Does anyone even listen to creationists these days?

[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...

[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.

[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?

[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).

[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).

[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-t...uch.touch.html

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