How Old Is The Earth?

[Boss]

Well agnostic is synonymous with skeptic or doubter. Christians are anything BUT that.

Agnostic: a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena...

I understand what you're saying but regardless, you cannot KNOW. You won't know if you are right until you die. An agnostic is not a skeptic or doubter, that would be an atheist. An agnostic takes the position of not knowing for certain and in that aspect, is really no different than any of us.

Some people will insist the KNOW - because God has visibly moved in their lives.
Our entire life is perception. E.g. we can't see the air but can feel it. that sort of thing.....

Again, I understand what you're saying, I am a Spiritualist. I believe in a Spiritual God. But what you and I have is called "faith" and we do not KNOW for certain. We believe... we have faith... we do not KNOW. An agnostic is really no different than us, they simply lack our faith. None of us KNOW.

 

[Boss]

Also, no one has been around to know exactly how old the earth is, but God has given us the brains to figure it out from evidence in the physical world around us. To say that using those clues leads us into error is the same as saying God lies to us, IMO.

We are wrong about things all the time. In fact, the very nature of science being what it is, means that science has probably been wrong more than it has been the definite truth.

For instance, every physics textbook in America is wrong unless recently published. For years, science believed our universe is mostly comprised of atoms. We now know this is false, even though it is in every physics textbook. So God gave us brains to figure out evidence but we still make errors in our figuring. There is always more evidence out there waiting to be discovered. That evidence may influence what we thought we knew. This happens constantly in science.

 

[Bonzi]

Honestly? I don't really give a damn how old the Earth is.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Five Other Embarrassing Answers to the ‘Age of the Earth’ Question
Marco Rubio may have provided the world with the most recent embarrassing explanation for the age of the Earth — which, thanks to radiometric dating, and regardless of what some religious fanatics may claim, is about 4.54 billion years old — but he's, sadly, in good company. Here are five other political office-holders who were recently asked the same question and failed miserably with their response.

Be sure to watch the video.

 

[Boss]

..thanks to radiometric dating, and regardless of what some religious fanatics may claim, is about 4.54 billion years old...

Here is the problem. You have no way of knowing whether the material you are measuring may be recycled. As a good little ecologically-conscious liberal, you must realize the virtues of recycling, right? So why would it be a shocker for God to have recycled the material he created our universe with? Maybe it's like cosmic play-dough, and every 10k years, God gets bored and makes a new universe? We look at the play-dough and say it's impossible we're <10k years old because the play-dough is much older... but so what?

Now... before you get all frisky with me on this, I do not personally believe the 6k year earth story. I think there is ample evidence that the planet and life was here long before that. My interpretation of the Bible is non-theological because I don't belong to a religion. I think the creation "days" in the creation story is talking about epochs, which could be billions of human years. I think it is profound when God tells Adam and Eve to "go out and replenish the Earth" in Genesis, when he cast them from the Garden of Eden. If you are setting out to "replenish" something, what does that imply? To me personally, I interpret this to mean Adam and Eve were certainly not the first human beings. They were merely the first to be created in God's image. There were people before Adam and Eve, and there were even people during Adam and Eve because their son, Cain, was cast out to the land of Nod, where he took a wife. So apparently, there was at least a whole city of people other than Adam and Eve.

The Bible does not tell this story as a historical documentary but that seems to be a common narrative. In that regard, it is important to note, there was no human here recording the events as they unfolded, we are being told the story from the perspective of God, who is not confined to time or space.

 

[ChesBayJJ]

Honestly? I don't really give a damn how old the Earth is.

It doesn't really matter in the bigger picture of our lives, does it?

 

[Bonzi]

Honestly? I don't really give a damn how old the Earth is.

It doesn't really matter in the bigger picture of our lives, does it?

No, I guess it was a dumb thread to start ..... ah well .....

 

[ChesBayJJ]

Honestly? I don't really give a damn how old the Earth is.

It doesn't really matter in the bigger picture of our lives, does it?

No, I guess it was a dumb thread to start ..... ah well .....

Not a dumb thread. It led to an interesting discussion.

 

[Bonzi]

Honestly? I don't really give a damn how old the Earth is.

It doesn't really matter in the bigger picture of our lives, does it?

No, I guess it was a dumb thread to start ..... ah well .....

Not a dumb thread. It led to an interesting discussion.

Thanks JJ

 

[ABikerSailor]

Even though the age of the earth is pretty much incomprehensible to me (can anyone REALLY wrap their mind around the concept of 4.5 BILLION years), I still am interested in finding out as much as I can about the place I live.

Why? It makes it easier to figure out how to use things better, and also tells you about what can and won't harm you.

Science is cool, but I like the line said by Einstein about religion and science:

"Religion without science is crippled, and science without religion is blind".

We need to have a union of both.

 

[IsaacNewton]

You see, Bonzi... back in 1956, a scientist proclaimed the Earth was 4.1 billion years old, so that is an irrefutable FACT now... .we can't question it or doubt it. Only another scientist can do that at some later date. This is how some people assume "science" works.

I was recently watching a documentary about black holes and dark matter, quantum physics and the multiverse theory.... What astonished me was how the various talking heads were framing their comments. They would constantly say, "we now know..." followed by something that is a theory with no evidence whatsoever in observation. Example: "We now know there are multiple universes..." We certainly do not know this. What they do is develop a theory that can't be dismissed and then proclaim the theory is fact that can't be disputed.

Evolution is my all-time favorite. Although it has no explanation for how the first living organism came to be it is supposed to be the rational counter to creationism. There is no evidence of any genus arising through process of evolution. The fossil record doesn't support the transitional species theories of evolution. And the whole of Evolution theory simply doesn't deal with origin.

We have to remember, science is only about 80 years removed from the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation holds that quantum mechanics is not necessarily a description of an objective reality, but predicts the probabilities that measurements will produce certain results. The act of measurement affects the system, and causes the set of probabilities to immediately and randomly assume only one of the possible values. This feature is known as wavefunction collapse. Our understanding of the atom is still in it's infancy, relatively speaking... no pun intended.

So science discovers at every turn, the fingerprints of God. It's in everything from our DNA molecules or the simplest atom to the entirety of the cosmos itself. 95% of our universe is comprised of dark matter and dark energy which we have no understanding of because we can't observe it. It defies our interaction. Dark energy particles are passing through our bodies as we type and read these posts. The observer effect, double slit experiment, wavefunction collapse, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle... a finely tuned universe. If you are a Scientist trying to develop a plausible theory for God, what sort of evidence would you hope to see?

Your thoughts on evolution are wrong, sorry. A simple search for transitional fossils shatters the 'where's the missing link' crap. There are many transitional fossils in the record now. But oh how you like to talk about this with such 'unshakable certainty'.

And the 'god of the gaps' argument also isn't plausible. If you argue 'how did the first life form form, if you can't prove that then there is a god'. Yeah? Which god? The one you believe in and desperately want to defend? Or one of the other 40,000 deities the human race has worshipped over its history.

 

[IsaacNewton]

You see, Bonzi... back in 1956, a scientist proclaimed the Earth was 4.1 billion years old, so that is an irrefutable FACT now... .we can't question it or doubt it. Only another scientist can do that at some later date. This is how some people assume "science" works.

I was recently watching a documentary about black holes and dark matter, quantum physics and the multiverse theory.... What astonished me was how the various talking heads were framing their comments. They would constantly say, "we now know..." followed by something that is a theory with no evidence whatsoever in observation. Example: "We now know there are multiple universes..." We certainly do not know this. What they do is develop a theory that can't be dismissed and then proclaim the theory is fact that can't be disputed.

Evolution is my all-time favorite. Although it has no explanation for how the first living organism came to be it is supposed to be the rational counter to creationism. There is no evidence of any genus arising through process of evolution. The fossil record doesn't support the transitional species theories of evolution. And the whole of Evolution theory simply doesn't deal with origin.

We have to remember, science is only about 80 years removed from the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation holds that quantum mechanics is not necessarily a description of an objective reality, but predicts the probabilities that measurements will produce certain results. The act of measurement affects the system, and causes the set of probabilities to immediately and randomly assume only one of the possible values. This feature is known as wavefunction collapse. Our understanding of the atom is still in it's infancy, relatively speaking... no pun intended.

So science discovers at every turn, the fingerprints of God. It's in everything from our DNA molecules or the simplest atom to the entirety of the cosmos itself. 95% of our universe is comprised of dark matter and dark energy which we have no understanding of because we can't observe it. It defies our interaction. Dark energy particles are passing through our bodies as we type and read these posts. The observer effect, double slit experiment, wavefunction collapse, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle... a finely tuned universe. If you are a Scientist trying to develop a plausible theory for God, what sort of evidence would you hope to see?

lmao... idiot young earthers are funny.

Well you can label people however you want, I think it's sort of intellectually cheap to attach "-ers" as a suffix and dismiss what someone is saying. It shows lack of imagination if nothing else.

I am intrigued by the "young earth theory" because I wonder about these calculations they've made to come up with the 6,000 years. How are they measuring years before there was a Julian Calendar? The Hebrew translation for the creation story uses the word "yom" for days. Well, studying Hebrew texts, we find that "yom" is a word which simply means "period of time." It can mean a day, a moon cycle, a season or epoch/era. Now since the advent of the Julian Calendar, most 'modern' Hebrew uses "yom" to mean day. But even then, Yom Kippur is celebrated for 25 hours... that's not precisely a day. So there is at least some ambiguity with regard to the words we've come to know as the Scriptures and an actual number of years it proscribes. I don't understand how anyone could calculate an accurate time this way.

On the other side is Science. Carbon dating tells us things are as old as they are, but carbon dating is still a relatively new technology and we don't know everything. It could be that carbon dating is not as accurate as we believe? It's not like Science is never wrong.

There are many dating techniques, Carbon dating is only one of many and the limitations of each method are always taken into account when using them.

The age of the universe is found another way and is an utter work of art and mastery in itself. The number is 13.72 billion years old. Pretty accurate for a bunch of chimps.

 

[Boss]

You see, Bonzi... back in 1956, a scientist proclaimed the Earth was 4.1 billion years old, so that is an irrefutable FACT now... .we can't question it or doubt it. Only another scientist can do that at some later date. This is how some people assume "science" works.

I was recently watching a documentary about black holes and dark matter, quantum physics and the multiverse theory.... What astonished me was how the various talking heads were framing their comments. They would constantly say, "we now know..." followed by something that is a theory with no evidence whatsoever in observation. Example: "We now know there are multiple universes..." We certainly do not know this. What they do is develop a theory that can't be dismissed and then proclaim the theory is fact that can't be disputed.

Evolution is my all-time favorite. Although it has no explanation for how the first living organism came to be it is supposed to be the rational counter to creationism. There is no evidence of any genus arising through process of evolution. The fossil record doesn't support the transitional species theories of evolution. And the whole of Evolution theory simply doesn't deal with origin.

We have to remember, science is only about 80 years removed from the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation holds that quantum mechanics is not necessarily a description of an objective reality, but predicts the probabilities that measurements will produce certain results. The act of measurement affects the system, and causes the set of probabilities to immediately and randomly assume only one of the possible values. This feature is known as wavefunction collapse. Our understanding of the atom is still in it's infancy, relatively speaking... no pun intended.

So science discovers at every turn, the fingerprints of God. It's in everything from our DNA molecules or the simplest atom to the entirety of the cosmos itself. 95% of our universe is comprised of dark matter and dark energy which we have no understanding of because we can't observe it. It defies our interaction. Dark energy particles are passing through our bodies as we type and read these posts. The observer effect, double slit experiment, wavefunction collapse, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle... a finely tuned universe. If you are a Scientist trying to develop a plausible theory for God, what sort of evidence would you hope to see?

Your thoughts on evolution are wrong, sorry. A simple search for transitional fossils shatters the 'where's the missing link' crap. There are many transitional fossils in the record now. But oh how you like to talk about this with such 'unshakable certainty'.

And the 'god of the gaps' argument also isn't plausible. If you argue 'how did the first life form form, if you can't prove that then there is a god'. Yeah? Which god? The one you believe in and desperately want to defend? Or one of the other 40,000 deities the human race has worshipped over its history.

I've never seen any evidence of a transitional fossil between genus of life. The fossil record should be rife with such transitions and they are simply not there. Instead, we find various genus' appear suddenly and most have disappeared. In fact, I have never seen any evidence of evolution across genus lines. Within a genus, sure... adaptation happens, it's a miracle of the amazing creation God made.

As for your 'god of the gaps' stuff, none of it matters really. We exist, therefore, something created us. You can have whatever beliefs you have... that is an inescapable fact. Our universe, life and us, were created. We can have a philosophical debate over exactly what created us and how... but we must reason that we were created because we do exist. It's not a matter of deities or who is right or wrong.

I happen to believe that it's impossible that we weren't created by something "intelligent" and I use the word in quotes because I believe it is probably inadequate to describe our Creator. It's just the closest 'grunting sound' we are capable of making to define it. There are like 40-50 various aspects of our physical universe that do not have to be as they are but if they weren't precisely as they are, we could not exist. The stunning intricacy of a mitochondria DNA molecule... comprised of intricate digital coding defining every aspect of a living organism without flaw. The irrefutable facts of subatomic physics which cannot observe what is happening and explain it rationally. Our most fundamental elements refuse to allow us to measure them. At every turn, science runs into a paradox that cannot be explained without suggesting a designer.

 

[Boss]

There are many dating techniques, Carbon dating is only one of many and the limitations of each method are always taken into account when using them.

The age of the universe is found another way and is an utter work of art and mastery in itself. The number is 13.72 billion years old. Pretty accurate for a bunch of chimps.

Again.. the age of things based on our primitive testing really don't mean much. God could have created thousands of universes or planets within universes over and over again with the same play-dough. So what you are measuring is the material used... and what difference does Earth rotations around the Sun according to the Julian Calendar have to do with anything?

 

[ABikerSailor]

There are many dating techniques, Carbon dating is only one of many and the limitations of each method are always taken into account when using them.

The age of the universe is found another way and is an utter work of art and mastery in itself. The number is 13.72 billion years old. Pretty accurate for a bunch of chimps.

Again.. the age of things based on our primitive testing really don't mean much. God could have created thousands of universes or planets within universes over and over again with the same play-dough. So what you are measuring is the material used... and what difference does Earth rotations around the Sun according to the Julian Calendar have to do with anything?

Interesting that you should say that. Did you know that the very first verse of Genesis (as translated directly from the original Hebrew), wasn't "in the beginning", but rather is translated as "in A beginning". One of the points in Jewish teaching about this is that we are somewhere around our 976th "beginning".

 

[IsaacNewton]

You see, Bonzi... back in 1956, a scientist proclaimed the Earth was 4.1 billion years old, so that is an irrefutable FACT now... .we can't question it or doubt it. Only another scientist can do that at some later date. This is how some people assume "science" works.

I was recently watching a documentary about black holes and dark matter, quantum physics and the multiverse theory.... What astonished me was how the various talking heads were framing their comments. They would constantly say, "we now know..." followed by something that is a theory with no evidence whatsoever in observation. Example: "We now know there are multiple universes..." We certainly do not know this. What they do is develop a theory that can't be dismissed and then proclaim the theory is fact that can't be disputed.

Evolution is my all-time favorite. Although it has no explanation for how the first living organism came to be it is supposed to be the rational counter to creationism. There is no evidence of any genus arising through process of evolution. The fossil record doesn't support the transitional species theories of evolution. And the whole of Evolution theory simply doesn't deal with origin.

We have to remember, science is only about 80 years removed from the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation holds that quantum mechanics is not necessarily a description of an objective reality, but predicts the probabilities that measurements will produce certain results. The act of measurement affects the system, and causes the set of probabilities to immediately and randomly assume only one of the possible values. This feature is known as wavefunction collapse. Our understanding of the atom is still in it's infancy, relatively speaking... no pun intended.

So science discovers at every turn, the fingerprints of God. It's in everything from our DNA molecules or the simplest atom to the entirety of the cosmos itself. 95% of our universe is comprised of dark matter and dark energy which we have no understanding of because we can't observe it. It defies our interaction. Dark energy particles are passing through our bodies as we type and read these posts. The observer effect, double slit experiment, wavefunction collapse, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle... a finely tuned universe. If you are a Scientist trying to develop a plausible theory for God, what sort of evidence would you hope to see?

Your thoughts on evolution are wrong, sorry. A simple search for transitional fossils shatters the 'where's the missing link' crap. There are many transitional fossils in the record now. But oh how you like to talk about this with such 'unshakable certainty'.

And the 'god of the gaps' argument also isn't plausible. If you argue 'how did the first life form form, if you can't prove that then there is a god'. Yeah? Which god? The one you believe in and desperately want to defend? Or one of the other 40,000 deities the human race has worshipped over its history.

I've never seen any evidence of a transitional fossil between genus of life. The fossil record should be rife with such transitions and they are simply not there. Instead, we find various genus' appear suddenly and most have disappeared. In fact, I have never seen any evidence of evolution across genus lines. Within a genus, sure... adaptation happens, it's a miracle of the amazing creation God made.

As for your 'god of the gaps' stuff, none of it matters really. We exist, therefore, something created us. You can have whatever beliefs you have... that is an inescapable fact. Our universe, life and us, were created. We can have a philosophical debate over exactly what created us and how... but we must reason that we were created because we do exist. It's not a matter of deities or who is right or wrong.

I happen to believe that it's impossible that we weren't created by something "intelligent" and I use the word in quotes because I believe it is probably inadequate to describe our Creator. It's just the closest 'grunting sound' we are capable of making to define it. There are like 40-50 various aspects of our physical universe that do not have to be as they are but if they weren't precisely as they are, we could not exist. The stunning intricacy of a mitochondria DNA molecule... comprised of intricate digital coding defining every aspect of a living organism without flaw. The irrefutable facts of subatomic physics which cannot observe what is happening and explain it rationally. Our most fundamental elements refuse to allow us to measure them. At every turn, science runs into a paradox that cannot be explained without suggesting a designer.

"The fossil record should be rife with such transitions", "we exist, therefore something created us".

Both fallacious statements. We see transition across the fossil record going back 3.5 billion years in general, and the last 600 million years for multicellular and advanced life. You can cherry pick 'this' or 'that' and say THERE, god did it. Ridiculous.

The word 'created' implies purposeful action. There is no evidence anything purposefully created anything. There is mountainous evidence that it did in fact 'just happen' without magic being involved. Physics and chemistry can account for everything we see.

If anyone has evidence a 'god' did 'something' with 'magic' then present it. Then present evidence that this one 'god' did these things and not one of the other 40,000 'god's' in man's history.

 

[konradv]

We are wrong about things all the time. In fact, the very nature of science being what it is, means that science has probably been wrong more than it has been the definite truth. For instance, every physics textbook in America is wrong unless recently published. For years, science believed our universe is mostly comprised of atoms. We now know this is false, even though it is in every physics textbook. So God gave us brains to figure out evidence but we still make errors in our figuring. There is always more evidence out there waiting to be discovered. That evidence may influence what we thought we knew. This happens constantly in science.

The details may change, but the broad strokes like how old things are, haven't. What you're talking about is not so much being wrong, as not having all the information

 

[Boss]

You see, Bonzi... back in 1956, a scientist proclaimed the Earth was 4.1 billion years old, so that is an irrefutable FACT now... .we can't question it or doubt it. Only another scientist can do that at some later date. This is how some people assume "science" works.

I was recently watching a documentary about black holes and dark matter, quantum physics and the multiverse theory.... What astonished me was how the various talking heads were framing their comments. They would constantly say, "we now know..." followed by something that is a theory with no evidence whatsoever in observation. Example: "We now know there are multiple universes..." We certainly do not know this. What they do is develop a theory that can't be dismissed and then proclaim the theory is fact that can't be disputed.

Evolution is my all-time favorite. Although it has no explanation for how the first living organism came to be it is supposed to be the rational counter to creationism. There is no evidence of any genus arising through process of evolution. The fossil record doesn't support the transitional species theories of evolution. And the whole of Evolution theory simply doesn't deal with origin.

We have to remember, science is only about 80 years removed from the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation holds that quantum mechanics is not necessarily a description of an objective reality, but predicts the probabilities that measurements will produce certain results. The act of measurement affects the system, and causes the set of probabilities to immediately and randomly assume only one of the possible values. This feature is known as wavefunction collapse. Our understanding of the atom is still in it's infancy, relatively speaking... no pun intended.

So science discovers at every turn, the fingerprints of God. It's in everything from our DNA molecules or the simplest atom to the entirety of the cosmos itself. 95% of our universe is comprised of dark matter and dark energy which we have no understanding of because we can't observe it. It defies our interaction. Dark energy particles are passing through our bodies as we type and read these posts. The observer effect, double slit experiment, wavefunction collapse, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle... a finely tuned universe. If you are a Scientist trying to develop a plausible theory for God, what sort of evidence would you hope to see?

Your thoughts on evolution are wrong, sorry. A simple search for transitional fossils shatters the 'where's the missing link' crap. There are many transitional fossils in the record now. But oh how you like to talk about this with such 'unshakable certainty'.

And the 'god of the gaps' argument also isn't plausible. If you argue 'how did the first life form form, if you can't prove that then there is a god'. Yeah? Which god? The one you believe in and desperately want to defend? Or one of the other 40,000 deities the human race has worshipped over its history.

I've never seen any evidence of a transitional fossil between genus of life. The fossil record should be rife with such transitions and they are simply not there. Instead, we find various genus' appear suddenly and most have disappeared. In fact, I have never seen any evidence of evolution across genus lines. Within a genus, sure... adaptation happens, it's a miracle of the amazing creation God made.

As for your 'god of the gaps' stuff, none of it matters really. We exist, therefore, something created us. You can have whatever beliefs you have... that is an inescapable fact. Our universe, life and us, were created. We can have a philosophical debate over exactly what created us and how... but we must reason that we were created because we do exist. It's not a matter of deities or who is right or wrong.

I happen to believe that it's impossible that we weren't created by something "intelligent" and I use the word in quotes because I believe it is probably inadequate to describe our Creator. It's just the closest 'grunting sound' we are capable of making to define it. There are like 40-50 various aspects of our physical universe that do not have to be as they are but if they weren't precisely as they are, we could not exist. The stunning intricacy of a mitochondria DNA molecule... comprised of intricate digital coding defining every aspect of a living organism without flaw. The irrefutable facts of subatomic physics which cannot observe what is happening and explain it rationally. Our most fundamental elements refuse to allow us to measure them. At every turn, science runs into a paradox that cannot be explained without suggesting a designer.

"The fossil record should be rife with such transitions", "we exist, therefore something created us".

Both fallacious statements. We see transition across the fossil record going back 3.5 billion years in general, and the last 600 million years for multicellular and advanced life. You can cherry pick 'this' or 'that' and say THERE, god did it. Ridiculous.

The word 'created' implies purposeful action. There is no evidence anything purposefully created anything. There is mountainous evidence that it did in fact 'just happen' without magic being involved. Physics and chemistry can account for everything we see.

If anyone has evidence a 'god' did 'something' with 'magic' then present it. Then present evidence that this one 'god' did these things and not one of the other 40,000 'god's' in man's history.

We see transition across the fossil record going back 3.5 billion years in general, and the last 600 million years for multicellular and advanced life.

This is simply not true. We do not "see" any such thing. The evidence is not conclusive and largely incomplete. There are exactly ZERO "trans-genus" examples in the fossil record. All you have are transitions within the genus classification of anything that has ever lived. The rest is based on now-debunked speculation.

DNA is the evidentiary nail in the coffin for Darwinian evolution as an explanation for origin of life.

You can cherry pick 'this' or 'that' and say THERE, god did it. Ridiculous.

I agree, it is ridiculous that anyone would think something so evident would interfere with exploring the questions of science. Of course God did it... who else? That doesn't explain anything, it has no explanatory power whatsoever. Stating "God Did It" isn't science. I don't want to say "THERE" and be content with "God Did It" ...I already know God did it... that's not why I explore scientific questions and seek answers about the universe around me. I'm more interesting in the things I don't know.

The word 'created' implies purposeful action. There is no evidence anything purposefully created anything.

I disagree. When we find a universe that is so precisely fine tuned it challenges our thoughts regarding this. I don't really profess to know about "purpose" here... you can draw all kinds of conclusions in that regard, but the parameters of our physical universe and how things came to be as they are, is not something that happened by mistake or fluke of chance.

The sheer combination of things that were required to be a certain way at a precise time during the initial moments of our universe's creation is responsible for everything we know as our universe including the minds that can contemplate it. We've barely scratched the surface and we've discovered dozens of things. ALL of them point to a purposeful design or plan.

There is mountainous evidence that it did in fact 'just happen' without magic being involved. Physics and chemistry can account for everything we see.

I agree... I don't believe in MAGIC. That it "just happened" is Magic!
Physics and chemistry keep showing us that it didn't happen magically.
BUT... at the subatomic level and inside black holes... the tiniest and largest aspects of our physical universe, the laws and principles of our known physics break down.

 

[IsaacNewton]

You see, Bonzi... back in 1956, a scientist proclaimed the Earth was 4.1 billion years old, so that is an irrefutable FACT now... .we can't question it or doubt it. Only another scientist can do that at some later date. This is how some people assume "science" works.

I was recently watching a documentary about black holes and dark matter, quantum physics and the multiverse theory.... What astonished me was how the various talking heads were framing their comments. They would constantly say, "we now know..." followed by something that is a theory with no evidence whatsoever in observation. Example: "We now know there are multiple universes..." We certainly do not know this. What they do is develop a theory that can't be dismissed and then proclaim the theory is fact that can't be disputed.

Evolution is my all-time favorite. Although it has no explanation for how the first living organism came to be it is supposed to be the rational counter to creationism. There is no evidence of any genus arising through process of evolution. The fossil record doesn't support the transitional species theories of evolution. And the whole of Evolution theory simply doesn't deal with origin.

We have to remember, science is only about 80 years removed from the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation holds that quantum mechanics is not necessarily a description of an objective reality, but predicts the probabilities that measurements will produce certain results. The act of measurement affects the system, and causes the set of probabilities to immediately and randomly assume only one of the possible values. This feature is known as wavefunction collapse. Our understanding of the atom is still in it's infancy, relatively speaking... no pun intended.

So science discovers at every turn, the fingerprints of God. It's in everything from our DNA molecules or the simplest atom to the entirety of the cosmos itself. 95% of our universe is comprised of dark matter and dark energy which we have no understanding of because we can't observe it. It defies our interaction. Dark energy particles are passing through our bodies as we type and read these posts. The observer effect, double slit experiment, wavefunction collapse, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle... a finely tuned universe. If you are a Scientist trying to develop a plausible theory for God, what sort of evidence would you hope to see?

Your thoughts on evolution are wrong, sorry. A simple search for transitional fossils shatters the 'where's the missing link' crap. There are many transitional fossils in the record now. But oh how you like to talk about this with such 'unshakable certainty'.

And the 'god of the gaps' argument also isn't plausible. If you argue 'how did the first life form form, if you can't prove that then there is a god'. Yeah? Which god? The one you believe in and desperately want to defend? Or one of the other 40,000 deities the human race has worshipped over its history.

I've never seen any evidence of a transitional fossil between genus of life. The fossil record should be rife with such transitions and they are simply not there. Instead, we find various genus' appear suddenly and most have disappeared. In fact, I have never seen any evidence of evolution across genus lines. Within a genus, sure... adaptation happens, it's a miracle of the amazing creation God made.

As for your 'god of the gaps' stuff, none of it matters really. We exist, therefore, something created us. You can have whatever beliefs you have... that is an inescapable fact. Our universe, life and us, were created. We can have a philosophical debate over exactly what created us and how... but we must reason that we were created because we do exist. It's not a matter of deities or who is right or wrong.

I happen to believe that it's impossible that we weren't created by something "intelligent" and I use the word in quotes because I believe it is probably inadequate to describe our Creator. It's just the closest 'grunting sound' we are capable of making to define it. There are like 40-50 various aspects of our physical universe that do not have to be as they are but if they weren't precisely as they are, we could not exist. The stunning intricacy of a mitochondria DNA molecule... comprised of intricate digital coding defining every aspect of a living organism without flaw. The irrefutable facts of subatomic physics which cannot observe what is happening and explain it rationally. Our most fundamental elements refuse to allow us to measure them. At every turn, science runs into a paradox that cannot be explained without suggesting a designer.

"The fossil record should be rife with such transitions", "we exist, therefore something created us".

Both fallacious statements. We see transition across the fossil record going back 3.5 billion years in general, and the last 600 million years for multicellular and advanced life. You can cherry pick 'this' or 'that' and say THERE, god did it. Ridiculous.

The word 'created' implies purposeful action. There is no evidence anything purposefully created anything. There is mountainous evidence that it did in fact 'just happen' without magic being involved. Physics and chemistry can account for everything we see.

If anyone has evidence a 'god' did 'something' with 'magic' then present it. Then present evidence that this one 'god' did these things and not one of the other 40,000 'god's' in man's history.

We see transition across the fossil record going back 3.5 billion years in general, and the last 600 million years for multicellular and advanced life.

This is simply not true. We do not "see" any such thing. The evidence is not conclusive and largely incomplete. There are exactly ZERO "trans-genus" examples in the fossil record. All you have are transitions within the genus classification of anything that has ever lived. The rest is based on now-debunked speculation.

DNA is the evidentiary nail in the coffin for Darwinian evolution as an explanation for origin of life.

You can cherry pick 'this' or 'that' and say THERE, god did it. Ridiculous.

I agree, it is ridiculous that anyone would think something so evident would interfere with exploring the questions of science. Of course God did it... who else? That doesn't explain anything, it has no explanatory power whatsoever. Stating "God Did It" isn't science. I don't want to say "THERE" and be content with "God Did It" ...I already know God did it... that's not why I explore scientific questions and seek answers about the universe around me. I'm more interesting in the things I don't know.

The word 'created' implies purposeful action. There is no evidence anything purposefully created anything.

I disagree. When we find a universe that is so precisely fine tuned it challenges our thoughts regarding this. I don't really profess to know about "purpose" here... you can draw all kinds of conclusions in that regard, but the parameters of our physical universe and how things came to be as they are, is not something that happened by mistake or fluke of chance.

The sheer combination of things that were required to be a certain way at a precise time during the initial moments of our universe's creation is responsible for everything we know as our universe including the minds that can contemplate it. We've barely scratched the surface and we've discovered dozens of things. ALL of them point to a purposeful design or plan.

There is mountainous evidence that it did in fact 'just happen' without magic being involved. Physics and chemistry can account for everything we see.

I agree... I don't believe in MAGIC. That it "just happened" is Magic!
Physics and chemistry keep showing us that it didn't happen magically.
BUT... at the subatomic level and inside black holes... the tiniest and largest aspects of our physical universe, the laws and principles of our known physics break down.

Ah, so magic means what you want it to mean and physical evidence is meaningless.

Enough said perfessor, carry on. I do my best to 'have discussions' with people that profess a 'god belief'. But it always becomes circular logic and people of faith who would feign 'enlightenment' are simply carping talking points they've seen on apologist websites.

Ten minutes of research will reveal the transition of life over the last 600 million years, if that is too much for you then we are done.

You stick with the magic flying grandpa and his unicorns.

 

[Boss]

Ah, so magic means what you want it to mean and physical evidence is meaningless.

Enough said perfessor, carry on. I do my best to 'have discussions' with people that profess a 'god belief'. But it always becomes circular logic and people of faith who would feign 'enlightenment' are simply carping talking points they've seen on apologist websites.

Ten minutes of research will reveal the transition of life over the last 600 million years, if that is too much for you then we are done.

You stick with the magic flying grandpa and his unicorns.

No, you really don't have discussions with anyone. You're a religious bigot who wants to use science to try and disprove God. The problem is, you've encountered someone who actually knows some science and can argue your viewpoints. This scares the shit out of you and so you're going to attack and denigrate me.

Go and take 10 minutes or however many minutes you need, and find me some evidence of transition between GENUS of life, anywhere at any time. Find an example of a mutation which produced an improved organism. If you find a 'transitional' candidate, please explain the process for how it altered it's mitochondria to flawlessly produce re-coded DNA for the newly created organism? Oh... and "magic" isn't an explanation.