Does anyone even listen to creationists these days?

[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.

[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.

[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 (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?

[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 (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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.