I can think of a few.
see http://www.staredit.net/287491/

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 30 2011, 2:08 pm by rockz.

Well okay sure. Where did the matter come from? How did the stars form? I see lots of stars, many exploding, but none are forming. Where did the first life come from? Where did all the layers of the earth come from? Why is the moon slowly escaping earth's gravitational pull? Why are the rings around Saturn slowly being lost from Saturn? Why are the polar caps fresh water? Why do we have so many of the same types of animals all over the world on different isolated islands? Why have dinosaur foot prints been found with human footprints in the same strata? Why are human footprints found on dinosaur footprines? Where are there so many sightings of dino-saur like sea animals all over the world? Why are there so many pigmys in Africa that claim a type of dinosuar still exists? Why is our magnetic field slowly diminishing, is it a cycle or is constantly diminishing? If it were diminishing then nothing could be carbon dated past a few thousand years back (different magnetic levels alter the carbon dating ratio method). Why are so many wooly-mammoths found standing straight up frozen, with food still in their mouths? Why has dinosaur skin cells been found preserved today? You can't tell me that was preserved for millions of years. Why are there hundreds of inca stones with dinosaur drawings and pictures? Why did so many different cultures around the world know about dragons and dinosaurs, if they didn't exist at the same time? Why do the inca stones have drawings of dinosaurs with circular patterns on the skin, they couldn't know that if dinosaurs didn't even exist at that time (it was recently discovered that many dinosaurs had circular patterns on the skin). Why do so many large dinosaurs (like stegosauras) have nostrils the size of horses? They would suffocate from just standing there and breathing in today's atmosphere. Why are there so few bones in the ground? If Evolution were true wouldn't there be millions and millions of fossils of missing links between the various kinds of animals? Why are the layers of the earth so distinct? Why is there never erosion marks, or soil layer between the layers of the earth? Why are so many layers of the earth warped in odd directions without signs of cracks due to movement (image)? Doesn't that mean those layers had to form while they were still malleable, otherwise they would crack while solid? Why are so many trees found standing straight up and down, petrified, through multiple layers of the earth that are supposed to be different ages? Why have there been human objects found in coal seams, supposedly formed millions of years ago? Why do so many cultures of the world have ancient stories about a catostrophic flood? My Vietnamese girlfriend knows a story from her mother of a man that survived a world-wide flood, and we are all their ancestors. Why do the Hawaiians have such a similar story? Why do cultures and people in Africa say that pteridactols exist still today? How would they even know about pteridactols? How would the pigmys even know about the plesiosauraus? How did the Native Americans know that drinking broth from boiled bark releived a certain difeciancy that the English settlers had? Why are all the mountains of the Earth so commonly formed paralel to one another? Why do the tectonic plates exist? If they exist, doesn't that mean at once point in time they were all solid? Why are petrified clams found at the top of Mt. Everest, closed (buried alive)? Why are different parts of the same organism often carbon dated at different ages? Why do all of the world's major civilizations all seem to just appear way back in time? For example, the chinese dynasty seemed to just... Appear.. At some point the past. Why do all major civiliations just seem to appear like this?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 31 2011, 12:46 am by CecilSunkure.

Wait, so do you believe that the universe was created by some outside force (i.e. a "creator") or do you believe specifically in a Christian god?

Humans, as builders themselves, notice that everything appears to be the result of some kind of action. We are bound by our own powers of perception. Of course we as humans believe that the universe must have a point of origin - I find it hard to accept that the universe just exists, that anything could just exist. I find the idea of something that exists independently of our universe and doesn't abide by any kind of physical laws an attractive one, but I don't see why it should mean that any particular interpretation of this "outside force" is the correct one.

In other words, why follow Christianity and not any other religion (including the Flying Spaghetti Monster)? Surely a smart person realises that the only reason they truly follow a particular religion is because they have been conditioned to while they were young. They grew up around Christians, or their parents went to Church and they went to Sunday School. Perhaps their community was strongly Christian. As they get older they may question their beliefs but over time the fear of death strengthens them. Loved ones may die and religion is a means of feeling a lasting connection with their memory, and as a person nears death themselves a belief in an afterlife based on faith eases their worries about what might lie beyond.

I don't have a problem with the idea of a creator, but I think people have to realise that religion is just a social construct.

I'm not sure what I currently believe, but I do tend toward the idea of an external creator.

Why does it have to be simply a social construct? Why can't one religion actually be true?

*cracks knuckles* let the debunking begin...

Where did the matter come from?
The Big Bang caused space to expand, throwing out all the matter that there is in the universe today.

How did the stars form?
The stars formed when concentrations of helium and hydrogen became so great that they attracted a magnetic force of their own. This magnetic force triggered a fusion reaction which sucked in all surrounding hydrogen and helium and thus the star was born.

I see lots of stars, many exploding, but none are forming.
They are forming, their light just hasn't arrived here yet and therefore you cannot see them.

Where did the first life come from?
Monocellular algae, probably already existed during the big bang.

Where did all the layers of the earth come from?
Over time. Aeolian erosion, glacial erosion, rill and splash erosion, thermal erosion. Particle transportation and deposition. Pretty much every thing in physical geography.

Why is the moon slowly escaping earth's gravitational pull?
Because the universe is expanding. Dark matter is un-seeable but has a profound effect on the gravitational effects of the universe.

Why are the rings around Saturn slowly being lost from Saturn?
Because Saturn is weak as shit. See above.

Why are the polar caps fresh water?
Because when sodium chloride ions are suspended in dihydrogen monoxide - the atomic valency and subsequent freezing temperature are lowered.

Why do we have so many of the same types of animals all over the world on different isolated islands?
Because the isolated islands you see today were not always so isolated. Animals can move and many do migrate.

Why have dinosaur foot prints been found with human footprints in the same strata?
Because archaeologists are desperate for funding, and this type of shit gets them front page coverage on national geographic.

Where are there so many sightings of dino-saur like sea animals all over the world?
Because it is human nature to fear the unknown. Fatigue causes hallucinations.

Why are there so many pigmys in Africa that claim a type of dinosuar still exists?
Why do so many Christians believe in God?

Why are so many wooly-mammoths found standing straight up frozen, with food still in their mouths?
Because this is how the museum curators like to display these fossils and recreations.

Why has dinosaur skin cells been found preserved today? You can't tell me that was preserved for millions of years.
Anything will preserve indefinitely if the conditions are right. Remove all oxygen, remove all water, remove all gas, create a vacuum - put something in it. It will preserve.

Why are there hundreds of inca stones with dinosaur drawings and pictures?
Maybe they didn't draw dinosaurs, maybe they drew mythical religious creatures?

Why do the inca stones have drawings of dinosaurs with circular patterns on the skin, they couldn't know that if dinosaurs didn't even exist at that time (it was recently discovered that many dinosaurs had circular patterns on the skin).
Artistic license?

Why do so many large dinosaurs (like stegosauras) have nostrils the size of horses? They would suffocate from just standing there and breathing in today's atmosphere.
In the Pleistoscene, the atmosphere was extremely different than todays atmosphere. This geological time period was also known for the Megaflora and Megafauna which it created - due to its rarefied atmosphere.

Why are there so few bones in the ground? If Evolution were true wouldn't there be millions and millions of fossils of missing links between the various kinds of animals?
Bones are incredibly difficult to preserve.Teeth are the only exception, and then only in rare cases when the enamel has been preserved during lifetime. I don't think animals knew about colgate.

Why are the layers of the earth so distinct?
Because of the physical mechanics involved in soil or particle deposition. Particularly atmospheric conditions, such as humidity, play a massive part in the 'color' of a deposited soil layer.


Why is there never erosion marks, or soil layer between the layers of the earth?
Because soil is an organic horizon found on the surface where aeration is common.


Why are so many layers of the earth warped in odd directions without signs of cracks due to movement?
Because tectonic plate movements occur over millenia. And the vast amounts of pressure so far underground, beneath all those other layers, cause solid materials to operate differently - especially over such timescales. It is not like you are taking a pane of glass and punching it.

Doesn't that mean those layers had to form while they were still malleable, otherwise they would crack while solid?
No.


Why are so many trees found standing straight up and down, petrified, through multiple layers of the earth that are supposed to be different ages?
Never heard of these tree's bro. What tree's have you been smoking.

Why have there been human objects found in coal seams, supposedly formed millions of years ago?
Define human objects? This question makes little to no sense at all. Is the coal millions of years old? Or the human 'objects'?

Why do so many cultures of the world have ancient stories about a catostrophic flood?
Every culture and society has a story relating to a flood. The most reasonable explanation is that our early ancestors from the mesolithic period had witnessed the end of an ice-age and lived through an inter-stadial period. Seeing all of this melt-water and the retreating ice-caps burned an image into their heads and they told this story, generation after generation, until it existed in the bible as God telling Noah to build an ark.

Why do the Hawaiians have such a similar story?
Chinese whispers.

Why do cultures and people in Africa say that pteridactols exist still today?
Because human imagination likes to believe in fantasy and mythical traditions serve to further these aspirations and dreams. It does not necessarily mean they are right.


How would the pigmys even know about the plesiosauraus?
I refuse to answer a question that has pigmy and plesiosauraus in the same sentence unless you give some evidence.

How did the Native Americans know that drinking broth from boiled bark releived a certain difeciancy that the English settlers had?
Plants flourish often because of their adaptability and symbiosis with living creatures. For example, bee's and most birds propagate pollen from flowers and other plants allowing them to flourish. More exclusively, elephants eat a certain fruit whole - and deposit its undigested seed pellet a number of miles away. Perhaps Native American custom attributed mystical or healing powers to this boiled bark broth and the English settlers were merely duped under a placebo effect.

Why are all the mountains of the Earth so commonly formed paralel to one another?
Em. Gravity? Tectonic plates cause what are known as destructive and constructive fault lines. At constructive fault-lines (such as where the Himalayas are), one plate is sliding beneath the other, resulting in a regional increase of 'mountains'.

Why do the tectonic plates exist? If they exist, doesn't that mean at once point in time they were all solid?
Earth is at the right distance from the sun, and of the correct cosmic mass to cause such gravitational force in it's core to melt iron, zinc, copper, tin and various other metals which make up our rock. The tectonic plates were never solid. They were merely less active in their movements due to the variability in which volcanoes release this inner pressure from the core.

Why are petrified clams found at the top of Mt. Everest, closed (buried alive)?
There is a story about when it rained fish in Spain. What happened was a hurricane over the West cost of Africa had such an uplift force, that fish near the surface of the water were sucked into the upper atmosphere and frozen. When they finally began their descent they landed over 500 miles away inland in Spain.

Why are different parts of the same organism often carbon dated at different ages?
Because carbon dating is inaccurate and imprecise.

Why do all of the world's major civilizations all seem to just appear way back in time? For example, the chinese dynasty seemed to just... Appear.. At some point the past. Why do all major civiliations just seem to appear like this?
It is human nature to lead and to have control. It is why in the animal kingdom you will see an alpha male Lion being the leader of a pride of females. If a beta male attempts to assert his control, the alpha male will fight. Therefore, it is human nature. If a group of individuals begin to live together communally, the smart and powerful individuals will take the reins and steer this community. That is how dynasties, monarchies, empires and tribes are born.

Where did the matter causing the big bang(s) come from?

Link explaining star creation better please, I cannot see how this would happen.

One would think stars are constantly forming. Why isn't the light from the stars formed millions of years ago reaching us?

Where did the monocellular algae come from?

@water Why isn't there sea water mixed with fresh water though? It should be composed of a mixture.

Why haven't those animals evolved separately though? If they migrated millions of years ago, they should be significantly different now, yet they aren't.

Your answer isn't much of an answer :S Come up with a better one.

So all these hundreds of people from different places down through the ages hallucinated the same thing?

Why do you believe in evolution?

The mammoths were found in the ice like that. Museum curators had nothing to do with it.

Mythical religious figures not mentioned in their religion that look awfully similar to dinosaur fossils we have recently discovered.

Mhmm, these artists all used the same idea on all or most of their dinosaurs that just happens to correspond with what ACTUALLY WAS on dinosaurs. Sure.

Actually, there are billions of fossils found; why are so few of those used as examples of transitional fossils? Transitional fossils should outnumber the current-formfossils, not be a small percentage.

Why Is it that some parts ARE cracked then?

I'll leave the trees to cecil.

Makes perfect sense to me. There are hunan objects that have been found in coal beds. These coal beds were supposedly formed millions of years ago, when humans weren't supposed to have evolved by.

Here's a better explanation: there was a massive worldwide flood. Only one family who happened to have a boat survived.

Ok, I admit don't know neither that nor where to find the answer to that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star 3rd paragraph.

Because of the distance, black holes, other singularities and pretty much everything that has sufficient gravity and a convenient location to bend the path the light travels.

Lightning struck the ocean in the prehistoric Earth, triggering reactions that creates organic molecules. The organic molecules combine to form nucleic acids, membranes, and organelles. Over time, the first cells are born.

Sea water is pretty much fresh water without salt and some other substances. When water evaporates, forms rain clouds then rains down somewhere there aren't these substances that define seawater or any way for the water to flow to sea, you get fresh water.

It can be because of the similiarities in their habitats. Also, the activities of tectonic plates can also separate populations from the same spieces without bringing them too far apart from each other. Thanks to the similiar living conditions, convergent evolution helps those species to stay similiar to each other, since they were, after all, from the same species when the separation happened.

Which part are you talking about?

Or they were just making shit up for attention. Or maybe, when asked, they think "Oh wait, now I think about it, I just saw an ordinary <insertrandommarineanimalhere>. It's too embarassing to admit" and started bullshitting.

Cuz of all the time it has to happen, and all the evidence that suggests it happens.

Frozen stuff tends to last really long. Especially stuff frozen by some extraordinary force that can freeze a mammoth while it's still chewing.

I admit I can't think of any other way to explain this other than proability. Or maybe the Incas actually dug out a dinosaur skeleton by chance then decided to worship it.

It's funny how creationists love to talk about greatly unlikely things, then give pure chance the finger.

Scientists can only decide whether a fossil from a species of animal was a transitional species or not after they've found out details of the creature's anatomy. And a fossil that include most of an animal's skeleton ("Holy shit James come here it's a complete T-rex skeleton") is extremely rare. And scientists often sort fossils of the same species to be from different species, or glue pieces of different animals together.

The plates move in different ways. Each different way of crushing two plates together will produce different results.

How can you be so sure that those objects are humanmade? Remember that other animals can use and make tools too (and not just the monkey family, crows can even do it).

Yeah, a super family who can magically travel all over the world, gather food, water and shittons of animals, built a ship that can hold all these animals and some unknown mechanism to keep the animals from eating each other, all within their lifetime.

Jack, Raitaki, you need to format your posts so they are more readable please

Ah okay. What caused the Big Bang, if the Big Bang caused space to expand? You said matter was "thrown out", where did it come from? Also if this is true, why are there such huge gaps and clusters of lots of matter throughout space? If the Big Bang were to occur then the mass would have to be both evenly distributed across space as well as having all the matter throughout space evenly dispersed in composition. Why are the planets of our galaxy so vastly different in both size and composition? All the planets should be similar in size and composition if the Big Bang theory were true. Also, according the Big Bang, the mass before the explosion was spinning extremely rapidly (or during the explosion). If your version of the Big Bang has this spinning occurring, then you have to answer for why two of our planets in our galaxy spin the wrong way, as well as a good number of moon son Jupiter. The law of conservation of angular momentum (I think it's called) states that when a spinning object breaks apart, all pieces thereforth spin in the same direction; the outside of the spinning object spins faster than the inside.

Why were there concentrations of helium? Also, how can fusion explain all the different elements of today, when the fusion of iron is endothermic? It would be awefully hard to have fusion create all the elements there are today if you cannot get passed iron. I don't know a whole lot about the ideas of chemical evolution, so I can't really provide any explanations for how we have all the chemicals we have today, especially when the ones we have on earth so often decay in a downward pattern across the period table, other than that a higher being placed them there.

I find it hard to believe that light from a forming star just hasn't reached us yet. It sounds much more likely that if stars commonly form then we'd see one forming or see the process of one that formed. The only explanation of how a star could form that I've ever heard (one that was legitimate) was an explanation that if 20 or so supernovas occurred near one another, matter could be compressed together in the middle of the explosions to form a star. You lose 20 to gain 1. If there is no solid explanation, then perhaps stars cannot form on their own, and a higher being had to have placed them there. Is that really too hard to believe?

But I thought only hydrogen and the occasional helium existed during the Big Bang? With all that energy flowing around I don't see how the plasma that came forth from the Big Bang turned into Hydrogen then into single cell algae. You know, single celled organisms we see today are more complicated than a space shuttle? They also are irreducibly complex, meaning that they cannot survive as a simpler state, because all pieces of the cell are necessary. I find it easier to believe that a higher being created life, than what you've explained. My science teacher (an evolutionist) even found it hard to believe that a fully function plant-like cell arose on it's own due to the immense complexity involved in creating a cell like such.

Evidence? Sources? This is very much out of range of common knowledge, and since I don't even know the definitions of those words those know way to know whether or not it's a glossy answer, or a solid answer. This does sound interesting, but I have no idea where to start researching these things. Could you help I and anyone else reading this?

The dark matter I've heard of is only speculated to exist with no backing whatsoever. I'm not very convinced that the entire universe is expanding because of dark matter. I find it a much easier to believe of an explanation that a higher power created the moon slowly escaping earth's pull, perhaps as subtle evidence of his existence.

The point is at the current rate the rings cannot be millions of years old. I have no idea how the solar system can be millions of years old if the rings cannot be millions of years old.

Okay, how did they get there, is the point I was making. Creationism has a good explanation that not many people have taken the time to hear: during the catastrophic flood water burst forth from underground (which was under immense pressure) shooting lots of water very high above the earth. This water froze and quickly became charged, thus being drawn towards the polar ice caps resulting in torrents of super-cold ice which burried animals like the woolly mammoths in a quick hurry, explaining why many are found frozen still standing, even with food in their mouths.

In order to claim they weren't isolated always, you need some sort of explanation or source. And, not all animals can migrate over an ocean. I thought that most people don't believe in Pangea anymore, is Pangea what you are referring to? Underneath the oceans there is still dirt; I cannot see how the land of today was all one continent. Perhaps the sea was lower at some point? I'm not sure, but it does make one think. Although, Creationism does provide some very sensible explanations for this. I cannot find the video that does a good job of explaining, but after the flood (according to Creationism) the sea was much lower due to the amount of ice on the caps that hadn't melted yet. Much of the ocean today is very shallow, and if a large portion of ice hadn't yet melted it is possible that these shallow areas were walkable by land animals. This can explain the question I provided you earlier.

Actually this sort of thing isn't published in places like National Geographic because it destroys the theory of evolution. I could also reverse you argument, and say that everything that claims to be evidence for the theory of evolution to be found out of necessity to keep grant money coming in (which has been proven to be the case on multiple occasions, like Lucy and the carbon deposit found by NASA).

Many of them are well-documented by people who were neither under fatigue or fearing the unkown. Many were captians and sailors. There are just so many sightings that I don't think saying they were all hallucinating is a very reasonable explanation. Perhaps they actually saw dinosaurs or water reptiles.

Point is, how would they be able to describe the plesiosaur with such accuracy, if it doesn't exist in modern day. The plesiosaur isn't even their god, it's just a normal creature to them like every other animal around them. I don't think it's fair to make such a comparison.

I'm talking about the ones found on archealogical digs, not the displays in exhibits. Many mammoths were found frozen under ice standing up, often in walking positions. They must have been frozen there in a short period of time; animals don't die in normal living positions and stay there long enough for ice to pile around them. Like I detailed earlier, Creationism has a good explanation for how these dig sites occurred.

It wasn't found in a vacuum, and I find it harder to believe that it would have been vacuum sealed in perfect conditions for millions of years underground than to believe that it's just not millions of years old. What about those slow tectonic movements you talk about a little further down? Wouldn't those have disrupted any sort of vacuum like the one you mentioned? Perhaps the tissue found really isn't that old.

I find it both simpler and more probable that they drew dinosaurs, because there were dinosaurs. There are thousands of these stones (not hundreds, excuse me) and it's pretty clear that many are dinosaurs. It's a pretty strong argument. link

I'm not sure what you mean. Though, here are some pictures of them: link

The atmosphere would have to be double the pressure of what it is today to sustain an animal so large with nostrils so small. The atmosphere you described is very thin. Creationism has explanations for how and why these creatures could exist. One type of Creationism details that there was a layer of ice above the earth that protected the earth from harmful rays, as well as pressurized the atmosphere. If this were true it would explain why dinosaurs could exist, and why gigantic dragonfly fossils are found, and other gigantic insects, fish, and animal fossils were found that could not possibly live in our current atmosphere.

Okay let me restate: why is it so common to find bones of animals that already exist compared to the never found missing links? Maybe there never were missing links and a creator made all the animals similar to how they are today.

What physical mechanics? Also, color is a chemical property, and if colors are different the matter itself is different. You mean to tell me that the difference between the lime and granite and all the other layers found are all a result of weather conditions? That sounds like a bad idea to me. Also, why are there multiple layers of lime in many places, or multiple layers of the same composition? Creationism states that these layers formed during a catastrophic flood. I find that explanation much more solid than yours, perhaps it is true?

So the layers form underneath soil, always..? Why? How? Isn't it simpler to say there was a flood that mixed up a lot of earth, and it quickly settled into different layers? I used to have a toy with two different types of sand in it between two panes of glass. You shake it and watch the two types of sand in the water settle into tons of pretty layers as it falls to the bottom after being shaken.

Why are so many layers of the earth warped in odd directions without signs of cracks due to movement?
Because tectonic plate movements occur over millenia. And the vast amounts of pressure so far underground, beneath all those other layers, cause solid materials to operate differently - especially over such timescales. It is not like you are taking a pane of glass and punching it.Evidence? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me that slow movements over millions of years would form layers like in the picture I provided. A simpler explanation is that during a worldwide flood, after the wet layers settled earthquake-like movements molded the non-solid layers into the shape they are in today, as they are now long hardened. Also, if pressure is applied to rock over time, the rock cracks, not moves slowly. The picture I provided didn't have fault lines; it was created in a bent shape somehow.

Doesn't that mean those layers had to form while they were still malleable, otherwise they would crack while solid?
No.Why not? Rock under pressure over time cracks; it doesn't slowly bend, does it?

Why are so many trees found standing straight up and down, petrified, through multiple layers of the earth that are supposed to be different ages?
Never heard of these tree's bro. What tree's have you been smoking.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DI49ZFIvWA

Why have there been human objects found in coal seams, supposedly formed millions of years ago?
Define human objects? This question makes little to no sense at all. Is the coal millions of years old? Or the human 'objects'?Human objects like bowls. If a bowl is found in a coal seam, the coal seam can't be millions of years old. The odd thing is is that objects like this have been found in coal seams that were supposedly formed millions of years ago. One time I even saw a picture of a tree standing through two different coal seams (I think it's in the youtube link I provided).

Why do so many cultures of the world have ancient stories about a catostrophic flood?
Every culture and society has a story relating to a flood. The most reasonable explanation is that our early ancestors from the mesolithic period had witnessed the end of an ice-age and lived through an inter-stadial period. Seeing all of this melt-water and the retreating ice-caps burned an image into their heads and they told this story, generation after generation, until it existed in the bible as God telling Noah to build an ark.Or, a single man in a boat actually did live and passed the story down. The story didn't ever call for ice caps, it called for the world being covered in water with a man in a boat surviving. Is it really that hard to believe that there was an actually a flood? Saying there was an actual flood makes more sense to me personally, and is also the simpler explanation.

Why do the Hawaiians have such a similar story?
Chinese whispers.The Chinese sailed there and told them a story that they could somehow understand, and they believed it and passed it on? I find it simpler that there actually was a world-wide flood, don't you?

Why do cultures and people in Africa say that pteridactols exist still today?
Because human imagination likes to believe in fantasy and mythical traditions serve to further these aspirations and dreams. It does not necessarily mean they are right.The point is, how did they know about them at all in the first place, and why would they make up an animal? Making up a god, sure that makes sense, but way a random animal that actually supposedly existed millions of years in the past? I find it a simpler and more believable explanation that they are still alive today.

How would the pigmys even know about the plesiosauraus?
I refuse to answer a question that has pigmy and plesiosauraus in the same sentence unless you give some evidence.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokele-mbembe

Post too large, will continue in next one.

Post has been edited 7 time(s), last time on Mar 31 2011, 7:01 am by CecilSunkure.

A placebo effect cannot cure a nutritional deficiancy, can it? Perhaps that knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, and a higher being actually told Adam about this sort of cure. If there were no higher being, I don't know if there is a good explanation for how many tribal cultures could have such medicinal knowledge.

Point is, why are so many of the fault lines parallel to one another? Creationism states that before the flood much of today's water was stored in gigantic underground packets. If these packets were breached then the cracks in the earth's crust would form. When this happens, the plates would often slide away from each other from where the water was gushing, and thus crash into one another in another place; this explains why there are so many parallels in the tectonic plates as well as mountain formations. Instead of saying that the plates form over millions of years, what about considering the idea that they formed quickly during a catastrophic flood? I personally find the flood explanation much more believable. When two plates crash into one another during the sliding effect that happened during the flood, they can either both go upward (forming mountian ranges), or downward (forming sea trenches), or one can go over another (the sandwhich layers we all see today).

I don't see why they weren't solid at one point. If you see a cracked and broken glass formation on the ground you can definitely assume it was once a glass figure or window at some point. What is different from our plates? Why would they form pre-made with gigantic faults and cracks? Isn't it more reasonable to say the crust was once solid, and cracked at some point in time meaning there was a gigantic catastrophic quake in the past?

Clams live at the bottom of the ocean. I also think the top of Mt. Everest is slightly farther away and higher than where the hurricane in Spain hit. Maybe the top of Mt. Everest was actually under water at some point, and during the flood pressure from the plates sliding around caused that point in the ground to rise up (like pressing two pieces of paper on a table-top into one another, where the pressure is released by both pieces rising). This could explain why clams petrified in a closed formation (buried alive) could be found at the highest place on earth; maybe it simply wasn't the highest place on Earth at some point.

Okay. But I've very often seen a lot of evidence of Evolution using carbon dating. Are all of those claims false then?

The point is that all the major civilations all seem to have arose randomly, all around the same time period. Just, appeared. How is this explained by evolution? Creationism does a great job of explaining this. Perhaps during the time of the Babylon tower the groups of people who had various languages formed a civilization. This seems to make a lot of sense to me; the empires all arose around the same time out of nowhere because of the Babel indecent in the Bible.

Also, Ganamite is rapidly cooling off; if it were millions of years old it would be completely cold by now.

And, I think you missed a few of my questions.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 31 2011, 7:05 am by CecilSunkure.

Actually it was just gravity, no "magnetic force" involved.

Plenty of stars in the process of being formed have been observed by scientists using telescopes. By definition this means the light is reaching earth.

Assuming the original question is asking about crustal, mantel and core, basically again it is gravity. When the planet was molten, the heavier elements tended to sink towards the centre, due to gravity. We have metals etc on the surface mainly from earthquakes and volcanoes that spewed the elements up.

This has nothing, or very little to do with the expanding universe or dark matter. It's simply the fact that the Earth's gravity isn't strong enough to keep the moon around it forever, due to the moons existing speed and mass.

A much better question is why do the rings around Saturn still exist. Over time, any chaotic system like this with weak gravity will tend to fragment into smaller and smaller pieces, and eventually dissipate out from gravity (just like the Earth is slowly leaking atmosphere into space).

I think you're saying that fresh water freezes more easily than salt water, which is true. In order for salt water to freeze, the temperature must be much much lower. Fresh water is also less dense than salt water, so forms a layer on the surface, which freezes. This helps insulate the salty water below it, leaving fresh water ice caps. If ice didn't float, life never would have evolved on earth.

According to wikipedia, these particular prints are discredited and not widely believed by Christians since the 70's either. There were methodological flaws, as well as indications that it was a hoax.

The question is fundamentally wrong, anyway. There are plenty of 'cracks' in sedimentary layers - they're called mountains, hills and rocky outcrops.

Not sure why you started talking about local weather effects after previously talking about mountain-building through tectonic plates. The chances of animals from any particular weather event being fossilised are very slim, so unless this weather event happened very frequently (several times a year), it's very unlikely the explanation. Thankfully, mountain-building explains it quite well, especially when it's not just "clams" that you're looking at, but the actual rocks that make up the mountain itself - sedimentary rocks with embedded clams can only have come from the seafloor.

Yes, carbon dating is very rough and ready, and basically used to try and corroborate with other dating techniques. It only goes back about a maximum of 50,000 years anyway, so is much more often used to date human archaeological finds (animal bones found at camp sites etc). It doesn't really have a lot to do with evolution or creationism.

This question is incredibly stupid. Did the United State suddenly "just appear"? No? How do you know? Because you have written history of it, obviously. Writing and and organised history keeping hasn't existed for all of humanity's existence on earth.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 31 2011, 8:24 am by Lanthanide.

No doubt there is some kind of truth, but I would say the chances of Christianity being the correct interpretation are low due to simple probability - there are millions of possibilities. The only reason why a Christian/Muslim/Jew/Hindu etc. thinks they are more likely to be right is because they've been brought up that way. I've seen Muslims talking complete cobblers on the Internet about how the Quran shows the development of a human foetus and so on - rather similar in tone to some arguments Christians shackled to the Bible make.

People demand high standards of accuracy from scholarly works - that people still believe in the woolly, ambiguous, contradictory and generally problematic collection of scriptures known as the Bible is a source of mystery and more than a little frustration for me.

That anyone could claim literal truth in the story of the Biblical flood, or that the Earth is 6,000 years old, is just bizarre. It's certainly possible that there was a flood around 8,500 years ago when the ice sheet over North America melted and sea levels likely rose 2-3m, but to imply as some people have, that clams were found up Everest because they were deposited there during "The Flood", suggests that the Earth was covered in water at least 26,000ft deeper than it is now. Cardinal's theory is more likely to be true than you think. The frequency of tropical storms in the Indian Ocean and their ability to travel far inland (via Bangladesh) makes the dumping of marine life in mountain ranges possible.

Edit: Though Lanthanide's explanation is a lot more logical. However when were the Himalayas formed?

Also, the initial question made it look like there were just clams lying around on top of the mountain. The fact they were actually fossil remains in the rock lends itself to the mountain formation theory.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 31 2011, 8:30 am by CaptainWill.

Will I think I explained a point badly. Let me try again.

I gave a pretty interesting explanation for how the Himalayas could have been formed, as well as how the petrified clams would have been there. Creationists don't say the whole Earth was flooded to the height of Mt. Everest, they say that Mt. Everest didn't yet exist.

Watch 38 minutes to about 43 minutes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0rj-TEx4o

This is a very interesting and very easy to believe idea of how both the mid-atlantic ridge and the all the mountains of the earth, as well as all the deep-sea trenches were formed. Actually, you might want to just watch the whole thing; it's extremely interesting.

The assumption you have is that Mt. Everest was always that high. Maybe it wasn't even there, or formed from the flood like what is in that youtube video. Again, a very interesting and compelling explanation is in that youtube link I gave. A very interesting theory about how the whole world started is detailed throughout the entire 2 hours (if you are up to watching it). Most people pass Creationism off as nonsensical, when in reality hardly anyone understand much of it at all. Most of the time people just haven't given it a fair chance.

Really? I've never seen or heard of a star even seen being formed. The whole point of me bring the idea up is that nobody has ever seen or even has an idea of how a star could form, which really makes you think hard about why they are there. I'd be thankful if you could point out to me how they could form since you claim people have observed it happening.

Well I'm talking about small stress cracks on the thin layers like the picture I linked. There should be many many stress cracks and seams in that layer shown if it was warped out of shape while it was hard. Since there aren't any, it must have been formed like that. In order for layers to form in such an odd shape they must have settled down through water (sorting of the densities) in a flat and organised fashion. Then, while the layers were still malleable, they must have been warped by a force. This could possibly be explained by sediments being deposited from the flood (like in the video I linked), then being warped at some point due to massive quake movements while still wet and un-hardened.

I would completely agree. So the question now is how did Mt. Everest rise up so high (or maybe the land everywhere else sank)?

I'm not sure why it is a stupid question. We have histories of all the major civilizations, but they all sort of just started at one point. How could that be? Did different cultures of people around the world suddenly develop the ability to read and write in different languages all at the same time? Why? Wouldn't it be more aligned with the Theory of Evolution that a single race of people who developed language and writing would conquer the world, leaving one major language with perhaps a few dialects? I'm not sure if you read my proposed explanation, so here it is:


Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Mar 31 2011, 7:02 pm by CecilSunkure.

I don't have time to respond to all of your points, but you seem to be taking either specific examples out of context, or being very general about other things in your arguments. You are however doing a far better job than Jack did at bringing up relevant points.

Yes, astronomers do have VERY good ideas of how stars are formed, you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_formation

Basically your argument is "although you might have found a 'smoking gun' of a star forming, you haven't seen the actual moment when it goes from a ball of gas to a glowing ball of gas, therefore you don't actually know how stars are formed". This is a specious argument. If you look on the wikipedia page, there is a proto-star that is believed to be about 1,000 years old.

If you accept that stars can explode in supernova (and therefore the heavens are not fixed and immutable, see also comets, Tycho Brahe and Copernicus), then there's no reason to accept that stars also cannot be created. Star exploding as supernovas have been recorded throughout history (the likely origin of 'star of Bethlehem' itself) on a dozen occasions. This is easy to do because supernova, when they happen, are very bright. Stars being born on the other hand is much more difficult, because obviously they start out very dim, and also because of the nature of where stars are formed tends to be in gassy and dusty environments that further obscure the light from reaching Earth. Because of the difficulty of directly observing stars being born, we've really only been able to do it for the last 40-50 years of computer-aided telescopes. The universe is a very very big place, and our telescopes cannot scan every single spot of the sky, and in particular areas that are believed to have a lot of star formation, like the very interior of the milky way, are difficult to observe because of the sheer density of stars and amount of light being spit out. Scientists have theories on how stars can form, and when they discover nebula and other young and proto-stars that match their theories, this is confirmation. We don't need to see the final act of a ball of gas going from non-glowing to glowing to believe with very high certainty that stars can be created.

Star creation really has little to do with the earth (or universe) being 6,000 years old anyway. You can just as easily write-off scientific explanations of star creation by saying "God deliberately created big balls of gas that would coalesce into stars 6,500 years after the universe was created". So I don't know why you're even bringing the point up.


I didn't even look at that image when I wrote my reply, but having done so, actually only makes your argument weaker. You've taken a specific picture of a rock and saying "how come there's no cracks". You know, the Earth is a big place, lots and lots of different things can happen all over it. Just because you've found one example of a complex rock feature, doesn't somehow invalidate or call into question all of geological science.

Also, I'm not a geologist, and neither are you. I'm sure a geologist could look at that picture and give you some very good explanations for how it has "no cracks" in it - I don't even know what that means anyway, because it looks like there are cracks and irregularities in that picture to me. I'm sure a geologist could also find some photos of other similar formation, both with and without "cracks" that you so desperately need to see.

Mountain building through plate tectonics, fairly obvious.

The description of mountain building between plate tectonics and creationism is broadly the same, which makes sense when you actually look at the physical evidence. The really major difference is that creationism blindly states it somehow happened in 40 days and nights (without creating massive tsunamis the size of continents that would've drowned Noah - the recent Japanese tsunami was still affecting ocean waves and currents within the Pacific ocean after 8 days, let alone the amount of disturbance simultaneously creating hundreds of mountains all over the planet within a period of days would've done - I guess God made sure Noah didn't drown and the bible doesn't bother recording these amazing waves and the miracle that they didn't drown, no big deal really).

Well, no, they didn't all just "start at one point", you're just selecting for a handful of "major civilizations". There's lots of evidence of norse settlements on greenland for example. We we not have written histories, but through dating techniques we can determine how long their things have been around for.

Because developing the method and mindset to record things takes times. Not all cultures did it - for example the Maori in New Zealand had no written language, and Europeans had to invent one for them when they arrived in the 1800's. Similarly the Incas didn't have a written language either. Therefore we have obvious examples of complex cultures that *did not* have written language even relatively recently in history. To therefore assume that all cultures must have always had written language is complete fallacy.

No, you're completely misunderstanding evolution.

The bible is basically postulating that 'modern' humans (at the time of writing) are the same sorts of people that have always existed. There's no real factual basis for this in the bible, it just says that is how things are and that's the end of it.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 1 2011, 1:05 am by Lanthanide.

They didn't. The Mesopotamians invented Cuneiform, the first system of writing, hundreds of years before the Chinese invented a system. The Indus River Valley Civilization and Ancient Egypt didn't arise until several hundred (or thousand) years after Mesopotamia. The Mayans didn't organize their city-states until about 2000 BC, and didn't become a major force until over 2500 years later. The Australian aborigines never developed agriculture.

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As for "Why does every culture have a flood myth"

Every culture does NOT have a flood myth. The Bedouin peoples of the Sahara don't have a flood myth. Neither do the native Filipinos or Vikings.

This is a circular argument. If you are accepting that God is good before the argument even starts, holding it off the table, then you can't go and just say "oh we as humans are too stupid to know what an omniscient being is". This is circular, you either have to prove through reason WHY god is omnibenevolent, or you have to admit to simply not knowing why he did things the way he did, and simply gambling and hoping he IS omnibenevolent.

To say he is omnibenevolent right off the bat and to dismiss any argument against this as simply 'not being omniscient enough' is circular. Fallacious.

God is pretty barbaric. It is a sacrifice man. Whether its an animal sacrifice, a human sacrifice, a part-human part-deity sacrifice, it is STILL a sacrifice. MURDERING someone to acquire a particular outcome. No person save the theist would even attempt to rationalize such barbarity. Of course, the reason it was a sacrifice was because thats what people did back then - sacrifices, and the authors of the book were people who were living in that timeframe.

Yes, look up the definition of a sacrifice. What was it that the Jesus/God symbiote sacrificed? Not his life, that was for sure - because he came back in 3 days time. The BEST you can say is that he sacrificed three days he would otherwise have spent in comfort. Which I hope is apparent to everyone that this is a laughable sacrifice.

As for the pain he endured, this would be meaningless to a thing like him. He is omniscient, he already knows what the pain feels like before he even goes through it. He has known the pain for all eternity. So what does this mean, that God is a masochist?

In my eyes you are debating fiction, so I can't really say anything here. But I thought the majority of people thought Jesus + God are one, not that God possessed information Jesus does not. You said a human can't experience omniscience. Yet you also said he is human AND God. And a God can experience omniscience. So really, your argument seems self defeating. But as I said previously, this is all just fiction.


[/quote]
I am an atheist. You are quoting something which I believe to be written by stupified barbarians. This is something which puzzles me time and time again with theists, they do not seem to understand that we don't share the same views? Quoting Bible passages is a complete waste of time..., I pretty much regard it all as nonsense.

Yes the 'tree of knowledge', the tree we musn't go near. You can see the analogy with religion there, I'm sure....

A God who was not cruel would not even place the tree there. Nor would such a God create a bunch of lesser creatures and then force them to obey his own rules or suffer. Perhaps you and I have a different definition of cruel? From what I can see, your God is a sadist...

Ok well firstly no historian will tell you that the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. The slave-owner myth has been shown to be false through archeological and historical findings. Exodus did not happen, what we do know actually contradicts with the Bible. But of course, if you take words in a book over empirical evidence, then what I have said won't mean much to you, which is unfortunate.

Second, it is just another case of the barbaric thinking back then. The Egyptians are hurting people, so we will hurt them back even harder! And not only that, but God punishes everyone else for the Pharaohs own stubbornness, punishes innocents. Nowhere in today's morality will you find anyone advocating the transference of punishment from the wicked to the innocent, it is completely backward... Killing a hundreds of first borns for the actions of one man is NOT what an omnibenevolent creature would do. But, as I said with Jack - if you are holding the question of omnibenevolence 'off the table' - then you HAVE to justify absolutely everything he does as somehow being good, no matter how wicked it actually is...

Yes, please stop wasting time, Bible quotes mean absolutely nothing to me, as said above in Jack's comment. Please, use your own words.

No. I mean why was the method of forgiveness a HUMAN SACRIFICE. This would basically be God's train of thought.
"HMMM - I want to forgive everyone of their transgressions conditionally."
"How should I do this...?"
"I know - I will send a portion of myself down to planet Earth, and then get myself killed, and then bring myself back to life. Yeah, that'll do the trick"
"Ha yes, my plan worked perfectly. Now I will set up the condition being you have to believe in me and/or follow a certain amount of commandments (different sects of Christianity differ here), and if they don't do that - then I'm sending them to Hell!"

It is just so silly.... He could have done the same thing without the sacrifice - he's omnipotent! He could have beamed his message of love into everyones brains, he could have written his statement of forgiveness in blazing fire across the sky, he could have gone around personally hugging everyone. But he does nothing of the sort, he has it be a violent act of murder followed by a nonsensical resurrection.

To someone who is not already believing in God and trying to justify these things after the fact - it is just so laughably obvious that the story is wrong. Even as a work of fiction - ugh, its a terrible story.

Jack, care to respond?

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My thoughts (if I haven't stated them in this topic already):

If God is omniscient and omnipotent, he has the power to do anything and everything.
If God is omnibenevolent, he never lets anything bad happen in the world.
Bad things happen in the world.
Therefore, God is either:
A) not omniscient, and/or
B) not omnipotent, and/or
C) not omnibenevolent, and/or
D) God has a different definition of "good" than the Bible does.

As I said before, it's possible for a non-omnipotent God to exist. But the real world... let's say... "disproves"... the God of the Bible.

And don't give me that whole "faith" argument. In order to believe in blind faith, you have to believe in blind faith. The act of faith is a circular argument. Nothing cannot prove itself. (Unless you believe in blind faith, of course. In that case, your belief in faith defies logical argument)

Pathos isn't a reliable method of persuasion either. Yes, it makes audiences more receptive, but only logical argument carry real authority. (e.g. "Why did you donate all our money to that televangelist?" "Uh... I was moved by his stories.")

Awright *cracks knuckles*
at some point in time, every philosophy has circular reasoning involved. One must assume at least one thing to base a philosophy on, for example, I think, therefore I am.the Christian religion assumes the Bible is true as the foundation.

God is not omnibenevolent. 'Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated.' ever heard of Sodom and Gomorrah? The flood? How about hell? No, God is not omnibenevolent, and the Bible never says He is.

Since Vatican II, the catholic religion is a religion of experimentation (Not sure if it's the right word [Coming from French background...]). You don't just have faith, you live your faith, you put it in practice. You can never be 100% sure of something (With a couple exceptions) until you are dead (That's also why you don't need faith after your death.).

Everyone, somewhere inside of them, is searching for the truth.

Faith = Why things are done
Science = How things are done

(Hopefully that made sense in English.)
[/trying to say as much as possible with as few lines as possible]