Evidence for an ancient earth

BilliardsBall said:

Einstein argued that the general covariance of his theory of gravity supports Mach's principle, which would eliminate any "absolute motion" within general relativity. However, as pointed out by Willem de Sitter in 1916, Mach's principle is not completely fulfilled in general relativity because there exist matter-free solutions of the field equations. This means that the "inertio-gravitational field", which describes both gravity and inertia, can exist in the absence of gravitating matter. However, as pointed out by Einstein, there is one fundamental difference between this concept and absolute space of Newton: the inertio-gravitational field of general relativity is determined by matter, thus it is not absolute.

Miller, Dayton C. (1933). "The Ether-Drift Experiment and the Determination of the Absolute Motion of the Earth". Reviews of Modern Physics. 5 (3): 203–242. Bibcode:1933RvMP....5..203M. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.5.203

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As usual this is a set of anomalous experimental data from one lab group that could not be repeated by others and had been shown to be due to faulty experimental methods.
Rev. Mod. Phys. 27, 167 (1955) - New Analysis of the Interferometer Observations of Dayton C. Miller

Bob the Unbeliever said:

Prove it. Show your work. Hint: Your bible IS NOT PROOF-- IT IS YOUR CLAIM.

I will wait-- but I won't hold my breath (don't want to pass out).

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What is funny is that that in him quoting genesis 1:2 he omits the part that says did it with nothing (void)

BilliardsBall said:

Why do you think pre-history (no documents) is approximately when many creationists think the Flood may have occurred?

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Writing like any other technology was invented at a certain time. Why would there be writing before it was invented? By the same logic does the absence of cars in the 19th century show a flood happened?

BilliardsBall said:

Bob, one more time. I'm a JEWISH CHRISTIAN, a MESSIANIC JEW.

Stop telling me "what we Jews and Christians believe" because you clearly don't know.

A bunch of Jews wrote the NT, and those Jews believed the OT was God's Word. Modern Jewry, if they disbelieve the OT is the Word of God, will likewise tell you the NT isn't God's Word, too, which is eminently logical.

Do you recall Jesus saying if the people believed what Moses wrote they would trust Him, too?

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I have any number of Jewish friends-- and you are not Jewish.

I once asked one of them why they don't accept Jesus as the messiah-- the answers were interesting. The most interesting one, is that Jesus fails to fulfill pretty much all the required messianic texts, from the Jewish bible.

Not the least of which he wasn't descended from David.... (Joseph wasn't his father, except by convention, so that does not count)

There's a lot more to it, beyond the scope of this thread.

BilliardsBall said:

Wow, I've never heard that before, what with me being a witnessing MESSIANIC JEW like Paul, and all.

But please don't tell me your an atheist mocking Christianity on forums because Paul made the NT not Jewish enough! That's nonsense!

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Paul was not an actual Jew, was he? Nope-- his falling out with the actual Jew, Peter is ample proof enough.

Paul was a heretical theist, who melded pagan and Roman ideas into Judiasm, fabricating the oldest christian mythology. For starters, Paul never speaks of Jesus as a fleshy-- if you stick to the parts of the NT that are actually written by him, and not forgeries (written much later, by others).

Language analysis gives us the difference, here-- and Paul pretty much single-handedly fabricated the Jesus-myth. It wasn't cemented in Stone until nearly 300 years later, of course--

-- making pretty much the entire NT hearsay, and hardly credible...

BilliardsBall said:

The Bible contains thousands of facts, verified by archaeology, history, etc.

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Not really. Not even a little bit, in actual fact.

For example? The entire Exodus myth? Never happened. Absolutely zero archeological evidence in support of thousands (or millions as the story claims) wandering the desert during the alleged time-frame.

But wait! It's Worse! Moses supposedly fled Egypt-- but. Just across the Red (Reed) Sea? Was still Egypt at that time and place!

So, no-- not even a little bit accurate, here.

BilliardsBall said:

The Bible contains thousands of facts, verified by archaeology, history, etc.

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But Wait! There's More!

Noah's "flood" story? Myth. Never happened. Not a single artifact, archeological dig, nor rock supports a global flood.

Not.

One.

Seashell.

Bob the Unbeliever said:

I have any number of Jewish friends-- and you are not Jewish.

I once asked one of them why they don't accept Jesus as the messiah-- the answers were interesting. The most interesting one, is that Jesus fails to fulfill pretty much all the required messianic texts, from the Jewish bible.

Not the least of which he wasn't descended from David.... (Joseph wasn't his father, except by convention, so that does not count)

There's a lot more to it, beyond the scope of this thread.

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I've seen jcs dad's grave stone

http://www.geocities.ws/overyom/lg_TiberiusIuliusPantera.jpg

BilliardsBall said:

The Bible contains thousands of facts, verified by archaeology, history, etc.

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Still more: The garden of Eden? Myth. Did not happen: DNA proves to 100%, that humans NEVER descended from a single breeding pair.

Oh, and DNA also prove that Noah did not happen, either-- there is no eight person genetic bottleneck either...

So DNA proves both are 100% myth..

BilliardsBall said:

.

I come to you with facts. You return invective and accusations. Do you have ANY facts disproving God's existence, Jesus's atoning death, etc.?

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You have YET to post an actual ... FACT.

Hint: your bible isn't fact-- it's your CLAIM. You cannot use your CLAIM as proof.

Hint: It's not UP to ME to disprove your CLAIM-- you have failed to prove it in the FIRST PLACE.

ChristineM said:

According to the bible (respect) there were 76 cats on the ark (36 species, cats are not kosher so we're boxed in 2s)

What about the millions with their offspring who could not hitch a lift?

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Oh, but I was going with "kinds" here -- which would magically condense all species of "cat" into just single pair.

Then post-ark, more Magic: This single pair would magically-- within a generation-- split off onto the thousands of species of cats we see today...

Bob the Unbeliever said:

Oh, but I was going with "kinds" here -- which would magically condense all species of "cat" into just single pair.

Then post-ark, more Magic: This single pair would magically-- within a generation-- split off onto the thousands of species of cats we see today...

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Ahh the kinds argument, i was going to use that originally which is what the babble says literally and creationist are so indignant about because they think it's a good excuse. However one shouldn't use the babble literally, look at the consequences, Christianity. And of course it does not explain why so many species exist today in only a few thousand years except, as you say "magic"

I had to look up how many species of cat there are, only 36 but at least i knew they were not kosher.

BilliardsBall said:

Why do you think pre-history (no documents) is approximately when many creationists think the Flood may have occurred?

Why when we compare Gilgamesh to Noah is one far more sophisticated (size of boat, building time, materials, decks, covering, reaction of people, foodstuffs, storage capacity, etc., etc.?

Have you read studies indicating Gilgamesh's quest was to meet the living Noah?

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You mean Utnapistim? Yes, I have read the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Yes, the story of Noah has a more elaborate boat. That tends to happen when legends get told numerous times: the story gets elaborated.

BilliardsBall said:

Faith IS evidence.

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No, it actually is not.

Hebrews 11:1 - Faith is the EVIDENCE of something hoped for but not yet seen. You can have inductive faith, deductive faith. I trust God because He has been continually faithful and trustworthy.

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OK, so the Bible is wrong. That isn't a huge surprise.

BilliardsBall said:

I don't deny the science. You are denying the possibilities that our universe is a bubble inside another universe filled with water

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Yes, I completely deny that. The gravitational instability alone shows it cannot be like that. The fact that our universe is mostly vacuum (which would make the Bubble collapse) is another. The problem of having that much water is a HUGE issue. If you really think this is a likely or even a possible scenario, you are seriously delusional.

BilliardsBall said:

Why do you think pre-history (no documents) is approximately when many creationists think the Flood may have occurred?

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Pre-history isn't a specific time. ALL of the history of the universe before writing started (history) would technically be pre-history. Humans have been around for 1-200.000 years, only the last 5000 have had writing. So even saying it is 'approximately' when something occurred is being incoherent.

BilliardsBall said:

We can sum as "we are moving or we are not but cannot quite tell."

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No, we can sum it up as 'there is no absolute frame of reference to define motion'.

BilliardsBall said:

How does the Bible indicate two years? It would have taken, logically, physically, a thousand years or more of secondary upheaveal and etc. A post-Flood ice age from detritus in the atmosphere, for example. The water covered the tops of the mountains arisen shortly after the Flood, and these could have been 500 feet high.

Stop making strawmen of things the Bible does NOT say.

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So a thousand years of massive tectonic activity as whole mountain ranges all over the world rose thousands of feet? Repeated volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes and no one bothers to mention it?

ChristineM said:

Ahh the kinds argument, i was going to use that originally which is what the babble says literally and creationist are so indignant about because they think it's a good excuse. However one shouldn't use the babble literally, look at the consequences, Christianity. And of course it does not explain why so many species exist today in only a few thousand years except, as you say "magic"

I had to look up how many species of cat there are, only 36 but at least i knew they were not kosher.

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Indeed. Cats are way to intelligent to be Kosher....

Oddly enough, dogs are not Kosher either, but that, I cannot explain.

So far, I have discussed several methods for determining the age of the earth. There is another highly informative manner by which one can independently determine the age of the solar system, that is by calculating the age of the sun itself. Here is how it goes,

1) The abundance of Helium and Hydrogen at the sun's core is determined by Helioseismology (LINK). It's a technique where the Shockwaves in the sun are used to calculate composition, density etc. It is found that whole Helium is at 27% by mass in most of the sun, near the core it rises rapidly to peak at about 65% at the center.

2) The reason for this increasing Helium is nuclear fusion, the primary driver of sun's energy. This process consumes 4 hydrogen atoms to make one helium atom releasing 26.7 MeV of energy in the process per reaction.

3) The rate of radiation energy from the sun can be determined by instruments on ground or in satellites. Sun is radiating energy at 3.9*10^26 Watts.

4) Fusion reaction only occurs at the core of the Sun. Helium concentration both at the Sun's outer surface and in Jupiter provide the initial concentration of Helium in the solar nebula our of which Sun formed. The two data values match and from this we deduce that initial He concentration was 27%

5) From Helioseismology it follows then that 4.2% of Sun's mass is from Helium produced internally at the core by fusion.

6) 1 MeV = 1.6*10^(-13) joules
So rate of Helium conversion happening at the core =Energy Radiatoated by sun in a second/ Energy released per Helium nuclei formef
= 3.9*10^26/(26.72*1.6*10^-13) = 9.1*10^37 helium nuclei formed per second.

Mass of Helium nuclei is 6.64*10^-27 kg.
Mass of Sun is 1.99*10^30 kg

7)Assuming a highly simple model where the sun has produced Helium at this steady rate always and sun has not lost much mass due to radiation etc.

Age of sun = Total Mass of Helium produced by fusion over time/Mass of Helium produced per second
=(0.042*1.99*10^30 kg) /(6.64*10^-27*9.1*10^37 kg/s)
= 1.4*10^17 seconds
= 4.4 billion years.

More precise models give the date to be 4.6 billion years, so we are not too far off using such simple calculations.

Thus along with the consistent values from multiple radioactive decay based age data for Earth, moon, Mars and meteor rocks; we now have an entirely independent nuclear fusion based data for age of the Sun that also matches the age calculations.