by the_end_of_eternity 12 Replies latest watchtower bible
I am in this discussion with an elderm and it is all about the age of the polar caps, coral reefs etc. For abvious reasons this is important discussion.
anyway, what is good scientific information proving (or priving not) the age is more then a few 1000 years old...
I know there have been some drillings done etc. Most siytes just give this as a fact, which I do not doubt so much, but of course he wants more prove.
Same with the age of the coral islands (atols).
thanks all.
end_of_eternity
There was a documentary on the History channel just a few days ago about core samples from ice drilling.
Missed the exact title and most of the show. The bit I did see was about a two mile deep core(from Greenland) showing volcanic ash and air samples from a period of about twenty thousand years ago. Very interesting.
Wish I could be more help. The documentary may repeat itself soon.
Very cool topic!
I guess you are debating the global nature of the flood...?
I have articles about the ice cores but they are sorta technical- would he read a longer article?
For the mean time here is a little list I found when I looked at talkorigins.org and went on their search feature and typed in "ice core". You might try that site as it is dedicated to explaining science to the evolution v. creation crowd. It is a great site. I learn new things there all the time. And the info is organized where you can search by issues...
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/biblio/ice_cores.html
another hit I got at that site is:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html
This page has the ice core story laid out in an easy to peruse fashion, starting with the reliability of the ice core record. I think that this is the key issue ans a simple one that will make an impact on your elder friend. There are SO many converging lines of evidence- many indepedently dated records (cores from N and S poles, ocean sediment records, lake records, speleothems, tree-ring records etc etc -the list goes on and on.
All of these environmental records independently confirm the climatic, ecological and environmental record going back waaaaaay further than "the flood".
The science in this area is very strong ans is only questioned by those who need to back up their view of a young earth or "the flood".
The most recent "Awake!" lets the JWs now believe that the earth is many millions of years old- they say, because the scientific data shows this. If the writers of the "Awake!" allow that belief, then how do they dismiss the same data that disallows the flood...?
I wish you the best!!!
Let us know how it goes.
:)
-Kudra
the_end_of_eternity these may help. Hope so anyway!
http://pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warnings/stories/
go down and click on Ice Core Timeline
http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Plaeoclimatology_Icecores/
New Ice Core Reveals 800,000 Years of Climate History (July 2007)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070705-antarctica-ice.html
thought this topic was about a North Pole porn film :-) oh well...
AIG (Answersingenesis) always find some interesting things. They are the pro-Biblical anti-evolution detractors. So if there's anything on this topic that throws doubt on the science of it, they likely will have published it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v18/i2/icecore.asp
Personally I was researching the ice cores issues and read what the WTS had said and was reading what others were saying until I came across a reference that said that under all those ice cores in Antartica they found toprical vegetation. So at one time Antartica, before the ice, was a tropical place. At that point I had no further concerns about the ice cores since obviously, regardless of what scientists are calculating by, the vegetation at the very bottom of the ice cores proves there must have been a global flood and that the world at one time was completely tropical globally, which is possible and consistent with the water canopy around the earth prior to the flood. Sooo, since I do personally believe the Bible's chronology is accurate, particularly in relation to the flood, I have to presume there is some "curve" the scientists are missing or are not aware of in their dating process. There are too many specific unknowns. So I apply the usual SIC rule in cases like this (i.e. Science is Clueless).
JCanon
JCanon, you're missing a very important piece of information there. The fossilized tropical plant life around the polar circle is not evidence of a catastrophic flood, it's from when those parts of the continental plates were situated near the equator.
The continental plates are constantly drifting. If you notice on a world map the shape of South America dovetails perfectly with the West coast of Africa. There are areas in Newfoundland with rocks that match perfectly with rocks in Scotland, like a piece of paper that was torn in two, showing where that particular break in the continental shelf occurred.
At one time Greenland had a tropical climate because it WAS in the tropics. One school of thought holds that the continents drift and collide back and forth over the eons, sometimes switching the direction of their movement. Evidence of this can be found in the Appalachian cordillera, a series of fold mountains thrust up over eons while the North American continent drifted East, only to erode to their current heights as the continent drifted West and pushed up the Western Cordillera (Rockies, Sierra Nevadas). Given enough time, the Rockies will erode to a state similar to the Appalachians today.
Also, the water canopy theory is impossible because that amount of water in the atmosphere would make breathing impossible due to the crushing atmospheric pressure and would raise the surface temperature to boiling. Basic biological processes would be rendered impossible.
Flood geology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_Geology
JCanon:
"The other thing is whether or not science can use any other method to effec-
tively calculate the true age of anything by other methods? Even the universe
could be artificially aged by Jehovah himself. Per the Bible it seems, for in-
stance, that the stars and illuminaries were created after the Earth was. Not
sure how long the Earth was in existence before that, but if God decided to have
the stars in the heavens simply for the purpose of the Earth, when God said "let
there be light" so as to bring the light of the stars in the universe to the
surface of the Earth, then God could have sped up that light process. Thus
stars billions of light years away were created with an aged light source. Soft
of a pre-aged universe. God certainly could do that if he wanted."
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/146197/1.ashx
1. That God could create "aged light" is easy to imagine. But why should God
put out a word "day" in a context that allows a longer period than 24 hours (as
in "in Noah's day"), create evidence for various fields of science to corrobor-
ate on an older Earth (billions of years), then hold us to an assumption of a
younger one (thousands of years)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlight_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
For example, the young Earth idea asks us to imagine He created light to leave
the false impression of a star exploding 170,000 years ago, but the star didn't
really exist--God created the light as a practical joke? And He'd base salva-
tion on it? Talk about a bad sense of humor.
Since He also left evidence of those who've forced the point about their Bible
interpretation as the only Bible interpretation, notably ones who haven't kept
up with the latest evidence to reconcile it with, He would most reasonably ex-
pect us to assume a young Earth creatonist is just causing us to read more from
one of them.
2. If you're going to try to play special messenger of God with special re-
quirements for salvation at all credibly (if that's possible at this point), you
better ask God to get a spell checker. There's no such word as "illuminaries."
Thank you all for the help,
yes some of those sites are very good... Will still look for more. It does nto matter if they are technical, how more technical how better I think.
JCANON: the page there is not really very scientific, actually they make quite a lot of rediculous claims. Will not refute them, coz guess not many people would be interested here.
glendster: thanks also... but of course the JW don't follow much of the young earth ideas, so the age of the universe or earth is not really a point of discussion i think. The age of man, and the flllot are the points of discussion however. Thanks also.
eoe
