Out of all the religious debates....

[imnotsurewhattocallmyself]

ok, i know im fairly new here, but i would love to entertain this if you are willing to listen with an open mind. i will follow this short answer with the long answer in the next post and it will probably be longer than anyone wants to read,
"proof" of 60,000 years is through carbon dating? or relative dating? carbon being a science and relative being an art based upon carbon dating, i would assume we are focusing on carbon dating?
and before we move on, yes genealogy of 6-7000 years is a very biblical number. having said that, there are alot of references both christian and secular that refute the carbon dating timeline.
i know... carbon dating is very accurate, but only if baseline carbon amounts have been constant. in fact due to some there are two completely different correction factors due to varied descrepancies the libbey 1/2 life and the cambridge 1/2 life
this is the short answer

 

[Devastation]

It's not at all an argument against a higher being, it's an argument against the bible's validity as being "the truth". The majority of christians put all their faith in a book that is at least in part composed of "folktales". They use these "folktales" as a reason to deny science and actual evidence of existence. And what do you mean by "educated religious folk"? Out of all my years of religious studies and following the path of christianity, I only met one minister who didn't believe adam and eve were actual people. I've only met one other "christian" who thought like you do. I am glad you are a rational man, but saying that not too many educated religious folk believe that adam and eve were real doesn't seem to be true in my experience.

wow, only one other person? i thought most ordained ministers/priests believed this, including every nun under the age of 93. all of the ones i've spoke with in the last 10 to 12 yrs have agreed that adam and eve were fictional

are you on the east coast? just out of curiosity?

and just so everyone knows, i'm not really the debating sort lol

 

[krishna]

This is just my experience. I live in the Northwest. I would agree that those who hold that adam and eve are fictional characters are among the religiously educated; I just haven't come across too many of them.

 

[krishna]

ok, i know im fairly new here, but i would love to entertain this if you are willing to listen with an open mind. i will follow this short answer with the long answer in the next post and it will probably be longer than anyone wants to read,
"proof" of 60,000 years is through carbon dating? or relative dating? carbon being a science and relative being an art based upon carbon dating, i would assume we are focusing on carbon dating?
and before we move on, yes genealogy of 6-7000 years is a very biblical number. having said that, there are alot of references both christian and secular that refute the carbon dating timeline.
i know... carbon dating is very accurate, but only if baseline carbon amounts have been constant. in fact due to some there are two completely different correction factors due to varied descrepancies the libbey 1/2 life and the cambridge 1/2 life
this is the short answer

Get to the point....which side are you on? Are we debating carbon testing now?

 

[imnotsurewhattocallmyself]

now for the long...carbon dating is commonly called absolute dating or radiometric dating, because it is radiometric in method.
what is carbon dating
"definition = a method that uses radioactive carbon to date fossils or other biological material. it is based on the observation that the ratio of 14c to 12c in a biological sample is reflective to the ratio of 14c to 12c in the air at the time the csrbon was photosynthetically fixed by the organism that assimilated it out of the air, because the known half life of carbon is 5,730 years this decay rate can be used with the present day ratio and ratio of unknown age to date unknown sample"
what is c14 how is it formed?
c14 is the radioactive isotope formed when cosmic rays excite particles of n14 emiting a proton and absorbing a neutron = nitrogen 14 is converted to carbon 14 by cosmic rays
it now has two excess neutrons, making it unstable
how is c14 integrated into a living thing
c14 and c12 readily bind with carbon dioxide and then is transpired into any living creature. death starts the clock "fixing" the c14 which then begins to revert back to n14 (a 1st ordered reaction) it is spontaneous disintegration. this rate of disintegration (if known) can then provide a timeline of age based upon the ratio of c14 to n14 in a given sample
assumptions?
1) the rate of c14 decay has been constant
2) the c14/c12 ratio in the biosphere has been constant
3) the specimen was in equilibrium with biosphere when fixed
4) there was no carbon gained by the specimen while buried/after being fixed
5) today we can accurately measure the ratio in the specimen

number two is the biggest problem here, the world before the global flood was very different, the atmosphere is thought to have contained more carbon14 due to cosmic activity more water content in atmosphere would greatly affect the balance. less cosmic rays less c14 less disintegration... then there are geomagnetic field shifts which, again, would greatly affect c14 levels
then you have coal burning and nuclear activity that skew our baselines and "known" amounts

11 times the current geomagnetic field is a conservative amount and yet it would yield 2, 1/2 lives or 11,460 years variation = and thats only one factor
april 22, 1995 science news "earths magnetic follies revealed"

and just to further muddy the water ALL ocean samples (anything having been in the ocean of having ate anything in the ocean) are in question, and with a global flood, oops everything is now not accurate? most secular sources now agree on a global flood.

an equation t=(log(ao/a)k)/log2
t being unknown age of specimen
ao being expected c14
a being actual c14
k being 1/2 life of 5730
the value for ao (beginning c14 level) is based upon opinion!!!

there are many anomalies on record, one example being where a creature is dated at 5,000 years and its hair (still attached to its skin) is dated at 12,000 years. a seal killed by the researchers was dated to 1,300 years old; a snail was dated to 2,300 years old and it was still alive!!
two correction factors show the lack of "absolute" to the method
libbey 1/2 life = t1/2 5568 +- 30
cambridge 1/2 life = t1/2 x 1.03

i could go on but i would assume i have bored you beyond anything humane by this point.
so it all is based upon your suppositions you bring to the table, but there are no absolute methods without prejudice
anything too "young" they adjust out the interference

i dont know if that helped, but i assure you i am not afraid of science or apologetics, and i enjoy a lively discussion

-chad

i have alot more, but figured nobody cares at this point



some sources to consider on your own
radio carbon vol8 1966
science news april 22, 1995
radiological carbon ages in error 1981 lee, r.e.
anthropological journal of canada vol 19, no3
science vol 221 (1984)
science vol 141 (1963)
antarctic journal vol6 (1971)
gary parker, carl wieland, john c whitcomb, ken ham, desmond clark,
tandem accelerator mass spectrometer field backgrounds

 

[imnotsurewhattocallmyself]

isnt that where the "science is"
i totally agree 6,000
and believe totally adam & eve = people
(i am an educated christian)
from several colleges with educated christians (thousands)
and they all believe adam and eve = real people
and timeline for earth, via the bible -= accurate
they are not afraid of science and like myself embrace science as a tool to back it up.
-chad

 

[redguru]

Carbon 14 dating can't be used for anything over about 60K years due to the halflife of c14. Other longer half life isotopes are used, there's one for Potassium, I think, that has a half a million year half life that's used. You throw up a lot of red herrings about how much c14 was around before your flood but you seem to forget the other component of the reaction of N14 to C14 is a hydrogen atom. That is immensely stable, unless of course you believe cold fusion was a commonplace occurence before this "great flood". If there was so much more of C14 running around then, why is the amount of atmospheric hydrogen so constant? If our burning of fossil fuels reduces the ratio in the atmosphere of c14 rich CO2, would not the ratio of c12 to Hydrogen also increase?

Do not attempt to couch your subterfuge in scientific terminology, it falls apart rather easily when shaken.

 

[Devastation]

isnt that where the "science is"
i totally agree 6,000
and believe totally adam & eve = people
(i am an educated christian)
from several colleges with educated christians (thousands)
and they all believe adam and eve = real people
and timeline for earth, via the bible -= accurate
they are not afraid of science and like myself embrace science as a tool to back it up.
-chad

i'm curious to what version of Christianity you belong? Methodist, Babtist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, JW? if you would prefer you could pm it to me if you don't want it on the open board. it doesn't matter really, i'm just wondering which faction you belong that you hold the belief you do. i'm baptized Catholic, however, i am not a practicing Catholic. i am a Christian tho

 

[redguru]

Dev, I'm a lapsed Catholic as well, taught by Jesuits and Nuns in Elementary and High School. I was taught even then that the Creation Stories were not to be taken as literal. If, after all, the Biblical old testament only pushes us back 6000 years, why are Chinese, Indian and Sumerian writings older than that?

 

[Devastation]

Dev, I'm a lapsed Catholic as well, taught by Jesuits and Nuns in Elementary and High School. I was taught even then that the Creation Stories were not to be taken as literal. If, after all, the Biblical old testament only pushes us back 6000 years, why are Chinese, Indian and Sumerian writings older than that?

yes, i'm not familiar with the 6000 yr number for the bible, but i don't follow any religous debate. Catholics usually take the most flack, but they are by far the most progressive as far as modernizing beliefs

i personally don't believe in any organized religion, due only to the importance placed on giving monetary donations. man has taken something sacred and turned it into a business