How does creationism explain....

Originally posted by saint4God
The Bible explains how old the earth is? Where?

I see no-one has answered this question yet.

And noone will answer this question. !!!! B/c it was a stupid statement in the begginning. No where in the bible does it keep time. The bible is not even in consecutive order. Mathew, Mark, Luke and John all say the same thing. Just in different perspectives. How can you tell time from the same story reqad four times ? Just wondering ! The old testament it sais that Matheusala was the oldest man in the bible he lived to be almost 700 years old. If one man was in the bible for seven hundred years, in about 2 pages of my 1000's of pages in my bible. Never mind some of you will never put any more effort to believ in something as you will some of your families working out, or making friends and learning to agree to disagree. So that everyone could be different.

Originally posted by The Big O
How does creationism explain items that are carbon dated older than the bible says the earth is?

Usually creationists will do one of a few things. They will say that its the work of the devil, that the devil created these things to trick people and that god allows this. Or they will say that god did this, that god created the world exactly how its described in the bible, but also made it have the appearance of extreme old age (often called 'the omphalos idea"). The other thing that they will do is point to some erroneous usages of carbon dating, ie dating living samples, or dating samples that are far to old to be used, and say that this invalidates all carbon dating.

Also, what is the religious take on dinosaurs? One big hoax?

Similiar to the above. Either they're omphallically created, or they'll say that man and dinosaur co-existed, becaues the bible mentions a 'bohemoth', a 'big creature', and thats supposed to mean dinosaur. Nevernmind where the small dinosaurs worked into this.

How does creationism explain things that lived and died before man showed up?

They insist that they were all created at the same time.

Of course, this is only applicable to "Young Earth Creationists", YECists, not OEcists, Old Earth Creationists, many of whom will say that there were sucessions of differnt creations. A fishy creation. An age when only amphibians ruled the earth, then were wiped out, and then replaced by a new creation and, usually, a new environment to correspond to them.

I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being serious. I want to know the theory on the other side to counteract these items.

There is no theory. Creationism is not a science. It doesn't operate by making observations and trying to explain them logically/rationally. It doesn't test its 'statements' or try to refute them. Indeed, it makes its 'statements' 'refutation proof', so that one can't disprove them or contradict them. Its irrational, not rational, not science.

If you are curious about creationist arguements, check out the Answers in Genesis website or the Institute for Creationist Research site, or, if you -really- want a good laugh, go to 'drdino.com'. You can also find other creationist arguements on www.talkorigins.org. Please note that its talkorigins, with an s. Its not a creationist website, but it does have indexes of their arguements and essays on their arguements and links to other creationist pages.

saint4god
I don't understand why the existence of dinosaurs negates God

I don't think anyone claims that it does.

If you're wondering why dinosaurs aren't in the Bible, I'd say it's because it was unimportant

Perhaps its because they weren't around when the bible was written no? One needn't deny the existence of god merely because genesis isn't a literal step by step account of creation.

jupiter
Remember that creationism (or the new phrase: intelligent design to be politically correct and give possible credit to Aliens as well as God)

Id is not an attempt at being politically correct. Its an attempt to give more pseudoscientific credence to creationist theories. By saying 'well, we don't know for a fact who the creator is, all we know is that we can detect supernatural design' they are trying to make it seem like they are being scientific when they in fact are not.

is a theory, just as evolution is a theory

Creationism, of any of its forms, is not a scientific theory.

Creationism may be more difficult or impossible to prove which

Evolutionary Theory cannot be proven. Its a theory, theories don't 'get proven'. Creationism isn't science, not because it can't be proven, but because, amoung other things, its immpossible to refute or contradict. It can explain anything and everything. "God did it" is not a theory.

Evolution may be the tool of intelligent design.

Evolution cannot be the tool of intelligent design, at least not as Intelligent Design advocates present ID. They state that Intelligent Design can be detected because evolution can't work. The general public tends to think, i beleive, that god 'used' evolution to make everything, but thats not what creationism or its subvariant 'intelligent design', state.

phantom chatter
Ok, first, Carbon dating has been proven inacurate, in tests it dated a piece of shell at having died 11,000,000 years ago.

Ah, its nice to see that some one did make this statement. As I noted above, carbon dating isn't supposed to be used on living and recent organisms. It has a range of effectiveness and looses accuracy outside of that range. It also has to be calibrated. Luckily, tree growth rings give a long term record that allow it to be calibrated. Any method, if used improparly like above, is going to give improper and incorrect results. That hardly means that the method shouldn't be used when it can be used properly

Second, Dinosaurs (at least thats what people think is described there) are mentioned in the book of job

There is no mention of anything that is specific to dinosaurs anywhere in the bible.

triobite (cant spell it) fossils had been found next to fossilized footprints of humans wearing sandals.

This, however, is untrue. trilobites have not been found next to fossilized sandal prints
this is the image in question

Its not a sandal footprint. Its just a vague oblong shape.

I have found out all this in books and of course the answers in genisis website.

AIG are an extremely dishonest group of people. As far as I recall, lying is not something jesus wants people to do, but i guess thats not important to them.

shaunybaby
. if the bible really is the word of god or inspired by god then im sure they would have mention dinosaurs

Why? If god created the universe, he could very well have made it so dinosaurs and man didn't coexist (iow, a dinosaur age, then destruction, and then a man age). Its silly, but there's nothing that can disprove it.For my own part, if dinosaurs were around when the bible was written, they'd've noticed it. Not only would they have noticed it, but they'd've listen them as kosher, non-kosher, good for selling to gentils or all sorts of things. There's no way that they'd go unoticed but the hyrax would get a description or rodents would be included.

phantom chatter
Ok, what does that creature sound like?

Sounds like any number of animals. The portion about the tail is thought to be a mistranslation. Rather than a tail and thigh sinews, its talking about 'powerful loins'. You can decide what is associated with a big animals powerful loins and that sways like a cedar. And dinosaurs didn't feed on grass like oxes.

shaunybaby
the fact that their bones are fossilised, which does not take less than 50,000 years

Fossilization can occur over varying rates. The people who were geologists and naturalists in darwin's day and in the generation before him were 'creationists', but they didn't beleive that the earth was extremely young. Even old earth creationists don't beleive that the earth is young. Young Earth Creationists are a very small minority that take the bible absolutely literally and that also, for some odd reason, take that old 'generations count' as being divine information also.

As shmick noted, there are several other creationism/evolution threads going on right now, it'd be a good idea for people to move into them, it'd be interesting to have everyone discussing it at once rather than bringing up good points in all different places where not everyone can read them.

[edit on 21-12-2004 by Nygdan]

I had a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease...should be better momentarily.

[edit on 21-12-2004 by saint4God]

[edit on 21-12-2004 by saint4God]

Originally posted by Nygdan

Also, what is the religious take on dinosaurs? One big hoax?

Similiar to the above. Either they're omphallically created, or they'll say that man and dinosaur co-existed, becaues the bible mentions a 'bohemoth',

Interesting how the word 'bohemoth' is similar to 'mammoth'.. not sure when they got hunted into extinction though.

Originally posted by Phantom Chatter
You say there is no mention of dinosaurs in the bible? True, not the exact word dinosaur, but here, read this direct qoute from Job chapter 40, verse 15 to 24 and tell me what you think they are talking about.

15. Look at the behemoth which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.
16. What strength has he in his loins, what power in his muscles in his belly!
17. His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit.
18. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron.
19. He ranks first among the works of god, yet his maker can approah him with a sword.
20. The hills bring him there produce, and all the wild animal play nearby.
21. Under the lotus plants he lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh.
22. The lotuses conceal him in there shadow; the poplars by the stream surround him.
23. When the river rages he is not alarmed: he is secure, thought the Jordan should surge agaisnt his mouth.
24. Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?

Ok, what does that creature sound like? (remember, this was written a couple thousand years before the first dinosaur fossil was found)

Sounds like a crocodile to me! Except perhaps the feeding on grass, unless it means, feeding on christians on the grass! LOL
Incidently some Dinosaurs (among the biggest) were herbivors!
On second reading it sounds like a perfect description of a hippo!

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Man,

There was some good stuff posted on here.

There was also some silly stuff and some nasty stuff too.

Overall, most of the posts have filled me in on what I was looking for... the other sides explanation.

I think the fact that I actually asked for views, instead of saying people have to prove them, says that I'm not brainwashed in evolution, I was born and raised Catholic.

Maybe part of the disconnect with me is how things are taught about creationism. It's all or nothing. Bible is right, not wrong. Mind you this was MY experience growing up. There just never seemed room for any debate of questioning. It seemed bland and boring, as if thinking freely was wrong.

Turned me off from the whole religion thing.

To me, I don't discard that a "higher power" of some form could exist. I don't say that it does for certain either.

I dunno... makes for some damn good discussions though!

Thanks everyone!

Originally posted by The Big O
Maybe part of the disconnect with me is how things are taught about creationism. It's all or nothing. Bible is right, not wrong. Mind you this was MY experience growing up. There just never seemed room for any debate of questioning. It seemed bland and boring, as if thinking freely was wrong.

That's not cool at all. Sorry to hear. Proverbs is a great book on 'how to think' instead of 'what to think'. It may have an appeal for you if you want to check it out.

Originally posted by The Big O
Turned me off from the whole religion thing.

That's a beast but know where you're coming from. For me it was being a kid forced into long, dull sermons. It took many years to come around and pick up the Book in order to have thoughts of my own.

Originally posted by The Big O
To me, I don't discard that a "higher power" of some form could exist.

Good! I'd say keep looking, you'll find Him.

Originally posted by The Big O
Thanks everyone!

Glad to help.

I wouldnt no if Adam named every species of the dog for instance, or dinosaur.
what I do no, is that it wouldnt matter if Adam DID name every pooch and dalmation, it wouldnt make a bit of difference because fact is only 2 types of dog animals made it on the ark anyway, so according to the Bible, all the different breads of dogs today for instance were produced from 2 dogs.

Shaunybaby, u crack me up on this quote

"dinosaurs were not mentioned in job nor anywhere else in the bible. the word 'dinosaur' is new to our dictionary made around 100 or so years ago. so the biblical people did not have any knowlodge whatsoever about dinosaurs and their pre-existance to mankind. i believe that this all-knowing book has just been proved not to be an all-knowing book
for a book that tells us of miracles, jesus, moses, adam and eve, noah's ark but they forgot to mention dinosaurs existed...sorry that doesn't cut it with me. if the bible really is the word of god or inspired by god then im sure they would have mention dinosaurs
even if they were not mentioned in great detail... could have just been 'and the lord said to moses, there were dinosaurs living here before you existed. i made them extinct because i was bored of my creation and thought humans would be a much greater experient. so go fourth and tell people of these dinosaurs. also tell them that i created man-kind and you are all inferior to me'."

well, duh! the word dinosaur never even existed back then!!! of Course God would have known it would soon be called dino, but back then it was called dragon, and God was telling the dudes who wrote the books what to say according to THEIR language, not OURS. thats a stupid argument, honestly, someone not beliveing in the Bible would agree. why would God have inspired the Bible by having the peeps write it in the words that had never been invented before now. God deals with the time THEN, not the future, which is now back then.
thats like saying God was being ignorant, cause he didnt give instructions to the people writting the original words in english, (which the proper english we speak today was invented back then) and God should have known and not wrote it in a style THEY would understand.
secondly... thi is not true

"the reason why i say over 1 million is because christians will say yeh but how do you know they lived 65 million years ago cause carbon dating is wrong etc. well it would be a fact that dinosaurs lived that long ago on the fact that their bones are fossilised, which does not take less than 50,000 years...it would take millions of years."
the question is, and how would they no that it takes millions of years? its not a fact either.

lol well i'm glad i cracked you up. but i must thank you for cracking me up...''dragons''? well i think were getting mixed up here, dinosaurs are fact and dragons are myths. if you talk about a dragon you are not talking about dinosaurs. if you talk about a bellmoth you are not talking about dinosaurs. the bible never mentions anything about dinosaurs because that was unknown knowledge when it was written. my point is that if dinosaurs lived in the context of the creationists world then they would have been mentioned in the bible. the fact that there is no mention of them is because according to the bible dinosaurs never set foot on earth whether it was 50,000 or 65 million years ago.
could you even begin to imagine what people would believe today if nobody dug up any dinosaurs or had theories of evolution? we would all be a very closed minded world, a very ignorant world and last of all a very religious world

Originally posted by shaunybaby
lol well i'm glad i cracked you up. but i must thank you for cracking me up...''dragons''? well i think were getting mixed up here, dinosaurs are fact and dragons are myths. if you talk about a dragon you are not talking about dinosaurs. if you talk about a bellmoth you are not talking about dinosaurs. the bible never mentions anything about dinosaurs because that was unknown knowledge when it was written. my point is that if dinosaurs lived in the context of the creationists world then they would have been mentioned in the bible. the fact that there is no mention of them is because according to the bible dinosaurs never set foot on earth whether it was 50,000 or 65 million years ago.
could you even begin to imagine what people would believe today if nobody dug up any dinosaurs or had theories of evolution? we would all be a very closed minded world, a very ignorant world and last of all a very religious world

oh really? dragons are myths? no their not.
Dragon: Any of various lizards, such as the Komodo dragon or the flying lizard. Archaic A large snake or serpent. did u no that the older a "lizard" type animal lives, the more it grows. certain types dont stop growing ever. and according to the Bible, people lived about 1K years back in da day. so, a logical conclusion would be to draw that animals lived a lot longer than they do now. we get that from the greenhouse effect and other evidence in the Bible of why animals would live longer, a different climate than today. so take a 2K year old lizard. thats a pretty big guy, wouldnt u say? so since the word "saur" never existed in the 1700's, yer saying that they were mythical back then? look at the weather records in the 1700's, their are reports of "a large flock of dragons flying north" but the dragons arent important, where they go is for weather patterns. if their mythical, why are they mentioed in nearly every civilization for documentation, as the king of babylon was raising dragons to pull his chariots. the conclusion would be that the "dragon" isnt small, but not to big if its gonna pull the king. hence... "raising"
u sound so certain that dino's were not known to man bak in da day a few hunred years ago and beyond. when thats only true according to evolution. I believe people new about dino's. or "dragons" as they would call them long ago. again, u say the Bible doesnt mention dinosaurs because it was unknown knowledge back then. thats based on the assumption of evolution. the Bible does mention "dragons" and creatures that fit perfect descriptions of dinosaurs.

"the fact that there is no mention of them is because according to the bible dinosaurs never set foot on earth whether it was 50,000 or 65 million years ago."
not true- its in no way a fact its not mentioned, cause they are mentioned and described. and where in the Bible does it state that dino's never stepped foot on earth? read Genesis chapter 2 verse 18-22. it states Adam named ALL wild animals, ALL tame animals, and ALL flying creatures in the sky.
by ALL, that means ALL of God's creation. including Dinosaurs.

"could you even begin to imagine what people would believe today if nobody dug up any dinosaurs or had theories of evolution? we would all be a very closed minded world, a very ignorant world and last of all a very religious world "
were still a very religious world. and we'd all be very closed minded?
more like wed all be closer to the truth. but thats your oppinion. evolution hasnt even had to much improvment, considering DNA codes since the 1980's show its very difficult to do these "mutations" and its scientifically impossible, to belive in this theory that takes so much faith to belive in is close mindedness.
so what if evolution was never made up? either the truth wouldnt be out there, or there would be one less BS story out there.
and it all sounds like a bunch of BS to me that couldnt have happened.

and to answer Saint for God's thing of how he said

"and still no one has answered this question yet" of where the Bible says how old the earth is.

The Bible does not specifically say "the earth is XXX" years old. but, given the assumption time starts with Adam, and the Bible gives Adam's family heritage down to birth and death to Noah, u can add up their lives they all lived, and come to Noah, which then it tells u the year, and batta boom batta bang- the age of earth no more than 10K years old according to Bible. look it up yereself if ya want, its in Genesis, gives how long the people lived to show age of earth.

Originally posted by jupiter869
Evolution may be the tool of intelligent design.

This is what I believe. Thanks Jupitor for bringing some light to the dark sides of the pole.

well the fact that every civilisation wrote about them wouldn't make dragons any more real. egypt wrote about a god called ra...he was the god of the sun, and the greeks wrote about a god who held the world up. just because these are documented does not mean we should take them literaly. for instance 2000 years ago a 'dragon' as you call it could have been a large komodo dragon. just like the bellmoth was described as being big etc...that could have just been an over grown hippo. just because one animal of a certain species is a bit bigger than the norm does not mean we should call it a difference species alltogether.
also the word dragon is so vague its hard to know how you're interpreting it. i would interpret it as a flying fire breathing lizard, which is what the stereotypical dragon is.
the bible's messiah story is just stolen hindu legend, same with the virgin birth. some parts may be a little logical here and there but the rest is contradictory and in parts fairytale-like. it is not relevent today because the world is a different place and we know have evidence that prooves the bible is wrong...however, christians do not want to accept this fact. christianity is not a faith anymore, nor religion...its a business.

Originally posted by riley
Interesting how the word 'bohemoth' is similar to 'mammoth'.. not sure when they got hunted into extinction though.

I don't think a connection can be made however. Though it would be interesting. The 'tail' could be the trunk and they do eat all sorts of things. However, mamoths probably weren't around the levant, but elephants probably were.

Originally posted by Slicky1313
and to answer Saint for God's thing of how he said

"and still no one has answered this question yet" of where the Bible says how old the earth is.

The Bible does not specifically say "the earth is XXX" years old. but, given the assumption time starts with Adam, and the Bible gives Adam's family heritage down to birth and death to Noah, u can add up their lives they all lived, and come to Noah, which then it tells u the year, and batta boom batta bang- the age of earth no more than 10K years old according to Bible. look it up yereself if ya want, its in Genesis, gives how long the people lived to show age of earth.

Thanks Slicky1313, now I can see where some of this is coming from. Genesis 5, the lineage of Adam gives in years. Much appreciated. The year is given somewhere in Noah's lifetime? Lost me here, help!

Originally posted by Nygdan
I don't think a connection can be made however. Though it would be interesting. The 'tail' could be the trunk and they do eat all sorts of things. However, mamoths probably weren't around the levant, but elephants probably were.

I was more thinking of the language connection as most names for animals come from some sort of desciption.. but I'm inclined to agree though.. the water one is probably a crocodile or hippo.. if they were refferring to the ocean it could be a shark, whale etc. the behemoth could be something similar to an ox.. or even a rhino. There are many extinct animals that are not dinosaurs that were feared.

ok, well, Saint for God- just type in Bible's age of earth in a search engine, and you'll find plenty of references to ages in the Bible and they add them up- just look for it sometime.

and can anyone give evidence of how the Bible ha been PROVEN wrong?

KJ,NIV,NAS versions please. Ive searched for contradictions in the Bible, and havent found any. can anyone please give PROOF of how the Bible is false, instead of pointing the finger and saying its false, without presenting information and falsness in it?

All I can say is, I havent found any, so please enlighten me if u got any. and evolution is just all about chances. what makes u so sure that these creatures keep the right "links" and discard the wrong ones. what if the next time comes and the right ones are lost. even so, the chances are very high of it ever happening anyway.

Ok, first, the behemoth cannot be an elephant, or any other large living creature, because of the simple phrase that its tail sways like a cedar tree. This tail would have to be very large, and an elephants tail is very short and thin, like a twig. No large living land animal has a large heavy tail, which would be required for it to be compared to a cedar tree. Also, the bible doesn't talk about mythological creatures in the real world, only in heaven, so it talking about something mythological is highly unlikely.

Some other things to add, the behemoth couldn't have been ether a hippo or crocodile ether, for crocodiles eat meat, not grass, and hippos have this tiny little flap of skin for a tail. And as for the tail being an elephants trunk, even several thousand years ago I believe they could tell an animals front end from its rear. It is far more likely to be a large plant eating dinosaur.

For all of you who wonder about why not all the dinosaurs were listed in the bible, thats simple. God didn't describe every single creature he ever made in the bible, for that wasn't the point of it.

Also, those "vauge oblong" things are sandle prints. They look just like the prints you would expect to find from the footwear people way back then wore. And fossils don't take 65,000 years to form. A fossilized miners hat was found after being stuck down in a mine for only about 50 years, so the right conditions can make fossils very quickly.

Also, why must the people who wrote the books and websites I've read be lying and people who write evolution be telling the truth?


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