Celtic Heroes

Yeah I agree. But you can't exactly disprove a deity because it's a matter of faith and belief. You can argue against evolution though.
That is another thing that tends to decrease the possibility in a deity, in my opinion. It is completely faith. A story that has been passed on, translated, and distored so many times that it just has so many contradictions and exaggerations. A story that was told to a child in order to reduce the fear of phenomenon that were unknown.

if you look at the real facts then intelligent design has a lot of evidence in its favor. faith is a big part of it but its not just that. its understanding. it is really hard to explain this to an atheist but its kinda like you just know its true. now everyone thinks that what they believe in is true but its just knowledge that it is true. im not talking about doctrine, just the knowledge that there is a god.

Yes I have read some of the evidence that creationists put forth and I won't lie; some of it is pretty convincing and It would be almost downright irrefutable if was a believer. Although some arguments are...less than convincing.

Yeah I agree. But you can't exactly disprove a deity because it's a matter of faith and belief. You can argue against evolution though.
That is another thing that tends to decrease the possibility in a deity, in my opinion. It is completely faith. A story that has been passed on, translated, and distored so many times that it just has so many contradictions and exaggerations. A story that was told to a child in order to reduce the fear of phenomenon that were unknown.

if you look at the real facts then intelligent design has a lot of evidence in its favor. faith is a big part of it but its not just that. its understanding. it is really hard to explain this to an atheist but its kinda like you just know its true. now everyone thinks that what they believe in is true but its just knowledge that it is true. im not talking about doctrine, just the knowledge that there is a god.

Yes I have read some of the evidence that creationists put forth and I won't lie; some of it is pretty convincing and It would be almost downright irrefutable if was a believer. Although some arguments are...less than convincing.

see my earlier post!

First off, I am not the regular creationist. I don't believe that God just went *poof* and everything appeared. Yes, the Bible kinda says that but i don't think we got the whole story. Why? because we aren't ready or can't comprehend it. I suppose that the big bang could have happened but I don't know. Also, I would like to thank Dersu for discussing this topic with me as I learned things about the evolutionist view. You can't argue about something that you don't know anything about! That is a big problem about creationists. They don't know the enemies tactics! One of General Patton's victories was won because he was up all night studying the enemies tactics. Now, I am not saying that us two should be enemies but I have a part of me that just wants truth to be dominant.

Hi Rochoh.

Yeah, it was nice chatting with you about this as well. I think it is good that you want to look into all sides of the debate. That is the only way you will be able to form your own ideas. It is very important to look at the various sides, and to look at various sources. If you only accept one source, or one small circle of sources, you are prone to error.

There was a poster above who went through supposed problems with carbon dating. Though he had obviously done a lot of thinking and reading, I suspect he was using only one collection of sources... Nothing against the poster, and I am not saying that he willfully left out the information, but I suspect that the sources he used slanted his view of the topic, as a fair amount of very important information was non-existent in the post.

As I said before, I am glad that you believe in your beliefs. If they give you solace, little more is important.

Ah... and rather than "enemy," I think I would be warmer to the term "opponent."

There was a poster above who went through supposed problems with carbon dating. Though he had obviously done a lot of thinking and reading, I suspect he was using only one collection of sources... Nothing against the poster, and I am not saying that he willfully left out the information, but I suspect that the sources he used slanted his view of the topic, as a fair amount of very important information was non-existent in the post.

Actually, I studied information from at least nine sources including both my college and high school chemistry professors, who hold opposite views on the matter, and drew my own conclusions from what I knew. I understand I did not cover all the information about the subject, I did not have the time or the motivation to go through the trouble of typing everything out so I gave a basic description followed by the problems I saw with it. If you wish to know more about the subject, by all means, research it on your own.
Look carbon/radiometric dating up and it is not hard to find information from both people who rely on it and people who condemn it entirely as well as people in between. It is a very controversial subject and is continually under debate, just because you may not have heard of this conflict before does not mean I pulled it from an obscure source.

Look carbon/radiometric dating up and it is not hard to find information from both people who rely on it and people who condemn it entirely as well as people in between. It is a very controversial subject and is continually under debate, just because you may not have heard of this conflict before does not mean I pulled it from an obscure source.

Is it just me or is it very odd that something under so much debate is used as a scientific measuring system?

Look carbon/radiometric dating up and it is not hard to find information from both people who rely on it and people who condemn it entirely as well as people in between. It is a very controversial subject and is continually under debate, just because you may not have heard of this conflict before does not mean I pulled it from an obscure source.

Is it just me or is it very odd that something under so much debate is used as a scientific measuring system?

Also, so much trust is given to it. Once it has been carbon-dated it is almost always considered that old.

Look carbon/radiometric dating up and it is not hard to find information from both people who rely on it and people who condemn it entirely as well as people in between. It is a very controversial subject and is continually under debate, just because you may not have heard of this conflict before does not mean I pulled it from an obscure source.

Archeology is a hobby of mine, so I do know a fair amount about carbon dating.

I would disagree with you that it is a “very controversial subject.” Globally it is highly regarded. YECs (mainly in the States) have created a false controversy simply because it goes against their view that the universe was created 6000 years ago. As such, the only people who find fault with radiocarbon dating are the same people who claim that there was some mythic ice or water barrier above the earth, the melting of that barrier created Noah’s flood, and the geologic column was created by the sediment created by the flood.


I have a few problems with your understanding of C14 dating...

Carbon dating is a dating method that measures the amount of carbon-14 (a radioactive isotope of carbon) that is remaining in something to determine its age. Because carbon-14 is radio active it goes through a decaying process that changes it into another substance. scientists use the measured rate of carbon decay to determine how old something is by measuring the amount of carbon-14 that has yet to go through decay. A common illustration is an hourglass: the sand pours through to the bottom at a certain rate (1 hour from start to finish). From scientists calculations carbon 14 decays at a certain rate as well. Carbon-14 can only be used to date things that were once alive.

I take no objection to what you have written above. It is a good synopsis of the general process.

To add some very important specifics, however, one needs to understand that C14 dating is only useful for samples from about 50,000 years ago up to few hundred years ago. It cannot blindly date something from 50 years ago, for instance. It can also only be used for atmospheric C14.

The first problem with carbon dating is the starting state. We were not present to measure the amount of carbon-14 present when the organism died and it is therefore impossible to determine what the starting state was, it must be assumed. Assumption is vulnerable to bias.

Though technically correct, the above is inaccurate and misleading. No. We weren’t taking atmospheric C14 measurements thousands of years ago. But it is not “impossible” to know the starting amount because we have a plethora of organic matter for known dates.

This is the fallacy the YEC "scientists" in general. They only talk ever talk about raw carbon dates, or the first step in the process. The reality is that raw readings are only used to get a “ballpark” figure. That figure is then subjected to calibration.

The reason raw carbon dates are used (raw dates uses a constant atmospheric C14 number) is twofold. 1) It allows scientists to compare the numbers to older published research. (Thought of another way, it allows future scientists who may have more accurate technology to compare to the present research), and 2) It gets scientists into the correct range so they can focus their tests.

Calibration: Organic samples from known dates are used to measure the starting amount of C14 at those dates. These calibration points are graphed, and allow scientists to more accurately determine the date of the sample in question.

We get that information from tree rings (which give a yearly history of C14 for each year), datable burials, datable food, as well as other sources (coral, cave formations etc.).

Most recently, core samples from lakes with known sediment holding leaves has been used to expand the calibration curve (the year of the sediment is known, and the leaves that fell in the lake at that time tell us the C14 for that year).

Sure, it is an ongoing process, but as more and more base samples provide calibration points, and as the measuring technology gets more and more accurate in being able to read the amount of remaining C14, the dates simply get more and more precise.

In any event, the claim that it is impossible to determine the amount of C14 at time of death is simply incorrect.

To illustrate this flaw we can use an example of a horse race. I do not look at what time the race starts but I know Lightning finished at 4:23 and 45 seconds exactly so I give you this information and ask you how long he took, but you have no knowledge of the race other than what I just told you,how do you answer my question? You cannot because you do not have enough information, the same goes for carbon dating.

It is clever. You are correct that I can’t tell you when the race started… but it doesn't matter. These word tricks are commonly used by the YEC brass. I have seen a similar trick using a burning candle.

But it can be done for anything: If I tell you that I live north of a river, but give you no other information, it is highly improbable that you will be able to find my house; therefore maps are useless.

Again, your example (and subsequently mine) removes everything important, and does not reflect reality.

No. The same does not go for carbon dating, because of what I said earlier: we have a calibration curve that gives us the starting C14 for several times points. The lake sediment core sample mentioned above, for instance, added over 800 data points.

That YECs ignore this reality does not make it less real. They willfully ignore it because they can’t answer to it.

Another issue with carbon dating is that the carbon-14 in the organism can be contaminated by carbon from outside which also changes the date that would be read.

Yup. This is the problem with many YECs claims... They vehemently condemn carbon dating when it goes against them, and laud its greatness when it appears to support their claims, like contaminated bones, diamonds, and living animals.

C14 dating can only be used for formerly living things that got their C14 directly or indirectly through atmospheric C14, and lived before the massive increase in burning fossil fuels.

This is why scientists don’t use the method to date certain shellfish, for instance, because it is known that they got their C14 from other sources. This is why carbon dating can’t be used on recent objects or animals, because the atmospheric C14 has been tampered with by the burning of fossil fuels, and the detonation of nuclear bombs.

Still, YECs love to point out that a living penguin was dated at 3000 BP and use that against carbon dating. In the same breath they will tell you that diamonds have C14 and are therefore very young, failing to calibrate for nearby deposits of uranium.

What we can certainly say (and here I would tend to agree with you) is that the test is only as good as the sample. There may be latent bacteria on the sample, or the sample may have been contaminated be someone licking it or something, but this is why labs are designed to filter out as much garbage as possible. It is also why several tests may be done on the same sample, or other similar samples.

It is also assumed that the present conditions on the earth that cause carbon-14 to decay at current rate were the same throughout its span of decay, which could very easily not be the case, we don't have enough information because we were not there to measure it.

Again, you are basing this statement on incorrect information. We can check the rate because we have an entire database of samples with known dates.

If we have 1000s of samples for the past 50,000 years that are all showing decay rates at the same 5700(ish) half life, then it isn't an assumption. It is documented proof.

If you wish to learn about calibration, look it up. It throws nearly all of the YEC arguments in the bin.

You can start here: http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2012/121019.html This is about the recent lake sediment research.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I hope I have been able to give you some helpful information, and I hope you have a good day.

Dersu

I'm not sure why Carbon Dating is so important to this thread. There are only a very small minority group of Christians who believe that the earth is really 6000 years old. To group us all into this category, well you might as well say we all are in league with the Westboro Baptist Church. To do so of course would be ridiculous. Carbon dating does not disprove the Bible nor does Evolution. I've said these things countless times now in this thread. Get over your Bible Numbers Game.

This is a discussion about beliefs, more specifically, religion. Even if it is a minority some people believe the earth is 6000 years old and therefore the discussion of an element that would prove or disprove this age is relevant to the topic.
If you want to know where i stand, I do not believe the earth is 6000 years old. That does not mean I can't stand up for the people who are "YEC's" though, some people are ridiculing YEC's beliefs and no one else seems to have a problem with it even though their belief is by no means proven wrong. I do not think this is fair, so I will continue with what I previously said: all beliefs are on the same ground.
I do not believe that macro evolution takes place, it is not that I am against it, I just don't see any concrete evidence for it so I do not accept it. From what I see of evolution, faith is required to believe it.
I have studied the Bible, perhaps I am missing something, or maybe reading too much into it, but there is no mention of the creationist's god using evolution so I do not see why a christian should accept evolution. Forgive me for this little judgement, but it seems to me like someone claiming to believe in the bible while also accepting evolution is ashamed of what they believe in, and is just trying to "not be wrong" and agree with the atheists to escape ridicule. Then again, I don't have a right to judge someone for not being devout because I do not follow any religion, so I apologize for that jab, but its just how it looks to me.
That is why I respect a yec even though I don't necessarily agree with them, they are willing to stick with what they believe even though everyone seems to be ridiculing them, they are real, even if what they believe is fake (note I said "if", I am not ready to say anyone's belief is wrong). But I am ready to oppose someone who says everyone else is wrong because they claim they are absolutely right.