Does anyone even listen to creationists these days?

[Kadagar_AV]

This is just a quick example of why if someone say they are a creationist 2015, you should just slowly back away... Avoid eye contact... And then just run. Not for your life, of course. They are not muslims. I just mean like, generally run because of sanity reasons.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_J-imkehU

If you don't bother watching the video, and HELL YES I want to avoid us having to watch idiotic videos to debate.

The main point is:

IF we are intelligently designed, how come the design is so god awful stupid? The video shows how we have inherited physiological traits that today do ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD, but were well functioning when we were back in the ocean...

And then we just kind of rolled on with it, as it worked.

Not because it's intelligently designed, but because it works.



So, any christian fanboy want to step up and have a fight about creation?







* as a sidenote to all non-christians... I can well believe, among another things, that the universe WAS intelligently created. Lots of actual scientific theories would support it, the "We are Sims" one as an example (even if I personally dont put much faith in it, as there surely would be easier ways to calculate than making organisms... ((unless I just believe I am an organism!!??)).

I just find the idea that the CHRISTIAN intelligent design would be "correct" absolutely shocking, as that would go against pretty much everything we have learnt since having sharp minds away from an iron age desert tribe believing society thingy...*

[Fragony]

Even the pope believes in the big-bang theory and evolution.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Eh, that video reminded me of creationist textbooks where they focus on one isolated anatomical feature to try to prove/disprove entire theories of life that cover multiple disciplines.

Such details are, by themselves, useless in disproving much broader theories for the obvious reasons that:

a. They only address a tiny part of the wider theory
b. These fine points are themselves not fully understood, at least not with certainty

Humans are so different from our supposed ocean-based ancestors that there may well be some secondary function which the recurrent laryngeal nerve provides that we do not know of.

Although my argument above would not be sufficient against a comprehensive case which made a systematic attack on creationism; I would say it is enough to dismiss a lone point given in isolation.

The creation and evolution debate by nature covers a tonne of different disciplines - to claim victory on the grounds of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is clearly ridiculous. Worthwhile arguments must look at the bigger picture if they are to make a serious challenge to the foundations of creationist or evolutionist theory.

As I said in a thread not long ago, how do evolutionists reconcile a model which grants hundreds of thousands of years to human development from our more ape-like ancestors to our present selves; with the fact that agriculture, settlement and civilization appears uniformly across the world (in hugely different and isolated environments) within - according to their dating - around a 10,000 year timeframe?

Why did completely cut-off peoples living in totally different environments all become so smart in what would be - in evolutionary terms - not even a blink of the eye?

[Pannonian]

Eh, that video reminded me of creationist textbooks where they focus on one isolated anatomical feature to try to prove/disprove entire theories of life that cover multiple disciplines.

Such details are, by themselves, useless in disproving much broader theories for the obvious reasons that:

a. They only address a tiny part of the wider theory
b. These fine points are themselves not fully understood, at least not with certainty

Humans are so different from our supposed ocean-based ancestors that there may well be some secondary function which the recurrent laryngeal nerve provides that we do not know of.

Although my argument above would not be sufficient against a comprehensive case which made a systematic attack on creationism; I would say it is enough to dismiss a lone point given in isolation.

The creation and evolution debate by nature covers a tonne of different disciplines - to claim victory on the grounds of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is clearly ridiculous. Worthwhile arguments must look at the bigger picture if they are to make a serious challenge to the foundations of creationist or evolutionist theory.

As I said in a thread not long ago, how do evolutionists reconcile a model which grants hundreds of thousands of years to human development from our more ape-like ancestors to our present selves; with the fact that agriculture, settlement and civilization appears uniformly across the world (in hugely different and isolated environments) within - according to their dating - around a 10,000 year timeframe?

Why did completely cut-off peoples living in totally different environments all become so smart in what would be - in evolutionary terms - not even a blink of the eye?

Agriculture, leading to an ever greater proportion of the population not engaged in producing food but instead producing services or inventing stuff. With writing becoming more complex to keep track of the food surpluses, it's meant that intellectual development can span generations. And just about everything else has collected momentum from these two developments. Food and knowledge.

[Gilrandir]

IF we are intelligently designed, how come the design is so god awful stupid? The video shows how we have inherited physiological traits that today do ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD, but were well functioning when we were back in the ocean...

How can you bemoan the stupidity of the design when you haven't fathomed the purposes a guy above might have in mind for us? What if he has prepared us for marine life after the Second Deluge?


Not because it's intelligently designed, but because it works.

Windows Vista?


So, any christian fanboy want to step up and have a fight about creation?

And now seriously: if you are really inclined to have such a discussion, you wouldn't get any because of the ultimately faulty approach.
Creation (for those who believe in it), as anything written in the Bible, is a matter of faith. Faith doesn't require (indeed doesn't brook) discussions and proof-giving. It is a take it or leave it - either you believe it (without any logical arguments and justifications) or you don't (without ..., er, read above). So those who do won't have any discussions with you, because if they do, well, they aren't faithful and aren't believers.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Agriculture, leading to an ever greater proportion of the population not engaged in producing food but instead producing services or inventing stuff. With writing becoming more complex to keep track of the food surpluses, it's meant that intellectual development can span generations. And just about everything else has collected momentum from these two developments. Food and knowledge.

I meant to present "agriculture, settlement and civilization" as a package, not to suggest that they are not directly related.

This package appears uniformly across the world within a Young Earth Creationist timeframe, indeed it fits very neatly with it. It makes a lot less sense with evolutionary theory, which posits that intelligent humans and proto-humans were roaming the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, during which time they became isolated from each other and were living in totally different environments with different wildlife, foodstuffs, potential crops, climates and demographic pressures - only to inexplicably develop the "package" of agriculture, settlement and civilization at almost once without any common evolutionary pressures.

[Pannonian]

I meant to present "agriculture, settlement and civilization" as a package, not to suggest that they are not directly related.

This package appears uniformly across the world within a Young Earth Creationist timeframe, indeed it fits very neatly with it. It makes a lot less sense with evolutionary theory, which posits that intelligent humans and proto-humans were roaming the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, during which time they became isolated from each other and were living in totally different environments with different wildlife, foodstuffs, potential crops, climates and demographic pressures - only to inexplicably develop the "package" of agriculture, settlement and civilization at almost once without any common evolutionary pressures.

There is a time border in the form of the last Ice Age. If you go by the Diamond idea of how civilisation evolved, you'd need an ice age-free expanse across Eurasia, which AFAIK limits civilisation to the last 10,000 years or so. Give some time for agriculture to be discovered and developed, and the time frame fits the so called young earth numbers fairly reasonably.

[Rhyfelwyr]

There is a time border in the form of the last Ice Age. If you go by the Diamond idea of how civilisation evolved, you'd need an ice age-free expanse across Eurasia, which AFAIK limits civilisation to the last 10,000 years or so. Give some time for agriculture to be discovered and developed, and the time frame fits the so called young earth numbers fairly reasonably.

There was no shortage of temperate, desert and tropical regions during the last Ice Age, all with their own ecosystems and evolutionary pressures, and all of which had been present in inhabited areas for hundreds of thousands of years (according to secular timeframes). Why then the sudden advent of civilization?

[CBR]

There was no shortage of temperate, desert and tropical regions during the last Ice Age, all with their own ecosystems and evolutionary pressures, and all of which had been present in inhabited areas for hundreds of thousands of years (according to secular timeframes). Why then the sudden advent of civilization?
Was Agriculture Impossible During the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? (http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/richerson/AgOrigins_2_12_01.pdf) (pdf)

Nonetheless, we propose that much about the origin of agriculture can be understood in terms of two propositions: Agriculture Was Impossible During The Last Glacial. During the last glacial, climates were variable and very dry over large areas. Atmospheric levels of CO2 were low. Probably most important, last-glacial climates were characterized by high-amplitude fluctuations on time scales of a decade or less to a millennium. Because agricultural subsistence systems are vulnerable to weather extremes, and because the cultural evolution of subsistence systems making heavy, specialized, use of plant resources occurs relatively slowly, agriculture could not evolve.

Constraints on the Development of Agriculture (http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/ConstraintsEvolAg.pdf) (pdf)

The development of agriculture was limited by external constraints, mainly climate, before the Holocene and mainly by social institutions after that. Population size and growth was important but ultimately did not determine where and why agriculture evolved.

[Rhyfelwyr]

CBR, good argument. But aren't a lot of crops grown globally in very different climates?

[Pannonian]

CBR, good argument. But aren't a lot of crops grown globally in very different climates?

The various crop + stock combos need to get from place to place, hence Eurasia being the powerhouse of civilisation. If Eurasia isn't hospitable enough, there is no spread of agriculture.

[Rhyfelwyr]

The various crop + stock combos need to get from place to place, hence Eurasia being the powerhouse of civilisation. If Eurasia isn't hospitable enough, there is no spread of agriculture.

Agriculture developed independently and at around the same time in Australia, Papua, the Americas and the Far East from what I have read.

That it happened to lead to civilization in the ancient Near East is I believe to do with the requirements of hosting agriculture in such a place. Max Weber says a fair bit about this - building the irrigation canals in Mesopotamia that were necessary for agriculture meant people had to band together under leaders and develop a system of almost slave labour. This process didn't happen in places that could rely on rainfall etc.

[Kralizec]

The creation and evolution debate by nature covers a tonne of different disciplines - to claim victory on the grounds of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is clearly ridiculous. Worthwhile arguments must look at the bigger picture if they are to make a serious challenge to the foundations of creationist or evolutionist theory.

A fairly well known example is the evolution of the eyeball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

The eyes of squids and octopuses don't have a blind spot like vertebrates do, because the nerve endings are on the rear side of the retina. Which makes complete sense, and which begs the question why this feature hasn't been incorporated in vertebrates.

I'd expect that an expert could name many more examples on the top of his head. These two just happen to be examples that are easily understood by laymen.

[Major Robert Dump]

I do because I am in the Philippines and these girls are so hot, and even the conservative ones dress in pretty much nothing because of the high temperature, and I would totally pretend to believe in god and go to church every sunday and doom my kids to Catholicism if it meant I was allowed to touch her with my penis even for like 4 seconds twice a week with the lights off. It is insane here. Death to America.

[Major Robert Dump]

Yes of course I believe we are not related to primates

15013

[Major Robert Dump]

No really I do

15014

[Montmorency]

Most "anti-creationists" are themselves creationists of a different sort, insofar as they uphold the validity of a "design stance".

[CBR]

CBR, good argument. But aren't a lot of crops grown globally in very different climates?
Today, yes, but it does not look like agriculture popped up in all types of climate at the same time. There seem to have been numerous preagricultural permanent settlements, yet not all grew into the bigger types of civilizations e.g. the big river cultures.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Outside the US I think Creationism mostly exists in the minds of its opponents, I get pretty sick of the whole "do you believe in evolution?" question when people find I out I believe in God and want him to send me back in time to save the Roman Empire so we can all have jetpacks and have colonies on Saturn's moons.

[Greyblades]

You know, I never really understood why christians are creationists.

I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.
So why is this part of the imperfect old testement being considered perfect truth when faced with irreputable evidence of it being false?




Outside the US I think Creationism mostly exists in the minds of its opponents, I get pretty sick of the whole "do you believe in evolution?" question when people find I out I believe in God and want him to send me back in time to save the Roman Empire so we can all have jetpacks and have colonies on Saturn's moons.

Mostly in our minds? Perhaps, most of the time I dont really care what people believe when they keep it to themselves and dont harm anyone.

Things get a bit different when they start meddling in kid's education.

Or get on US science councils.

[Ironside]

Agriculture developed independently and at around the same time in Australia, Papua, the Americas and the Far East from what I have read.

That it happened to lead to civilization in the ancient Near East is I believe to do with the requirements of hosting agriculture in such a place. Max Weber says a fair bit about this - building the irrigation canals in Mesopotamia that were necessary for agriculture meant people had to band together under leaders and develop a system of almost slave labour. This process didn't happen in places that could rely on rainfall etc.

A small note, around the same time in this context are more than 2000 years. While small on the huge time scale, it is still calling the birth of you and Jesus a co-current event.

Another evolution thing. Most proteins are shared between species. That means that they do the same function, but are only similar in look. That's very stupid from an optimization viewpoint, but makes a lot of sense from a random chance and "good enough" principle.

[Gilrandir]

Outside the US I think Creationism mostly exists in the minds of its opponents, I get pretty sick of the whole "do you believe in evolution?" question when people find I out I believe in God and want him to send me back in time to save the Roman Empire so we can all have jetpacks and have colonies on Saturn's moons.
In fact, creationism and evolutionism don't contradict each other. The solution that welds them together is to say that the world was created and then all living beings started evolutioning.



I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.

The anwser is the same as the one to the question "Why did they need Godfather 2?" Because it is the sequel. In case of movies and books the purpose is to get money, in case of testaments it is to get larger flocks of worshippers.

[Husar]

You know, I never really understood why christians are creationists.

I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.
So why is this part of the imperfect old testement being considered perfect truth when faced with irreputable evidence of it being false?

I'd call the new testament more a shift in policy as to how you can get to heaven. It does not entirely invalidate the old testament. The prophecies are still relevant as quite a few of them are said to be fulfilled in the new testament, the old testament is seen as a perfectly valid historical document and so on. What changes is that the old testament says you have to sacrifice sheep in order to have your sins forgiven while Jesus says you can only get to heaven if you accept him as your lord and saviour and he will forgive your sins. Therein lies the big change. The old testament is not imperfect, it just contains some outdated rules of behavior that a christian would/should not follow anymore. Take this example where Jesus more or less seems to say that doing some work on a sabbath is okay if you're hungry for example:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/the-fourfold-gospel/by-sections/jesus-defends-disciples-who-pluck-grain-on-the-sabbath.html

The jewish rules said the quiet on sabbath has to be obeyed but Jesus says the quiet was made so that people can rest, to benefit the people, not to force people to do nothing. He does not invalidate the old law, he just gives an interpretation of the spirit of the law that changes the way in which the old law should be applied. There's a change, some invalidation, some reinterpretation but not a complete invalidation, even some validation of prophecies as I said, Jesus is supposed to be the messiah who was prophesied in the old testament after all (jews would disagree of course).

[Gilrandir]

The old testament is not imperfect, it just contains some outdated rules of behavior that a christian would/should not follow anymore.
I would say that the new testament contains tenets that badly need updating now.

[Fragony]

I would say that the new testament contains tenets that badly need updating now.

I can think of a book that needs that a whole lot more

[Husar]

I would say that the new testament contains tenets that badly need updating now.

But wouldn't it be god's decision when to update his rules and when not? Certain rules seem to be unchangeable, such as certain sins which prevent you from going to heaven and so on. What has changed is mostly how you can reach forgiveness for your sins.

If there is a god who is all powerful (which is the whole point of christianity and judaism) then it would be useless for a human to demand change as the all-powerful god could just throw you into hell and there'd be nothing you very limited powerless human could do about it.
And that's why such demands are ultimately silly and useless. They only make sense from a perspective that the god doesn't exist anyway and the rules are therefore man-made. But why would a believer put any stock in the demands coming from such a perspective? Why listen to the demands of someone who is a sinner, corrupted by the devil and pretty much nothing compared to the all-powerful god who you serve and who will always have your best interests in mind?

The indirect atheist assumption that deep down all the believers are actually atheists and need to go with atheist social pressures somehow seems pretty naive to me. Quite a few christians believe that the atheists and others will want to persecute and kill them in the end times anyway and any signs of that just mean they are closer to meeting their lord, which is their ultimate goal.

I know, the catholic church is quite different, but where I come from, most of them are hardly considered true believers anyway.

[Rhyfelwyr]

You know, I never really understood why christians are creationists.

I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.
So why is this part of the imperfect old testement being considered perfect truth when faced with irreputable evidence of it being false?

The Old Testament is just as infallible as the New. The reason we have the two testaments is that the Old prophesied of Christ, while the New revealed him. Christians do not believe that the Old Testament is somehow faulty, we* believe it to be divinely inspired and free from error.

* naturally, I don't speak for all Christians, just what I see as the historic and correct Christian position

[Gilrandir]

But wouldn't it be god's decision when to update his rules and when not?

If there is a god who is all powerful (which is the whole point of christianity and judaism) then it would be useless for a human to demand change as the all-powerful god could just throw you into hell and there'd be nothing you very limited powerless human could do about it.

There is not a line in the new testament written by God, Jesus Christ or even his family. I think you know (in case you don't you can dig deeper) that there had been around a dozen gospels (including Judas') before some hundred years after Christ's death 4 of them were chosen as the best ones (sincerely, I don't know the criteria appiled for the choice) to form the bulk and basis of the new testament. Evidently, this choice was made by humans. Consequently, if the book is in fact a collection of hearsay and was subject to human editing, why not edit it again (and say God ruled it through some revealtion or other)?

[Husar]

There is not a line in the new testament written by God, Jesus Christ or even his family. I think you know (in case you don't you can dig deeper) that there had been around a dozen gospels (including Judas') before some hundred years after Christ's death 4 of them were chosen as the best ones (sincerely, I don't know the criteria appiled for the choice) to form the bulk and basis of the new testament. Evidently, this choice was made by humans. Consequently, if the book is in fact a collection of hearsay and was subject to human editing, why not edit it again (and say God ruled it through some revealtion or other)?

Well, if you believe that the book is the literal truth and the word of God, then it was divinely inspired, both the writing and the selection of what to include in it, although I have never heard how modern christians exactly justify the selection.
Your last suggestion only works for Christians if someone actually did get a divine inspiration to do so because otherwise they would be a false prophet who is intentionally misleading people in service of the devil. Not exactly something you should suggest to a believer.
The bible also says that one should be wary of such false prophets and check the things people preach against the teachings of the bible, so getting such a change accepted in the more literal/fundamentalist christian circles would be quite hard.
To me it sounds like a pretty strange idea though and not like something an atheist could just do and get a lot of people to actually believe in it. Unless you want to dedicate your life to your new christianity and become its guru or something like that. But even then most would probably think you're a devil-worshipping sect of apostates or so. The modern world has already brought about all these kinds of "spirituality" where god becomes more abstract and where the judeo-christian ideas are mixed with east asian religious/philosophical ideas and so on but to fundamentalist believers that's just the so-called "new age" scheme the devil came up with to distract more people from the right path.

Overall it seems as though capitalism and consumerism or the false god mammon as the bible may call it are also really good at drawing people away from devoting their lives to serving god. Although with turbo-capitalism and the whole burnout thing, some people are apparently looking back to when things were more relaxed and life wasn't about being able to afford the next golden Apple calf Watch by next year.

[Gilrandir]

Well, if you believe that the book is the literal truth and the word of God, then it was divinely inspired, both the writing and the selection of what to include in it, although I have never heard how modern christians exactly justify the selection.

If they justify it somehow (which I don't know either), they could extend this justification to at least some modern attempts at updating. Unfortunatley (or fortunately, who knows), religions are all about tradition, keeping, preserving and not swerving from. Any attempts to do the opposite are considered heresy and treated correspondingly.


Your last suggestion only works for Christians if someone actually did get a divine inspiration to do so because otherwise they would be a false prophet who is intentionally misleading people in service of the devil. Not exactly something you should suggest to a believer.
The bible also says that one should be wary of such false prophets and check the things people preach against the teachings of the bible, so getting such a change accepted in the more literal/fundamentalist christian circles would be quite hard.

Like I said, copyright enforcement: listen only to me, and if you listen to others you are a recreant. But it has one more dimension to it: all prophets are extinct and anyone in the future who will pretend to be one is not. As if times around 0 AD abounded in prophets and they have become increasingly scarce since then and eventually modern era is barren and arid.

[Husar]

Like I said, copyright enforcement: listen only to me, and if you listen to others you are a recreant. But it has one more dimension to it: all prophets are extinct and anyone in the future who will pretend to be one is not. As if times around 0 AD abounded in prophets and they have become increasingly scarce since then and eventually modern era is barren and arid.

Depends on who or what you believe makes people speak in tongues and others translate it. I've also seen preachers who claimed to relay prophecies, all fraud you might say but not all christians believe that god has been quiet for 2000 years, quite the contrary. The whole personal relationship with Jesus thing of the modern apostolic churches/pentecostals or how they are called in English is about god being right there and you getting in touch with him and he will let you know what he wants from you. None of them have changed the bible however.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The Earth is not a closed system, evolution is the increasing order of molecules that have a sun to pump in what amounts to "free" energy. Creationism is absurd, agriculture developed in literally 3 major river bed areas within a handful of centuries and then spread from there. Some areas never developed agriculture until Europeans came by, hardly a universal phenomenon. I have been drinking white Russians for two days straight, I will not be defending this post in any rigorous manner, I am looking at you monty

[Montmorency]

Hell, I haven't even followed this thread.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Creationism is absurd, agriculture developed in literally 3 major river bed areas within a handful of centuries and then spread from there. Some areas never developed agriculture until Europeans came by, hardly a universal phenomenon.

This is wildly incorrect. According to the mainstream secular viewpoint, agriculture was developed in India 9000 BC (barley, wheat, jujube), Egypt in 8000 BC, China in 8000 BC (rice, millet, soy), Mesopotamia in 7000 BC (wheat, dates, peas, legumes, apples), Mexico in 7000 BC (maize, potato, peppers, beans), South America 7000 BC (potato, beans, coca), New Guinea 7000 BC (sugar cane, root crops).

Other areas that developed it slightly later mostly still developed it independently. For example North America in 1800 BC (sunflowers, tobacco, squash), Australia in 3000 BC (bush onions, millet, fish farms).

We're talking about a huge variety of crops in hugely different environments that have very varying degrees of susceptibility ot climate change etc. The only explanation for this sudden global onset is a rapid settlement of intelligent humans bringing their knowledge with them.

[Beskar]

Outside the US I think Creationism mostly exists in the minds of its opponents, I get pretty sick of the whole "do you believe in evolution?" question when people find I out I believe in God and want him to send me back in time to save the Roman Empire so we can all have jetpacks and have colonies on Saturn's moons.

It depends on what point in Roman history you want to go to, you might inadvertently destroy your faith.

[Major Robert Dump]

A guy leading a slave back from the market comes upon another guy beating his slave to death and says "bro, that's so old testament"

[Papewaio]

I can think of a book that needs that a whole lot more

George R. R. Martin will finish the book after the TV episodes are complete.


...what we are talking about popular works of fiction aren't we...

[a completely inoffensive name]

This is wildly incorrect. According to the mainstream secular viewpoint, agriculture was developed in India 9000 BC (barley, wheat, jujube), Egypt in 8000 BC, China in 8000 BC (rice, millet, soy), Mesopotamia in 7000 BC (wheat, dates, peas, legumes, apples), Mexico in 7000 BC (maize, potato, peppers, beans), South America 7000 BC (potato, beans, coca), New Guinea 7000 BC (sugar cane, root crops).

Other areas that developed it slightly later mostly still developed it independently. For example North America in 1800 BC (sunflowers, tobacco, squash), Australia in 3000 BC (bush onions, millet, fish farms).

We're talking about a huge variety of crops in hugely different environments that have very varying degrees of susceptibility ot climate change etc. The only explanation for this sudden global onset is a rapid settlement of intelligent humans bringing their knowledge with them.

From the pattern of agriculture emergence, your theory would state that these humans came from India since that was the first area that developed agriculture. Do we see the genetic evidence to back this up? Also, what you just listed fits my idea as long as I stipulate to leave out the Americas who I would consider to be concurrently developing agriculture at the same time as a mere coincidence (just as many scientific discoveries are made by two unconnected people at the same time). From Egypt, India and China their interactions with nomadic peoples slowly influenced these nearby hunter-gathers/pastoral group to convert to agriculture over time.

If you want my real opinion on this matter. I think the truth is a mixture of optimum climate conditions that allowed for low tech agriculture (much of what is now desert was once grassland and fertile) as well as what I described above. Certain areas which developed later as you mentioned could not have been completely ignorant of agriculture unless they were truly isolated (the level of long distance trade even back in ancient times is surprising, or at least it was to me in the textbooks I have read). North America consists mostly of harsh desert/flatlands, or cold tundra or extremely plentiful forests that probably encourage hunter-gatherer lifestyles due to the abundance of natural resources in (what is considered today) Eastern US. Australia is mostly desert and would be hard to achieve, so again no surprise it happened later there.


When we are talking about timelines which span across multiple millenniums, I think it is important to keep in mind the generations of contact which occur within a 1,000 years.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It depends on what point in Roman history you want to go to, you might inadvertently destroy your faith.

I was thinking just prior to the First Crusade, I'd take the formula for Portland Cement and the plans for a manuballista with me.

[Gilrandir]

I have been drinking white Russians for two days straight, I will not be defending this post in any rigorous manner, I am looking at you monty

Hell, I haven't even followed this thread.
He meant not the thread but drinking. Hell, if there's virtual sex, why can't you two engage in virtual drinking?


The whole personal relationship with Jesus thing of the modern apostolic churches/pentecostals or how they are called in English is about god being right there and you getting in touch with him and he will let you know what he wants from you.
Which means that anyone can be a prophet. Up with private propheting!!! Sounds sensible.


According to the mainstream secular viewpoint, agriculture was developed in India 9000 BC (barley, wheat, jujube), Egypt in 8000 BC, China in 8000 BC (rice, millet, soy), Mesopotamia in 7000 BC (wheat, dates, peas, legumes, apples), Mexico in 7000 BC (maize, potato, peppers, beans), South America 7000 BC (potato, beans, coca), New Guinea 7000 BC (sugar cane, root crops).

Yet having appeared relatively simultaneously, each civilization went its own pace in development. So some other factors were at work besides simple evolution.

[Husar]

Which means that anyone can be a prophet. Up with private propheting!!! Sounds sensible.

Private propheting? Should that be a government thing where only Merkel and Putin can receive and interprete god's words?

[Gilrandir]

Private propheting? Should that be a government thing where only Merkel and Putin can receive and interprete god's words?
... and then go and collect their Nobel Prize. Guess the category yourself. Wait, it is a wrong thread. Well, disregard it.

[Rhyfelwyr]

From the pattern of agriculture emergence, your theory would state that these humans came from India since that was the first area that developed agriculture. Do we see the genetic evidence to back this up? Also, what you just listed fits my idea as long as I stipulate to leave out the Americas who I would consider to be concurrently developing agriculture at the same time as a mere coincidence (just as many scientific discoveries are made by two unconnected people at the same time). From Egypt, India and China their interactions with nomadic peoples slowly influenced these nearby hunter-gathers/pastoral group to convert to agriculture over time.

If you want my real opinion on this matter. I think the truth is a mixture of optimum climate conditions that allowed for low tech agriculture (much of what is now desert was once grassland and fertile) as well as what I described above. Certain areas which developed later as you mentioned could not have been completely ignorant of agriculture unless they were truly isolated (the level of long distance trade even back in ancient times is surprising, or at least it was to me in the textbooks I have read). North America consists mostly of harsh desert/flatlands, or cold tundra or extremely plentiful forests that probably encourage hunter-gatherer lifestyles due to the abundance of natural resources in (what is considered today) Eastern US. Australia is mostly desert and would be hard to achieve, so again no surprise it happened later there.

When we are talking about timelines which span across multiple millenniums, I think it is important to keep in mind the generations of contact which occur within a 1,000 years.

If it was just a case of two independent developments in Asia-Africa-Europe and the Americas, I agree it could be a coincidence. But there were nine of these independent developments across the world. According to this article (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/full/nature01019.html) (which admits this presents something of a conundrum) these are the "Fertile Crescent, China, Mesoamerica, Andes/Amazonia, eastern United States, Sahel, tropical West Africa, Ethiopia and New Guinea".

My view of what happened is that a people with extensive knowledge of agriculture, seafaring, urban development etc first settled in the Middle East and then settled the world over a period of about 1,000 years. Regarding the dates I gave earlier - I wouldn't read too much into a variation of 1,000 years - the figures are extremely speculative since radiocarbon dating is not far short of useless for absolute dating - its use lies in relative dating which is used alongside much less precise theories to come up with dates. Their significance IMO is in showing a very sudden appearance of civilization across the whole world - something that doesn't fit with evolutionary models for human development.

Have you ever come across any of David Rohl's books or documentaries? He is a secular archaeologist and is (was?) Britain's top expert on the ancient Middle East - he does an excellent job at pointing out how flimsy current scientific interpretations of these ancient times are, as well as highlighting systematic problems in the scientific community, and in particular its failure to harmonize findings from different disciplines as well as its refusal to appreciate the value of literary sources for cultural reasons (eg, the perceived faith v science conflict which means even attempting to reconcile archaeological findings with literary accounts is a career-wrecker).

If you want a secular and serious critique of much of modern science and history, then he's your man.

[Husar]

How exactly does the invention of agriculture relate to the topic of intelligent design and history according to the bible?
Is your point that since agriculture only came up about 6000-700 years ago everywhere, this sort of proves that god created man back then and man spread around the globe?

[Rhyfelwyr]

How exactly does the invention of agriculture relate to the topic of intelligent design and history according to the bible?
Is your point that since agriculture only came up about 6000-700 years ago everywhere, this sort of proves that god created man back then and man spread around the globe?

Not just agriculture - all civilization and human history is traced back to that time.

My point is this - evolutionists argue that fully intelligent humans were wandering the earth for hundreds of thousands of years (millions of years if you include the various proto-humans) and then suddenly all the hallmarks of civilization (agriculture, permanent settlement, organized religion, government etc) spring up almost simultaneously and completely independently in lots of locations all across the world.

Either that's a phenomenal coincidence, or their narrative is wrong.

[Husar]

Not just agriculture - all civilization and human history is traced back to that time.

My point is this - evolutionists argue that fully intelligent humans were wandering the earth for hundreds of thousands of years (millions of years if you include the various proto-humans) and then suddenly all the hallmarks of civilization (agriculture, permanent settlement, organized religion, government etc) spring up almost simultaneously and completely independently in lots of locations all across the world.

Either that's a phenomenal coincidence, or their narrative is wrong.

And dinosaur skeletons that are deep below the earth were intelligently placed there to be found by us?

[Rhyfelwyr]

And dinosaur skeletons that are deep below the earth were intelligently placed there to be found by us?

That's a whole other question. Do you, as an evolutionist, have any sort of answer to my above post?

Regarding dinosaurs, I would question the dating. I don't doubt they existed.

[Montmorency]

Rhy, we've already discussed the explanations for behavioral modernity: Population density and relative longevity. As archaeological finds of simple cultural products and practices build up, the date is being pushed back towards 100,000 years ago, leaving much less of a "sapiens" gap" than was assumed even 50 years ago.

Also, long-distance migrations were still the norm ten thousand of years ago, all the way up to the Medieval period.

Widespread agriculture in the several major Eurasian regions took over 5,000 years to develop, but it began almost immediately following the end of the glacial cycle/"ice age", indicating that it's pretty much like inventing the light-bulb, or printing press, or steam engine, or really anything else. 5,000 years is only "simultaneously" on a geological time-scale - not a human one.

[Husar]

That's a whole other question. Do you, as an evolutionist, have any sort of answer to my above post?

A lot can happen in a thousand years, it's not simultaneous.
And not all human history is traced back to that time, some of it is traced back to quite a while before that, but if you claim that the tracing is all lies and mistakes then how do I know that your number of 7k years ago isn't all lies and mistakes either?

[Sigurd]

We are discussing a young earth... but let the big elephant in the room go unnoticed. Not only does the Creationists claim the earth is young, but the whole universe is treated in the creation story in Genesis.
If God created all the stars and the unnumbered systems out there at the same time as the earh, explain Andromeda.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Rhy, we've already discussed the explanations for behavioral modernity: Population density and relative longevity.

And I've said that that such factors would not have been anywhere near uniform across the many different global locations where civilization suddenly appeared. Different climates, different demographics, different ecosystems, different crops, different resources, different landscape, etc.

Are you telling me that these extremely different environments all suddenly (the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms) created the same population pressures that forced/pushed the development of agriculture, permanent settlement and civilization across the world?


As archaeological finds of simple cultural products and practices build up, the date is being pushed back towards 100,000 years ago, leaving much less of a "sapiens" gap" than was assumed even 50 years ago.

I am aware of a couple of bits and pieces that are pre-date the roughly 10k year timeframe I've been working in previously. But then again they are dated with the same methods that confuse recent murder victims with ancient skeletons. As I said earlier radiocarbon dating and other methods from that group rely on relative rather than absolute dating - much of it lies in the interpretation and that's why I'm disagreeing with.


Widespread agriculture in the several major Eurasian regions took over 5,000 years to develop, but it began almost immediately following the end of the glacial cycle/"ice age", indicating that it's pretty much like inventing the light-bulb, or printing press, or steam engine, or really anything else. 5,000 years is only "simultaneously" on a geological time-scale - not a human one.

The simultaneous dates I gave were comparing several regions across the globe, not variance within a particular region. Naturally agriculture will only be adopted when technology and social conditions make it worthwhile - there are parts of the world today where those conditions still haven't been met. Regarding timescales, the only inconsistency is how you reconcile the sudden advent of civilization across the world with the slow, gradual, hundreds-of-thousands-of-years evolutionary approach.

[Rhyfelwyr]

A lot can happen in a thousand years, it's not simultaneous.
And not all human history is traced back to that time, some of it is traced back to quite a while before that, but if you claim that the tracing is all lies and mistakes then how do I know that your number of 7k years ago isn't all lies and mistakes either?

Anything before that is prehistory and is basically nothing but pure guesswork. All we have to understand it is relative (not absolute) dating systems from which we can produce theories.

As for a lot happening in a thousand years, I don't believe the evolutionary model allows for contact between Mesopotamia, China, Papua New Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and all the other places that independently developed agriculture within that 1,000 year timeframe. If you can't explain it by human contact and the spread of ideas/technology, then how do you explain it?


We are discussing a young earth... but let the big elephant in the room go unnoticed. Not only does the Creationists claim the earth is young, but the whole universe is treated in the creation story in Genesis.
If God created all the stars and the unnumbered systems out there at the same time as the earh, explain Andromeda.

I'm only going to fight one battle at a time, but I'm guessing your question has something to do with the fact that conditions in the very early universe were totally different from what they are now (as in, basic fundamental laws etc).

[Sigurd]

I'm only going to fight one battle at a time, but I'm guessing your question has something to do with the fact that conditions in the very early universe were totally different from what they are now (as in, basic fundamental laws etc).
That's fine. Anyone could answer this. No, I am thinking about the timescale here. 6 days - 6000 years old earth. How is Andromeda visible on our night sky?

[Montmorency]

Are you telling me that these extremely different environments all suddenly (the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms) created the same population pressures that forced/pushed the development of agriculture, permanent settlement and civilization across the world?

Er, well, ice ages tend to be global phenomena, so, yes. No indication of "forced", by the way - just enabled.


But then again they are dated with the same methods that confuse recent murder victims with ancient skeletons. As I said earlier radiocarbon dating and other methods from that group rely on relative rather than absolute dating - much of it lies in the interpretation and that's why I'm disagreeing with.

Laughably false in every respect.


how you reconcile the sudden advent of civilization across the world with the slow, gradual, hundreds-of-thousands-of-years evolutionary approach.

Not only are you misapplying a principle, but you are misunderstanding the basic nature of gradualist/Darwinian evolutionary theory. "Gradual" just means as opposed to saltational or punctuated. The movement of a car across a highway is gradual, yet its speed may range from 0 to 100 k/h at any given time or in any given interval.

[Ironside]

And I've said that that such factors would not have been anywhere near uniform across the many different global locations where civilization suddenly appeared. Different climates, different demographics, different ecosystems, different crops, different resources, different landscape, etc.

Are you telling me that these extremely different environments all suddenly (the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms) created the same population pressures that forced/pushed the development of agriculture, permanent settlement and civilization across the world?

Yes. Here's a nice page for the global temperature for the last 100.000 years (http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_climate.html). Notice how relatively stable the temperatures became when the ice age stopped.

It can also be worth remembering that pretty much all ancient cities and most civilizations died out because of starvation due to temperature changes.

And I still don't get the jump from "God gave humanity the new idea of agriculture" = "The earth is very young". I mean the killer of the young earth theory was geology, rather than biology and evolution.

[Rhyfelwyr]

That's fine. Anyone could answer this. No, I am thinking about the timescale here. 6 days - 6000 years old earth. How is Andromeda visible on our night sky?

Cannae answer that myself and I don't want to insult you with an Answer in Genesis copy/paste. Maybe we can have that debate in the future.


Er, well, ice ages tend to be global phenomena, so, yes. No indication of "forced", by the way - just enabled.

Long before the end of the last Ice Age the majority of the earth was still suitable for agriculture and was mostly temperate/desert/tropical. Most major crops can be grown in different climate zones and would easily grow in many places even with the more rapid temperature fluctuations.


Laughably false in every respect.

Nope, its a fact (http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Living_snails_were_C14_dated_at_2,300_and_27,000_years_old) (gave you a link to an evolutionary site so you can't complain - note how their "response" totally misses the point). Dating living snails from 2,000 to 27,000 years old, living penguins to 8,000 years ago, the body of a seal that died 30 years ago dated to 4,600 years ago. And then even secular scientists themselves say radiocarbon dating is only useful for relative dating beyond around 3,500 years.


Not only are you misapplying a principle, but you are misunderstanding the basic nature of gradualist/Darwinian evolutionary theory. "Gradual" just means as opposed to saltational or punctuated. The movement of a car across a highway is gradual, yet its speed may range from 0 to 100 k/h at any given time or in any given interval.

I am fully aware of the principles of bottlenecking, watersheds etc, and how these could present a staggered pattern of progress. The problem is you have to give reasons for why these happened, and I disagree with the explanation (climate fluctuation during the Ice Age) that you have given.


Yes. Here's a nice page for the global temperature for the last 100.000 years (http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_climate.html). Notice how relatively stable the temperatures became when the ice age stopped.

It can also be worth remembering that pretty much all ancient cities and most civilizations died out because of starvation due to temperature changes.

And I still don't get the jump from "God gave humanity the new idea of agriculture" = "The earth is very young". I mean the killer of the young earth theory was geology, rather than biology and evolution.

Right, and I am to believe that a reduction in this climate fluctuation suddenly presented the exact same demographic pressures in completely different ecosystems with different wildlife, crops, climates and landscapes all across the world at near enough the exact same time? Never mind the fact that most of the staple crops can be grown in quite different climates and would surely grow in much of the world even with the sort of fluctuations your graph presented.

As for how this relates to the Young Earth argument... well I think the sudden emergence of civilization across the world fits with the Biblical narrative of an intelligent people with basic technologies for civilized urban life rapidly settling the earth, as opposed to the evolutionary theory of milling around doing nothing but surviving in loose tribal arrangements for hundreds of thousands of years before all of a sudden becoming civilized in the last few millenia. I want to develop a systematic history that shows this, then expanding upon it to show how the original monotheism degenerated into polythiesm and then atheism, how the original godly governments descended into tyranny. Pretty much the story of Romans 1:18-25, I call it the fall of man within the fall of man. Go against the grain of pretty much every secular theory on ancient history. But I'm rambling and need to go now...

[HopAlongBunny]

I think this debate illustrates something very nicely:

Science supports my view = Science is the measure of truth
Science does not support my view = Science is actually a worthless standard in discussion of such issues

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-fly-from-facts/

[Montmorency]

Long before the end of the last Ice Age the majority of the earth was still suitable for agriculture and was mostly temperate/desert/tropical. Most major crops can be grown in different climate zones and would easily grow in many places even with the more rapid temperature fluctuations.

Population density, as I said earlier. The end of that era as a global phenomenon brought about a population boom throughout Eurasia.


Nope, its a fact (gave you a link to an evolutionary site so you can't complain - note how their "response" totally misses the point). Dating living snails from 2,000 to 27,000 years old, living penguins to 8,000 years ago, the body of a seal that died 30 years ago dated to 4,600 years ago. And then even secular scientists themselves say radiocarbon dating is only useful for relative dating beyond around 3,500 years.

Are you going Kadagar on us? Read the source you linked.


The problem is you have to give reasons for why these happened

Er, why? Just like we must follow every generation of every species through all time or else clearly God dit it? What?

Pick up a pebble off the street. Say it weighs 40 grams. If you can not explain why it does not presently weigh 41 grams, or elaborate on its state of formation at any instant in its history, then surely Satan must have created it to tempt you into sin.

Make sense?


exact same demographic pressures in completely different ecosystems with different wildlife, crops, climates and landscapes all across the world

Similar biomes in just a smattering of places (e.g. temperate/subtropical major river valleys) would be sufficient to discredit your argument. Especially considering that local plant variety and other ecological factors would account for difference in crop dominance for particular areas.

Just consider how long it really took agriculture to take hold, despite more than 10,000 years of extensive ancient and prehistoric contact between societies and kinship groups. Just consider how Africa and Australia, insofar as fully-tropical biomes, developed agricultural societies both extremely late and sporadically (e.g. the West African river valleys as a notable exception to the absence of agriculture in old Africa). Even now, Africa is pretty piss-poor for agriculture, when taken as a whole.

As for the American Indians, most of them did not develop agriculture until the colonial period, again due to the details of geography - though do note that the North American Indians seem to have been on the verge of developing extensive agricultural societies shortly before that point. Ultimately, when we think of American pre-Columbian agriculture, we think of what turn out to be relative sweet spots: tropical mountain-ranges and the well-watered basins between mountain and coast. So it is not surprising that, where there was a sort of midpoint between the most conducive Eurasian geography and the least-conducive African geography is where extensive agricultural cultivation came to be practiced in the Americas, and furthermore at a point later than Eurasian agriculture but earlier than African agriculture.

Another important factor in the ecology of agriculture was the domestication and domesticability of suitable local animal life, but this lines up with the above.

Thus, after the ice age, where the geography was right, the leap to cultivation was not just inevitable, but quite simple to make. Elsewhere, it needed additional contributions. From there on, it was a matter of geopolitics and reaching subsequent population threshold(s).


Never mind the fact that most of the staple crops can be grown in quite different climates

Just to be pedantic, you obviously can't compare modern strains of agricultural material to the undomesticated varieties societies first began to experiment with. Plus, you ignore your own point on crop diversity.

[Gilrandir]

Regarding dinosaurs, I would question the dating. I don't doubt they existed.
Why do you put dinosaurs in plural? In fact, there was only one dinosaur species, only paleontologists assemble the bones differently every time they find some.



Also, long-distance migrations were still the norm ten thousand of years ago, all the way up to the Medieval period.

And much later - think of Israel after WWII.



If God created all the stars and the unnumbered systems out there at the same time as the earh, explain Andromeda.
Once upon a time there lived a Greek guy named Perseus...



My view of what happened is that a people with extensive knowledge of agriculture, seafaring, urban development etc first settled in the Middle East and then settled the world over a period of about 1,000 years.
It doesn't account for great cultural and technological differences between the civilizations you mentioned. Like the American ones never knew the wheel.

[Montmorency]

And much later - think of Israel after WWII.

If you want to go that route now, think of regional and international movement and migration of labor today: hundreds of millions in China alone, to say nothing of Eastern Europe-Central Asia, Latin America to North America, internally in the United States, Western Europe as we all know...

However, crucially, by this time the migration of massive and cohesive social units (e.g. "tribes") is over.

With rather few exceptions, whole nations are not v'pokhode gatoviye.

That said, out of interest what are the major exceptions from the past century? That is, general immigration patterns or sporadic refugee movements aren't really counted here.

1. Israel
2. South Vietnam-United States
3. Soviet Jewry-United States/Israel
4. Ethnic cleansing of Prussia

...

[Gilrandir]

With rather few exceptions, whole nations are not v'pokhode gatoviye.


Sorry couldn't help this one: v pokhod gotovyie.
But I'm sure even in ancient times it was not the WHOLE nations that were on the move. There were some individuals (or perhaps even groups) that chose to stay (see Avari "The Silmarillion") or turned back at an early stage.

[Montmorency]

But I'm sure even in ancient times it was not the WHOLE nations that were on the move. There were some individuals (or perhaps even groups) that chose to stay (see Avari "The Silmarillion") or turned back at an early stage.

Look, you got me - there's a whole can of worms on cultural identity and group membership that I wanted to avoid opening up, so I used a 'quick and easy' shorthand.

A more precise and sociologically-neutral way to put it would be:

Whole communities, or large parts of them, no longer travel cohesively (i.e. constituting a sociopolitical unit) from an origination point to settle, permanently or otherwise, at some other point. A community here can be supralocal, e.g. in the sense of the Nordic settlers of Iceland.

Actually, from that point of view Israel/Soviet Jewry is an interesting case, since with Israel you had many local communities loosely-connected by shared traditions and a nascent Zionism converging on one point in order to undertake a project of forming a new "nation". Of course, if you're a hard-core Zionist that analysis would be tendentious, but really a broader Jewish identity existed only in a relatively-limited number of intellectuals and political activists, even as recently as a century ago. Similar with the Vietnamese case.

[a completely inoffensive name]

If it was just a case of two independent developments in Asia-Africa-Europe and the Americas, I agree it could be a coincidence. But there were nine of these independent developments across the world. According to this article (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/full/nature01019.html) (which admits this presents something of a conundrum) these are the "Fertile Crescent, China, Mesoamerica, Andes/Amazonia, eastern United States, Sahel, tropical West Africa, Ethiopia and New Guinea".

My view of what happened is that a people with extensive knowledge of agriculture, seafaring, urban development etc first settled in the Middle East and then settled the world over a period of about 1,000 years. Regarding the dates I gave earlier - I wouldn't read too much into a variation of 1,000 years - the figures are extremely speculative since radiocarbon dating is not far short of useless for absolute dating - its use lies in relative dating which is used alongside much less precise theories to come up with dates. Their significance IMO is in showing a very sudden appearance of civilization across the whole world - something that doesn't fit with evolutionary models for human development.

Have you ever come across any of David Rohl's books or documentaries? He is a secular archaeologist and is (was?) Britain's top expert on the ancient Middle East - he does an excellent job at pointing out how flimsy current scientific interpretations of these ancient times are, as well as highlighting systematic problems in the scientific community, and in particular its failure to harmonize findings from different disciplines as well as its refusal to appreciate the value of literary sources for cultural reasons (eg, the perceived faith v science conflict which means even attempting to reconcile archaeological findings with literary accounts is a career-wrecker).

If you want a secular and serious critique of much of modern science and history, then he's your man.

A. You can't claim that radiocarbon dating is both useless and then claim that the dates of agriculture derived from radiocarbon dating is definitive.

B. 1,000 years is a long time, again stop saying that all these areas are somehow connected because they all saw agriculture develop along a very long time. Assume that most regions had established agriculture by 6500BC, with agriculture starting in 8000BC. If we take agriculture to be the birth of "modern human history" then this major development takes up ~1,500 years/(8,000 BC to 2,000 AD) = ~15% of all of "modern human history".

C. I am worried that you have a theory in your head and you are just looking for any sort of justification to shed doubt on what is otherwise established science.

[Husar]

Anything before that is prehistory and is basically nothing but pure guesswork. All we have to understand it is relative (not absolute) dating systems from which we can produce theories.

Well, if you find dinosaurs twenty meters under the surface and the first traces of humans ten meters under the surface with very different layers in between, you're seriously going to say they lived around the same time? You also claim that civilization started around the same time, all those civilizations created a ton of records about tigers, lions, snakes and so on but noone every painted or wrote about the dinosaur in the room? Carbon-dating is not the only form there is*, that's one reason I brought up skeletons in the ground.
Also do you think the dinosaurs died before or after the great flood and Noah's ark?
How long did they live if we are going to assume that based on the dimensions given in the bible, his ark was a fair bit too small to take on a pair of all kinds of dinosaurs?
The whole thing becomes really shakey if you take this timeline for granted and claim that god didn't just place some skeletons in the earth's crust (which he also made colourful and diverse for unknown reasons).
I think the idea that if there is a god, that he created the physical laws in our universe would be much easier to defend than the idea that he created the entire universe 7000 years ago. Just think of the 7 days the bible mentions as periods instead of days (one could even ask whether that's properly translated from early hebrew etc.) and it might even roughly vibe with the timeline evolutionists give.


As for a lot happening in a thousand years, I don't believe the evolutionary model allows for contact between Mesopotamia, China, Papua New Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and all the other places that independently developed agriculture within that 1,000 year timeframe. If you can't explain it by human contact and the spread of ideas/technology, then how do you explain it?

The same basic genetic makeup/similar development. Take Monmorency's favourite theory that the brain basically just takes input and creates (ultimately predictable) output. Now if you give a thousand people very similar inputs it's possible that two or more of them have the same idea even without requiring communication.

Take my dad and myself, we were in a car and someone said something on the radio. My dad made a joke and I wanted to make pretty much the same joke at the same time, same input, similar brains, same/very similar output. This is just one example, we've had quite a few such moments where we had pretty much the same idea upon seeing or hearing something. It's a vague example but it does show that two people can have the same thought without one of them communicating it to the other first, simply based on their thought patterns and the input they receive. Think of it like these stories where someone travels from the US to Asia and meets their "soul mate", i.e. the person who is so much like them in character and thought etc.

So take very similar stages of the developed human brain, take the end of the ice age and the effects this has on nature and everything around us as input and the output you get is that people get the idea to plant seeds in order to grow food. You have a sample of many thousands of people and a timespan of around a thousand years, it's not all that unlikely that they get the same ideas. And others have already said that you can't just rule out travelling either. It could just as well be a mix of independent ideas and travelling.


I'm only going to fight one battle at a time, but I'm guessing your question has something to do with the fact that conditions in the very early universe were totally different from what they are now (as in, basic fundamental laws etc).

But what use is it to fight this battle if you've already lost the war on all other fronts?


No, I am thinking about the timescale here. 6 days - 6000 years old earth. How is Andromeda visible on our night sky?

Well, an all powerful god could have just placed the already moving light into the middle of space, but one could then ask why he would do that? Especially if the all powerful god already knows the future and would thus know that doing this will confuse peoples' belief in him, which he so desires.






*there's also Carbon one-night-stands :creep:

[Sigurd]

Well, an all powerful god could have just placed the already moving light into the middle of space, but one could then ask why he would do that? Especially if the all powerful god already knows the future and would thus know that doing this will confuse peoples' belief in him, which he so desires.

Ok... into the middle. That still leaves at least 1 million light years to travel the whole distance to earth. Which, if the Earth is around 6000 years old, still leaves about 994 000 years before Andromeda will be visible on our night sky. I can't wait. Oh, it will be such a trip to see another whole galaxy filled with potential planets and perhaps plan B in there somewhere.

[Husar]

Ok... into the middle. That still leaves at least 1 million light years to travel the whole distance to earth. Which, if the Earth is around 6000 years old, still leaves about 994 000 years before Andromeda will be visible on our night sky. I can't wait. Oh, it will be such a trip to see another whole galaxy filled with potential planets and perhaps plan B in there somewhere.

That was meant more like "I am in the middle of Nowhere" which also does not usually mean that you have measured your location and are actually exactly in the middle of a place called nowhere. What I literally meant was that he could have placed all the light along the entire way from Andromeda to Earth. I do not believe that he did this, it's just a possible explanation if you believe there is a god who is all powerful and has no limits in our universe. ~;)

Or maybe our measurement of the distance to Andromeda is wrong.

[Gilrandir]

Take my dad and myself, we were in a car and someone said something on the radio. My dad made a joke and I wanted to make pretty much the same joke at the same time, same input, similar brains, same/very similar output.

All (human) brains are similar. In your case it would be more accurate to speak of similar minds which, however, has doubtful relation to inheritance. Minds are more nurture than nature. I have similar experiences with my daughter and my best friend, yet practically no with my wife. Evidently the same input and similar/different minds can as well produce both different and similar output. Has something to do with mind tuning.

[Husar]

All (human) brains are similar. In your case it would be more accurate to speak of similar minds which, however, has doubtful relation to inheritance. Minds are more nurture than nature. I have similar experiences with my daughter and my best friend, yet practically no with my wife. Evidently the same input and similar/different minds can as well produce both different and similar output. Has something to do with mind tuning.

???

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/mind


The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought

In other words, your brain. Your mind is just a function of your brain.

[Beskar]

I was thinking just prior to the First Crusade, I'd take the formula for Portland Cement and the plans for a manuballista with me.

Admittedly, I would have thought Justin if you want to go with the Eastern, maybe being fundamental to Constantine might be an excellent point too. Wasn't too fond of Alexios. Though, you could always go back to Caesar, you could meet Jesus the man himself, and give us a critique of how the person differed from the book, if he was better or worse than you thought, etc.

I definitely agree with cement, but I would definitely taken back eco-industrial technology, skipping the dirty industrial revolution.

[Beskar]

I think this debate illustrates something very nicely:

Science supports my view = Science is the measure of truth
Science does not support my view = Science is actually a worthless standard in discussion of such issues

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-fly-from-facts/

Summed up by my signature:
"Belief doesn't change facts. Facts, if you are reasonable, should change your beliefs."

[Gilrandir]

???

In other words, your brain. Your mind is just a function of your brain.
I meant in structure and composition it is the same cells constituting an ugly slimy mass. Like all livers, hearts and kidneys are similar (except pathological, of course). Thanks to simialrity of brain all people are able to feel and to think. Since what they feel and what they think are different it is their mind that accounts for this difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind


A mind is the set of cognitive faculties that enables consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory

[Husar]

I meant in structure and composition it is the same cells constituting an ugly slimy mass. Like all livers, hearts and kidneys are similar (except pathological, of course). Thanks to simialrity of brain all people are able to feel and to think. Since what they feel and what they think are different it is their mind that accounts for this difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind

I was referring to the theory that consciousness and all these things are just a side-effect of the TTBS, I donb't have the time to investigate and think about how that relates to an age-old definition of mind, which is probably wrong and outdated. I also don't think the nerves in the spinal cord or in the eyes came up with the idea for agriculture. But if you insist you can replace brain with mind and it won't invalidate my point that similar systems (see, even more generic now) with similar input are likely to yield similar output if the number of systems and therefore processes is big enough.

[Montmorency]

Mixing with and spreading evil notions like a common street expounder?

You hussy...

I couldn't find the right archaic words for this comment, so judge it for what it could have been.

[Ironside]

Right, and I am to believe that a reduction in this climate fluctuation suddenly presented the exact same demographic pressures in completely different ecosystems with different wildlife, crops, climates and landscapes all across the world at near enough the exact same time? Never mind the fact that most of the staple crops can be grown in quite different climates and would surely grow in much of the world even with the sort of fluctuations your graph presented.


Global temperatures will have a global influence.

Agriculture is only worth it if there's high enough population density, since hunter gatherers gets the food they need faster.

Agriculture makes you settled.

The transition between hunter gatherer and full agriculture seems to be a few thousands years.

Before writing, any information that's gotten irrelevant disappears after a few generations.

Smaller temperature changes has been proven to destroy cities and civilizations.

Your crops might still grow in the new climate, you only need to move several hundred kilometres.

Combine it all you'll need a relatively stable period for a few millennia to make the transition. If no such periods occurred earlier, then it's no wonder the transition never happened.

[Montmorency]

Before writing, any information that's gotten irrelevant disappears after a few generations.

And this is really important when combined with population density.

It's actually possible that isolated groups of Ice Age humans, or even earlier hominids, may have tried their hand at agriculture, or at least horticulture, with some fleeting success.

If they did, they always failed to spread it. Why? Because the climate made it easy to fail, with respect to both carrying capacity for the population and the actual cultivation itself.

If there's one group of a few dozen that can practice at least primitive gardening, and no other group can do it for a few hundred miles, then what happens if there's a small disaster and the group gets scattered or wiped out? A lean winter because they over-relied on the new techniques? Or maybe the one elder who really understood how to make it work died in an accident or to a predator, or to disease, and took the skill with him or her? And even if none of that happens, it's still highly unlikely that any other nearby group could pick it up through contact, because low density means low contact, less opportunities to spread, higher difficulty of transmitting the knowledge and techniques, and steeper 'gradient of credibility' in the first place.

So it's not even about the "invention" of agriculture, or whatever. The end of the glacial period simply made the possibility of agriculture as productive and sustainable.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I can't keep up with all the replies, so apologies to those who don't get a direct response.


Before writing, any information that's gotten irrelevant disappears after a few generations.

The creationist answer to that would be to consider the lifespans of early man - usually from several hundred up to 960 years - no doubt that would help with retaining the integrity of oral information.


A. You can't claim that radiocarbon dating is both useless and then claim that the dates of agriculture derived from radiocarbon dating is definitive.

I said it is useless for absolute dating - those dates I gave you were gotten mainly through relative dating, and radiocarbon dating can be useful for that beyond 3,500 years.


C. I am worried that you have a theory in your head and you are just looking for any sort of justification to shed doubt on what is otherwise established science.

Your suspicions are right. I do have a theory in my head but I will need to seriously formulate it and keep researching. I like to make positive arguments rather than just attacking other ideas.

Anyway, I think its fair to say that creationists have a very different worldview from the secular one, and they each rest on very such different assumptions that hinge upon each other and mesh together in such a way that one part doesn't make sense if you take it out of the whole. Like I said earlier I would like to build up a sort of creationist framework for the development of human history, and that would no doubt make for some interesting discussions.

In the meantime, the discussion is starting to go round in circles a bit, so maybe its best just to leave it at that.

[Sigurd]

Or maybe our measurement of the distance to Andromeda is wrong.
I think not.


That was meant more like "I am in the middle of Nowhere" which also does not usually mean that you have measured your location and are actually exactly in the middle of a place called nowhere. What I literally meant was that he could have placed all the light along the entire way from Andromeda to Earth. I do not believe that he did this, it's just a possible explanation if you believe there is a god who is all powerful and has no limits in our universe. ~;)
See... you are on a slippery slope if you allow magic to enter the discussion. It would be case in point for any of the arguments in here. The sedimentary layers, the radio carbon dating, the agriculture - all answers appealing to magic.
God made the earth in 6 days - but by magic he sped up the processes needed to make it. In 6 days he magically took the earth through a 4 billion year process. All carbon dating is correct - its just that by magic - God made it all happen in 6 days. God created man as a hunter/gatherer and during untold years Adam & Eve could reap the fruits of the garden(s) - they were cast out and by magic - god made the earth hard to till. The earth would no longer yield her abundance and Adam and his posterity had to till the earth and make things grow to sustain the human family. Adam lived a thousand years after being expelled in which his posterity grew and spread out to all the corners of the earth (except the earth isn't flat and square).

During the creation of the universe - he magically placed light photons along the routes of all stars toward earth - so astronomers in the 20th/21st centuries could be deceived. Your God the great deceiver analogy is not painting a good picture of deity.

[Husar]

I think not.

Well, if the carbon dating is wrong, what else is?


See... you are on a slippery slope if you allow magic to enter the discussion. It would be case in point for any of the arguments in here. The sedimentary layers, the radio carbon dating, the agriculture - all answers appealing to magic.
God made the earth in 6 days - but by magic he sped up the processes needed to make it. In 6 days he magically took the earth through a 4 billion year process. All carbon dating is correct - its just that by magic - God made it all happen in 6 days. God created man as a hunter/gatherer and during untold years Adam & Eve could reap the fruits of the garden(s) - they were cast out and by magic - god made the earth hard to till. The earth would no longer yield her abundance and Adam and his posterity had to till the earth and make things grow to sustain the human family. Adam lived a thousand years after being expelled in which his posterity grew and spread out to all the corners of the earth (except the earth isn't flat and square).

He also split the red sea to allow the israelites to escape the egyptians and so on. And yes, Rhyfelwyr is apparently arguing that he did indeed create the entire universe in the timespan of 6 modern days 7000 years ago. The all powerful god the bible describes could do all the things you mention, he even flooded the entire earth and killed everyone but the guy in a huge boat to whom he sent pairs of all animals somehow magically. I mean all powerful is taken very literally, he also let fire rain onto a city or two in order to destroy it and kill everyone inside. Not exactly someone you'd want to mess with because he sets the standard for morality and does these things to people who do not listen while he rewards those who love him and his standards.


During the creation of the universe - he magically placed light photons along the routes of all stars toward earth - so astronomers in the 20th/21st centuries could be deceived. Your God the great deceiver analogy is not painting a good picture of deity.

Neither was my assumption that he placed dinosaur skeletons in the varying layers of earth's crust, because where would you place the dinosaurs if earth is just 7000 years old? If god created humans back then and they were somehow civilized right away, why are there no human records of dinosaurs when there are records of plenty of other animals from early civilization? And why would he place skeletons at a depth below the surface where they couldn't end up naturally in 7000 years? Indeeed my point was that if you believe in the loving god who wants to be your friend and wants you to find him, it makes no sense to think that he would do that. So either the book is not very literal on the early days, our loving god did some weird things or my logic is failing me. Or you claim that the devil also has powers and did all these things to lead us astray because he is the great deceiver. But then you could still ask why god lets the devil do such things. At that point it tends to become pointless to even think about it... :dizzy2:

[Sigurd]

Well, if the carbon dating is wrong, what else is?
*cough*



He also split the reed sea to allow the israelites to escape the egyptians and so on. And yes, Rhyfelwyr is apparently arguing that he did indeed create the entire universe in the timespan of 6 modern days 7000 years ago. The all powerful god the bible describes could do all the things you mention, he even flooded the entire earth and killed everyone but the guy in a huge boat to whom he sent pairs of all animals somehow magically. I mean all powerful is taken very literally, he also let fire rain onto a city or two in order to destroy it and kill everyone inside. Not exactly someone you'd want to mess with because he sets the standard for morality and does these things to people who do not listen while he rewards those who love him and his standards.
All these OT miracles are in the realm of natural laws and could be performed by a scientific advanced race (not suggesting anything here).



So either the book is not very literal on the early days, our loving god did some weird things or my logic is failing me.
Exactly. Creationism in its current form doesn't make sense. And there are Creationists and creationists. One adhere to the literal 6 24h periods the other to 6 periods of unknown years.

During my debate with Rhy in the Trinitarianism thread, I realized that my Bible skills were lacking, so I am currently on a break to rearm these skills and I have started reading the thing again. One thing that caught my eye, is the precise time something takes - 40 days, 40 years - again and again the same numbers. Why not 34 or 63? Investigating further - its not exact times. They are code for a type of preparation. 40 should be substituted with sufficient or probationary. It is the time it took to get to the finish line however long that actually was.

6 is the unfinished number the "just not perfect" number, while 7 is the sign of perfection. How that plays into the creation story - is still uncovered territory.

edit: BTW - my current theory of why dinosaurs? The earth needed fertilization. :sneaky:

[Gilrandir]

I was referring to the theory that consciousness and all these things are just a side-effect of the TTBS, I donb't have the time to investigate and think about how that relates to an age-old definition of mind, which is probably wrong and outdated. I also don't think the nerves in the spinal cord or in the eyes came up with the idea for agriculture. But if you insist you can replace brain with mind and it won't invalidate my point that similar systems (see, even more generic now) with similar input are likely to yield similar output if the number of systems and therefore processes is big enough.
In fact, the mind/brain semantics is irrelevant for this debate of ours. What I tried to show with my examples is that similar input and similar "things in the head" don't always produce similar output and vice versa - similar input and different TITH don't always mean different output. Are you still following me?


In the meantime, the discussion is starting to go round in circles a bit, so maybe its best just to leave it at that.
I would say that anti-creationists were debating with ant-creationists. Can't call it a genuine debate.


One thing that caught my eye, is the precise time something takes - 40 days, 40 years - again and again the same numbers. Why not 34 or 63?
Perhaps they counted by tens.

[Husar]

In fact, the mind/brain semantics is irrelevant for this debate of ours. What I tried to show with my examples is that similar input and similar "things in the head" don't always produce similar output and vice versa - similar input and different TITH don't always mean different output. Are you still following me?

No, who said anything about always?
I gave a vague reasoning for why among two sets of thousands of people each, over a timespan of a thousand years, who are subjected to similar problems and similar climate changes, there may be one or more in each set of people who come up with similar ideas.
Is that wrong now or not? Does every human invention have to spread from one single human to all others or is it possible that a german and an englishman invented the jet engine independently from one another?

[Beskar]

All these OT miracles are in the realm of natural laws and could be performed by a scientific advanced race (not suggesting anything here).


15019

[Papewaio]

Apparently our eyes are formed in the way they are to enhance green red light at the expense of blue and night vision.

http://m.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/look-your-eyes-are-wired-backwards-heres-why-20150317-1m0ooh.touch.touch.html

So the nerves help channel the light to the red and green sensitive cones.

[Sigurd]

Perhaps they counted by tens.
Well.. sort of. It's a mix between our system and Roman like numerals.
They use letters from their alphabet and they have letters for 1 - 9, 10 - 90, 100 - 400 where 400 is the largest number with a single letter. 500 would be 400 + 100

[Gilrandir]

No, who said anything about always?
I gave a vague reasoning for why among two sets of thousands of people each, over a timespan of a thousand years, who are subjected to similar problems and similar climate changes, there may be one or more in each set of people who come up with similar ideas.
Is that wrong now or not? Does every human invention have to spread from one single human to all others or is it possible that a german and an englishman invented the jet engine independently from one another?
It is possible all right. Only I wouldn't turn the possibility into a pattern or rule. Too many exceptions and/or irregularities.

Well.. sort of. It's a mix between our system and Roman like numerals.
They use letters from their alphabet and they have letters for 1 - 9, 10 - 90, 100 - 400 where 400 is the largest number with a single letter. 500 would be 400 + 100
It seems to me (though I can't wager on it) that the older numerical systems were duodecimal (12-based). Having this in view, it would be more natural to have the traces of it in older books. Yet it may apply to European civilizations only (like the Celtic one).

[total relism]

This is just a quick example of why if someone say they are a creationist 2015, you should just slowly back away... Avoid eye contact... And then just run. Not for your life, of course. They are not muslims. I just mean like, generally run because of sanity reasons.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_J-imkehU

If you don't bother watching the video, and HELL YES I want to avoid us having to watch idiotic videos to debate.

The main point is:

IF we are intelligently designed, how come the design is so god awful stupid? The video shows how we have inherited physiological traits that today do ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD, but were well functioning when we were back in the ocean...

And then we just kind of rolled on with it, as it worked.

Not because it's intelligently designed, but because it works.



So, any christian fanboy want to step up and have a fight about creation?







* as a sidenote to all non-christians... I can well believe, among another things, that the universe WAS intelligently created. Lots of actual scientific theories would support it, the "We are Sims" one as an example (even if I personally dont put much faith in it, as there surely would be easier ways to calculate than making organisms... ((unless I just believe I am an organism!!??)).

I just find the idea that the CHRISTIAN intelligent design would be "correct" absolutely shocking, as that would go against pretty much everything we have learnt since having sharp minds away from an iron age desert tribe believing society thingy...*



The simple believes every word: but the prudent man looks well to his going. Proverbs -14.15
The first to present his case seems right,till another comes forward and questions him -Proverbs 18.17

“Its been said that when human beings stop believing in god they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse, they believe in anything.” Malcolm maggeridge


haven't been on a awhile just saw this thread. I will be doing a thread on creation vs evolution next, I have been very busy and it will be awhile. As far as your post I will say, their is a reason evolutionist dont debate, and only those willing and wanting believe them and dont challenge what they say and come away with a post and belief similar to op. For anyone willing to question and challenge what they believe, please read this book

The greatest hoax on earth Refuting dawkins on evolution
http://creation.com/the-greatest-hoax-on-earth/main.php

It is a response to his whole book but this argument is in his book and is responded in detail and really shows why it is these "bad design" arguments [ and others used to teach evolution] dont work in debate and why just like dawkins, he refused to debate sarfati in recorded public debate on his book. When I do post i will post dozens of debates when evolutionist do debate, than you will see more reasons why they only work on those willing and wanting to believe.

[Montmorency]

Who starts off their post by pasting their signature? :inquisitive:

[Greyblades]

The simple believes every word: but the prudent man looks well to his going. Proverbs -14.15
The first to present his case seems right,till another comes forward and questions him -Proverbs 18.17

Oh good, this guy again.

[Sarmatian]

total relism is back!!! Yay!!!

No one gets the backroom going like he does! Welcome back!