Does Carbon 14 Dating Really Disprove The Bible? Is It Even Science?

a reply to: mikefougnie

the Bible was written by what we would consider primitive cultures, at least in regards to science. No writings of DNA, radioactive materials, carbon dating..... primitive words for primitive people. The use of a number as large as a million was hardly useful, let alone to discuss the age of the earth. If it is at all useful today, it is only by understanding it in the context of the age(s) it was written in. Message vs actual word for word truth, IMHO. Did Jonah live in the belly of a whale for some time? Did the entire earth get covered in a flood with only a few surviving members? Who's children did Adam and Eve marry? It hardly makes sense at all. And if God did create Everything, then he also created Physical Laws such as radioactive decay. Apart from Miracles, SCIENCE is his creation too, or rather, the rules of Everything. It's just our curiosity that makes us wonder the Who, Where, What, How, Why, and When of it all. THAT is scientific study. How it all fits together. For Bible believers to deny science is for them to deny God's created system itself.

originally posted by: [post=18409264]jax
1. When there were uses of larger numbers, metaphors were used. "More than the stars of the sky" "More than the sands of the shore". ETC.
2. Jonah was in a large Fish, not a whale. "God provided a fish"
3. Incest is not only disgusting but causes genetic problems when two people have the same genetic flaws. This did not apply when God first created humans. Adams son married his sister. Jesus' mom married her cousin.
4. Physics shows the mind of God.

a reply to: mikefougnie

You don't need carbon dating to disprove the bible. Even a modest retard, would realize that the bible is a collection of stolen work by the Israelis, and later by Rome.

Israel and Egypt ... the former exists about a thousand years later, than the other The hieroglyphs proves this ... the Egyptians vanished in the middle-east. And were replaced by people who used phonetic writings. The Israelis are an early such people, but not the first nor the second. Egyptians in Greek and Roman times, were not "hieroglyph" populace. These Egyptians are communicating with Greeks and Romans, in non-hieroglyph format, so to speak.

Even if we ignored these facts, the thousand year kingdom is an absolute Copy of China. After knowing this, you should actually go and research what more than that is actually Chinese. And you'd be surprised.

A people wandered out of the middle east, a long long time ago. To China, settled in the western region of China, and then from there to Europe. This is a historic common route for migration to Europe ... not through the mediterranian sea. The connection then comes much later, as the migrated people start populating Greece as Hellas. At which time, boat building has emerged and a direct connection between the two sides of the mediterranian starts. And becomes a conflict, as the people of the middle-east are seeking a route over the mediterranian. The greeks then settle on the shores of the middle-east, known today as Israel. In books, sometimes referred to as Filestines. It's through word of mouth, that these stories make it into the middle-east society and become an extremely deformed version of their originals. And also, why so many Asian stories, appear familiar. This is also why, the Germanic populace went on Crusades to the middle-east and why the Erased the Roman empire, and replaced it with a religious complex, that basically is telling all of Europe, that they and the israelis have the same origin. You should have listened to that, a little more ... driven by a need, they selected stories to replace other European stories, for this particular purpose. And which later, was used as a background for Conquest. Because during these two thousand years, a lot of immigration from the middle east has occurred ... and as it does, the fresh migrants erase the "crusaiders" flags, and the entire memory.

This is the base line of events ... the details are much more complex. And they are complex, because the bible is like the book of Mormon. It is written with a purpose, which isn't a historical purpose. But it's purpose has been twisted through the centuries ... and been replaced by need of conquest, rather than spiritual awakening.

a reply to: mikefougnie

What word of God? It was a fabricated story. Creation myth. Fiction. Books written, to foster tribal nationalism. That kind of thing is good for waging war.

I provided a source, backing up my claim that the authorship is in question, as there is no solid dome. That is an error in the text. Trust me, I have plenty of examples.

Could you please provide us forensic and scientific proof it is true?

Forewarning: You may have a problem with that.

a reply to: Not Authorized

From your link:
“For all physicists know, dragons could have come flying out of the singularity,” says Niayesh Afshordi, an astrophysicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada.

a reply to: mikefougnie

Indeed. You get it now?

a reply to: Not Authorized

I get it: Paladine. The Platinum Dragon at The Singularity - Opening.

a reply to: mikefougnie

oh - if you are going to get anywhere - you need to actually study geology and radiometric dating techniques - using scientific sources - NOT the babblings of creationists

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Another round of creationist whack-a-mole! As soon as one's incompetent attacks are dismantled, another one soon takes their place.

The thing is, it doesn't matter, because there is a whole host of physical and geological evidence for an Old Earth, not young.

For example, incrementalism shows that the sea floor is moving away from the mid-Atlantic ridge at a relatively steady rate. That rate is in centimeters or inches per year I think. Looking at hardened lava or crust that clearly was once near the ridge but is now far away, it is easy to extrapolate how long it took to get there. That length of time is far far greater than what the 6000 years of fundamentalism allows for.

Please don't bring up the classic Christian apologism of "catastrophism" or "changing laws of nature" or "God create the universe as if it was old and already in process." None of those really work.

The catastrophism argument may be advanceable for certain things, but it cannot be used to deny all of the evidence for ancient slow processes.

"“Radiometric dating would not have been feasible if the geologic column had not been erected first. [1]” They do not date fossils by carbon dating. Fossils are dated by their geological position. And as we mentioned earlier the dates on the geologic column were chosen out of the clear blue sky with no scientific basis. So their entire dating method for dating rocks and fossils is based off of circular reasoning.
The earth’s atmosphere is about 100 miles thick. The atmosphere has very distinctive layers to it. The earth’s atmosphere contains: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, .06% carbon dioxide, and .0000765% radioactive carbon. This radioactive carbon 14 is different from regular carbon. It is produced by radiation striking the atmosphere. In essence, sunlight strikes the atmosphere, slaps the nitrogen around, and turns it into carbon 14. So it all starts by the sunlight striking the atmosphere. About 21 pounds of carbon 14 is produced every year; and that is spread out all over the world.
If you look at a periodic table you will notice that Carbon and Nitrogen are right next to each other. Nitrogen has an atomic weight of 14 and Carbon has an atomic weight of 12. If the sunlight slaps the nitrogen around, like talked about earlier, it will knock a few things off of it and it becomes Carbon 14. It still weighs as much as nitrogen, but it is now considered carbon. It is called radioactive because it is unstable and will eventually break apart. On average half of it will break down every 5,730 years.
While it is Carbon 14 it is floating around in the atmosphere and latches onto oxygen becoming carbon dioxide. During photosynthesis plants breathe in carbon dioxide and make it part of their tissue. Animals eat plants and make it part of their bodies as well. This is how Carbon 14 gets into the living world. It gets produced in the atmosphere from the sun, the plants breathe it in, and the animals eat the plants. We have all either eaten plants or eaten animals that have eaten plants. The plants are breathing in this carbon dioxide and some of the carbon is radioactive. If the atmosphere contains .0000765% radioactive carbon, it is assumed that the plants also have .0000765% radioactive carbon as well. So, you probably have .0000765% carbon 14 in you because you have been eating these plants or eating the animals that have eaten the plants.
When a plant or animal dies it stops taking in carbon 14 and whatever it had starts to decay. It was decaying while it was alive, but now there is nothing coming in to replace it. So what they do is compare the amount of carbon 14 in the fossil to the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere. If the fossil only contains half as much carbon 14 as the atmosphere, it is assumed to have been dead for one half-life, or 5,730 years. While it was alive it should have had .0000765% carbon 14. If a fossil only has .00003825% of carbon 14 it has been dead for one half-life. In theory the amount of carbon 14 never goes to zero. However, for practical purposes we cannot measure passed a certain amount. There should be no measurable carbon 14 after about 40,000 – 50,000 years.
“With their short 5,700 year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980’s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it. Lately the world’s best such laboratory which has learned during two decades of low-C14 measurements how not to contaminate specimens externally, under contract to creationists, confirmed such observations for coal samples and even for a dozen diamonds, which cannot be contaminated in situ with recent carbon. These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old. [2]”
Now think for a minute of what this means. The textbooks say that coal formed 250 million years ago. However, when coal is tested it still has carbon 14. How is that possible? If all of the carbon 14 atoms would have disappeared at a maximum of 250,000 years, why would there still be carbon 14 atoms in coal? Obviously it is not 250 million years old. Also diamonds, which they say formed millions and millions of years ago, still have carbon 14 in them. So how do you get carbon 14 in diamonds? Again it is obvious that they are not millions of years old.
The carbon dating assumptions need to be pointed out. The earth’s atmosphere is gaining 21 pounds of carbon 14 every year. It is also losing carbon 14 through decay. The question is how long would it take the atmosphere to reach a stage called equilibrium? The people who invented carbon 14 dating in the 1940’s did a lot of studies on this matter. They wanted to figure out how long it would take the atmosphere to reach a point where the construction rate and the destruction rate of carbon 14 was the same. They determined that it would take about 30,000 years to reach this equilibrium state. They made two bad assumptions after they came up with this calculation. They assumed that the earth was millions of years old and then assumed that they could ignore the equilibrium problem. It has been discovered that the earth has still not reached equilibrium. “Radiocarbon is forming 28-37% faster than it is decaying. [3]”
Now think about that for a minute. If radiocarbon is still forming faster than it is decaying, that means the earth is less than 30,000 years old. It also means that you cannot carbon date anything! The reason is because you would have to know when the fossil was alive to know how much carbon 14 was in the atmosphere at that time. It simply does not work.
If you find a fossil in the dirt, the amount of carbon 14 can be measured and the rate of decay can be determined. However, that is all that can be determined. It is impossible to know how much carbon 14 was in it at death and it is impossible to know if carbon 14 has always decayed at the same rate.

Again, there is a whole list of other evidence for an OLD EARTH, not just radiocarbon dating. Lots and lots of geological evidence.

There is virtually no evidence outside of extreme mental gymnastics by fundamentalists to support a Young Earth.

originally posted by: mikefougnie
If the earth had a canopy of water above the atmosphere, or a canopy of ice, that would have blocked out a lot of the radiation from the sun. This would have prevented most of the carbon 14 from even forming. Animals that lived before the flood would have lived in a world with much less carbon 14 to begin with. There may have been none at all, but the amount would certainly be less than what we have today.
“If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely ‘out of date’, we just drop it. [4]” So does this mean that they simply choose any numbers that they want? That is exactly correct. If the number doesn’t fit what they expected, they throw the number out.
Here are some things to consider about carbon dating. When something of known age is dated: it doesn’t work. When something of unknown age is dated: carbon dating is assumed to work. That is not science!
[1] O’Rourke, J. E., “Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy,” American Journal of Science, vol. 276 (January 1976), p. 54
[2] www.ICR.org
[3] R.E. Taylor et al., “Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry,” American Antiquity, Vol. 50, No. 1 1985 pp. 136-140
[4] T. Save-Soderbergh and I.U. Olsson (Institute of Egyptology and Institute of Physics respectively, Univ. of Uppsala, Sweden), C-14 dating and Egyptian chronology in Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology”, Proceedings of the twelfth Nobel Symposium, New York 1970, p. 35

originally posted by: mikefougnie
a reply to: Not Authorized

I know that it is not the only available method. Others include helium dating and measuring the salt content of the ocean. There are actually an abundant number of ways to measure ages. Reading an account of one who was there when it happened is usually the best, if you trust the source.

The problem is the source is extremely questionable. I lost faith in Christianity through a whole host of studies, including being raised Christian, reading the Bible, learning the history of Christianity, studying global history and religion, and living life and learning science.

There are countless problems in the Bible from mistranslations to the fact that the Council of Nicea threw out lots of books, focusing on one interpretation, to contradictions, to extremely poor and twisted theology, to God telling the Israelites to commit genocide on the Canaanites in the Old Testament.

Long story short, it's actually one of the worst religious texts out there. I'm not another religion either, but a spiritual independent. However, both Judaism and Islam have more logically consistent and less twisted total philosophies than Christianity, as does Hinduism and Buddhism. Right or wrong, they are more philosophically complete.

a reply to: mikefougnie

When copy and pasting someone else's work it is customary to provide a citation to show your source and to give them appropriate credit instead of passing it off as your own work. I would especially think you would want credit to be given properly so that people don't think you yourself are so sumb as to make such glaring errors in your work.

The OP pontificates endlessly on the flaws of 14C dating methodology and then attempts to link unjustifiably ancient dates to this technique. It's absolute insanity because 1.14C is never the only source of an ascribed date,2. it has actually been verified by cross referencing tree ring data with 14C dating of wood from the verified samples and tree ring dates and 3. Is only applicable to dates of 60,000 years or less so the ludicrous claims that is used to verify the age of the Earth are completely fabricated.

I would encourage you to engage in some due diligence for yourself instead of just copy and pasting from a creationist source that supports your preconceived notions without actually understanding the science you're attempting to mock and debunk.

a reply to: mikefougnie

Your entire OP was plagiarised from this site

www.truthingenesis.com...

It is derived from a transcript of Dr. Hovind’s video

Convicted felon Kent Hovind no less.....

I would point OP towards a number of excellent books about C-14 dating, because there is clearly some pretty fundemental misunderstanding of the science and principle behind the process.

Colin Renfrew's Before Civilisation was the introductory text to the issue for my archaeology degree course, and while it is probably quite badly out of date now, it might be a good starting point, and it's quite accessible. (For an archaeology textbook.)

a reply to: mikefougnie

Surely, creationists should reject outright any discussion about their beliefs about the age of the Earth, how we got here, how other flora and fauna got here and how long ago this happened, and simply ask whatever god they believe is their creator and is watching over them and listening to their prayers etc?

I don't suppose there will be anyone wanting to take a bet on whether or not they get a definitive answer directly from the deity?

'God' seems to be the most powerful entity that has ever or will ever exist...created everything we see and everything we've yet to see, everywhere..yet seems to be the most absent, reluctant, shy and retiring entity in the entire Universe!

Millions claim this and that about a god or another...yet none of these gods, not one directly communicates with any of the millions of sucke...believers.

You know how it goes folks...photos / video of god telling you the answers to all these innocent questions..or it didn't happen!

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
not that I'm with you on the age of Earth...but I do consider C14 dating to be ridiculous attempt to assert authority on such matters. Too many unknown factors to calculate in the equation. Yet we simply work with what we know and pretend that unknown factors don't play a role in our math.

Equally ridiculous attempt is dating by way of bible

The bible is a historical document. The only question of historical accuracy is from Genesis to Exodus. Everything after Exodus we know happened due to other texts and archeological evidence. The only unknown after exodus is spiritual in nature.

To compare the bible, where most of the history can be known, to carbon dating which is pseudo science at best, is a very poor comparison.

Science has proven nothing about the age of anything that is not known to be of a certain age.

I used to believe that the world is 6000 years old, and it could be. I didn't change my mind because of the visual evidence that suggests an older earth, but rather based on the creation account in the Koran.

What is obvious, scientist are willing to lie to make a name for themselves. Currently the only way to make a name for yourself is to agree with the current unprovable theory.

a reply to: MysterX

Surely scientists should spend all their resources on finding out HOW we got here. Then maybe they will realize the WHY is the only thing that really matters.

When the How becomes the Why we are lost.

Funny how no one on this particular thread, debunked anything in the OP... Just more slander and juvenile group think, with patting of each others back, all the while claiming to be superior in both intellect, and maturity. Yet displaying neither. Seems like the answer to the OP is either:

A: Shut up! you don't know what your talking about!

B: There are other methods of dating the Earth. (All of which presume an old Earth.)

C: The Bible is dumb! God doesn't exist, and it's all in your mind!

Paraphrasing, but yeah, the usual responses to this sort of thing. As bad in it's own way, as any religious fundamentalist.

As to the OP, I have read things like this in the past, and there seems to be no real answer to the dilemma save those listed above. I personally have various feelings about the age of the Earth. I feel as if we have an incomplete picture, and we have (basically) two groups with a few puzzle pieces, both telling each other that the other one's wrong. Both require faith, people just choose their flavor of religion.

a reply to: Chronogoblin

There's nothing in the OP to debunk, the OP debunks itself by making false claims that are not and have never been ascribed to 14C dating methods. The plagiarized OP claims that 14C dating is used to corroborate the age of the Earth which is a complete fabrication because you can only date organic matter younger than 60,000 years. You can't date any type of rock period so any dating of the earth with this method is 100% impossible. I don't see how this method requires faith as you claim. It had been corroborated and verified as accurate with a margin of error of only +/- 40 years. This has been done by doing a double blind test by comparing 14C results with tree ring data and testing wood from the same samples where dates were obtained by counting the tree rings. The results were extremely accurate as is the half life of 14C very precise. There really isn't any question about it except by people who haven't actually done any research into the method, how the dates are derived and what the actual limitations of it are and what appropriate uses and acceptable materials that are able to be dated.