DINOSAURS - What do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?

by Bloody Hotdogs! 70 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Apognophos

  In reading your Sky Ocean article, I want to note a few things that aren't simple typos, and may warrant discussion:

  1. I am not a physicist, but I am dubious of the traditional disproof of the water canopy that "all that water would have crushed everything". The weight the water would impose on our atmosphere would surely depend on how far it was from Earth's center. If the water were high enough, it wouldn't weigh anything at all (it would also be frozen, but I don't think that is problematic since the Bible doesn't say it wasn't).

  2. If the water canopy affected radiocarbon dating, we would not expect to see an "offset" or gap in the ages of objects. Rather we would see a change in the rate of frequency of different ages found through this dating method because the rate of radiation entering the atmosphere had changed. Only a sudden, massive spike in radiation would cause a gap in the ages found.

  Thus objects would still be found that dated to right before the Flood, but pre-Flood ages would stretch out in time, having wider spaces in-between them, because they actually represented a smaller range of time than thought, like 2,000 years, being assigned to a range of 200,000 years -- if in fact the pre-Flood objects were being overestimated in their age by scientists. However...

  3. Offset or no offset, I believe that the water canopy excuse actually hurts the case of creationists rather than helping it. If there was less radiation before the Flood because of all that water absorbing the rays from space, then that means C14 would decay more slowly. That means that an object that we think is X years old would actually be, say, 10X years old because we were severely underestimating how long an object would have to be exposed to atmospheric radiation in order for the C14 to decay that far. So C14-dated objects would actually be far older than scientists thought.

  The Society has written their statements in what seems like a deliberately vague way, such as "any change in radiation would have altered the rate of formation of radioactive carbon-14 to such an extent as to invalidate all radiocarbon dates prior to the Flood", rather than stating which way the dating would be swung, because somehow C14 would have to be decaying faster pre-Flood in order to support a creationist timeline, and I think they are aware of that.
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  James Brown

  http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/ancient/dinosaur/

  I did google the ica stones.

  Because of the governments prosecuting people who sell artifacts the person who sold them said he made them.

  I was in the law business when I worked.

  That is called duress.

  I will give you that the waters are muddied on the Ica stones.

  But googling mens drawings of dinosaurs led to the above link with a lot of evidence.

  They even have stone carvings of dinosarus in an 800 year old Buddist temple in Cambodia.

  
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  Evermore

  You can find their current understanding on their website. I think they likely qualify as old earth creationists today--their past was different.

  This may just be creative wording. They allow for the earth to be billions of years old, but they are vague when it comes to the six days of creation. The way it's worded still allows for dinos to be pretty recent...or not.

  http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/creationism-belief/

  1. Age of the earth. Some creationists teach that the earth is just a few thousand years old. However, according to the Bible, the earth and the universe existed before the six days of creation. (Genesis 1:1) For that reason, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no objection to credible scientific research that indicates the earth may be billions of years old.
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  Apognophos

  Evermore, thanks, but the creation of Earth (and the stars, including the Sun) is considered by the Society to be covered by Genesis 1:1 and thus not part of the creative days. The question is whether the creative days where light was "made" and then the plants, animals, etc. are considered to be successive periods of 7,000 years -- after the Earth was made "billions of years" ago. If Hotdogs is right, the Watchtower stance is really a bizarre mix of old- and young-earth creationism.
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  Bloody Hotdogs!

  Apognophos, thanks for making me think!

  My understanding of the physics of the water canopy is as follows: Material can either orbit the earth or bear directly on it (I'm unaware of a third option). Therefore, water can either orbit the earth (something like the ice rings of Saturn) or ‘float’ in the atmosphere (something like clouds and vapour), which in turn bears directly on Earth’s surface. If the water canopy existed toward the outer reaches of our atmosphere (not actually very high up at all), it would indeed turn to ice fall straight down.

  As for the effect on carbon dating - I’m going to have to re-think that… my head hurts.

  Also, you have made me seriously doubt the 7000 year thing. Maybe they do intend to allow for millions of years. It’s just that, a simple reading of their literature gives such a different impression...
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  Evermore

  Yes, Apognophos, I conceded that in my comment. It is very difficult to nail down. However, just for accuracy's sake, I think they no longer accept the 7,000 years either. Here is part one of their answer:

  1. Length of the six days of creation. Some creationists assert that the six days of creation were literal 24-hour days. But the word “day” in the Bible can refer to a considerable length of time.—Genesis 2:4; Psalm 90:4.

  Later, they've taken to referring to those 'days' as time periods, leaving them undefined.

  They are in a pickle! They are concerned that they look scientific, but at the same time, their belief is not supported by science, and they don't know what science will come up with next. They've had a number of humiliating mistakes where they have had to rewrite past understandings.

  Their other problem is that they don't want to be identified too closely with other creationists. In fact, they insist that they are not creationists because they don't believe in 24 hour creative days.

  I agree that they are a strange mixture of old-young earth creationists, but I would add one more descriptor. old-young-undetermined creationists. I believe they are leaving this ambiguous on purpose. They don't want to be identified as creationists, yet they are creationists, so that moves them to be vague.

  Bloody Hotdogs! I think in the end, you will not get a clear answer, and that's on purpose. Also, I think if you do some research, there is a great deal of scientific commentary on the flood. You are considering two options, but there are many more.

  Here is one problem with the water canopy hypothesis:

  Vapor canopy. This model, proposed by Whitcomb & Morris and others, proposes that much of the Flood water was suspended overhead until the 40 days of rain which caused the Flood. The following objections are covered in more detail by Brown.

  • How was the water suspended, and what caused it to fall all at once when it did?
  • If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.
  • If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.
  • A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.
  • Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.

  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
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  HappyOutsideTheBox

  I seem to remember from my early years that the creative days were all thought to be 7000 years long and hence why 1975 was such an important date.

  The Watchtower taught that Adam was created in 4026 BCE. Add 1975 years (no year zero) and that adds up to 6000 years.

  As there was no definite date for the creation of Eve there was a supposition that it may have been 30 or 40 years. After that God rested and the 7 th day began.

  The 1000 reign obviously didn’t appear in 1975. Add on 40 years and et voila – 2015!

  I wouldn’t hold your breath folks!

  HOTB
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  OnTheWayOut

  I won't bother commenting on their misleading fossil record discussion.

  *** g90 2/8 p. 11 ......When the dinosaurs had fulfilled their purpose, God ended their life. But the Bible is silent on how he did that or when.

  Ya see- Jehovah liked killing things even before He had been given a reason to do so. I hate to say that fits well with the God of the OT.
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  Listener

  There is this article that talks about 'aeons' = an indefinite period.

  W 2011 2/15

  The Climax of Earthly Creation

  13 After aeons had passed and God had produced innumerable animate and inanimate works, the earth was no longer “formless and waste.” Yet, Jehovah had not finished using his spirit for creative purposes. He was about to produce his highest earthly creation. Toward the end of the sixth creative day, God created man. How did Jehovah do so? By using his holy spirit and the elements of the earth.—Gen. 2:7.
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  Apognophos

  Therefore, water can either orbit the earth (something like the ice rings of Saturn)

  Yep, that's what I was getting at. Evermore has posted the standard argument that if the canopy was high enough to be ice, it would have raised the temperature considerably when it fell. I'm honestly not sure anyone has actually proven that rigorously, but it seems believable given that we are talking about 40 continuous days of rainfall.

  And the argument that, in any form, that much water would have obscured the sun, moon and stars seems pretty irrefutable. Even as ice the canopy would probably be so thick that it would block or distort the light.

  As for the effect on carbon dating - I’m going to have to re-think that… my head hurts.

  Okay, so I'm sorry for wasting your time with that, just forget you read it :-| I did some reading on C14 dating, and it turns out I didn't understand the process. I thought the breakdown of C14 came from atmospheric radiation, but that's what produces C14. C14 just naturally decays at the same rate no matter what, which I should have known.

  So actually I guess creationists can suggest that, since the canopy lowered the radiation reaching our atmosphere, that would mean less C14 was produced. So that would mean that a pre-Flood sample would contain a lower ratio of C14 to C12 at a given age than scientists would expect. In other words, they would overestimate the age of the sample because they would think it must have been around a lot longer to have decayed down to that ratio.

  This is what I get for not reading about dating methods since I stopped being a believing Witness. I guess I still have a lot of self-education to do.