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Oldest fossils on Earth found in Australia, provides proof of life on planet 3.4 billion years ago
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Post by
Squishalot
/sigh
I'm not a physicist, but I have read many book by physicists, and just because a layperson doesn't understand Big Bang theory doesn't make it a conspiracy theory. There's decades of math and powerful evidence behind it. Time began with the Big Bang. There is no before the Big Bang. That's like asking what's north of the North Pole. The universe is expanding, but it's not expanding through anything. It's simply that the finite amount of space that there is is getting bigger.
I know you're not a physicist, and I'm not expecting you to explain it. However, you're talking about what a lay person understands - you're not an expert in religious studies either.
On a side note - if there is nothing before the Big Bang, then all those questions about 'Who created God?' are completely and utterly hypocritical.
As I explained, land mammals came into being 70 million years before birds.
Actually, you said 'true mammals', which is just as nebulous as 'mammals'. That being said, do flying reptiles count as 'birds'? Or more specifically, would they be counted as birds in the context of an account of Creation pre-Darwin? Arguably, they would be.
The days of creation are a fundamental part of the account of creation. Without them, you might as well say "In the beginning, God created everything" which would actually be more accurate than saying plants came before the sun, or that birds came before reptiles and mammals.
I disagree that they're a fundamental part of the account of Creation. The fundamental point of Creation is indeed that God created everything, not necessarily the precise order in which he did it. What you're arguing is the equivalent of finding a typo in a science textbook and declaring it rubbish as a result.
Either it truly is 13.7 billion years old, or it isn't. Either way, it appears to be. If God created the universe 6000 years ago but didn't make it look like it's 6000 years old, why did he do that
if he wants us to believe it
?
You must be missing my point, but I don't think it's something I'm saying, because xaratherus understood it fine.
God created the universe in a way that he wanted it to be. It's got nothing to do with him wanting us to believe in him or anything of the sort - noting that the universe was created long before mankind turned away from him, according to Genesis. In the context of YEC, he wanted the universe to look as it does, just like we want a Sim house to look as it does.
I'm not sure about you, but I don't do anything in the Sims in the hope that my Sims will somehow believe that I exist. I create their environment, I give them life, I let them live, and every now and then, they'll acknowledge my existence by waving at me and grumbling when they need something (sounds similar to prayer, eh?). But their environment is the way it is because I want it that way, not because I'm trying to somehow prove a point to them.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
Atik
On a side note - if there is nothing before the Big Bang, then all those questions about 'Who created God?' are completely and utterly hypocritical.
On a serious note:
Why do christians say the big bang couldn't have created itself, but they then turn around and say 'god' created itself?
Post by
166779
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Ksero
On a side note - if there is nothing before the Big Bang, then all those questions about 'Who created God?' are completely and utterly hypocritical.
On a serious note:
Why do christians say the big bang couldn't have created itself, but they then turn around and say 'god' created itself?
I am an athiest myself, but i do have an answer to this question. The Big Bang could have created itself because all of the energy in the universe adds up to 0. Now this may be hard to grasp, but it can be explained with a simple analogy, when you dig a hole, the dirt you take out of the hole makes a hill, which is the opposite to the hole, you can put the dirt back in the hole and it will "add up to 0." the same is true with the universe, all of the matter in the universe is "dirt", and the vacuum of space is the "hole" since it all adds up to 0, there is no need for something to "start" the universe.
/sigh
I'm not a physicist, but I have read many book by physicists, and just because a layperson doesn't understand Big Bang theory doesn't make it a conspiracy theory. There's decades of math and powerful evidence behind it. Time began with the Big Bang. There is no before the Big Bang. That's like asking what's north of the North Pole. The universe is expanding, but it's not expanding through anything. It's simply that the finite amount of space that there is is getting bigger.
I know you're not a physicist, and I'm not expecting you to explain it. However, you're talking about what a lay person understands - you're not an expert in religious studies either.
On a side note - if there is nothing before the Big Bang, then all those questions about 'Who created God?' are completely and utterly hypocritical.
The point is that since space and time are interconnected there was no time before the big bang, which means there could not be anything (being or otherwise) which caused it to happen. The reason behind this is that in the instant the Big Bang happened, time started. I can explain further if necessary.
Edit:
Note: I am not a physicist, but i am going into my second year of studying physics in university
Post by
Pwntiff
There is little evidence regarding the absolute earliest instant of the expansion. Thus, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on.
Even the Big Bang theory says "We're not really sure why the Big Bang happened, but it's the most reasonable model that the data suggests happened."
Post by
Atik
I understand how that works (at least vaugely. I watch discovery and history channels a lot.)
I was asking the question of the christians. Myself being athiest, I am fine with the big bang starting itself. But I have heard christains deny it, then turn around and say 'god' made himself from nothing...
Post by
Adamsm
It's not the Christians only; one of the Chinese creation myths has the Creator God just suddenly appearing(paraphrased here): Once there was nothingness, then Tian appeared. It's unknown if he existed for for all time or for none. His first breath may have been his last as he died. From his body, the world was formed. His eyes became the Sun and the Moon. His skin the earth. His hair the trees. His final breath circled the planet as the wind. His soul formed the heavens and his death the hells. Can't remember what the passage was that described the creation of Man and the animals of the world, as well as the other lesser Gods/Goddesses who filled his void.
Honestly though, if you are looking for 'pure' answers out of a religion, then you are a masochist.
Post by
Squishalot
The fundamental problem here I believe is that - as indicated above - without an understanding of physics people will often argue for a counter proposal. The problem here is that they believe that all hypotheses have equal value.
The fact is that they do not. A hypothesis based on falsifiable evidence is far stronger than a hypothesis which is based on unfalsifiable claims, to the degree that the unfalsifiable hypothesis is actually meaningless and will not be engaged in.
Just because someone doesn't understand the science doesn't mean that their 'lay persons' opinion carries any weight. The world is not one which responds well to 'gut feelings' or ancient texts which have been re-translated and edited so many times as to make them less reliable than the Daily Mail.
Just because someone
has
an opinion does not by default make that opinion valid or worth listening to. This often sounds like a particularly harsh and intellectually snobbish viewpoint to some, but it is a fact.
Ultimately the 'God created the universe to look how he wanted it to' falls into the same arguement as 'if God is unobservable, unknowable, unmeasurable and has no impact on day to day life or observations, then why infer one in the first place'.
As with xaratherus and Skreerna, you're missing the point. The point is that the issue shouldn't be with the fact that the YECs believe that the earth is only 6000 years old, it should be with the fact that they believe in God in the first instance. Saying that 6000 years old is inconsistent with carbon dating is irrelevant to the argument, because it's not inconsistent in the context of their beliefs.
That's all I've been trying to say.
Post by
Atik
Honestly though, if you are looking for 'pure' answers out of a religion, then you are a masochist.
/shrug
It all just doesn't make sense to me half the time... And then I watch people base their entire lives around it... And I'm like "wha?"
Post by
Adamsm
Honestly though, if you are looking for 'pure' answers out of a religion, then you are a masochist.
/shrug
It all just doesn't make sense to me half the time... And then I watch people base their entire lives around it... And I'm like "wha?"
Just because it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to them. And I watch people with your outlook on life....and I'm like 'wha'?
Post by
166779
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
YEC 6000 year age is falsifiable
The existence of a God is not falsifiable
Wrong. YEC 6000 year age is not falsifiable in the context of a claim that God created the universe in a 13 billion year old state.
One requires a wilful reinterpretation of well understood physical principals
Source - where have I stated in any of my arguments that it requires reinterpretation of physical
principals
?
The only reason I engage with it here is that it is being given a ridiculously high level of credence. Go into any place of academia and what you will not find is a bunch of scientists concerned with how you argue against YEC.
Likewise, the only reason I'm engaging with it here is because it was being given a ridiculously low level of respect, as an unfalsifiable belief.
Ultimately the implication of YEC is that nothing we can measure or quantify is right
No, the implication of YEC, in the argument that I'm presenting, is that time doesn't exist further back than 6000 years, in much the same way that time doesn't exist further back than 13 billion years under the Big Bang argument.
What you're doing right now is making a flawed attempt at an
reductio ad absurdum
, but failing, because you're not recognising the fact that your ability to measure things, make predictions and measure outcomes in a reliable way is not at all impacted by the possibility that the world began 6000 years ago. In fact, if we all lived in a Matrix-like environment (the ultimate 'nothing we can measure / quantify is right', your ability to measure things, make predictions and measure outcomes would be completely uncorrelated to what is
real
at all. So your argument is invalid, and your conclusion that the YEC viewpoint is wrong is, in fact, wrong.
Post by
166779
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
91278
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Just using the example of radiometric dating, either the ratios of isotopes present is a meaningful ratio and therefore predictive, or the isotop ratio was put there by god to give us the impression of an old world when in fact it is not. That renders the measurement of these things meaningless and unpredictive.
I fail to see how measurement of a 6000 year old snapshot at the start of creation is somehow meaningless, whereas it's somehow meaningful if you can rewind the steps it took to get there. It's like opening identical books from the first or the n'th page - everything in the plot is still in place and still fits together, but you're only reading new events from then onwards. Imagine that someone is born with memories. Is it somehow meaningless to explore what those memories are, just because they were created with them? The idea that radiometric dating can give off a 40,000 year old reading simply means that 6,000 years ago, that item was 34,000 years old. It doesn't change anything about the meaningfulness (or lack thereof) of what that implies.
Squish: the way you're framing the YEC argument seems pretty much identical to the concept of 'giant brain in a vat.'
Again - I'm not arguing for the YEC argument. I'm arguing that YEC bashing and telling them that they're wrong is invalid, because it's inherently an argument that God doesn't exist - it's infalsifiable. As I said earlier - I wouldn't be interested in taking up the argument if not for the fact that people are making true/false statements about something unprovable.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
166779
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
91278
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
166779
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
91278
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pezz
The justification is to take the bible, including its creation story, as literally as possible.
That part is my biggest problem with YEC. I realize why it's not a falsifiable theory, but Hebrew creation myth writers never intended to it to be taken absolutely literally. That's not the point of ancient creation myths.
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