Why do you believe in God?

I've read the bible and I must say it's a bad fairy tale, have you even read the stuff that is in it? How controversial it is to todays current society?

Let me ask you something, and 99% of Christians fuck themselves up with this. It's quite long so bear with me

Why do you believe in God?
I was raised to.
The bible.
Because we cannot explain why x is y therefore god exists.

First one, if you were raised to believe 1+1 is 3 does that mean it is correct? No that is called conformity.
Third one, there are other reasonable explanations with slightly more evidence to answer those questions aside God. This leaves those theories more credible than God. So this argument itself derives from lack of education and social conformity.

The second one.

I would quote numerous controversial bible quotes, suffice to say the bible promotes:

Cannibalism, genocide, inequality, corruption, coercion.

99% of Christians would then respond, "The bible is not meant to be taken literally."

I would then say, "Then why do you take God literally from within the bible?"

They would then stare at me and either argue 2 of the other aforementioned arguments or just insult me.


Lack of evidence is not evidence of proof, I agree. It is called evidence of absence. We have tried to find whether God exists, and their has been NO statistically significant or otherwise data that suggests he exists.

It's like saying there is a needle in this haystack.
You search tirelessly for the needle and cannot find it.
You arrive to the conclusion there was no needle in this haystack.

This is called evidence of absence, it works against you for science has tried but failed.


Faith and religion are good, they keep followers happy. Ignorance is also bad, and it is ignorant to call others ignorant for not sharing your views.


Now I'm not saying there is no way God can possibly exist, I am simply saying that most religious followers are like sheep, they tend to follow and stay in a spot until acted upon by an external force. They don't see both sides of the argument, ergo think laterally.

 

Scientists are just as likely to bias their conclusions. There are many ways to see the same thing. You have no evidence for why experiences should not be counted as evidence. Senses can trick you just as experiences can. How do you solve this? Testing lots. What about thousands of people having religious experiences every day? Dismissing all that evidence for no reason is not good.

Very nice points.

 

The way I look at it is that people believe in something because it keeps them going and its good to have believe and hope in something be it religion.

 

Like you said, there's no reason to believe in it other than that YOU want to. If it makes you feel good, why not? Some people need something to guide them or help them back on their feet after having experienced some hard times. If you don't believe in God, Ok that's what you want to believe, no one should force you to believe otherwise. I personally do believe in a God

 

Science has not proven that God does not exist, so there goes that.
I am not saying that is the reason I believe in god, but that is a reason. I understand the points against religion and I am fine with that. Unless it is proven one way or the other, we will all find out what is right when we die.

Exactly. That is one thing I hate about religion, is that they try to shove it down the throat of people that obviously do not believe in God. Let someone believe in what they want, not try and force them to believe in something else.

 

Bravo, one of the more intelligible threads on Sythe.

The points stated by all of you are surprisingly well thought out. Even so, I must disagree with you Pokerking. SCience hasn't proven God to NOT exist. That is the one pet peeve I have of brainwashed christians. The better statement is: science hasn't proven a god, therefore God is a figment of your imagination until he his proven. A book that's been perhaps lost in translation does not count as proof.

As an atheist, people at school always pressure me to go to youth groups, church, and other Christian related events. When I ask them why they believe in God, without fail, their response is always "I was saved blablahblah." I inquire about what "saved" actually means, and these try hard Christians claim that:

A) God appeared to them

B) the scriptures affected them

C) it's the "right" thing to do. If you don't be "saved" you will go to he'll

I'm always amused by these responses. Their myopic sight truly intrigues me. I don't understand why people believe that they have seen God. I'm pretty this "God" of yours is the cliche picture of a caucasian male with long brown hair and a shaggy beard. This depiction of "God" is really not the man himself. I want you to ask yourselves, did you truly see him? Or are you just trying to follow the bandwagon.

The bible says so. That's also a classic. What your saying is that if I wrote a book and titled it "holy pastafarian bible" and got enough chimps to believe it with continous teaching/preaching, the book of past would contain the truth? Sounds absurd, but this is pretty much what the Bible is.

The right thing to do? Yeah right. Says who, I dont see me falling ina hole and getting eaten up by monsters. I don't see all those Jewish, Islamic, Hindi people getting hurt. All I see is your conditioned beliefs that have been pounded into your mind since you were a child. Grow up, open your eyes. What's right should not me characterized by a book, that's just bogus!

I failed my response :-/. Am on my iPhone so I can't really review what I typed.

 

Until you have studied the Bible in its entirety, do not make conclusions about that which you have not taken the time to read and fully comprehend in the context it was meant to be in. I'm not claiming to have done so, but your statements are very generalized and it sounds like you pulled your ideas directly off an atheist wiki.

Also, although its possible some Christians answered the questions in the manner you presented, that is a horrible way to substantiate your argument.

Also, read my response to malaka's post, as it pertains highly to your post.

 

That can go both ways. Science hasn't proven that god doesn't exist, so that means he is real until proven otherwise.
That is the biggest problem I have with the Bible. The Bible has been translated so many times it is bound to have different things from the originally copy.
What is this last paragraph, a rant or something? That is just as bad as religious people trying to change you into a believer. Believe what you want to believe, but don't try and convince other people that what you are saying is correct.

 

Apparently some people don't understand the foundational and unavoidable role that assumptions play in science. For instance, all scientists operate upon the untestable assumption that the nature always behaves in a logical, rational and consistent and therefore predictable manner. Without this assumption, science is impossible.

All that creation does is employ disparate (Biblical based) assumptions as their starting point (i.e. a straight-forward literal reading of Genesis). This is no different, or worse, than that of secular scientists who employ their own assumption of atheism or deism (that even if God exists, it makes no difference). Both sets of assumptions form a prism (worldview) through which the evidence is interpreted. Further, both sets of assumptions are 'first principles' and are untestable and therefore unprovable.

Secular scientists first assume the truth atheism and its necessary corollary, the truth of evolution and its vast time scales. They then assume an initial ratio of mother/daughter isotopes in the rock when it formed. Further assumptions include: constant nuclear decay rates, that rocks have not suffered contamination that would alter the ratio of mother/daughter isotopes (except when that phenomenon is invoked to explain anomalous dates), etc. Once these assumptions are made, the logical conclusion is that the isotope ratios indicate billions of years of time.

Creationists begin from the assumption that Genesis is straight-forward factual history (including a creation date about 6,000-10,000 years ago). Given this assumption, and the facts, and as one example, an accelerated nuclear decay rate (as a means of triggering the flood) is one possible conclusion. And given that this conclusion does not violate the laws of physics, it is a rational conclusion.



Intelligent Design and Creation examples:

The cell:
Plasma membrane - controls exchange of materials between inside and outside of cell.
Golgi complex - modifies, distributes, and packages secretory products. Distributes and recycles cellular membrane.
Nuclear envelope - Double phosphoibid bilayer membrane that segregates contents of nucleus from cytoplasm.
Centrioles - Organelles containing 9 triplet bundles of microtubules - important role in cell division.
Nucleus - Contains chromosomal DNA packaged into chromation fiber. Plays central role in heredity. Controls nuclear activity.
Nucleolus - Site where ribosomal RNA is assembled, processed, and packaged with proteins into ribosomal subunits.
Nuclear pore - Special permeable sites on nuclear surface which allow certain macro-molecules to pass between nucleus and cytoplasm.
Mitochondrion - Power plant of the cell. Provides energy in the form of ATP through oxidative phosphorylation.
Flagellum - Microtubular structure which grows from the basal body. Used for locomotion.
Dynein arm - Enzmatic activity of dynein (protein) releases the energy from ATP required for mobility.
Rough endoplasmic reticulum - Segregation, modification, and transportation of proteins and lysosomal enzymes. ribosome studded membrane.
Ribosome - Contains high concentration of RNA. Important in protein synthesis.
Smooth endoplasmic reticulum- Synthesis of lipods. Role in detoxification. No ribosomes.
Cytosol - Gel-like intracellular fluid where many of cell's chemical reactions occur.

Now, to deny that a cell is intelligently designed is symptomatic of a deep immersion into a cult like belief (evolution) achieved through intense indoctrination =| yeah...


Helium:
Helium in deep granite challenges the conventional, radiometric dating of rocks. Its leak-rate from zircon crystals points to an earth only thousands of years old, not billions.



Other thoughts:
The mainstream geologists would say that dinosaur bones cannot be dated using Carbon 14 techniques because no Carbon 14 should remain after 200,000 years (or even less). Nonetheless, residual Carbon 14 has been found not only in dinosaur bones but in all animal fossils, coal, and even diamonds, assumed by evolutionists to be many millions of years old. These have been tested using state-of-the-art accelerated mass spectrometry. Evolutionists have theorized that the Carbon 14 is produced by neutrons resulting from alpha particles (from uranium or thorium decay in nearby rocks) hitting silicon or other light nuclei. However, in the case of coal, it would take a coal seam made up of almost entirely of Uranium-238 to create the concentration of Carbon 14 found in coal. The presence of Carbon 14 in fossils, coal, and diamonds is consistent with a YEC model and clashes with the OEC view.

According to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, gravity warps time so that distant clocks run faster than those near the center of a gravitational field. This theory may support a young earth view. If the earth is near the center of the entire cosmos (not the same thing as saying the earth is the center of our solar system), then clocks on earth would be running much more slowly than clocks near the expanding edges.

In the past, when the cosmos was smaller, the effect could have been very significant. Light which traveled 15 billion years, "Cosmos Edge Time," would have done the distance in 6,000 to 10,000 years, "Earth Standard Time." This model, therefore, could account for light, traveling from extremely distant regions, actually arriving on earth, a 6-10K years old planet.

On the basis of a young planetary model, Dr. Russell Humphreys predicted in 1984 that Uranus' magnetic dipole moment would be "of the order of 1024" Joule/Tesla. In January of `86, Voyager 2 passed by the planet. The measured results were consistent with Dr. Humphreys' prediction. Additionally, Voyager 2 passed by Neptune in August of `89, and its magnetic moment was "in the middle" of Dr. Humphreys' prediction.

But how did old-age predictions fit the data? The models, involving millions and billions of years, were way off. For example, the prediction for Uranus was 100,000 times too low. This demonstrates that the young solar system model is capable of specific, verifiable, and, at least in this case, accurate predictions. If earth's solar system is young, then earth is young.

Saturn's moon, Enceladus, is spraying ice out from a huge geyser on its south pole, but it should have cooled off and quieted down billions of years ago: "Scientists are shocked by this volcanic activity on what should be a small, quiet moon."




Evolution/transmutation:
Random mutations, the foundation of Neo-Darwinist theory, are just that, random and rare. Mutations are phenomena by which the information encoded in DNA is somehow damaged or deleted. The result, at best, is a neutral effect. Usually, however, the results are tragic: deformities, sickness, death. For mutations to team together and complement one another in the form of numerous complementary components or successive stages, two things are required: One is that mutations possess the ability to create new information in the highly sophisticated DNA code. To accomplish this requires another thing: intelligence. Mutations are phenomena - mutations have no ongoing presence; no brain, no intelligence; not even consciousness. Yet Darwinists are willing to believe that they not only have the ability to make intelligent decisions that would improve an organism, but they are also willing to believe that mutations, since they work through thousands of successive generations over millions of years, possess the ability to see into the future and work to create all the components necessary to reach a preconceived outcome, or goal.

The fossil record bears out the fact that evolution never happened. Consider the belief of Darwinists that all known life forms on Earth, living and extinct; from the smallest single-celled organism to humans, somehow all evolved from the original cell. That is correct - all phyla, all species - all are interconnected and all morphed into one another; so that it would not be unreasonable to assert that a sponge eventually morphed into a human being.

If this actually had happened, the vast majority of fossils (over 90% of them) would show a gradual change from one species to the next - the fossil beds would have been literally littered with them. Instead, of the millions of fossils collected since Darwin's time and before, we have none. Not a single transitional or intermediate form - only fully formed, distinct species - exactly as we see in living species today. All species appear in the fossil record abruptly and remain unchanged until extinction. Crocodiles: unchanged in over 200 million years. . .lungfish: unchanged in over 200 million years. . .bats: unchanged since they appeared abruptly 50 million years ago. . .jellyfish: unchanged in half a billion years. . .the list goes on and on.

So the question is:
Why do evolutionists believe in such a nonsensical materialist theory originally formed in ancient Greece - the cradle not only of democracy, but of mythology?

The answer is disturbing.
We were all taught evolution with great intensity all through elementary, high school, and college. Brainwashing children at an early age perpetuates a materialist philosophy that turns pliable students into indoctrinated adults. As science advances, however, more and more people are breaking through the restraints of indoctrination and are questioning a fantasy that was presented as fact.

Some Darwinists/Evolutionists are upset when it is pointed out that the fossil record shows nothing but stasis.
If evolution had really happened, then living things should have emerged by gradual changes, and have continued to change over time, whereas the fossil record shows the exact opposite. Different groups of living things suddenly emerged with no similar ancestors behind them, and remained static for millions of years, undergoing no changes at all.

Random mutations cannot add information to the genome. They are random and they are mutations. They have no consciousness or intelligence. They can only harm the complex DNA code and can't create new information. They can't team up with other random mutations to randomly engineer and create all known life forms. They cannot see into the future and work through countless generations to affect thousands of changes that would form new organs, systems, or species. They are random and they are mutations.

Natural selection happens all the time, but it involves traits that were already in the genome. That's why dogs have so many variations. . .but they will always be dogs. Angelfish will always be angelfish. Fire belly toads will never become bullfrogs.

The fossil record supports the idea that evolution is a fantasy. You see, there are no intermediate forms that would have had to bridge the gaps between species. All life forms appeared suddenly and abruptly in the fossil record as distinct species and have never undergone any changes right up until extinction. Many living creatures and plants today, hypothetically speaking, have existed for hundreds of millions of years and have not undergone any changes.

Carbon 14 and CD?
Assumptions:
Initial conditions are known.
Decay rate is constant.
No contamination





Here is some information that you would do well to ponder :

The following excerpt from the book, The Discovery That's Toppling Evolution, by Jonathan Gray, 2006, pp. 152-208 [website: www.beforeus.com], is the conclusion of an amazing story about an Australian science teacher -- Al Coster -- whose challenge of the evolutionary paradigm led to a school board inquiry and calls for his dismissal. Greg Ryan is Al's principal, who over the course of the book has become persuaded of the fallacious claims of Darwinism and is trying to convince the school board to vindicate Mr Coster and retain his services as a science teacher. We begin at Chapter 16:

16
If evolution... then please explain -

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

"We are here this evening," said Greg Ryan, "because Al Coster, our science teacher, has been accused of teaching miracles to our children -- instead of science."

The board members sat bolt upright. Respected though Al was, such heresy was intolerable in an education system that insisted evolution be taught to the exclusion of anything contrary.

"He's been teaching miracles"

"To place us all on common ground," said Greg, "here is the definition of a miracle." He paused, writing on the blackboard:

"A miracle is an event or action that apparently contradicts known scientific laws."

"Al has freely admitted to me that he has taught miracles in the classroom."

At that moment, a board member raised his hand. "Would you specify these so-called miracles, Mr. Ryan?"

"Certainly. Coster gave me four...

"Firstly, that a Supernatural Creator exists -- supernatural in the sense of existing outside the known laws of nature.

"Secondly, that this Supernatural God has the ability to create the universe (all energy and matter) from nothing.

"Thirdly, that this Supernatural God has the ability to design an orderly universe.

"And fourthly, that this Supernatural God has the ability to create life."

Board member Roland Brown rose to his feet angrily. Turning to the others, he said, "Did you hear that? By his own admission Coster has been teaching nonsense... miracles. That is enough to disqualify him from teaching science to our kids!"

"Just a moment, Mr. Brown. May I ask if you believe in miracles?" asked Greg.

"Definitely not. Belief in miracles is just plain superstition."

Greg smiled. "Like yourself, that's basically what I told Al Coster... that I did not believe in miracles. Then he pointed out to me that we all believe in miracles. And that includes you, too, Mr Brown."

"Oh, come off it!" sneered Brown. "Don't insult me!"

"You believe in evolution, right?"

"From A to Z," replied Brown.

"Then you DO believe in miracles."

"What are you saying? What miracles?"

"I can give you four," said Greg. "Do you want to hear them?"

With a murmur of assent from the committee, he continued. Pointing again to the chalkboard, he said, "As we know, a miracle is 'an event or action that contradicts known scientific laws'.

"Here are some scientific laws crucial to this meeting."

He turned and wrote:

FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

"As you know, this FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS states that in a closed system (such as our universe), energy and mass are conserved. Energy or mass are neither created nor destroyed. Energy and mass cannot originate from nothing."

Greg again scribbled quickly:

BIOGENESIS

"The fundamental principle of biology is BIOGENESIS, which states that living organisms come ONLY from other living organisms (life comes from life). This tells us that life cannot and never did originate by natural processes."

Then he added a third point:

SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

"This law states that with time, a closed system (like our universe) will become more random and disordered. Over time, energy will become less available to do useful things."

And finally," said Greg, scratching on the chalkboard:

CAUSE AND EFFECT

"Finally, the most basic scientific principle is CAUSE AND EFFECT. This is fundamental to all the branches of science and philosophy. Cause and effect requires that an observed event can be traced to an event that preceded it."

"Remember that a known miracle is `an event or action that apparently contradicts known scientific laws'.

"Here are the miracles the school syllabus asks us to teach:

"Firstly, that matter and energy created life itself from nothing. That violates the first law of thermodynamics -- so it is a miracle.

"Secondly, that life originated from non-life. This violates the law of biogenesis. Another miracle.

"Thirdly, that the universe began as disorder (the big bang) and became orderly over time (violating the second law of thermodynamics). A third miracle.

"And there's a fourth miracle in our school syllabus, for teaching. Evolution believes in NO `First Cause' for the universe. This violates the law of Cause and Effect. So evolution requires another miracle.

"If we teach evolution, then we have to believe in these miracles.

"But what is Al Coster saying?" Greg pointed to each law in turn.

"Firstly, Mr Coster is sticking to the First Law of Thermodynamics. He is saying that energy and mass could not possibly have originated from nothing, by natural processes. He says the origin of energy and mass was not natural but supernatural.

"He is also teaching according to Biogenesis. He's been saying that life cannot and never did originate by natural processes. But that life originated from a supernatural source.

"Al Coster's also sticking to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The law that degeneration, disintegration and increasing decay is seen everywhere.

"Studying this question intensively over the past months, I have acquainted myself with Al's position. Al Coster claims the evolution model contradicts this Second Law. According to evolution, the universe began from a few particles and evolved upward to make human beings. The universe became ordered and its useful energy increased by natural processes. This contradicts the Second Law. The molecule-to-man philosophy is an illusion that ignores all the genuine evidence of nature.

"On the other hand, Al Coster says the universe never became more ordered over timem, and its available energy never increased by natural processes. The universe was created with order by supernatural plan... but has since been winding down.

"Finally, the fourth law is Cause and Effect. Al Coster has appealed to a `First Cause' (a Creator). Evolution believes in NO `First Cause' for the universe.

"Investigation will show that the evolution model contradicts these natural laws of science. And Al Coster's creation model complies with those natural laws."

Greg paused and scribbled carefully on the board:

SCIENTIFIC LAW COSTER'S MODEL EVOLUTION MODEL
First Law of Thermodynamics AGREES CONTRADICTS
Biogenesis AGREES CONTRADICTS
Second Law of Thermodynamics AGREES CONTRADICTS
Cause and Effect AGREES CONTRADICTS

"So if miracles is the issue," Greg continued, "both Al Coster and the school's syllabus have faith in miracles!

"And I've been asking myself, Which takes more faith to believ in -- a system that's in harmony with scientific laws and principles, or one that contradicts scientific laws and principles?"

For a few moments, there was silence.

Then Marjorie Lancaster, mother of three, one of whose children attended Al's science classes, stood to her feet. Surveying the group, she offered a suggestion.

"Look, we have a responsibility to consider what is best for our children. As far as I'm concerned, this requires more homework."

"Yes," grunted another. "I think we should defer a decision till next month. But we need a plan."

The principal was ready. Anticipating such a development, he had prepared his questionaire.

"These are my sixteen questions, everyone. Sixteen questions I believe you should answer. Our science teacher deserves no less. And sooner or later your children are going to want to know the truth and demand you come clean, or resign as parents.

"Take these home with you," he said. "Each of you must decide whether our evolution syllabus is valid or faulted. At next month's meeting, bring in your verdict. Then we can make an informed decision on what to do about Al Coster."

Greg Ryan's questionnaire revolved around 16 points:

1. Why do you believe in the theory of evolution?
2. What is the best scientific evidence that supports the theory of evolution? (Please be specific.)
3. What scientific laws do you know support the theory of evolution?
4. How did life originate?
5. Do you believe in spontaneous generation?
6. How did energy originate?
7. How did mass originate?
8. Is everything from design or accident?
9. What caused everything?
10. Is there a cause?

Please investigate these further questions:

11. MAN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF LIFE?: If man evolved from earlier life forms, then why are human remains consistently found in all ages of strata, even with the "first and earliest" fossil life forms?

12. COMPLEX LIFE SINCE THE BEGINNING?: Why do complex fossils appear in the earliest strata, with no evidence of ancestors?

13. REQUIRED LINKS NOT FOUND: Why are there persistent gaps between major types of organisms -- with no evidence of transition from one type to another?

14. STRATA RAPIDLY FORMED?: Why does a single fossil commonly penetrate through multiple "ages" of strata?

15. UNCHANGED OVER THE AGES: Why are today's basic types unchanged from their first fossil ancestors?

16. EVOLVING OF INFORMATION: How does new information evolve?

"I want you to be detectives and attorneys," challenged Greg. "I want you to conduct a real investigation -- the kind the police lke to do when they are trying to track down a murderer."

He coughed. "Leave no stone unturned to get at the truth. Forget that a man's livelihood is at stake -- and that of his wife and five children. Your decision must be based solely upon the evidence -- nothing less, nothing more. Prepare your evidence so it would stand up in court."

The meeting was adjourned.

*******

The Evidence

Eight earnest parents pushed aside most other activities for the next four weeks. Fast food dinners sometimes replaced home cooking. Like jurors, they sifted evidence and agonsied over conflicting ideas.

Uppermost in every mind was EVIDENCE... as the next board meeting drew closer.

At length, each person filed into the committee room. The principal called the meeting to order. And each member was asked to present a report.

Finally, it was Roland Brown's turn. Solidly built, the engineer generated an overpowering presence.

"I have assumed for years," he said, "that evolution was based on good evidence and that to accept the alternative required faith, contrary to what we see in natural law. I could not govern my life by faith. I must order it by facts. I still hold that to accept something by faith alone is absurd.

"However, when you think deeply about it, all of us believe in things we have never seen and cannot prove. Chemists believe in atoms, mathematicians in axioms. I think it was the great scientist Thomas Huxley who said, `The ground of every one of our actions, and the validity of all our reasonings, rest upon the great act of faith.'

"Well, during this past month, I was forced to do some rethinking."

The strong man stopped, fumbled for a handkerchief and blew his nose.

"For years I have believed in the self-creation of the world, in unconscious matter producing consciousness, and in a primeval cell that created itself! I have denied the soul of man, but believed in the unconscious memory of molecules. I have denied the possibility of Creation, and maintained the self-beginning of life!"

"So, after examining the evidence critically," asked Greg, "what is your conclusion?"

"I must admit," said the engineer, "that to believe in a cell that created itself takes a lot more faith than the creation of the world by a Higher Intelligence."

"So where do you see the evidence pointing?" asked Greg. "In favour of the school evolution syllabus, or what Al Coster has been teaching in class?"

The Evolution-killers

Brown turned his big frame to face everyone. "See, this is how it looks to me -- and please tell me if I'm wrong. Mr Coster has the weight of evidence on his side. It seems to me that fossils and DNA kill evolution stone dead. DNA tells me evolution couldn't even get started. And fossils say that whatever we started with has not evolved since then."

Brown's next words shocked the others. "The big evolution whopper had me so thoroughly whopperised, that I wrongly thought Al Coster was a nut. If you're going to sell a mass of Whoppers, you need either a good advertising campaign -- or a captive audience. Corporations pay big money for that kind of marketing. The evolution propagandists have hijacked the school system. They have a captive audience. They've created a well-oiled, pro-evolution propaganda offensive that is almost impossible to avoid. And which crushes all opposition."

"Not at Thornton High!" shouted a board member. "Not any more! Let's take a vote."

Greg Ryan felt a sigh of relief. Each member of the `jury' had taken the issue seriously, putting in the time requested. Al Coster would stay.

17
Legacy of a global Flood -

THE DAY EARTH ALMOST DIED

On my very first day at a Melbourne backpacker lodge, I heard a seasoned traveller from Africa say:

"God's got some questions to answer... if he exists. If he made this world good, then:

* Why is the climate so HARSH?
* Why the hurricanes, floods and droughts that destroy so much life?
* Why is only 18 percent of our world suitable for human habitation? Why are huge areas under desert or under perpetual ice?
* Why is the soil impoverished, so that millions starve?
* WHAT KIND OF GOD WOULD CREATE THIS KIND OF WORLD???"

A damaged planet

Of course, no one would argue, we live on a planet that is far from perfect. However, there is persuasive evidence that the world was once vastly different.

And compelling also is the evidence that whatever changed it, occurred suddenly.

In fact, I have rarely investigated anything I thought was more factual.

There is good reason to believe that not so long ago there occurred a watery catastrophe of such magnitude that the earth is still reeling from its onslaught.

This global deluge explains why today's world is DAMAGED and IMPOVERISHED. We inhabit a planet that is still suffering the effects of a worldwide disaster.

Large areas now under perpetual desert or ice were once lush, fertile and inhabited. Large areas now under the sea were likewise habitable.

Then something happened suddenly. It changed everything.

But this is not all. The earth after the Disaster was not only considerably reduced in land area. But even in this SHRUNKEN land surface area, the fertility of the soil and the natural resources necessary for human progress are UNEQUALLY distributed and LARGELY BURIED.

But this was not so before the Great Flood. There! I've said it. I've said something that is anathema to the established theory of world history. I've mentioned the Great Flood.


PART II

Virtually all ancient races preserved a racial memory of such an event. So we may well ask, What magnitude of disaster was this, that so deeply engrained itself into the histories of so many cultures?

There is solid, tangible evidence that:

1. A disaster of extraordinary proportions has occurred on this planet.

2. It was sudden

3. Life forms worldwide were rapidly buried in sediments laid down by moving water. (This is fully consistent with a global Flood.)

4. It involved human beings.

5. These victims were highly civilised.

I shall not even attempt to submit the evidence here. A large body of this is covered in some of my other books. {The Killing of Paradise Planet (the above point 2) http://www.beforeus.com/first.php; Surprise Witness (points 1,3,4 and 5) http://www.beforeus.com/second.php; The Corpse Came Back (points 4 and 5) http://www.beforeus.com/third.php; and Dead Men's Secrets (point 5) http://www.beforeus.com/}

If a Superior Intelligence - a Supreme Being - did make this place, then, as we shall soon notice, he handed over to us a mighty fine planet to start with. With freedom to enjoy it.

So what went wrong?

Well, we do make our own choices. And you can trust US to mess things up!

The word BEFORE the Great Disaster

Geology testifies to a once mild and uniform climate over the entire globe. Thre is reason to believe that this paradise world existed within the memory of the human race.

Most of the earth's surface was then land. There were no high mountains forming physical or climatic barriers. Ocean beds were relatively shallow.

There was luxuriance of vegetation, pole to pole. Plant and animal types were of greater variety than today. They were also more widely and evenly distributed - and of greater size and quality - than their modern descendants.

A water canopy surrounding the planet not only precluded winds, storms and rain, but also filtered out life-shortening cosmic rays.

Several factors favoured a much longer human life span. Indeed, while ancient records recall such longevity, modern science admits to its possibility.

The former world was rich beyond our dreams - in its stark beauty, in its environment and its quality of life. On that, physical evidence and historical traditions agree. It appears that the world then was as perfect as one could desire. Everything about it was just right.

Mankind, so the sacred records affirm, was placed on this beautiful planet as its custodian. He was granted every privilege, including a free will to make his own decisions.

Expansion over some two millennia may have produced a population comparable to our own, sufficiently large to cover the earth. With the incredible mental faculties of man at that time, tremendous scientific advances were made, advances that we can't even begin to imagine.
Yet the human race abused the trust... and slid into spiritual bankruptcy. Corruption was widespread. Violence was exploding out of control. Mankind may have become totally extinct, had not supernatural power intervened.

Population explosion - a proliferation of science and technology - worsening corruption - exploding violence. Does that sound familiar?

Suddenly the great disaster struck. From the evidence available, there are hints that this Great Flood was neither a man-made accident, nor an ordinary calamity. It appears to have been an intelligently directed event, in which vastly different natural agencies were suddenly orchestrated on a super-natural scale.

The Great Flood Itself

This was not just a Flood. It was a CATACLYSM!

The earth's axis was tilted - suddenly. This produced terrific strains and friction stresses... and the breaking up of the earth's crust to a depth of several miles. The result was total destruction.

Earthquakes tore the crust into gigantic fissures, which poured forth water, steam and molten rock.

As underground reservoirs of primary water broke free, they rushed out over the earth in a great swell. The sea began to overflow, sweeping inland, tearing away the land.

The terrific strains and friction developed pent-up heat. Simultaneously, volcanoes burst out in America, Africa, the Pacific and everywhere else. With a roar, up to 30,000 fiery columns spouted miles high into the sky. Lava also pushed upward from immense cracks in the crust. The volcanoes gave off vapour in quantities almost beyond comprehension, causing great rain on an unprecedented scale.

The expulsion of jets of boiling water and of volcanic ash high above the atmosphere disrupted the vast amounts of invisible water in the canopy surrounding the planet. This outer canopy began to disintegrate, to collapse upon the earth. It poured down in such volume and force, the result was disastrous.

This was not a calm, monotonous rise of water. Colossal tidal waves surged over the planet. The winds, now of uncontrollable force, whipped them to enormous heights. Boulders of up to 18,000 tons were carried hundreds of miles. Some were hurled to levels 2,000 feet higher.

This was a Flood of global proportions. All the latent forces of nature - volcanoes, earthquakes, waves and hurricanes - were unleashed in a terrible alliance for a universal destruction. For a year, their action created power for destruction and transportation that is beyond human calculation. Erosion and sedimentation took place on a gigantic scale.

Explains geological features

This Great Deluge and its aftermath - can explain many otherwise puzzling geological features of today's earth.

All over the world, the cataclysm uprooted trees and threw sand and rocks over animals which had gathered on mountains. Thousands of feet up, many were washed into crevices and held tight.

On every continent, and in numerous places, are vast "fossil graveyards", where masses of creatures have been swept to a sudden death in their millions. These areas are packed with land and sea creatures from different habitats and even from different climatic regions - all mixed and buried together in a completely unnatural way.

For months longer, the storm raged. Unceasingly, in repeating 12 hour cycles, the mighty ebb and flow wore down the earth's surface and each wave returned with its debris. Travelling long distances under water, fast moving currents of suspended mud and sand spread out over thousands of square miles.

The ebb and flow laid down successive strata, alternately burying land organisms and water creatures, ultimately to fossilise. As well as laying down strata, the Flood sorted debris into piles here and there.

These fossil graveyards speak not of slow evolutionary development and burial, but of a violent global water-borne disaster.

Frequently, remains of whales and other deep-sea creatures are found far removed from the sea, mixed in with land animals, plants and trees.

Marine fossils are found on mountain tops hundreds of miles from any sea, or buried under clay, sand, gravel and other debris sometimes a mile deep.

Fossils in every part of the world testify NOT of EVOLUTION, but of a global FLOOD.

Only one force known to man is capable of accomplishing a sudden, wholesale destruction, followed by immediate burial. That force is water.

The significance of this is world-shaking!

This simply means that the evolutionary hypothesis, which appeals to the fossil record for its foundation evidence, is left stranded - with NO EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION!

The obvious catastrophic manner in which the earth's sedimentary strata (with their fossils) were laid down, renders the geological timescale totally meaningless.

And, along with this, the evolutionary dating system is in utter CHAOS! We have provided startling EVIDENCE of so-called 1-million year old human beings mixed up with so-called 100-million year old dinosaurs and coal beds... and that's just for starters.

Our world SINCE the Great Flood

The Great Flood was NOT the only cataclysm to occur in history. It was, however, the ONLY global event, in the sense that ALL inhabited land was destroyed and remoulded.

The survivors recoiled in horror from the desolation that met their gaze. The world of almost perfect beauty which they had known was no more.
Stones, ledges and jagged rocks covered the ground. There was virtually no vegetation. Hills had disappeared without a trace; plains had given way to broken mountain ranges. Gashed and torn, the surface was desolate. All the luxuriant trees were washed away or buried.

Here and there clumps of growth had begun to re-establish, but the rich antediluvian world was largely plowed under, out of sight. The soil that remained was leached and relatively infertile. It would take centuries to rebuild enough soil to carpet large areas.

Later exploration would confirm new, harsh climatic zones.

Before plant cover would become re-established erosion of unbelievable magnitude would occur on the planet.

As the waters of the global Flood rushed off the continental areas to fill the newly expanding sea basins, violent land movements resulted in massive buckling, folding and tilting of the soft, newly-laid Flood strata.

The enormous run-off of water rapidly eroded great gorges in the soft, exposed sediment.

With the new temperature differentials, violent winds beyond anything known today were whipped up. The soft land suffered incredible erosion during those weeks of continuing, wind-driven waves, while the Flood was abating. Some new mountains with their soft strata, were reduced to mere hogbacks within weeks.

There followed, by necessity, the re-establishing of human settlements, the sudden explosion of "instant" civilizations, as it were out of nowhere, and the expansion of mankind again over the earth.

Rapid resettlement

There is evidence that both human and animal migrations to the ends of the earth were undertaken rapidly.

Two early dispersions of people across the world have been identified and recorded:
(a) from the Middle East. The dispersed population spoke one global language. Included among them were those who re-mapped the post-Flood world and who recalculated the calendar.
(b) likewise from the Middle East. These spoke many different languages and carried with them a tradition that their language had become suddenly divided. They migrated with much original knowledge, which enabled the new civilizations of Egypt, Sumeria and Indus Valley to spring up suddenly "out of nowhere".

Among these family groups which dispersed over the earth, some developed into prosperous nations. Others, edged out more and more to the fringes, became more primitive through loss of availability of technology.

Broken communication lanes were later restored through the world trading explorations of the Phoenicians and others.

Rapid racial variations

While many societies lost all trace and memory of their beginnings, and thus resorted to a mythical history, there were other nations (quite a number of them) who kept accurate and independent records of their descent from a man called Noah and his three sons.

Genetic evidence supports the conclusion that all races, with their different features, could have descended in a very brief time from one family. There has been no evolution of genes that did not previously exist. All that has occurred is the recombination and degeneration of pre-existing genetic information. And the differences did not take countless ages to produce.

This is likewise true of animal species variation.

Various earth changes

For centuries after the Great Flood, a more austere world, though still beautiful in a different way, laboured to cope with the violent changes introduced by the Great Disaster.
Many hundreds of years would be required for our planet to settle down to relatively stable conditions following the Flood. Release and adjustment of new stresses in the earth's crust continued. Repercussions included:

* The final splitting up of the continental mass
* The sudden upthrust of the Andes, Himalayas and the Alps
* The sudden subsidence of some inhabited land masses
* A brief ice age
* The gradual raising of ocean levels and
* The drying out of inland water basins.

On a diminished scale, these inter-related activities continue to play their dying notes today - although gradually, more settled conditions have become the norm.

The Ice Age

In the aftermath of the Deluge, continuing volcanic activity, warm oceans and massive evaporation resulted in thickening clouds of dust, which blocked out the sun's heat. Atmospheric temperature dropped. Copious and rapid condensation of the vapours, instead of falling as rain, descended as snow.

Large quantities of stranded water filled all continental areas. Volcanic activity evaporated enormous quantities of water into steam clouds. It also provided dust, which blocked solar heat and lowered temperatures. The warm oceans and cold air caused heavy precipitation of snow and ice. Ice rapidly piled up on the land. This brought on the "Ice Age".

The evidence points to a single Ice Age, which lasted for several centuries.

Geological readjustments

Many hundreds of years would be required for the planet to settle down to relatively stable conditions following the Deluge.

The new layers of rock and mountain, as well as rearranged land and sea, produced tensions. These needed to find release and adjustment. The result was continuing earthquakes and volcanic lava flows. There were some massive local catastrophes.

One short, violent burst of tectonic activity occurred soon after the Ice Age had begun. It was this violent upheaval that finally wrenched the continents apart and triggered sudden, violent mountain raising. The splitting of the continental mass also isolated various groups who had already migrated into the extremities.

In the post-Flood adjustments, changes in ocean levels, volcanism, earthquake activity, weather, the earth's wobble, and the human life span, were at first exponentially great.

All of these eventually settled down to a more stable condition.

Inland waters dry out

At the termination of the Deluge, large inland bodies of water lay trapped as inland areas. In time, vegetation took hold and people moved in. Cities sprang up in these well watered areas.

But as these huge "Flood puddles" evaporated and the climate dried out, many of these regions became creeping deserts. This trend continues today.
Civilizations also once thrived in areas that later reverted to jungle.

Sea level rise

For 4,000 years, the world's sea level has been inching up. This has been caused by (a) an influx of water into the sea from the melting of post-Flood ice; and (b) the gradual evaporation or outflow of water from the post-Flood basins to the sea.

When was the Big Event?

There are ten "clocks" all of which indicate to us that something very big happened to this planet 4,000 to 5,000 years ago - and from which an adjustment process has been going on ever since.

* Recovery of the earth's axis
* Glacier growth and retreat
* Age of inland lakes
* River delta formation
* Age of waterfalls
* Coral reef growth
* Age of oldest trees
* Age of oldest deserts
* Written human records
* Population increase

It's time you knew. The evidence supporting these "clocks" is compelling. You will find of the evidence for each of these extensively dealt with in my book The Corpse Came Back, chapters 22 and 23. (http://www.beforeus.com/third.php)

I hear someone say, but isn't such a date too recent? Well, we all know Australian Aborigines go back without interruption 20,000 years... and you say a global wipeout occurred only 4- to 5,000 years ago? How can that be?

Very well, let's see...

Part III

Part III

18
The big dating blunder -

CAN YOU TELL THE TIME?

Well, this does make life interesting!!

A skeleton from California was estimated at 70,000 years old (by a technique called a partic acid racemization). (World Archaeology, vol.7, 1975, p.160) In 1981 this age was revised to 8,300 to 9,000 years (by uranium dating). (Science, vol213, 28 August 1981, p.1003) In 1983 samples of the same skeleton were dated at 3,500 to 5,000 years (by radioactive dating). (Science, vol 220, 17 June 1983, p.1271)

MISREADING THE TIME can be downright embarrassing. Particularly for a man professing to know so much.

Misreading the time concerning our own origin might even be considered dangerous. Especially if it sets us on a false trail as to who we are, our sense of purpose and what's in store for us.

I hinted that the Great Flood devastated this whole earth 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

Now, some dear person will refer me to "Stone Age" tribes like Aborigines who have been in Australia for 20,000 years.

Have they???

The time factor is so important, that if we can go back without interruption 20,000 years, then you can toss out the Great Flood date which I have just suggested.

The question is, HOW FAR BACK WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY CAN WE GO? As far as dates are concerned, where does fact end and speculation begin?

The answer is, about 2000 to 3000 BC. And the reasons for my stating this are compelling.

Yes, I know that much older dates have been suggested by historians. For example we're told that man already had a brain larger than ours 60,000 years ago and left drawings in 30,000 BC that would do justice to a modern painter.

Now think about it. If this is so, then why would man have waited so long to develop cities and the type of agriculture associated with them? We should expect that those isolated civilizations which developed independently would be somewhat spread out over this period. Even one civilization from 20,000 BC would be strong proof against my account of the worldwide Flood. But, I repeat, the oldest cultures on earth all go back to about the same time - 2000 to 3000 BC.

What does the evidence show?

For one thing, the written records of no nation on earth are older than about 2000 to 3000 BC. That is generally agreed by historians.

But get this. Even modern dating techniques cannot take us back further than about 2000 to 3000 BC. Dr W.F. Libby, a foremost authority on modern dating methods, who won the Nobel Prize for his research on carbon-dating, was startled to discover this limitation:

"You read statements in books that such and such society or archaeological site is 20,000 years old," he noted. "We learned rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known accurately; in fact, it is at about the same time of the First Dynasty of Egypt that the first historical date of any real certainty has been established. (A.J. White, "Radio Carbon Dating", CRS Quarterly, Dec. 1972, pp. 156-158)

Does that shock you?
Consider this much acclaimed carbon-14 dating method. It is based on the radioactive decay rate in organic matter. We know that every living thing absorbs cosmic radioactive carbon-14 from the atmosphere. At death, this intake ceases and the radiocarbon in the organism begins to disintegrate. The amount of remaining C-14 is used to calculate how long ago the organism died.

The accuracy of this dating method has come under some criticism lately. For example, muscle tissue from beneath the scalp of a mummified musk ox in Fairbanks Creek, Alaska, was dated at 24,000 years; hair from a hind limb of the same animal was dated at 7,200 years. Poor creature. What a long, slow death it must have suffered!

Under normal conditions, radiocarbon dating is reliable to about 4,000 years ago. Then the disparity runs wild. You see, this dating method depends on the assumption that atmospheric radiation has remained constant.

The trouble is that any traumatic environmental change occurring in the past would have accelerated the decay rate, adding to "apparent age," if calculated on the assumption of uniformity.

Thus an upheaval like the Deluge would play immeasurable havoc upon readings prior to about 2000 to 3000 BC. It's as simple as that.

Let's not underestimate the impact of the Deluge. The thing to remember is that this event was a universal catastrophe. It encompassed epic changes: mountains rising and falling, tidal waves rushing faster than the speed of sound, as well as thousands of Krakatoas belching out dust to darken the atmosphere for centuries. Anything that could happen did happen. Seismic and atmospheric distortions persisted for hundreds of years.

Get this. The earliest civilized cultures that can be dated go back no further than the post-Deluge period.

Cave cultures contemporaneous with city cultures

And the same can be said for primitive men. Here are some bones found in caves near Rochebertier, in France. How old are they? "Twelve thousand years," we're told. But notice these script characters on them. What nags at me is this. They resemble and in some cases are identical to the script of Tartessus (of the period 2500 to 2000 BC).

Are we to believe that a script, once developed, would remain relatively unchanged for 10,000 years? It does not happen. So what do the two scripts really demonstrate? Just this - that the cultures must have been of the same period. Do you see?

The same is true of Paleolithic antler bones found at Le Mas d'Azil and La Madelaine. These are inscribed with signs identical to Phoenician script from about 2000 BC.

And painted pebbles from Le Mas d'Azil are marked with signs and symbols that were once predominant throughout the Mediterranean - again, between 3000 and 2000 BC.

What does this all mean? Simply that "Stone Age" and "civilized" cultures existed at the same time! And, by the way, not 12,000 years ago.

Yet we are still asked to believe in a long progression, first from caveman and Stone Age, thence to wandering hunters, to settled farmers, and later to cities and civilization.

I feel sorry for the evolutionists, but that will not do.

There is enough evidence now to show that these groups existed simultaneously, each aware of the other. On this point, ancient literature agrees with the latest archaeological findings.

Just as even in today's "Space Age", there live "Stone Age" tribes on all continents except Europe.

Concering primitive people, Thor Heyerdahl, the Kon-Tiki explorer, observed correctly that their intelligence is "exactly like our own." (In the film, The Case of the Ancient Astronauts, cited by Clifford Wilson in The War of the Chariots, Melbourne, Australia: S. John Bacon Pty. Ltd., 1978, pp. 148-149)

In other words, "stone culture" implies neither "dim witted" nor "prehistoric." There's no 20,000 BC here.

Why the "long ages" syndrome?

Most of us have seen those elaborate charts in books which show geological ages, from the first simple life form to the emergence of man. Millions of years are postulated. You have to admit, they look very convincing to the point of being overwhelming.

But, as Greg Ryan discovered (see chapters 3 and 7), these charts, so painstakingly prepared, cannot be further from the truth. They are largely hypothetical, you see; they assume the theory of evolution to be correct - and build on that. They assume that the earth's strata was deposited in a uniform, steady fashion over a tremendously long period of time. They assume that the uniform action of nature has never been interrupted by catastrophe.

This assumption is called "uniformitarianism".

Let me tell you how Dr. Henry Morris put these standard evolutionary assumptions to the test. Dr. Morris set out to calculate the age of the earth from various natural processes such as the uniform decay of the earth's magnetic field, the erosion of lands, and the gradual influx of chemicals into the ocean. In fact, he compiled a table of seventy separate natural processes of worldwide change. And do you know, the majority of these chronometers yielded a young age. More importantly, the processes showed extreme variability ranging all the way from 100 years to 500,000,000 years for the age of the earth. (Henry M. Morris, The Scientific Case for Creation, San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1977, pp. 52-59)

You realise what this means? Quite simply, it proves there is something wrong with the basic premise of uniformity. Evidently nature has not always behaved as it does now.

Greg Ryan, like the rest of us, was taught that an orderly evolutionary sequence spanning millions of years was indicated by the rock strata with its "ascending" fossils. For example, coal beds were laid down 340 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled from 130 to 65 million years BC, and man appeared just a million or so years ago.

As we have noted in earlier chapters, in most parts of the world this theoretical sequence never occurs. Remains of marine and land animals are mixed up in every possible sequence. Human relics are found even inside coal beds. As if that were not tricky enough, these remains of human origin sometimes occur with or beneath the bones of dinosaurs. Can you see that's wrong? The evidence shows they were deposited at the same time - not millions of years apart. The man and the dinosaur died together, you see. (And before the coal was formed!)

Figure out what this does to the theory of evolution. For one thing, it does not allow for the vast periods of time needed for the organic evolutionary process.

The truth is, each successive layer of sediment with its dead bodies was deposited wave upon wave by the Deluge and sorted further by local currents.

Remains all over the world - often perfectly preserved - attest that countless billions of creatures were buried suddenly and violently in a water-borne disaster. Animals from different geographical zones and all climatic areas of the world are found heaped together in one common graveyard.

Sometimes lower strata contain fossils of smaller creatures, while in the higher strata larger animals are found. This is a logical consequence of an advancing global flood. Often the first to be engulfed were the smaller, less mobile creatures, whereas larger animals escaped to higher ground, to be overtaken later. These successive burials were accomplished within a year. Think it through.

In an interview with Science and Mechanics, July 1968, Immanuel Velikovsky expressed surprise that the body, brain and mind of man, a tremendously sophisticated biological apparatus supposedly spanning millions of years of time, was able to produce a recorded history of only a few thousand years.

Doesn't it make you wonder? Could it be that man is not so old, after all?

We speak of millions of years for terrestrial life only because evolution demands that it be so. It needs time. In other words, evolution has an answer it likes, and it trying to make the questions, and the facts, fit its answer.

These vast billions of years are not facts, but are men's feeble theories, which are constantly evolving.

The exaggerated time element must be rejected.

But there is something worse going on.

What can that be?

You wouldn't believe it.

Tell me.

Okay... are your shock absorbers working? Here it is...


Part IV

19
The big dating cover-up -

A VOLCANO READY TO EXPLODE

In the watchmaker's shop window sat all sorts of clocks... every one of them checked and adjusted regularly by the nearby factory whistle which blew every day.

One day, the factor manager dropped by for a chat. The watchmaker happened to mention that the factory whistle was so regular, blowing without fail precisely at 4 pm each day. "In fact," said the watchmaker, "I adjust all my clocks by your siren."

"Oh," said the surprised manager. "Our time is set by the clocks in your window."

*******

Are we likewise setting our dating of history by the wrong standards?

Constant media bombardment has moulded our attitudes, until we accept the evolutionary time viewpoint almost without question. Those who influence us try hard to ignore the real nature of their sacred cow. It is 100 percent speculation.

Discordant dates not publicized

It is time for the truth. Were you aware that most published dates are from discordant data? More significantly, most discordant data are never published at all.

So what dates get published in reputable scientific journals?

Notice. And it's Richard L. Mauger, Asociate Professor of Geology, East Carolina, speaking:

In general, dates in the `correct ball park' are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published nor are discrepancies fully explained. (Richard L. Mauger - Associate Professor of Geology, East Carolina University, "K-Ar Ages of Biotites From Tuffs in Eocene Rocks of the Green River, Washakie, and Uinta Basins, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado", Contributions to Geology, University of Wyoming, vol.15-1, 1977, p.37)

Whatever the figures arrived at by the dating tests, they are weeded out before publication in scientific journals, if they do not accord with the preconceived dates assigned to the evolutionary geological column. (E.H. Andrews, Professor of Materials, University of London, and Head of the Department of Materials at Queen Mary College, in book, God, Science and Evolution)

That's a fact. And please bear in mind, this is not my claim. It's some of the men involved who are admitting it.

Why do scientists still use such dating?

Robert E. Lee writes:

The implications of pervasive contamination and ancient variations in carbon-14 levels are steadfastly ignored by those who base their argument upon the dates... Surely 15,000 years of difference on a single block of soil is indeed a gross discrepancy! And how could the excessive disagreement between the labs be called insignificant, when it has been the basis for the reappraisal of the standard error associated with each and every date in existence?

Why do geologists and archaeologists still spend their scarce money on costly radiocarbon determinations? They do so because occasional dates appear to be useful. While the method cannot be counted on to give good, unequivocal results, the numbers do impress people, and save them the trouble of thinking excessively. Expressed in what look like precise calendar years, figures seem somehow better... `Absolute' dates determined by a laboratory carry a lot of weight, and are extremely helpful in bolstering weak arguments....

... the accepted dates are actually selected dates. This whole blessed thing is nothing but 13th-century alchemy, and it all depends upon which funny paper you read. (Robert E. Lee, "Radiocarbon: Ages in Error", Anthropological Journal of Canada, vol. 19-3, 1981, pp. 9-29)

It should be noted that this man speaks as an evolutionist.

Dates are used selectively

Another authority concedes:

If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely `out of date', we just drop it. (T. Save-Soderbergh and I.U. Olsson - Institute of Egyptology and Institute of Physics, respectively, University of Uppsala, Sweden, "C14 Dating and Egyptian Chronology," in Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology, Proceedings of the Twelfth Nobel Symposium, Ingrid U. Olsson - ed., Almqvist and Wiksell, Stockholm, and John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1970, p.35)

Did you get that?

Read it again... and again. What is it telling you?

May I stress that discordant results are the rule and not the exception.

An honest admission

Although some scientists using carbon-14 will propose dates extending back 50,000 years, Dr George Howe acknowledges that "the men who know the limits of the method, the men who run the tests, would report that they cannot date with accuracy beyond 3,000 years." (George Howe, Carbon 14 and Other Radio-Active Dating Methods, p.11)
He states that Geochron Laboratories will return samples to clients if they give a date above 3,000 years, with comments that they are above the age that can be accurately dated.

Why are "old" dates sought?

Why has the established scientific leadership gone to such absurd lengths to cover these things up?

Evolution was in trouble... no hard evidence.

To its rescue came a high-powered scientific think-tank, The Dating Gang. Its goal: an unchallengeable, establishment-imposed, evolution-run world.

Most people are not aware that the very existence of long geological ages is based on the assumption of evolution. Since there is no scientific law that shows evolution to occur, a magic wand is needed to make it "work". That magic wand is "billions of years". Time is the fantasy tool.

If the earth is only thousands of years old, then there is obviously no time for the slow evolutionary process to have occurred.

The alternative - creation by an Intelligent Designer - makes many people quite uncomfortable. Why? Because of the question that follows, what if this Designer has a claim on us individually?

For that reason, there is a desire among many to swing in the opposite direction... to mindless chance having evolved us.

So it has become a habit to say that human remains at least a million years old have been found. The truth is, the average anthropologist has no more knowledge of the actual date than the street pedlar.

Indeed, we've been lied to. Lots of lies: big lies, little lies, dating lies.

The only thing more amazing than the "Alice in Wonderland" world of dating is our ability to fall for it. Where did our basic common sense get to? You know, that reflex in your head that makes you scream garbage! when faced with such obvious nonsense?

By the way, for further reading, you might take a look at my e-book, The Big Dating Blunder. (http://www.beforeus.com/shopcart_ebooks.html)

The simmering volcano

You'd better believe it! The established system is sitting on a volcano rady to explode, which will not only shatter the evolution lie, but its dating system.

Does it really matter what we believe concerning our roots? It does, very much.

You want to know where we're going? Then you have to know where we came from. What happens next is umbilically attached to where we've been.

Amoeba?... Planet X?...

A life-giving Creator?

Part V

Part V

EPI.

The growing conflict is between scientists and other scientists ¡V not between science and religious belief.

Furthermore, an increasing number of scientists argue that science, far from disproving the existence of God, actually demonstrates that God, the Grand Designer, does indeed exist.

A July, 2005, nationwide Harris poll found that 64 percent of United States adults believe ¡§human beings were created directly by God¡¨. Only 12 percent agreed that the most widespread current practice, that of teaching only evolution in public schools, is appropriate.

This followed other polls, such as a December 10, 2004 Newsweek poll, indicating that 60 percent of Americans favoured teaching creation science in addition to evolution in public school. Forty-three percent said they favour teaching creation science instead of evolution in public schools.

Could activating such a move be one solution to our social problems?

Focussing on the fact that our world and everything in it has been designed with a purpose¡K

ƒÃ† That Someone out there cared enough to plan every detail with thoughtfulness for our welfare¡K
ƒÃ† That each life does have meaning¡K

Re-instilling a sense of purpose¡K could this be a decisive factor in combating the rampant drug abuse, the suicides, the hopelessness?


Have experiments suggested we could create life?

Dean Kenyon is a fellow of the Discovery Institute¡¦s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, an Intelligent Design think-tank based in Seattle, Washington. He is a Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University. He holds a PhD in biophysics from Stanford University. He has been a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, a visiting scholar at Trinity College, Oxford University, and a visiting Research Associate at NASA-Ames Research Center.
The following extracts are from an interview with Benjamin Wiker.

Wiker: According to the standard materialist account of evolution, billions and billions of years ago there was on earth a kind of chemical ¡§soup¡¨ and from this lifeless soup somehow living things arose. What discoveries in particular led you to reject this account?

Kenyon: The standard account has many flaws ¡V not the least of which is the fact that there is no geochemical evidence for the existence of a prebiotic soup!

Wiker: But how do you account for those experiments which supposedly showed that we can create the building blocks of life, amino acids, out of just such a chemical soup?

Kenyon: Stanley Miller¡¦s famous experiment, first performed in the early 1950s, presumably simulated the earth¡¦s primitive atmosphere. Using a mixture of methane, ammonia, molecular hydrogen, and water vapour, and supplying energy with an electric discharge, he produced small amounts of a few amino acids and other substances which occur in living cells. But less well known is the fact that the dominant trend of the chemistry occurring in these experiments is toward non-biological material ¡V that is, amber gunk which coats the inside of the apparatus. Moreover, such experiments routinely leave molecular oxygen out of the apparatus even though geological evidence suggests that oxygen may well have been present in the earth¡¦s early atmosphere.

Wiker: Why do they leave oxygen out of such experiments?

Kenyon: If molecular oxygen is present, then it destroys, by oxidation, any biochemicals that form. Of course, we should add that if both hydrogen and oxygen are together in a mixture of gasses supplied with electric sparks, the apparatus might explode!

Wiker: So the Miller-type experiment does not, in this regard, match the actual chemical environment of the early earth?

Kenyon: Correct. In this instance, the oxygen is left out of the experiments because of the requirement of chemical evolution theory, not because we have evidence that it was absent from the primitive atmosphere.

And there are many more difficulties. For example, the energy used to initiate the chemical reactions in these simulation experiments ¡V electric sparks, ultraviolet and other types of radiation, heat ¡V would actually have destroyed the more complex products they presume were created. The energy sources, rather than being creative, would have interacted with the presumed prebiotic carbon compounds in such a way that the destruction of chemicals would have predominated over their synthesis. [Note: please see these sites for further elaboration of the flaws in the Miller experiment]

Finally, we have no plausible naturalistic account of the prebiotic origin of genetic information ¡V that is, of the origin of specific biologically meaningful linear sequences of nucleotides in DNA and RNA. These are just some of the reasons why I think the empirical case against a chemical evolutionary origin of life is overwhelming.

WHY HE REPUDIATED EVOLUTION

Wiker: I¡¦m taking it that it has not always been this way ¡V that you were not always so skeptical about the claims of evolutionary theory. You were co-author of the best-selling, advanced textbook on chemical evolution in the 1970s.

Kenyon: Yes, that¡¦s right. Ever since my days at the University of Chicago, during which I attended the Darwin Centennial celebration in 1959 and heard many of the luminaries of neo-Darwinism, including Darwin¡¦s grandson and Julian Huxley, I was convinced that the Darwinists and the chemical evolutionists like Oparin, Urey, Miller, and Fox had essentially the correct account of the origin and development of life. I did postdoctoral research in Melvin Calvin¡¦s lab at the University of California at Berkeley, and collaborated there with Gary Steinman in writing Biochemical Predestination. It wasn¡¦t until after I taught the evolution course at San Francisco State University for ten years that I began seriously to doubt the evolutionary account.

I had growing doubts about the transition series of fossils and about the chemical evolution experiments ¡V such as Miller¡¦s ¡V and became increasingly uncomfortable making the standard evolutionary claims to students because these claims could not be supported in the scientific literature. (Interview by Benjamin Wiker. Paper: A New Scientific Revolution)

What some other scientists say

¡§Evolutionists claim their theory is scientific. Where is the science? I can assure the reader the American Kennel Club would not certify an ancestor of your dog based on evidence such as paleontologists present.¡¨ (Isaac V. Manly, M.D., Harvard Medical School. God Made: A Medical Doctor Looks at the Reality of Creation. Joplin, MO.: College Press, 1994, pp.15,117,228)

¡§I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens, many people will pose the question: how did this ever happen?¡¨ (Saltationist Soren Lovtrup, Professor of Embryology, University of Umea, Sweden. Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, New York: Chapman Hall, 1987, p.422)


Did a good God make bad bugs?

QUESTION:

What sort of Intelligent Designer would make a parasitic worm that would burrow into an innocent little boy¡¦s eyeball in Africa and make a child blind? If there is a God of love, what about all the nasty diseases ¡V SARS, malaria, cholera, river blindness, and so on? If life didn¡¦t evolve, where did the really nasty bugs come from?

ANSWER:

The world was created perfect, with no disease. God did not invent disease. It is the natural penalty of degeneration from perfection. The world has been corrupted because of human violation of divine law and consequent judgment upon man and his environment.

Following man¡¦s choice to sever himself from his Creator ¡V the Life Giver, the earth began a long progression downhill from good to bad to worse to the present day. This degeneration commenced with a curse upon the ground and all life which springs from it. All life forms were now subject to the biological phenomenon of death.

The world further degenerated following the Great Flood which destroyed the original balanced environment and soil, and the ideal atmospheric conditions. The Flood was followed by an increasingly erratic climate with the coming of winter and summer, ice, droughts and so on.

Bacteria degenerate (no longer able to function without a host)

Bacteria were created to live in the soil or in symbiotic relationships with living organisms. Our bodies have millions of harmless bacteria living on our body surfaces in mutually beneficial ways and the immune system usually eliminates any that get out of their rightful place.

However, along with every other life form, bacteria have been degenerating, so that many of them are no longer able to function without a host.

The latest germ to have its genome added to the growing list of micro-organisms whose genomes have been mapped, is the leprosy bacterium. The scientists who reported it in Nature, Vol. 409, p. 1007, February 22, 2001, found that many of its genes are non-functional, which they claim explains why the bacterium can only live inside other living cells.

Such loss of genetic information has turned a fully functioning bacterium into a partially defunct bacterium. Because of its non-functional genes, the bacterium has to absorb many nutrients that other bacteria are able to make for themselves. It cannot carry out important chemical processes that would allow it to live a more independent life. Breakdown in the human immune system has also allowed such bacteria to invade human cells, where they can absorb nutrients (and wreak havoc with their by-products).

As a result of this degenerate trend, human diseases have been on the increase and the human genome has degenerated.

Once bacteria get into the deep tissues, such as the lymph nodes, they are very difficult to get out.

The fact that new bacterial diseases are being discovered is good evidence that the world in general, and humans in particular, are degenerating. Of course, this is exactly what you would expect if you take biblical history seriously.

This is not because bacteria are evolving, but because man and bacteria are degenerating and a once perfect balanced relationship has gone beserk.

Mosquitoes shift from plant nutrition to humans

In the beginning God made a good world with no disease, where all animals ate plants.

Take mosquitoes, for example. All mosquitoes fed on plant juices (which all male mosquitoes still do), and kept any micro-organisms they happened to absorb under control. Therefore, there would be no malaria in humans.

As the world degenerated some mosquitoes lost their ability to keep micro-organisms under control and became infected with single celled organisms.

After the Great Flood, plants degenerated due to the harsh climate, and female mosquitoes were unable to get enough iron and protein from plants to make their eggs, so they took to drinking blood when they were ready to lay eggs. (At all other times mosquitoes still live on plant juices.)

Those mosquitoes that had the damaged genes would have accidentally transferred micro-organisms into the blood of the person they were feeding from and started a vicious cycle of infection and transmission of malaria.

On the basis of this history, one may predict that, as degeneration of human immune systems and of the world in general continues, we will see even more new diseases in the next few years, in man, animals and plants.

The moral of the story is: don¡¦t do an Attenborough by asking ¡§If there is a God of Love why did He invent malaria?¡¨ when it is our sinful rebellion which is to blame.

Intervention to shorten human life and misery

The fact that the Creator has limited the human life span, testifies to His mercy.

You ask, How could a good God impose the curse of death? Answer: to limit pain. Yes, He knew what He was doing. Even today, so much evil is messing up the world from men and women with brief life spans ¡V up to the day they die. If we were to live forever, this world might well have been destroyed by us long ago.

It was an act of mercy for the Creator to bar rebellious human beings from endless life. If He had not done so, and they had continued to live endlessly, they would gradually have become more and more ill as time passed. Then no matter how agonizing their illness became, they would have still lived on with no possibility of any release from their suffering. Death, then, became an act of mercy on the part of our Designer. It was the only way He could limit their suffering.

Can you see it? Death was necessary ¡V to place a limitation on the pain that was about to come¡K pain resulting from mankind¡¦s choice to sever himself from the all-wise Creator.

So the decree went forth that in view of mankind¡¦s developed capacity for evil, his life span was to be limited.

Secondly, there was another response from the Creator: a promise of hope and rescue. However, it is not within the scope of the work to cover this. We shall learn about this in the second book of this series: UFO Aliens: The Deadly Secret. http://www.beforeus.com/aliens.html)

Did the Creator enjoy destroying His creation?

Someone may ask concerning the Great Flood, Did God take pleasure in the mass destruction of His creation ¡V for example, at the time of the Great Flood? Isn¡¦t that like a father killing his son because he didn¡¦t obey him? No rational parent would do that¡K so what gives here?

When you think it through, the fact that you and I ask such questions shows that we have an inbuilt sense of justice. So where do you think we got a sense of justice from, in the first place? Are we human beings more fair and just than the One who designed us?
Our study of DNA does suggest an all-knowing, wise Creator who knows how not to make a mistake. So¡K

Was He an angry God whose patience had worn thin, because His creatures failed to obey His every dictate?

On the contrary, just prior to the Great Flood, human life on this planet was poised to blast itself to extinction.

The human race had become almost totally corrupted. (Genesis 6:12) ¡§the earth was filled with violence.¡¨ [(Genesis 6:11-12) Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.] A beautiful world was transformed into a house of destructive madness. The balance of nature and the very existence of life on earth was on the brink.

Except for intervention, there would soon be no survivors.

This rescue mission gave upright representatives of the human race breathing time to perpetuate the human race ¡V free from the threat of immediate extermination.

 

You cannot prove something does not exist, for it does not leave any original traces of its existence. So there goes that; evidence of absence.

Totally agree, which is why I somewhat dislike being forced to pray at our school weekly. I get it is an Anglican school, however why don't they just make it optional rather than trying to force it down our throats. I am fine with religion as a class so long as it educates us on the way and culture of certain religions.

I have read the whole bible thank you very much, and it does indeed promote such actions.
My statements are not very generalized, I am not saying the bible promotes bad things, I am saying the bible promotes these very specific actions among a whole list of others.

It is a very good way to substantiate my argument, if you could've thought of a rebuttal to it then you would've already done so.
While my conclusion is derived from but a small data set not a single Christian that I've spoken to (around 100) has answered any differently, all say the bible at some stage, and all say don't take it literally.
While I am extrapolating I aim fairly confident that If you ask any Christian why do they initially believe in God they will say the 3 aforementioned answers. The select few that hint morality just shows that they don't even know their own holy book.

It cannot go both ways, it only goes one way. Inconclusive, leading to non existence in this case. Evidence of absence is a form of evidence, a very weak one in this case, but enough to tip the scales. Not enough however for anything other than an inconclusive fact.



I'm not going to quote your whole thing, as I don't want to read it only the prelude and introduction.

No they don't but I know where your coming from.

Gravity behaves consistently on Earth. Logical and rational are man made and subjective, consistency is much less subjective.
The fact is that when you drop something on Earth it will go down, hence gravity.

All science is related to this type of conclusion, there are no definitive answers in science, if suddenly one day someone dropped an apple and it went up then something mus have happened. However the fact is that gravity on Earth is 100% as it has been tested directly and indirectly so many times that we can move it do definitive.

If you've heard of interpolation and extrapolation, then science is unreliable when extrapolating from testable behaviors to non testable ones. It is folly of us to confirm that because our results on Earth confirm this then therefore trillions of light years away in space it will be the exact same.

You can prove that gravity exists on Earth. - Science.
You cannot prove that the World was made in 7 days. - Christian view.
Science becomes very unreliable when we extrapolate outside our playable data points, that is not in dispute.

Science is basically explaining the phenomena we see before us and inventing theories that hopefully do not contradict each other to explain such phenomena.
What you are saying is that when science offers alternative solutions contradictory to religious beliefs then science must be wrong. Science may base itself on assumptions, but their bloody accurate assumptions as they've been able to create everything in front of us today.
Remember, just because something is originally an assumption doesn't mean you cannot re modify the assumption to a truth.

I assume that If I drop a ball it will hit the ground.
That does not mean that because it was an assumption the ball will therefore not hit the ground.

The laws of physics state that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, Genesis does violate such laws.

 

Stop copy pasting, no one is going to read all that.
You talk about logic? Get some.

 

Actually 14 out of your 28 points contradicted themselves.

 

Care to elaborate on those paradoxes?

 

lol owned.


and i belive in god because i need to.

 

I do, it would waste my time with those who do not care.

If your arguing the position of God then that is a contradiction.

You've re worded every creation must have a creator, a paradox in itself.

The bible is utter garbage, Christians hold conflicting views of the bible itself some say to take it literally others say to not.

The bible is not the foundation for Natural Laws, it is merely a book written by a man used to describe his surroundings and creativity.

A house cannot be built before the foundation, Natural Laws cannot come before the bible is what you're saying, need I highlight the subtle paradox?

 

Evasion of truth by distraction :laugh:

Your statement also conveys appeal to common practice.

Again, Evasion of truth by distraction. I ditto the same uttered by you to you.

Straw man

 

FFS, quoting massive blocks of force-fed Christian propaganda isn't going to make God more existent. You know what the problem is with you? Your "logical fallacies" somehow don't apply to God.

Law of Thermodynamics: If nothing can be created or destroyed, then how did God create everything from nothing? More importantly, how did God come into existence? Why is it reasonable to claim that the universe had to have a definite starting point, but God didn't. It's pure hypocrisy.

Evolution: First off, we've seen observable micro-evolution, and we've seen evidence of macro-evolution. The thing that Christians keep forgetting is that EVOLUTION AND ABIOTIC SYNTHESIS ARE TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THEORIES!!!

You consistently lump them in the same category when evolution does NOT explain the origins of life, just the progression of it. If you want to nit pick, pick the theory of abiotic synthesis. That's the one that's significantly less provable.

As for science making assumptions. You are right in the way it works, but you're wrong in comparing it to Christianity. Science makes assumptions based on presented data and fits in the missing pieces with logical substitutes. Throughout modern history, a lot of these assumptions have been, while being significantly more complex than anticipated, confirmed. For example, quantum physicists shrugged off string theory at first, but even before it was taken more seriously, it was often accepted as a standard because it fit. The difference is that scientists have reached a certain point in provable evidence as of now and they make EDUCATED assumptions.

Theologians do NOT do that. They make their assumptions PURELY based on the texts in a book. That's entirely different. There's no fundamental evidence. There's no groundwork of established fact. It's about as verifiable as claiming the existence of C'Thulu.

You know, I wouldn't mind Christians so much if not for the fact that they CONSTANTLY hold their beliefs to a double standard. Things that logically "can't apply" to science seem to somehow apply to Christianity. If you want to be taken seriously in a debate, hold yourself to the same standard as everyone else. The fact that the majority believes in your religion doesn't grant it special privileges over reason.

Edit: As I previously stated, science has flaws, but Christianity has more. Just because SOME things in science have yet to be proven doesn't mean that by default, the Christian stance on those things is correct. Maybe we're both wrong, but one being wrong doesn't make the other right.

 

For the sake of argument, I have chosen the first thing you suggested the bible promotes and am asking you where and how you believe it is commanded by God to do so.

If you're talking about the promises and then judgement in Deuteronomy, then.. /facepalm

 

EXACTLY, It's not commanded by God, It's merely a fairytale.

The promises are spread across the whole bible.

 

You continue to further dodge the question I am aiming at you by making pointless comments like 'It's merely a fairy tale.' It's becoming increasingly evident that you in fact have not taken the time (like you have claimed) and studied the entirety of the Bible, so stop using its words in your argument.

Thanks.