Hakluyt's Voyages.......

[Hakluyt]

........just in case anyone fancies continuing them.

We were, I think, discussing the issue around dating dinosaur bones........among other things.

Jassy, I don't confuse those things. I'm sorry you have such an awful time of it.

I don't at all. What an odd statement.

Are you therefore ditching the idea that eternality is the only basis for discussion?

I never had the idea to ditch it. What an odd question.

Backonlybriefly I am open minded about the origins of the universe but believe that God willed it and made it happen. The God I believe in would have had no difficulty with a 6 day creation but if the evidence in the fossils point to something different I am happy to explore that.Unfortunately there appears to be dishonesty and a major agenda in both camps. Evolutionists completely refuse to give a younger earth any consideration.Dating techniques start with the assumption that things are millions,not thousands of years old and I completely fail to understand why,if you find soft tissue in a dinosaur bone why you would catagorically refuse to carbon date it.It should be fascinating but as I have found out here,you cannot question without being assumed to be a complete idiot. I will admit to not being a scientist but I read alot of stuff and there are genuinely intelligent and experienced scientists who can,IMO convincingly argue for a younger earth.
What I would say,which I have said before is that there is a very great variety of Christian thought on the subject.I heard yet another one from my dad today which is that some Christians believe there may have been a previous creation so in Genesis 1v1 God created the heavens and the earth (this was the land of dinosaurs etc) Verse 2 talks about earth being void and dark with deep waters which some think may have been what v1 creation was reduced to after some cataclysmic event such as a flood.There could be any length gap between these 2 creations. I had never heard that one before.
The other thing my dad reminded me of,which I find interesting but will mean nothing to you Atheists ,is that Jesus very first miracle was to produce aged wine out of water. He is not bound by our laws.

vdbfamily, I'm tempted to say that only young earth creationists are true believers. The rest have abandoned the bits as they were proved wrong, which is not the act of a true believer.

It's possible to claim that god created the earth millions of years ago and set evolution in motion and the majority of Christians seem to go that way now. But god said he didn't do that. In fact the whole point of the crucifixion is lost if Adam & Eve were fictional.

Still the reason most Christians have abandoned a young earth is that they see that it's not compatible with what we already know.

You notice that even that woman scientist who was examining the soft tissue was a Christian. You might wonder why she'd be deliberately deceiving other Christians.

I'm not scientist enough to lay out all the evidence for an older earth, but there is a lot of it. We know for example how far away many distant stars are. When you look at a picture from a telescope of a star 60,000 light years away you are looking at light that started out 60,000 years ago.

Young Earthers try to find ways to work around that, but not successfully. Some have said that light used to go faster, but then god slowed it down just before we learned how to measure the speed.

Others have said that when god created the stars he also created the light that was already nearly here so it would look like it fitted. They are probably the same ones who say god buried fake dinosaur bones.

The second creation thing could work too, but it would be hard to make it fit in with the other things that god has done and said. After all we're taught that god made the world to put man on it. Making a dinosaur world first would be pointless wouldn't it. So would creating a whole universe and waiting billions of years just so it would look old to us and encourage disbelief.

Evolution is mostly accepted by Christians because it can be shown to be happening now. Also consider why god would create people with mistakes like the appendix. Not to mention making the heads of babies too big to be born without difficulties. The Perfect Design people miss the fact that we are far from perfectly designed.

One more thought in case I forget it in the morning.

Why would god make natural laws at all? We're told he breaks them anyway every time he performs a miracle so he has to keep switching them off and on and adjusting them. So why even create an internally consistent framework.

He doesn't need seeds to be blown by the wind to spread plants around. He can just make plants appear where he wants them. If he was going to change the speed of light then why create a speed of light in the first place. He could just put light where he wanted it.

Instead he created a universe that works reasonably well without divine intervention. Not perfectly, but good enough.

I like to think of the existence of god in terms of probabilities.

If one looks at the beliefs of people who profess to be satisfied in the existence of god, whose belief does one accept to say "this is god"? Even within people who profess to follow the same religion there is such a divergence of belief in terms of whether or what is the physical embodiment of god, whether and how god makes judgement about human behaviour, whether and how god intervenes in human life, that it is actually impossible to define god within any sort of limited parameters.

Therefore, the ability of any one person to be able to say "this is what god is" is so improbable, it can be discounted. Such a statement implies an assertion that anyone who defines god in a different way is wrong, and the maker of that statement is right. Is is not only improbable but supremely arrogant.

I therefore feel quite happy, as an atheist, to say that the probability of there being in existence a god who intervenes in human life or who requires any sort of adherence to a code of behaviour or ritual, or who has any sort of sentience as to human thought or action is so probable, I am happy to discount it as being a thing I have to worry about at all.

Living in a universe that is (probably) infinite, and about which our understanding is still quite limited does admit to the possibility that there is something 'beyond' our individual human existence, but the probability of that thing being anything described in any religious text or teaching is exceedingly remote.

I don't deny the possibility of the existence of 'god', I just think it is no more probable than 'god' being my neighbour's cat.

Which is why you should always be nice to cats.

"'If I say that the sun will rise tomorrow, would you call that a belief?'
Everyone who knows what a belief is would call that a belief."

So is everything a belief then? No facts? Certainties?

vdb - re "Evolutionists completely refuse to give a younger earth any consideration"

Approaching the question rationally, nobody in their right mind would consider that the Earth is only 4,000 years old, and not because we are all closed-minded and prejudiced. As I said in the previous thread and you clearly ignored, Egyptians were building pyramids 4,600 years ago. Ergo, the Earth cannot be 4000 years old. QED.

"Dating techniques start with the assumption that things are millions,not thousands of years old and I completely fail to understand why,if you find soft tissue in a dinosaur bone why you would catagorically refuse to carbon date it."

They don't "refuse" to. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, meaning it can only date back to about 50,000 years. If dinosaurs were even 10,000 or 40,000 years old, carbon dating would work on them (and Bible-minded YEists would still be wrong). But it doesn't.

For dating earlier periods, you need isotopes with much longer half-lives such as Uranium-238.

"It should be fascinating but as I have found out here,you cannot question without being assumed to be a complete idiot."

Nothing wrong with asking questions, but this is about the third time that you are being told the answers. I'm not saying you are an idiot but you seem to resist understanding the answers.

You need to have a bare minimum of knowledge in order to understand the answers to your questions. (Or even to understand the questions themselves, as in the case of our friend Frustrated).

• If you don't know what half-life is, for example, you can't hope to understand why nobody can hope to Carbon date dinosaur bones.

• If you don't know that the speed of light is always constant in space, regardless of the speed of the observer, then you cannot even begin to understand the logical conundrum that poses. (As shown earlier by Frustrated )

You don't have to know these things - not many people do & it is perfectly fine to not be interested. But if you are interested and want to come to some answers, and especially if you are going to pretend to have figured out the nature of the cosmos, you must learn the bare minimum about (1) Relativity, and (2) Quantum Physics, because that is where you will find the laws of physics that govern our universe and the energy/matter/time in it.

Otherwise, your opinions on the origin of the universe will be about as insightful as those of my 9-year-old DD. Less, probably, because she reads a lot on the subject and knows more about the Solar System and Big Bang than most adults I know

Cote: this is what I mean - you don't respond, you run away and post about something you find easier to talk about.

You haven't responded to my first point-by-point-rebuttal of your claims, nor this last one, which you seem to think is conclusive.

It's not in anyway conclusive - far from it. You've come full circle and proved that religious people are perfectly justified in believing that something exists which doesn't have to obey the conventional physical laws of the universe. Do you understand that?

In your attempt to prove that logic is fallible, because activities take place which do not conform and which we cannot explain, you have simply proved that atheists can no longer use the 'it's not rational or logical' argument against the existence of God.

If you posit a world where the laws of logic do not apply, the inevitable consequence - is the plausible existence of an illogical God.

I know you said checkmate - but you really didn't see my big old Queen lurking to squish your argument, did you?

Frustrated - You disappoint me. OK, so you can't really keep up but I had thought you would at least realise when you contradict yourself.

Never fear, Cote is here to go over it again, in short sentences and simple words:

(1) For most of the last thread, you banged on about how stuff had to be eternal because "something out of nothing" was illogical (according to you).

(2) Then I mentioned some facts about how the universe works now, and you said those were "illogical".

Conclusions:

(1) You accept that the universe doesn't obey your "logic".

(2) As such, you can't expect the beginning of the universe (Big Bang) to obey your logic.

Is that clear?

BackOnlyBadly.
"Evolution is mostly accepted by Christians" because it can be shown to be happening now."^
The bible predicts that many christians will become lukewarm, diluted, ineffective. They believe in God but prefer to run with the crowd and ditch the unpopular parts of the bible. Most people don't actually bother to research for themselves, they just stare wide eyed at the TV and accept everything they're spoon-fed. Most, but not all.

"because it can be shown to be happening now."
Really? What evolution is 'happening now' as you put it?

"Also consider why god would create people with mistakes like the appendix."
The appendix as proof of evolution isn't even considered true anymore by evolutionary scientists
corporate.dukemedicine.org/news_and_publications/news_office/news/evolution_of_the_appendix_a_biological_remnant_no_more

Cote: your posts seem to indicate that you think studying physics means you know more than anything else about anything.

You do know that some people have studied a lot more physics than you and still believe in God, don't you?

Cote: if you have posited an illogical universe

in which the laws of logic do not apply

you cannot use the laws of logic

to disprove the existence of God.

Is this simple enough for you?

'I mentioned some facts about how the universe works now, and you said those were "illogical". '

Must your posts resort to not telling the truth, Cote? Oh dearie me. You asked 'are these things logical?'. I said : 'if you are telling me that these things are illogical I will readily accept it.'

I think you were trying to me all mysterious and tricking, and it fell rather flat, because I'm quite happy to accept whatever you tell me about these experiments. You weren't telling me anything - It took quite a long time to squeeze your actual point out of you, and I'm afraid it was destroyed in a flash.

As you can see, your arguments are rebutted with the greatest of ease.

By the way, you actually used the word 'logical' in the wrong way in the question 'are these things logical'. But I let it go.

And you seem to be taking back your words now. Sigh.

I'll give you another chance.

Answer the two questions that start "Is it logical..." with the affirmative, if that is what you would like to try this time. See how far that gets you.

Don't worry. You will soon arrive at the same point and accept that the universe doesn't follow your binary logic.

Poor you, Cote, you must be awfully upset if you have to be so rude an insulting. Let's not lose our tempers.

Cote: would you like to insert the word 'conventional' or classical'?

Just about every atheist on this thread (apart from those just who don't like religion) have cited the lack of rationality and logic for not believing in the existence of God - using the terms, one can only assume, based 'on life on this planet of solid states and Cartesian geometry'. On classical physics?

Now you appear to be implying that eEvery single one of those arguments is empty and invalid, you say.

You still need to show that zero plus zero can equal one.

I'm not upset, Frustrated. Getting upset and angry at a student never helps with the learning process. I'm just a bit sad that after all this time and effort, we clearly have not made any progress. Your knowledge on this subject is as close to zero as it was several days ago.

And you continue to say stuff that has nothing to do with my posts. A defence mechanism?

CoteDAzur - your behaviour here has been unacceptable and has been reported as contravening the Mumsnet P's & Q's. Same with BigDorrit, whose post has already been removed. Can we please keep it nice?

"You do know that some people have studied a lot more physics than you and still believe in God, don't you?"

This isn't about God. You and I are talking about the origin of the universe. And on that subject, I am saying exactly what physicists are saying.

I wouldn't get into a debate about whether or not there is a watchmaker god, because that would be foolish - nobody knows. As I said before, I'm not interested in belief supported by no evidence.

CoteDAzur, you are saying exactly what some physicists are saying.

Not all.