal life
represented on the ark.
Basically they just make things up when they need to. In the case of
evolution they have to go from the thousands of "kinds" that could fit
on the ark to the millions of species that we see today in just a few
thousand years.
You can try to get them to set dates on when the pyramids were built,
and then get them to calculate how many people existed at this time to
build them. There were only 8 people on the ark, and they have to
produce enough people to build the pyramids and populate all the other
regions of the world by then (the Egyptians had to be warring with
someone). There was one calculation where someone took their
estimates and used an exponential increase to demonstrate that for
their ages of the pyramids there would only be around 50 people in
Egypt to build them. You also have to take into account that these
guys were slow breeders. Noah and his son's families didn't have any
children during the hundred years that they were building the ark.
Noah was over 300 years old at the time and had only 3 kids. I would
assume that the YECers have reestimated the ages of the pyramids, but
they still have to get the people distributed and in thriving
civilizations by around 3,000 years ago when written records become
common. According to the YEC contingent the flood occurred less than
5,000 years ago. So massive amounts of evolution and a huge
population explosion for humans had to occur in a period of less than
2,000 years, and not be noted by the historians of the time.
All this had to occur on a barren world that had been covered by over
a mile of flood sediment that quickly turned into solid rock.
Ron Okimoto
Mike Lyle
> On Jan 3, 4:49 am, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of
>> a 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of
>> evidence we possess of cultures and communities older than 4000
>> B.C.E? (I'm guessing the same way they brush off most scientific
>> evidence). As I intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm
>> interested in seeing how creationists contort the findings of my
>> future area of study.
I don't really think one needs to bother taking them into account at
all, unless as a minor field of study in themselves. But, as Iain says
below, they seem to have gained more influence in the US than in most
other places; this gives them a certain unearned significance in the
world, but otherwise they don't enter into consideration.
>
> I don't know, but I always suspected it might be an American thing.
> Americans have a shorter sense of history and so feel they can more
> comfortably make pronouncements about 6000 years ago, as if that were
> inscrutibly ancient history.
There's also the down-side of a very laudable feature of American
education. US early years education seems to concentrate on making
children feel positive about themselves and their abilities; that,
combined with notions of democracy and the mythology of equal
opportunity, may appear to give permission for ordinary schmucks to
challenge experts.
>
> Oddly, this doesn't apply so much to Australians.
> Maybe because their Aboriginal population has an oral history going
> back further than 6000 years.
>
I think it's more that we don't have the American notion of a clean
break from the past. The lesson learned, the Australian colonies were
allowed to become more and more self-governing, and 1901 is only a date
of federation, not a symbol of liberty like 1776.
In addition, open unbelief, and the Churches of Rome and Canterbury,
have always been more prominent in Aus than in the US, so conventional
scientific views were more generally accepted. There are plenty of loony
protestants in Aus, but I think geography and demography alike are
against them. Zoology, too: you have to be very dim not to notice the
total absence of Australasian fauna from any of the world's holy books.
--
Mike.
jillery
Don't ask me. Such schisms deserve Monty Pythonesque derision, and
show that no biblical interpretation can rightfully claim inerrancy.
marks...@yahoo.com
wrote:
The Australian oral history actually covers 6,000 years, but because
there is so little to do in that big desert it just SEEMED like
60,000.
For China and Egypt you just have to decide which parts were before
the flood , and compress the timelines down to begin somewhat after
4004 BC. If that means one dynasty ruled from 12 noon to 2:15 that
same afternoon then so be it .
The kangaroos pit the other animals in their pouches and they all
floated over on mats of vegetation.
Louann Miller
b329-b9a...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com:
> Creationists don't believe in reality. They say they do, and they
> think they do, to the extent they think about it at all. But they *act
> as though reality were a social agreement, like the borders between
> two countries, and everything they say is not to discover the nature
> of reality, but to make reality the correct one - the righteous one,
> in which they know more than the eggheads, and in which they are the
> center of the universe, and will live forever.
(etc)
I think you have hold of a very important psychological insight here.
Iain
> 6000 year old earth?
They don't. The whole idea is fucked up and altogether irreconcilable
with the brutest facts.
--Iain
All-seeing-I
You do not seem to even have a basic grasp of ancient history by
asking such a fundamental question in such as inaccurate manor.
Not everyone that believes "God Created" also believes the earth is
6000 years old.
True, family traditions can be traced back 6000 years to Adam. So the
garden and Adam may be 6000 years old, but, no one knows how long God
took to create the earth.
As usual the evolutionist just can't get it right. Which is probably
why they believe men are actually apes. Try defining your target
audience first, which would be defining what you mean by "creationist".
John Harshman
> On Jan 2, 10:49 pm, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
>> 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
>> possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
>> guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
>> intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
>> seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
>> study.
>
> You do not seem to even have a basic grasp of ancient history by
> asking such a fundamental question in such as inaccurate manor.
>
> Not everyone that believes "God Created" also believes the earth is
> 6000 years old.
>
> True, family traditions can be traced back 6000 years to Adam. So the
> garden and Adam may be 6000 years old, but, no one knows how long God
> took to create the earth.
Unless, of course, you believe what the bible says, which is that it
took 6 days. Literal days, with evenings and mornings.
Then again, it's just a story. None of it is true, including Adam.
> As usual the evolutionist just can't get it right. Which is probably
> why they believe men are actually apes. Try defining your target
> audience first, which would be defining what you mean by "creationist".
How old do you think the earth is? Why?
Reddfrogg
> On Jan 2, 10:49 pm, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> > study.
>
> You do not seem to even have a basic grasp of ancient history by
> asking such a fundamental question in such as inaccurate manor.
"inaccurate manor" is that next to stately Wayne Manor?
>
> �Not everyone that believes "God Created" also believes the earth is
> 6000 years old.
but that is the default position. Most creationists are YECs.
>
> True, family traditions can be traced back 6000 years to Adam. So the
> garden and Adam may be 6000 years old, but, no one knows how long God
> took to create the earth.
According to the evidence, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
"Adam" is a legendary figure, and linking "family traditions" to Adam
was a common as Kings in the middle ages linking themselves to King
Arthur.
>
> As usual the evolutionist just can't get it right. Which is probably
> why they believe men are actually apes.
Humans are believed to be apes because all the evidence indicates that
humans are apes. Humans fit every objective classification for the
term "ape". Humans are apes, just like a Galapagos finch is a
finch.
> Try defining your target
> audience first, which would be defining what you mean by "creationist".
It's pretty obvious he was talking about YECs.
DJT
bpuharic
<ap...@email.com> wrote:
>On Jan 2, 10:49�pm, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
>> 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
>> possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
>> guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
>> intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
>> seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
>> study.
>
>You do not seem to even have a basic grasp of ancient history by
>asking such a fundamental question in such as inaccurate manor.
>
> Not everyone that believes "God Created" also believes the earth is
>6000 years old.
>
>True, family traditions can be traced back 6000 years to Adam. So the
>garden and Adam may be 6000 years old, but, no one knows how long God
>took to create the earth.
adam wasnt around when the garden was created. so how did he know it
was created?
>
>As usual the evolutionist just can't get it right. Which is probably
>why they believe men are actually apes. Try defining your target
>audience first, which would be defining what you mean by "creationist".
the moron creationist tries to tell us about gardens that no one ever
saw happen.
such is their view of reality
Frank J
> On Jan 2, 10:49�pm, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> > study.
>
> The young earth is getting older. �It used to be 6,000 years old, but
> by the time the creation scientists went to court in the early 1980s
> it had increased to less than 10,000. �By the mid 1990's when the ID
> perps started to denigrate the creation science effort in order to
> distance themselves from the other creationist failures, the age of
> less than 20,000 years old became common. �There was just a thread
> about the Italian science agency funding a creationist book that
> claimed that the dinos went extinct 40,000 years ago, so the earth is
> older than that.
>
> It probably won't be long before they get back to Kelvin's failed age
> estimate of less than 300 million years old.
Depends on whom you mean by "they." OECs and most IDers have gone well
past 300 MY and now concede the 4.5 BY that is thorougly substantiated
by modern science. When those with such a vested interest in an
alternative result concedes the accepted one it behooves every new
"challenger" to confront the OEC/IDer *first*. But they almost *never*
do that. Which undermines their pretense that they truly see their
challenge as anything more than wishful thinking at best, and
deliberate misleading at worst.
OTOH, if by "they" you mean those who had been already known as YECs,
once they get past conceding ~20KY or so they curiously go into "don't
ask, don't tell" mode. My guess is that they do privately accept some
version of OEC, maybe even common descent, but they don't want to
burst the fantasies of those who are more comfortable with a YEC
scenario. And of course they don't want to call attention to the
hopeless disagreements among creationists.
> �The only problem with
Dan Listermann
"All-seeing-I" <ap...@email.com> wrote in message
news:2e5016c2-d577-41db...@22g2000yqr.googlegroups.com...
Ah, you are just rationalizing your "ancient texts." It is a form of
weaseling.
.
Boikat
As usual, chicken-boy, the lying coward, who made a false accusastion,
and did not back it up, is an idiot, and acts as if the Bible is a
history book, and it's Genesis claims are fact.
He needs to grow the hell up.
Boikat
TomS
<86026256-89ed-45d9...@n31g2000vbt.googlegroups.com>, Frank J
stated..."
I have heard that the Jehovah's Witnesses have a somewhat longer
version of what we may call "young earth creationism". By some
elaboration on "a day is a thousand years" and some other Biblical
verses, they get to some figure for the age of the earth which is
still less than millions of years, but longer than tens of thousands,
as I vaguely recall.
>
>
>> �The only problem with
>> that will be that Kelvin didn't know about nuclear fusion and
>> radioactive decay when he made those estimates. �It won't matter to
>> the nut cases. �They are already so wrong, what is a little more
>> willful ignorance?
[...snip...}
BTW, I also recall reading that Lord Kelvin made some other mistakes
in his calculations. Even without radioactivity, his estimate was
wrong.
--
---Tom S.
the failure to nail currant jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to
the currant jelly.
Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to William Thayer, 1915 July 2
Karel
Well, one of them perhaps.
Regards,
Karel
Kermit
> Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:27aac892-6ff9-4e3c-
> b329-b9a3d1689...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Creationists don't believe in reality. They say they do, and they
> > think they do, to the extent they think about it at all. But they *act
> > as though reality were a social agreement, like the borders between
> > two countries, and everything they say is not to discover the nature
> > of reality, but to make reality the correct one - the righteous one,
> > in which they know more than the eggheads, and in which they are the
> > center of the universe, and will live forever.
>
> (etc)
>
> I think you have hold of a very important psychological insight here.
Thank you. I've been chewing on this puzzle ever since I left the fold
40 years ago.
Kermit
Dwib
> > How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E?
>
> garden and Adam may be 6000 years old, but, no one knows how long God
> took to create the earth.
He's claiming there were human civilizations "more" than 6000 years
ago; ie, pre-Eden civilizations. Is he wrong or are you wrong?
Dwib
Kermit
> On 3 Gen, 07:57, Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > They know, deep down, that
> > their worldview maps very poorly to reality, which is why they spend
> > so much time denying evidence and seeking the reassurances of like-
> > minded people.
>
Perhaps, but some doctrines map better to reality than others. Deists,
Zen Buddhists, and Unitarians may believe a few things for which there
is little or no support (Roman Catholics perhaps more than a few), but
they don't think their eternal life depends on a "reality" which is
contradicted by actual facts. Heck, a couple of well-known
paleontologists are Evangelical Christians (but not Creationists as we
use the word here).
>
> You don't need to attend to a ritual every week to remind you that the
> Earth is spherical or that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s.
Kermit
Mike Painter
"bpuharic" <wf...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:pot4k5108bi3kt9nk...@4ax.com...<snip>
>>True, family traditions can be traced back 6000 years to Adam. So the
>>garden and Adam may be 6000 years old, but, no one knows how long God
>>took to create the earth.
>
> adam wasnt around when the garden was created. so how did he know it
> was created?
>
>>
>>As usual the evolutionist just can't get it right. Which is probably
>>why they believe men are actually apes. Try defining your target
>>audience first, which would be defining what you mean by "creationist".
>
>
> the moron creationist tries to tell us about gardens that no one ever
> saw happen.
It would be pretty easy to find out. Get everybody to start using Google
Earth to find something that the YECs don't talk about a lot.
Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of
Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way
of the tree of life.
Or you could just search for gods who found the tree and ask them. 3:22 And
the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and
evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of
life, and eat, and live for ever:
Apparently the difference between the gods and us is living forever.
Just ask any Struldbruggs
Frank J
> "On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 04:58:55 -0800 (PST), in article
So they challenge OECs *and* they "regular" YECs, right? I thought
not.
>
>
>
> >> �The only problem with
> >> that will be that Kelvin didn't know about nuclear fusion and
> >> radioactive decay when he made those estimates. �It won't matter to
> >> the nut cases. �They are already so wrong, what is a little more
> >> willful ignorance?
>
> [...snip...}
>
> BTW, I also recall reading that Lord Kelvin made some other mistakes
> in his calculations. Even without radioactivity, his estimate was
> wrong.
>
> --
> ---Tom S.
> the failure to nail currant jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to
> the currant jelly.
> Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to William Thayer, 1915 July 2- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
TomS
<fffd6bee-67fb-419c...@u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Frank J
stated..."
>[...snip...]
>> I have heard that the Jehovah's Witnesses have a somewhat longer
>> version of what we may call "young earth creationism". By some
>> elaboration on "a day is a thousand years" and some other Biblical
>> verses, they get to some figure for the age of the earth which is
>> still less than millions of years, but longer than tens of thousands,
>> as I vaguely recall.
>
>So they challenge OECs *and* they "regular" YECs, right? I thought
>not.
I did a little searching on the web, and came across this at the
Watchtower web pages:
<http://www.watchtower.org/e/200609a/article_01.htm>
The JW doctrine seems to be undoubtedly "old earth", accepting *both*
the "gap" theory and the "day-age" theory. My memory must have been
mistaken.
Ron O
> "On Thu, 7 Jan 2010 11:40:37 -0800 (PST), in article
Your memory would have to have been as mistaken as mine. They used to
advocate YEC. They used to hand out a little blue book that was full
of YEC arguments back in the 1980s. I even have the book and if I
were not out in San Diego at the PAG meeting I'd look into it. I
haven't opened the book for around 20 years, but I think that I know
where it is.
It probably isn't that big of a stretch that they would change, since
some of them have come to believe that the earth really did end with
the last prediction of their founder (He died before the end of the
world occurred) even though he was wrong multiple times before that.
With people like that the earth could be any age.
Ron Okimoto
Walter Bushell
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote:
It seemed to be the operative principal of the Bush II administration. I
think Eric Hoffer touched on it in _True Believer_ which is must
reading for denizens of this froup.
--
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
Walter Bushell
"Mike Lyle" <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Hey, an opportunity for someone to write a new old fashioned holy book
and a new religion, with the religion including the Book of Mormon,
perhaps.
Walter Bushell
"Dan Listermann" <d...@listermann.com> wrote:
> "Iain" <iain_i...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:32a4c5c1-b498-4f6c...@j5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> > On Jan 3, 4:49 am, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> >> 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> >> possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> >> guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> >> intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> >> seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> >> study.
> >
> > I don't know, but I always suspected it might be an American thing.
> > Americans have a shorter sense of history and so feel they can more
> > comfortably make pronouncements about 6000 years ago, as if that were
> > inscrutibly ancient history.
> >
> > Oddly, this doesn't apply so much to Australians.
> > Maybe because their Aboriginal population has an oral history going
> > back further than 6000 years.
> >
> Whenever they bring up how old their scripture ism implying that this gives
> it factual weight, I like to point out that the religion of Australian
> Aborigines is at least 45,000 years old.
>
>
> .
And so are the roots of Christianity.
Walter Bushell
<2d419e71-cc83-4e98...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com>,
Frank J <fc...@verizon.net> wrote:
> The "don't ask, don't tell" approach has been gaining in popularity in
> recent decades, but creationists do still make . YEC arguments,
> because they still sell to much of the rank and file. But if they
> conveniently avoid challenging *creationist* positions that contradict
> theirs, and target only "Darwinism" they can be reasonably suspected
> of not having any confidence in their YEC. But they still might
> believe that the "masses" need to believe fairy tales to behave
> properly.
Where behave properly may include be good serfs for their masters, as
the neocons believe. The master class doesn't need to believe and will
not rise too far if they do, but the proles must.
Dan Listermann
"Walter Bushell" <pr...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:proto-F54A40....@news.panix.com...
Really? Do you care to expand your assertion? The Aborigines, as I
understand it, pretty much practice the same religion, pretty much in the
same way as near as anyone can tell, but that is just my impression. Can
you say the same thing about Christianity?
.
el cid
As was so sanguinely related to Joe Dirt, "Home is where you make it."
Likewise, personal reality is what you make it, and it's often
distinct from objective reality. Red in Tooth and Claw is rather
too harsh for constant attention, leads to stress which is bad for
your health (as is ignoring it). But if, as many of us fondly
observe at times, human civilization is founded upon agriculture
for grains for making fermented beverages, we seem to owe as much to
escapist realities as objective ones.
Kermit
Oh, sure. I'm that first to admit that we create a framework, a
gestalt, upon which we can hang all of our experiences to sort them
out and make sense of them. But the Creationists I grew up with didn't
just have their own world view; they had a worldview which required
constant work to deny the everyday reality which would put the lie to
it. They also need constant reassurance from like-minded people.
It's one thing to interpret recent economic events thru the eyes of an
economic conservative; it's quite another to blithely say "Men have
one less rib than women, cause God took one to make Eve. And it's
missing on the *left side, 'cause that's where the heart is."
I was 12 or so when I heard this, and I just wanted to shout "WTF!?" I
could count my own ribs; I could read anatomy books. Insufficient or
ambiguous data might lead to reasonable alternative models, but
really... there's a limit to the insanity I can tolerate.
Kermit
Kermit
> In article <Rd6dnYtTYb3Cnt_WnZ2dnUVZ_qFi4...@giganews.com>,
> �Louann Miller <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:27aac892-6ff9-4e3c-
> > b329-b9a3d1689...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com:
>
> > > think they do, to the extent they think about it at all. But they *act
> > > as though reality were a social agreement, like the borders between
> > > two countries, and everything they say is not to discover the nature
> > > of reality, but to make reality the correct one - the righteous one,
> > > in which they know more than the eggheads, and in which they are the
> > > center of the universe, and will live forever.
>
> > (etc)
>
> > I think you have hold of a very important psychological insight here.
>
> It seemed to be the operative principal of the Bush II administration. I
> think Eric Hoffer touched on it in _True Believer_ �which is must
> reading for denizens of this froup.
>
He helped shape my childhood, and gave me hope that perhaps not all
adults were insane...
> --
> �A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
Kermit
Kermit
> Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote in news:28b6770d-1103-427e-87c1-
> 85d60fbe9...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:
>
> > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> > study.
>
> "creationist". Hopefully, they'll teach you that in graduate school.
On a global scale you're probably right, but in the US, the YEC
predominate, and most other folk are rather vague about the scale of
prehistory.
And most graduate schools don't concern themselves with the delusions
of the uneducated. History and anthropology and a few other majors
might.
Kermit
el cid
Is it that different?
Certain conservative views are so far from my own that I find
I have to squint to bring them into focus, just as I do with
'scientific' creationism. I have friends with wildly different
politics and have discussed various religious perspectives with
people ranging from creationists to sufi mystics to militant
atheists, as I expect have many a regular here. Some divergent
views I wind up respectfully disagreeing with and others I
find to be nucking futs but held by nice enough people who
actually lead functional lives. I've not found the clear
discontinuity between harmless delusions and more obvious
detachments from reality. Maybe that's where my dysfunction
lays (at least one of them anyhow).
> I was 12 or so when I heard this, and I just wanted to shout "WTF!?" I
> could count my own ribs; I could read anatomy books. Insufficient or
> ambiguous data might lead to reasonable alternative models, but
> really... there's a limit to the insanity I can tolerate.
Well yes but, if you look hard enough, you find a measure of
such insanity in nearly everyone. I mean, some people actually
root for the Yankees but otherwise seem to be sane people.
As for the rib business, what harm does it really do when
a 12 year old boy and girl decide to doff their shirts and
count?
Paul J Gans
>Is it that different?
I think that the difference lies in the response to facts.
It is one thing to think that faries life at the bottom of
your garden, even if nobody else can see them. It is quite
another to insist that men are missing a rib even when faced
with the FACT that this is not so.
One is a harmless conceit. The other is borderline insanity.
And some would argue with the word "borderline".
--
--- Paul J. Gans
Walter Bushell
"Dan Listermann" <d...@listermann.com> wrote:
Theophagy,(eating the deity) and the Great Mother (Virgin Mary)worship
and Sky Father, purity codes, trinities, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Dan Listermann
it, few like the dreaming religion of the Australian Aborigines.
.
Nick Keighley
> Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote in news:28b6770d-1103-427e-87c1-
> 85d60fbe9...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:
> > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> > study.
>
> YECs are the minority, so you should really qualify your use of the term
> "creationist". Hopefully, they'll teach you that in graduate school.
aren't all creationists a minority in some sense? Do the non-YEC
creationists form a coherent set. Are they monophylectic.
I'm thinking of how they'd answer questions like "how old is the
world?" "was there one creation event or many?" "did god create the
universe, the world, life, human kind? all of them? some of them?". I
suspect questions like these would fracture the OECs into a thousand
tiny clans.
--
Nick Keighley
Nick Keighley
> On Jan 3, 10:16�am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> > On Jan 2, 10:49�pm, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> > > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> > > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> > > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> > > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> > > study.
>
> > The young earth is getting older. �It used to be 6,000 years old, but
> > by the time the creation scientists went to court in the early 1980s
> > it had increased to less than 10,000. �By the mid 1990's when the ID
> > perps started to denigrate the creation science effort in order to
> > distance themselves from the other creationist failures, the age of
> > less than 20,000 years old became common. �There was just a thread
> > about the Italian science agency funding a creationist book that
> > claimed that the dinos went extinct 40,000 years ago, so the earth is
> > older than that.
>
> > It probably won't be long before they get back to Kelvin's failed age
> > estimate of less than 300 million years old.
>
> Depends on whom you mean by "they." OECs and most IDers have gone well
> past 300 MY and now concede the 4.5 BY that is thorougly substantiated
> by modern science.
I was with you up to here but then I got lost in pronoun imbrolio.
> When those with such a vested interest in an alternative result
who are "those with a vested interest"? The OECs that accept 4.5Gy? Or
the ones taht reject it? Alternative to what?
> concedes the accepted one it behooves every new "challenger"
who are the challengers? Other OECs? YECs? Scientists?
> to confront the OEC/IDer *first*.
so not OECs... Why? Why should these challengers tackle anyone in any
particular order? I think YECs and OECs have different problems and
require different tactics. You've got to admire the boldness of the
YEC. He rejects the entirety of modern science. Hell, he rejects the
last few hundred years of modern thought! IDers are just gutless and
despisable. They are mostly the artifact of the pecularities of the US
constitution.
> But they almost *never*
> do that. Which undermines their pretense that they truly see their
> challenge as anything more than wishful thinking at best, and
> deliberate misleading at worst.
??
like I said, I got lost half a paragraph ago
> OTOH, if by "they" you mean those who had been already known as YECs,
> once they get past conceding ~20KY or so they curiously go into "don't
> ask, don't tell" mode. My guess is that they do privately accept some
> version of OEC, maybe even common descent, but they don't want to
> burst the fantasies of those who are more comfortable with a YEC
> scenario. And of course they don't want to call attention to the
> hopeless disagreements among creationists.
<snip>
Nick Keighley
> On Jan 2, 10:49�pm, Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
> > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
> > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
> > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
> > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
> > study.
>
> You do not seem to even have a basic grasp of ancient history by
> asking such a fundamental question in such as inaccurate manor.
explain whats wrong with the question. Does it embarrass you?
> �Not everyone that believes "God Created" also believes the earth is
> 6000 years old.
true. But quite a few people do.
> True, family traditions can be traced back 6000 years to Adam.
no they can't.
> So the garden and Adam may be 6000 years old,
neither the garden nor adam existed. What were the Egyptians doing
while Adam (the first man remember!) was footling about in his
garden?
> but, no one knows how long God took to create the earth.
because it didn't happen. Did he make the rest of the galaxy (and the
100 billion other galaxies) before or after he made the earth?
> As usual the evolutionist just can't get it right. Which is probably
> why they believe men are actually apes. Try defining your target
> audience first, which would be defining what you mean by "creationist".
He's thinking of YECs though you all have problems.
Nick Keighley
> the moron creationist tries to tell us about gardens that no one ever
> saw happen.
no the garden is real! I know someone who's been there. It's near
Bagdad.
Robert Grumbine
> On Jan 3, 6:46�am, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>> Sethosayher <sethosay...@gmail.com> wrote in news:28b6770d-1103-427e-87c1-
>> 85d60fbe9...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > How do creationists take into account the historical consequences of a
>> > 6000 year old earth? How do they reject the vast amount of evidence we
>> > possess of cultures and communities older than 4000 B.C.E? (I'm
>> > guessing the same way they brush off most scientific evidence). As I
>> > intend to study history at the graduate level, I'm interested in
>> > seeing how creationists contort the findings of my future area of
>> > study.
>>
>> YECs are the minority, so you should really qualify your use of the term
>> "creationist". Hopefully, they'll teach you that in graduate school.
>
> On a global scale you're probably right, but in the US, the YEC
> predominate, and most other folk are rather vague about the scale of
> prehistory.
My reading of the questions and answers is different.
If the question is a straight up 'how old do you think the earth is',
only 20-25% will say '6-10,000 years'. Most will give an old age, though
perhaps most will be incorrect as to how old. But millions to billions,
and plenty of the answerers not really confident about the difference
between million and billion.
If the question is conflated with how long _humans_ have been here,
then, indeed, about half -- sometimes a bit more, sometimes less -- will say
6-10 ky.
This suggests to me that only 20-25% are straight up YECs. Then another
20-40% who either don't know that humans have been around a goodly long
time, or who really do have religious objection to the idea of humans
having been around longer (OECs and such).
On most questions (c.f. how long does the earth take to go around
the sun), ignorance accounts for about 40% of the answers, so I'd
go with that explanation here as well.
--
Robert Grumbine http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/ Science blog
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences