Best evidence

Originally posted by Ullr
I gave you evidence in one of my previous posts.

I don't suggest nor would want you to give up your faith in god even if you saw merit in evolution because ultimately you are correct that the process of evolution itself could be a divine creation. What I do speak out against is stubborness and willful ignorance being practiced by intelligent people and that ...[text shortened]... is exactly what I see when some dismiss evolution in such a cavalier manner as your first post.

I see what you mean. I don't think I should even debate the issue really. I'm not qualified. I just do it for fun.

Originally posted by amannion
Hang on, are you saying god exists because of the evidence, or god exists because we humans need god to exist?
Your last statement sounds a whole lot like you're suggesting the second idea. Hardly convincing evidence now is it?

And please can you get past the 'the whole world's existence proves god' bit and actually do a bit of thinking for a change.

"Hang on, are you saying god exists because of the evidence, or god exists because we humans need god to exist?"

Neither. God doesn't exist because of anything. He just is.

This is what I'm saying. The question is asked, "what evidence is there that proves God exists?" My answer is, all that exists.


"And please can you get past the 'the whole world's existence proves god' bit and actually do a bit of thinking for a change."

It's ironic. I was thinking the same thing about you. I wonder if there is a way to get past or through the wall that separates our mutually exclusive perspectives. There is, and I like to think of this forum as a platform for reconciliation.

Do you think there's hope?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
i do not know Noobster, but they are old. We have no conflict with the earth and the universe being old, for we hold that 'a day', can refer to an unspecified duration of time. Thus when we here of the statement, 'back in my day', this of course does not refer to any specific twenty four hour period, but to the duration of an unspecified amount of t ...[text shortened]... find it very telling that our recorded history goes back a mere five or six thousand years.

How do you reconcile human fossilised footprints that have been dated from as far as 1.5million years to 20,000yrs ago?

What about cave art, stone tools, figuirnes, all that have been dated up to 100,000yrs ago?

Originally posted by Proper Knob
How do you reconcile human fossilised footprints that have been dated from as far as 1.5million years to 20,000yrs ago?

What about cave art, stone tools, figuirnes, all that have been dated up to 100,000yrs ago?

Carbon-14 dating is the standard method used by scientists to determine the age of certain fossilized remains. As scientists will often claim something to be millions or billions of years old (ages that do not conform to the Biblical account of the age of the earth), Christians are often left wondering about the accuracy of the carbon-14 method. The truth is, carbon-14 dating (or radiocarbon dating, as it’s also called) is not a precise dating method in many cases, due to faulty assumptions and other limitations on this method.

Carbon has a weight of twelve atomic mass units (AMU’s), and is the building block of all organic matter (plants and animals). A small percentage of carbon atoms have an atomic weight of 14 AMU’s. This is carbon-14. Carbon-14 is an unstable, radioactive isotope of carbon 12. As with any radioactive isotope, carbon-14 decays over time. The half-life of carbon 14 is approximate 5,730 years. That means if you took one pound of 100 percent carbon-14, in 5,730 years, you would only have half a pound left.

Carbon-14 is created in the upper atmosphere as nitrogen atoms are bombarded by cosmic radiation. For every one trillion carbon-12 atoms, you will find one carbon-14 atoms. The carbon-14 that results from the reaction caused by cosmic radiation quickly changes to carbon dioxide, just like normal carbon-12 would. Plants utilize, or “breath in” carbon dioxide, then ultimately release oxygen for animals to inhale. The carbon-14 dioxide is utilized by plants in the same way normal carbon dioxide is. This carbon-14 dioxide then ends up in humans and other animals as it moves up the food chain.

There is then a ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the bodies of plants, humans, and other animals that can fluctuate, but will be fixed at the time of death. After death, the carbon-14 would begin to decay at the rate stated above. In 1948, Dr. W.F. Libby introduced the carbon-14 dating method at the University of Chicago. The premise behind the method is to determine the ratio of carbon-14 left in organic matter, and by doing so, estimate how long ago death occurred by running the ratio backwards. The accuracy of this method, however, relies on several faulty assumptions.

First, for carbon-14 dating to be accurate, one must assume the rate of decay of carbon-14 has remained constant over the years. However, evidence indicates that the opposite is true. Experiments have been performed using the radioactive isotopes of uranium-238 and iron-57, and have shown that rates can and do vary. In fact, changing the environments surrounding the samples can alter decay rates.

The second faulty assumption is that the rate of carbon-14 formation has remained constant over the years. There are a few reasons to believe this assumption is erroneous. The industrial revolution greatly increased the amount of carbon-12 released into the atmosphere through the burning of coal. Also, the atomic bomb testing around 1950 caused a rise in neutrons, which increased carbon-14 concentrations. The great flood which Noah and family survived would have uprooted and/or buried entire forests. This would decrease the release of carbon-12 to the atmosphere through the decay of vegetation.

Third, for carbon-14 dating to be accurate, the concentrations of carbon-14 and carbon-12 must have remained constant in the atmosphere. In addition to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, the flood provides another evidence that this is a faulty assumption. During the flood, subterranean water chambers that were under great pressure would have been breached. This would have resulted in an enormous amount of carbon-12 being released into the oceans and atmosphere. The effect would be not unlike opening a can of soda and having the carbon dioxide fizzing out. The water in these subterranean chambers would not have contained carbon-14, as the water was shielded from cosmic radiation. This would have upset the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12.

To make carbon-14 dating work, Dr. Libby also assumed that the amount of carbon-14 being presently produced had equaled the amount of carbon-12 – he assumed that they had reached a balance. The formation of carbon-14 increases with time, and at the time of creation was probably at or near zero. Since carbon-14 is radioactive, it begins to decay immediately as it’s formed. If you start with no carbon-14 in the atmosphere, it would take over 50,000 years for the amount being produced to reach equilibrium with the amount decaying. One of the reasons we know that the earth is less than 50,000 years old is because of the biblical record. Another reason we can know this is because the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is only 78% what it would be if the earth were old.

Finally, Dr. Libby and the evolutionist crowd have assumed that all plant and animal life utilize carbon-14 equally as they do carbon-12. To be grammatically crass, this ain’t necessarily so. Live mollusks off the Hawaiian coast have had their shells dated with the carbon-14 method. These test showed that the shells died 2000 years ago! This news came as quite a shock to the mollusks that had been using those shells until just recently.

We’ve listed five faulty assumptions here that have caused overestimates of age using the carbon-14 method. The list of non-compliant dates from this method is endless. Most evolutionists today would conclude that carbon-14 dating is – at best – reliable for only the last 3000 to 3500 years. There is another reason that carbon-14 dating has yielded questionable results – human bias.

If you’ve ever been part of a medical study, you’re probably familiar with the terms “blind study” and “double-blind study”. In a blind study, using carbon-14 dating for example, a person would send in a few quality control samples along with the actual sample to the laboratory. The laboratory analyst should not know which sample is the one of interest. In this way, the analyst could not introduce bias into the dating of the actual sample. In a double-blind study (using an experimental drug study as an example), some patients will be given the experimental drug, while others will be given a placebo (a harmless sugar pill). Neither the patients nor the doctors while know who gets what. This provides an added layer of protection against bias.

Radiocarbon dates that do not fit a desired theory are often excluded by alleging cross-contamination of the sample. In this manner, an evolutionist can present a sample for analysis, and tell the laboratory that he assumes the sample to be somewhere between 50,000 years old and 100,000 years old. Dates that do not conform to this estimate are thrown out. Repeated testing of the sample may show nine tests that indicate an age of 5000 to 10,000 years old, and one test that shows an age of 65,000 years old. The nine results showing ages that do not conform to the pre-supposed theory are excluded. This is bad science, and it is practiced all the time to fit with the evolutionary model.

The Shroud of Turin, claimed to be the burial cloth of Christ, was supposedly dated by a blind test. Actually, the control specimens were so dissimilar that the technicians at the three laboratories making the measurements could easily tell which specimen was from the Shroud. This would be like taking a piece of wood and two marbles and submitting them to the lab with the instructions that “one of these is from an ancient ponderosa pine, guess which.” The test would have been blind if the specimens had been reduced to carbon powder before they were given to the testing laboratories. Humans are naturally biased. We tend to see what we want to see, and explain away unwanted data.

Perhaps the best description of the problem in attempting to use the Carbon-14 dating method is to be found in the words of Dr. Robert Lee. In 1981, he wrote an article for the Anthropological Journal of Canada, in which stated:

"The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious. Despite 35 years of technological refinement and better understanding, the underlying assumptions have been strongly challenged, and warnings are out that radiocarbon may soon find itself in a crisis situation. Continuing use of the method depends on a fix-it-as-we-go approach, allowing for contamination here, fractionation there, and calibration whenever possible. It should be no surprise then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half has come to be accepted…. No matter how useful it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually the selected dates.”

The accuracy of carbon-14 dating relies on faulty assumptions, and is subject to human bias. At best, radiocarbon dating is only accurate for the past few thousand years.


I have alot more info if you want it???

Originally posted by galveston75
Carbon-14 dating is the standard method used by scientists to determine the age of certain fossilized remains. As scientists will often claim something to be millions or billions of years old (ages that do not conform to the Biblical account of the age of the earth), Christians are often left wondering about the accuracy of the carbon-14 method. The tr is only accurate for the past few thousand years.


I have alot more info if you want it???

Which creation website did you get this off?

So it's not the Bible that's wrong, it's mankinds dating techniques.

How do you account for stone tools found beneath layers of earth that were layed down 10's of thousands of years ago?

And you still haven't answered my questions about Archaeopteryx?!

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Which creation website did you get this off?

So it's not the Bible that's wrong, it's mankinds dating techniques.

How do you account for stone tools found beneath layers of earth that were layed down 10's of thousands of years ago?

And you still haven't answered my questions about Archaeopteryx?!

Again what did you ask?
As far as tools found I don't have the answer to that. But neither does anyone else have the answer as none of them were there to see it happen and record that date for us. So who knows....
But the very obvious answer to carbon dating is it is not accurate. So to believe that a piece of bone that is found is said to be a zillion years old is very foolish.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Which creation website did you get this off?

So it's not the Bible that's wrong, it's mankinds dating techniques.

How do you account for stone tools found beneath layers of earth that were layed down 10's of thousands of years ago?

And you still haven't answered my questions about Archaeopteryx?!

[edit] The need for calibration

Calibration curve for the radiocarbon dating scale. Data sources: Stuiver et al. (1998)[10]. Samples with a real date more recent than AD 1950 are dated and/or tracked using the N- & S-Hemisphere graphs. See preceding figure.A raw BP date cannot be used directly as a calendar date, because the level of atmospheric 14C has not been strictly constant during the span of time that can be radiocarbon dated. The level is affected by variations in the cosmic ray intensity which is in turn affected by variations in the earth's magnetosphere. In addition, there are substantial reservoirs of carbon in organic matter, the ocean, ocean sediments (see methane hydrate), and sedimentary rocks. Changes in the Earth's climate can affect the carbon flows between these reservoirs and the atmosphere, leading to changes in the atmosphere's 14C fraction.

Aside from these changes due to natural processes, the level has also been affected by human activities. From the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18th century to the 1950s, the fractional level of 14C decreased because of the admixture of large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, due to the excavated oil reserves and combustion production of fossil fuel. This decline is known as the Suess effect, and also affects the 13C isotope. However, atmospheric 14C was almost doubled for a short period during the 1950s and 1960s due to atmospheric atomic bomb tests.

As a consequence, the radiocarbon method shows limitations on dating of materials that are younger than the industrial era. Due to these fluctuations, greater carbon-14 content cannot be taken mean a lesser age. It is expected that in the future the radiocarbon method will become less effective. A calibration curve must sometimes be combined with contextual analysis, because there is not always a direct relationship between age and carbon-14 content.[11]

From Wikipedia...

Originally posted by galveston75
Again what did you ask?
As far as tools found I don't have the answer to that. But neither does anyone else have the answer as none of them were there to see it happen and record that date for us. So who knows....
But the very obvious answer to carbon dating is it is not accurate. So to believe that a piece of bone that is found is said to be a zillion years old is very foolish.

I've asked you the same question three times now, go back through the thread and have a look if you will.

Carbon dating is reasonably accurate, and there are a whole host of other dating techniques that can back it up. But i guess you're going to tell me in your infinite wisdom on these matters that they can't be trusted. Even if something can't be dated to it's exact date, it can be dated there or thereabouts. In short there is a mass of evidence that humans have been around longer than 6,000 years, you can deny it all you like but it's the trith.

As far as tools found I don't have the answer to that. But neither does anyone else have the answer as none of them were there to see it happen and record that date for us. So who knows....

Scientists do, it's called Stratigraphy, but i guess you're going to tell me that can't be trusted now also.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
I've asked you the same question three times now, go back through the thread and have a look if you will.

Carbon dating is reasonably accurate, and there are a whole host of other dating techniques that can back it up. But i guess you're going to tell me in your infinite wisdom on these matters that they can't be trusted. Even if something can't be da ...[text shortened]... lled Stratigraphy, but i guess you're going to tell me that can't be trusted now also.

The whole point of this is man all thru their history, including now, has made mistake after mistake saying they now have the answer to this or that.
They come out with some proven drug that will cure this or that and it turns out it's killing people.
Some new invention that will cure the earth of it's problems. Cut this down, drain this lake, seed the clouds, bring over these animals to help out crops, then create a worse problem, etc, etc, etc. Get the point?

((((((Jer 10:23.))))))

When man has the wisdom of God, the creator of everything, then I will completely trust them.
But why would one put such trust in the minute wisdom that man has? All it takes is to look at the condition of this planet and it doesn't take much for one to see the wisdom of man... Very little!!!!

Originally posted by Proper Knob
How do you reconcile human fossilised footprints that have been dated from as far as 1.5million years to 20,000yrs ago?

What about cave art, stone tools, figuirnes, all that have been dated up to 100,000yrs ago?

figurines, well then noobster , according to your theory, man could make human figurines for almost 100,000 years, but only recently learnt to write and communicate his thoughts through the medium of writing, what happened during the other 95,000 years, was he communicating his thoughts using figurines, or did evolution suddenly take a huge leap in the last 5,000 years.

Originally posted by galveston75
The whole point of this is man all thru their history, including now, has made mistake after mistake saying they now have the answer to this or that.
They come out with some proven drug that will cure this or that and it turns out it's killing people.
Some new invention that will cure the earth of it's problems. Cut this down, drain this lake, seed ...[text shortened]... n of this planet and it doesn't take much for one to see the wisdom of man... Very little!!!!

So what you're telling me is that 150yrs of scientific investigation into evolution, natural selection and all the dating techniques we have are all wrong. We've made a big mistake.

Get the point?

No.

Archaeopteryx?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
figurines, well then noobster , according to your theory, man could make human figurines for almost 100,000 years, but only recently learnt to write and communicate his thoughts through this medium, what happened during the other 95,000 years, was he communicating his thoughts using figurines, or did evolution suddenly take a huge leap in the last 5,000 years.

Yet again you've gone of track, i don't know whether it's a deliberate trick or whether you're just plain dim.

How do you reconcile evidence of humans on this planet going back a lot further than 6,000yrs, when you believe God made us 6,000yrs ago.

I spotted your edit by the way.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Yet again you've gone of track, i don't know whether it's a deliberate trick or whether you're just plain dim.

How do you reconcile evidence of humans on this planet going back a lot further than 6,000yrs, when you believe God made us 6,000yrs ago.

I spotted your edit by the way.

perhaps you can answer the question, edit smedit, i have nothing to hide, i only removed it because it is superfluous to my argument and detracts. why if there have been humans on the planet for as long as you are claiming, that only recently they seemed capable of writing down their thoughts? did this 'evolution', take place as recently as five thousand years ago?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
perhaps you can answer the question, edit smedit, i have nothing to hide, i only removed it because it is superfluous to my argument and detracts. why if there have been humans on the planet for as long as you are claiming, that only recently they seemed capable of writing down their thoughts? did this 'evolution', take place as recently as five thousand years ago?

You still haven't answered my question, you answer mine and then i'll get to yours.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
You still haven't answered my question, you answer mine and then i'll get to yours.

i am asking you to reconcile it, i never made the claim, you have made the claim, therefore you had better offer some sort of reconciliatory answer for this seeming anomaly. if humans have lived for as long as you say, then why have they only recently, as recently as five thousand years in fact only started to write things down. did language only develop as recently as five thousand years?